EXCERPTS

Characters in the play:
Dee, a person
Dum, another person, older than Dee

The Setting: A Room
The Time: Always

LIGHTS UP slowly until we can see, dimly, two people sitting in
bathtubs. The tubs are facing the audience at kind of a V angel, the top of
the V to the back of the stage, the open part of the V towards the audience.
The heads of the tubs are about a foot apart.

  Dum: It's like sitting in a tub of molasses.
  Dee: It's like sitting in a tub of baked beans.

 LIGHTS UP further until we see, broadly, two people sitting in bathtubs,
Dee in a tub of molasses, Dum in a tub of baked beans. Dee has on an old
ski cap type hat, Dum has on what looks to be a fallen or cast off or
purchased at Value Village Easter bonnet kind of affair with droopy flowers.
We see that Dee has on an undershirt, Dum the top of a pastel party dress.
Their clothes are, obviously, stained with either baked beans or molasses.

  Dum: That's gross.
  Dee, maudlin: I know.
  Dum: Ewwwww! (long pause) That's TOTALLY gross!
  Dee, snapping: I know! I TOTALLY know!
  Dum, sheepishly: Sorry.
  Dee: I'm sorry. I'm sorry I snapped at you.
  Dum: I wasn't being very sensitive.
  Dee: You couldn't help it.
  Dum: I could
  Dee: We're under a lot of pressure.
  Dum, by rote, a little joke of theirs: What we're under is - a lot of
baked fucking beans -
  Dee, carrying on their little joke: - and a shit load of molasses!
  hey both laugh. Then gradually stop laughing. Dee looks angry; Dum
looks sad.
  Dee: I hate it.
  Dum: I hate it, too. What can we do about it?
  Dee: Nothing.
  Dum: I knew you'd say that.
  Dee: Then why'd you ask?
  Dum, brightly: You never know. Something might change.
  Dee: Things never change.
  Dum, chipper: They could!
  Dee: But they don't. Even when they may seem to--
  Dum: Seeming to change is a kind of change. (Dee glares at Dum) Kind
of.
  Dee, with finality: Things always go back the way they always were.
  Dum, at first hesitant, thinking out loud but then excited: But IF they
GO BACK to "the way they always were", THEN by definition, that, suggests
that FOR A WHILE, they were NOT "the way they always were".
  Dee: Come again?
  Dum more excited: IF they GO BACK to the way they always were, then
that suggests that there was or is a time then they were NOT as they always
were., i. e. that ergo ipso facto things, at least for a time, change.
  Dee: Don't get smart with me.
  Dum: I'm not getting smart.
  Dee: Correct, alas, my poor, special friend.
  Dum: All I'm saying is that things can change. You said things never
change but I was just showing that things do change!
  Dee: But not forever. Not for good.
  Dum: Nobody knows about "forever". But that doesn't mean that things
cannot or do not change at ALL for now! For a while. For a time...?
  Dee: What good is a while if everything just changes back?
  Dum: But maybe not everything!
  Dee: Stupid stuff changes. Little stuff. Piddly stuff.
  Dum as cheerily as a soap commercial and in the fact to the tune of the
old Sarah Lee ditty "Everybody doesn’t like something but nobody doesn’t
like Sarah Lee": Everything has to start somewhere! (Dee rolls his eyes,
crosses his hands across his chest and looks away from Dum while Dum carries
on like Pollyanna Glad) Besides, even piddly little stupid things are still
things nonetheless! That should give us hope!
  Dee, with disdain, with spite, spitting: Hope? Hope?!? Perhaps
yourself but I, for one, am not that stupid anymore.
  Dum, with the encouragement of a grade school teacher: Oh, but Dee-Dee,
you're not stupid.
  Dum, haughtily: I know I am not stupid. You are the stupid one.
  Dee, as if Miss Logic again: But you said you weren't that stupid
anymore. Suggesting, that you were still somewhat stupid. I'm trying to
make you feel better.
  Dee: Save your breath. The only way I'd feel better is if I could get
the hell out of this goddamn fucking hell of a bathtub of baked fucking
beans.

- Rebecca Brown