The Adjudicators

by T. Alex Miller
A FATHER and SON are on stage, toward the end of the play.
Their words are accompanied by ridiculous, interpretive dance-
like gestures

FATHER
I wish you peace, my son.

SON
Oh, stepfather/uncle! Why are you so good to me?

FATHER
All fathers must do this thing, this thing called love!

SON
Oh, I hope some day I can repay this debt to my son!

FATHER
You will, son/nephew/cousin, although it's more difficult for
you because you're, well, you're, you know, what I'm trying
to say is ...

SON
Just say it dad/uncle .. I'm gay!

FATHER
Well, whatever. And so it sickens my heart to know that you
may never have a son to ...

SON
But father, my company has accepted Bernardo for our company
insurance plan ..

FATHER
Really? Yes, well...

SON
And he's even in our 401k setup, and they'll help pay for an
adoption or surrogate mother ...

FATHER
Wow. They’re doing that now, eh? Yes, well ...

SON
And that's good, isn't it? I could be suckling, kind of, an
heir to Denmark at my manly breast ...

FATHER
Son/cuz, the times have changed, and I am trying my damndest
to change with them. Would that man could accept all that man
is, all that man can be, in this world, in this life.
 2.

O, reality! O, happy life! (beat) I wish you happiness above

all!
(They embrace and Curtain.
Actors file out on stage and
take front row in audience.
JOHN enters)

JOHN
Welcome, all of you, to the first round of the Colorado
Community Drama Conglomerate's First Annual Alternative
Shakespeare Festival. It's great to be here. Well, thanks to
the Heeney Players for opening this round of competition
with that piece. Although I have to say that, well, it pretty
much sucked. I fail to see, really, how this can be
construed, even given the broadest poetic license, to be an
interpretation of Hamlet for this Alternative Shakespeare
Festival. Ahem. This is an original piece penned by ... is
the author here? (raise hand) Ah, yes! Well, thank you for
being in attendance. You played the Bernardo character,
Bernie, did you not? Yes. Well, above all else, we're here
to learn, and what better way to learn than to see what was,
essentially, a take on Shakespeare utterly devoid of artistic
merit, script-wise, replete with terrible acting, awful
direction, a set that might just as well have been
constructed by my 4-year-old son and a series of lighting
cues that ... where is the lighting director? (hand up) Ahhh
... you're blind, aren't you? (yes) ... a set of lighting
cues arranged by a, er, sight-challenged person. How nice.
Now, about the set pieces falling on the actors ... who's the
set designer (hand up) yes, (ooh, she's not bad looking)
well, you're new at this, aren't you (giggles). Well, and
have you handled a saw or screw gun before this show?
(giggles) Well, and have you ever purchased, say, a piece or
two of graph paper? (more giggles) Well, thank you for
bringing to us your ingenuous take on a theatrical set ...
it was charming in a number of ways. And, well, I'll say more
about that later. Actually, if you'd like to grab me after
the next round ...
Now, as for the piece itself, it's not my job as adjudicator,
really, to comment on that. We're here to talk about how the
piece was realized, not the piece itself. But in this case,
with the playwright present, it's hard not to think just a
teensy bit about how well-suited this piece was for
competition. Tell me, playwright, what did all of this mean?

PLAYWRIGHT
Well, actually I was trying to ...

JOHN
Oh, no, don't answer, we haven't the time. This is MY time,
really. But it begs the question, I mean, really, are you
trying to torture us? Have you taken so much as a one-day
seminar on playwrighting, that made you think your work was
truly ready for the stage?
 3.

PLAYWRIGHT
Half day!

JOHN
Oh, dear! And I might ask: Have you ever even read or seen

Hamlet? Maybe you saw the Mel Gibson

film?

CAST & CREW

Oh yeah!/That was great!/I loved it! etc.

JOHN
Well, I see my time is just about up. I would suggest we can
learn a lot from this piece. In short: when you approach
theatre, look at "Hamlet & Egos" as an example of everything
NOT to do with your piece. Thank you.
(applause)

(Second adudicator SANDY enters)

SANDY
Thank you ... thank you! What a ... wow! What a magnificent
piece of work! Thank you, thank you! Who's the director
(hand). Thank you! Oh, marvellous! Oh, where to start ...?
The ... wooden tones you had your actors use! Oh, it must've
taken quite a bit of work to elicit such performances. My
god! I thought I was looking at mannequins or something, or
cyborgs, my god I don't know! (beat) Automatons. I have to
tell you, it's not often that I see acting on this level, it
was sublime. In between choking and gagging, I was reaching
for my Kleenex to sob just a wee bit about the effect you
achieved. My god! Thank you! Oh, and the way the sets fell on
the actors, and omagod what a performance as they effected
this trooper-like aplomb as their world crashed about them! A
metaphor - nay, an allegory - as subtle as it was brazen. I
could die. When the Claudius character talked of his wife's
death to Hamlet, and at that exact moment, the son walked
into the proscenium as the door fell on the guard ... omigod.
Who staged this thing?
As for the piece itself, this is an original piece and do we
have the playwright here? (hand up), Ah, you played the
Horatio character, did you not? Well, the thing interesting
about this particular piece is that, well, it never really
left the ground, did it? And I think, and this is just me
talking, that the plot s omehow seemed bereft of what we in
theatre might call "dramatic tension." Which is interesting,
considering how it was based on one of the world's greatest
plays, um, movitationally speaking.
Hammy was never, he, he didn't really change, did he? Even
though his world - and the set - was crumbling around him, he
was pretty much the same.
 4.

I don't know about you, but I wish I could be so calm and,

well, un-dramatic when things like typhoid and car wrecks
intrude upon my life. Ahem.
Now, normally the absence of dramatic tension is seen as a
negative, but in this case, I think the playwright did a, a
fine job with what was essentially a metaphor about the
meaningless of life, and since theatre is part of life, well,
perhaps it, too, can be ... meaningless. Uh ... (digging
herself out) Like one of those fabulous post-impressionistic
paintings that's just a dot or a line on 40-foot canvas. As
for the relationship to the actual Hamlet, well, I think we
can chalk that up to a supreme exercise in poetic license.
(A TIMEKEEPER gestures) .. Oh, thank you, dear, I see I'm
about out of time. Um, good show, and nice job.

(Lights change to reveal the two

adjudicators.)

JOHN
How could you, I mean, you know, praise them? All bull shit
aside, that was, arguably, one of the worst pieces of theatre
I've ever seen! Hamlet & Egos - really!

SANDY
Don't I know it. But we agreed you'd wear the black hat and
me the white.

JOHN
Yes, but I have to wonder, with comments like that ... I
mean, you're encouraging these people to inflict this piece
on even more unsuspecting audiences. Although, god knows, it
might fly in (insert name of town where performance is being
rendered)

SANDY
Well, it's an altnerative festival after all, and they are
from (name of unfortunate area in state or region)

JOHN
What's next?

SANDY
It's the Stage Theatre of (some backwater hamlet) doing,
omagod, another Hamlet.

JOHN
O lord, What's the take?

SANDY
Um (consulting paper) ... looks like they're doing Hamlet as,
oh dear!
 5.

JOHN
What?

SANDY
They're doing it as a Star Trek episode.

JOHN
No!

SANDY
Yes. Lessee ... Kirk is Hamlet, um, Uhura plays Gertrude,
Nurse Chappel is Ophelia, Scotty is Polonius and Spock, hmmm,
this is interesting, Spock plays Iago.

JOHN
Iago? But, but Iago's isn't even in ...

SANDY
Well, I guess you could call it alternative with a twist.

JOHN
But even then ... Spock?

SANDY
Actually, it says here he plays it as the Evil Spock from
that, (enthusiastically) you know that episode where there's
two Enterprises and there's a bad Kirk and a bad Spock with a
goatee ...?

JOHN
I'm not familiar. Well, let me strap on my black hat and away
to the balcony!
(scene changes to the "bridge"
of the Enterprise. Lights
down,)
(lights and up FLICKERING on
CHEKHOV/BERNARDO and)
(SULU/HORATIO)

CHEKHOV/BERNARDO
(Thick, bad, Russian accent)
Who's there?

SULU/HORATIO
Nay, answer me. Turn off your cloaking device!

CHEKHOV/BERNARDO
Long live Kirk!

SULU/HORATIO
Chekhov-Bernardo?
 6.

CHEKHOV/BERNARDO
Weird stuff is happening. What the hell? Ghosts?

SULU/HORATIO
I don't believe in ghosts.

GHOST
(off-stage)
I'm a sca-a-ary ghost! Weird stuff is happening! Where's that
Hammy dude?
(TOGETHER, holding onto one
another)

CHEKHOV/BERNARDO
Mommy!

SULU/HORATIO
Mommy!

GHOST
The next time someone pours poison in my ear, I'm putting my
foot down!

SULU/HORATIO
Phasers! On stun!
(SULU and CHEKHOV fire phasers
at GHOST. They wait. A cock
crows)

CHEKHOV/BERNARDOÉ
(Looking disgustedly at phaser)
Man, these things never work on anything! Why the hell do we
even bother carrying them?!

SULU/HORATIO
It was about to speak when the cock crew.

CHEKHOV/BERNARDO
The what? Who? Oh. You mean those guys in engineering with
the tight pants?
(Lights fade on them and then
up on HAMLET, who is dying
wonderfully while holding a
PAPER COFFEE CUP)

HAMLET/KIRK
... absent thee from felicity, Spock you green-blooded ...
draw thee tight-assed Vulcan breath in pain ...
(KIRK is noticing that SPOCK is
not on stage)
(SULU pokes his head on stage)
 7.

SULU/HORATIO
(confused)
Uh, Spock's not here. I think he went out for a pizza or
something. (Indicates CUP) Hey! Is that a mocha? Can I have a
sip of that?

HAMLET/KIRK
Let go! The funny sound of the transporter beam (PROMPTS Sulu
to make noise) invades my conscious. The rest is silence.
(He dies magnificently, with a
side-to-side movement a la
Trek bridge)
(in trouble with SULU
accompanying. Blackout and
lights up to reveal JOHN and
CAST/CREW taking seats)

JOHN
You realize, of course, this wouldn't never fly at the Globe
(laughter from cast/crew). Well, I have to thank you for
presenting to us what I thought was an excellent take on
Hamlet, transposed into a very unique setting. You should all
be committed, er, commended. (laughter from CAST/CREW). Here
we have another, sort-of, original piece that, in some ways
takes up where "The Compleat Works of William Shakespr-
Abridged" left off, and I must say I thought that play had
said all there was to be said about mixing media to present
Shakespeare. And I believe there were some Star-Trekian
allusions in that other play, were there not? And perhaps
that's where you got the idea. Well, never mind.
I must say I thought it an extraordinarily clever touch to
borrow Iago from Othello and make him the evil Spock. In my
mind, Hamlet always provided the internal bad judgment to
create the turmoil that makes this play work, and certainly
Claudius was pretty evil in the original Hamlet. But not evil
enough for this crew, hence the introduction of Spock-Iago
and the deletion, interestingly enough, of Claudius
altogether. Sort of leaves the arena open to just about
anything, doesn't it? And it may not be long before
this gang presents to us King Lear done as Willie Loman,
Richard II as Clint Eastwood or Romeo as one of the actors
from "Friends." (laughter from CAST/CREW)
(reading from/flipping notes as he wanders stage) Blah, blah,
blah, set was pretty minimal, acting was good, I really
believed Nurse Chappel-Ophelia's turmoil, yadda yadda yadda,
Kirk's Hamlet was a joy to watch, joke with cast about
costuming problems,bullshit a little about the meaning of
this play and (looking up), oops, I'm out of time!

SANDY
Holy cow! What the ...! Did I just see what I thought I just
saw?
 8.

You should all be commited, er, commended for taking this

ancient play and maneuvering it into a setting which, in
television time, is equally dated. The effect was something
so thoroughly modern and intriguing that, dang, it makes it
tough to even comment on.
So I just have some nitpicky stuff here ...

(REACTION from)
(CAST/CREW)
The shoes ... did that bother anyone that they were wearing
these sort of regular sneakers? It didn't bother me so much
that the costumes were, basically, street clothes ... and
that was probably just a money issue, since getting full-
blown Star Trek costumes and/or Shakespearean dress - or some
ungodly combination of the two - was probably beyond the ...
And the sound effects - I thought it interesting that the
characters provided their own beeps and whirs, and they came
across OK, but, well, I'm thinking you might have gotten the
real thing or done away with them altogether. You might have,
I dunno, spent some time as actors looking in the mirror to
see how you looked while doing ... Although I like them a
great deal ...
(pacing and reading from notes) hedge, hedge, blab a bit
about the dichotomy, insert pithy phrases about the show
obvious to all, make more niggling comments about the Evil
Spock in the role of Iago, praise playwright for unique
adaptation and, well, probably shouldn't mention Kirk's cute
butt. Oh, time's up, thank you, thank you, et cetera, et
cetera.
(lights down on her and up on
KIRK and SULU)
(speaking to one another after
the adjudication.)

KIRK
I thought that was hilarious that that guy adjudicator, you
know, the dickhead, thought our phasers were phallic symbols.

SULU
Oh, man, I nearly choked when that chick judge suggested my
ad-lib about the Klingons was an allusion to "American
Buffalo"

KIRK
You just forgot your line, didn't you!

SULU
Hell yes! I was like, uh, OK, somebody say something!

KIRK
You'll probably get like Best Actor or something.

SULU
What was the deal with the shoes, anyway?
 9.

KIRK
Man, I don't know. Usually, though, it's a good sign if
they're looking at little stuff like that.

SULU
Someone told me if they start out saying anything about "nit-
picking," you're top three, no prob.

KIRK
You watching the next show?

SULU
Nah. It's some old-people play about death or something. I
think we should go drink. Heavily.

KIRK
I'm with you. Live long (making Vulcan sign)

SULU
And do shots!
(They EXIT humming the Star
Trek fight song. Lights up on
two other
actors)

ACTRESS 1
I'm sorry but, what the hell did we just see?

ACTRESS 2
Whaddaya mean? I like The Tempest.

ACTRESS 1
Well, me too, but that was painful. I mean, if you can't do
an island scene with trees and shit, you should just do,
like, black box, with a bench and that's it. (beat) My bra is
killing me; I'm sweating like a ...

ACTRESS 2
I thought it was neat that they had the preschoolers paint
the backdrop! I'm thinking Pollack.

ACTRESS 1
I somehow doubt Mel Gibson would think so. Hey, what did you
think of that Hamlet-Star Trek thing last night?

ACTRESS 2
I thought the guy who played Kirk was kind of a babe. A babe
in bard's clothing, a swarthy embodiment of Tudor-slash-
starfighterguy sensibilities and tight, tight, y'know ...

ACTRESS 1
I was kind of thinking about the piece itself.
 10.

ACTRESS 2
Oh, well, I've always viewed Kirk's exaggerated, swinging
dick persona to be a kinda representative, uh, zeitgeist
kinda male ego thing that transcended any generation. In some
ways, I view him as Nietzches's Superman, or as a sort of
befuddled Vonnegutian "everyman" who speaks not so much to
say but as a means of fomenting a sort of Dickensian futility
that bespeaks the plight of the average Joe as relevant to
then as it is to today's byzantine take on the hopelessness
of a male-dominated society as ...

ACTRESS I
Uh, well, how about them phasers?

ACTRESS 2
The phasers are merely weapons; they are not phallic symbols
as that one crazy bitch adjudicator might imply. Weapons are
props in theatre, and they represent a means to an end. When
I see weapons emerge, I think of this deux ex machina that is
only there to move the plot forward. Violence: Give me a
break.

ACTRESS I
I think, oh damn! I have a rip in my hose!

ACTRESS 2
I mean, when it comes right down to it, only guys would think
that kind of ribald, existential, archaic, er, antedeluvian
"macheesimo" is interesting to anybody. (beat) Give me a Beth
Henley play anyday.
(lights down on them and up on
JOHN)

JOHN
You know, I was thinking that the "Hamlet & Egos" show that
opened our festival was as low as we could go, but I'm going
to wear my black hat here and suggest that this production of
All's Well That End's Well was a new nadir, er, a new low.
I've seen this produced, oh, I dunno, a dozen times, from
high school productions to professional ones, and, for the
most part, you can find someone to portray the relatively
simple caricatures of the flighty Bertram, the aggressive,
clever Helena ... but here, you've managed to make all the
character so, well, machinistic, stiff, robotic, wrongly
turgid and even, dare I say, defyingly lachyrmose and
downright lugubrious ... even given the ease of portraying
them. Well, all I can think to say is that there should be
some sort of congressional mandate to keep people like you
from directing shows. I mean, I think ...

DIRECTOR
Fuck you!
 11.

JOHN
I beg your pardon ...?

DIRECTOR
(standing)
I said, "Fuck you!" Who the hell do you think you are,
insulting me like this in front of all these people! I worked
very hard to put this play on, as did my cast and crew. We
drove over 400 miles to be here and, and to have you say this
shit to us, well, who the hell do you think you are?

JOHN
Well, madam, I'm the director of theatre at Midland
University, I've directed over 300 plays myself, and I've ...

DIRECTOR
I don't give a fat rat's ass. You don't get up here and tell
people working in community theatre that they suck! You know,
I've got a business to run and three children, and my theatre
is a labor of love; I don't get paid for this. OK, so you
didn't like our show. Every other miserable adjudication I've
sat through has been couched in euphemism and encouraging
words, no matter what. Look, I know we suck, but you should
see the people who turn up for auditions. (beat) Dickhead.

JOHN
Listen (beat) Bitch! I can't address your casting problems,
I'm simply responding to what I saw, and it sucked. I mean,
how can you expect us to believe Helena could possibly see
anything at all in Bertram, or that ...

DIRECTOR
I couldn't find a decent Bertram! What can I tell you? I
don't know. Bob did the best he could, and we thought ...

JOHN
You thought? You THOUGHT? Madam, (indicating BOB) even with
the worst actor imaginable, all you need do is follow the
lines as given to us by Shakespeare, and you would have had a
perfectly serviceable Alls Well That Ends Well. I fail to see
... oh, dear, it looks like I'm out of time!

TIMEKEEPER
No, actually you have four minutes left.

DIRECTOR
Yeah, so why don't you keep going!? Why don't you tell us
that our set blew, our costumes sucked and my staging
could've been done by your 4-year-old Shih Tzu!?

JOHN
It did, they did, he could have. Ahhh, I'm sorry. Look, I'm
finished.
 12.

(DIRECTOR encourages audience

to boo/hiss. Lights down and
up on
ACTOR 1 and ACTRESS 3)

ACTRESS 3
I shall slit my wrists. How can that bozo talk to us this
way?

ACTOR 1
I was only trying to be old. Isn't Lear s'posed to be old?
(lights down on them as lights
go up on JOHN and SANDY)

JOHN
A little makeup wouldn't have hurt. A little clown white in
the hair, some mascara lines ...

SANDY
But they tried. I mean, Lear doesn't necessarily HAVE to be
old ...

JOHN
Oh, and Hamlet shouldn't be indecisive, Iago should be nice,
Ophelia should be sane ... To portray old, well, walking
around clutching a bag of Depends undergarments ... just
doesn't work for me!
(lights down on them as lights
up on TWO ACTORS.
Actor 3 is dressed as a hippie
werewolf, toking on a joint)

ACTOR 3
I'm not sure what I just heard. Did we suck or were we great?

ACTOR 2
I was a teen-age werewolf. Didn't those adjudicators ever see
that movie? A young Michael Landon, a babe, if I dare say so.

ACTOR 3
Sure, but they didn't buy the whole hippie werewolf thing for
Richard III. And they say he wasn't a teen-ager.

ACTOR 2
Whatever. But I had good shoes.
(Lights down on them as lights
up on adjudicators together)

JOHN
I just wish you'd quite it with the shoes. Who the hell cares
about their shoes? The winged shoes of Hermes couldn't have
salvaged that scene.
 13.

SANDY
I thought the fuzzy brown slippers were a nice touch. What
can I tell you ... I'm into shoes.
(a few beats)

JOHN
(Looking at her)
Richard III was not a werewolf.
(Lights down on them and up on
actors)

ACTOR 2
I believe Richard III WAS a werewolf.
(Lights down/up)

SANDY
He could've been a werewolf. Who's to say?
(Lights down/up)

ACTOR 3
(To audience)
Actually, we were originally going to portray Richard III as
a more obscure animal, like an echidna, or a hedgehog, or a
nauga ....

ACTOR 2
A nauga?

ACTOR 3
You know, like nauga-hyde?

ACTOR 2
I wanted to do him as a pygmy marmoset that spoke Basque

ACTOR 3
But we couldn't find anyone that could translate

ACTOR 2
And try finding a pygmy marmoset in (name of obscure town)
(Lights down/up)

JOHN
Actually, to be charitable, I like the whole notion of
Richard III helping to sell Girl Scout cookies. It gave him
some modicum of humanity, a trait I've often found missing in
the play.
(Lights change to BAR
SCENE,where JOHN and
PLAYWRIGHT are at bar nursing
drinks)

JOHN
Say, you wrote this piece we're doing right now, didn't you.
 14.

PLAYWRIGHT
Uh, well, yeah.

JOHN
You think this is pretty funny, don't you?

PLAYWRIGHT
Well, I guess that's the idea. Is it bothering you?

JOHN
You know, we don't sweat through all this theatre for fun. To
us, it's serious business. And I can't help but think that
you're poisoning the people at this festival to the whole
notion of the adjudication.

PLAYWRIGHT
O, untrue! But adjudication is stressful to people, and I was

just trying to ...

JOHN
Lighten things up? Make us seem more human?

PLAYWRIGHT
Yeah, that's it! Everyone knows you guys have to watch bad
theatre and say nice things about it. I mean, staging an
alternative Shakespeare festival for community theatre ...
what'd you expect?

JOHN
Well, I really think, and this is just me speaking, that this
really cheapens the process. I think you should have put in
some stuff about how we adjudicators wrestle over things,
really try to ...

PLAYWRIGHT
Whoa, hold on. Are you trying to adjudicate THIS show? Here,
now, in the (name of theater)? Remember, you're just an actor
PLAYING an adjudicator, (name of actor). You don't have to do
this. (pause) Although this does seem to me, what we're
doing, to be groundbreaking work. Have you got a pen? (begins
making notes on a cocktail napkin).

JOHN
Oh, OK, so you're making notes about a play - and I use the
term loosely - that we're right in the midst of? Oh, this is
precious.

PLAYWRIGHT
It's just art imitating art, eh? Kind of like a dog licking
its own ...
 15.

JOHN
I, don't know what's going on here. I don't know who I am!

PLAYWRIGHT
Do you think the audience understands this?

JOHN
Yes, and that scares me.

PLAYWRIGHT
They're laughing, aren't they? (prompts for reaction if none)

JOHN
Yes, but people laugh at cheap schtick and crotch-shots. Is
that good theatre?

PLAYWRIGHT
Well, can be. Not on its own, mind you; it has to be couched
in, y'know, all that other stuff like plot and subtext and
denooment and all that. (beat) I'm just learning that stuff.

JOHN
(disgusted) Indeed. Well, what do I do in the next scene?

PLAYWRIGHT
Nothing. Have a smoke. It's a bit between two of the actors
you said sucked, and how they're planning to knife you in a
bar.
(Two KILLERS enter and knife
adjudicator, who dies
fabulously)

PLAYWRIGHT
Nice job. That guy was an asshole.

KILLER 1
Who are you?

PLAYWRIGHT
Oh, nobody. Just a guy in a bar.

KILLER 2
No, I know you. You're the, hey! You're the guy who wrote
this

thing!

PLAYWRIGHT
Well, yes.

KILLER 1
So you put all those awful things about our acting ... you
told those adjudicators to say all that stuff!
 16.

PLAYWRIGHT
Well, yes.

KILLER 2
(brandishing knife)
Get him!
(playwright scribbles on napkin
and two actors, instead, fall
on themselves, killing one
another)

PLAYWRIGHT
Playing god, it's not easy.

BLACKOUT