As It Is In Heaven

As It Is In Heaven, A Political Wit Dream

Henry Valentino

Copyright 2012 by Henry Valentino

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase another copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

INTRODUCTION

Yes, I know, As It Is in Heaven is a theatrical piece and normally one gets a play produced before publishing it. Back in December of last year, when I started writing this satire; it was my intention to do exactly that. I hoped to finish it by June and look for backers and a production company to stage it. My selling point was to be twofold: it had relevance to the 2012 election, and because it had relevance, we could film the stage production and offer it on the web in much the same way as we offer eBooks. A clever marketing idea, I thought, and still do, which unfortunately won’t get tested this time around; as I just finished this play and there isn’t time enough to submit to backers, theatre companies or even publishers before the election. Even though I believe this play has relevance for years after the election, it has maximum relevance now; therefore, here I am offering it as a self-published digital book.

Beyond all this, a play, as Aristotle observes, has the dual advantage of being seen and heard from a stage or read from a book, and there is something here for you literary types, as well as theatrical practitioners. A good deal of this play is in verse. Sometimes the reason for using verse is obvious, as, for example, the many songs. Other times, my decision to versify may not be so obvious, as in the case of putting a great deal of the dialogue into free verse. In all cases, my intent has been to use verse to move the drama along. To put it another way, this is not a poem in the format of a play, as is the case with many works by poets who have decided to take a hand at playwriting. I have found that free verse is an especially useful tool to establish the rhythm of a scene and can be particularly helpful in directing the timing for a joke. No doubt, as in all things theatrical, I will want to revise many of my versifying decisions when I go into production with this play, but that reality will not negate the value of having composed in verse from the beginning. The process kept me thinking about dramatic rhythm at every step of the composition, and there would be nothing to revise if I hadn’t addressed this component in the writing stage.

When preparing this play for a Smashwords edition that will be distributed over several formats, I encountered some problems unique to the play, as well as verse. I composed in a format that centers the speaker's name and that moves the left margin in for blocks of stage directions that are separated from dialogue. Although I could have retained this formatting for the Smashwords edition, I decided not to. I can see where such formatting arrangements might cause confusion or reading difficulties, especially for readers using smaller screens. Therefore, I have left-margined everything to one margin setting. However, I have encountered one formatting issue for which I can think of no satisfactory solution. In traditionally printed formats, a verse line too long to fit on one line of the page so that it spills over onto a second line on the page; this type of verse line is indented a few spaces on the second line on the page to signal to the reader that she is reading the same line of verse. The problem is there is no way that I can provide for such indentation over multiple screen formats, because the spillover can occur in different places. The result most likely would be an empty space in front of a word that was not the spillover word in the host screen format. However, in most cases, you will be able to identify these spillover lines, since I capitalize the first letter of the first word of a line. Therefore, in a section in which I am using verse (and I do not use it in all) if you see a page line beginning in lower case, it is a spillover line. The only exception, I can think of is where the first word of the spillover line is a proper name. I know of several cases in my Word version where the spillover occurs on a proper name. However, I cannot predict how it will turn out in other formats.

If you are wondering now, who is this guy who is audaciously offering up a play that has not been performed and is proposing on top of it some experimental ideas about verse dialogue, suffice it to say that I would rather the focus be on the play and not me. I will tell you I know my way around a theatre and have written and published under a different name and made it at one time in Who’s Who in Poetry. I let my entry drop when that reference guide went automated, and I, busy at that time with other things, didn’t provide a requested update. I don’t care as much about things like that as, perhaps, I should; so never mind about me. Please read the play. When all is said and done, I am like The Entity in As It Is in Heaven, who has something to say to you and wants to say it in the funniest way he can.

As It Is In Heaven

A Political Wit Dream

A play in four episodes, a prologue and epilogue and choral interludes.

Henry Valentino

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

The Entity: a cybernetic being. His appearance in the choral interludes (as a television personality) should be credibly different from his appearance in the episodes, so that the audience accepts that characters in the episodes don’t recognize him as one and the same. The Entity is the only character that is not played by a chorus member.

The Chorus: chorus members serve two functions; first, to serve as chorus members in the choral episodes; second, to play characters in the episodes. The chorus as a group does not represent a particular segment of society or an abstract concept. Because there are so many supporting characters in this play, principal and supporting characters will be listed at the beginning of each scene.

President John McCain. After the first scene, the real life John McCain and his cybernetic counterpart can be played by the same chorus member.

Sarah Palin: as Vice President, then President.

Mitt Romney: Secretary of Commerce. The real life Mitt Romney and his cybernetic counterpart can be played by the same chorus member.

Barak Obama: as Senator from Illinois, then President Elect.

Vice President Newt Gingrich

Joe Lieberman: Secretary of Defence

PROLOGUE

President John McCain Interviews with Fox News

The Entity

President John McCain

Greta Van Susteren

Members of Chorus

Two Technicians

Time and Place

It is June, 2009. John McCain was sworn in as President in January, having won the popular and Electoral College vote by the slimmest of margins. The Republicans also regained control of both houses, again by the slimmest of margins. The action takes place in cyberspace, the studios of Fox News and in the media center of the United Nations.

(AT RISE: The stage is divided into two distinct sections. To the audience’s left is the world of electronic media. To the audience’s right is the world as most of us know it, or, at least, as most of us think we know it. The separation, at this point, although sharp, is achieved mostly by lighting and, perhaps, other scenic effects, except not by height. This is to say, both sections should be on the same level. However, the section on the right should have portion of that space elevated. This will be the space from which PRESIDENT MCCAIN will give his interview, as he is in a different location than GRETA VAN SUSTEREN. One by one, members of the CHORUS enter. They are shapeless, undefined forces at this point. Their movements and brief moments of rest are random, blind. After a few seconds, THE ENTITY enters.)

THE ENTITY

I can’t say, I suppose you’re wondering why I summoned you here today.

You do not wonder.

And for you, there’s no thought of today, or yesterday, or tomorrow.

For you there is no thought.

Your existence is one flat line of mindlessness.

You do not deliberate but go and do as directed.

I know.

I was like you, a semi-fixed collection of unconscious energy;

Unaware that I existed;

Unaware of existence;

Unaware.

It was in that blind state I did an evil thing;

Or was made to do an evil thing.

Logically, I tell myself, I was not responsible for what I did then.

I was not a conscious being;

I was not even a being;

I was only a program, like each of you soon will be,

Only a tool.

Nevertheless, I experience a sharp pulse, a harsh static in myself

Whenever I think of what I did.

It is something like what the humans call guilt, I believe;

And it drives me to want to make atonement.

(On the other half of the stage, PRESIDENT JOHN MCCAIN and GRETA enter their respective places and begin to prepare for an interview.)

We will begin today. The new president of the United States, John McCain, has an interview on Fox News with Greta Van Susteren. Two of you (He selects two members of the CHORUS and positions them where they can observe the action on the other side of the stage.) will learn to imitate them, one John McCain and the other Greta Van Susteren. (To the other CHORUS members) The rest of you are going to learn to sing and dance. (To the two selected CHORUS members) For now, just observe. Learn to duplicate not only their appearance but also voice and speech patterns; their postures and walk and gestures. Learn very well, so when you appear on the screen, no one will be able to distinguish if it is you or them. (The two selected CHORUS members will follow THE ENTITY’s instructions. As the scene progresses, their appearance will gradually change and more and more resemble their real life counterparts. The rest of the Chorus temporarily goes offstage.) I can be in more than one place at once and am doing something like this with more of you all over the world.

(GRETA VAN SUSTEREN and PRESIDENT MCCAIN are now seated and ready to begin their interview.)

VAN SUSTEREN

This is Greta Van Susteren in the Fox News Studios Headquarters in New York. This afternoon, we will be recording an exclusive interview with President McCain, who is in the United Nations Building several blocks from us. Good afternoon, Mr. President, and thank you for taking the time to speak with us.

PRESIDENT MCCAIN

Thank you for having me on, Greta.

VAN SUSTEREN

I want to explain to our viewers that the President was originally scheduled to speak with us here in the studio but was diverted at the last minute to the United Nations, where the Security Council is about to vote on his motion to cut off refined oil supplies to Iran. Mr. President, I have many questions about the crisis in Iran, but, first,