MEMORY of a FREE FESTIVAL
Being a drama in one act.
SETTING: The press tent of a large outdoor pop music festival in the suburbs. Not far from here. Not long from now.
CAST IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE:
RICHARDS, a music critic for a newspaper, about thirty
A WOMAN, perhaps thirty-five
A BALD MAN, maybe forty
MALITZ, Richards’s malnourished colleague, also about thirty
KLIMEK, a writer for a website, slightly older than thirty
LIGHTS UP on a tent on a dusty field wherein a makeshift office has been erected. A dozen laptop computers, many of them covered in logo stickers, sit unattended on folding tables, power cords dangling precariously. The tables are also littered with piles of small zip-up nylon portfolios and maps and pamphlets. There is no more free water ANYwhere in this tent, if you can believe that shit. A man seated at one of the tables rubs sunscreen on his head. Music wafts in from a beyond a hill, loud but indistinct.
MALITZ uses a PROTRACTOR to adjust the bill of his SILVER JEWS BASEBALL CAP to precisely the right skewed angle while RICHARDS stands animated in conversation with a woman, gesturing frequently towards his white FEIYUE SNEAKERS.
RICHARDS. …so I bought like nine pairs! I’ll totally get you some next time I’m in New York.
Enter KLIMEK.
KLIMEK. Heya, Fellas! I just thought I would drop by to charge my phone up for a minute and also, while that is happening, perhaps to engage in some collegial banter with the both of youse.
RICHARDS (To MALITZ). Don’t talk to him, Dude — he’s the enemy! The enemy!
MALITZ. The enemy is everywhere!
KLIMEK. What is that, a Blue Öyster Cult song or something?
MALITZ. Titus Andronicus. Heard of ’em?
KLIMEK. I KNOW IT’S A FUCKING TITUS ANDRONICUS SONG, YOU GOOF!
END OF PLAY.
This post has been lovingly appropriated by the Washington City Paper Arts Desk.
SWAGGER, NOT STYLE 