PROLOGUE
Pinball machines lit. Electronic firing. Organ music to suit Old Testament drowns pinball machines. Pinball machines go out. Stained glass window lit.
SOLOMON enters wearing biblical robes.
SOLOMON: [reading from 1 Kings 3, v 9â28] â⊠and God said to Solomon ⊠âBehold I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honour âŠâ
âAnd Solomon awoke and behold, it was a dream âŠ
âThen two harlots came to the king ⊠The one woman said, âOh, my lord, this woman and I dwell in the same house: and I gave birth to a child ⊠Then on the third day after I was delivered, this woman also gave birth; and we were alone; there was no one else with us in the house; only we two were in the house. And this womanâs son died in the night, because she lay on it. And she arose at midnight and took my son from beside me ⊠and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead son in my bosom. When I rose in the morning to nurse my child, behold it was dead, but when I looked at it closely in the morning, behold it was not the child that I had borneâ. But the other woman said, âNo, the living child is mine and the dead child is yoursâ.
Then the king said, âBring me a swordâ. So a sword was brought before the king, and the king said, âDivide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the otherâ.â
Organ music. ALABASTARâs voice, making a sound of firing, builds up to a sound battle with the organ music. The organ music, defeated, fades. Stained glass window fades. Blackout.
ACT ONE
SCENE ONE
Pinball parlour. VANDELOPE enters. Sound of pinball machines.
SOLOMON: The child, Alabastar, here in a pinball parlour?
He introduces himself to the audience.
Solomonâs the name.
He looks with disdain at a machine.
Cavemanâs the game? Sometimes one needs an audience while collecting evidence. Thirteen boys, three girls and you have to look in the dictionary before you know what that one is.
VANDELOPE: Piss off!
She plays a video game.
Jeep! Blll! Loooop!
She makes electronic firing noises.
Score two hundred!
SOLOMON: I prefer the old-fashioned kind with flippers. One can see where the balls go.
VANDELOPE [making firing noises] Bluumm! Tank! You beauty. Score five hundred! Brrip! United Nations truck.
She swears.
Soya beans. Lose three seconds.
SOLOMON âAnd the voice of the turtle dove
Is heard in our land.â
VANDELOPE: Ooops, Vandelope, there goes El Salvador.
SOLOMON: This is the space age. Why arenât they home playing cowboys and indians like we did?
VANDELOPE: They send kids here to school. Teaches them how to talk to coloured lights bipping, face to face.
SOLOMON: Where is the boy? He must be somebodyâs son.
Madam! Iâm looking for the owner of a son.
VANDELOPE: Iâm not into that. Iâm an anarcho-lesbian bicyclist.
SOLOMON: He was last seen with a pile of coins, asking for a cigarette, and he must be all of ten.
VANDELOPE: See if heâll lend me twenty cents.
SOLOMON: This little boy has potential.
VANDELOPE: If men had to give birth to children theyâd pop out of their skulls just like thatâfully clothed and brainwashed, drooling âCo...