SCENE
Troy and Los Angeles
CAST
Norma Jeane Baker
Enter NORMA JEANE BAKER.
Enter Norma Jeane Baker.
Prologue.
This is the Nile and I’m a liar.
Those are both true.
Are you confused yet?
The play is a tragedy. Watch closely now
how I save it from sorrow.
I expect you’ve heard of the Trojan War
and how it was caused by Norma Jeane Baker,
harlot of Troy.
Well, welcome to Public Relations.
That was all a hoax.
A bluff, a dodge, a swindle, a gimmick, a gem of a stratagem.
The truth is,
a cloud went to Troy.
A cloud in the shape of Norma Jean Baker.
The gods arranged it, sort of.
They flew me to LA. Locked me in a suite of the Chateau Marmont.
Told me to learn my lines for Clash By Night,
a film with Fritz Lang, the famous director.
That’s enough about him.
Speaking of ignorant armies though,
that cloud scam fooled everyone.
Maybe a thousand Trojans died at Troy. I feel bad about them.
I feel bad about me.
You know the phrase “box office poison?”
How to redeem the good name of Norma Jeane?
How to explain it all to Arthur?
My good husband Arthur,
king of Sparta and New York,
dear honourable, old-fashioned Arthur,
who led an army to Troy to win me back.
I am after all his most prized possession—the Greeks
value women less than pure gold
but slightly ahead of oxen, sheep or goats—
but also,
and more important,
Arthur is a man who believes in war.
Men standing shoulder to shoulder,
tempered in the fire of battle.
Himself
in a crested helmet,
his army rippling around him
like bees smelling honey.
Arthur gives thanks to the gods every day
for the precision of command,
which makes order of the anarchy of his heart.
A cloud? he’ll say. We went to Troy to get a cloud?
We lived all those years knee-deep in death for the sake of a cloud?
I’m not sure he’ll believe me.
I’m not sure I believe me.
Just think,
when the Greeks first beached their ships at Troy
they could see the legendary city glittering a mere football field away.
It took them ten years to walk to it.
A thousand bloody T-shirts left on the sand.
Oh I need a drink.
Or a big bowl of whipped cream. I’ve got to think.
Norma Jeane sits, takes out her knitting.