BEYOND THE VELVET ROPES
A continuing saga of the inner workings of a typical museum: hope, despair,
pest control, crowd control, dust control, sex in the vault
EPISODE 2: The Fall of the House of Victoriana
Cast of Characters: (In order of appearance)
Cynthia
Edward
200 7th-graders
1 teacher (not actually seen, but implied)
Scene 1: The entry hall of a house museum. The front door is to the left.
A portrait of a dour, elderly woman whose eyes gaze out toward the audience
hangs on the wall. Doorways lead off into darkened spaces. The stairway
moves upward and to the right. A velvet rope stretches across the base of
the stairs, where a sign reads: "STAFF ONLY Beyond This Point."
Cynthia enters, wringing her hands. She paces back and forth, stopping on
each return trip to make sure the giant bolt that locks the front door is
securely in place. The audience hears a low rumble, and then the sound of a
school bus stopping. Cynthia throws herself upon the door, arms
outstretched, facing into the room. Edward bounces in and heads for the
front door.
Cynthia: I can't allow this to happen. It's always the same. I can't take
it anymore...
Edward: You know we have no choice.
A noise from beyond the door gradually gets louder. We hear many voices,
talking at once. The front door begins to rattle. Edward places a hand on
Cynthia's shoulder.
Edward: Cynthia, there's no other way. You know we need the admission money
to buy coffee and doughnuts for the board meetings. Can you imagine what our
lives would be like without coffee and doughnuts for the board? Can you?
Cynthia relaxes her stance and, head bowed, slowly moves away from the door.
Edward unbolts the lock.
Immediately, a crowd of 200 7th-graders from Marauder Middle School stampedes
into the hallway. Edward nimbly leaps across to the staircase and lashes
himself to the banister to avoid the onrush. Cynthia is caught in the surge
of adolescents, who are all attempting to get to the single toilet available
for visitors [a single toilet was quite sufficient during the days when the
constipated upper-classes were the only museum patrons]. As she is pushed to
the ground, Cynthia recalls the fate of her unfortunate colleague who burst
into tiny pieces just a few short weeks ago... The audience now hears the
unmistakable thump, thump, thump of her heart as Cynthia drifts into
unconsciousness.
Edward, still lashed to the banister, begins an oratory on the decorative
uses of wallpaper. Seeing as how she is not labeled, the Marauders mistake
Cynthia for an interactive exhibit and poke and prod her. As she comes to,
Cynthia looks up from the floor to find a Marauder standing over her. He is
wearing a genuine replica American Indian headdress and carrying a genuine
replica plastic tomahawk which he purchased in the museum shop. The Marauder
swings the tomahawk back and forth over Cynthia, lowering it on each swipe.
Just before the tomahawk slices through her clothing, she is lifted overhead
by a roving band of Marauders and carried offstage.
Scene 2: The house museum basement. The band of Marauders carry Cynthia
into the room, and deposit her into the small space between the hot water
boiler and the HVAC ductwork. They begin to stack Plexiglas panels in front
of her, cementing them into place. As the final panel seals her in, quoth
Cynthia: I should have listened to my mother and become an anesthesiologist.
$100K a year, house on the Vineyard. Damn that 4th-grade school trip to
Monticello! It all started there...
Scene 3: Back in the entry hall. The front door is rattling, and Edward
skips across to open it. As he unbolts the lock and the crowd surges in, a
beam of light shines directly onto the painting. The audience sees that it
is now a portrait of a young woman, and she is smiling.
As the crowd swells to fill the hall, loud cracking noises fill the air. The
crowd shrieks, but it is too late. The walls begin to cave in, and as the
lights fade, a cloud of dust rises above the now empty scene.
The end.
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