JEN AFTER NED: THE HEARST GREEK THEATRE

me: are you calm now?

Jennifer Pizarro: my clam is calm. now that you're here. we calm each other.

me: yeah just know that you're the best theater director to ever live. you've gone over everything thrice, it's all set up, practiced out, memorized to the hilt, blocked like my clam, the show's gonna be great, you are so overprepared, you just gotta let the show FLOW as it happens on that stage, it's gonna be existential to watch.

Jen: thanks, creature.

me: that's what my dad used to call me, i love it, the unbroken line of it all. now i'm the Theater Creature. is Theater ER or RE?...

Jen: all i know is the Hearst Greek Theatre was built by HAND by Orson Welles who personally dragged each and every block of stone and set it on top of the pile. NOT with a giant pincer. think about it, and he STILL didn't lose weight.

me: i'll be sleeping in the koilon. just kidding...

the Hearst Greek Theatre, full of heart, is located by the Berkeley Docks...

Jen: when i graduated last year here at the Hearst, my parents were spooked, they attended the Bonfire the night before and then the graduation ceremony the next morning, they left early, they ran away, seeing all of us in our robes like that, they thought this was some sort of Nazi rally.

me: i want to graduate. that is my dream. i want to graduate above all else. i want to graduate COLLEGE. i don't know what that sensation is like. 

Jen: it's WAY DIFFERENT than high school.

me: i have nightmares about not graduating after completing 3 years and ending up a shaken nobody sleeping on the roof of a 7-Eleven the rest of my life...

Jen: SO CLOSE to your dreams.

i touch Jen's shoulder making sure NOT to move her hair out of the way.

Jen: wanna get some breakfast at The Egg Theatre?

me: eggs?

Jen: silly creature, actors aren't smart, we can't make eggs.

me: we certainly can't make a poached egg, it's too complicated to get just the right water ratio and how much salt in the water and the sous-vide vacuum pack space to allow for gas bubbles.

Jen: no, you slide down the WATERSLIDE of the Egg Theatre. and NOT feed the ducks bread so they don't explode later in life when they're granducks.

Rubikon: i don't get it, man. yeah i get it, our theatre is all Ancient Greece and everything, home of the first play, but why can't it be like the Delacorte Theatre in Harlem? that place is RAD, man. it's all URBAN, the facades they use for sets are all brownstones with cute little tiny slits for doors that none of the actors can fit through especially Fat Albert who's the best thespian. they got wire on top of the audience's heads with two dirty running shoes tied up in it by their shoelaces, they got blackbirds everywhere, the back of the stage is ONE BIG BLACK STEREO SPEAKER!!!

Jen: all we got over here is a naked production of Lysistrata sponsored by Lysol spray. 

me: i got one extra free ticket to that, what say you friend Rubikon and i sit VERY CLOSE NEXT to each other in the koilon as we watch Jen do Lysistrata up there and we can look at her together.

Jen: ...

Jen, smiling: yeah, it'll be an EYE threesome if not a physical threesome...

the company assembles in a circle on old metal fold-out chairs on the stage one last time together.

Jen: okay, cast, any last questions before Opening Night?

Julianne Moore from The Hand That Rocks the Cradle stands up.

Julianne Moore: i've mastered the homemade lasagna, but what exactly is a homemade blowjob?

Rebecca De Mornay stands up.

Rebecca as Peyton Mott: i went with turtles wallpaper in the baby's room because bunnies in a pot would have been too obvious...

Luke Russert: i'm really liking my new shopping bag.

Lindy Lenz: i mean it looks weird on you, chief, but if it makes you FEEL good i'm all for it.

me trying to get a pirated play on my Walkman: yeah i've never seen a grocery bag with the inside is sheep's wool...

Luke: it's so convenient. so easy to carry around HEAVY items. it's a long bulky bag beige SACK made of leather, the finest Corinthian Russert leather. and the handle will not SNAP off no matter how BIG my fist and wrist is. it Velcros together, it's impossible to come off.

me: 10 zippers on that thing.

Lindy: i mean it doesn't seem that you're keeping a gallon of milk or a yellow silo of Lipton iced-tea mix powder or a carton of kitty litter that smells like bubblegum in there, it seems you would keep two computer towers in there. as you walk out the grocery store and stride down the sidewalk toting that thing it looks like you're a spy who got his motorcycle stolen...

art contest: it's not the quality of the art submitted, it's HOW MANY PEOPLE you know...

Roger Federer: i was a ballboy before i became a king. think about that, it's like the altar boy who grows up to be Pope...

World's Largest Dinosaur in Canada: i'm still not as impressive as that dinosaur Kyle Mooney created...

Kyle Mooney: i'm not a mad scientist, the dinosaur is a teenager with pimple problems and a skateboard...

Melissa Maker: i am OBSESSED with Target...

Trooper: we wanted to be the Canadian Led Zeppelin but we weren't even the Canadian Rush...

Royal Ascot at the Berkeley Horse Grounds: top hats and tails, ballroom gowns, bird-of-paradise hats, mixed with iPads, iPhones, and Chromebooks...

bird of paradise: everyone thinks i'm a bird but i'm a plant...

Rebecca De Mornay wearing a Royal Ascot hat: is there a man in our theatre troupe with a funny face?

Jen: yes...

Rebecca: one who works at a Target?

Sam Egan: no...

Rebecca: just checking, i'm that squirmy boy's guardian angel...

Jennifer Connelly: no that would be me...

Rebecca: he's always so nervous...

Tyzik: every week, someone new is moving out of Carmel........U-Haul trucks EVERYWHERE in Carmel.........everybody scurrying out of Carmel on a cold early Saturday morning so no one sees...

Laertus's grandpa: you know what i love most about Instagram? that there's an abacus emoji...

baseball: we are a proud woke sport, safe at first, safe at second, home is a safe space. and we're all born on third base...

DoorDash in Russia: we still got our bicycles out there in Moscow, okay? we're still making our deliveries, we don't give a fuck...

conventual: not conventional. 

Sister Mary Kenneth Keller: ...

Codrus: ...

conventual sweets: the Lisbon nuns couldn't get their cunts ate, their Lisbon lips licked, so they had to substitute that with eating TONS of sweets every day...

facekini: Pussy Riot came up with this first...

DoorDash: you're more likely to get that pizza box delivered to your stoop in 5 minutes if you leave that $2 tip to our driver, know what we're sayin?

Carla Borelli: Asylum of Satan? really? i gotta do that one? there's nothing else? gotta love '70s TV-movies...

Betty White: i'm just waiting for the '70s to be over...

McDonald's: large drink? not anymore. think of it: McDonald's drumsticks.........McDrums...

poet in 2023: this is only happening because i got a fellowship...

Hornswoggle: the reason Angelica can't see me is cos she's my mom...

Hornswoggle's mom, crying: how can i be a do-gooder if i can't even save my own son?!!!... 

Lydia: you can tell i like Bartholomew cos i call him by his full first name...

Cherry Lane: ...

pole fitness: it beats the Peloton...

Ms Tryss: i'm the queen of pole fitness in Monterey.

Mardith: can i take over?

Ms Tryss: honeychild do you even know what my name means?

Mardith: i finally got it after five tries and five weeks, mistress, very clever.

Mardith: it's just.........the room here is so skinny, how can you swing your legs and butt around on the pole without hitting walls with SNL alums on them? and it's in the back of a Walmart covered up by a Seven Dwarfs cottage roof, nobody knows this place exists.

Ms Tryss: that's the POINT, baby.

Cicero, Illinois: where Codrus is from.........maybe...

Rosetti purses: Dom Rossi's purse...

Lucio: i HATE Dominic Rossi, that Sicilian brute of the brickyard gives Rossis a bad name. i'm a pacifist jelly mold all about the squirmy love but i'd knock him down to the bricks.

Coast Guard: the Coast Guard will always answer the call.........let's be honest, we mostly save drunk yachters who fall overboard...

Stockton Rush: to my beloved darling wife Wendy Rush, my life was you.

Wendy Rush: tragically, i have Titanic victims all around my family line in an unbroken circle...

gilliflower: Kristen Wiig's favorite California carnation...

wiktionary: only the Australians get to say the really vulgar words and naughty phrases for our audio-file pronunications...

Basil Fawlty: sure Seinfeld has the Big Salad, but we have the Waldorf Salad so we win, British comedy is better than American comedy.

Jerry Seinfeld: i actually prefer the Cobb Salad like Kylo Ren, i want to be Bad Superman.

Elaine Benes: i wanna eat Marine muscles.

Jack Tripper: that kitchen on Fawlty Towers is MY bistro kitchen on Three's A Crowd!!!...

the show starts. but nobody's on the stage, and nobody's in the seats. in fact, NOBODY IS HERE. the-theatre-in-the-round half-circle is as quiet as Mormon Voltron church mice. 

me: what's going on, babe? can i just say that i LOVE that i'm able to call YOU babe.

Jen: everyone's distracted by the bonfire outside. that leaves this stage all to US TWO. let's MAKE LOVE on that stage. make love, not fuck.

me: can two people who are in love still fuck?

Jen: that's an existential question. let's take our time, creature, we have ALL NIGHT. no rush, no schedule, no timetable, no deadline. i want this to be a special session, i want this session to be SPECIAL AND SLOW.

me: the stagelights are on and the mics are working, all for the performance, i love it.

Jen: yes it's a performance but it's a PRIVATE performance. on this open stage. let your inhibitions go and FLOW. FLOW WITH ME.

i turn my side-eye back for a quick glance and glimpse outside through the ajar steel doors. the audience outside is transfixed, their eyes glued to the skinny column of fire. everybody is seeing this play play out on the stage of their mind, they're seeing it live in their minds, the setup, the precipitating event, the denouement, all projected onto the bonfire like any good Ancient Greek play was.

Aristophanes: wanna buy my freak sandals? they're wood.

Gladyce: i've had them.

Doryce licking her lips: i want them.

Jen makes love to me in equal parts vigor and virtue. it's all a blur to me, a wonderful warm blur. we make love the entire three hours of the play's length and beyond, more time, all the hours till morning breaks with a hot sunroof on our heads.  

me: i'm naked right now, right? lying on a stage naked.

Jen: yes. i'm naked, too, on top of you. we're both on this stage. we're a pile.

me: okay just making sure we're not two actors doing a naked pirate play.

Jen: that was real. really real.