copyright © 1986 Todd Ristau

OLD NAUFRAGO

(Lights up on OLD NAUFRAGO, who is a little old man with gaunt, stretched features, fiery eyes, and wild white hair. His clothes no longer fit him, he does not notice because he knows that they are his. OLD NAUFRAGO is trying to build a radio from a typewriter with large hand tools.

NAUFRAGO: I knew I should have put a damned clutch plate in there! (begins banging the typewriter to pieces with his hammer) Ah, God, God, how many million millions died for nothing more than a clever string of words? A gun. A gun is a concrete reality, traditionally one which is difficult at best to ignore. Hail the reality of a bullet and its impact upon the brain. Death? Yes, this life....this life is a death. To be....to be is to be in relation to others, existence is moot unless shared. With God? Universal Perceiever? Sharer of all? Horseshit! In the end, all that is of deep concern is the expression of anguish, a celebration of suffering, the deep felt need to communicate feelings of pain....pain of seperation, pain of rejection, pain of loss, pain of guilt, pain of need, painful rectal itch!!! YOU IGNORANT BASTARDS! Sitting in your fucking hotbed of civilized interbreeding as you wave your "I HURT TOO" flags like its a mating ritual. You make me sick with it all. I’d open the window at night, but I’m afraid the stench of your filth would suffocate me in my sleep! The bird’s future power to soar is lying dormant in the egg, you say? I say, Fuck the Bird and get on with the making of breakfast!!!

(knock on the door)

"One is only who he is perceived to be." That’s a lot of cock and bull. One is, and he perceives himself in far greater detail than any fornicating outsider come to raise himself socially through the derision of others too intent on self-perception to be able to defend themselves from these attacks, should they choose to do so once all aspects had been considered in appropriate measure.

(A more insistent knock)

Eventually one reaches a point where....THINK ABOUT IT LOGICALLY!

(Pause. He pickes up a gigantic light bulb and stares at it in confusion.)

What do I need a cathode ray tube for????

(He smashes it.)

IT IS A RADIO!! A RADIO!!

(lights out)

"Old Naufrago" IS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL AND MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED, TRANSMITTED, PRINTED OR PERFORMED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

AUTHOR'S NOTES:
Did this one in B, with a typewriter I am pretty sure didn't work before I started destroying it. I think I might have also done it at a Best Of, but can't remember, though I do remember trying to find another typewriter later on, but that could have been when I did a bunch of No Shame pieces at the Mill for that once a month open mike thing they did there for awhile--don't remember the name of it. This was the first piece after the truck died, for want of a clutch plate, I think after the big trip west with John Bolster, Stan, Prickly Bob and Guy Snodgrass. Too bad it couldn't be performed now with the IC rules against doing anying which requires cleaning up. There were little bits of lightbulb everywhere. I remember very clearly Ben Katz's maxim that "Good theatre is always dangerous."

Remember at this time I was trying desperately to date my spanish teacher and I had this University of Chicago spanish/american dictionary. I was looking for a spanish word to inspire a piece, and came upon NAUFRAGO, which sounded really cool when I said it out loud. It means "shipwrecked person" and that launched the piece, because I felt a bit shipwrecked without my truck, and just sort of in general anyway.

"Shipwrecked Person" (aka "Old Naufrago") debuted November 21, 1986, performed by Todd Ristau.

[Possibly also performed at the Duck's Breath/No Shame Show on March 6 & 7, 1987.]

Performed at No Shame/Charlottesville on January 3, 2003 by Todd Ristau.


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