Ba-Bang! or the end of an error!

A political cartoon play in two acts by Thomas M. Kelly, © 2006.

A group of powerful and influential men and women were greeted by Lord Jacob Rothschild at Waddesdon Manor, the ancestral home of the Rothschild banking family to discuss economic and political issues: The ultimate networking venue.  Waddesdon Manor is a Renaissance-style chateau in the undulating hills of Buckinghamshire.  For the purposes of this play, a black box theatre will do.  Among those invited is billionaire Warren Buffet, and the soon to be governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Other notable guests included the President of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, Chief Executive Officer of Nokia, Jorma Ollila, De Beers chairman Nicky Oppenheimer, Chief Executive Officer of the worlds largest food processing and distribution company, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the worlds largest research-based pharmaceutical company, Chief Executive Officers of major oil corporations, Chairman and Chief Executive Officers of major banking establishments and three unnamed guests, outside the meeting hall: “Jay”, “Que”, and “Dubya”.  The men, after the women are removed for disturbing the process, nominate one of the three unnamed guests to a very important position: the Presidency of the United States.  

They nominate ‘DUBYA’.  Bush.  DUBYA agrees on the condition that he make his presidential legacy by waging war against those countries throughout the world denying freedom and democracy to their citizens and that he be allowed to spread the word of God in those freedom deprived countrys with the exception that he leave certain countries alone (if they are ‘owned’ by his “moneyed buds”: He wants to be a ‘War President’.  They enthusiastically and supplicatingly agree.  At curtain, Scene Two, we find DUBYA trying to use his influence with GOD to help him with his legacy: his quest to spread freedom, liberty and Christianity throughout the world.  During his private prayer session he is visited by some of the worlds greatest thinkers, politicians, scientists, artists, etc.: CARL SAGAN, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 

HARRY S. TRUMAN, CONFUSCIUS, JOHN F. KENNEDY, LEONARDO DE VINCI, MAHATMA GHANDI, ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER,

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, BARBARA JORDAN, GOLDA MIER  

and of course GOD.  [Unlike da Vinci’s “Last Supper”, which is contra to a Jewish Passover feast, I have included four women in the’surreal stage painting’: Eleanor Roosevelt (Mary Magdalene), Golda Mier (Sarah) and Barbara Jordan (Ruth).]  They were summoned by “GOD” to ‘fix’ DUBYA’s (Dubyaisms and all) leadership image.  A good politician must have a good image to sell his agenda and to buy his legacy for the world to remember.

Available in paperback and Kindle edition on Amazon.

ASIN: B009KLZD6Q

Mixville
A play in two acts by Thomas M. Kelly.  © 2009

 First of the "Mixville" series.

Thomas Edwin Mix (born Thomas Hezikiah Mix; January 6, 1880 – October 12, 1940) was an American film actor and the star of many early Western movies.  He made a reported 336 films between 1910 and 1935, all but nine of which were silent features.  He was Hollywood’s first Western megastar and is noted as having helped define the genre for all cowboy actors who followed.  Tom Mix was "the King of Cowboys" when the influence of his screen persona was seen in his approach to portraying cowboys.  He created the first “Mixville”.  Such was the influence on the life of JUBAL McCabe.  Are our old cowboy heroes really dead? Not according to Jubal "Tom Mix" McCabe.

Jubal McCabe is a happy-go-lucky, wanna-be cowboy movie star.  As a youngster he was a "little Tom Mix", cleaning out a nest of imaginary outlaws in the family backyard in typical Tom Mix fashion.  Those were the days of the popular dream: to grow up to be like Tom Mix.  His every word intonation and body movements are out of the old western movies of the early 20th century.  Jubal speaks in the dialect and jargon as seen in the onscreen ‘intertitles’ of the ‘silents’ and heard by characters in the ‘talkies’.  He has been building his own “Mixville” in his backyard in the southern California town of Victorville.

Aiyanna (Anna) Eskaminzim is Native American.  Her Jicarilla (hēkəˈrēə) Apache name, ‘Aiyanna’, means ‘eternal blossom’.  Eskaminzim means “big mouth”.  She has the patience of a saint and the psyche of a poet with a “big mouth”.

Darrell (Dare) Honeycutt is an itinerant house painter.  Oklahoma native, with an obvious ‘Okie’ dialect.

"Save yer pennies, kids. Yer in fer another adventure."

Available in paperback and Kindle edition on Amazon.

ASIN: B009L3SG26

Zen and the Art of Making Par

A full-length play in two acts by Thomas M. Kelly.  © 2004

Francis is a thirty-three year old Captain in the United States Marine Corps who will not admit that he suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome. It is common for people who have been traumatized to develop medical and psychological symptoms associated with the experience.

Francis and his wife divorced before he was sent with his Marine unit to Iraq. She, an engineer, was sent by her company to Iraq to rebuild bridges. On her way to the airport just outside Baghdad, she was killed by an improvised explosive devise. On a leave from the Corps for rest and recuperation he travels to Scotland where he has made plans to meet a friend for a round of golf at the birthplace of golf: St. Andrews, the Old Course. His friend sends his regrets. Francis is left at the practice tee where he meets an eccentric old man, Donal'. On the first green they meet Santikaro, a blind East Indian traveler in search of truth.

The happenstance traveler, even though blind, is induced to become Francis' caddie. Santikaro finds fault with each of the two players golf games, and their lives. On the eighteenth green he disappears as nicely as he appeared. They are left to rediscover the way to a meaningful existence.

Available in paperback and Kindle edition on Amazon.

ASIN: B009M5K80G

"Hey, Mom. Tell Rod..."

A play in two acts by Thomas M. Kelly, © 2008

In the city of Seattle, Washington, Rodney and Maggie Smythe receive a message on Rodney's telephone answering machine from Maggie's son Danny by a former marriage, saying "Hey, mom, tell Rod I am coming home, see ya' soon.".  Danny and Rodney, step-son and step-father, have had a strained relationship since Rodney and Maggie were married.  The message sends Rodney and Maggie into hours of arguments, wild goose chases, unanswered questions and dead end situations.  They call airlines and Amtrak to find him and his family on their passenger lists. Unable to find them they decide to drive to the Amtrak Station to meet a train they think may be the one they are on, only to come up empty handed.

While they are off on this wild goose chase, Danny, Angelique and Danny Junior arrive at Rodney and Maggie's home, park their car in the garage and fall into bed exhausted.

Hours later Rodney and Maggie return home exhausted and saddened having not found them at the train station.

On his way to bed Rodney stumbles over the luggage left by Danny in the hallway. They hear a baby crying and decide to bring the "hungry" Danny Junior into the study for a visit. Minutes later Angelique screams from the bedroom. 

Why has Danny left a lucrative position in a large law firm in Los Angeles to return to university?

Available in paperback and Kindle edition on Amazon.

 ISBN: 9781452457789

Liza!

A play in two acts by Thomas M. Kelly, © 2010

Liza!" is an adaptation of "Liza of Lambeth" (1897), 

a novel by W. Somerset Maugham, (1874-1965),

Although I am drunk and bad, be you kind.  

Cast a glance at this heart which is bewildered and distressed. 

 O God, take away from my mind my cry and my complaint.

Offer wine,... and take sorrow from my remembrance.

Offer wine...

The play's action covers a period of roughly four months, from August to November, 1887. Liza Kemp is an 18-year-old factory worker and the youngest of 13 children, now living alone with her aging and incompetent mother. Very popular with all the residents—both young and old—of Vere Street, Lambeth, she cannot really make up her mind as far as her love life is concerned. She very much likes Tom, a boy her age, but when he proposes to her she rejects him ("I don't love yer so as ter marry yer"). Nevertheless she is persuaded to join a party of 32 who make a coach trip (in a horse-drawn coach, of course) to a nearby village on the August Bank Holiday (A bank holiday is a public holiday in the United Kingdom or in Ireland. There is no automatic right to time off on these days, although the majority of the population is granted time off work or extra pay for working on these days, depending on their contract. The first official bank holidays were the four days named in the Bank Holidays Act of 1870) Monday. Some of the other members of the party are Tom; Liza's friend Sally and her boyfriend Harry; and Jim Blakeston, a 40-year-old father of nine who has recently moved to Vere Street with his large family, and his wife (while their eldest daughter, Polly, is taking care of her siblings). The outing is a lot of fun, and they all get, more or less, drunk on beer. On their way back, in the dark, Liza realizes that Jim Blakeston is making a pass at her by holding her hand. After their arrival back home, Jim manages to speak to her alone and to steal a kiss from her.

Seemingly without considering either the moral implications or the consequences of her actions, Liza feels attracted to Jim. They never appear together in public because they do not want the other residents of Vere Street or their workmates to start talking about them. One of Jim Blakeston's first steps to win Liza's heart is to go to a melodramatic play with her on Saturday night. Afterwards, he succeeds in seducing her, although we never learn where they do it... obviously in the open.

But in the end they do "slide down into the darkness of the passage".

When autumn arrives and the nights get chillier, Liza's secret meetings with Jim become less comfortable and more trying. Lacking an indoor meeting place, they even spend their evenings together in the third class waiting room of a railway station. Also, to Liza's dismay, it turns out that people do start talking about them, in spite of the precautions they have taken. Only Liza's mother, who is a drunkard and a very simple sort of person, has no idea what is going on.

Liza's friend Sally gets married, has to stop working at the factory because her husband would not let his wife earn her own money, and soon becomes pregnant. Liza feels increasingly isolated, with Sally being married now and even Tom seemingly shunning her, but her love for Jim keeps her going. They do talk about their love affair though: about the possibility of Jim leaving his wife and children ("I dunno if I could get on without the kids"), about Liza not being able to leave her mother because the latter needs her help, about living somewhere else "as if we was married", about bigamy -- but, strangely, not about adultry.

Available in paperback and Kindle edition on Amazon.

ISBN: 9781452436791

On the Line

A play in two acts by Thomas M. Kelly.  © 2008

This is a play about Timothy 'Timmo' O'Connor O'Leary.   'Timmo' is a street attorney.  He is a sole practitioner because straight out of law school, 40 years ago, he couldn't find anyone who wanted to practice with him. 

"Why?", you ask.  Could it be that he is overweight?  Doesn't make a good physical presentation because he always looks as if he owns one suit (He actually owns two.) and looks as if he'd just awakened from a deep turbulent sleep in it (He did and has for the past week?  Could be.  

His housekeeper, Geraldine, hasn't seen him in over a week.  Otherwise she would have grabbed it and had it cleaned and pressed.  (Or thrown away.)  

Could it be that he drinks too much? Could be. (He always has something near to "warm" him.)  Could it be that he knows more about criminal law (and will tell you so) than any other attorney in town?  Could be. 

Could it be that he knows more about our Constitution and how the protects his client?  Could be. 

 Could it be that he always seems to have but one client at a time?  And that the presiding judges seem to keep him busy as court appointed attorney for the most needy, despite Timmo's eccentricities, his habits, his weaknesses, his dependencies, his attire, his temperament, his character, or is it because no other lawyer would take the case?  You be the judge.

Available in paperback and Kindle edition on Amazon.

 ISBN: 9781452449180

Pawns are but Poor Men

A play in two acts by  Thomas M. Kelly, © 2006

 In the summer of the year 2006, a team consisting of two men and two women discover a serum to stop the aging process for an undeterminable period.  The group knows the power of their discovery:  If the government or the drug industry finds the formula they will either keep the discovery secret or use it to their advantage. The group agrees to test the formula on themselves to prove that it works.  
Although it is a longstanding legal precedent in the United States of America that chess games cannot be copyrighted.  They are a gift to the world composed by the players who played them.  Nevertheless, it is with sincere gratitude that I thank the founders of Chessgames.com for the use of their web site in writing this play. 
Chessgames.com is a combined effort among several south Florida chess players, including Alberto Artidiello, Daniel Freeman, and the talented staff at 20/20 Technologies.  20/20 Technologies, has been providing innovative and custom Internet solutions since 1995. They are dedicated to serving all of your Internet presence needs.  They specialize in web design, graphic design, database development, and custom programming.

Available in paperback and Kindle edition on Amazon.

ISBN: 9781452407302