Half a Person

A Monologue by Terence Smith

Music: "Half a Person" by The Smiths (30 secs.)
As the music plays, performer enters with a suitcase. Looks around. Places it on the floor, opens it and removes a large poster. Takes it to the back-wall window shutters, and un-rolls it to reveal a picture of Morrissey. Pins it high on the window shutters. Returns to the suitcase.

THE MUSIC: "Call me morbid, call me pale
I've spent six years on your trail
Six long years
On your trail.
Call me morbid, call me pale
I've spent six years on your trail
Six full years of my life
On your trail.
And if you have five seconds to spare
Then I'll tell you the story of my life."

NARRATOR [addresses audience]: Half a Person. By Mr. Stephen Patrick Morrissey. Affectionately known to the 80s generation as Mozza. [Adopts forlorn pose.] The pose: like so. [Removing flower from suitcase.] The props: a bunch of flowers--daffadils or gladioli--to show: this is a gentle soul. [Creating quiff with imaginary mirror in hand.] A quiff that reaches for the sky, to show: this is a dreamer. [Removes glasses from suitcase and puts them on ceremoniously.] And the glasses--thick and ugly--with a band aid wrapped round the rim, to show: these are reflections from a damaged life. The attitude: morose. Oh. So. Morose. [Closing suitcase.] You're just another person in the world. You're just another fool with maddening views. You want to turn it on its head by staying in bed. [Sings] I said: I know I do. [Speaks] Yes. I, was a tortured teen.

AMY LAMÉ: Duckie, London's premiere Saturday night pop and performance gay club, presents: "I Dream of Morrissey," the first, ever, gay and lesbian Morrissey convention. The quiff-coiffed Mancunian Mr Stephen Patrick Morrissey will be immortalized in performance and music: Hear Tina C's country and western cover of "The Queen is Dead" and dance to discs spun by Readers' Wives. Pay homage to the man and the myth who transcends sexuality and inspires devotion, passion and scrutiny from hordes of gay men and lesbians, in this dreamy one-off club night. Come, and indulge your obsession with your hostess [indicates herself] Miss Amy Lamé. Plus: turn into Morrissey for a night with Morrissey karaoke, Morrissey make-overs, and miserablist poetry workshops. 18th July, 8pm, Institute of Contemporary Arts Theatre, Pall Mall, London. Tickets £7, £5 members and concessions. Glasses and gladioli included.

NARRATOR: And so, the transformation began. Everybody entered, looking different. When everybody left, they looked the same. At the height of the night, Amy Lame, founder of Duckie and media superstar, addresses the troops.

Up to podium. Creates "microphone." AMY LAMÉ displays. Tap-tap. Pose.

AMY LAMÉ: Are you having a good time? [Holds out microphone to receive reply, hand cupped against ear. Pose.] Can I just say . . . [Aside] The accent's supposed to be Canadian [To the troops] . . . That the reason. I emigrated. To England. Was because. Of Morrissey. [Step to side. Adoration of Morrissey poster above her. Performer circles stage as audience, clapping and cheering.] Raptuous applause. [Performer back on podium. Nodding. To microphone] Ladies [pose] and oh so gentlemen [hand on heart] I . . . [propose] have a dream.

NARRATOR: Meanwhile, not too distantly, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, was sleeping, soundly. Nay, regally. . . [Waving to crowds in her sleep] Majestically. . . Britanically . . . As only a queen can. Attended--by corgies--at her feet. [Corgie bites.] And guards, at her gate: patrolling. Sternly, but with a casual air, from duties seldom called upon, to perform. [Smiling.] Little did they know.

By now, the party was over, and had spilt out onto the pavements of Pall Mall. People hovered about. Sweaty. And tired. Our quiffs were sagging; gladioli, wilting. When out she came. Amy Lamé. Looking fabulous as ever. [Aside] You could hardly tell the evening had taken its toll.

The crowd, rowdy at first. A buzzing swarm of fanatical freaks. But then, still.

AMY LAMÉ proposes again.

AMY LAMÉ: Okay people, listen up. Here's what we're going to do . . .

AMY LAMÉ's proposal turns into an archer's bow pointing at the audience.

NARRATOR: And so we set off. [Arrow fired, turns into building of a swarm. With both hands, as if riding a horse.] Marching, moving, as one, along the pavements of Pall Mall. Line after line of bespectacled quiffs. An army of Mozzas on the move. Gladioli, dragged at first, then held aloft, in communal devotion. A higher community of intoxication, having forgotten how to walk and talk, knowing only to sing, those songs, as only the fanatical can. Wave after wave they came. Our bedraggled yet happy band of miserablist revellers. So many; I did not think there were so many. Amy Lamé, resplendent, leading the troops. The Queen Bee holding court, her minions amassed beside her. We swarmed down Pall Mall.

Performer arches arms over head, turning round towards back-wall windows (the shutters of which are closed). As if doing a butterfly stroke, surges forward.

NARRATOR: Until, at last, we reached our goal. [Hesitant steps towards the windows.] The point where Pall Mall opens up. To reveal. In all its splendour [rushes up to back windows, throws open shutters to let in bright light outside. Moving back from them slowly, with back to audience, bowing deeply with flourishes]: Buckingham Palace.

NARRATOR [Having reached audience, still with back to them. Over shoulder, aside to audience]: Built for the boyfriend of James I.

NARRATOR: The swarm holds back at the magnitude of our impending treason. As we behold the silent halls of seriousness, [with hand, indicating] crowned by a flag fluttering in the night-time breeze, a hush descends among us [hand falls gently to side].

NARRATOR: At that moment, as we contemplated the absurdity of the archaic remenants of Feudalism before us, [head tilts to one side] the palace guards surveyed the scene of a sea of Morrissey lookalikes. [Double-take.] A queer sight indeed.

With one hand, held out to them, drawn back to chest.

NARRATOR: They see us.

With other hand, drawn from chest out to them.

NARRATOR: We see them.

NARRATOR: Knowing us to be guided by some higher purpose, we take this to be provocation. And a small band breaks away--the avant garde--to inspire the assembled masses.

NARRATOR: I -- [rushes forward and leap up onto the windows, as if to jump out] -- leap up, onto the palace gates. [Aside up to ceiling]: We all need something to hold on to. [Back to narration] To be followed by another; three, four, five. Of course, there were casualties. Some fell. . . [Falls to the floor.] Only to be replaced, at once, by another. [Tumble round and leap back up onto window.] All with quiffs. All with glasses: thick and ugly, with a band aid wrapped round the rim. The pose? Like so. Swinging from the bars of the gates of Buckingham Palace. [Swing from left to right, holding on to centre of window.] The props? Gladioli, held aloft: a baton to conduct the assembled chorus. The press, photographers from the music magazines, knowing that the first, ever, gay and lesbian Morrissey convention, was a once in a lifetime media event, buzzed round us like flies. Tonight, her Royal Majesty is to be serenaded. By several hundred intoxicated, queer, Morrissey clones. With their rendition, of that Morrissey favourite they all know a little too well: The Queen is Dead.

NARRATOR [Sings]: And so I broke into the palace,
With a sponge and a rusty spanner.
[Moving down, towards audience.]
She said: Eh, I know you
And you cannot sing.
I said: That's nothing,
You should hear me play piano.

NARRATOR: There is, of course, an epilogue to this collective drama. [Sits on suitcase.] As I sat on the night-bus, slinking back to the suburbs, the cultic symbols--gladioli and glasses--were meaningless. [Discards flower, removes glasses] And the claims of reality made themselves felt. The flag was at half-mast, so she probably wasn't home. And the State, after all, was not overthrown.

[Standing, proud] But I. Got my picture in the paper.

NARRATOR: My transformation, though, from tortured teen to media celeb., was incomplete. [Slowly up to the window again.] The photo that rests. In the immortal annals of media mythology. [Closing the shutter with the Morrissey poster on it so that it conceals half of the performer.] Shows me. As half a person.

Music: "The Queen is Dead" by The Smiths. Fades out.

The End.