Plays – helgé

Subject: excerpt from Masters of Ceremony (1985)

(front of stage are 4 large black hats of different shapes, and three black card semicircle cut-outs which, when worn around the neck, make a cone-like effect around the head. These are worn by MC’s 1,2,3,4, who enter wearing black and grey spangled tights. The following sequence is performed to intricate movements and lifts, awkward positions and straining stances….)M.C. A man come to me the other day and said:
I have fought. I have fought with everything that I have….
and I have lost.
I have loved and I have lost…he said.

M.C. I have loved and I have lost, he said.

M.C. A man came to me the other day and said…
Oh god….I need a fuck…..I need a fuck so badly.
Do you fuck? he asked.

M.C. Do you fuck he asked.

M.C. I fear. I fear so badly at times that I just want to cry
in exasperation he said…..
I fear what others will think he said.

M.C. I fear what others will think he said.

M.C. Why do i fear taking a stand he said..

M.C. I am sick to death of being thought of as a woman, a woman said

….something which procreates, something to fuck she said…..

M.C. Something to fuck she said…

M.C. I’m tired of men, she said…the way they always hound you.
The way they always expect you to behave in a certain way
because they are behaving in a certain way…
to always want sex….she said..

M.C. To always want sex she said…

M.C. Always having to perform they make such lousy lovers she said…

so inhibited she said…frightened to move their arse…she said..

M.C. Always after the sex object….the quick response
not quite making it she said..

M.C. Not quite making it she said.

M.C. And men never stop thinking about it…..about homosexuality..

he said….its always there hovering beneath their eyes he said…

M.C. Its always there hovering beneath their eyes he said..

M.C. Whenever they meet another male they think:
is this one queer he thought…

M.C. Is this one queer he thought.

M.C. And the queer threw up at the thought of that…

M.C. I fear he said…I fear that what I need to experience with you
may never happen, he said…

M.C. It may never happen he said…

M.C. It may never happen because of your inhibition he said.

M.C. His hand touches my shoulder and my entire body touches his hand….

M.C. Its all very clever he said…cocks and cunts…its all very clever he said.

M.C. Its all very clever he said…

M.C. but does it all end there he said.

M.C. But women think they’ve got you when you want them…
so we mock sex he said..

M.C. So we mock sex he said.

M.C. What do you know about love…love..he said.
I have loved and I have lost he said.

M.C. I have loved and I have lost he said.

M.C. And I give and give and give….and she wants more and more and more
and more and more he said…she cannot get enough he said..

M.C. She cannot get enough he said.

M.C. When we’re alone everything changes..when you and I are alone together
….everything changes.
Why is that?
Why are things so different
when we’re alone together?
Why does the presence of other people
change our exchange?

M.C. When we’re alone everything seems to vanish..our identities seem
to rest on how others see us…

M.C. I am trying to make the reality of being alone
as equal to the reality of not being alone…

M.C. Why do you never look at me….look at me…when we’re alone?

M.C. Because your eyes…your eyes want to devour me..
your eyes…so blue…I could fall in love with your eyes…
but they seem to want to devour me…
what am I NOT giving you?
What is it that I cannot give you?

M.C. I want you inside of me…I want you inside of me all of the time…
I never want you to let me go..
I want you to want me all of the time..
I want you permanently inside of me..
I want you to give me your soul….your soul…

M.C. I cannot give you everything because I cannot give you enough
you leave me nothing for myself..
my soul…my soul
you already have my soul
and you don’t even know it!

M.C. And your eyes, so dark, so deep,
hiding even darker thoughts
under tangled masses of dark dark hair..

M.C. Do you know what love is?
I often think I do and just when I think I do
it vanishes..
Its more like a memory than a reality.

M.C. Its more like a memory than a reality.

M.C. Sweep me away…
you always sweep me away..
I never know what time of day or night it is..
time disappears…
reality changes..
something fills me in..
we are travelling through fields of turquoise green
on a night so pitch dark that our skin glows
and we
like fire flies in this forgotten age
soar on…

M.C. Lets loosen ourselves from what others think of us!

M.C. All the worlds

and

M.C. all the worlds

within

M.C. all the worlds

ALL: AN ALL OVER WORLD!

This (is an excerpt) was first performed as a solo piece to advertise my solo play BLOOD
which premiered at the Community Arts Workshop – 1988

I’m looking for my country

There is money here, and naiveté,
mix the two together and you get a manufactured culture.

There is also rubble and a puddle, and there is a huddle
of people, but somewhere, somewhere there is a country.

Take the trees, don’t mind the bees, ignore the news,
that building gets put into a muddle, the lines get red between,

but I’m just looking for my country.

The white boys confuse their mission,

the white girls are taking it all for granted.
Put up a no entry sign. Turn right, turn left,
turn right turn left turn right turn left –
someone screamed too loud or too late,
someone chose, leaving me to pick up the pieces.
The car load shattered into a million reasons.
When the left explodes its called the ANC.

When the right explodes all I see are shards of Hitler
and festers of ignorance, and then the deafening
deafening silence….and yet those who think get blamed

for causing the conscience to collide
but I’m just looking for my country.
That man is quite sick, he looks quite healthy but

on closer inspection his heart is a sickening shade of yellow.
My pillow gets wet from all these tears the years are turning into

coagulation and yes your dress is a mess
but I’m just looking for my country.
No no no no no nono no I don’t mind what language you speak
just speak the same language as me, if only you’d, throw your mind
far enough – all over the world there are people with problems
but the key, the key has been to open the mind, not shut it in his face
his race is mixed, and black and any other colour but that’s no sweat,
hems going to win the race –
don’t you want to know what’s going on because
I’m just looking for my country.
Take the winners and losers, don’t think twice – we think weave paid
the price but it looks like they want us to pay more for their
patience has been running thin and the drums beat in the distance of your heart
and you start to pay no attention did anybody mention

there was a country here looking for me?

That black man over there, he should be ahead and that man over
there hems lost his crutch not much to be done I’m afraid to date
nothing much has been happening that’s going to make me take off
although I never thought I would live to see the release
of the worlds most famous prisoner instead I land with a screech
about who is killing who, not much building to be done today

but didn’t I say that I was looking for my country?
The west they say is confused with some kind of a test, the rest
are headed towards some kind of a plague scare-mongering in a way
that would make any monkey wear a sheath the age of count the
cost is upon us, the new shall sweep away the old even though
they act so bold but out there somewhere, is a country waiting
for the break. Waiting for the information. Waiting for the new
generation. Take me, he she, it, they, theirs, those these them I,
I’ve waited quite a long while now and the cloak gets heavier and
someone is switching off all the lights, the darkness never scared me
though, I have my own light. Tonight, tonight, I wish I would fall in
love love love love, but that glove you’re wearing is so old its cold
Hey, didn’t somebody say there was a country here?
Pray, I’ve heard them say that we should pray
but then someone went and blamed the lack of ozone on an
aerosol can and clean forgot to protest about the atomic contest
and I wonder whose money was invested – this large Zoo has me tongue
tired and then someone went and tied our hands behind our backs
and the tracks were washed away in the floods.

Blood, blood flows thicker than water in any colour. Mother mother,
I’m still just looking for my country.

Help me help me, don’t just stand there,
throw a cartwheel, place a bet or just get the hell out of here

or else Ill tell the world on you I could go to hell for you,
in fact Ill get a hard on for you if you’ll just stay and play

with some kind of real intent, not thinking of what to take

but rather trying to make something out of it, this centre
which cannot hold, like a camel on the tip of an iceberg,

like a beast that cannot beast.

And I’m just looking for my country.

And who told you to think for yourself, huh?

You want to be a rebel too….they make it that easy –
but don’t go thinking that it is easy or how about being like
one of those university lecturers who seem to think that anarchists
come in package deals? The truth is hard to come by, reality is in

short supply and just try, just try and stop them making bombs…

but I’m just looking for my country.
And then he likes to play dead
just when you think he’s coming alive
and he hides in the closet and pretends to be alert
Who inverted him with a girlfriend under one collar and a surfboard under
the other boot – now he’s ready for any beach south of the boarder
but his mommy likes it this way although his daddy isn’t too sure
as he tries to remember with effort the passport to heterosex
but the ball got lost trying to decide which way to bounce
an ounce or a pound of your flesh will pay for yet another crime that breeds
pestilence but once there was a way but
he still seems to think that every love song is about him….

Category Archives: Plays

Excerpt from: Masters of Ceremony

I’m Looking For My Country