BUKOWSKI IN HELL --A One Act Play

I wrote this one-act in 2002. It's never been produced and I doubt ever will be, because there's a certain moratorium by the Bukowski Estate on Bukowski related works.


This play, employing a non-realistic treatment, attempts to offer a look at some of Charles Bukowski's inner struggles and triumphs.
--candycrier

CHARACTERS:

Charles "Buk" Bukowski--Internationally famous Los Angeles poet and writer (1920-1994)

Douglas Fraser--an anti-Bukowski critic

Woman--One of Bukowski's vengeful, jealous lovers

Young Poet--A hopeless wannabee hanger-on(voice only)

Maria Gonzales--former acquaintance of Douglas 's with spiritual powers (voice only)

Racetrack Announcer--(voice only)

The Devil--an actual Devil with horns and tail

An Archangel--complete with wings


Setting: A cavernous plateau in Hell. There are constantly flashing illuminations and flickering shadows from the fiery (unseen) pits surrounding the plateau as well as a muted roaring from the pits. There is a kind of stairs of stones leading up to a circular trap door in the ceiling.This trap door is the conduit for the transfer of food and other necessities and a channel of communication with others. The total scenic effect should be similar to something in the deep dark bowels of the Carlsbad Caverns, complete with a few hanging stalactites, and a disturbing aura of ominous enclosure.

AT RISE: BUKOWSKI is seated on a step of the stairs near the top,marking a folded paper of some sort. DOUGLAS, his Hell-mate, sits on a step near the bottom, writing in a tablet. The two men are dressed in light, casual dun-colored clothes, T-shirts slacks. Their feet can be bare and dirty.


                   BUKOWSKI IN HELL


DOUGLAS: (so loud it might pop the ears of the front row audience)
Bukowski!

BUK: Christ! You're almost as loud as me!

DOUGLAS: I'm working on it.
(as BUK reaches the bottom steps)
What do you think of this poem?
(hands him the tablet)

BUK:(reading, smirking) Not enough swear words. This is piffle. No guts. No moxie.
(passes tablet back)

DOUGLAS: I know it's a long way from your style which I honestly admire now, despite all those critical articles I wrote about you in life.You're Poet Laureate of Hell and I'm only trying to do penance now in your honor...atone for defamation of character. I'll send it up to God. Maybe God will like it.

BUK: God likes everything. Health, disease, earthquakes, floods, sunshine, the whole ball of wax. Sometimes I think he's worse than the Devil.

DOUGLAS: Because the Devil at least distinguishes good from bad?

BUK: You could say that. And speaking of good and bad, this horse (tapping his paper)Mirabelle. Great workouts and debuts with a new trainer. Gotta keep in practice case we get sprung up out of here one day.

DOUGLAS: Up to the Pearly Gates?

BUK: I'd settle for The Starting Gates. The only Heaven I know.

DOUGLAS: Santa Anita here we come! I'm sure the Devil thought we'd have torn each other's eyes out by now.

BUK: He should have known I don't pick on puny weaklings like you, Douglas. Even though your critical articles set my career back fifteen years! ..."Bukowski" and I quote for your words still run cold in my blood , "is a poet of the streets, of lavatories , of cold, alienating barrooms, a corrupter of morals with a command of the English language equal to that of a 7th grade drop-out."

DOUGLAS: Wow! Where was I going with that? It all sounds so foreign to me now.

BUK: Don't be a smart ass. My face might not be the most beautiful in the world, but you helped smash some of these ugly contours into it with such short-sighted words.

(SOUNDS ARE HEARD OFF--Shuffling footsteps, incoherent babbling and a vague screeching or squeaking)

DOUGLAS: Bolt the door! More torturers!

(he  drops tablet, BUK his paper)

(BUK races up the steps, stops, listens)

BUK: I hear squeaking. It must be the coffee cart with our caffeine fix.

DOUGLAS:(slouches on lower step in typical Bukowski
gross posture)
How I hate that cold, cold coffee!

BUK: At least we have that in common, Douglas.

(noticing his slovenly posture)

Sit up straight. Don't strike a Bukowski pose.Imitation in your case is the sincerest form of contempt. Christ! I loved scalding hot coffee! Never could get a buzz unless mine was scalding.

DOUGLAS: You would have liked Maria's coffee. When she opened the spigot on her catering truck and everyone who worked at the Atlantic Bloody Monthly, as you call it,  gathered round for a joe, the hot steaming liquid poured into our cups with the promise of burning our tongues for days after. And Maria...

BUK: Stop right there!That's all I hear lately. Maria this, Maria that.Maria, gourmet chef forced to cook run of the mill hamburgers in her catering truck, Maria  the mystic,  Maria the unacknowledged saint, Maria the mistress of seances, Maria ...

(strong pounding on the trap door) (DOUGLAS uncoils from his Bukowski slouch and stands)

(pounding intensifies)

BUKOWSKI: O.K. O.K.!!
(looks up towards trap door, yells) It better be hot!

(BUK lifts trap door to the mad scramble of sharp,long painted nails of female hands wrestling with his head and hair as he valiantly fights them off till the hands clutch a tuft of his hair , directing all his movements into a violent twisting  motion as if manned by a berserk puppeteer)

WOMAN: (above door, off stage)
I'm gonna tear every limb of your body apart, Bukowski. I'm gonna tear you to pieces you no good cheating bastard!

(She twists his hair,  forcing his head into a painful position as she rants on:)
You pretended to know so much about women, their inner being, their wants, needs, feelings. You even said you could be a woman you knew them so well. OK Prove it. Menstruate!

(she gives his hair a sharp yank)

BUKOWSKI: OW!

WOMAN: Prove it!

(she gives his hair another mean pull)

BUKOWSKI: OW! I can't. I'm pregnant. Aw ha ha ha.
Could I help it if you were insanely jealous? I screwed every woman I could because you drove me to it. I had to get away from you and your violent rages. Even in Hell I kiss every girl I can find in my dreams.

WOMAN: Wrong word, writer. Rape!

(she smashes door down, barely missing his head)

(there is a long pause while both men try to digest this outburst)

DOUGLAS: Love is a dog from hell.

BUK: Mind your own damn business, Douglas.

DOUGLAS: There's some Hellish law says I can't mention the title of one of your books?

BUK: At least put some emotion into it. That wouldn't have earned you even a glass of water at a stupid poetry reading. I want to hear a feisty growl!

DOUGLAS: (getting it right)
Love is a dog from hell!!

YOUNG POET (off stage)
(reciting)
"Hell hath no fury like that of a woman scorned--" or a struggling poet rebuffed by his idol..."

BUK: Christ! It's that untalented poet who was always pestering me to get him published. Used to prowl outside my door in the midnight hours pleading for me to open the door so he could read me his drivel, even a few times threatening to take a crap in the bushes if I didn't open my door and let him use the toilet.

BUK:(suddenly in a rage at DOUGLAS) You published him--Peter Holmes-- in a summer issue of your Atlantic Bloody Monthly.And panned my book in the very same issue!

DOUGLAS: Poor judgment on my part. Your poetry is just like us conversing. To hear you talk is to listen to one of your poems. No difference there at all. Once I asked myself, is this poetry?It's just plain every man talk. Not poetry. But I realize now..

YOUNG POET: (off stage ) Buk! Hey! I've got another poem. I'm gonna read it.It's a beauty , baby. Hey! Can you hear me?

BUK: Jesus! (grabbing DOUGLAS by the collar) and month after month you'd return my stuff penned in honest toil and blood!

(then gives him a shove almost off the steps)

DOUGLAS: (boiling now but trying to control it) Maybe if you had excised all those fucks and shits and...I was only doing my job, asshole!

BUK: Who you calling an asshole?

DOUGLAS: You, asshole!

(BUK slugs him. They fight fiercely for awhile)


....to be continued soon in next post