THE STORY: Amid fanfares and popping flash bulbs, two diplomats (A and B) meet to engage in a bout of international bargaining. Their rapid-fire dialogue, while composed largely of outlandish doubletalk and windy pronouncements, has chilly overtones of the “real thing,” as do their inevitable disagreement and estrangement. Angrily they tear apart the treaty they have signed, and turn their backs on one another. Sirens wail, guns rattle, and then a cosmic-sized explosion—followed by a sudden, heavy silence. In the stillness B stalks off the stage, but then a bird twitters, gentle music plays, and A begins to move to its rhythm, retrieving the pieces of the torn treaty. Another moment passes, the sound of an approaching airplane, and then B reappears, dispatch case at the ready. They shake hands, patter again through the trite preliminaries, and then launch into still another round of pretentious gibberish, while mankind holds its collective breath at the outcome.
A remarkable excursion into the Theatre of the Absurd, the play is a mercilessly funny spoof of modern power diplomacy and the sorry (and perilous) results which this so often yields.
Included in the collection
Little Brother: Little Sister and Out of the Flying Pan.
