Scene 2
[A bustling city square; gray, drab lighting; RASKOLNIKOV and MOSIAGA enter from opposite directions. ‘Extras’ wander in and out through the scene, including the 6 MUZHIKs.]
MOSIAGA: “Raskolnikov! It has been ages! What say you?”
RASKOLNIKOV: “Mosiaga—my friend! We are well met—and, yet, I am filled with dire woe!”
MOSIAGA: “No! Woe?!”
RASKOLNIKOV: “Aye, woe!… Such dire and heinous, hurtful woe!”
MOSIAGA: “Ah, yes… dire, heinous, and hurtful… that’s the worst kind to have…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “Tell me why!?—why does God punish me so?!”
MOSIAGA: “The First Noble Truth tells us that all life is suffering…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “Then that explains it—for I have two lives… thus I must suffer twice the woe!”
MOSIAGA: “Two lives?! My friend, explain yourself! Are you sick? Do you have a disease?”
RASKOLNIKOV: “A disease! Yes, yes—though I, myself, am the disease! I am sick of heart—and, most assuredly, sick of mind!”
MOSIAGA: “Oh, assuredly! Assuredly! You’re clearly out of your freakin’ gourd, my comrade!…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “Thank you… you’re so soothing to my troubled heart…”
MOSIAGA: “Yes, your heart—again with your heart… troubled and sick…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “Aye, my friend, such is the source of my woe—the disease I carry is here within me… deep in my chest, beating ever away, pumping the taint of life’s blood throughout my physicality to pollute the very central sphere of being!…” [Whispering.] “And, also—I have been possessed by some infernal spirit!!”
MOSIAGA: “Okay, alright, alright, okay—now, now, just one thing at a time here… you say you have a disease of the heart? Well, that’s no problem whatsoever! They now have a cure for that!”
MUZHIK #1: “Pardon me, but I couldn’t help but hear… they have a cure for what?”
MOSIAGA: “Heart disease!”
MUZHIK #1: “And there’s a cure!? Astounding! I had no idea!”
MUZHIK #2: “No idea about what?”
MUZHIK #1: “This man has a disease—but it can be cured!”
MUZHIK #2: “Praise the Virgin! Who would have thought it?”
MUZHIK #3: “Who would have thought what?”
MUZHIK #2: “This man’s disease… they have a cure!”
MUZHIK #3: “It is a miracle! Why have we not heard of this before?”
MUZHIK #4: “What haven’t you heard?”
MUZHIK #3: “There is a cure for this man’s disease!”
MUZHIK #4: “A cure?! The Tsar be praised!”
MUZHIK #3: “But there no longer is a Tsar…”
MUZHIK #4: “Then praise the Empress Maria (in exile) instead!”
MUZHIK #5: “Huzzah!! The Empress Maria (in exile) be praised instead!… And for what, comrades, do we praise her?”
MUZHIK #4: “This man has a disease!”
MUZHIK #5: “God in Heaven! Help me—quickly—with this pillow, we’ll smother him!”
MUZHIK #4: “No, no, no, you don’t understand—they have found a cure!”
MUZHIK #5: “Halleluiah! A cure! I didn’t understand—but now I do!…”
MUZHIK #4: “Now you understand!”
MUZHIK #6: “Understand what?”
MUZHIK #5: “This man has a disease!”
MUZHIK #6: “Anathema!!”
MUZHIK #3: “But there is a cure!”
MUZHIK #6: “Glory be to God!”
MUZHIK #5: “Glory be!… Now, if you could just help me with this pillow, I—”
MUZHIK #2: “We don’t need the pillow—he’s going to live!”
MUZHIK #1: “There is a cure!”
MOSIAGA: “There is a cure!”
RASKOLNIKOV: “…Well… maybe I just don’t even want your silly, old cure, anyway… did you ever think of that?!”
MUZHIK #6: “Egads, man!”
MOSIAGA: “But why? Why, Raskolnikov?! Why don’t you want to live?”
MUZHIK #5: “If we could just find a good, fluffy pillow… what, what—one here just a moment ago…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “Tell me, then—tell me, Mosiaga Nuninovich—would you want to live if your body was filled with poison!? Tainted! Tarnished with filthy, black, bilious heinousness!”
MOSIAGA: “Well… no, I suppose not… but—the cure…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “I don’t mean the disease…”
MOSIAGA: “Then what?”
RASKOLNIKOV: “I am possessed by an unholy shadow!”
MOSIAGA: “Oh, yes, you did mention something about that…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “It’s true! I know you’ll think me mad—but it’s all true!… The sins I carry on my soul… the defiling debaucheries I have enacted in the consummate corrupting of my corporeity…”
MOSIAGA: “Lovely alliteration, though…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “Thank you…”
MOSIAGA: “But—surely there must be something that can be done… and, anyway, what could be so bad? Aside from your incessant squawking about it, you seem just fine to me…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “That’s because he is sleeping—the spirit within me… he—well… I made suit to the lovely maid Nadia…”
MOSIAGA: “The chick on the balcony a couple of streets over?”
RASKOLNIKOV: “Yes, that’s the one… and… well, it didn’t go so well… so Vronsky—”
MOSIAGA: “That’s the spirit? The name seems familiar…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “Well, no doubt he has possessed others before…”
MOSIAGA: “Ah, yes, that’s probably it…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “So Vronsky poured tremendous amounts of vodka into me, and then threw me to the lions!”
MOSIAGA: “But this is Russia! There are no lions here…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “I was speaking metaphorically… in reality, he threw me to the whores!!”
MOSIAGA: “I see… but, I have to tell you, I can think of worse fates…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “Oh, but they were so… so… unrelenting!… And thorough!… And then my… well—you know…”
MOSIAGA: “Your… ‘little tsar’?”
RASKOLNIKOV: “Exactly! My little tsar retracted into me, and refused to be coaxed back out!”
MOSIAGA: “As if Ivan VI, locked away in the Schlusselberg Fortress…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “Well, I actually thought more of Peter III at Ropsha…”
MOSIAGA: “Yes, but the Ivan VI scenario is imbrued, as well, with the debilitation of sanity suffered from a life of imprisonment, so—”
RASKOLNIKOV: “Ah, yes, the debilitation of sanity—that’s very true… I was looking at it from the point of view of a deposed tsar—whereas Ivan VI never actually ruled… but, yes, I have to agree that yours is the better analogy… butanyhoo…”
MOSIAGA: “So your monkey don’t shine no more, hey?”
RASKOLNIKOV: “Oh, but such is merely the birth of my woes!”
MOSIAGA: “Really?!… You’re a very complex fellow…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “I have many levels…”
MOSIAGA: “Apparently…. Okay, so your schmecky wouldn’t yoo-hoo!… then what?”
RASKOLNIKOV: “Vronsky dragged us to a priest—and forced the holy father to perform transubstantiation on my little tsar…”
MOSIAGA: “And he did this because…?”
RASKOLNIKOV: “So that—oh, God have mercy!—so that it would always rise again! Woe upon woe upon woe! My penis is the body of Christ!!”
MOSIAGA: “Praise be to your penis!”
RASKOLNIKOV: “And also to yours.”
MOSIAGA: “But that’s really bloody awful!…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “I know! I know! How could he have done such a thing?!”
MOSIAGA: “Yeah, well, that, too—but I was actually referring to the joke in the writing itself… that’s pretty bad…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “Yeah… but the author believes you’ve got to use up the easy ones, too…”
MOSIAGA: “Ah, yes… I guess I can see that… still—oh, well, nevermind. What were we saying?”
RASKOLNIKOV: “My penis is the incarnation of God on Earth…”
MOSIAGA: “That’s right! Would that make your testes like apostles?”
RASKOLNIKOV: “And I’ve now cured 40 sluts and 40 whores from the clap—merely by giving them what’s-what!”
MOSIAGA: “Yikes!! You’ve got to be kidding me…!”
RASKOLNIKOV: “If only I were… but I filled them all with the blood of Christ—literally!”
MOSIAGA: “You mean instead of…? …Kinky!”
RASKOLNIKOV: “Wrought with the divine and carnal ecstasies of my accosting of them!”
MOSIAGA: “Accosting, hey? So with every five you’d have a Pentecost!”
RASKOLNIKOV: “Oh, no, now, you see—that was truly bad…”
MOSIAGA: “Okay, alright… that really was pretty bad… but you’re still the guy pissing through God…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “What can I do, Mosiaga? The holy rite of transubstantiation cannot be undone!”
MOSIAGA: “And that guy with the pillow probably wouldn’t be much help…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “I am lost!”
MOSIAGA: “…what if…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “What if what? Tell me if you have a solution!”
MOSIAGA: “Well, it’s just that… what if you… you know—nailed it to a board?…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “Hmm… hmmm… I think perhaps this has gone on far enough. Perhaps best to just stop now…”
MOSIAGA: “HA!—it’s gone on too far already! You might as well see where it all ends up—you’re already going to Hell…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “Indeed.”
MOSIAGA: “Though, I suppose it’s safe to say, your penis will be saved…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “Oh! I hadn’t thought of that—but I suppose you’re right… my penis should still go to Heaven…. I wonder, will it grow little wings and a halo? Perhaps learn to play the harp?…”
MOSIAGA: “Yeah, I don’t know… maybe best to just move on to Scene 3…”
RASKOLNIKOV: “Oh, undoubtedly, undoubtedly…”
[Both exit in opposite directions.]
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