CAST OF CHARACTERS
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW (Jenin [Landore])
ALISON, his WIFE (Sa Femme)
The PARISH PRIEST (Le Curé)
ADSO, Novice to the Parish Priest (Le Clerc)
PRODUCTION NOTES
The Farce nouvelle très bonne et fort joyeuse de la résurrection de Jenin Landore à quatre personnaiges (RBM, #24) appears in ATF, 2: 21–34—again, paginated but without verse numbers. It was first published in Paris by Nicolas Chrestien between 1547 and 1557, sometime after Johnny Palmer (#8), but the play itself is older (RF, 11: 25n; FFMA, 4: 119). Indeed, when Tissier reedited and translated it into modern French, correcting some thirty errors in the ATF along the way (RF, 11: 19–58; FFMA, 4: 114–28), he placed its date of composition between 1511 and 1512. Contemporaneous with Pierre Gringore’s Prince des Sots, this was a historical moment that coincided with the Wars of Religion pitting the French Louis XII against Pope Julius II, whom the former longed to depose (RF, 11: 25–29; FFMA, 4: 119). I know of no English translation of our play of 242 octosyllabic verses; but helpful plot summaries are provided by Petit de Julleville (RTC, #182, 228), Faivre (Répertoire, #148, 380–81), and Delepierre (DLU, 45–46).
Plot
It’s Easter again, as in The Con-Man’s Confession (#1) and Highway Robbery (#3), and—lo and behold!—he has risen. No, not Him. It’s “Jenin Landore,” drinker, player, all-around funny man, and the literal “April Fool” of the play’s overarching joke (§ “Language”). But, unlike Johnny Palmer (#8), this Every-John has returned not from below but from above, with a quick stop in Purgatory for drunkenness (RF, 11: 38n). He brings with him, moreover, a vivid account of the hellacious politics of Paradise which rivals that of some of the feistier moralités of the Recueil La Vallière (Beck, Théâtre et propagande). Newly endowed with “wit and science” (as in John Redford’s sixteenth-century play by that name), our resurrectee’s got “know-how” (science; 2: 28), to wit: a Platonic combo of skill, technique, and “technology” (technē) to be demonstrated by an unholy trinity of skills. Johnny knows how to shut women up, to read palms, and to make himself invisible.1 Now you see Him; now you don’t. Papa’s got a brand-new bag. Of tricks.
Although this is certainly not the first joker’s-eye view of the afterlife,2 Johnny’s Paradise features an otherworldly death match in which the patron saints of Rome, Venice, France, and Spain (Peter, Mark, Dennis, and James, respectively) vie for their farcical slices of heaven.3 The Swiss and the Germans have sent in mercenaries too (2: 25); while Saint George of England looks on cautiously from the sidelines. And quelle coincidence! When Louis XII took up arms against Pope Julius II, he was supported militarily by the Swiss and, later, by the Venetians and the Spanish (FFMA, 4: 119). Also present are many of the battle-players catalogued in Isidore of Seville’s seventh-century Etymologies, a kind of performance studies avant la lettre complete with warriors and equestrians, drinkers and gamblers, card and dice players, comic and tragic actors (bk. 18; ROMD, 77–89). But something—or someone—is lost in the scuffle, be it Johnny, the protagonists, the author(s), or the copyist(s). Predictably for farce, everything is backward in a proto-Seinfeldian land of opposites. Saint Christopher is on horseback and Saint Martin on foot when, iconographically speaking, it should be the opposite (2: 27; RF, 11: 46n). Saint Benedict is walking around with a blackbird (a demon in disguise), which he should have normally shooed away with the sign of the cross (RF, 11: 39–48). Saint Paul, who was decapitated in Rome, is the decapitator of Saint Dennis (2: 24; RF, 11: 40n); and the peaceful Saint Francis of Assisi is whacking people right and left.4 Meanwhile, at the feet of the “Archangel” Michael is no neutralized Devil but a “hot babe” (2: 24); while San Lorenzo, the patron saint of cooking, is doing the roasting instead of being roasted (2: 25; RF, 11: 42n; below, § “Sets and Staging”). Plus, check out who is not Heaven-sent. There are no lawyers in Heaven, that is: no procureurs (prosecutors), no avocats (lawyers), no plaideurs (litigators), no sergens (bailiffs or police), and no rhetorical imperative to forsake physical arms in favor of verbal mediation (ROMD, 89–110). Even Saint Yves has failed to sneak through Johnny’s Pearly Gates when, apocryphally, Yves was the only lawyer to make it into Paradise (RF, 11: 47n; FFMA, 4: 312n). It all makes for some fine, self-deprecating Basochial humor akin to a contemporary lawyer joke like this one: An attorney arrives in Heaven, only to see that the Pope is lodged in the equivalent of a Motel 6. Saint Peter explains: “We have over a hundred Popes up here, but we’ve never had a lawyer.”5
For Petit de Julleville, Johnny Slack-Jaw was an undramatic if “nicely rhymed” satire (RTC, 228); and, for Faivre, it was conventional (Répertoire, 380). I submit, however, that it’s a dazzling farcical monde à l’envers in which the very “Harrowing of Hell” is turned upside down as a “Harrowing of Heaven.”6 Sacrilegiously, Palm Sunday morphs into palm reading (2: 29), communion wine into wine-tasting (2: 22), and a former stiff demands a stiff drink (2: 21). But, from Plato to Rabelais, there is truth in wine—aided here by a pun on voire (“truth” or “true”) and voirre (“glass”) (2: 21–22). In vino veritas. In farsā veritas? Truth will out this side of Paradise, starting with the same question asked by our previous play: Was Johnny ever really there? Or, in the immortal words of R.E.M., was it all “just a dream, just a dream”? Can Johnny be both dead and buried (ensepvely; 2: 21) and, at the same time, per the RBM woodcut, lying in repose (Figure 4)? Yes, he can. It turns out that ensevelir denotes both “to bury” and “to wrap in a shroud,” which permits Tissier’s ingenious resolution of a pun that also works in English (RF, 11: 25–27; FFMA, 1: 120). If Johnny was dead, he was “dead drunk” (ivre mort), only to snap out of his catatonia to perform his resurrection as a parlor trick. How terribly Christlike of Johnny: dead, but not really as he lands the play’s main salvo that Catholic literalism was the big joke.
Once upon a time in Valenciennes in 1547, medieval audiences were said to have witnessed a reprise of the miracle of the loaves and the fishes during a Passion play (Enders, “Performing Miracles”; DBD, chap. 12). Johnny is no Christ figure, and God only knows he isn’t the Pope wearing the shoes of the fisherman. He’s a practical joker and a Christ-impersonator with bigger fish to fry: nowhere more so than in his closing disappearing act. Make way for the miracle of the Fools and the Fishes! And the fishnets (below, § “Language”).
Figure 4. Frontispiece, La Resurrection de Jenin Landore. RBM, #24.
Characters and Character Development
When we enter in medias res, Johnny’s unnamed Wife (here, “Alison,” which I borrow from Chaucer) is weeping for the dearly departed. She’s distraught, hysterical, and histrionic—all with fairly good grammar—and smarter than your average farce-wife. At times, she is borderline regal or aristocratic when addressing her husband with vous. And yet, she is vaguely menacing in her interrogation of the resurrected Johnny, with whom she eventually loses all patience (FFMA, 4: 120). Why not? He’s a pain in the net. Try giving her the upper hand by putting her in fishnet stockings.
With his novice in tow, the Parish Priest (Le Curé) aims to please, albeit less lecherously than Jokin’ Joachim of Johnny Palmer (#8). He’s a pedagogical and theological go-to guy, ready to impart any wisdom necessary for interpreting Johnny’s account of the afterlife. Armed with the vocabulary of scholastic disputation, he clearly relishes his magisterial role, as if presiding at a quodlibetal disputation: questioning during the disputatio and issuing the final intellectual resolution of the determinatio (Enders, “Theater of Scholastic Erudition,” 345–51). Overall, he is relatively polite, if somewhat more casual before the resurrection, courteously employing vous with both Alison and Johnny.
Slyly mirroring any learners in the audience, the Novice (Le Clerc) appears to be a theology student. (Technically, a clericus could be any “instructed” man.) As an homage to Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose, I’ve christened him “Adso,” and he has quite the learning curve. Nearly as chatty as his Master, he intervenes twenty-one times to the Priest’s twenty-four, peppering everybody with questions. Initially, his good manners are very much on display with flowery speech; but, the more he sees, the more curious and uninhibited he becomes, lapsing into tu toward the magical ending. We also know something else about him: like twenty-first-century students, he’s tired and he needs to get some sleep (2: 34). Actors too.
Now enter the title character, for whom all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely straight-men. Consistent with the play’s iconographic befuddlement, if he has returned from anywhere, it’s—“straight as a curved dagger”—from the kingdom of mixed metaphors (tout aussi droit qu’une faucille; 2: 26). Above all, Johnny is hell-bent on being believed as he delivers two-thirds of the play’s dialogue (je vous prometz; certes; par mon serment). Perhaps that’s why he’s such a fast-talker: speed might forestall prosecutorial scrutiny of all the anticlerical zingers. Regardless, the historical present is perfect for the breathless pace of Johnny’s adventures, punctuated “all over” with atout, atout (2: 24), which I’ve rendered with the ubiquitous American like, like, you know, like. He also favors the onomatopoeia of warfare, and his patic, patac (2: 24)—the origin of today’s patati, patata—sounds a lot like the auditory effects of a Batman comic book. But the greatest challenge lies in translating his full name: “Jenin Landore,” a masterpiece of wordplay.
When endeavoring to convince the company that it’s really him, Johnny utters this key but untranslatable line: Si suis-je Jenin par le nez / Et Landore par le menton (2: 23). Literally, it’s “Jenin by the nose and Landore by the chin (or the jaw),” all as the clergy takes one on the chin. But what in heaven’s name does that mean? For the longest time, I’d scripted him as “Long Dong Silver,” which captured the farcical obsession with the lower body, the phallic nose or chin of Mister Johnnyson, the equine nature of “horsing around,” and the trial endured by Anita Hill. But why would a silver-donged devil be recognizable by the nose and the chin? Suspecting more linguistic nonsense, I tried Pig Latin (ig-pay atin-Lay), gibberish (githigee-bithiger-ithigish), and verlan;7 and I hunted for contrepèteries (FF, 43–44), all to no avail. In the end, I stuck with Johnny’s explanation as written: Johnny by a nose (a medieval sign of intelligence [FF, 379; RF, 11: 239n])!8 Cast an actor with an aquiline schnoz and a “nose for wine” (le nez du vin). As for Landore, while it looks a bit like “golden-tongue” (langue d’or), it’s actually a fool, a clown, an “oaf,” or, as in Rabelais’s Pantagruel, a “slow and lazy person who always seems to be nodding off” (CWFR, 524). This fits the exhausted Johnny to a tee (2: 34). He’s a sloth, a slouch-mouth, and a slack-jawed slacker who might be suffering from a hangover (la gueule de bois). Eyes wide open, mouth wide open, all agape for drinking, talking, and farcing around.
Language
As early as Henri d’Andeli’s thirteenth-century send-up of university politics, Plato and Aristotle were going at it in an Isidorian battlefield in the Battle of the Seven Arts (188–95). French ideological warfare had long been cast in blood-drenched militaristic terms; and that is precisely what obtains here. But the primary linguistic feature of The Resurrection of Johnny Slack-Jaw is its prankster’s April-Foolishness, to which this section is devoted.
“April Fool!”—poysson d’apvril!—cries foolish Johnny (2: 31), or, as the French have it, “April Fish!”, and there’s definitely something fishy going on. If, in Johnny Palmer (#8, § “Plot”), tout finit par des boissons—“they all drank happily ever after”—in Johnny Slack-Jaw, tout finit par des poissons: “they all fished foolishly ever after”? Brace yourselves for a lengthy exploration of some of the wackiest intertextual wordplay ever because this whole farce depends on it.9
Why an April fish? Simply put, what the English Second Shepherd’s Play does with sheep, Johnny Slack-Jaw does with fish. And not sheepishly. Easter often falls in April and, sometimes, serendipitously, on April Fools’ Day (as in 1453, 1464 1526, 1537, 1548, etc.). As does fishing season, the time of abundant, easily caught hatchlings. And, most germane of all, the April Fish is related to the holiest of Christological jeux de mots: the acrostic for Jesus’s name. JESUS was the sacred fish (ICHTHUS or ICHTHYS): Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter (“Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior”). But the punning gets even ickier when a particularly symbolic fish gets caught in Johnny’s net. Holy mackerel! It’s mackerel season too (RF, 11: 52–53n), and there are plenty of fish in the See. Plus, a fish by any other name smells just as stinky inasmuch as “mackerel” also connoted “pimp” (macquereau) and “go-between” (entremetteur). That fishiness then sets up a deadly serious but seriously playful spin on the mediatory role of any priest as go-between. In the bender-overworld of Johnny Slack-Jaw, self-indulgent priests are intermediaries between God and man in the same way that pimps are intermediaries. Playing tricks is transformed into turning tricks, just as Joanie used to do in #8, Johnny Palmer (sc. 1). When Johnny puts on his magical mystery show, he’s the middle man par excellence between Earth and Heaven, the ultimate entremetteur-en-scène.
Furthermore, if Valenciennes gave us the miracle of the loaves and the fishes, Johnny Slack-Jaw concentrates on its farcical double: the miracle of the mackerels and magpies. Indeed, our play alludes directly to a piece of dialogue from one of the better-known farces. In For the Birds (HD, #4), the mismatched couple, Connor and Maggie, argue for several hundred verses about a magpie vs. a cuckoo. When you put a magpie in a cage, asks Maggie, what do you teach her to say? What else? Macquereau or “sleazy pimp” (HD, 126–30). In For the Birds, Maggie’s caged Christmas cuckoo triumphs over Connor’s uncaged “Maggie-pie” (HD, 134); in Johnny Slack-Jaw, the winner is Johnny, with a metafarcical, interspecies joke about the Christmas magpie and the Easter Fish. When it comes to fowl-mouthed Christmas birds and stinky, pimped-out April fishes, Johnny Slack-Jaw gives us both fish and fowl. Make that fish and foul. Or fish and fool—all the more so in that, over in Scotland, an April fool is an April “gowk” or “cuckoo” (the British gob or fool). April Fool again! And there’s nothing foolish at all, by the way, about the whole stylistic maneuver, one of best examples of rhetorical transsumptio (metalepsis) I’ve ever seen. Nor, as far as I can tell, about what may well be the first apparent use—far earlier than the seventeenth-century origins posited in the Littré—of poisson d’avril.
Sets and Staging
Given Johnny’s report, the first dramaturgical decision to be made is whether, when, and how to depict the upside-down kingdom of Heaven. This is a Paradise of such compelling linguistic, iconographic, ideological, and theological proportions that it practically begs to be visualized dramaturgically with such a device as the scenic dissolve that follows “I remember it as if it were yesterday.” A mimed sequence might enliven Johnny’s visit to the great thereafter; or the battle royal might be painted on a backdrop.
Next, one must determine where we are when the curtain goes up. At Johnny’s wake, as Figure 4 suggests? It’s a suggestion that appears, moreover, to have influenced Delepierre’s and Tissier’s readings (DLU, 45; FFMA, 4: 121). Both have Johnny bolting upright from wherever his not-really-dead body is lying in repose. But images have been known to lead us astray, as when the title-page image of Marriage with a Grain of Salt memorialized something that never happened in the play (HD, 398–400). I’ve tried something else instead. Have Johnny enter on horseback, for instance, à la Monty Python and the Holy Grail, to interrupt Alison’s lament. Or borrow the cemetery set from At Cross Purposes (FF, #7) and have Johnny about to be laid to rest. The prospect of being buried alive would certainly trigger a resurrection right quick. Or borrow the set from #8, Johnny Palmer, and have him awaken from a bender on the deserted streets after the bars have closed. Better yet, borrow the tavern set of #10, The Pardoners’ Tales (RBM #26 to our play’s RBM #24 with only The Jackass Conjecture in between [#25, HD, #5]).10 For one thing, Johnny is always in high spirits: spirituel means “witty.” For another thing, he employs a tavern metaphor when describing San Lorenzo, who was roasting Swiss (Lansquenets) “on the grill, like they was sausages at a tavern in winter” (2: 25). This is entirely in keeping with a Paradise where, you should pardon the expression, everybody is at lager-heads. Here, then, is my recommendation for how to split the difference: in light of the title character’s need for fishnets for his magic show, stage the action at the docks of a busy port where a sleazy bar is de rigueur. And one last thing: since Johnny will reappear after his disappearing act, have some fun figuring out how he might unveil, un-net, and unknot himself at the denouement, potentially as late as the Statesian curtain call (Great Reckonings, 197–206).
Costumes and Props
Plenty of food and drink should be available, along with all the necessities for at least one game of three-card Monte (decks of cards, rudimentary tables, etc.). Of the utmost importance is the most comically sacrilegious part of Johnny’s costume: his burial shroud, which functions here as a veritable magician’s cape and which can double as a ghost costume (below, note 19). For the big ICHTHUS payoff, fishing rods and large fisherman’s nets are mandatory, filled with as many fake or real crustaceans, fish, and mackerel as the nose can tolerate. If the set is shared with The Pardoners’ Tales, some baby clothes might be present, especially an infant’s bonnet for Johnny’s reference to King Herod’s Slaughter of the Innocents (2: 33). It could then make way for the principal prop of our next play (#10, § “Costumes and Props”). Finally, some instruments might be placed strategically onstage for a closing musical number.
Scholarly References to Copyrighted Materials (in order of appearance and indicated by © within the text)
· “So Long, Farewell.” By Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. ASCAP Work ID: 490089142.
· “Magic to Do.” By Stephen Lawrence Schwartz. ASCAP Work ID: 886449522.
· “Heaven Sent.” Jingle. By Buddy Weed.11
· “How Long?” By J. D. Souther. ASCAP Work ID: 380147929.
· “Oh, Mary, Don’t You Weep.” Spiritual.
· “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag.” By James Brown. BMI Work #1149944.
· “Losing My Religion.” By Robert Baskaran, William Berry, Peter Buck, Michael Mills, John Michael Stipe, and Brian Wakefield. BMI Work #20325189.
[Scene 1]
[Possible opening music]12
[The scene: near a bustling port, where many goods and comestibles are being loaded and unloaded]
ALISON begins [with a song]
Alas! My husband’s come and gone,
my Johnny Slack-Jaw. Woe is me!
My hope, my joy, it’s all gone wrong:
Alas! Alack! He’s come and gone!
No happy mem’ries: just this song.
I’m sad! My heart mourns woefully.
Alas! Alack! He’s come and gone,
my Johnny Slack-Jaw. Woe is me!13
The PRIEST
[Oh miseree, hee, hee, hee, hee!] Even when they were burying him, that drunk was still askin’ a brother for a good stiff one.
ADSO
A stiff one for a stiff! [That’s a good one!]
ALISON
Alas, ’tis true!
The PRIEST
[Ashes to ashes. {He coughs.} Dust to dust.] He died of thirst.
ALISON
You can say that again.
The PRIEST
He sure knew how to knock back a few. Never left a thing in his glass either. Always good till the last drop.
ADSO
In that respect, he was like you, Father. He always enjoyed a good wine-tasting too. And bar-hopping.
ALISON
Oh why, oh why came Death to wrest from me the one I loved so well and take him down? [She teeters.]
The PRIEST
Steady as she goes! [He imitates Johnny’s drunken gait.] Good old joker Johnny? Straight was his gait? Not. [And pass a field sobriety test?] He could barely walk a straight line! Always went down easy.14
[Scene 2]
[Enter Johnny Slack-Jaw, possibly on horseback. From nose to chin, his face is almost entirely covered by his burial shroud as he gallops about the platea.]
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
Bona dies et bonjouribus! Yo! Up there in the peanut gallery! That’s Latin for “God bless.” Now, stand back! stand back! ’cause here I am! here I am! I just been there!
ALISON
[She makes the sign of the cross.] Bless me, Mother, Our Lady of Comfort, Joy, and Getting-Your-Book-into-Print!15 What is this?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
This is your husband!
ALISON
He’s dead! Never have I been so sore afraid!
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
I am dead, yet now have I risen. Sure as I’m standing here.
ALISON
Where’d you say you’ve been?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
In Heaven, [o ye of little—.] Quit lollygaggin’ and check it out! [He tugs on his shroud.] What do you call this? Got my burial shroud and everything! Made a stop in Purgatory too.
ALISON
You are not Johnny Slack-Jaw. I have no idea what you’re doing here.
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
Am too! [He reveals his face.] It’s me! Johnny Slack-Jaw! Snatched from the jawbones of death. So, chin up, honey! The nose knows, and it’s Johnny by a nose! And by the hair of his chinny-chin-chin!
The PRIEST
That’s him, all right.
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
You can say that again!
ALISON
Yeah, well, he’s not laying a hand on me.
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
Oh, the stories I could tell if I felt like opening my mouth.
ALISON
What stories? By all means, knock yourself out. Let’s hear ’em. There are no secrets onstage.
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
I saw one helluva commotion up there. It was awesome.
The PRIEST
A series of unfortunate events?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
I saw.… So, there was, like, Saint Peter with his keys … and Saint Paul with his sword and, like, he’d cut off Saint Dennis’s head. And Saint Francis was, like, fightin’ ’em and whackin’ ’em all over the place with a pow! wham! bam! And—yada, yada, yada—it’s, like, then, in comes Saint Mark—right?—and he practically skins ’em alive! And, then, in comes Saint James—Santiago de Compostela—all swashbucklin’ and stuff, all havin’ away like he’s some kinda caped crusader. So, like, God sees this whole troupe, like goin’ at it—right?—and, well: hear ye! hear ye! and abracadabra! He ups and picks Himself the winner and it’s, like, Saint Francis! But, me, I was gettin’ scared, so I just got the hell outta there!16
The PRIEST
Tell us, Johnny Slacker, what about Saint George? What was he up to?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
He was in no condition to be strikin’ while no Iron Maiden was hot, lemme tell you. And he wasn’t slayin’ no dragon neither! Let’s just say he was lookin’ to cut his losses.
The PRIEST
I must say that that battle does indeed appear to have been “awesome.”
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
And then—. Whoa! Gird those loins! They gotta close the gates to Paradise—it’s a real siege mentality, you know?—’cause the whole place is surrounded! It’s totally crawlin’ with Swiss and a bunch o’ German mercenaries to boot. And, lemme tell you, they’re all geared to be wagin’ one hell of an awesome war up there in Heaven, and that’s the God’s honest truth. So, check it out: there’s not a moment to lose, right? So, God, He goes and creates each of ’em their own personal slice o’ Heaven. Everybody knows these guys have hated each other forever. [It got partisan up there, yah know?]
ADSO
Just one second there! You must be mistaken, inasmuch as that would be creating an entirely new cultural construction of Paradise … [inspecting Johnny’s burial shroud] out of whole cloth.
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
You can say that again, I swear! But, then, it’s a real knock-down, drag-out, right? All of ’em hammerin’ and poundin’ away. And you got San Lorenzo—right?—who’s, like, havin’ himself a grand old time cheffing. He’s roastin’ Swiss on the grill, like they was sausages at a tavern in winter. [And, hey! Fork the Swiss!] Obviously, I was not gonna be stickin’ around.
The PRIEST
Explain.
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
Next thing you know, they’d be stickin’ a fork in me too and—game over! I know the ace o’ spades when I see it and [they ain’t trumpin’ my ass!]
ALISON
[And the joker is wild.] If you could just get to the point and tell us what Heaven is like.
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
[Yeah, yeah, yeah.] Lemme tell you, it sure ain’t what it used to be.
ADSO
[To the Priest] Is that correct, Master? Can you explain?
[To Johnny] Care to clue us in about Saint Matty? Mickey? Whoever.
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
Same old, same old. Unless you wanna count that hot babe at the feet of the Archangel Michael, like, instead o’ the Devil.
The PRIEST
That’s hardly appropriate.
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
Yeah, well, God help me, that’s how it is. Plus, you got Saint Benedict the Elder, keepin’ up the old laws. Only, then, you got Saint Benedict the Younger too, and he ain’t even keepin’ up the Church no more, that’s for sure. Nope. He’s just walkin’ around with that blackbird o’ his on his wrist, puttin’ on airs, all dolled up like he’s some kinda player.
The PRIEST
I must admit that, for a slacker, Johnny talks quite a good game.
[Alison glares at him and taps her foot impatiently.]
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
I oughta talk good when I just been there! Walked me a crooked mile straight over here. And if I would’ve been smarter, I would’ve been, like, well within my rights to never come back here at all!
ALISON
[{Aside} When do I get my seven minutes in heaven?]
Were you in Heaven long?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
Yes, ma’am! And, lemme tell you: it’s about as drama-free up there as your average Thanksgiving dinner.
The PRIEST
I do believe that the truth of the matter is that there is no suffering in Heaven.
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
Saint Christopher’s ridin’ around on horseback up there.
ADSO
And Saint Martin? What about him?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
He’s on foot for the time being.
ALISON
Say, what were the Apostles up to up there?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
They’re all sayin’ the Lord’s Prayer.
The PRIEST
Does anybody overdo it in Heaven?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
You mean, like, get all “lawsuited” up and ready to go? Nope! You got no suits, no trials, no war, no jealousy. And there’s no debatin’ either ’cause they only got the one lawyer. They don’t even need litigators in, like, that eminent domain.
ADSO
What about the District Attorney’s Office? Tell us: there must be some prosecutors up there, right?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
I cannot tell a lie, I swear, so I’m prepared to report that—hear ye! hear ye!—didn’t see me a single one, and that’s the truth. There was one got as far as the Pearly Gates but, when he tried to get in, he gave God such a splitting headache, they kicked his ass right outta there.
ADSO
[He must be referring to Saint Yves, Master.] But what about bailiffs and—hey, Johnny!—what about peace officers? Is there a police presence in Heaven?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
Jesus H. Christ on a cracker! Didn’t see me a single one.
The PRIEST
And, therefore, all things considered—when all is said and done—would you say that you learned something up there?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
Lord have mercy, you can say that again! [But what? Go fish!]
[The PRIEST
So, what is it?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
Where?]17
The PRIEST
Enlighten us. What did you learn?
[A hubbub of noisy excitement follows at the port.]
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
Now hear this: I learned … Pay attention! Silence!
The PRIEST
What?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
Stuff. Know-how. [Go fish!]
ALISON
What stuff? [I already told you: no secrets onstage.]
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
How to keep women from talkin’ when I feel like it. [Go fish!]
The PRIEST
’Tis a wondrous thing but—bless my immortal soul!—I do believe that a demonstration might be in order.
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
It’s true!
ALISON
[Menacingly] And how exactly would that work, Johnny?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
Just give ’em a little somethin’ to drink ’cause I do believe that, when they be drinkin’ they don’t be talkin’! And that’s the truth, one hundred percent! It is known.
ADSO
Johnny, what other know-how do you … you know … know how to do?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
I got one for you: I learned how to read palms. I can tell folks their fortune, soon as I see their hands.
ADSO
Is this true?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
In the name of Saint Peter, the Apostle: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth! You first, Monsignor, gimme yours. Come on, don’t be shy.
The PRIEST
Here you are, good sir.
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
I don’t believe what I’m seein’! But—no!—I dare not say.
The PRIEST
Permission to speak freely. [{He glares at the noisy audience.} God knows everyone else does.] Say your piece.
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
The truth of the matter is … Where ya been your whole life? At an orgy? You’re a drunk and a glutton, which is why you’re gonna live a long life. Plus, you’re really into the female o’ the species. And you got you an appetite for wine too. The good stuff. That’s your whole scene: ain’t nowhere else you’d rather be.
The PRIEST
Goddamn crazy son of a—! That joker is wild!
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
Tibi soli and ipso facto to you too, bub.
ALISON
Lord have mercy, Johnny, what on earth—? You speak Latin now? I can’t understand what you’re saying.
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
Like Latin from Heaven! I’m so full of it, I’m ready to pop! If I wouldn’t have let it all out, I was gonna burst for sure.
ADSO
Over here! Over here! Do me! Take a look at my hand!
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
[He studies Adso’s palm at some length.] Dawg. You’re a real player, ain’tcha kid?
ADSO
Lord have mercy, Johnny, you’re shaking your head.
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
It’s all that blood rushin’ to my brain and messin’ with Johnny’s head! I’m too smart for my own [damn] good.
ADSO
Quick, what does it say about me?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
April fool!
ADSO
April fool?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
Well, look who’s catchin’ on! That is correct, yes.
ADSO
Fine. But, verily, I do not understand your meaning.
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
[To the audience] What is he, nuts? Can you believe this fool?
Dude. When you put a magpie in a cage, what’s the first thing you teach it to say? [Did you or did you not catch our performance of For the Birds?] Out with it!
ADSO
Mackerel. [{Abashedly to Alison} That means “pimp.”]
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
[Brandishing a large mackerel and fishing rod.] Holy mackerel! Would you listen to the filthy mouth on that kid!
[To Adso] Atta boy, clericus, [there’s a good goy! Check it out, fools! Remember the miracle of the loaves and the … say it with me now: fishes!] [He uses the fishing rod to point to the life-line on Adso’s palm.] Bottom line—bottom line, get it?—April fools! April fish! April mackerel! [April intermediary between God and man! April Pimp! April fuckin’ Priest! The fish is a mackerel, the mackerel’s a pimp, the pimp is a priest, and—holy icky ichthus! Talk about your middle man! Intermediary, my ass!] The Priest is the biggest April Fool of ’em all and—I swear!—so are you! What a joke!18 Now, to finish up the reading: you too, Padre junior! Plus, you’re a student: you’re lazy. And you like to get your rest.
ALISON
Wow. [She presents her palm too.] Over here! Whatever will you have to say about me, dear?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
What I don’t know won’t hurt me, woman, I swear! Or my reputation. Seek not and ye shall not find.
Plus, if I were to read your palm, I might well uncover evidence of that which I do not wish to know and.… Case closed! Besides …
ALISON
Besides what?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
At this juncture, Johnny would assert his right to remain silent.
ALISON
Oh, really? As if you could!
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
I swear, woman, a wise man sticks his nose into his wife’s affairs as little as possible. Don’t ask, don’t tell.
The PRIEST
A fine strategy. He knows the score. [He strokes Alison’s hand.] Flying off the hand-le is a sin, you know.
ALISON
Johnny, what other stuff and know-how did you learn to do in Heaven?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
All o’ you better watch your step or I’m gonna scare the bejesus outta you in a minute!
ADSO
Come again?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
Silence! Not one word and ye shall witness an awesome feat, [strange and wondrous,] for I shall make myself invisible! I can do it whenever I want, and that’s all you need to know. Nothing up my sleeve and—behold! Got the nets of Saint Peter and Saint Andrew right here, gonna make you fishers of men!
[{He covers himself with his burial shroud and, after dumping out any dead fish, with the nets too.} “Holy Ghost! Holy Ghost! This is not an episode of Scooby Doo!”]19
ADSO
I take thee at thy word but—God help me!—have you got the goods to prove it?
[While Adso is distracted, possibly by the smell of rotten fish, Johnny finds a place to hide and “disappears.”]
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
[To the audience] [Who’s he talkin’ to?] I swear!
[To Adso] You can’t see me! [I’m invisible!]
ADSO
But, say, bro! Where ya headed anyway?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
Jesus H. Christ on a cracker! None of your business! Plus, you can’t see me—remember?—even though … Peekaboo, I sure see you!
ALISON
Lord have mercy, Johnny, cut me some slack-jaw! Just how long are you planning on keeping this up?
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
As long as it took King Herod to slaughter the Innocents. Just you wait and see because, to confound the brave, I shall bring down fire and fury!
The PRIEST
[To Alison] People who come down from Heaven are invisible. That’s how it works. [{He takes a peek under the net where at least one or two fishes remain.} Especially when they’ve got something to hide.]20
ALISON
No argument from me. If people from Heaven are invisible, one could hardly see them. [And, by the way, your tautology stinks to high Heaven.]
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
“Tautily.” Bonjour, bonsoir, I bid you adieu! To yieu and yieu and yieu.© Go with God. [He waves his cape and, with or without the nets in tow, temporarily disappears behind some crates. Several spectators rise to depart.]
ADSO
It’s a miracle! [But wait! He’s making the audience disappear!]
JOHNNY SLACK-JAW
[He returns to perform some magic tricks, the better to solicit financial contributions.] You should see the awesome feats I could perform for you if I weren’t so tired: [pop the coins off the eyes o’ dead Irishmen!] But, for now, adieu. I’m outta here.
[Doubled version begins here.]
And now I lay me down to say,
I’ll live to play another day.21
[Possible closing music after doubled version.]22
The END