Dios De Woody Allen

Woody Allen:
God (A Play)
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SCENE: Athens. Approximately 500 B.C. Two distraught Greeks in the center of enormous empty amphitheatre. Sunset. One is the ACTOR; the other, the WRITER. They are both thinking and distracted. They should he played by two good, broad burlesque clowns.

ACTOR: Nothing . . . just nothing.

WRITER: What?

ACTOR:Meaningless. It's empty.

WRITER: The ending.

ACTOR: Of course. What are we discussing? We're discussing the ending.

WRITER: We're always discussing the ending.

ACTOR: Because it's hopeless.

WRITER: I admit it's unsatisfying.

ACTOR: Unsatisfying? It's not even believable. The trick is to start at the ending when you write a play. Get a good strong ending and then write backwards.WRITER: I've tried that. I got a play with no beginning.

ACTOR: That's absurd.

WRITER: Absurd? What's absurd?

ACTOR: Every play must have a beginning, middle, and end.

WRITER: Why?

ACTOR (Confidently): Because everything in nature has a beginning, middle, and end.

WRITER: What about a circle?

ACTOR (Thinks): Okay . . . A circle has no beginning, middle, or end - but they're notmuch fun either.

WRITER: Diabetes, think of an ending. We open in three days.

ACTOR: Not me. I'm not opening in this turkey. I have a reputation as an actor, a following . . . My public expects to see me in a suitable vehicle.

WRITER: May I remind you, you're a starving, out-of-work actor whom I've generously consented to let appear in my play in an effort to assist your comeback.ACTOR: Starving, yes . . . Out of work, perhaps . . . Hoping for a comeback, maybe - but a drunkard?

WRITER: I never said you were a drunkard.

ACTOR: Yes, but I'm also a drunkard.

WRITER (in a fit of sudden inspiration): What if your character ripped a dagger from his robes and in a fit of frenzied frustration, tore away at his own eyes until he blinded himself?

ACTOR: Yeah, it's a greatidea. Have you eaten anything today?

WRITER: What's wrong with it?

ACTOR: It's depressing. The audience will take one look at it and -

WRITER: I know - make that funny sound with their lips.

ACTOR: It's called hissing.

WRITER: Just once I want to win the competition! Once before my life is over, I want my play to take first price. And it's not the free case of ouzo I care about, it'sthe honor.

ACTOR (Suddenly inspired): What if the king suddenly changed his mind? There's a positive idea.

WRITER: He'd never do it.

ACTOR (Selling him on it): If the queen convinced him?

WRITER: She wouldn't. She's a bitch.

ACTOR: But if the Trojan Army surrendered -

WRITER: They'd fight to the death.

ACTOR: Not if Agamemnon reneged on his promise?

WRITER: It's not in hisnature.

ACTOR: But I could suddenly take up arms and make a stand.

WRITER: It's against your character. You're a coward - an insignificant wretched slave with the intelligence of a worm. Why do you think I cast you?

ACTOR: I've just given you six possible endings!

WRITER: Each more clumsy than the last.

ACTOR: It's the play that's clumsy.

WRITER: Human beings don't behave thatway. It's not in their nature.

ACTOR: What does their nature mean? We're stuck with a hopeless ending.

WRITER: As long as man is a rational animal, as a playwright, I cannot have a character do anything on stage he wouldn't do in real life.

ACTOR: May I remind you that we don't exist in real life.

WRITER: What do you mean?

ACTOR: You are aware that we're characters in a play right nowin some Broadway theater? Don't get mad at me, I didn't write it.

WRITER: We're characters in a play and soon we're going to see my play . . . which is a play within a play. And they're watching us.

ACTOR: Yes. It's highly metaphysical, isn't it?

WRITE R: Not only is it metaphysical, it's stupid!

ACTOR: Would you rather be one of them?

WRITER (Looking at the audience): Definitely...