General Electric Presents:
The Arthur Vining-Davis Foundation Pratt & Whitney General Dynamics Ruth
Taylor Attic II Theatre Walt Disney World William Shakespeare Country Bear
Jamboree & Small Mammal Revue
a surprisingly short play with a long title
by William M. Razavi
Lights. As the audience enters some sort of folksy Disney music. Bucky, Jane and Heather greet.
N.B. Except where noted the GUIDE lines can be delivered by Bucky, Jane, Heather or Eileen. Every time the ride moves there are lights and music and scenery that rolls around in front of everyone as if the ride moves sideways.
Improvised opening patter. The guides talk to the audience and get them seated.
GUIDE: Welcome to what was formerly known as Disney Cliff Notes Cliffhanger Surprise, but what is now known as–
HEATHER: The Arthur Vining-Davis Foundation, Pratt & Whitney, General Dynamics, Ruth Taylor Attic II Theatre, Walt Disney World, William Shakespeare Country Bear Jamboree & Small Mammal Revue.
GUIDE: Brought to you by General Electric.
G.E. We bring good things to life.
Now, on with the most fabulous journey ever–a journey through time and space and across the world and into imagination and back again.
Is everyone ready? I can’t hear you!
You sir, what’s your name?
TARQUIN: Tarquin.
GUIDE: Well, Tarquin, are you ready?
TARQUIN: Yes.
GUIDE: I can’t hear you.
TARQUIN: Yes!
GUIDE: Say it again.
TARQUIN: Yes! I’m ready.
GUIDE: Great.
But before we start we have some safety rules. Because on–
HEATHER: The Arthur Vining-Davis Foundation, Pratt & Whitney, General Dynamics, Ruth Taylor Attic II Theatre, Walt Disney World, William Shakespeare Country Bear Jamboree & Small Mammal Revue.
GUIDE: Safety always comes first.
Bring out the rules.
An enormous sheet full of rules is brought out. These are all read one by one.
GUIDE: Now, keep your hands inside at all times and don’t stand up unless you want to be injured. Here we go on a trip through time and space.
First, the dinosaurs.
The dinosaurs roamed the earth millions of years ago–or, according to some people in Kansas, never.
TARQUIN: Where are the dinosaurs?
GUIDE: Now, you may be wondering where all the dinosaurs are. Well, either they’re hiding or this ride is in the process of being renovated. You decide.
TARQUIN: This sucks.
GUIDE: Now we move on to the world of the small mammals.
See that thing scurrying on the floor about the size of a quarter?
TARQUIN: No.
GUIDE: That’s a pygmy shrew.
TARQUIN: I don’t see it.
GUIDE: They’re fast. That’s how they survived the mass extinctions.
Please refrain from smoking. Keep hands, feet and small children inside.
Next stop, Great Inventions.
EILEEN: The bears aren’t working.
GUIDE: What?
EILEEN: The bears aren’t working. Just be prepared to take their place.
GUIDE: What?
EILEEN: Just do it. Can anyone do a parrot voice?
GUIDE: What?
EILEEN: Never mind. Go on.
GUIDE: Welcome to Great Inventions where we celebrate the world’s greatest inventions like this can opener and the can that it opens. Two great inventions working hand in hand to improve the world. Just like General Electric, proud sponsor of–
HEATHER: The Arthur Vining-Davis Foundation, Pratt & Whitney, General Dynamics, Ruth Taylor Attic II Theatre, Walt Disney World, William Shakespeare Country Bear Jamboree & Small Mammal Revue.
GUIDE: And of course who could live through a school lunch without the spork. Marvelous engineering, and ergonomic design–the spork, mankind’s plastic friend.
Hands inside. Next stop, the Antebellum South.
Here we are on the grounds of a small plantation along the Mississippi. Just listen to the crickets and all the other woodland creatures singing in harmony.
Music.
GUIDE: Listen.
Music.
GUIDE: Then came the War Between the States. Many people died.
Alright, here we go. Deep in the South was the city of New Orleans.
Nouvelle Orleans. New Orleans. Busting port, city of despair. City of life, city of death. A city as old as time, if time was the afternoon or later.
Here we are in a creaky old mansion in the French Quarter.
Spooky sounds. Some relatively lame haunts. A light effect or two. Some things flying and sticking to the walls. Then something genuinely grisly like ham hocks or a bloody hand rising up, made creepier by the thought that this ride is so lame that the blood has to be real. Black out.
GUIDE: Whoa! Let’s get out of here. Where can we go? Hold on, we’re in for a bumpy ride. I see a light. I think it’s the waterfront.
PARROT: Bwak! Here be pirates!
There are a couple of pirates in striped shirts pretending to be animatronic.
PIRATES: Argh! Argh! Yo-ho. Yo-ho.
PARROT: Bwak! Lick my sack! Lick my sack!
EILEEN: Shit! The Parrot’s busted.
TARQUIN: What did the parrot say?
GUIDE: Oh, just some nonsense.
PARROT: Bwak! I’m a salty pirate! Bwak!
GUIDE: And there you are. Gulf Coast pirates. A horrible lot. And there’s Jean Lafitte–terror of the gulf. Say goodbye.
PARROT: Bwak! Here be pirates!
GUIDE: Look where we are now.
TARQUIN: Where?
GUIDE: An archaeological dig somewhere in South America. That means our friend Indiana Jones can’t be far behind. Here he comes now.
Indiana Jones enters chased by a beach ball and some plastic arrows shot from offstage.
GUIDE: Will Indy escape from this entanglement? I’m worried. Are you worried? Well, let’s see what happens.
Indy escapes from the beach ball.
GUIDE: Where is he? There he is.
Pause.
GUIDE: There he is.
Pause.
GUIDE: There he is.
Indy pops up.
GUIDE: Another close escape for Indiana Jones. Let’s give him a hand.
What happened?
Don’t ask.
What about the bears?
Don’t ask.
Shit.
TARQUIN: I have to pee.
GUIDE: Wait until the end of the ride.
TARQUIN: I don’t think I can hold it.
GUIDE: There’s a water section coming up. If you have to go then, go.
And from Indiana Jones we go to other great movies of the past. Here we have a deck of cards used in The Sting. And here’s a pair of sandals from Gladiator. And here’s a roll of toilet paper from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
And what is this?
It’s Rhett Butler and Scarlet O’Hara from Gone With The Wind.
SCARLET: Oh, Rhett!
RHETT: Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn. Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.
PARROT: Bwak! Don’t give a damn, don’t give a damn.
EILEEN: Shut the damned parrot off!
GUIDE: And here we are in exotic Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.
BOGART: Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.
GUIDE: And we haven’t forgotten our own history of hit films here at Disney.
MUFASA: Hello, Simba.
GUIDE: Hello, Mufasa. Or, as they say in Africa, jambo!
What you see here is the original concept design model of Mufasa from Disney’s The Lion King. As you can see, it was changed a lot from this to the final look.
It is a painted wooden cube.
GUIDE: Goodbye Mufasa.
MUFASA: Goodbye Simba.
GUIDE: And from the world of the movies we go to the wide world of cultures in the big small world that surrounds us.
A list of various cultures/nations follows. After each one an awful stereotype of that culture/nationality is presented. Or, in some cases just a complete nonsensical absurdity like a Snickers bar for Nepal and an Almond Joy for Bangladesh.
TARQUIN: I never thought I’d appreciate It’s a Small World, but now I do.
GUIDE: And we haven’t forgotten the good old US of A. We have a slam bang musical number that celebrates the Stars and Stripes. Are you feeling Yankee Doodle Dandy?
What follows is a couple of people doing the most incredible uncoordinated acapella song and dance of Yankee Doodle Dandy.
GUIDE: And I’ll bet you just got on this ride because it had the shortest line in the whole park.
TARQUIN: Shortest line? There was no line.
GUIDE: And how could we take a trip through America without traveling through American History. Here’s the signing of the Declaration of Independence. And here’s George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson. And Alexander Hamilton. And here’s Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And Andrew Jackson. If you’ve seen Ben Franklin and President Grant send them up here right now.
And what would a trip through history be without a visit to the nineteen-eighties.
Some people dance to "Take On Me."
GUIDE: From history we go to the Great Discoveries of Science.
Here are some great discoveries made by scientific geniuses like Archimedes, Galileo, Newton, Avogadro and other great scientists.
What follows are some atrociously lame scientific experiments that would make even a 1st Grade science fair know shame–things like a person emptying out a cup of water into another one and another person contemplating a half-filled glass of water and another dropping two feathers from a height.
GUIDE: And speaking of science we’d like to remind you that our featured sponsor today, General Dynamics, is the proud maker of such great scientific products as the Trident Missile Submarine. Capable of unleashing massive death and destruction at a moment’s notice. General Dynamics is here to meet all of your needs. Please see their brochures at the end of the ride for more information.
From the world of science we move to the world of culture and nothing says culture quite like William Shakespeare, the Bard of Stratford upon Avon. And we wouldn’t be the–
HEATHER: The Arthur Vining-Davis Foundation, Pratt & Whitney, General Dynamics, Ruth Taylor Attic II Theatre, Walt Disney World, William Shakespeare Country Bear Jamboree & Small Mammal Revue.
GUIDE: Without Shakespeare. And so here we present a scene from William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.
SCENE I. Before OLIVIA's house.
Enter SEBASTIAN and Clown
Clown: Will you make me believe that I am not sent for you?
SEBASTIAN: Go to, go to, thou art a foolish fellow:
Let me be clear of thee.
Clown: Well held out, i' faith! No, I do not know you; nor
I am not sent to you by my lady, to bid you come
speak with her; nor your name is not Master Cesario;
nor this is not my nose neither. Nothing that is so is so.
SEBASTIAN: I prithee, vent thy folly somewhere else:
Thou know'st not me.
Clown: Vent my folly! he has heard that word of some
great man and now applies it to a fool. Vent my
folly! I am afraid this great lubber, the world,
will prove a cockney. I prithee now, ungird thy
strangeness and tell me what I shall vent to my
lady: shall I vent to her that thou art coming?
SEBASTIAN: I prithee, foolish Greek, depart from me: There's
money for thee: if you tarry longer, I shall give
worse payment.
Clown: By my troth, thou hast an open hand. These wise men
that give fools money get themselves a good
report--after fourteen years' purchase.
Enter SIR ANDREW, SIR TOBY BELCH, and FABIAN
SIR ANDREW: Now, sir, have I met you again? there's for you.
SEBASTIAN: Why, there's for thee, and there, and there. Are all
the people mad?
SIR TOBY BELCH: Hold, sir, or I'll throw your dagger o'er the house.
Clown: This will I tell my lady straight: I would not be
in some of your coats for two pence.
Exit
SIR TOBY BELCH: Come on, sir; hold.
SIR ANDREW: Nay, let him alone: I'll go another way to work
with him; I'll have an action of battery against
him, if there be any law in Illyria: though I
struck him first, yet it's no matter for that.
SIR TOBY BELCH: Come, sir, I will not let you go. Come, my young
soldier, put up your iron: you are well fleshed; come on.
SEBASTIAN: I will be free from thee. What wouldst thou now? If
thou darest tempt me further, draw thy sword.
SIR TOBY BELCH: What, what? Nay, then I must have an ounce or two
of this malapert blood from you.
Enter OLIVIA
OLIVIA: Hold, Toby; on thy life I charge thee, hold!
SIR TOBY BELCH: Madam!
OLIVIA: Will it be ever thus? Ungracious wretch,
Fit for the mountains and the barbarous caves,
Where manners ne'er were preach'd! out of my sight!
Be not offended, dear Cesario.
Rudesby, be gone!
Exeunt SIR TOBY BELCH, SIR ANDREW, and FABIAN
I prithee, gentle friend,
Let thy fair wisdom, not thy passion, sway
In this uncivil and thou unjust extent
Against thy peace. Go with me to my house,
And hear thou there how many fruitless pranks
This ruffian hath botch'd up, that thou thereby
Mayst smile at this: thou shalt not choose but go:
Do not deny. Beshrew his soul for me,
He started one poor heart of mine in thee.
SEBASTIAN: What relish is in this? how runs the stream?
Or I am mad, or else this is a dream:
Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep;
If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep!
OLIVIA: Nay, come, I prithee; would thou'ldst be ruled by me!
OLIVIA: O, say so, and so be!
Exeunt
GUIDE: What about the bears?
Just follow my lead.
From the earthly delights of Shakespeare we go to the far reaches of space on an adventure like none before. Come with us now for the ride of a lifetime.
I’ve always wanted to do this.
A VCR/TV is rolled on. The play button is pressed and we see X-Wing fighters taking on the Death Star until it explodes. Blackout.
Stars and flashing lights.
GUIDE: And now presenting the world famous Country Bear Jamboree!
TARQUIN: This is my favorite part.
Lights. The actors are in the Country Bears’ places
TARQUIN: Hey! Those aren’t bears!
The bears lip-synch in animatronic fashion along with a bluegrass cover of "You Shook Me All Night Long." The Song ends.
GUIDE: Please exit into the gift shop. Thank you for riding on–
HEATHER: The Arthur Vining-Davis Foundation, Pratt & Whitney, General Dynamics, Ruth Taylor Attic II Theatre, Walt Disney World, William Shakespeare Country Bear Jamboree & Small Mammal Revue.
GUIDE: Please come back in 2009 when we will have an all new ride in place of this one.
Lights. Music. Exit.