Fifteen Tramps

or

“A Night at Mr. Chaplin’s Music Hall”

By Lauren Ludwig © 2007

This play is based on a piece first produced at the University of Chicago Summer Arts Incubator in July, 2006 called Chaplin Play No. 1. The people who contributed to the creation of that project were Ellie

Heyman, Tim Reid, Lauren Brenner, Mary Winn Heider, Lydia Burns, Joe Tracz and Matt Parker.

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A Cast Breakdown:

The Tramps 2 men

3 women

The Leading Ladies 5 women

The Kids 2 women

The Heavys 2 men

1 woman Thoughts on music: Music is important to the success of this piece. When in doubt, add in underscoring. And when in doubt, make it sound old-timey. Though, a few well-chosen modern songs are important too. The scenes that I believe do not work with music are noted in the script. However, if in rehearsals music proves necessary, go for it. Thoughts on set: The only permanent set piece is a large movie screen upstage that will serve as a projection surface for the titles. It could also have images of Chaplin or a red curtain or a park (for the silent film bit) projected on it. Whatever seems appropriate. It must also work as a cyc that can be backlit for the end of the séance. Also, there is an old-timey mic on a stand off to the side of the stage. Besides that, the stage should be kept bare unless otherwise specified. Thoughts on the titles: The rhythm and look of the titles is important to the flow of the piece. If a title looks like this: TITLE: An Act of Explanation TITLE: OR TITLE: “How to Do the Titles Correctly” This means that each title should be projected separately. But, if the titles look like this: TITLE: An Act of Further Clarification + TITLE: OR + TITLE: “Why the Titles are Overly Complicated” This means that the second title should be added to the projection of the first one. So, after the second title, the screen would look like this:

An Act of Further Clarification OR

And after the third title, it would look like this:

An Act of Further Clarification OR

“Why the Titles are Overly Complicated”

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“Charlie Chaplin was an event in my life.”

- Igor Stravinsky

“Herr Schleber, if I was as tall and handsome as you, there never would have been a tramp.

You see, there would have been no need to hide.”

- Chaplin, answering Wolfgang George Schleber’s question: “How was the Tramp born?”

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An empty stage. Blackout. Projected on a screen upstage: TITLE: “Charlie Chaplin was an event in my life.” + TITLE: – Igor Stravinsky Lights up. TRAMP 1 enters, dressed plainly. He stops at the sound of something squeaking. The squeaking grows louder as a Hat and Cane are lowered from the rafters. TRAMP 1 looks at them quizzically. The hat and cane stop moving. TRAMP 1 crosses to them. Just as he touches the hat, Big Vaudevillian Music plays, and: TITLE: Fifteen Tramps TITLE: OR TITLE: “A Night at Mr. Chaplin’s Music Hall” TRAMP 1 puts on the hat. LADY 5 enters. She takes the hat off TRAMP 1. LADY 5: Call me Charlie. TRAMP 1 grabs the hat back. TRAMP 1: No, call me Charlie. The Tramp chases the Lady offstage. Another actor appears, picks up the cane. Another actor enters. They chase each other off. All the actors enter and exit wearing various bits of the Tramp costume (hats, canes, moustaches). They all fight to be the first actor onstage wearing all three parts of the costume. When TRAMP 1 achieves this goal, the act is over.

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TITLE: The Welcome Speech! TRAMP 1, still in Tramp gear, welcomes the audience. The other actors line up behind him. TRAMP 1: Hello ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. I am [NAME] and with the help of: The other actors shout their names in very quick succession. TRAMP 1: I welcome you tonight to: ALL OTHER ACTORS: FIFTEEN TRAMPS! TRAMP 1: Or “A Night at Mr. Chaplin’s Music Hall!” The other actors run off and prepare for the next act. Be you a devoted Tramp Fan or a Little Fellow neophyte, this show holds something for everyone! For the next hour, we will take you on a journey into Mr. Chaplin’s past and present, his ups and downs, his inside, outside, back side and what have you! We will on this stage we will recreate, educate, explore and ignore nothing Chaplinesque on the one-of-a-kind tour! TRAMP 3, as the “Mumming Birds” Heckler appears in the audience. THE HECKLER: Boooo! During the rest of the speech, the HECKLER stumbles towards the stage, drunkenly disrupting the show. TRAMP 1 attempts to ignore him and continue. TRAMP 1: Well, if that doesn’t satisfy you, ladies and gentleman, listen to this: if you stick around till the end of the show, you will witness an event the likes which this the-a-ter has never seen! In an act of death-defying moxy, we will hold a real, true, honest-to-goodness séance and attempt to conjure the ghost of MR. CHAPLIN HIMSELF! By, now the Heckler is on the stage. TRAMP 1: This is no cheap, parlour trick! This is no carnival side-show hoax! This is— Excuse me!

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The Heckler can no longer be ignored. TRAMP 1: Excuse me, sir, but if you cannot remain in your seat, we will have to ask you to leave this establishment. So, could you please pull yourself together, man, and get off my stage?! The Heckler trips and falls. TRAMP 1: Oh, for the love of… Stage Management: The hook! A giant hook emerges from back stage and hooks The Heckler just as he gets to his feet. He is dragged offstage. TRAMP 1: (to the audience) Now if any of you other riff-raff get any ideas, you can just hook yourselves right up and out of here. This here’s a classy the-a-ter performance and I am running- A tomato flies out of the audience and hits TRAMP 1. The perpetrator, KID 1, laughs loudly. TRAMP 1: Why you--- TRAMP 1 chases the tomato thrower KID 1 out of the audience and through the house, while shouting: TRAMP 1: Sorry about this, folks! Please enjoy the shoooooow! TITLE: The Abbreviated History of Charles Spencer Chaplin + TITLE: in Four Parts + TITLE: Part 1 LADY 2, TRAMP 4, KID 2 and HEAVY 3 enter. These specific actors will perform each one of these history vignettes. They carry an old shoe, a bouquet of flowers, a broom and a boxing glove. As one actor speaks, the other three act out what she is saying. They use the props to aid in their physical storytelling. Bouncy vaudeville music plays.

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KID 2: Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in London in 1889. He had an older brother named Sydney. Chaplin’s father, a music hall performer and alcoholic, abandoned the family when Charlie was a baby. Chaplin’s mother, also a performer, raised the children on her own in extreme poverty until she was committed to a mental institution. Chaplin and his brother were sent to work houses and orphanages until they struck out on their own as vaudeville performers. As a kid, Chaplin was in a touring, all-boys clog-dancing troupe, “The Eight Lancashire Lads”. At age 24, Chaplin first came to America with the Fred Karno sketch show, “A Night at the English Music Hall”, in which he played a drunk. It was this part that got Chaplin noticed by film producer, Mack Sennett, of Keystone Kops fame. Sennett brought Chaplin to Hollywood in 1914. In his second film, Chaplin created the iconic character of the Tramp. After that, the Tramp’s rise to fame was fast – within a year of entering pictures, Chaplin was a superstar. Within two, he was the highest paid performed in motion picture history. Chaplin’s popularity was unprecedented— Tramp imitators began to pop up on stage and film; Song and dance fads paid tribute to his notorious walk; Critics and intellectuals hailed his genius. Soon, Chaplin was writing and directing his own films, using a stock company of actors who learned to tolerate, and even enjoy, Chaplin’s notoriously long shoots and his controlling style of direction. Cinema would never be the same. TITLE: An Act of Creation TITLE: OR TITLE: “A Lady in Distress” Classical music plays. Maybe opera. TRAMP 3 lays out a large piece of lace. He brings out water and dirt. He brings out LADY 3 and lies her down on the lace. He begins to “distress” the actress: tearing clothes, mussing hair, ripping bodices. TRAMP 3 mixes the water and dirt and covers LADY 3 in mud. TRAMP 3 arranges the LADY’S body into a distressed pose. He surveys his work. Satisfied, he exits.

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TITLE: An Act of Beauty, Precision and Visual Spectacle + TITLE: OR + TITLE: “The Moving Pictures Show” A slide pops up on the screen that mirrors the “Lady in Distress”. It is a still from a Chaplin film. What follows is a slide show/tableau spectacular: pictures of various Chaplin moments come up on the screen and in front of them the Actors – TRAMP 2, TRAMP 4, TRAMP 5, LADY 1, LADY 2, LADY 3, KID 1 and HEAVY 1 – create various solo or group tableaus that either match up with or do not match up with the Chaplin slides. The effect should be that the audience learns more about what Chaplin was like and more about what the actors are like. The last slide is of Chaplin doing the dance of the rolls. The Lady who will be in the next act comes out with props (unlike the other tableaus, which do not use props) and takes the Dance of the Rolls pose. The pictures cuts out and we see the title: TITLE: An Act of Failure TITLE: OR TITLE: “If You Like Me, Check ‘Yes’” The LADY 4 begins to attempt the dance of the rolls. She should seem to be learning it. It is hard, but she is pretty good at it. Perhaps some light music plays quietly. HEAVY 1 enters, approaches her. HEAVY 1: Hey- LADY 4: Oh! Hi… HEAVY 1: Did I scare you? LADY 4: Yes, it’s okay, I was just- HEAVY 1: I can go- LADY 4: No, no. It’s okay. I was just trying to do that thing with the-

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HEAVY 1: With the rolls. LADY 4: Yeah, the rolls. HEAVY 1: It’s hard, huh? LADY 4: Yeah. HEAVY 1: I don’t mean you seem bad at it! I just meant- it seems… LADY 4: No, yeah, it is- HEAVY 1: Hard, it seems hard. LADY 4: It is hard. Beat. HEAVY 1: Yeah, I have to do this chase thing later and it gets me so winded, ya know? I don’t know how they do it! LADY 4: Who? HEAVY 1: The actors. The silent film- LADY 4: How they do it? HEAVY 1: I mean, how they did it. All that running. LADY 4: Yeah, they do run a lot.

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HEAVY 1: Right. And those Keystone Kops! Those guys were always running, and they used to make those movies so fast, ya know? Like they’d film a whole movie in an afternoon. Just go to this park and film something. Like the movie that the Tramp first appeared in, Kid Auto Races at Venice, there was just this real car race that they heard was going on, so the studio sent Chaplin and a camera down there and they just filmed something, isn’t that crazy? Chaplin used to say all he needed to make a movie was a park bench, a policeman and a pretty girl. LADY 4: That’s funny. HEAVY 1: They don’t make movies that way now. LADY 4: No, it wouldn’t really make sense to. A beat of silence. She practices more. HEAVY 1: You’re very good at that. LADY 4: Thanks. (beat) So, did you need something? HEAVY 1: Oh, well… Yes- No- I mean, not really… I was just- LADY 4: What? HEAVY 1: Well, I saw you out here and I thought, “Hey, what is she up to?” And then I thought, “Well, let’s go see… what she’s up to…” So, here I am…… and I was wondering…... if……uh, what you were doing later? LADY 4: After this act? HEAVY 1: No, more like later later. Tonight. She stops practicing the dance. LADY 4:

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Oh. Nothing. HEAVY 1: You’re not doing anything? LADY 4: No. Beat. HEAVY 1: Okay. Beat. LADY 4: That’s all you wanted to ask? Beat. HEAVY 1: Yes. Beat. LADY 4: Okay. She goes back to her dance, a little disappointed. He walks off slowly. He looks back. Will he say something else? He doesn’t. He exits. TITLE: An Act of Comedic Genius A bare stage. TRAMP 2 enters and speaks. TRAMP 2: “What people laugh at” an essay by Charlie Chaplin, published 1918. Comedy moving pictures were an instant success because most of them showed policemen falling down coal holes, slipping into buckets of whitewash, falling off patrol wagons, and getting into all sorts of trouble. Here were men representing the dignity of the law, often very pompous themselves, being made ridiculous and undignified. LADY 1 enters with a seltzer bottle.

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TRAMP 2: Even funnier than the man who has been made ridiculous, however, is the man who, having had something funny happens to him, refuses to admit that anything out of the way has happened, and attempts to maintain his dignity. LADY 1 sprays TRAMP 2 with water. TRAMP 2: For that reason, all my pictures are built around the idea of getting me into trouble and so giving me the chance to be desperately serious in my attempt to appear as a normal little gentleman. More seltzer water. TRAMP 2: That is why, no matter how desperate the predicament is, I am always very much in earnest about clutching my cane, straightening my derby hat, and fixing my tie, even though I have just landed on my head. KID 2 enters with a cream pie and a can of whip cream. TRAMP 2: I am so sure of this point that I also incriminate the other characters in the picture. When I do this, I always aim for economy of means. By that I mean that when one incident can get two big, separate laughs, it is much better than two individual incidents. KID 2 aims the pie at TRAMP 2. She throws the pie. The TRAMP 2 ducks. It hits LADY 1. Beat. LADY 1 goes to sprays the KID with seltzer. An all-out food fight between them. TRAMP 2: Human beings experience the same emotions as the people in the incident they witness, I mean that -- taking ice cream as an example – HEAVY 3 enters licking an ice cream cone. .

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TRAMP 2: In The Adventurer, I had a bit where ice cream landed on a lady’s neck and she shrieked and started to dance around. This is funny for two reasons. One was the delight the average person takes in seeing wealth and luxury in trouble. The other was the tendency TRAMP 2 (con’t): of the human being to experience within himself the emotions he sees on the stage or screen. HEAVY 3, trying to avoid the food fight, slips and hits TRAMP 2 with the ice cream. The food fight stops. They all look at TRAMP 2. TRAMP 2: Knowing that ice cream is cold, the audience shivers. Thus producing laughter. LADY 1 licks some ice cream off the TRAMP 2. TRAMP 2: End of essay. They all exit. TITLE: An Act of Honesty + TITLE: OR + TITLE: “Why I Love Chaplin” LADY 3 enters and watches the end of “The Act of Comedic Genius,” mildly disgusted. Finally, when she can’t take it anymore: Okay, that’s not funny. That is exactly my problem with Charlie Chaplin. I know I’m not supposed to say I have a problem with Charlie Chaplin ten minutes into a play about Charlie Chaplin, but, I have a problem with him. And this is my problem: If you watch enough of his movies, you start to realize: He’s too perfect. I’m not kidding. Have you seen his movies? You can feel that he was a control freak. Every move of every actor is so calculated. His physical humor, (she indicates the pie mess behind her) this slap stick: it’s clear that he’s practiced it again and again. It’s impressive, definitely. But how can you emotionally connect with that? Where is the spontaneity?

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This is how he directed the other actors: he would act out exactly what he wanted them to do and then they would repeat it. In a way, that’s also impressive. People who saw Chaplin do this said he was masterful at embodying all the characters. But you have to ask: then why did he only play one character his whole life? In only 3 of his 87 films did Chaplin play a character other than the Tramp. Was he a coward? Or a marketing genius. Or both. Here’s the thing: I don’t hate Chaplin. There are moments I like. Like the New Year’s Eve scene from The Gold Rush. He’s invited this dancer over to dinner and she said yes as a joke. So he makes this nice dinner for her and her friends and decorates his tiny shack and all this stuff…. And she stands him up. And when Chaplin realizes she isn’t coming he gets this look on his face, and you know exactly how he feels. He’s so vulnerable. It’s perfect. Perfect in a good way. TITLE: An Act of Unconditional Love The female HEAVY (or a LADY) enters with a chair. She sits, waiting. She eats popcorn. One by one, the other actors join her, bringing out chairs and forming a “movie theater.” The “movie” starts when the music begins. This is ideally provided by an actor playing lives accompaniment. Or a Chaplin score piped through the theatre. It should be music written by Chaplin, regardless. “Smile” works well. There is laughing and crying and movie watching. The song ends. The actors exit the theater. TITLE: The Abbreviated History of Charles Spencer Chaplin + TITLE: Part 2 LADY 2, TRAMP 4, KID 2 and HEAVY 3 enter with their props. Music plays. LADY 2: Despite his slight, 5’4” frame, women found Chaplin irresistible. He was married four times. His wives were: Lita Grey Mildred Harris Paulette Goddard and Oona O’Neill The first two marriages were shotgun weddings.

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Wife number one, Mildred was only sixteen when they married. She had one child that died in infancy. Wife number two – Lita Grey – was also just sixteen. It is rumored their relationship was the inspiration for Vladimir Nabokov’s novel, Lolita. Chaplin and Lita’s divorce was scandalous, as were his many affairs One of Chaplin’s ex-lovers, Joan Barry, famously pulled a gun on him when he stopped returning her calls.

TITLE : An Act of Unrequited Love A LADY enters. She sings “I Want to Be Loved By You” a capella. After a verse, another LADY enters and joins in. And then another LADY. They finish the song. TITLE: An Act of Destruction Voices offstage, mid-fight: LADY: You’re what? TRAMP: I’m going. LADY: Like that? That fast? Chaplin enters and a Lady enters behind him. Chaplin is putting on his hat and preparing to leave. She follows him. TRAMP 3: Not that fast. Surely you must have noticed something. LADY 5: You’re busy. You could have been distracted for any reason… I didn’t think- TRAMP 3: Right-- You didn’t think.

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LADY 5: I’m not stupid. TRAMP 3: Darling. (turns to face her) You are lovely- LADY 5: No- TRAMP 3: But I’m going. He turns to leave. She grabs him. LADY 5: You have to explain! TRAMP 3: (shaking her off) Don’t touch me. LADY 5: You hypocrite-- TRAMP 3: I’m not-- LADY 5: You had not problem with me touching you before! TRAMP 3: Now I do. LADY 5: Just like that? TRAMP 3: I’m decisive. LADY 5: You’re heartless.

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TRAMP 3: No- LADY 5: You’re scared of sticking through it- of getting closer. TRAMP 3: Whether or not that has ever been true, it is certainly not true with you. LADY 5: You can’t do that to people! You can’t make them think you’re falling in love with them then change your mind! TRAMP 3: I never implied that I loved you. LADY 5: That first night- TRAMP 3: Well, with everyone on the first night… LADY 5: That’s horrible. TRAMP 3: Is it? You get one perfect night with a movie star and it’s horrible? LADY 5: That’s not why I liked you! It was this look in your eyes-- Like looking into a clear well that I couldn’t see the bottom of. TRAMP 3: That’s beautiful… But it won’t happen again, so you can stop waiting. LADY 5: But with other women? They get that all the time? TRAMP 3: It’s none of your business. LADY 5: Don’t shut me out! TRAMP 3: You were never in!

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He goes to leave. LADY: I’m pregnant. He stops. TRAMP: Is that true? Beat. LADY: Yes. Beat. TRAMP: Is it? LADY: Yes. Beat. TRAMP: If you are lying— LADY: (She is.) I’m not. Chaplin takes this in. TRAMP: (quietly) Fuck. (long beat) Well. Come on then. She takes his arm. They exit.

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TITLE: An Actual Act TITLE: OR TITLE: “The Fifteen Lancashire Lads” Everyone enters does a clogstomping number. TITLE: An Act of Forgiveness + TITLE: OR + TITLE: “Why I Love Chaplin Anyway” TRAMP 5 enters. Goes to the mic. A spotlight comes up. No music. TRAMP 5: Okay, wait. I still LIKE Chaplin. I really do. Even after learning all that bad stuff. I mean, right, he shouldn’t have slept with young girls. Of course! And I know he wasn’t the best guy to work for. But look at what he made. The final product of it all is this character, this Tramp, who was a real hero. Here’s a poor guy with no job who survives on nothing more than luck and charm… and he often gets the girl and walks off into the sunset happy. But, perhaps even cooler, is that just as often Chaplin lets the Tramp fail. Like at the end of The Circus, when the trapeze artist goes off with the strongman, and Chaplin is left there in the dust. It’s horrible!... But it’s an ending everyone can relate to. Through the Tramp we get to laugh at the stuff which seems so serious in our own lives. I dunno… he wasn’t perfect, but he makes me laugh, ya know? TITLE: An Act of Imitation TITLE: OR TITLE: “An Afternoon in the Park” Silent film music plays. A park bench, a bird bath and a pond. A Kid – played by KID 1 – skips by with a lollipop and a toy monkey. A Policemen – played by HEAVY 1 – strolls along, on his beat. The Tramp – played by TRAMP 5 – emerges from somewhere unexpected, watching out for the cop. Adjusts hat and jacket. Takes in the beautiful park. Feels hungry. Notices the park bench with a newspaper on it. Tramp crosses to the bench. Sits and read paper.

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The Kid reenters. Sees Tramp. Wants attention. Crosses to Tramp. Starts to bother him with the monkey. Tramp tries to keep reading the newspaper. Eventually The Kid gives up, sits next Tramp, and begins to eat his Lollipop. The Tramp sees the lollipop. Convinces kid to let him eat it by being nice to the toy monkey. Eventually the kid wants it back. The Tramp won’t give it back. They Tussle. The Policeman enters. Tramp gives the Kid the lollipop. Kid runs off. The Tramp runs off too. Policeman exits. A Girl enters – played by LADY 1 – enjoying the day. She is waiting for someone. She picks some flowers. Tramp enters. Sees her and is smitten. They both sit on the bench. Tramp starts a conversation with her about her flowers. He sees what he think is a flower and picks it for her. It turns out, it is a weed. They laugh. Then the Tramp begins sneezing. He is allergic to the weed. Girl gets out a handkerchief. Gives tramp the handkerchief and her hands her the weed. She starts sneezing. There is a lot of passing of the handkerchief and sneezing between the two. Eventually, The Tramp throws the weed away. The two laugh. A Suitor enters – played by HEAVY 2. The Girl sees him, runs over and hugs him. The Tramp, let down, begins to exit. The Girl stops him. Introduces him to the Suitor. He shakes the Tramp’s hand too hard. The three of them chat, meanwhile… The Kid enters. Sees the Girl’s purse, which she has left on the bench. He takes it. Kicks the Tramp in the butt and runs off. The Tramp notices the Kid, but no one sees that he has the purse. The Suitor says it’s time to go. The girl goes to get her purse. It’s gone. She is upset. While The Tramp looks for it, the Suitor says he thinks the Tramp took it. He calls for the policeman. The Policeman comes running. The Suitor points at the Tramp. The policeman misunderstands and seizes the Girl. The Suitor steps in, ‘Not her, him!’ The Tramp runs. The policeman and Suitor pursue him. Wacky chase scene. Lots of running, jumping, hiding and butt kicking. Eventually the Tramp sees the Kid with the purse and gets it back. The Suitor and Policeman reenter in that moment and the Tramp tosses the purse back to Kid. Back and forth back and forth the purse goes. The Suitor eventually steps in and grabs it. The Policeman goes to arrests the Tramp, but the Girl steps in and says that the Kid took it. The Policeman starts to arrest the Kid, but the Kid starts Crying. The Tramp, feeling bad, intervenes on the Kid’s behalf. The Policeman lets the Kid off with a warning. The Policeman exits.

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The Girl thanks the Tramp a lot and exits with the Suitor. The Tramp and the Kid are left alone. The Kid begins to eat the lollipop. The Tramp takes it. The Kid grabs the weed. puts it in the Tramp’s face and grabs the lollipop and runs off. The Tramp is left alone sneezing. TITLE: The Abbreviated History of Charles Spencer Chaplin + TITLE: Part 3 LADY 2, TRAMP 4, KID 2 and HEAVY 3 enter with their props. Music plays. HEAVY 3: Charlie Chaplin’s contributions to the cinema were great. He changed silent comedy forever by introducing the ideas of pathos and coherent visual storytelling into his work. His great early films include The Immigrant, Shoulder Arms, The Kid and The Gold Rush. To the end of his days, Chaplin considered The Gold Rush his finest work. When Hollywood went talky in 1929, Chaplin kept the Tramp silent. This lasted through films such as The Circus, City Lights and Modern Times, which starred his third wife, Paulette Goddard. Chaplin feared that a talking Tramp would lose his universal appeal. But in 1940, Chaplin finally caved and released his first talking movie. It was The Great Dictator, a satire about Hitler right as the US was entering WWII. Chaplin’s films from that point on became increasingly political, reflecting Chaplin’s growing Communist beliefs. In the fearful climate following WWII, Chaplin’s leftist politics became suddenly unpopular. He was investigated by the FBI and eventually deported. After 40 years of heartfelt adoration, America turned on Chaplin overnight. TITLE: An Act of Duality LADY 5 and KID 1 enter with gusto. A Vaudeville vamp plays. They vamp with it. NOTE: This act is funnier if the two actors keep addressing each other by name. A lot. Maybe every line. So, add that in when you cast this sucker. KID 1: Hey! LADY 5: Hey!

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KID 1: Are you enjoying the show? LADY 5: Yeah, are you? KID 1: No not really. LADY 5: Why not? KID 1: Well, the actors seem a little low energy. I think they oughta “tramp” it up a little! They strike a tramp-like pose, with their fingers as moustaches. BOTH: Hup!! The vamp again. LADY 5: You’re right. The audience paid all that money to see a show, we oughta give ‘em a good performance. KID 1: What are you talking about? This show was free! LADY 5: You mean it’s so bad we’re giving it away? Pose. BOTH: Hup!! Vamp. KID 1: But, seriously. Let’s play a game. LADY 5: What kind of game?

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KID 1: It’s called, “Who Am I thinking Of?” LADY 5: Okay, who are you thinking of? Pose. BOTH: Hup!! Vamp. KID 1: No no no! You think of someone, then I’ll ask yes or no questions about the person, then when I think I know who it is, I guess! LADY 5: Okay! KID 1: Okay!... So, think of someone. LADY 5: Okay. He thinks LADY 5: Hey! KID 1: Yes? LADY 5: Who is this show about again? KID 1: You know very well this show is about Charles Spencer Chaplin! LADY 5: Okay, I’ve got my person! KID 1: Okay, ready?

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LADY 5: Ready! KID 1: Is this person alive? LADY 5: No! KID 1: Was this person a man? LADY 5: Yes! KID 1: Was this person famous? LADY 5: Yes! KID 1: Are they still famous? LADY 5: Yes! KID 1: Really really famous? LADY 5: Yes!! KID 1: Was this person successful? LADY 5: Yes… some might even say he was too successful. KID 1: Did this person work in film? LADY 5: Yes.

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KID 1: Was this person a notorious control freak? LADY 5: Yes. KID 1: Did anyone ever try to assassinate this person? LADY 5: Yes! KID 1: And did this person have a tiny moustache, dark hair and often wear the same outfit? LADY 5: Yes!! KID 1: I think I know who it is? LADY 5: Who is it? KID 1: Why, it’s Adolph Hitler! LADY 5: Yes! They strike a Hitler variation on the tramp-like pose from before. BOTH: Hup!! TITLE: An Act of Questionable Judgment HEAVY 2 enters. Steps up to the mic. A spotlight. He is not good at his act. HEAVY 2: So… Chaplin, a priest and a lawyer are on a sinking ship with a bevy of young orphan girls. The priest says, save the girls. The lawyer says, screw the girls! And Chaplin says, do you think we have time? How does Chaplin cross the road?

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With that stupid freakin’ walk of his. Knock knock. Who’s there? (he is silent) Get it? Cause he’s silent…. LINE! A voice on a god mic – the real stage manager – responds: STAGE MANAGER: Charlie Chaplin walks into a bar… HEAVY 2: Right: Charlie Chaplin walks into a bar. And the bar tender says, what’ll you have? And Charlie Chaplin says, my father was an alcoholic. My mother was crazy. So, I’ll just have soda water, thanks… Why wasn’t Chaplin more patriotic? Cause he was British!... LINE! STAGE MANAGER: What’s black and white and red all over- HEAVY 2: Why don’t you just say the whole joke? What’s black and white and red all over? Every Chaplin movie after the great dictator. Cause he was a communist. Get it?... LINE! STAGE MANAGER: What is the difference… HEAVY 2: What’s the difference between Chaplin and Hitler? Hitler didn’t bomb until 1945! LINE! STAGE MANAGER: We agreed not to do that one- HEAVY 2: Say it! STAGE MANAGER: Why did Chaplin’s last wife, Oona O’Neill, stop acting after she married Chaplin?

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HEAVY 2: Right: Why did Chaplin’s last wife, Oona O’Neill, stop acting after she married Chaplin? Because it’s hard to act with Chaplin on top of you! Here’s another: why was Oona O’Neill such a bad mother to her eight children? Because it’s hard to be a mom with Chaplin on top of you! One more: Why did Oona O’Neill stop talking to her father, the playwright Eugene O’Neill? Do you know why? Wanna guess? STAGE MANAGER: Okay, that’s enough! Hook! A giant hook grabs HEAVY 2. He keeps shouting as they drag him off: HEAVY 2: No wait! Here’s the punch line: Because they were estranged! The giant hook takes him off. TITLE: An Act of Success TITLE: OR TITLE: “Yes” A trampoline. HEAVY 1 is jumping on it. Perhaps there is light music in the background. LADY 4 enters. LADY 4: What’re you doing? HEAVY 1: Oh!... I’m… jumping. LADY 4: On a “tramp!” (laughs) That’s funny. HEAVY 1: Yeah, that is funny. (beat) I don’t mean I’m shocked you said something funny, I just meant, I didn’t realize when I set this up, there was a pun- LADY 4: (interrupting, kindly) Can I join you? (beat)

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HEAVY 1: Sure. The LADY 4 gets on the trampoline. They bounce. The HEAVY loosens up. They have fun together. HEAVY 1: Jumping is fun, huh? LADY 4: Jumping is REEEEEALLY FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN! Screaming and shouting and laughing. Out of that: LADY 4: So, what are you doing later? HEAVY 1: Nothing. Long beat. They keep jumping in silence. HEAVY 1: Do you want to hang out? LADY 4: Yes. HEAVY 1: Okay. After another jump, she jumps off the trampoline, smiling, and exits. He watches her go, still jumping. A beat. He grins to himself. HEAVY 1: (screaming and jumping) I LOVE CHARLIE CHAPLIN! He jumps off the trampoline and runs off the other direction.

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TITLE: The Abbreviated History of Charles Spencer Chaplin + TITLE: Part 4 LADY 2, TRAMP 4, KID 2 and HEAVY 3 enter with their props. Music plays. TRAMP 4: After being deported in 1952, Chaplin lived in Switzerland with his fourth wife, Oona O’Neill, daughter of the playwright, Eugene O’Neill. They couple had eight kids. Chaplin put out three more movies, The Limelight, A King in New York, and Monsieur Verdoux, all of which met mixed reviews. In his last years, Chaplin also penned an autobiography. By the late 1960s, film critics had begun to turn attention back towards Chaplin and the important contributions he made to early cinema. In 1972, Chaplin was awarded a special lifetime achievement Academy Award. Chaplin’s standing ovation was the longest in Oscar history, lasting a full five minutes. This trip was Chaplin’s last to the United States. Charles Spencer Chaplin died in Switzerland on Christmas Day, 1977. TITLE: An Act of Death-Defying Moxy TITLE: OR TITLE: The Séance All of the actors, expect one, come onstage. TRAMP 2 steps forward. TRAMP 2: Hello. We have now arrived at the moment you have all been waiting for. We are going to attempt to conjure the spirit of Charlie Chaplin in an actual séance, here, in the theatre. Now you might be wondering, what makes us, or even me specifically, qualified to perform this séance. Well, I want to assure you that, though I am not a medium, per say, I have done some good research on séances. Besides hitting the library on campus and consulting wikipedia, I also paid a visit to that palm reader on Sherman Ave, right by the Dunkin Donuts… turns out, she’s a little creepy. But she did have a lot of useful information and specifically, she stressed two things about the séance: Number one: it is important to perform a “cleansing ritual” before you begin. This clears the room and prepares everyone’s minds to see some apparitions. And number two: it is important that everyone in the séance focus clearly and calmly on the same goal, which is, of course, to conjure the spirit of Charlie Chaplin. (beat) Now, let me just say, before we go any further: we are really and sincerely doing this. This is not “just an act”. Everyone up here TRAMP 2 (con’t): would really, really like to get Chaplin’s ghost today. I mean, at one of our rehearsals, we had some pretty spooky stuff happen and I think it convinced a few of us that this is really possible… So here it goes. First, the cleansing ritual. [STAGE MANAGER’S NAME], can we get the lights down?

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The lights dim. TRAMP 2: Great. Now, some cleansing music. Cleansing music plays. Enya? TRAMP 2: Nice. Now, everyone, Let’s begin with a round of “Om” All together: OOOOOOOhm. The actors and the audience do this. TRAMP 2: “Om” is the vibration at the center of life. Let’s do another one for good measure. The actors and the audience “Om” again. TRAMP 2: Now, I want everyone to think of something they shouldn’t have done. Something they regret, something that’s making them feel internally unclean. Now focus on that thing and take a big breath in and then, on the count of three, exhale quickly, breath out all of that bad energy, and shout “CLEAN!” Ready? One-two-three! Everyone shouts, “Clean!” TRAMP 2: Alright, I feel clean. Now, let’s get to the good part. Lights out! (lights go totally out) Cut the music! (the music stops) Everyone please hold hands with the person next to you – that’s right, grab those hands – And now close your eyes. I want everyone to begin, in their mind to focus totally and completely on asking Mr. Charles Spencer Chaplin to please join us in the theatre today… Mr. Chaplin, we ask you with all of our hearts to come and help us celebrate your life by visiting us in this theatre today… They wait. A long while. TRAMP 2: Everyone, make sure you are concentrating fully and calmly on the spirit of Chaplin... Mr. Chaplin, if you can hear us, show yourself. They wait. Even longer. The actors begin to shift around uneasily. Exchanging looks: is this gonna work? Should we give up? Finally, the actor says, with disappointment: TRAMP 2: Okay… Well, it seems that- Right then, the light FLARE UP then CUT OUT completely.

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TRAMP 2: What in the…? Suddenly, the Tramp’s famous silhouette appears behind the cyc upstage. Silence. No one is sure what to do. TITLE: An Act of Popular Culture Johnny Five’s “Modern Times” plays. The cyc lifts up and TRAMP 1 comes out from behind it and dances. Everyone joins in. It’s a huge show-stopping number, composed of Tramp-inspired and hip hop moves. TITLE: An Act of Insight + TITLE: OR + TITLE: “Why I Really Love Chaplin” As TRAMP 1 talks, everyone else sets up for the last act. TRAMP 1: My favorite ending to a Chaplin movie is the end of City Lights. The Tramp has gotten together all this money to give this blind girl an operation to restore her sight. And then he gets arrested because they think he stole the money, which he didn’t. So, anyway, at the end, he gets out of jail and he’s walking through the city alone. And he’s so beaten down and tired and his clothing is all torn. And he’s walking along, when suddenly he sees the blind girl. Only she’s not blind anymore. She can see and she works in this flower shop and she’s so happy. And the way he looks at her— He’s got these eyes that absolutely force you to look at them. They are dark and the deepest blue and so intense. They can dominate anyone they look at. And I think that they’re the secret to his success— these eyes that make you believe in whatever he does. All over the theater, pairs of Tramps and Blind Girls act out the ending of City Lights. This great song by Aqueduct plays. A slow fade to black. TITLE: The End!

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The Order of Acts Cheat Sheet

1. The Opening (3:00)

2. The Welcome Speech! (2:00)

3. The Abbreviated History of Charles Spencer Chaplin: Part 1 (1:30)

4. An Act of Creation OR “A Lady in Distress” (2:30)

5. An Act of Beauty, Precision and Visual Spectacle OR “The Moving Pictures Show” (2:00)

6. An Act of Failure OR “If You Like Me, Check ‘Yes’” (2:30)

7. An Act of Comedic Genius (4:00)

8. An Act of Honesty OR “Why I Love Chaplin” (1:00)

9. An Act of Unconditional Love (2:30)

10. The Abbreviated History of Charles Spencer Chaplin: Part 2 (1:00)

11. An Act of Unrequited Love (3:00)

12. An Act of Destruction (4:00)

13. An Actual Act OR “The Fifteen Lancashire Lads” (1:00)

14. An Act of Forgiveness OR “Why I Love Chaplin Anyway” (1:00)

15. An Act of Imitation OR “An Afternoon in the Park” (7:00)

16. The Abbreviated History of Charles Spencer Chaplin: Part 3 (1:00)

17. An Act of Duality (3:30)

18. An Act of Questionable Judgment (3:00)

19. An Act of Success OR “Yes” (2:00)

20. The Abbreviated History of Charles Spencer Chaplin: Part 4 (1:00)

21. An Act of Death-Defying Moxy OR The Séance (5:00)

22. An Act of Popular Culture (3:30)

23. TITLE: An Act of Insight OR “Why I Really Love Chaplin” (3:30)

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15 Tramps Character* Breakdown

*Female unless noted as male TRAMPS 1. (male) Opening moment of the show, Welcome Speech, Act of Insight Speech 2. (male) Act of Comedic Genius (Speaker), Séance, Moving Picture Show 3. Act of Creation, Act of Destruction, Heckler in Welcome Speech 4. History Sections, Moving Picture Show 5. Silent Movie (Tramp), Act of Forgiveness/“Why I Love Chaplin” Monologue, Moving Picture Show LADIES 1. Act of Comedic Genius (Seltzer Bottle), Silent Movie (Lady), Moving Picture Show 2. History Sections, Moving Picture Show 3. Act of Creation, Act of Honesty/“Why I really Love Chaplin” Monologue, Moving Picture Show 4. Act of Failure, Act of Success 5. Opening Moment, Act of Destruction, Act of Duality KIDS 1. Tomato, Moving Picture Show, Silent Movie (Kid), Act of Duality 2. History Sections, Act of Comedic Genius (Pie) HEAVYS 1. (male) Act of Success, Silent Movie (Police), Act of Failure 2. (male) Silent Movie (Male Rival), Act of Questionable Judgment, Moving Picture Show 3. History Sections, Act of Comedic Genius (Ice Cream)