Angels in America (25 page)

PRIOR
: Are you a Mormon?

HARPER
: Jack Mormon.

PRIOR
: I beg your pardon?

HARPER
: Jack Mormon. It means I'm flawed. Inferior Mormon product. Probably comes from jack rabbit, you know, I
ran
.

PRIOR
: Do you believe in angels? In the Angel Mormon?

HARPER
: Moroni, not Mormon, The Angel Moroni. Ask my mother-in-law, when you leave, the scary lady at the
reception desk: If its name was Moroni why don't they call themselves Morons. It's from comments like that you can tell I'm jack. You're not a Mormon.

PRIOR
: No, I—

HARPER
: Just . . . distracted with grief.

PRIOR
(Startled)
: I'm not. I was just walking and—

HARPER
: We get a lot of distracted, grief-stricken people here. It's our specially.

PRIOR
: I'm not . . . distracted, I'm doing research.

HARPER
: On Mormons?

PRIOR
: On . . . angels. I'm a . . . an angelologist.

HARPER
: I never met an angelologist before.

PRIOR
: It's an obscure discipline.

HARPER
: I can imagine. Angelology. The field work must be rigorous. You'd have to drop dead before you saw your first specimen.

PRIOR
(A beat, then deciding to confide)
: One . . . I saw one. An angel. It crashed through my bedroom ceiling.

HARPER
: Huh. That sort of thing always happens to me.

PRIOR
: I have a fever. I should be in bed but I'm too anxious to lie in bed.

     
You look
very
familiar.

HARPER
: So do you. But—

     
But it's just not possible. I don't get out. I've only ever been here, or in some place a lot like this, alone, in the dark, waiting for the dummy.

(Dramatic music as the house lights dim in the Diorama Room, the red curtains part and stage lights come up to reveal a brightly painted, brightly lit backdrop of the desert between Colorado and Utah, mountains looming in the distance. Posed before the backdrop, in silhouette, a family of Mormon pioneers, seated in a covered wagon.)

A VOICE
: In 1847, across fifteen hundred miles of frontier wilderness, braving mountain blizzards, desert storms, and renegade Indians, the first Mormon wagon trains made their difficult way towards the Kingdom of God.

(During the above, Harper noisily rips open a bag of Nacho-Flavored Doritos, which she holds out to Prior:)

HARPER
: Want some Nacho-Flavored—

(She stops as, to the accompaniment of the sounds of a wagon train and the Largo from Dvořák's
9th Symphony,
stage lights illuminate the Mormon family of costumed mannequins: two young sons, a mother and a daughter, and, driving the wagon, a father, who looks a lot like Joe.)

HARPER
(To the Mormon father)
: Hi Joe.

(The music and background sounds give way as the diorama scene begins. When either Caleb or Orrin speaks, his immobile face is hit with a pinspot; this has an unintentionally eerie effect. The father's face is animated, but not his body.)

CALEB
(Voice on tape)
: Father, I'm a-feard.

FATHER
: Hush, Caleb.

ORRIN
(Voice on tape)
: The wilderness is so vast.

FATHER
: Orrin, Caleb, hush. Be brave for your mother and your little sister.

(Louis suddenly appears in the diorama. The lights onstage and in the dark auditorium shift, subtly.)

LOUIS
: OK yeah yeah yeah but then answer me this: How can a fundamentalist theocratic religion function participatorily in a pluralist secular democracy? I can't
believe
you're a Mormon! I can't believe I've spent two whole weeks in bed with a Mormon!

JOE
: Um, could you talk a little softer, I—

LOUIS
: Are you busy?

JOE
: I'm working, but—And it's closer to three weeks, almost, it's—

LOUIS
: But you're a lawyer! A
serious
lawyer!

(Joe nods yes.)

LOUIS
: Jesus, Mormons everywhere, it's like
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
. I don't like cults.

JOE
: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is not a cult.

LOUIS
: Any religion that's not at least two thousand years old is a cult. And I know people who would call
that
generous.

JOE
: Are you upset about anything?

LOUIS
: Oh, you, you noticed? Yeah, I'm . . .
(Continue below:)

PRIOR
: WHAT IS HE DOING IN THERE?

(Joe gets down from the wagon and goes to Louis.)

HARPER
: Who? The little creep? He's in and out every day. I hate him. He's got absolutely
nothing
to do with the story.

LOUIS
(Continuous from above)
: I am, I'm upset about, about . . .
(He starts to cry, then stops himself)
You . . . unsettle me. You . . . abandoned your wife, and that's terrible, but you're not a terrible person, and yet you seem so unbothered by what you did, and that's terrible, too, but you're so decent and openly kind and truly sweet in bed, and I don't see how that's possible, but with you it seems to be, so, so . . .
(Continue below:)

PRIOR
(Standing, grabbing his things in a panic; to Harper)
: Can you turn it off? The . . . I'm leaving, I can't . . .

LOUIS
(Continuous from above)
: Is it just that, you know, belonging to a political party that's one half religious-zealot-control-freak theocrats and one half ego-anarchist-libertarian cowboys, you've had a lot of practice straddling cognitive dissonance? Or, or what?

     
I can't . . .

(Joe kisses Louis
.

     
Prior starts to leave, but the pain in his leg stops him; he's too weak to run. He turns back to the diorama, and calls:)

PRIOR
: Louis!

LOUIS
(Hearing him)
: Did you . . .

JOE
: What?

LOUIS
: Sssshh! I, I thought I heard . . .

     
(To himself)
Fucking hell.

     
(To Joe)
We have to talk.

JOE
: I can't leave the office in the middle of the—

LOUIS
: Fuck work! This is a, a crisis. Now.

(Louis exits. Joe follows.)

HARPER
(Alarmed)
: Oh! But the, but he—The dummy never
left
with the little creep, he never
left
before. When they come in and they see he's gone, they'll blame me.

(Harper rushes to the diorama stage and pulls its curtains closed. She turns back and sees that Prior is crying.)

HARPER
(Trying hard to sound hard)
: You shouldn't do that in here, this isn't a place for real feelings, this is just story-time here.
Stop
.

PRIOR
: I never imagined losing my mind was going to be such hard work.

HARPER
: Oh, it is.

     
(Her tough veneer starts to crack)
Find someplace else to be miserable in. This is
my
place and I don't want you to do that here!

PRIOR
: I JUST SAW MY LOVER, MY . . . ex-lover, with a . . . with your husband, with that . . . window-display Ken doll, in that . . .
thing
, I saw him, I—

HARPER
: OK OK don't have a hissy fit, I told you it wasn't working right, it's just . . . the magic of the theater or something. Listen, if you see the creep, tell him to bring Joe, to, to bring the mannequin back, they'll evict me and this is it, it's nothing but it's the last place on earth for me. I can't go sit in Brooklyn.

(Hannah enters with a flashlight.)

HANNAH
: What on earth is going—

     
(She sees Prior crying. She glares at Harper)

     
What did you do to him?

HARPER
: Nothing! He just can't
adjust
, is all, he just—

(Hannah goes to the diorama.)

HARPER
: NO WAIT, don't—

(Hannah yanks the curtain open. The father dummy is back
—
a real dummy this time.)

HARPER
: Oh.
(To Prior)
Look, we . . . imagined it.

HANNAH
: This is a favor, they let me work here as a favor, but you keep making scenes, and look at this mess, it's a garbage scow!
(Continue below:)

HARPER
(To Prior)
: It doesn't look so much like him, now. He's changed. Again.
(Continue below:)

HANNAH
(Continuous from above)
: Are you just going to sit here forever, trash piling higher, day after day till—well till what?
(Continue below:)

HARPER
(Continuous from above, to Hannah)
: You sound just like him. You even grind your teeth in your sleep like him.

HANNAH
(Continuous from above)
: If I could get him to come back I would go back to Salt Lake tomorrow.
(Continue below:)

HARPER
(Continuous from above)
: You can't go back to Salt Lake, you sold your house!
(Continue below:)