Martin Heavisides

Paul Bernardo talks late at night with his accomplice Karla Homolka (but is she really there) about the somewhat different consequences for the two of them of their shared criminal past.

An aging, hungover knife thrower practices his act with a blowup doll first thing the morning of a performance. He brings in his assistant at the end, a temp hired through an agency who's having second thoughts about the engagement. The knives that have missed the target altogether are less concerning than the ones that have punctured the blowup doll in key areas of its anatomy

A scientist at a dream testing facility examines a client, his wife, who fell into a coma unexpectedly a short time ago. He talks with his nurse over her condition and what might be going on in the silence of her thoughts. She begins to speak about a casino she's visiting in her dreams, a handsome croupier who seems to be clothed entirely in fire. Is an affair undertaken in a coma a true infidelity if the husband overhears? Is the nurse in attendance eager to exploit the possibilities in the wife's enforced unconsciousness.

Aegypta, a coma victim, lucky at cards and love both it appears, gleefully embarking on an affair with an elemental in (one presumes) her dreams.

Roman, her husband, stolid, attracted to but not altogether approving of his wife's free-floating imagination even when awake, taking in the details of his wife's potential infidelity with superficial stoicism.

Euphrosyne, the nurse attending, with interests in many fields of knowledge that haven't coalesced into a clear career plan as yet.

A bride and groom in their wedding suite talk inconsequentially over the events of the big day. Some mention is made of the cost of the ceremony, who would pay for their child's wedding (is one on the way? apparently not, only a tease, his drinking and roving eye, her long slow dance with an ex-beau he didn't know about, nightmares, as the bride's provocativeness and the groom's eagerness grow. Is she behind the curtain? He calls to her. No answer. What happens when marriage meets solipsim? What's your worst nightmare?

A late night visit by an experimental botanist and a visiting dignitary to a greenhouse where fabulous experimental plants are kept. Now they have reached the last of the rooms, housing red blossoms of seductive odour which it is very dangerous to get too near--a nose is the least of what's likely to disappear if you lean too close to sniff and yet. . . the silky texture, the eerie hum. Noises which may come from the flowers or may be the echo and remnant of two unseen observers alarm the lab supervisor as they hurry through. Are they weaponisable? "They'll attack our enemies, but that doesn't make them our friends." Out of the greenhouse, passion explodes from them like the great choming maw of an unassuming circular red flower.

For a definite crime, a definite punishment. For an indefinite one it might just be the mirror maze, which some complete in a jiff, others by the time they're eligible for Social Security, others. . . ? Sometimes the crime has to be written up after the fact, if you're escorting a prisoner and find yourself caught up in the same shadow world of clicking mirrors, hunting a way out just as if the paperwork had already been done on your sentence. It's not only the shifting pattern of the mirrors. It's the multiplication of your image receding backward from the first. It's a journey of trickery and deception, whether it leads you forward or takes you back.

For a definite crime, a definite punishment. For an indefinite one it might just be the mirror maze, which some complete in a jiff, others by the time they're eligible for Social Security, others. . . ? Sometimes the crime has to be written up after the fact, if you're escorting a prisoner and find yourself caught up in the same shadow world of clicking mirrors, hunting a way out just as if the paperwork had already been done on your sentence. It's not only the shifting pattern of the mirrors. It's the multiplication of your image receding backward from the first. It's a journey of trickery and deception, whether it leads you forward or takes you back.

After an unfortunate mixup in which Amberley put two attackers in the hospital and one in the morgue, not knowing they'd been sent to give him a beatdown in lieu of interest on the huge debt he owes the organization, he meets an old friend on the board, Faucon, to come to some arrangement about the outstanding debt. There is hard feeling among other board members, but were he to come out of retirement and liquidate a few assets gone sour for the company, his debt can be forgiven along with the recent damage done. What to do?

Being the adventures of a hitwoman, Jenny, with considerable skill at her profession and prodigious appetites, who falls suddenly and starkly in love (for the first time? It seems a point of contention) and decides to retire, with consequences which ripple through the Board of Directors through whom her assignments come, threatening not only herself and her mentor but the man she so deeply loves. Are her intricate skills and those of her mentor enough to extricate her and her man from trouble and facilitate their retirement to someplace from which they’ll never be heard again? And what kind of cover story will persuade Luke to flee with her? Meantime what’s with all these people being sent to terminate her contract with extreme prejudice?

A soldier and civilian in an intricate game of hide, seek and smack on the head. A fable.

Who is defending and who is subverting the machineworks? Do they cancel each other out? Do the machines craze defender and subverter alike?

A woman keeps getting messages from an abusive former lover although circumstances should prevent that happening. Where does he live now? A psychological thriller.

Chief Inspector Judi Turenne, in the course of investigating the latest in a series of murders of tax-evading billionaires, discovers all is not as it seems at the scene of the crime, and begins to question who she actually is in this investigation, and exactly what is its nature.

A ventriloquist and puppet work on a disturbing routine--"the neighbourhood murder schtick"--until art threatens to imitate life, and puppeteering baser and more primal means of manipulation.

Arnie and Irena are close, too close perhaps, it's a good thing one of them has to get out to work on a regular basis. "Are they careful where you work?" "If they aren't they're fired." Shopping's a perennial issue, and keeping up with what's in stock a persistent chore. Rational to buy extra supplies of course, but is it really so impossible to use up a carton of eggs before starting on the next one? It creates a disproportion in the fridge. Who's responsible? Both Arnie and Irena have been in charge of making eggs in recent memory.

As the crisis in education builds, a teacher thirty years retired is brought forcefully back into the classroom (theatre audience being her pupils). She appears not as she is now, but as she was in her Prime as a young teacher who held sway as much by her beauty as her educative skills. She reminisces about her years as a teacher, a profession she hated but dedicated her life to for what reason? She tells herself it was important work, and at least it was no longer permissible (except for the most senior teachers who couldn't unlearn old habits) to corporally abuse students as a means of focusing their minds on study. There are other means of making you attend, and Miss Lucke mastered most of them. Mark my words, you will learn! Dismissed, for now.

Aaron Coneybeare, a symbolist poet (laureate of Downtown North) is risking it all on a mystery prize to be disclosed later. The wheel takes an unusually long time to settle, but that's not the most alarming feature of this spin: once in an unspecified number of times the mystery prize is not so much a prize as. . . well, classified status keeps us from disclosing further. Will Coneybeare win a treasure beyond his wildest dreams? A random punishment he could scarcely have anticipated? Stay tuned.
Can be performed for radio or the stage.

A roving social engineer and his assistant, exploiting a new bylaw which makes the entire city into an experimental lab at their sole discretion, perform a random experiment in human aggression on a man waiting for a bus, with far reaching implications for the subject under study.

One Act.
What an odd thing to hear late at night as you stroll through the mist and--yes, tombstones, let's not think about that--from a perfect stranger no less! "How long have you been dead?" Dead indeed, and in a nightgown as if your family would bury you in that. No it's most likely a dream, personable as your afterworld guide proves to be. (Why wouldn't a figment of your dreaming imagination be charming and helpful?) A flip of the coin is going to decided this? A flip of a coin in your guide or dream figure's possession? How that could prove anything is anybody's guess, but no reason not to give it a try. Pinching doesn't help I already tried that.

Lord Hasp has been very naughty, and clumsy at it to boot. True, there are extenuating circumstances--variable wind speed, distance from target--but he has undeniably shot and only wounded the Real Estate Agent who found for him the estate they've been investigating together. Would it be humane to let him slowly bleed out? What if the wound's not all that serious and he gets away with a story to tell in his SUV? Two Assistants join the hunt, which is somewhat urgent as sunset is approaching. (The stage becomes a vast estate with flourishing forests and a river running through in our imagination.)

Two prisoners who are uncomfortably and the beginning of painfully standing on round stools with just enough room for their feet talk, while an interrogrator listens for a secret he won't ask for directly because that would be telling, confidently expecting it to come up as they chatter away under instruction not to stop talking, briefly protest by refusing to say another word until someone tells them why they're there.

Ms. Travesty has gone almost all the way in a game contest with ascending prizes, having just won a Zamboni which she suspects she and a cousin could profitably monetize. Will she take the brave leap to try for the last prize? It's a Ferris Wheel, how can she resist? She's dreamed of having one since she was a little girl. But the last question is always an unusually difficult one, often with no one right answer.

Two sisters, Djinn and Lucille, with a curiously complicated relationship to each other, living with their father who is a recluse in his chair before the tv and communicates with grunts and bodily noises, have a curious encounter with a man, Tod, who claims to be carrying a receipt which entitles him to meet his father (who is also theirs). Are his intentions wider and more sinister than that? Many things besides the truth of his status as half brother, including the real nature of their father, become clear before the lights fade for the last time. Bear in mind that it's a comedy.(The family that puts the dis in dysfunction.)

Are the women awaiting news on the passing of Adam Tarrant Arcane his current and two ex-wives (who have both married business rivals) or are they the three fates? Both seem possible, and that's a wicked pair of scissors the youngest and likely widow is carrying.

An actor is interrogated by two detectives over a monologue describing a career as a contract killer in support of his acting career. They not only take this seriously, they want a confession on a number of murders that puzzle them because they're recounted in works of fiction and may not have a real counterpart in the world.
10 minute

Five to seven minute play. A lawyer and psychiatrist examine in real time the emojis produced by a young client, the content of which is weaponized and disturbing.

Amadou, Tatiana: father and daughter who live in an abandoned car;
Empedocles; former Professor who talks only in written signs;
Karol and Ania, parents of an infant born in a waste heap;
Esmeralda, a busy entrepreneur with a shopping cart;
Nastassia, flirtatious in shapeless grey rags;
Hanif, probably still recovering from rendition at some time;
Their mission, should they choose to accept it, is to live another day. How do they do that?

Everyone's a suspect in the brutal murder at close quarters of Aurora Printemps, familiarly known to one and all as Grandma. The lead detective sometimes sports a tail, as does her most recent--or was he the most recent--paramour? Her granddaughter Red Rida loved her, hated her, wished her dead, but has an alibi no weaker than any of the others. Will this be sorted or will it join the 63% of cases that go into permanent cold case status (according to a statistic that may have been made up on the spot)?

{A modernized reworking of Little Red Riding Hood}

A tale of monks and nuns, poets and Zen masters in Japan of the classical era. How does a man of war turn to a vision of peace? How well does it take? Will the world and its wars rush in to any cloister? Are these questions as live today as they were in all previous centuries? Can they be lived as well as debated? See them, feel them, touch them, smell them, hear them now. “Earth feeds us/out of her empty bowl.”

A near disaster is averted when a glass canister supposedly full of a deadly biological agent proves to be a ringer. But where is the real canister? What is the object discovered by three thieves in a safe guarded with less than perfect security, and is it wise to clamp it in place with a vise to hold it firm, if the vise might be tight enough to open a hairline crack in the glass? The agents who avoided dying (along with the entire population of the city region) when the dud canister shattered track down the real one. Clamped in a vise inside a safe with a tricky combination! A tense confrontation ensues, which ends with a compromise payout to the thieves so as to maintain secrecy, and tense hands on the dial of the safe.

There are less stressful occupations, let me tell you, than sitting on Argos’ highest hill, watching day and night (a year is it now?) 24/7 for a signal fire on a distant island mountain. That's the last of a relay of pyres built up, stretching on similar mountain summits from Troy to Argos, to signal Agamemnon's return. The news will travel faster through swift medium of fire than Agamemnon's oar and sail can speed through cumbrous water. Clytemnestra will have time to prepare a reception and sacrifice. I know more than I let on about that--prefer my throat unslit.

Philosophers come by to a spot near me to harangue and sometimes prophesy--there's Heraclitus, same name as me except the suffix. The volume and sonority jolts you awake, that's very much a plus. What do you mean asleep? Just because you had to shake me roughly and I appeared to snore? At least it was my friend the poet-singer Archilochis who shook me. Wouldn't want to explain my strategy of feigned sleep to Clytemnestra's spymaster Orchidous--who seems to show up just when my wife, visiting with lunch or other refreshment, is leaving. Something a little odd about Orchidous—something more than her (why did I say her? his I meant) homicidal devotion to the household secret service of Queen Clytemnestra.
Diogenes is more personable , cynic of course but you can have a real conversation with him at least. It passes the time, as does Archilochis' song.

That lady our Queen has a welcome ready for her husband our sovereign King let me tell you—sharp, aglitter in the sun, sheathed in a scabbard of metal-inlaid leather. I’m not so naive as they think, nor so much of a fool as to let them discover how far I see into their plans. Should it matter to me what dispatch she uses on the man who dragged my son to his death in war? I’ll blame neither her nor whatever son of a bitch slays her suddenly, though you have to admit it’s a strange way of passing the time, all this royal and noble nepotistic slaughter.

What's that? a flicker of fire in the distance, so this is the day I'm released from my watch?

Logline: The leadup to the Oresteia from the point of view of the Herald from the Agamemnon

Act I, Death by MIsadventure tells of the unmourned death of Adam Tarrant Arcane, a multi- billionaire who is in an automobile accident brought about by his micomanaging self-absorption, watched over in his last hours by two exes and a current wife who can barely conceal their glee at his passing, any more than the guests can at the funeral. Act II, Are You Now, takes place 60 years in the future, at a time when the wealthy are able to extend their lifespans greatly if not indefinitely, and there are laws against living past 80 which apply to most of the population but not those wealthy enough to purchase surplus years and obfuscate their lifespans with floating identities. This act begins with an attractive woman attempting to stave off Evacuation (having been accused, though she is 27, of being 80 in secret) with an appeal to a Shark Tank-like company of four billionaires, and ends with a raid on a makeshift city of large cardboard boxes by the Year Police.

Brigid O'Shaugnessy (who's served her sentence as Ann Case, and whose real name might be permanently buried in successive aliases over the years) finds a man waiting (does she?) at the gate as he promised he would be twenty years before: Sam Spade. Had she expected him to keep the promise? It's not as if he's turned up on her visitor's list in the meantime, and whose testimony was it sent her over after all, for two teeny little murders--what kind of gentleman would do such a thing to a lady he'd had explicit relations with even if it was in his ordinary line of work, being a private detective? Has she forgiven him? Will she now? First she'd better see what use she can make of him, making her way back into the world at large after twenty years out of circulation.

Cradled in Sam's arms, possibly a-dreaming, she ponders the similarities and differences between a male lover like Spade and a young impulsive girl like her cellmate Brigitte. Their vivid encounter might be remembered or happeningin the present. Her night at the Oily Palms Motel with Sam might be the real beginning of a life on the outside mingling adventure and peril, or a dream compounded of desire and revenge.

The night guard on their cell block comes by to inform her that somebody's asked to pay a visit to her this upcoming Friday: will she ok it? Seamus O'Riley, the name's as cooked as any of her own akas, but there's only one man in the world at large it could be. Well! let's see how this plays out.

Brigid O'Shaugnessy (who's served her sentence as Ann Case, and whose real name might be permanently buried in successive aliases over the years) finds a man waiting (does she?) at the gate as he promised he would be twenty years before: Sam Spade. Had she expected him to keep the promise? It's not as if he's turned up on her visitor's list in the meantime, and whose testimony was it sent her over after all, for two teeny little murders--what kind of gentleman would do such a thing to a lady he'd had explicit relations with even if it was in his ordinary line of work, being a private detective? Has she forgiven him? Will she now? First she'd better see what use she can make of him, making her way back into the world at large after twenty years out of circulation.

Cradled in Sam's arms, possibly a-dreaming, she ponders the similarities and differences between a male lover like Spade and a young impulsive girl like her cellmate Brigitte. Their vivid encounter might be remembered or happeningin the present. Her night at the Oily Palms Motel with Sam might be the real beginning of a life on the outside mingling adventure and peril, or a dream compounded of desire and revenge.

The night guard on their cell block comes by to inform her that somebody's asked to pay a visit to her this upcoming Friday: will she ok it? Seamus O'Riley, the name's as cooked as any of her own akas, but there's only one man in the world at large it could be. Well! let's see how this plays out.

Late at night, a man, Walter Black, rises sleepily from bed and finds three doors standing in the middle of his living room. Behind the first a roaring tiger, the second a raging man, Inspector Quince (contained only with difficulty when he tries to push through), the third a beautiful woman in a negligee, Angeline Pitfall. He contemplates the doors a moment and once more opens door number three, now with the angry man behind it. Better prepared this time, he jumps at the throat of Walter Black, strangling him. Then he proceeds to the bed of Walter's wife, Erntrude. Angeline Pitfall is released by a resurrected Walter Black, and a complex interweaving of erotic and violent possibilities emerges. Will this end in tears or what?

Three people living rough tell stories around a trashcan fire of exotic lives they've lived in the past (or in one case, a life one is living in the present). From time to time they speculate on the crowd of people who appear to be watching them.

(This was first written as an independent ten minute play, and can be played that way, but has also been incorporated as a scene in the second act of Policing the Years.)

A girl gone missing reports herself to the police—or does she? The girl giving them her story doesn’t much resemble the missing one.

You know what I hate about writers? The question starts off a stream of nonstop complaints from four performers identified only as A, B, C and D, until they decide to break free and improvise. On the spur of the moment it's beyond them "YOU KNOW WHAT I HATE ABOUT WRITERS?"

Have you tried the new life new lives?

(1 minute play)

10 minute play.
A man, Estamboul Train, courts a woman, Desiderata Plume, at a retreat she's attending with her fiance,he with his wife. Her ambiguous responses and his eager suit are interrupted when a new couple appears, forcing them to retreat. The new couple are her fiance, Lamar Wence, and his wife, Rowena Blackstock-Train. Furious at this betrayal, Train brings two crossbows from a mediaeval weapons room off right and they take aim, firing pointlessly in the air as Wence and Blackstock-Train run off together to a new life. Train and Plume, unbearably aroused in the moment, embrace and kiss. (The comedy version of Trigger Event.)

Ten minute play. Two illicit lovers, Sylvester and Katrin, meet in a garden on an exotic retreat, unaware they're in the crosshairs of a high powered rifle aimed at them by the woman's lover, Armand, who is being egged on by the man's lover, Livia, over a Bluetooth. Armand and Livia are erotically as well as vengefully stimulated by the situation, which builds to a climax equal parts violent and erotic. (The tragic version of Four Play.) 10 minutes.

A young man, in bed with a young lady, texts instead of speaking to her and it soon becomes apparent he thinks they're still dating, as they were initially, online, and he wonders if they'll ever meet in person. They have, of course, but it takes a while for the truth to sink in, as she begins to dress to leave.

A denim clad factory worker turns the keys in back of two realistic humanoid robots to set them to work on a task: moving boxes from one side of the stage to another. They move them, stiffly at first then more fluidly, as eight hours are counted down by the dcft. The dcft wonders why at the end of the day they must wind down and stop for the night, which is explained impatiently--it has been explained before--by the unseen voice of the factory owner. But is there more to the robots than is known or allowed for by their foreman and owner?

Red Rida hears a badly muffled cell phone call from her Grandma's house--something about the isolation and the trees always throws out reception--and hurries there with ill defined foreboding. Her cousin at a few removes, Albert Skillset, is investigating her grandmother's murder but there's something a little bit off about him tonight--has he always had that tail swinging out in back of his pants?
(This is a stand-alone scene, but also the beginning of a full length play, same title, same subject--a fairy tale for modern times.)

Five guys in a bar sitting around drinking and going deep on the subject of existential impregnation, literature, obsolete? woman, the eternal mystery,babies terminated and born, fluid urinal discharges and whatever else comes up and seems to fit. Not every uttered word is golden.

Did you hear the one about the standup comedian whose life was a joke? Keen to preserve the language of his homeland, which two people in the world understand and only one speaks, he is making a bid not only for fame, fortune, sex and the usual emoluments of success, but to preserve this beautiful tongue, so near to going out of existence in the world. Needless to say, performing standup in a language unknown to his three stern judges, with an interpreter who personally refuses to speak the language (but will, as faithfully as possible, translate) presents unique difficulties to an ambitious performer.

Three contestants, a man and two women, sit waiting for their chance to compete. A flamboyantly dressed woman comes up to the man, presents him with a card and says "The joke's on you," which is his cue to compete. He tells a long, meandering shaggy dog story, veers from it into personal history, disappointments in life and love both, the revenge he'll achieve when the girlfriend who dumped him sees he's made 'joke of the year' with commensurate fame and fortune. Finishes, leaves full of grandiose plans and expectations. The woman hands a card to the first of the two women waiting, saying "The joke's on you."

A woman shoots a target located at the top of the middle aisle leading out of the theatre. The paper target, riddled with bullets including two that have taken out both eyes, rides down to her where she examines it with satisfaction. A man enters, with a cane and pitch black glasses and sits down with her to breakfast. They talk inconsequentially, as if around a subject that preoccupies them but can't quite be spoken of. The man pities anyone who would try to invade their home, with a sharpshooter like that on the premises.

A Roomba(TM) sweeps a stage bare except for one item, moving from left to right and back again in a steady progress until it meets, and goes around, the one impediment it encounters, a corpse in the middle of the stage. It takes the path of least resistance moving round the outline of the recumbent form then swirls across the stage and off left.

Three thieves muscle a safe into their hideout and speculate on what’s in it—something important, something valuable, something that could get them killed?—while the cleverest of them struggles to detect the combination and open it which, after trials and tribulations, (s)he does. What’s inside the safe then? Was it worth the effort to heist it? That would be telling.

A warden, a chaplain, two guards and a prisoner debate the death penalty in situ, the prisoner strapped into an electric chair awaiting execution. Quite a lively debate with the warden and one guard favouring it, the chaplain and the other guard opposing. The prisoner's argument is that whether they favour it in general or not, in this case they can't because--in spite of a ridiculous preponderance of evidence--he is not guilty.
10 minute play.

Short play (5-10 minutes depending how the action is managed).
Two parents enter, in combat gear, a toy superstore that is literally a combat zone. Their mission: secure toys in separate aisles for their twin boys.

Three soccer fans watch a friendly between two teams none of them, including the dedicated soccer geek, recognize until they work it out by the letter codes. "IRL Versus TDF" "When did Tierra del Fuego start fielding a team?" They become invested in the action (which is heard but not seen as the three actors face a screen the audience never sees), to the extent that two of them choose to cheer for opposing sides. Dark aspects of their lives move the conversation into cruel comedy--gallows humour-- until--sudden break in the action--GOAL! Which frames without resolving the moment.
10 minute play

The internet explodes with indignation in every direction at once when a comedian whose career hasn't got very far is discovered to have tweeted about going to visit a Chinese girlfriend "to have my laundry done if you know what I mean". It was many years ago and the girl, as he now discovers from an indignant tweet of hers, was actually Vietnamese. Large repercussions for a small joke--will it break his career before it begins or--who's that on the phone? The Late Show?
(There is a textual component. A screen on the backstage wall projects both dialogue and some of the texts responding to it as a persistent background scroll.)
10-15 minutes

A dictator in a straitjacket and restraining straps that confine him to a bed hears the terms under which he is being deposed, partly by his previous supporters, partly by revolutionary insurgents. He'll be given exile and a golden parachute--a small fraction of what his former Prime Minister refers to as the Royal Theftchest, but a substantial pension for an aging, retired mass butcher. Unless they decide to send him to the state that wants to either hang him very slowly or lower him inch by inch into a vat of boiling oil.
10 minutes

A job interview that resembles both an interrogation and a trip down the rabbit hole elicits unusual skills in an initially unpromising interviewee, and ambivalent admiration in the interviewers. Is this the candidate the corporation's been looking for, who can winkle out money for its coffers that doesn't even exist yet?

(10 minute play.)