Cabaret 2004: October Surprise

*This scenario is based on the WiG 2004 Cabaret presented at the General Butler State Park in Kentucky. I have eliminated most of the conference-specific allusions and expanded on some of the scenes. In the original, I wrote the frame and the parts of Ashcroft and Jelinek, with guidelines for the other characters to ad lib. Therefore, some of the lines of the individual speakers may be attributable to Jeannine Blackwell (Theresa), Dick Langston (Cheney), Gundolf Graml (Arnold), Liz Mittman (John Kerry), or Jeanette Clausen (Nina Tittenberg), if not in the context that they have spoken them.

Setting:                          Ronald Reagan International Detention Center (RRIDC) in October 2004

Cast:

 
A courtroom setting.

Nina Tittenberg:  This is Nina Tittenberg reporting live from the Ronald Reagan International Detention Center, where Attorney General John Ashcroft and Vice President Dick Cheney are holding hearings concerning violations of the newly passed, retrospectively active provisions of the Patriotic Immigration Act. In the room at this time are Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Cheney sitting at a table, a group of what appear to be security moms (with babies in slings), and two RRIDC guards. Secret Service personnel are carefully screening everyone who enters the chamber.

Ashcroft: We will begin today’s proceedings with a short prayer session. Please all kneel and hold hands while we ask for God for his blessings in our sacred task.

Nina Tittenberg: The chamber has fallen silent as all present kneel down and join hands.

Ashcroft: We are convening this hearing today to determine whether certain foreign-born immigrants—even though they might hold American citizenship and have attained some degree of international prominence—have violated provisions of the Patriotic Immigration Act, which would warrant their immediate detention here in the Ronald Reagan International Detention Center.

Nina Tittenberg: On October 23, 2005, the nation was shocked to learn that Austrian-born Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California, had been taken into custody for allegedly smoking Cuban cigars in defiance of both the Cuban embargo and the state’s ban on smoking in public places. He is also under investigation for registering people to vote with the slogan: “Join Arnold’s Army!” which many in the Bush administration see as a front for a 2008 bid to unseat the wartime president.

Ashcroft: (to guards) Please bring in Governor Schwarzenegger.

Cheney: (aside to Ashcroft) This army business is clearly an act of subversion but what do you expect, given his moderate political views. What do you want to bet he’s a, you know, the L-word!

Ashcroft: Dick! Are you saying that Arnold Schwarzenegger is a Lesbian?

Cheney: No, a Liberal! And leave my daughter Mary out of this, for God’s sake. It’s bad enough with those Democrats. I don’t trust this guy at all. I know for a fact that he has ties to Al Qaeda. Where do you think he got those weapons for the Terminator films? Saddam Hussein! Mark my words, we’re going to find those damned weapons of mass destruction somewhere in the California desert. Just you wait and see.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is brought into the chamber. The security moms go wild, swarming around him asking him to autograph their babies. He can be seen groping the women at times.

Nina Tittenberg: There seems to be some confusion in the courtroom right now. As Governor Schwarzenegger is being brought in, the security moms, evidently avid fans, have left their seats and are swarming around him and, it looks like, yes, they are asking him to sign their babies. The Attorney General does not look pleased at this display of secular emotion—not to mention the very visible groping now going on—during the judicial proceedings. He is now calling the room to order again. The security moms have returned to their seats.

Ashcroft: This chamber will come to order! Judicial proceedings are about to start. Please turn off your cell-ves or put them on vibrate. Governor Schwarzenegger, you have been brought here today under suspicion of Un-American activity in violation of the retroactively active Patriotic Immigration Act. Vice President Cheney and I will now ask you some questions. If you can convince us that we are in error, —which we rarely are—we will release you to your duties as Governor of California. If, however, you fail to prove your innocence beyond a reasonable doubt, you will be detained indefinitely at this facility.

Arnold: (with an Austrian accent) What is this all about? I demand to know the charges. I want to call my lawyer! I have rights too as an American citizen!

Ashcroft: Not if you are suspected of perpetrating this kind of crime.

Cheney: (begins the interrogation) John, let me handle this. Now, Governor, tell us about this army you have been forming.

Arnold: I refuse to answer any questions! I demand that you let me go immediately! I am Governator of California, an action governator, they have armies, yes, to protect the people.

Ashcroft: As we thought. Now, tell us about the covert activities being sponsored by your Planet Arnold international chain of “fitness restaurants.”

Cheney:  We have concrete evidence linking you to Al Qaeda operatives who’ve been eating there. We know, for example, that Saddam Hussein arranged through them to have Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction shipped to Hollywood and that your “army” has subsequently buried them in the California National Parks, where those pinko, tree-hugging environmentalists won’t let us dig for them.

Ashcroft: And you were caught smoking Cuban cigars! How, in the face of these blatantly un-American activities, can you demonstrate to us that you truly value all the United States of America stands for?

Arnold: I make money. I work for Hollywood. I married a Kennedy. And the cigars came from Bill Clinton…

Cheney:  See! I told you so! Give’em enough rope and they hang themselves every time. The Kennedys! Clinton! Next thing he’ll say he’s pro-choice.

Ashcroft: That will be all, Governor Schwarzenegger. (to the guards)Take him to the fresh-air detention cells to await further questioning.

Nina Tittenberg: The guards are now escorting Governor Schwarzenegger out of the chamber. The security moms seem agitated that he is leaving. Now they are out of their seats and mobbing their hero. Attorney General Ashcroft is trying to restore order in the courtroom. He finally has gotten the security moms to take their seats again, as Governor Schwarzenegger can finally be escorted from the room. The Attorney General is about to resume the proceedings as something seems to have caught his eye. O dear! One of the security moms seems to have begun nursing her baby, albeit discreetly. The Attorney General is rising and leaving the table. He is beckoning to one of the guards, who is approaching carrying a blue cloth, which he is now draping over the offending breast.

Ashcroft: That’s better. (returns to his seat) Justice and naked breasts never did sit well with me, as you all well know.

Nina Tittenberg:  With that situation resolved, the October Surprise continues. The Justice Department has also taken Theresa Heinz Kerry into custody, and the guards are bringing her into the courtroom now. She too is rumored to be in retroactive violation of the Patriotic Immigration Act for speaking French during her address to the Democratic National Convention and for shamelessly promoting the values and products of the Old Europe. When she was apprehended yesterday, agents also discovered a substantial quantity of Botox among her possessions. Mrs. Heinz Kerry is wearing a deep red Chanel suit, a Dior scarf, and Ferrigamo pumps. She is now seated and glaring at the Attorney General and the Vice President.

Ashcroft: Mrs. Kerry…

Theresa:  Mrs. Heinz Kerry!

Ashcroft:  As I was saying, Mrs. Kerry. It would be a betrayal of the memory of my deceased colleague Senator John Heinz to utter his name in the same breath as… John Kerry’s. Now, you have been brought here today under suspicion of un-American activities in violation of the retroactively active Patriotic Immigration Act. Vice President Cheney and I will now ask you some questions to confirm your guilt.

Theresa: Or Innocence?

Ashcroft: How can you, a lapsed Republican, defend your marriage to a liberal Democrat? Wse feel that such mixed unions undermine the sanctity of marriage and therefore undermine the Constitution of the United States of America.

Theresa: Are you implying that marriage can only be between a man and a woman from the same political party? My vows to John Kerry are the same as the ones I took with John Heinz. And our marriage is valid in Massachusetts.

Cheney: (to Ashcroft) Same-text marriage, see, I told you so. Mrs. Kerry, do you condemn or condone the use of condiments in marriage?

Theresa: As you know, I believe in 57 varieties to spice up my marriage. If you and Lynn would like to try some artichaux therese…

Cheney: God damn it! You can go fuck yourself, lady!

Ashcroft: Dick, I told you not to take the Lord’s name in vain!

Theresa: And you, Mr. Asscroft, I can suggest some things you can shove…

Ashcroft: I will have order and decorum returned to these proceedings! Speaking French, I mean of French, how do you explain your continued public propagating of French culture and cuisine? It is a sacrilege to American values to hear you talk like this. Why, one wonders if you will pressure your husband to ask for France’s permission before he authorizes a preemptive strike on countries in the axis of evil. Or if he’ll even defend us at all, for that matter. I think I’ve heard enough. Take Mrs. Kerry into custody and bring her over to the cell-block with Martha Stewart.

Cheney: Quel fromage!

Ashcroft: Dick…?

Cheney: A joke, John, a joke. Lynn taught it to me.

Nina Tittenberg: Theresa Heinz-Kerry is being led off now, but she seems to be resisting any attempt of the guards to take her arms. It has been rumored that Martha Stewart has requested her as a cellmate but that has not been confirmed. Attorney General Ashcroft is now motioning to guards to bring in the third, and last, prominent detainee, although she has been taken into custody for trying to enter the country for subversive purposes. We have been told that this will be the 2004 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, (mispronounce name) Elfriede Jelinek. Claiming to be seeking political asylum from angry mobs of Austrian citizens, who were burning her in effigy on the Heldenplatz, she appeared unexpectedly at the Cincinnati airport and was immediately detained. She is now being brought into the courtroom.

Ashcroft: Ms. (mispronounces name) Jelinek. You, as an undesirable alien, have been detained under suspicion of entering America for subversive purposes. Aside from traveling alone, as a woman, which is itself in violation of the retrospectively active Patriotic Immigration Act, you have been accused by many sources, whose values we respect, of pornography, godlessness, and even feminoterrorism. You have been described as a “willfully perverse,”“Nobel Prize Bizarro.” We do not sanction such filth in this country.

Jelinek: I’m sure if you had actually read any of my works you would recognize their literary merit. I have a copy of Bambiland, if you are interested.

Cheney: Just how did you intend to support yourself in this country, knowing that no media conglomerate here would touch your “sadomasochistic filth,” your “depraved fantasies”?

Jelinek: I was planning on giving piano lessons.

Ashcroft: And you were apprehended traveling alone! Don’t you know women must be escorted here?

Jelinek: I was not alone! I tried to tell them that at the airport, but they wouldn’t listen and confiscated the urn with my mother.

Ashcroft: Yes, well, thank you. That will be enough. Guards!

Two Secret Service agents approach Ashcroft, whispering something into his ear and gesticulating nervously. Ashcroft sits in stunned silence with a blank look on his face for the duration of the proceedings.

Nina Tittenberg: There is some commotion in the courtroom, as two Secret Service agents are approaching Attorney General Ashcroft. One is now whispering something into his ear. He seems stunned. He is just sitting there with a blank expression on his face, holding his copy of the Patriotic Immigration Act upside down. Vice President Cheney is trying to rouse him but without any visible success. Vice President Cheney is standing up and signaling to the guards to take Elfriede Jelinek (mispronounced) away. He is taking charge and looks like he is about to make an important announcement. What is that? It looks as if someone is struggling to enter the courtroom. Yes, it’s John Kerry. He has broken free of the security guards and is approaching the front of the courtroom, shaking hands along the way.

John Kerry: (saluting) John Kerry, reporting for duty! Now, settle down here. I have a plan! We can do better! I promise you, if you elect me as your president, I will pardon Theresa. I will, although I am a practicing Catholic and would never do so myself, not deny any woman or man the right to choose which literature they will read. And I will dismiss the charges against Governor Schwarzenegger in order to meet his on even ground in 2008. If I am elected, I will…

Cheney: (taking charge) Detain that one too (pointing at John Kerry)! Take him away, Guards!

Nina Tittenberg: A hush has fallen over the audience here as Vice President Cheney has ordered the security forces to remove John Kerry from the room.

Cheney: Bleeding purple heart Liberals! (to the security moms) Don’t worry over there, we have the situation under control. John? John? (aside) He’s still out of it. Now, there’s been some incontrovertible intelligence that’s just come in (looks at the Secret Service agents and nods) that some of the swing states may be endangered by liberal insurrectionist groups planning to disrupt the democratic election process by promising clean underwear to anyone who votes. We are in the process of taking measures to nip any such seditious activities in the bud. The United States Air Force has been ordered to bomb all precincts where suspicious activity has been recorded. As you know, we have very precise air defense capabilities, and we are able to pinpoint our targets to avoid any unnecessary collateral damage. We will be calling this Operation Swift Freedom. We can win this war on terror with decisive action. John, John…

Nina Tittenberg: The Vice President is trying to rouse Attorney General Ashcroft. He is helping him to stand up and assisting him in leaving the room. Stay tuned to NPR for the latest developments in this election year and complete coverage of Operation Swift Freedom. NPR senior correspondents Bob Edwards and Susan Stamburg will be embedded in our air force jets as they carry out their mission. This is Nina Tittenberg reporting live from the Ronald Reagan International Detention Facility. We will now return to our usual programming.

END?