HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
by Kurt Vonnegut
ACT ONESCENE ONE
SILENCE. Pitch blackness. Animal eyes begin to glow in the darkness. Sounds of the jungle climax in animals fighting. A SINGER is heard singing the first bars of "All God's Chillun Got Shoes." HAROLD, LOOSELEAF, PENELOPE, and WOODLY stand in a row in the darkness, facing the audience. They are motionless. A city skyline in the early evening materializes outside the windows.
The lights come up on the living room of a rich man's apartment, which is densely furnished with trophies of hunts and wars. There is a front door, a door to the master bedroom suite, and a corridor leading to other bedrooms, the kitchen and so on.
PENELOPE
How do you do. My name is Penelope Ryan. This is a simple-minded play about men who enjoy killing--and those who don't.
HAROLD
I am Harold Ryan, her husband. I have killed perhaps two hundred men in wars of various sorts--as a professional soldier. I have killed thousands of other animals file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (1 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM] HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
as well--for sport.
WOODLY
I am Dr. Norbert Woodly--a physician, a healer. I find it disgusting and frightening that a killer should be a respected member of society. Gentleness must replace violence everywhere, or we are doomed. PENELOPE
(to LOOSELEAF) Would you like to say something about killing, Colonel?
LOOSELEAF
(embarrassed) Jesus--I dunno. You know. What the heck. Who knows?
PENELOPE
Colonel Harper, retired now, dropped an atom bomb on Nagasaki during the Second World War, killing seventy-four thousand people in a flash. LOOSELEAF
I dunno, boy. PENELOPE
You don't know? LOOSELEAF
It was a bitch. PENELOPE
Thank you. (to all)
You can leave now. We'll begin.
WOODLY
(to the audience, making a peace sign) file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (2 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]
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Peace!
All but PENELOPE exit.
PENELOPE
(to the audience) This is a tragedy. When it's done, my face will be as white as the snows of Kilimanjaro.
(hyena laughs)
My husband, who kills so much, has been missing for eight years. He disappeared in a light plane over the Amazon Rain Forest, where he hoped to find diamonds as big as cantaloupes. His pilot was Colonel Looseleaf Harper, who dropped the bomb on Nagasaki.
(hyena laughs)
I should explain the doorbells in this apartment. They were built by Abercrombie and Fitch. They are actual recordings of animal cries. The back doorbell is a hyena, which you've just heard. The front doorbell is a lion's roar. (to the wings)
Would you let them hear it please? (lion roars)
Thank you.
PAUL, her twelve-year-old son, enters from corridor, a sensitive, neatly dressed little rich boys.
PENELOPE
And this is my son, Paul. He was only four years old when his father disappeared. PAUL
(radiantly, sappily) He's coming back, Mom! He's the bravest, most wonderful man who ever lived. file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (3 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]
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PENELOPE
(to audience) I told you this was a simple-minded play.
PAUL
Maybe he'll come back tonight!
It's his birthday.
PENELOPE
I know. PAUL
Stay home tonight!
PENELOPE
(ruefully, for they have been over this before) Oh, Paul-PAUL You're married! You've already got a husband!
PENELOPE
He's a ghost! PAUL
He's alive! PENELOPE
Not even Mutual of Omaha thinks so anymore. PAUL
If you have to go out with some guy--can't he be more like Dad? (sick)
Herb Shuttle and Norbert Woodly-can't you do better than those two freaks?
PENELOPE
(resentfully) file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (4 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]
Thank you, kind sir.
PAUL
A vacuum cleaner salesman and a fairy doctor. PENELOPE
A what kind of doctor? PAUL
A fairy--a queer. Everybody in the building knows he's a queer. PENELOPE
(knowing better) That's an interesting piece of news.
PAUL
You're the only woman he ever took out. PENELOPE
Not true.
PAUL
Still lives with his mother.
PENELOPE
You know she has no feet! You want him to abandon his mother, who has no husband, who has no money of her own, who has no feet? PAUL
How did she lose her feet? PENELOPE
In a railroad accident many years ago. PAUL
I was afraid to ask. PENELOPE
Norbert was just beginning practice. A real man would have sold her to a file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (5 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM] HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
catfood company, I suppose. As far as that goes, J. Edgar Hoover still lives with his mother.
PAUL
I didn't know that. PENELOPE
A lot of people don't. PAUL
J. Edgar Hoover plays sports. PENELOPE
I don't really know. PAUL
To only exercise Dr. Woodly ever gets is playing the violin and making that stupid peace sign. (makes the peace sign and says the word effeminately) Peace. Peace. Peace, everybody. Lion doorbell roars. PENELOPE
(cringing) I hate that thing.
PAUL
It's beautiful. He goes to door, admits WOODLY, whom he loathes openly.
WOODLY
(wearing street clothes, carrying a rolled-up poster
under his arm)
Peace, everybody--Paul, Penelope.
PAUL
You're taking Mom out tonight? file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (6 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM] HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
WOODLY
(to PENELOPE) You're going out?
PENELOPE
Herb Shuttle is taking me to a fight. WOODLY
Take plenty of cigars. PENELOPE
(an apology, secret from PAUL) We made the date three months ago.
WOODLY
I must take you to an emergency ward sometime--on a Saturday night. That's also fun. I came to see Selma, as a matter of fact. PENELOPE
She quit this afternoon. PAUL
We don't have a maid any more. WOODLY
Oh? PENELOPE
The animals made her sneeze and cry too much.
WOODLY
I'm glad somebody finally cried. Every time I come in here and see all this unnecessary death, I want to cry. (winking at PAUL,
acknowledging PAUL's low opinion of him) I don't cry, of course. Not manly, you know. Did she try antihistamines? file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (7 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
PENELOPE
They made her so sleepy she couldn't work. WOODLY
Throw out all this junk. Burn it! This room crawls with tropical disease.
P
AUL
Everything stays as it is!
WOODLY
A monument to a man who thought that what the world needed most was more rhinoceros meat. PAUL
(hotly) My father!
I apologize. But you didn't know him, and neither did I. How's your asthma? PAUL
Don't worry about it.
WOODLY
How's the fungus around your thumbnail? PAUL
(concealing the thumb) It's fine! WOODLY
It's jungle rot! This room is making everybody sick! This is your family doctor speaking now. (unrolling the poster) Here--I brought you something else to hang on your wall, for the sake of variety. file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (8 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
PENELOPE
(reading) "War is not healthy for children and other living things." How lovely.
WOODLY
No doubt Paul thinks it stinks. Lion doorbell roars. WOODLY
I hate that thing.
PAUL
(going to the door) Keeps fairies away! He admits HERB SHUTTLE, who carries an Electrolux vacuum cleaner.
SHUTTLE
(to PAUL
affectionately,
touching him)
Hi kid.
(seeing WOODLY)
Would you look what the car dragged in.
WOODLY
I'm glad you brought your vacuum cleaner.
SHUTTLE
Is that a fact? WOODLY
That maid just quit. The place is a mess. You can start in the master bedroom. PENELOPE
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SHUTTLE
He's not anybody to tell somebody else what to do in a master bedroom. PENELOPE
I'll get ready, Herb. I didn't expect you this soon. (to all)
Please--won't everybody be nice to everybody else while I'm gone? All freeze, except for PENELOPE, who comes forward to address the audience. Lights on set fade as spotlight comes on.
PENELOPE
Most men shunned me--even when I nearly swooned for want of love. I might as well have been girdled in a chastity belt. My chastity belt was not made of iron and chains and chickenwire, but of Harold's lethal reputation.
SHUTTLE comes into the spotlight.
SHUTTLE
I keep having this nightmare--that he catches us. PENELOPE
Doing what? SHUTTLE
He'd kill me. He'd be right to kill me, too--the kind of guy he is. PENELOPE
Or was. We haven't done anything wrong, you know. SHUTTLE
He'd assume we had. PENELOPE
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That's something I suppose.
SHUTTLE
All through the day I'm so confident. That's why I'm such a good salesman, you know? I have confidence, and I look like I have confidence, and that gives other people confidence. People laugh sometimes when they find out I'm a vacuum cleaner salesman. They stop laughing, though, when they find out I made forty-three thousand dollars last year. I've got six other salesmen working under me, and what they all plug into is my confidence. That's what charges them up. PENELOPE
I'm glad. SHUTTLE
I was captain of the wrestling team at Lehigh University. PENELOPE
I know. SHUTTLE
If you want to wrestle, you got Lehigh. If you want to play tennis, you go to Vanderbilt.
PENELOPE
I don't want to go to Vanderbilt. SHUTTLE
You don't wrestle if you don't have supreme confidence, and I wrestled. But when I get with you, and I say to myself, "My God--here I am with the wife of Harold Ryan, one of the great heroes of all time--" file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (11 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM] HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WANDA JUNE
Pause.
PENELOPE
Yes?
SHUTTLE
Something happens to my confidence.
PENELOPE
(to the audience) This conversation took place, incidentally, about three months before Harold was declared legally dead.
SHUTTLE
When Harold is definitely out of the picture, Penelope, when I don't have to worry about doing him wrong or you wrong or Paul wrong. I'm going to ask you to be my wife.
PENELOPE
I'm touched. SHUTTLE
That's when I'll get my confidence back. PENELOPE
I see.
SHUTTLE
If you'll pardon the expression, that's when you'll see the fur and feathers fly. Good night.
PENELOPE
Good night. Blackout.
SCENE TWO
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SHUTTLE and WOODLY argue in pitch darkness, with PAUL
listening, and lights come up gradually to full on the living room the same evening.
SHUTTLE
You've got to fight from time to time. WOODLY
Not true. SHUTTLE
Or get eaten alive. WOODLY
That's not true either--or needn't be, unless we make it true. SHUTTLE
Phooey. WOODLY
Which we do. But we can stop doing that.
The lights are full. SHUTTLE and WOODLY are bored with each other, WOODLY looks out the window, speaks to an imaginary listener who has more brains than SHUTTLE. PAUL hates them both, but prefers SHUTTLE's noisy manliness.
WOODLY
We simply stop doing that--dropping things on each other, eating each other alive. SHUTTLE
(calling) Penelope! We're late!
PENELOPE
(off, in master bedroom suite)
Coming.
SHUTTLE
(to PAUL)
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Women are always late. You'll find out.
WOODLY
(thoughtfully)
The late Mrs. Harold Ryan.
SHUTTLE
I'm sick of this argument. I just have one more thing to say: If you elect a President, you support him, no matter what he does. That's the only way you can have a country! WOODLY
It's the planet that's in ghastly trouble now and all our brothers and sisters thereon. SHUTTLE
None of my relatives are Chinese Communists. Speak for yourself. WOODLY
Chinese maniacs and Russian maniacs and American maniacs and French maniacs and British maniacs have turned this lovely, moist, nourishing blue-green ball into a doomsday device. Let a radar set and a computer mistake a hawk or a meteor for a missile, and that's the end of mankind. SHUTTLE
You can believe that if you want. I talk to guys like you, and I want to commit suicide. (to PAUL)
You get that weight-lifting set I sent you?
PAUL
It came yesterday. I haven't file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ku...egut%20-%20Happy%20Birthday%20Wanda-June.htm (14 of 143) [10/16/2004 4:36:52 PM]
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opened it yet.
WOODLY
(musingly, attempting to find the idea acceptable, even
funny, in a way)
Maybe it's supposed to end now. Maybe God wouldn't have it any other way.
SHUTTLE
(to PAUL) Start with the smallest weights. Every week add a pound or two.
WOODLY
Maybe God has let everybody who ever lived be reborn--so he or she can see how it ends. Even Pithecanthropus erectus and Australopithecus and Sinanthropus pekensi
s and the Neanderthalers are back on Earth--to see how it ends. They're all on Times Square--making change for peepshows. Or recruiting Marines. SHUTTLE