Three Men In A Tub

An ongoing play about the nursury rhyme. See if I can figure out who the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker are. Here is a rough outline and some content of where this may go.

 

Three Men in a Tub

Act I

The sound of waves at my door propel me far from my mundane. They take me out to see, where I spy, in a tub that is more often a boat, three men or gods, or two gods, or two other men, or one man-god, or one other man-god or another man-god, speaking but more often silent.

They are spinning, endless, and I squint to pick out, on the ocean or hotel bathroom floor, their attributes, but they blur and mutate, changing faces as the weather.

It is gradually darkness, then laughter. At first, a snort, then a light splattering of giggles, then a whole orchestra of guffaws rips the virgin sky, the first bloody dawn. Brahma

Brahma, who is just bigger than the universe, is the primeval firstborn, rapt at the sun dance on the waves, that tickles the spray so it rocks in the silent laughter of a grandmother

He kneads the land as if it were bread.

Brahma is in my bathtub, losing the soap he made out of hope and earwax. He splashes over the sides onto the marble, and the elephant towel I have laid out for his feet.

Act II (it’s not an act)

Visnu strokes the sea with his mind, lulling it to peace. He waves to the canorous sun, an old friend.

It is in this moment of highest tension that

Act III

Siva sits alone on an ocean of tears, as the wind picks up. He dips his callused hand in the water that is blood, hot and frothing with vengeance.

He attacks the raft with fury, ripping at the tired wood with his animal fingernails, and howling with the wind that lashes the tired sails with its fury. Brahma watches, curious and still, while Visnu struggles to right them, but there is no clear course. All streams lead to this old, furious ocean, all men drown in its thirsty lust.

Brahma disappears as black clouds congeal overhead. Perhaps he has long overstayed his welcome, and paid the consequences. Or perhaps he is bored. Visnu bails water with a peanut shell, throwing glistening balls of pain upon the tiles. He stares at me helplessly, but he doesn’t yield. He knows he mustn’t.

Act I

The sound of waves at my door propel me far from my mundane. They take me out to see, where I spy, in a tub that is more often a boat, three men or gods, or two gods, or two other men, or one man-god, or one other man-god or another man-god, speaking but more often silent.

They are spinning, endless, and I squint to pick out, on the ocean or hotel bathroom floor, their attributes, but they blur and mutate, changing faces as the weather.

It is gradually darkness, then laughter. At first, a snort, then a light splattering of giggles, then a whole orchestra of guffaws rips the virgin sky, the first bloody dawn…