The Bard, Donny and the Whackjobs

Hurry and take your seats Ladies and Gentlemen, the show has just begun. You need not buy a ticket or go to a theatre, this one is on TV for free, live from DC!

Photo: unsplash.com by Bill Hamway, https://creativecommons.org/public-domain/pdm/

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Shakespeare himself could not have imagined a plot more intricate or hilarious than the one rolling out daily before our very eyes on news bulletins. It has all the ingredients of a tragedy-comedy, a pantomime and a satyre bundled into one.

Donny, the only one who takes himself seriously

The centre of the stage is occupied by the character called Donny, who stands broad-shouldered and erect, tall and proud, making proclamations to his left and right and facing the audience, yet he is the only one who takes himself seriously. 

“Our allies are committing very, very nasty atrocities against us,” he declares. “Our neighbours are filling our cities and forests and glades and valleys and mountains with very, very horrible things”. “Our northern neighbour is ours, in fact our two northern neighbours are ours. We will make the first an unviable state and assimilate it, we will invade the second and assimilate it. And to Hell with international law! I make the law!” (delivered in a Dalekesque voice).

Part of the audience, sitting in the circle, sits bolt upright in shock, the other half in the stalls either giggles or looks on wistfully, understanding the irony and appreciating the drama, and nods knowingly, knowing that they are witnessing merely a reality TV show. It isn’t for real. It can’t be.

When will Rocket Man take over?

To his right, the character called Rocket Man, not from the Orient but (more or less) home-grown whose sole intent today is to reduce the mechanisms of the Court to one person: himself, reducing the institutions of government to one Excel Sheet which he and Donny (for now) will manage by X messages or by signed edicts, which occupies Donny 24 hours a day. Until the day when Rocket Man takes over.

The plot thickens. Donny, knowing his years are advancing, needs to find a way to give himself another term as Leader or else find a way to perpetuate his style of government beyond the next four years. By assimilating his northern neighbour, of which Rocket Man is a citizen, with the condition that citizens of this country can apply for the Presidency of the United States, Rocket Man gets a shot to be King of Saturn, Mars, Jupiter…as well as Earth.

It takes two to tango but more to make a party. Enter backstage left the Whackjobs, led by Bobby. “They are poisoning us,” he shouts.

Chorus: Yes, they are!

Bobby: They are turning our children into hobgoblins! 

Chorus: Yes, they are!

Bobby: And the common cold is targeted at Americans!

Donny smiles and states: I will put you in charge of hospitals!

Bobby: Thank you. Know the best way to combat Covid?

Donny: What? It’s a very, very terrible disease, claiming lots and lots of lives, spread by a lot of very, very bad hombres!

Bobby: Where are all the Covid cases?

Donny: In hospitals!

Bobby: Right! So who works in hospitals?

Donny: Doctors and nurses!

Bobby: Right! So fire all the doctors and nurses, close all the hospitals, and problem solved.

Donny: Here, Rocket Man get an earful of this.

Rocket Man: Fire all the doctors and nurses, close the hospitals, and hey! Get rid of the Health Secretary. Told you it was only us two.

Donny: Bobby, you’re fired!

(apart) I mean, you couldn’t make it up if you tried, could you?

The Bard continues.

Donny (front stage, addresses the audience). The two million people living in Gaza have to move somewhere else. We can put them in shackles and handcuffs and transport them to Outer Mongolia, then we can build some very, very nice luxury homes with a wonderful, wonderful view of the Med, folksssss, and build some golf courses. It even has natural gas out to sea, see?

Rocket Man: What happens if the plane crashes, what happens to the detainees shackled and handcuffed?

Donny: They die!

(Laughter)

Donny: Here, look at this! 

Rocket Man: What, pray is that? It looks like a golden pager. Tad outdated, what?

Donny: It is a golden pager, given to me by my boss. He’s the guy who attacked and murdered forty thousand civilians and kids. Great, great guy.

Messenger, wearing the head of an ass (to audience): This is a model of the exploding pagers, the most cowardly and underhanded attack in the history of the planet, an unprecedented terrorist act indiscriminately murdering people and harming targets along with innocent victims.

Donny: I’m bored! I er….. I know! Let’s invade Greenland! We need an excuse.

Rocket Man: How about National Security?

Donny: Yeah, we need to take Greenland because we wanna expand our territory and it’s important to our national security. Count Pedro?

Count Pedro: (muffled voice, off)…an’ I’ll kick the living crap outa ya!

Donny: Pedro?

Count Pedro: (BELCH) hic!

Donny: You’re fired! OK so it’s just us two.

Rocket Man: And soon to be one. We can say that there might be a massive attack from Eskimos. I slept with one once, she stank of fish, at least I think it was a she. 

Donny: OK folksssssss, we’re going in, we’re going in to Greenland, it’s very, very green and it has a lot of mineral resources, a lot, and we need it for our national security, it is very, very dangerous, an atrocity, a thorn in our side, so we’re gonna take it and TA HELL WID INTERNATIONAL LAW!

(Cheers)

(Rocket Man makes strange gestures striding purposefully back and forth holding his hand to his heart then thrusting his right arm out, palm outstretched, goose-stepping).

He doesn’t stop. They are both there to this day, one ranting and raving and signing edicts, the other strutting around his office, eyeing the knife lying beside the button.

Curtain closes.

Act II

Somewhere in Greenland.

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey can be contacted at [email protected]