This Absurdist Play Has Been Titled Little Red Riding Hood - Archived

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(f)Act  (n)One[Woods. Empty stage. Woods.](ob)Scene 1
[WOLF enters stage left walking along a footpath carrying a basket towards stage right. RED enters stage right running to confront WOLF stage center.]RED: Stop right there you Big Bad Wolf!WOLF: Excuse me?

RED: [blows whistle] Get back! I’ve got a bow!

WOLF: No you haven’t.

RED: Where are you headed? These woods are dangerous, you know. You might hurt yourself!

WOLF: I might hurt myself? Why would I do that? That sounds like an absolutely and absurdly absent-minded thing to do.

RED: [Beat] Something could attack you!

WOLF: [deadpan] Such as?

RED: Something big! And… and bad!

WOLF: …like a wolf?

RED: Yeah!

WOLF: As you so poignantly asserted earlier, I am indeed a wolf.

RED: Exactly! You might hurt yourself!

Wolf: Look, I may never live happily ever after, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to go and kill myself over it. [short beat] Say,
you’re Little Red Riding Hood, aren’t you?

RED: In the flesh! And you’re that mean, nasty, big bad wolf. [spits on ground] You disgust me.

WOLF: Whoever decided I was big and bad in the first place? I’m not that tall in stature, as you can see, and exactly what code of
morality have you used to conclude that I am what one considers “bad”?

RED: You stop people in the woods! And you eat livestock!

WOLF: [beat] …Hey Red?

RED: Yes, Lupus Ingens Malumque?

WOLF: What’s your favorite food?

RED: Chickens and dumplings!

WOLF: That’s two foods, Nevertheless, my favorite as well. And where might you get the chickens for chickens and dumplings?

RED: From Gamekeeper Gus!

WOLF: Funny. Me too. And do you pay for these chickens?

RED: Nope, mommy and daddy work extra hard as wealthy landowners so they can buy me chickens and dumplings!

WOLF: Funny. I don’t pay for my chickens either. Only I don’t have a loving set of parents to take advantage of working-class
proletariats for the benefit of providing me with chickens and dumplings. So I have to find my own food if I don’t want to die in
lonesome agony alone in these woods.

RED: Shut up! You’re playing tricks on me! Get back! I have a bow!

WOLF: Am I being detained, or am I free to go?

RED: Where are you headed?! [hysterically] Answer me!

WOLF: I’m taking this basket of chickens and dumplings to my true love, Granny. She’s sick and her family left her to die in
lonesome agony alone in these woods. Now, if you don’t mind, they’re getting cold, so I’d very much like to be on my way.

RED: Does she fall for your big bad tricks too?

WOLF: Not at all. She possesses the mental composure of time, and the river. She is immovable and infinite in her character. She
has wisdom beyond her years, and taught me all I know. [faces full front to the audience] In fact, I think I smell her now!

[Gamekeeper Gus and Granny enter from the audience holding hands and swinging them playfully like two songbirds.]

GUS:  Look Granny! It’s the Big Bad Wolf!

GRANNY: Whipporwill! Come, Gus!  We must find the rack in pinion element so that the people of the earth can lubricate their yo-
yos. [Approaching WOLFE and RED] Hello, Lupus parvus romantusque!

WOLF: But Granny, you look so well, what great big eyes you have! You are no longer sick!

GRANNY: Yes I am, I’ve never felt better!

RED: Granny?! Granny, Granny? Mommy told me you moved to Florida!

GRANNY: I did! I’ve never felt better! [to GUS] Gussy-poo your hands are cold and sweaty.

GUS: The better to hold you with my dear!

WOLF:   What’s this, oh venerable queen of the forest, is Lame-keeper Gus pestering you?

GRANNY: No, my lupine lover, Gus and I are off to his cabin to find the fountain of youth!

WOLF: Nooooooooooooooo! You mustn’t. It’s a trap! He’s going to gobble you up with his great big silverware! Come with me, we
can take the long way home. Tell me all about the Third Punic War. Tell it to me the way you used to. Remember when? [defeated]
And yet, in your eternal wisdom, I have no choice but to surrender to your free will. I’m sure this was a terribly difficult and well-
thought out decision.

GRANNY: The leaves are falling!

GUS The leaves are what?

WOLF: Red, what’s your favorite color?

RED: Red

WOLF: Why? You’re not even wearing a hood!

GRANNY: A tooter who tooted a flute

GUS: tried to tutor two tutors to toot!

RED: said the two to the tooter,

ALL: Is it harder to toot? Or to tutor two tutors to toot?!

GUS: But why is red your favorite color?

RED: The Fountain! The Fountain!

GRANNY: I can’t believe you, Wolfie-poo, that you would cheat on me with my own granddaughter! What more could you want
than what I have to offer?

[The following exchanges unravel with increasing hysteria]

WOLF: You don’t understand! You aren’t as logical as you think.

GRANNY: I’m a bonsai Aphrodite!

WOLF You think you’re more logical than you are.

Granny: I’m an expert on the African violet!

WOLF You think as logically as you aren’t.

Granny: I’m a diamond that wants to stay coal!

WOLF: You aren’t as thinking as you are logical!

Granny: Everyone’s a winner! Bargains galore!

WOLF: You think as aren’t as logic we are!

GRANNY Not all who wander are lost!

WOLF: You logical as thinking we as are not!

GUS: Not all who launder are washed!

GRANNY I’m a thistle sifter!

GUS I picked a peck of seashells!

GRANNY: I’m selling pickle pecks in unique New York!

GRANNY: Rubber buggy bumper babies!

ALL: [Slowly] Everything is going to be okay. [deep breath] [beat]

RED: Get back! I’ve got a bow!

WOLF: No you haven’t.

RED: Say, you’re not as big and bad as you are inconvenient to the illusions of my own subjective morality. Good thing I’m an
aardvark.

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