HUMANITIS
SHELDON lOIns IMOGEN
and
WINKLEMAN.
Presently
MADGE
and
BELLA
also enter, and toward the end
JOYCE
and
MAX.
(BUMMIDGE
on phone again)
Dr. Lefkowitz! You're standing by. I'll
hear from you as soon as the presentation is over! You'll see. My
method will save minds. The five hundred thousand? You bet the
offer was good.
(Hangs up. Capers)
Last
ring.
MOTI'S
(Answers)
Five, four, three, two
(pointing at
BUMMIDGE)
one.
BUMMIDGE:
Good
afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
(He reads at first,
soon abandons manuscript)
I thank you for your courtesy in watch–
ing my demonstration. I know you will welcome new ideas and not
resent untrained talent. I read all the literature I could get my
hands on and slugged it out with all the toughest-mentally. It
seemed to me as an actor that I had a good chance
to
objectify
my neurotic troubles, and also to bring back the past by playing it
out. My main trouble I named Bummidge's Syndrome, or humani–
tis. Put it simply, can you love somebody else as you love yourself?
When the infant has its mouth on the mother's titty . . . but these
are things you know. We were all once covered with flowers, but
we turn into garbage dumps-ashes and clay. Humanitis means that
you begin to come on with another person, but all of a sudden you
can't bear him any more. Take the sonofabitch away!
(He starts to
gasp and cough)
Away! Zoom! It isn't that I don't like people. I
need 'em, I even love 'em. So why can't I bear 'em? The first thing
I did was to create a clear channel between past and present. Like
that old song
I'm just a kid again
Doin' what I did again
When that red, red robin, goes bob-bob-bobbin along
You get it?
(He bounces a ball, rolls a hoop, sucks his thumb, cries,
drinks from a baby bottle)
I also did a certain amount on the couch
(Lies on couch)
Doctor, I had a dream last night
(As analyst)
What
did you dream, Mr. Bummidge?
(On couch)
I dreamed I was at sea
in
a shoebox.
(Before camera again)
By dream analysis, I isolated a
hard core of problems. Of problems. You see-problems. And these
I played out. Which I will demonstrate with my colleague, Mr.
Louis Mott.
MOTI':
Doctor
Mott.
(He mugs throughout the following)
BUMMIDOE:
He will play my father in a typical episode. I have been
on the street playing stickball and am late for supper. The age
is
