Famous Plays In Space

Ken AshfordRandom MusingsLeave a Comment

BY CHRISTOPHER GENO

A Midsummer Night’s Dream
by William Shakespeare

(HELENA enters stage right while LYSANDER and DEMETRIUS, who have both been enchanted by the magical nectar of the love-in-idleness flower, vigorously pursue her.)

LYSANDER: …

(LYSANDER weakly reaches toward HELENA.)

HELENA: … !!

(DEMETRIUS grabs his chest in pain. HELENA sheds a tear that boils away in the cold vacuum of space.HERMIA floats in limply upstage.)

A Streetcar Named Desire
by Tennessee Williams

(STANLEY shouts for STELLA who has fled up the stairs to EUNICE to escape her husband’s brutality.)

STANLEY: … hhcckh… !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(He falls to his knees in despair.)

STANLEY: … hhcckh… cchrrkh… !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(STELLA appears from above and attempts to run down the stairs to embrace her husband, but an asteroid hits her squarely in the chest jettisoning her sideways. She exits stage left with the asteroid.)

The Importance of Being Earnest
by Oscar Wilde

(In an attempt to put his double life behind him, JACK fabricates the sudden death of his imaginary brother, Ernest. This story is complicated by the appearance of ALGERNON at the Manor House, posing as Ernest to win the heart of CECILY. The story is complicated further when a wormhole tears through the fabric of space-time and deposits ERNEST, the imaginary brother who is actually real in another dimension, into the mix.)

CECILY (wryly): Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhk.

ALGERNON (glibly): … ch.

(The couple’s witty repartee is stopped short by the lack of oxygenated blood to their brains. ERNEST, like all sentient beings from his dimension, is also a cyborg, and uses his rocket-powered feet to blast off stage right.)