Brainstorming
Play
Poem
An obituary about someone who found the cure to cancer
Newspaper about someone who found the cure to cancer
Nutritional chart
Murder Mystery
Issues with the play….
The scientists contend the cure for cancer with a passerby who has nooooo Idea what anything is but
they think that they are smart. It is a comic replay of some people standing in line for a play in the
first place. They get into a really interesting conversation about life in general the origins of life and
the oceanic cures and possibilities for ailment cures.
Goals:
I want this to be creative and fun. I would like this to be scientific like my last paper, but not so
scientific that the general public wouldn’t understand. I want this to be kind of entertaining to an
extent and a lot less serious than my last paper but I want it to be a comic relief and a good
information all at once. I want to write a play but I think that it could be really hard to format it in
such a way that it could get boring. I want to have a lot of dialogue in my play and I am hoping that it
captivates an audience. I know it will not be a Shakespeare play.
The Play
Character List:
Dr. Zabaguay- slightly self-centered and obsessed with his work. He is a retired professor and
researcher who believes that all the answers can be revealed through science logic and reasoning
Simone- believes that there are no definite answers he is a VERY abstract thinker, a young physics
university student
Actress- thinks that life’s hard questions can be answered in the beauty of everything and in nature,
she is from the play the wizard of Oz, she is young, she gives no real answers.
Homeless man- gave up on life, life is pointless, if you were supposed to die you were supposed to
die.
Lunatic- has the most merit to his words at the end of the play but says outlandish things
Migrant Worker- the purpose of life is to work hard 3rd world mindset, he knows his classic works
well and quotes from them. He is a theatre guru and he knows a lot of unusual quotes.
Ticket Man: Very minor roll
Scene I.
Setting: It is evening on a nice night in downtown Chicago, and some people are waiting in-line to
watch the play Waiting for Godot. Dr. Zabaguay, and Simone are discussing the origins and fact of
life.
Dr. Zabaguay: Look! Are you observing? If you look closely at the moon you can imagine the
asteroid that hit the earth millions of years ago and made the moon. Do you see it Simone?
Sometimes I look at the moon and I feel like all the answers of life are lining up with the history of
the earth.
Simone: Dr. Zabaguay (Boldly) I will not know all the answers to life after this play tonight.
Dr. Zabaguay: All of the answers of life can be revealed through science, logic, and reasoning.
Simone: How do you know that you know anything, nothing can be solidly proven?
Dr. Zabaguay: You can get the proof by testing a hypothesis and proving it through experimentation.
Simone: Science, reasoning, and logic only get you to a lot more confusion. Once you think you
know something you find out that you don’t know anything at all and that we are barley scratching
the surface to any real answers.
Dr. Zabaguay: There is scientific fact to some things. For instance you cannot argue with gravity.
Objects on planet earth will fall at 9.8m/𝑠 2 , and no one can argue that gravity does not apply to them
or that they have dropped an item, and it floated upwards.
Simone: Gravity could just be all relative. Just because it has never been disproven does not mean
that it is a solid fact or that gravity could not change. Gravity changes depending on where you are in
the universe.
Dr. Zabaguay: Well then, let’s take cancer as an example. There is scientific fact that a cure to cancer
exists because I have spent fifteen years isolating the genomes of the Salinispora tropica. It is a
species of bacterium that live in the sediments in the Bahamas. I have been with a team of scientists
that have genetically sequenced the genome of this bacterium finding out “that 10% of the bacteria’s
genome is dedicated to producing molecules for antibiotics and anti-cancer agents, compared to only
6% to 8% of most organisms’ genomes” (NOAA). This bacterium treats bone marrow cancer and it
has been tested and proven and is a scientific fact and therefore this is a real answer.
Simone: That fact is only a hypothesis based on 2% of the world’s population and it cannot be
proven at all to have cured anything. Theoretically speaking, the bacterium could mutate any day and
change its genome through transduction or transmutation, taking genes from its surroundings and
changing the entire strain of bacteria.
Dr. Zabaguay: There is an absolute fact, a scientific fact, that we are standing right here right now in
line for this play and talking to each other.
Simone: But we may not be here. This could be a dream, how can you be so sure that this is reality
and that we are not sitting here in a dream state. What if the dream world is the real world, and our
waking world is the alternate reality. Or even worse, what if a memory is simply something that the
mind makes all on its own—that some of the conversations that we have with other people are simply
synthesized by the brain alone and therefore we remember them the most because they never
happened in the first place.
Dr. Zabaguay: It is not a dream that people are getting cured from cancer and they are returning to
their family cancer free. If my brain made up all these complex ideas that I knew someone, then there
would be no consistency with people or the way they act, respond, or live. Clearly, there are
tendencies in actions and behaviors that are predictable that a mind would not be able to consistently
make up the same way. There are also people way outside the normal spectrum whose actions cannot
be predicted and complex behavior that can be observed that the mind could not abstractly make up.
Even a schizophrenic only can make up a few people in his or her life that follow a certain social
pattern and have predictable actions.
An Actress comes in and enters the conversation. She has golden hair braided and tied back in two
pigtails. She is walking as if she was in a trance, but she is fully aware and conscious of her
surroundings.
Actress: (In a very song like voice) Good evening gentlemen!
Dr. Zabaguay and Simone: (Together) Good Evening.
Actress: I overheard you talking about an alternate world, and I thought about how beautiful an
alternate reality could be.
Simone: What would you know of alternate realities?
Actress: Well an alternate reality…is, (with lots of emotion, looking into the distance) well its “[a]
place where there isn't any trouble. Do you suppose there is such a place? There must be. It's not a
place you can get to by a boat or a train. It's far, far away. Behind the moon, beyond the rain”
(Wizard).
Dr. Zabaguay: And, what do you think young miss? What is the possibility for the cures to cancer?
Actress: Cancer…(tone of voice changes to an extremely emotional state, with tears glazing over her
eyes).
“To die:—to sleep: No more;
and, by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished” (Hamlet Act III, scene 1, line 60).
Simone: Well what’s that supposed to mean?
Actress: “Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men. Now the wind scatters the old
leaves across the earth, now the living timber bursts with the new buds and spring comes round
again. And so with men: as one generation comes to life, another dies away” (Iliad Quotes).
The actress walks away with teary eyes humming to the Queen of the Night aria from the Magic
Flute.
Simone: (Whispers to Dr. Zabaguay) This woman is brilliant, even though she is totally crazy. She’s
right: there is no answer to anything.
Dr. Zabaguay: (Quite too loudly) Non-Sense my young lad! Why, this woman is absolutely insane.
Did you hear her go on and on? She doesn’t even seem real. Actresses just have to be everyone else
but themselves. Nothing she said holds any merit.
Simone: Everything she said holds merit because she realizes that there are only abstract answers to
everything, and she uses art and classical literature to portray her views.
End of Scene one, the actress is now gone and nowhere to be seen, Simone and Dr. Zabaguay are
nearing the front of the line for the play.
Scene II.
A homeless man is sitting on the corner of the theatre holding up a cup for money and begging
people to give him money for food. Although it is cold out, the man is wearing ripped pants and a
jacket with many holes in it. He appears to be shivering, his eyes are very red, and he is coughing.
He is not wearing any shoes but has on socks. He has a very long beard and looks very skinny.
Homeless man: (in a tired and weary voice) Money for food! Money for food!
Dr. Zabaguay: Hello there sir, I’ll make you a deal: if you answer my question then I will give you
twenty dollars.
Homeless man: (A mix between a raspy cough and laugh persists for a minute or two).
Aaaaahhhhhem, hhhheehhhhhhhh, uhhhhhh. Excuse me! Yes, yes, anything anything what is the
question?
Dr. Zabaguay: Do you think there is an answer to the cure to cancer? Or an answer in general to life?
Homeless man: I ain’t never heard of no answer to life. Alls I know is life (hhheaahhhhhh,
uuuhhhhh) Excuse me! Life ain’t ever been fair. The cure to cancer, heh heh everbody thinks they
has the cure to somethin’ (huuuuaahhhhh mmmuuuhhhhhhh khuuhhh) but dey don’t know nothin’. If
we’s ment to die we’s ment to die.
Simone: (Whispers to Dr. Zabaguay) That man’s English is abhorrent. He is not even a foreigner, and
his English is worse than one.
Dr. Zabaguay: (Too loudly) What! This man just obviously is not educated like us, and so do not be
so quick to look down upon his grammar.
Homeless Man: (With a tone of bitterness) “Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed
time! It's abominable! When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day he went dumb, one
day I went blind, one day we'll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day,
the same second, is that not enough for you? They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an
instant, then it's night once more” (Waiting for Godot).
Dr. Zabaguay continues by giving the man twenty dollars, the homeless man stares at Simone and
Dr. Zabaguay in disgust and takes the money. He then continues to cough for a while, and Simone
and Dr. Zabaguay move up in line past the homeless man looking around skeptically for another
homeless man sitting there. Dr. Zabaguay takes out a handkerchief and sanitizes his hands. Dr.
Zabaguay and Simone stand there for a while just looking at each other in shock at what the man had
said to them.
Simone: (With a long pause) Who does he think he is to talk to us like that?
Dr. Zabaguay: I have years of education over that man, and he thought that he could talk to me like I
was some small child. “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those
who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will
never be solved by science” (Charles Darwin). He is one of those men who will always make
scientist look like fools because he knows little.
Simone: He did not say that the problem will not be solved by science at all. He is a bumbling fool
yes, but he certainly only said that everyone deserves to die, and no one should be saved.
Dr. Zabaguay: That man had no knowledge and certainly no scientific facts to back up any of his
arguments. My dear friend, knowledge is more than power, would you agree?
Simone: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now
know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to
know and understand” (Albert Einstein). Imagination is more than power.
Ticket man: Last name please!
Dr. Zabaguay: My last name is Zabaguay, (Continues and says very haughty) spelled Z-A-B-A-G-UA-Y.
Ticket man: (After an eye roll and a sigh) I see sir here are your tickets
Dr. Zabaguay: Why is my name spelled wrong in this ticket? And why have I been placed in the
second row in the balcony, I wanted to have first seats. (Frantically) I did not pay forty-dollars to be
demoted as a member of these theatrical productions.
Simone: Calm down! I’m sure it is just a mishap, and we will be on our way. We would be happy to
take the second row.
Dr. Zabaguay: (To Simone) Nonsense, we will not allow some fool who does not appreciate theatre
and classical things to sit in our spots.
Ticket man: (Trying to keep a patient tone) You are in the front rows of the balcony, all of the chairs
in the first row are off limits to audience.
Dr. Zabaguay: (Scowls to Simone) You see! No respect these days. That man should have told me
from the beginning that my seats were still in the front row. Now for all of that, I have been
inconvenienced and upset for nothing.
The line goes into the theatre and the stage darkens as the scene shifts. The lights on the stage dim
until the only thing that is lit up still is the entrance to the theatre and then all of the lights fade off.
Scene III.
The play has ended and Dr. Zabaguay and Simone are exiting the theatre thinking about the play.
They are still in the corridors of the building sitting down in chairs. Many people are exiting from the
play offstage to the right and the sound of people talking in conversation overpowers any other noise.
It is now approximately 10:45 and Simone is very hungry. Both Simone and Dr. Zabaguay are
pensive about the play, but mostly very hungry. Most of the people have now exited the theatre. A
worker is sweeping the floor. He is wearing a blue janitor’s outfit. He is darker skinned and appears
to be in his mid-forty’s.
Worker: (With a very thick Latino accent) Did you gentleman enjoy the play tonight?
Simone: The play was superb! The scene where Lucky came out and talked about the rocks was the
climax of the play. He explained the entire meaning of life but no one understood because only
Lucky was smart enough to comprehend the meaning.
Dr. Zabaguay: Yes, but the scene where Pozzo came around and outwitted fools Estragon and
Vladimir were the best parts of the play. He singlehandedly outsmarted them and convinced them he
was right through his logic and reasoning, something that Estragon and Vladimir obviously lacked.
Simone: (To the worker) Did you happen to see the play?
Worker: (With a very think Latino accent) I am lucky man. I get to work here and see all of the plays
that play every night.
Simone: Then what do you think the meaning of life is?
Dr. Zabaguay begins to doze off and fall asleep
Worker: Life is all about how much a man can do to work for his family. A man has to support his
family first. Always family. (Pensively thinks and smiles) My wife and three daughters…I’d work
forever for them if I could.
Simone: But don’t you ever want to get out and have fun or just relax ever?
Worker: No, the workers never rest, “Our labour preserves us from three great evils -- weariness,
vice, and want” (Candide Quotes). So what more could we ever want in life as a working class.
Simone: Do you ever just want to give up on working or life?
Worker: (Still in a deep accent) “I have wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow I am
still in love with life. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our more stupid melancholy
propensities, for is there anything more stupid than to be eager to go on carrying a burden which one
would gladly throw away, to loathe one’s very being and yet to hold it fast, to fondle the snake that
devours us until it has eaten our hearts away?” (Candide Quotes)
Simone: (Very surprised) You keep on working anyways!? What a horrible existence. I would rather
be confined to working by thinking forever. Then, I might come across the possible answer to a
question by thinking for a lifetime. You seem to have your life all figured out. How is this possible?
Dr. Zabaguay pipes up as he hears the conversation
Dr. Zabaguay: (Out of context without understanding the conversation to the worker) Do you believe
that there is a cure to cancer?
Worker: Yes, if you keep a mental positive attitude that you will get better while you are sick then
anything is possible. I think….
Dr. Zabaguay: (interrupting worker) Yes, but I am talking about a medicinal cure.
Worker: Only for the people who are privileged and have money, for the perfect ones. The ones who
have ben birthed into a life of bliss and entitlement. For the ones who have a say.
Migrant worker walks off the main part of the stage and begins to clean the floors elsewhere. The
stage lights focus on Simone and Dr. Zabaguay sitting in the chairs and the stage light eventually
fades away from the worker. Simone looks rather upset as Dr. Zabaguay has taken over the
conversation. He slumps down into his chair and sets his chin in his hands.
Simone: Can’t you control yourself! Why do you always have to take away all of the good
conversations?
Dr. Zabaguay: I am the center of good conversations! If it weren’t for me and my intelligence then
none of these conversations would have happened tonight, and no one would be engaged in the
conversation. You know how it is, when you are gifted with great intelligence then it is your duty to
spread that knowledge to all of the lesser thinkers around you.
Simone: (Trying to be patient with a sad air in his voice, facing the audience) “How terrible is
wisdom when it brings no profit to the man that's wise! This I knew well, but had forgotten it, else I
would not have come here” (Oedipus).
Dr. Zabaguay: You know I am a great researcher who is well known all over the media for my work
on cancer?
Simone: (With quite a pause, sarcastically) Yes, you’re the greatest!
Dr. Zabaguay: And you know that if it weren’t for me thousands of people would have died and
passed away without my cure.
Simone: (Very angrily) Don’t you remember! You never found anything! You have severe multiple
personality disorder. You did not find anything from the ocean.
Dr. Zabaguay: (Beginning to cry) You know what, I’m sorry Simone sometimes I just forget you
know, and well well…. (Sobbing continues) I don’t know who I am sometimes. It is so hard to be
myself. Maybe I go to plays because…because…secretly I envy the actors. They can act as if they
are any person in a show and get into the personality of the character and wow the audience, and then
they get to go home and leave that personality behind. I never get to leave the stage. I will always be
that actor who never gets to go home. (Sobbing violently now) I can never leave the act
because…because…my whole life I have been nothing but an act. “How dreadful the knowledge of
the truth can be when there’s no help in truth” (Oedipus).
Simone: You were talking about truth and fact earlier tonight…well I think I finally know there is
one fact to life, “A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that
profound secret and mystery to every other” (A Tale).
Dr. Zabaguay: I must visit the gentleman’s room and pull myself together.
Simone: I will wait for you outside the theatre.
Dr. Zabaguay leaves the stage and Simone exits the theatre. The lights shining on the corridor and
theatre fade away and a light shines on a bench outside the theater. There is a brown bench and one
trashcan.
Scene IV
Simone is sitting on a bench waiting for Dr. Zabaguay.
Simone: Is that you?
Lunatic: (In the distance) Is that who?
Simone: Dr. Zabaguay?
Lunatic: (With a pause and in a high voice) Yeeeeeees?
Simone: Come over here so we can go and get something to eat.
Lunatic: “You see I kept asking myself then: why am I so stupid that if others are stupid—and I
know they are—yet I won't be wiser?” (Crime).
Simone: What did you say? I can’t hear you.
Lunatic stumbles over and appears to be very drunk. The lunatic cannot be seen clearly by the
audience and it is ambiguous as to who he is.
Simone: (Concerned, thinking it is not Dr. Zabaguay) Are you ok?
Lunatic: “And the more I drink the more I feel it. That's why I drink too. I try to find sympathy and
feeling in drink.... I drink so that I may suffer twice as much!” (Crime).
Simone: You just need to sit down and relax throw that bottle away in the trash, you don’t need any
more of it.
Lunatic: “I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside
me. I cannot even explain it to myself” (The Metamorphosis).
Simone: You remind me of a friend of mine who does not know who he is.
Lunatic: “I realized what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been” (Death).
Simone: Well you will be alright, maybe you are just confused tonight.
Lunatic: (Sniffles a little) You know, I could be what I always wanted to be if only I followed my
dreams. I might not always be the person I want to be but if I follow my dreams at least I will stop
living a lie.
The lunatic walks out very slowly stumbling around. Simone sits on the bench and warms his hands
by rubbing them together as the night is cooling down. Dr. Zabaguay clumsily walks into the scene
and sits down on the bench beside Simone. He walks into the scene with red eyes from crying. He is
still dabbing his eyes with his handkerchief.
Dr. Zabaguay: Who were you talking to?
Simone: I do not know, I thought that it was you in the beginning, but I do not know. He left. I never
saw his face.
Dr. Zabaguay: Do you think that I am insane? Or that my words have any less merit to them?
Simone: No, I just think that sometimes you are very confused and that you do not know what you
want to do.
Dr. Zabaguay: You know, if I just joined a team and did cancer research then I would not have to live
a lie and pretend to be a researcher, I could be who I say I am. (With eager hope) I could exist as a
true person! I could be real, a palpable real true person!
Simone: “It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment” (One Hundred).
Dr. Zabaguay: “It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream--making a vain attempt, because no
relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and
bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which
is of the very essence of dreams...No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of
any given epoch of one's existence--that which makes its truth, its meaning--its subtle and
penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream-alone...”(Heart of).
Simone: “One's duty is to feel what is great, cherish the beautiful, and to not accept the conventions
of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon us” (Madame Bovary). Do not worry about what
anyone else thinks of you in society. Don’t even think about what sort of dream you might be in, only
know that you can make yourself whoever you want to be. You can be the new cure to cancer!
Dr. Zabaguay: (With a smile) Well let’s go and get something to eat.
Simone: Alright let’s go.
The play ends as Simone is looking at Dr. Zabaguay and the curtain closes.
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