One Bad Apple

 

One Bad Apple

- an American original

June 2022

Scene:  The aftermath of a sickening catastrophe.  In a place where sorrow and baloney have come to terms.

 

The actors stand in a circle, around the character called One Bad Apple. They speak sometimes to each other, sometimes to an unseen audience.

Enter Snow White (waltzing, singing): 

 

And as you sweep the room

imagine that the broom

is someone that you love.

 

Expert (ignores Snow White):  Get to the roots.  The causes.  Dig deep.

 

Reverend Hymnal:  Pray for the victims and their families.

Expert:  We talk of senseless violence so as to maintain the pretense of our innocence.  If you’re convinced something can’t be explained, then neither can it be controlled.

Snow White:  So many sad faces.  Can we turn those frowns upside down?

 

Expert (to Snow White):  

Has One Bad Apple been behaving in a way that concerns you?  

Has One Bad Apple been acting in a way that worries you?

Snow White (hand under chin):  He’s quiet.  Keeps to himself.  Came home the other day with an assault rifle.  But I’m sure he had his reasons.

Therapist:  How about that, One Bad Apple?

One Bad Apple shrugs, perusing his copy of “So You Bought Yourself an AR15.  Now What?”

 

Academic With Tenure:  Mass shootings are a way to appease the angry American gods who hunger for the sacrifice of innocents and we’re obliging them to the extent this macabre rite has become the new normal.

Expert:  The key is to determine if a person is on what we call the pathway to violence.

One Bad Apple (snaps to attention):  Sounds like the highway to hell.  Is it the highway to hell, Perfessor?

Joe Sixpack:  I need my gun.  Without my gun I'm not fully American.

Therapist:  Where do these feelings come from?

 

Joe Sixpack:  Doc, them guns came in a might handy when our settler forefathers wuz out there prairie-scrappin’ with the Injuns.  Westward ho, if you catch my drift.

Therapist:  I see.  A gun is a way for you to manifest your destiny.

Snow White:  Listen!  The birds are singing a happy song!

 

Therapist:  Try not to surrender to illusory dreams.

Reverend Hymnal:  Was that a crack at me, smart alec? 

 

Academic With Tenure:  Road rage, unsightly modern architecture and conspicuous consumption are all expressions of shame stemming from feelings of inferiority and disappointment.

 

Senator Sixpack:  Let's not penalize hunters in rural states because of the actions of one bad apple.

 

Therapist:  A healthy person can acknowledge the diminution of their social status without lapsing into irredeemable hostility.

Joe Sixpack:  Was that a crack at me, wise guy?

 

Senator Sixpack:  Let's not penalize psychopaths in rural states because of the actions of one bad apple.

Academic With Tenure:  How to survive that sense of failure when we see condescending smiles on the faces of those who view the poor performance we’re giving in life’s theatre?

 

Snow White:  Gooseberry pie puts a smile on Grumpy’s face. 

 

Clarence Thomas:  Can a fella get a refi if he was to reify a judicial jigger of a single function of the trigger?

 

Reverend Hymnal:  Ignore at your peril the demonic forces that lay claim to a man’s soul and render him but a tool in the malevolent hands of Lucifer Incarnate.

 

Joe Sixpack:  That’s what I’m talkin’ 'bout!  Guns don’t kill people.  Demonic forces kill people!

 

The therapist puffs his pipe, thoughtful.

 

Snow White (to audience): ​When winter comes everyone will gather by the fireplace laughing and singing and dancing and we'll forget all about the cold and the snow and the dead.

 

The cast join hands to sing Silent Night.

 

 

(curtain)

Author's Note

Though in the form of a play, it is intended to be read, not performed.

Reviews

[A Decent Playwright]

Found this after submitting my one-act and only then realizing that there are very few plays on this site.

Despite your assertion that this was not meant for performance, writing it as a play ensures that many people will imagine it as such, and I think that works. The issue at hand involves a lot of different types of people making various claims and excuses, and as a play, this disharmony is more visceral, with all the various Great American Personifications talking directly to you the audience, and almost over each other.

The inclusion of Snow White is fascinating, allowing the apple metaphor to be taken further than just the one-for-one analogy of "bad person" to "bad apple." After all, the idea is that the "bad apple" is a construct used by those who benefit from the violence in order to shift societal and institutional blame for mass murders onto some singular fictional individual who kills people just because. Snow White as a character is a literal victim of poisoning by a literal bad apple. But the apple was poisoned on purpose, and she was an intentional target, and her poisoning benefited the poisoner.

Interesting play. I hope more people submit plays here.

[Montag]

Dear Decent,

thank you very much for this review and you raise the fascinating possibility of tying in the Snow White poison apple aspect, which I must confess I hadn't thought of. I saw her as more a reflection of America's insistence on innocence but you've spotted a deeper layer of meaning. Thanks.

[Ken e Bujold]

you know Montag this is really quite solid. Could be performed. I recall far worse that somehow made it to stage at various improv and experimental revues. If I was to direct it I would insist on one twist though. Only one actor speaks, the other just have big cue cards, like at a boxing match, that they hold up when it is their characters dialogue. Would stage play as a one person internal monologue. Your thoughts?

Ken e

[Montag]

Ken,

as I put in the Author's Note, I hadn't intended it to be performed. I just have this penchant for doing certain writing as play scripts. Having said that, your idea is intriguing although the crucial question would be: which actor is the one who speaks?

[Ken e Bujold]

now there's the true bad apple, an actor who speaks