Remove The Old Lady

Scene two.

The old lady comes on.

We call this scene Waiting for Costa, says the old lady.

Woohoo! call some of the older members of the audience, as if they were younger.

The old lady continues: Some sections of this scene will be improvised.

Audience member: Why?

Old Lady: To spin it out longer. We opened across the road in the Botanic Gardens, where we had a convincing sink hole. It collapsed and we're now short of sticks and string. If you look in that direction, you may see our original curtain, roped off. In scene two I trip over the string. With no string and no sink hole.......

And no curtain! yells someone!

Old Lady: Ah. There you are wrong. We have a fine curtain.

Nobby: I'm the curtain.

Audience member: You WERE a curtain. Then you were an orange tree.

Nobby: Thank you for noticing.

Audience member: So what are you now?

Old Lady: An orange tree. When Nobby sports flowers, he's a curtain, When he sports oranges, he's a tree.

Audience member: He's called NOBBY?

Old Lady: Yes, but not in the play.

Scene two proper commences.

The old lady bends over.

Stink bug: Poo Poo!

Old Lady: What am I doing?

Stink bug: What ARE you doing?

Old Lady: I'm looking for spiders. In particular the tiny maratus cristatus, with its union jack pattern.

Stink bug: There's one!

Old lady: Where? Argh!

She trips clumsily and lies on the ground, groaning.

Stink bug: Poo Poo!

Candide: What's going on here in the sink hole?

Stink bug: She fell over looking for a spider.

Candide: What sort of spider?

Stink bug: A jack spider.

Cunégonde. Are there spiders down here? I haven't seen many lately. We used to see them all the time.

Candide: It's an effect of climate change, doubtless. Anyway, I'd better remove the old lady.

He removes the old lady.

Cunégonde sings a sad song about spiders, accompanied by Elodie.

(Fortunately BCUC is on a short break).

Cunégonde: Where have all the spiders gone?
                      floating on the breeze
                       where have all  the spiders gone?
                        drifting from the trees
                         where have all the spiders gone?
                            not where they please
                              this is also a song
                                you could sing about bees

The audience claps, thinking elegaic thoughts about spiders and bees.

Paquette: When is Costa coming, to give us advice about our sunken garden?

Cunégonde: Soon.

Martin: He's just called in. He's running late. But he'll be here shortly.

Several oranges drop gently from Nobby, and lie among the fuschias.

End of scene two.