Heroes of Fakelaw is a two-act play that sees a range of characters from corporate folklore gather together to take control of an emerging threat, the self-authoring subject of social media, the Protagonist. It was performed in three different locations, a house in Lewisham Park, London, in May 2010, at the New Lansdowne Club, 195 Mare Street, London, on 24th June 2010, and at a unique courthouse, the Judge’s Lodging in Presteigne, Wales, in February 2012. The images and video below seek to document these performances, and the script is also included in its entirety. Some images are displayed at the bottom of the script.
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Heroes of Fakelaw!
By Samuel Thomson © Samuel Thomson 2011
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CAST
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Deidrich Knickerbocker: Dutch historian, as old as Gotham. He probably founded it.
Rudolph the Reindeer: (Rangifer Rutilus),
Paul Bunyan: A great hero of the Lumberjacks
Pecos Bill: A great hero of the Migrant Labourers
Joe Magarac: A great hero of the Factory Classes
John Henry: A great hero of Indentured Workers
David Manning: A Fictional Critic
Luther: An Evil Scientist and Rationalist. Much maligned in fiction.
Wayne: An Evil Banker and Subjectivist. Much vaunted in fiction.
Protagonist: Everyone else
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ACT 1
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[Midnight! The lower sub-basement of Gotham City Library.
Aged oak panelling the colour of slate and a stone floor that probably pre-dates the entire city.
As many scrolls as books. Ancient seals, bones and municipal relics are also stowed down here, mostly forever.
Doors lead off in many directions, some quite improbable. Deidrich Knickerbocker arises before his podium!]
DEIDRICH: Arise I from the crypt in these grave times
To settle a score of some contention
Our great culture is under siege
Famous names fight for our attention
For rule of our histories, myths and inventions
Your great authors, executives and statesmen
Are but flotsam on the waves of my creation
I was there at the beginning and now
I wield history’s lever on the fulcrum of my great works
And with a swift flick of my reputation
I can sink those ships on which you stowed your beliefs
If you doubt the integrity of today’s media,
Then let me relieve you with this:
Before Berlusconi, before Bernays,
I, Deidrich Knickerbocker, Master Publicist
Did muddy the clear waters of fact to my advantage.
But don’t think me a monster,
My fictions, presented as fact but then revealed
Did not seek to deceive, for long
And who would believe that Romulus and Remus truly founded Rome?
Or that Columbus, a reader of Ptolemy, could think the Earth flat?
[A cobwebbed taxidermy reindeer starts to detaches itself from its diorama]
RUDLOPH: Washington! You ramble, stick to the script!
DEIDRICH: Don’t tell them my name, or you’ll ruin my trick!
As England and Albion enjoyed a shared history
So did New York and my Gotham City,
I should know! I invented the damn phrase,
Later stolen by comic books, to which we will pay close attention
And derive a farcical ending from their logical ultimatum.
RUDOLPH: I must cut in so we finish in time
You all know me, I’m sure.
No doubt you’ve seen me on our annual tour.
I’m in a hurry, so let me tell you
In a fraction of the time it’d take him to explain
Why I’m here, in this theatre with such dower company
You get his drift; he was the first American
To write successful tales that fed the appetite of the English
Like a thankless child writing great tales home
To appease his parents’ fantasies and embellish his own name.
The alias he uses now was his own construction
In 1809, before publishing his History of New York,
The Newspapers of said city proclaimed Deidrich Knickerbocker
Missing from his hotel room, his bills left unpaid.
The proprietor held hostage a manuscript found therein
And threatened to publish this document if Deidrich did not return to pay up.
DIEDRICH: What a ruse! Captivated, the city awaited publication
And few suspected Deidrich of fabricating the whole story.
RUDOLPH: Now, having set the scene
Would you believe in my similar origin?
Rudolph is my alias and so successful my fame,
That history almost separated this character from my true name.
[to audience]
If any children are present, cover their ears!
Adults know who really delivers the Christmas sacks.
In 1939, It was a mail order company, Montgomery Ward
And thus, as their mascot, my past is unmasked.
[Wayne stands, and speaks from the audience, still attired in the black costume of his crime fighting alter ego]
WAYNE: Sacrilege! How dare you question our glorious traditions!
RUDOLPH: Quiet, Wayne. You will have time for your own rendition
As the villain of this piece I don’t fear your claims.
I need no alias now I’m public domain.
My past is my past, and my future is bright
Send in the lawyers, I’m up for the fight!
WAYNE: We’ll see about that!
[Wayne runs out]
DEIDRICH: Indeed, we wont! What use have we of lawyers?
Our law, written in the language of our literature,
Has troubled us too much in recent times.
Lawyers have their place, but they cut their words like a carpenter splitting timber,
And though they serve us with beautiful furnishings
They have nothing to give to the trees from which they hew their wood
And will discard a particularly knotty plank,
Rather than savour its stubborn inconsistency.
[Paul Bunyan enters from the trees of Rudolph’s diorama, for deep are the Library’s depths]
PAUL BUNYAN: I’m with you there!
Not a day goes by that I don’t plunge my chopper
Into the crux of a tender sapling
Nor strip a mature yew
Without groaning a lament for the loss of nature’s innocence.
DEIDRICH: Then introduce yourself, and clarify your grievance.
PAUL BUNYAN: Great man of woods am I,
Paul Bunyan, the manliest of men.
Lumberjack by trade, and jack again by nature.
A mythic man, of great adventure and even greater stature
RUDOLPH: Yes, but a false myth! A hero only of Fakelaw!
PAUL BUNYAN: Not so, my roots are true, though stories branch
Under many forces, and still are diced by the logging saw
The timber yard that whittled me
From crude, ignoble warrior
To whimsical quaint and free
Was owned by the Red River Lumber Company
RUDOLPH: Tragedy! On that day a real man died!
PAUL BUNYAN: Ay, and in 1916 a fairy tale was born, indentured.
My new vocation was Salesman, though they let me keep my axe
I carried their business from West Coast to East,
My face was trademark backed.
RUDOLPH: No longer a true Canadian, rebelling against the queen,
No longer shrewder Foreman, cheating his men of their beans
PAUL BUNYAN: Not so, I just moved with the times,
Securing economic prosperity for my country
Not to mention trading standards. My head replaced Victoria’s!
And as for shrewd, think of all the children
Reading my tales in books
That were published for free by the company
Selling their wood on my looks.
When these kids grew older,
Their loyalty grew with my fables
The pennies they paid for my stories
Soon paid for my oak, pine and maple
RUDOLPH: You cad!
PAUL BUNYAN: Darn right, I’m still bad!
RUDOLPH: And what of the Red River Logging Company?
PAUL BUNYAN: They used spies to break up their unions
But faltered in the Wall Street Crash
And by ‘44 had sold out their store
To a fruit company…
No trees were left to cut down,
The forest became farmland and the lumberjacks left town
By this time, I had acquired a sidekick
Babe, the giant blue Ox
And I farmed the new land and I travelled
From Puget to Panama Docks
RUDOLPH: But you, Paul Bunyan, were turned from a red-blooded bandit
Into an advertising campaign!
PAUL BUNYAN: I just moved with the times.
RUDOLPH: From a shared oral folk tradition
To nothing but a mouthpiece for frontier capitalism!
You astroturfer, you Shill -
[Pecos Bill enters from the “wagon-wheels and billycans” area of the library, or similar]
PECOS BILL: In comes I, Pecos Bill!
As tall and strong as Paul
But not alone, I bring with me
John Henry and Joe Magarac,
And I couldn’t bring them all.
[John Henry enters]
JOHN HENRY: Davy Crocket was busy
[Joe Magarac enters and flings down an I-beam section]
JOE MAGARAC: Iron John had a prior engagement
PECOS BILL: And Alfred Stormalong was unavailable
[Joe, John and bill continue to strike poses, look disparagingly at books etc throughout this dialogue]
JOHN HENRY: But we three prove beyond a doubt
That fake folklore is saleable.
And not just in the way that Paul Bunyan described.
For much it is un-fallible
Aside of client development uses
And other self promotion ruses
[acting out]
Consider my original story, pitched against
A mechanised workforce I matched my talents
Nail for nail with the steam hammer
And though at the end of the railroad
Neither Man nor Motor moved again
But busted and beyond repair,
Were both carried to their separate graves,
The steam hammer was replaced, but I was cast aside
And from then on, the hammer led
And men chose life or pride.
JOE MAGARAC: The lesson, in older times
Was pace yourself!
You who will be workers all your lives,
Know full well that the foreman takes a sip
From every glass of sweat you spill,
And the Owner of the factory takes a gulp!
The less you sweat, the sooner they both die of thirst!
JOHN HENRY: In later times this message waned
Another waxed, now re-arranged:
“Work yourself hard, achieve your aims”
A great achiever with proven gains,
Golden car, platinum chains…
JOE MAGARAC: …As worn by I and similar slaves
And while we workers work to buy
The things that we ourselves contrive
The product values our work made
Is always more than we get paid
[Joe, John and bill start approaching the audience]
PECOS BILL: For this alone is our kind hired
To live as beasts, get milked, then fired!
RUDOLPH: But you guys are heroes!
Role models to the Average Joe
Paradigms of self-sacrifice!
PECOS BILL: Not so!
I, a migrant labourer died the death of a wild cowboy!
JOHN HENRY: I, an indentured labourer, died to save my job!
JOE MAGARAC: I, a factory labourer, died to save my factory!
JOE, JOHN, BILL: But still the child of a worker remained a worker!
PECOS BILL: We fables were stripped and sanitized,
Our early deaths, our lungs of lead, our heart of gold and our head of wood
Somehow glamorized,
As the marks of men!
JOHN HENRY: And without the need for any great conspiracy,
Aside from the bond between wealthy partners
To do what was best for the family,
Our great deeds of intellect were forgotten,
We were remembered instead for our size alone.
JOE MAGARAC: And these tales helped our children to come to terms
With their lack of rights, lack of land, and lack of opinions,
Their early deaths, their lungs of lead, their hearts of gold and their heads of wood.
PECOS BILL: We vigilantes, mavericks, lone rangers and wanderers die solitary deaths.
Crushed thumbs and bent fingers locked in cogwheels
Even as our bosses close business with the shaking of hands
JOE MAGARAC: Our stories of individual labour
Saw nothing in such deals,
We were powerful and brave,
Quaint and whimsical at times,
But alone, and without help, and ready to die.
ALL HEROES: But now, we stand together
As one full hand of thumbs
Ready to grasp the future
In the tradition of things to come!
[End of Act 1, lights down.
A musical interlude with a “folksong”, maybe the theme tune from Walt Disney’s “Davy Crocket”.]
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ACT 2
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[As before, but different: Diedrich, alone on stage, hastily pockets a feather duster as the lights come up.
There is a Newton’s cradle on Diedrich’s podium, along with some flowers.
There is a flipchart in the corner of the room, table football and a motivational poster.
Several conspicuously placed items belonging to Bill, John, Joe, Paul and Rudolph suggest they haven’t gone far.
Deidrich appears slightly flustered, but recovering]
DEIDRICH: So what became of our old friends?
Did they start their new endeavour?
Could you really see the likes of Joe, Bill and John
Advertising wood and coal forever?
Like it or not, the printing press rolls on
And yesterday’s heroes, even fake heroes,
Fight their last battles behind the library doors,
Or vying for attention in second hand book stores.
This is their subtlety:
That for an instant in history they burn vividly
And define against the depths of time
The attitude of infinity.
[David Manning enters, or did someone just push him on stage?]
DAVID MANNING: The best survive, says I the Critic!
Some say, Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged,
But in judgement, I’m prolific!
And what great service I provide -
For all who write would seek to reap
The rich rewards of readership
But who that writes has still the time to read?
And so, with neutral eyes and ears
I help the Heroes find their peers
And from the throng, the truly wise
My sense of taste identifies
[Deidrich in an aside to the audience]
DIEDRICH: No greater claims have I heard yet,
But don’t believe the hype,
Ill ask him who his sponsor is
I know the motives of his type!
(as I and he are quite alike)
[Deidrich to Manning]
A taste for gold you might possess!
Who pays you then? confess!
MANNING: Dang he knows! I should have guessed.
For fiction writers know their own and I’m a fabrication
Not only paid, but outright made by Sony Corporation!
My voice was used to lend their films the ratings they desired
Synthetic praise that paved the way to profits soon acquired.
But don’t think me a monster,
For court case not withstanding
If I myself aren’t innocent
My names not “David Manning”!
[Deidrich cosies up to Manning]
DIEDRICH I understand, you had no choice!
MANNING: My point exactly
DIEDRICH: What charity to make a stand
For films the real critics panned.
I don’t suppose you ever saw
The Animal?
MANNING: … “Another Winner!”
DIEDRICH: Hollow Man?
MANNING: … “One Scary Ride!”
DIEDRICH: Heath Ledger in “A Knights Tale?”
MANNING … “This year’s hottest new star!”
DIEDRICH: The Protagonist in “Heroes of Fakelaw?”
MANNING: … “A fabulous depiction of every struggling artist!”
Someone we can all relate to, sympathise even –
A figure of dreams, ideas and destiny!
A paradigm of the “real life story”
A visionary, a genius within our midst!
DIEDRICH: Do hurry now, I must insist.
[Music, spotlight strikes “random” audience member (the Protagonist), who enters from the audience]
PROTAGONIST: In comes I, the Protagonist!
If you still can’t relate
Place yourself where I exist
And subcontract your fate
For every human has a right
To express their identity
And those who can’t decide their own,
Can borrow mine for free.
You see,
In younger times, simple stories sufficed
To bind our origins and locate our loyalties.
But as our folklore waxes into maturity,
It splits like cliffs cracked by the erosion
Of scandal, power and a media ocean.
Half falls to reason, explanation and law
The other towards parody, doubt and self-scorn.
Each courts me as character proving their claims
Via books that are read in their teeth, claws and aims.
And how could it be otherwise -
For each half knows itself
Only in contrast to their foe.
[Enter Wayne and Luther from opposing sides of the stage]
WAYNE: See my nemesis, Luther!
Great rationalist.
A scientist who would quantify life
And standardise love!
And spend his life searching for truth
Like a prospector panning gold from river mud!
Try telling him that the value of gold is relative,
He’ll reply that if he didn’t do it, someone else would.
LUTHER: So says my old adversary, Wayne!
Financier and Vacillator!
A voice that speaks of personality
As an image picked from catalogues
Who but Wayne could fund a life of modular psychology?
He seems to advocate a line of virtue off-the-shelf
But this belies his feigned belief:
He owns the shop himself.
WAYNE: Ha! You envy my ingenuity!
Be wary of this purveyor of certainty,
This pedlar of false truth!
LUTHER: Be warier still of mystery,
And dubious ambiguity,
Which will espouse confusion
And endorse disinterest.
DIEDRICH: Maybe we should lend a hand
In making sense of this exchange.
What we have here are two titans of business
Alike in dignity, but contrary in countenance.
Some might count either as a hero even,
But so differing they are in ideology
That none could count both together
WAYNE: What great good my work has done,
Churning the cogs of finance, I have built
An edifice of social cohesion upon the silt
Laid down over millennia in Gotham Harbour.
Yes, we enjoy the fruits of the establishment,
That we ourselves established.
But we don’t shirk our responsibility as employer,
Offering affordable rents and public parks to our workers,
Even in addition to the jobs that keep them included
And the democracy that keeps them happy.
LUTHER: Oh indeed! Great good?
A giver only of problems, how generous!
This banker, will give you all you want,
But only for a time, and not without price!
Only 7% compound interest. Who will offer you better?
You can borrow the earth, as long as you promise
To give it back, with the moon as payment!
Let us contrast this, to the gift of knowledge,
For which my forebears have fought and sought
Indeed, rather than cut an extra lump of flesh from nature
We scientists seek a closer relationship with our earth
And unlike the fear and hunger, which this capitalist purveyed,
The benefits we bring to humanity
Are there to be shared, instead of obeyed.
WAYNE: I told you! Beware of his reason!
He thinks in terms of goals, to be fulfilled
Rather than subjects, to be investigated!
LUTHER: At least my intentions then are stated,
Not shrouded with innuendo - Such an idealist is s/he
That when s/he invites you to discuss democracy,
Notice that s/he didn’t pay your cab fare
And that after feeding her children,
Your neighbor could not afford to be there!
PROTAGONIST: In fact, these two titanic rivals
Do show common zeal
For pouring their opinions
Through the spout of business deals
And thus, fertile fancy finds
A foothold in the real,
And only after seek they me
To justify their spiel.
LUTHER: Protagonist! I still believe
That in you lies the key
To understanding social trends
And crowd psychology
The public gaze will bring you fame
But I can set you free
If only you’d submit yourself
To my inquiry.
WAYNE: Don’t take the bate! He only seeks
To ride your credibility!
LUTHER: And you would make a puppet of
This archetypal prodigy!
And have him advertise for you
As hedonist-celebrity!
[Luther in an aside to the audience]
And little does he know that I had bankrolled our protagonists climb
From unknown Sunday painter to an artist in his prime.
For I myself had not escaped his aspirational lure
And lost myself in sheer belief that here was something pure.
PROTAGONIST: What a ruse! Captivated, the world watched on, unknowing
And who would suspect Luther of fabricating my whole story!
WAYNE: But I perceived that Luther’s hopes
Hung only from blind faith’s brittle hooks,
Moreover, that the balance of this edifice, so enshrined
Swayed more on one side by Luther’s wealthy weight
Than on the other, leveraged through tactful distance
Kept by our Protagonist from the pivot
Obviously, Luther’s cradling boughs were soon to break,
His ripened protégé, now full and used to finer things would fall
And easily be caught and carved to garnish my own table.
Once the fruit had been picked clean,
I with belly full could shit the pips where I desired
And from them tame an orchard even rivals might admire.
PROTAGONIST: Indeed, it wasn’t long before
I tired of Luther’s hard attempts
To analyse my every act
And separate the myth in me from scientific fact.
Wayne’s refreshing contract gave a wholly different pact
Comprising most of brand endorsement – little else was asked.
In turn free reign was leant to me along with cash aplenty
To mythologize my ties to Wayne and drain my inspiration empty.
Above all else this clause impressed:
Employment for life and remembered in death!
LUTHER: Boughs might break or fruit might fall from scrumpers climbing trees
I’d rather see my fruit destroyed than see it so diseased!
Kill Him!
[The protagonist dies, mysteriously but dramatically and definitely – if slowly]
PROTAGONIST: My lot to live as proxy and as architype for every Joe
That seeks to scratch their mark on crowded history’s tableau
You and I are quite alike and in my death I show
The breaking heart when equals part – which God won’t ever know.
DEIDRICH: All part of the play, I assure you
Get that corpse off stage!
And let us pass quickly on to the next page.
I have a feeling that this death was not entirely unpredictable.
In fact, I have my suspicions
That such fiendish businessmen as here stand opposed
Could teach even me to sell emperors new clothes.
Tell us a little more about the contract Wayne,
As we can all see you are strangely untroubled
By the death of your most recent acquisition.
WAYNE: Ah yes, the contract I offered was a true masterpiece,
Finely crafted indeed from our literature,
And not unlike the one recently accepted on my request
By the shareholders of Sony PLC
MANNING: No doubt!
Who says that ambiguity cannot be employed
For practical purposes and strategic ends.
In fact, the contract doesn’t mince its words
When by the legal ear it’s heard
And indeed, constitutes something better compared
To legal incorporation and a public listing of shares
WAYNE: As obliged, to our protagonist we allowed free reign
At least while alive, well able and sane.
Who would have suspected the extreme
Briefness of this obligation we held?
And now another should arise,
We are committed to finding a new Protagonist!
There will be no shortage of applicants,
For again, free reign is allowed, within certain parameters
And the job comes with a great name, great reputation,
And multi-national gallery representation!
LUTHER: How can you so profane such genius?
As to subject the legacy of such an artist
To the bickering and profiteering
Of corporate business structures!
WAYNE: Don’t be naïve! The future legitimacy of our protagonist
Is protected by intellectual property rights,
We will only hire out his works
To those with the means to affirm his delight
DEIDRICH: And what of his critics?
MANNING: You’ll have to ask the shareholders -
I believe you may recognise them, that much is true!
[Enter, Heroes of Fakelaw]
PECOS BILL: How do you do!
JOHN HENRY: How do you do!
JOE MAGARAC: How do you do!
PAUL BUNYAN: How do you do!
RUDOLPH: How do you do!
[The Protagonist is resurrected, a mightier and nobler version of himself/herself]
PROTAGONIST: How do you do!
DEIDRICH: Well Protagonist, who would have suspected?
To Wayne’s board of directors,
I see you’ve been elected
RUDOLPH: They do say you must be in it to win it.
DEIDRICH: Surely what matters, is who decides how you finish?
LUTHER: But how could you lie complicit with such murder?
PECOS BILL: Murder is a thing between people. As I think you know.
For the company, Our Protagonist is not dead,
He was never alive. The protagonist was incorporated.
JOE MAGARAC: And who would not desire such a fate?
Total freedom, backed by an international media conglomerate!
Free reign, to spread your own doctrine!
Within certain parameters of course.
Which prophet would turn this down,
What diplomat could refuse?
[Manning speaks to the audience]
MANNING: Exactly! Who amongst you would care
To place your mark upon our story?
Surely if we are to reach new ground,
Make our artistic mark, as it were,
Then this banal analysis we have so far seen
Needs a new bright spark
To set ablaze our own brief fire of timeless glory?
Do hurry now, I must insist.
Step up, step up, Protagonist!
[END]
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