Before They Were Night Vale #7: Bichon Frise (Patreon)

Welcome to "Before They Were Night Vale", our feature in which Night Vale creators Jeffrey and Joseph share writing from before their Welcome to Night Vale collaboration, along with commentary. Come explore their early writing, both good and bad. 

JEFFREY: I wrote this in my first year with the Neo-Futurists. Dialogue is difficult to write for the Neos’ show because everything has to be real. You can’t suspend the audience’s disbelief by pretending you don’t know what’s going to happen, or by saying things that do not apply to you. So a lot of my early plays were weird poetry and monologues. This play is one of the first dialogue plays I wrote, and I got around the restrictions of the Neo-Futurist aesthetic by using a puppet and keeping myself fully visible. 

This play was written before the term mansplaining was coined, but it was certainly a topic in the ether I was trying to grapple with. I don’t think I successfully move any meaningful conversation forward about men explaining things to women, but I did manage to make a short play that compares mansplainers to dogs who lick their balls. So there’s that. Also, I honestly knew very little about Kant when I wrote this, and I know even less now. 

And for you fans of Desiree Burch, she performed the role of #2 in this play with me when it first debuted. Also, I still have that Bichon Frise toy somewhere. I looked all over the house this morning, though and could not find it. Damn. It's really cute too. 

###

... on arguing Kantian metaphysics over espresso with a Bichon Frise
© Jeffrey Cranor, 2007

Two Neos sit at a table with either a tablecloth or a candle. There are 2 cups of espresso. 1 holds a stuffed Bichon Frise doll, which acts as a puppet. Stage directions for 1’s dialogue indicate how to move the stuffed dog.

2: Immanuel Kant said: "Man's reason, by nature, is architectonic." [sips espresso; throughout the rest of the play, 2 sips espresso intermittently.]

1: I disagree. [laps at espresso with tongue]

2: With what? You're a dog.

1: That there is a planned structure to reason. Man's reason is action-driven. Need-based. If it itches, you scratch it. [laps at espresso]

2: You argue with Kant?

1: I argue with structuralist assumptions about personal choice. And, I'm not a dog.

2: Kant was a structuralist?

1: No, but structuralists are vaguely Kantian. Same difference. I need to lick my balls for a second. [licks balls for a few seconds; stops] Okay.

2: Then what is reason? From a dog point of view?

1: Primal. Unable to be deconstructed. And again. Not a dog. [the dog indicates itself]

2: So is this deconstruction?

1: Yes, in its basic construct: a stage, a puppet, essential props. Sure.

2: And reason cannot be architectural? Patterned? Structured?

1: Only man's study of it. Theory versus application, you see? [starts licking his balls again]

2: Of course, it could be argued that you are no expert on reason.

1: [stops licking] Why?

2: Well, you're a bichon frise. [beat] And you keep licking your balls.

1: No. You miss the point. I am a simulacrum: synthetic cotton, twine, and plastic, mechanically constructed into a recognizable semblance of a haute bourgeois, canine breed, all the while controlled by a man's hands and voice. [licks balls again, keeps licking until the last line]

2: And your experience with Immanuel Kant's theories on reason?

1: Zilch.

2: [pause; watching dog] You know? That really hurts your argument.

1: [stops licking] What does?

CURTAIN