Mike Mariano

Our left-coast pals The Hunger Artists are preparing for their Tenth Anniversary production of Madame Guignol’s Macabre Theatre. But instead of new material, they are reviving past Guignol plays—based on your votes. One of the past plays in the running? My very own Muggled.

Think before you rush the ballot box. Are you even in California to see these plays? There are other considerations, too. Let’s take this pro/con:

Vote for Muggled!

1. A new Harry Potter novel comes out in July. And a new Harry Potter film will be released soon after Macabre Theatre. The timing couldn’t be better!
2. Apparently Americans torturing foreign nationals is still popular!

Don’t Vote for Muggled!

1. Muggled may have been appropriate for a Christian Hellhouse-themed Guignol, but does it really represent the Guignol as a whole? I don’t think so.
2. Muggled isn’t bloody enough! No one gets dismembered or cannibalized or anything! Harry gets whacked with his own broomstick; that’s not gore.
3. Muggled isn’t funny enough! Once you get past the schadenfreude, it’s kind of miserable.

Personally, if I was a Hunger Artists audience member, I would vote for blood. And nudity. Bloody nudity. What else is Halloween for?

I finished a draft of Zenyatta Piñata last night. (So we’re keeping score correctly, that makes a draft of Zenyatta Piñata, a first draft of the Platonic Philosopher Kings, and a super-expanded Jack, Wanda, and Ben that I’m holding back from you.) Right now it ends on such an awful note. Like Muggled, it’s a sick joke with the joke removed. I don’t find anything funny in ZP. And I like it that way. It’s right now a ten-minute play. Should I add more to it? I definitely have more material, but I don’t think it would add anything new. You may see it soon.

After subsequent drafts of Zenyatta Piñata and Philosopher Kings, the next play will likely be a one-act Ibsen parody. The Ibsen play, Philosopher Kings, and Menage a Sartre may all fit together as a evening of one-acts.

Does this amalgamation count as the full-length play I promised you in January? No! One-acts are one-acts, no matter how I group them. Yet apart from Now Departing, I have only one modest idea for a full-length play. And the only line of dialogue I have so far is “Tutan-cummin’ on her Nefer-titties.”

Comparatively, I suppose that’s a good start.

Just now, in the shower:

My mind turned from Alberto Gonzales to my own Muggled and the prospect of having your own, private Abu Ghraib.

And that gives me an idea. For a musical?