SATAN: Actually, we’re very different. I’m much more human and emotional than God … and, as you’ve probably noticed, I’m also much better-looking.
JOB: So why are you here?
SATAN: To give you a chance to win fabulous prizes!
JOB: Really?
SATAN: Ha ha, no, no, I just love saying that. I’m here to tell you you’re getting screwed. (pause) Figuratively speaking.
JOB: By you?
SATAN: Is everything about blame to you? (beat) Well, look, partly, yeah. But, hey, it’s my job.
JOB: Why do you do it?
SATAN: I have a very nice office, two secretaries and my own fax machine. It’s not such a bad job. (pause) Look, that’s not why I’m here. I’m here to tell you there’s a way out.
JOB: If it involves switching to “MCI Friends & Family,” I’m not interested.
SATAN: No, no … Look, you’re being tested by me and … you know … to test your faith in Him.
JOB: What ever happened to the old “fill-in-the-blank-multiple-choice” way?
SATAN: Listen … the way to end this is, you just get out. Convert to Buddhism or soemthing.
JOB: But that won’t be invented for another 3000 years.
SATAN: So you’ll get a head start. That’s not the point. Be a deist or an existentialist or a French teacher or something. Invent a religion all about Taco Bell. Go around waving signs saying ‘The Atacolypse is Coming.’ Whatever. We’re testing your faith in Him. If you just stop believing in Him … or me … the question is invalidated. Then we’ll just have to find someone else to play with.
JOB: Sounds like a pretty rotten play to me.JOB and SATAN turn their heads slowly and look at the audience, then return to the scene.
SATAN: No, no, I didn’t mean it like that. But do you see? Just stop believing in God or me or any of this, and it’s finished.
JOB: But … I can’t. I can’t. I really believe in God. That’s reality. I can’t just stop believing, without meaning it. And this isn’t some 20th century angst-ridden “Can-I-reconcile-my-belief-in-God-with-the-fact-I-work-at-Blockbuster?” thing. It’s God we’re talking about. The Creator of the Universe. I mean, have you seen his resume?
SATAN: Okay, okay. I just thought that before this went any further, we should sit down and chat … you know, Princess of Darkness to Prince of Dork-ness. (sighs) I was just trying to help. (pause) In my own way. See ya.SATAN exits, either walking off, or in a cloud of smoke if you have the budget
JOB: I am having one of the strangest days.
WIFE walks onstage as JOB leaves. She is in solo spotlight … as with the other monologues in the play, it becomes obvious we have stepped ‘outside’ the normal action of the play for this. She speaks directly to the audience.
WIFE: Just between you and me, Job is the one who really believes in God. I’ve never really told him. I haven’t really talked to God since my Bat Mitzvah … for those of you Christians in the audience, that’s like a debutante ball, but without the sex in the parking lot.Pause.
My mother strongly believes in God. She’s a lot like Job. I don’t think she’s ever really asked many questions about religion. But it helps her. I remember when I was in college, and my mother asked me if I believed in God. I’ve never really needed religion. I was always too happy with the things in life I was sure were real. Myself … my children … my husband. So I don’t believe in it.
The obvious answer to the question was to tell my mother some “not-very-often-but-yes-of-course” story. Long pause.
But every good Israelite is supposed to be able to stand up for what they believe. I was an intellectual … a woman of the world … I watched movies with subtitles … why should I have lied?
The truth will set you free, right? Right?A long, reflective pause.
“No, mom. (pause) I mean, it’s because…”
And so we argued … around and around … and, finally, I … won. My mother ran up the white flag of surrender when she finished the discussion by saying “Then just don’t tell your grandmother.”A pause, painful now.
I saw a glimmer of my mother’s doubt. Having religion gives you something. It gives you something to be secure about, to feel like you have the answer, like you have a little piece of the puzzle of life and how to live it. Losing your religion takes that away, and replaces it with this feeling like you’re smarter than everybody else … but afterwards, when nobody else is around, you ask yourself, “Okay, smart-ass, so what is the answer?” And you don’t know.
I finally realized that making the world a smarter place does not necessarily make it a happier place.
So … if belief is what makes Job happy … that’s something I won’t challenge. We lost everything … but we didn’t lose everyone. Our children. Each other. And maybe that’s enough.JOB comes back onstage just as the MESSENGER arrives.
MESSENGER: I have a message for Mr. and Mrs. Job.
WIFE: Is it good news or bad news?
MESSENGER: Have you ever seen ‘Waterworld?’
JOB and WIFE: No.
MESSENGER: Of course you haven’t. Nobody has. Never mind. Anyway, it’s not good.
JOB: What do you mean?
MESSENGER: Your children were all together … having dinner, catching up, being joyous and having a good time.
JOB: Yes?
MESSENGER: The roof caved in on them. And only I am escaped alone to tell thee.
WIFE: But…
JOB: I don’t understand…
MESSENGER: I know what you’re thinking. That damn cheap aluminum siding.
JOB: But what about our children?
MESSENGER: Oh, them. They’re dead.
Both JOB and his WIFE are in shock.
MESSENGER: But one of your daughters was not there.
WIFE: (hopeful) No?
MESSENGER: She was getting married.
JOB: (joyful) Really?
MESSENGER: She got married to Pauly Shore.
JOB: (falls on his knees, screams) Oh, GOD! WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS TO ME?
MESSENGER: I suppose a tip is out of the question.
Both JOB and WIFE are heartbroken, on the verge of tears, but still too shocked.
MESSENGER: Remember the words from the Good Book. (flips open the book on the table, which has heretofore been the Bible) ‘Skokie, Illinois. 80455.’
JOB: That’s the ZIP Code Directory.
MESSENGER: Yeah, it didn’t sound real inspiring.
WIFE: Why? Why did this happen? Why us? Why?
JOB: (painfully) It must have been God’s will.
WIFE: I don’t want to hear about God!
MESSENGER: Look … if you’re curious … why not just call God and ask him?
WIFE: Call Him … on the telephone?
MESSENGER: Sure. Look him up in the Bible.
JOB: (barely believing) Where do I find how to contact him?
MESSENGER: It’s in the Book of Numbers.
Pause while everyone lets this sink in.
MESSENGER: Get it? Book of Numbers? HA HA HEE HEEE HA HA!The MESSENGER doubles over in laughter while JOB and WIFE are still griefstricken and dumbfounded.
MESSENGER: (recovering) Get it? Book of Numbers? (pause) You don’t get it. (pause, sighs, changing back to serious tone) It’s there. It’ll get edited out in a later version … and the Kabbalists will go nuts for 1500 years trying to figure it out. But it’s in there. Just call Him and ask. MESSENGER exits. JOB and WIFE look at each other silently for a moment.
WIFE: It’s all over.
JOB: It’s not over. The program says there’s about another 25 minutes.
WIFE: NO! Our lives … they’re over. We’ve lost everything.
JOB: (going to wife, trying to comfort her) It’s not over. Life goes on.
WIFE: I don’t want to live. I don’t see why we should live … if life is this.
JOB: No … no … God has a plan.
WIFE: God’s plan sucks! (almost to herself) My life is worth nothing. Why should I want to be alive?
JOB: (thinks) Did I tell you I used to smoke when I was in college?
WIFE: No.
JOB is up, walking around, addressing his wife from time to time, but really talking to the audience.
JOB: Yeah. Until I quit. You know why?
It wasn’t all those anti-smoking campaigns — ‘Smoker’s lungs: Congested. Black. Different.’ … or all of the warnings on the back of cigarette cartons — you know, ‘The Surgeon General has determined that if you’re going to smoke these, you can kiss your ass goodbye right now.’ It wasn’t that an ex-girlfriend told me it made me taste like dirty Q-Tips. (pause, reflects) You know, we broke up right after I found out she knew what dirty Q-Tips tasted like.
WIFE: (sarcasm) I’d really love to hear more about your ex-girlfriends.
JOB: (realizing he’s off-track and coming back to her) I quit because a friend of mine died. He didn’t die from smoking six packs of Luckies a day, he didn’t die after drinking three gallons of Rumple-Minze and driving off a cliff or anything. He was just sick for a long time from some stupid disease nobody had ever heard of, and then he became finally terminally deceased to death.Contemplative pause.
Death is a terribly unromantic thing. It’s not dramatic, it’s not glorious, it’s just … not. Not anything.
So why did this make me stop?
You see, at my ripe old age of 21, I had a hard time conceptualizing all those things that would happen to me eventually: Getting married, having kids…
JOB moves over to WIFE, touches her shoulder and her stomach.
You know, buying a station wagon, having a mid-life crisis and trying to trade the kids in for a new Suzuki, and finally while I’m on my deathbed telling everyone that I buried all this gold right over in … aaaarggggh and dying before the last word so they go crazy looking for it.
WIFE: (reproving) Job!
JOB: (laughs to himself thoughtfully) I sorta expected it to happen, but I never really believed any of it would. Especially the “dead” part. I’d be young forever.
But time really does pass. And life is too precious to waste.
So I quit. Aside from the obvious side effects — for three weeks, I tried to smoke my term papers — it wasn’t too bad.
But the point is … being alive is a gift. We have to be grateful for what we’ve got. And just being alive is enough to be grateful for.
WIFE: (very earnest) Is it?They look at each other. WIFE moves to JOB, and he holds her tightly.
JOB: We just have to believe it will be all right.
WIFE: I don’t know if I believe in anything anymore.WIFE pulls slowly away from JOB, and walks offstage. JOB is left alone, addressing the audience.
JOB: If only I had some sign.
A stagehand throws an envelope onto the stage from above.
JOB: (opening it greedily, then dejectedly) Apparently, I’ve been pre-approved for a VISA Gold Card.JOB, looking none too sane at this point, walks dejectedly offstage. SATAN walks back on, with a microphone, followed by NEIBUHR and LARDBALL, who sit at the chairs away from the table, as on a talk show panel. NIEBUHR is prim, scholarly and proper with a badly-stuck-on goatee; LARDBALL should be as vile as possible.
SATAN: Hi! Today on ‘Talking with Satan,’ we’ll examine the problem of Job, and is he just a loser or what? On our distinguished panel, we have Dr. Reinhold Neibuhr, a respected theologian who’s been dead for many years so he can’t sue us (NEIBUHR waves to the audience) … and Bart Lardball, a wino we just picked up off the street. (LARDBALL makes as if to wave, then takes the can of fake string and, hiding it behind his mouth, appears to vomit on NEIBUHR)
LARDBALL: Eurrgh. Sorry there, your majesty.
SATAN: Now, Dr. Neibuhr, how would you explain the theological issues at stake here?
NEIBUHR: Well, the issue is essentially whether God is always right, or whether he’s only right sometimes, or whether it just depends if he’s got a good night’s sleep. Job is this good guy, and God decides to make his life become like poo-poo, through no fault of his own. Is it within God’s right to do this? If so, who’s going to tell him to quit it? Is it within Job’s rights to resist? Since his life is now so screwed up, could he, for example, ask God for a refund? Or can we, as humans, ever understand God? If not, are there Cliffs’ Notes available? And, finally, is this really anybody’s fault? If so — and this is the major theological question — who does Job’s insurance company have to pay? And will his premiums go up?
SATAN: Mr. Lardball, how do you respond?
LARDBALL: (pointing to girl in audience) Yeah, you in the fourth row. Hey, baby.
SATAN: Well, Dr. Neibuhr, how do would you define this struggle in ontological terms?
NEIBUHR: Well, it’s rooted in the intrusion of the theological reality into the empirical and the quantifiable. It raises many burning questions — or should I say, ‘Oxidizing?’ ha ha, funny little joke there for the lads in physics. It projects the unknowable and ineffable into the space of the material plane … thereby negating much of the Kantian positivist questions, and making Sartre look absolutely like a big idiot.
SATAN: Mr. Lardball, how do you feel about the anti-Hegelianism the doctor is expounding?
LARDBALL: Have you got any spare change? I’m down to my last bottle of ‘Night Train.’
NEIBUHR: Umm … not really.
LARDBALL: Well, this is just a guess, but I’d say a Hegelian belief in absolute spirit or Aristotelian forms negate a theological empiricism? (pause) Euurghh. (vomits on NEIBUHR)
SATAN: Well, let’s take some questions from the audience. (walks to AUDIENCE MEMBER, and points the microphone at them) What do you think?
AUDIENCE MEMBER #1: (stands) Are any of you transvestites?
NEIBUHR: No!
LARDBAG: No, but I vomit a lot.
AUDIENCE MEMBER #1: This is a talk show? With no transvestites?
SATAN: No.
AUDIENCE MEMBER #1: This sucks. I’m outta here. (leaves the theater)
SATAN: Well, (points the microphone at another AUDIENCE MEMBER) what do you think?
AUDIENCE MEMBER #2: (stands) Why aren’t there any singing cats in this? I heard there was singing cats in this play.
NEIBUHR: No.
AUDIENCE MEMBER #2: This sucks. I’m outta here. (leaves the theater)SATAN heads back onto stage and addresses the audience.
SATAN: Well, that’s all the time for this week. Join us next time when Elvis and three singing cats join us to discuss the Road to Hell, and the best ways to get there from I-95.
SATAN, NEIBUHR and LARDBALL exit, with LARDBALL vomiting constantly on NEIBUHR. JOB strides quickly back onstage; he appears to be losing it. JOB thinks for a moment, then hesitatingly walks over to the table, and picks up the Bible and the phone. He pages through the Bible, then apparently finds what he is looking for. JOB picks up the phone, takes a breath as if he is taking a great dive into water, and quickly dials the number. He listens intently, looking as if he has just had a revelation. Then he puts the phone down.
JOB: God?
Pause.
JOB: Busy signal.After some anguished internal debate, JOB reaches into a drawer of the table and pulls out a pack of cigarettes.
JOB: I knew our kids were hiding some of theirs around here.
He lights the cigarette. It is, of course, made of flash paper and erupts into flame and disintegrates out of his hands. JOB looks up toward heaven, then down below him.
JOB: I can’t even tell which of you did that.JOB sinks to his knees and appears ready to cry. His WIFE returns to the stage, looking grim.
WIFE: We have to talk.
Both compose themselves for what they know will be a very serious talk.
JOB: Yes?
WIFE: I…
A DANCER, costumed in a wild parody of biblical garb, rushes on and slides into the middle of the stage.
DANCER: (sings) Oh, Jooo-seeephhhhh! Jo-Jo-Jo-Joseph with the groovy coat/Your evil brothers threw you down a moat! They took you to Pharaoh / They shaved all your hair-O…
JOB and WIFE: (simultaneously) Next door!Long pause.
DANCER: Oops. (exits)Long pause.
WIFE: I’m scared. Our lives have been … just cancelled. Like everything we ever did or worked for has vanished, it never happened. And we’re left in the ruins. We were good people … no, Job, you were perfect. You always did everything God wanted. (pause) How could this happen?
JOB: It’s God’s will.
He moves toward her, tries to kiss her comfortingly, she pulls away.
WIFE: Oh, shut up! Shut up! Don’t you hear what I’m saying? I don’t care if it’s God’s will! It’s wrong! It’s all wrong! If … if God did do this, then he’s wrong and he’s horrible and…
JOB: No, no, don’t say that.
WIFE: No, it’s awful and there can’t be a God, because if there is one and he allowed this to happen, then he’s evil! Look what He did to us! And … and you keep defending Him! Against me! Against your children! How could you do this? Dost thou retain thy integrity? Curse God and die!
JOB: No! Don’t you see, I have faith … it’s all I have. I can’t give it up now.Long pause. WIFE looks as if she has made some terrible, final decision.
WIFE: I have to go.
JOB: You can’t. The bathroom blew up.
WIFE: No. I mean I have to go. I can’t stay with you anymore. I’m so sorry. Goodbye.WIFE, overcome, turns and exits hurriedly. JOB stares after her for a moment, then sinks to his knees in despair. After a long moment, he begins to speak, addressing the audience, in solo spoltlight.
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