Good Answer by Mark Montgomery

Provided the Author is given full Credit, this Play can be performed Royalty Free

Good Answer - A Comedy in Two Acts

CHARACTERS

MICHAEL Professor of Mathematics, Acting President of the College,
between 40 and 50 years old.

JO ANN Administrative Assistant to the President of the College,
between 40 and 50 years old.

PHILLIP Professor of French, between 40 and 50 years old.

MARGARET A college student.

BUTCHIE A college student.

DAVID A wealthy business man and alumnus of the college, between 30
and 40 years of age.

SETTING

All scenes take place in the Office of the President at a small college in Iowa

One door exits offstage to the administrative assistant's office, another door exits offstage into the
president's private bathroom

On the wall hangs a portrait of a man in a business suit

TIME

A weekday morning during the spring semester

ACT I

SCENE I

(Michael enters. He wears a suit and carries a briefcase. He pauses
before the portrait.)

MICHAEL
(To the door to the Administrative assistant's office)

Have you noticed a strange man in my office this morning?

(Jo Ann enters holding a watering can. She moves down to water some plants.)

JO ANN
First of all, this is not your office. And, yes, I have noticed a
strange man here for almost three weeks now.

MICHAEL
I'll rephrase my question.

(Points at the painting)

Who the hell is this guy, and why is he hanging in the office that I
have been asked to occupy, even if you don't approve?

JO ANN
That is Mr. Pembroke's father. He was a trustee of the college in
the 1970s and that's his official portrait.

MICHAEL
That explains a great deal, except why he's suddenly hanging here
this morning.

JO ANN
The Development Office believes that Mr. Pembroke will be pleased to
find the College prominently displaying a portrait of his father.

MICHAEL
I see. So our reasoning is that Pembroke is smart enough to be the
youngest CEO in the Fortune 500, yet too stupid to realize that we put
this up just to impress him?

JO ANN
I, as you can easily observe, do not work in the Development Office.
You'll need to take it up with them.

MICHAEL
But for future reference, you agree, do you not, that the President
decides what pictures hang in the President's Office?

JO ANN
I certainly do agree. But the President is dead.

MICHAEL
And I am acting as President.

JO ANN
I'll say.

(Jo Ann Exits)

MICHAEL
(Talks to the painting.)
Don't get comfortable.

(Michael goes to sit behind desk, starts to look at his e-mail. Phone
on desk buzzes, he picks it up.)

Hello Can't you just tell that I'm All right, I'll talk
to him.

(Pause)

Good morning, Red. Red Red . Red it's a student
newspaper, you know I was misquoted. Of course I didn't say that.
They left out the word "tackling", Red, what I said was, "Our
team already has plenty of tackling dummies." OK, I will I
will. What do you want me to say to them? Wait, let me get a pencil.

(Picks up a can of pencils from the desktop and rattles it next to the
phone.)

Go ahead.

(He writes nothing.)

OK, I've got it. Let me send this to the editor and we'll see if
they print it. OK, Red, Bye.

(Jo Ann appears at the doorway with a young woman, obviously a
student, looking very sullen.)

JO ANN
Margaret is here, as requested.

(Margaret enters. She is incongruously dressed: a loose skirt and a
tee shirt with an environmental slogan, covered by a jean jacket. She
wears heavy, beat up, hiking boots with the laces untied. She carries
what looks like a shirt box. She sits down on the sofa, places the
shirt box on the floor and stares straight ahead, arms folded across
her chest.)

MICHAEL
Thank you for coming.

MARGARET
Why did you call me in here?

MICHAEL
Because I wanted to see you. You know, Margaret, since you started
college here, you've been almost like a daughter to me.

MARGARET
That's very funny, Dad. You know, it's stupid jokes like that
that get you in trouble.

MICHAEL
Yeah, who says I'm in trouble?

MARGARET
Well, let's see, how about everybody on campus, to name two
thousand.

MICHAEL
Well my troubles would partly be due to you, now, wouldn't they?

MARGARET
Oh, you're going to blame, me, huh? That's why you made me come
here at the crack of dawn.

MICHAEL
It's nine o'clock, Margaret.

MARGARET
It is? (Stands up.) Then I've got to go, I've got a nine o'clock class.

MICHAEL
No you don't, I checked.

(She sits down sullenly. He reaches behind his desk to extract a
poster on which is a fuzzy picture of him holding a hatchet.
Emblazoned on the poster are the words THE AXEMAN, NO BUDGET OR
RAINFOREST IS SAFE FROM HIM.)

MICHAEL
Perhaps you can explain this.

MARGARET
(Smiles for the first time.)
Yeah, I found that in an album of old Pine Ridge pictures.

MICHAEL
I recognize the photograph.

MARGARET
See, the axe thing ties into both budget cuts and deforestation.

MICHAEL
I get it. My question is how my picture got on this poster.

MARGARET
How it got there? There's a digital scanner in Smith Hall; I just
downloaded the jpeg file to my laptop. Easy.

MICHAEL
(Stares at her for a beat.)
Do you honestly think you can shorten this interview by pretending to
be stupid?

MARGARET
So what do you want me to say, Dad?

MICHAEL
I want you to say why you would deliberately humiliate me by putting
this picture on a poster? I wouldn't have done that to my father.

MARGARET
It isn't personal, Dad.

MICHAEL
(Holds up the poster.)
Not personal? Then why does this person looks so much like me? Would
you take it personally if I hung up a picture of you like this?

MARGARET
Well, I have sense enough not to be photographed in flannel.

MICHAEL
Lady, I've got baby pictures that would make you beg for flannel.
Would you like me to post those around campus?

MARGARET
Look, Dad, how was I not going to publicize our rally? I'm Vice
President for Publicity of S.O.P. What can't you understand about
that?

MICHAEL
Two things, actually: One, what the hell "S.O.P" is, and two, why
S.O.P. is protesting against me?

MARGARET
You don't know what S.O.P. is? The biggest environmental group on
campus: Save Our Planet?

MICHAEL
I thought it was Save the Planet?

MARGARET
We changed it. It turns out that "S.T.P." is the name of a
petroleum product.

MICHAEL
Why would S.O.P. be protesting anything I did?

MARGARET
Dad, according to the Rainforest Action Network we lose 60 hectares of
rainforest every minute.

MICHAEL
Do they calculate how many hectares are destroyed by guys professing
mathematics in Iowa?

MARGARET
Well your effect is indirect.

MICHAEL
I would guess so.

MARGARET
But you're inviting Marty Pembroke here and he's destroying
rainforest.

MICHAEL
How? His company is in Cleveland, they make machinery.

MARGARET
Including bulldozers, which are used to build roads, which are built
in the Amazon, which leads to mass peasant migration, which leads to
wholesale destruction of precious rainforest. Not only that, did you
know that Pembroke was in China last month trying to sell cranes for
the Three Gorges Dam Project?

MICHAEL
(In mock horror)
Good Lord, cranes - he's trafficking in weapons of weapons of
mass construction!

MARGARET
Don't be sarcastic. That dam that will flood the Three Gorges region
of the Yangtze River, one of China's most important ecological, not
to mention cultural

MICHAEL
OK, nevermind. But there's something you don't seem to be
considering here Margaret. Mr. Pembroke is potentially a substantial
benefactor of this institution, which, as you may have heard, is up to
its eyebrows in financial doo doo. How would S.O.P. feel about a big
tuition hike?

MARGARET
We don't want lower tuition if it's soaked in the blood of
indigenous people.

MICHAEL
Blood? Indigenous people can't outrun a bulldozer in the jungle?

MARGARET
This is serious, Dad. The rainforest is their livelihood, their
culture, their whole way of life. When you fell a forest, you fell a
people!

MICHAEL
(Pause)
I can see why they made you Vice President for Publicity.

MARGARET
(Smiling)
Yeah, I beat out Audrey Hayes for that position.
Look Dad, last year members of S.O.P. chained themselves to the front
door of Home Depot stores to raise consciousness about deforestation.
All I'm doing is publicizing an event.

(Stands up.)
And I really do have to go, the rally starts in half an hour.

MICHAEL
A rally in which you accuse your own father, who has never been south
of the Equator, of destroying the Brazilian rainforest.

MARGARET
Jeez, you are sooooo dramatic! Gotta go.

(She starts to leave. Then turns back to him.)
You know, you always tell me that when you're arguing with someone
you should say at least one nice thing. You haven't said one nice
thing since I've been here.

MICHAEL
(Points at her untied hiking boots.)
I like your shoes.

MARGARET
Toodles.
(Starts to leave.)

MICHAEL
Hey, you haven't said one nice thing to me, either.

MARGARET
OK. Let's see Dad, you're a big doofus.

(Exits)

MICHAEL
(Calls after her.)
Oh, yeah? So's your old man.

MICHAEL
(To Painting)
Did you have any daughters? I mean, that would certainly help explain
why you're dead.

(Michael goes behind his desk and, sits down, picks up the telephone
and dials.)

Anna, this is Michael Kaminski. What? No, Anna, you're not
being laid off, I'm calling because there's something I would like
removed from my office. No, the office I'm in now, the
President's Office. It's a painting.

(To the picture.)
Don't be offended, it isn't anything you did.

(Into phone.)
Yes, I know that you just put it in here, but I'd like it removed
right away. It isn't worth explaining now, Anna, could you just
send someone over, please? I need it out of here by 11:30 at the
latest.
(To the picture.)
You're son will thank me. I wouldn't want my father hanging on
the wall while I was in meeting.

(Jo Ann enters, closing the door behind her.)

JO ANN
Butchie is here.

MICHAEL
Butchie? Butchie Wright?

JO ANN
How many Butchies do you know?

MICHAEL
Butchie Wright has an appointment?

JO ANN
It's on your calendar. Everything to do with this office is written
on your calendar, which is not the least bit useful unless you
occasionally look at the calendar.

MICHAEL
(Looks at the desk calendar)
It doesn't say what he wants to see me about. You gave him an
appointment without asking what he wants?

JO ANN
Students often saw President Higby without having to give me a reason.
I don't see why it should be different for the Acting President.

MICHAEL
Well, you stay for the meeting too, then. That's the least you can
do for me.

JO ANN
As committed as I am to doing the least I can do for you, he's here
to see you, not me.

(Jo Ann exits. A young man enters. He is large and athletic looking,
wearing in jeans and an un-tucked rugby shirt. He is awkward and ill
at ease.)

MICHAEL
(Gets up from his desk and walks forward to greet the young man)
Good Morning, Butchie.

(Shakes his hand)

BUTCHIE
Hi, Professor.
MICHAEL
(Ushers Butchie over to a chair by the coffee table)
Please sit down. What can I do for you this morning?

BUTCHIE
Well, you know, it's about the cuts and all.

[end of extract]