Michael was supposedly working on the sequel to "This Is Heaven," then he was working on a novel about Jamie & Dex, and now...now he's working on a play, the working title being Generation Five. And, yes, you guessed it, G5 is a new, wildly-improved line of household robots. Namely: Dr. Eliza Gillespie, the infamous psychoanalyst lives in the near future and with Robert, a prototype of Generation One---the first generation of household robots created twenty-five years ago by her then-boyfriend Steve ('Frankenstein') Junior. Steve went on to become a master of the universe with his line of highly-inspired, highly intelligent androids and today is Eliza's 50th birthday. Steve will show up with a prototype of G5 ('Dolly') and all hell breaks loose.
Here's how it opens:
Enter ELIZA (raincoat, umbrella, handbag, undefinable middle age).
ROBERT: A very good evening, Ma’am.
(ELIZA moans, exhales. She half-ignores ROBERT, who steps back.)
ROBERT: Can I help you, Ma’am?
ELIZA (flatly): No. Okay. Here…(hands him the handbag).
(ROBERT grips handbag, reaches for the umbrella.)
ELIZA (evading him): I heard something last night…DRIP, DRIP, DRIP (she casts a suspicious eye at the ceiling).
ROBERT: Not tonight, Ma’am. I…(points at the ladder)…I took care of it.
ELIZA (hands him the umbrella, reluctantly): This deluge must not go on, Robert. Please call the weather service and insist on a significant improvement of the climate.
"Please call the weather service and insist on a significant improvement of the climate."
ROBERT: They’ve discontinued their emergency lines. They have a help page now, with ‘Frequently Answered Questions’.
ELIZA (steps back): This is so cheap, Robert, can’t you think of a better joke?
ROBERT: I am programmed to do my level best, Ma’am.
ELIZA: Alas. Relieve me of my coat, will you.
(ROBERT helps her with the coat.)
ELIZA: Any good news?
ROBERT: Almost. Algorithmically speaking…You hated them anyway, Ma’am.
ELIZA: Out with it.
ROBERT: Your patients, Ma’am. Tomorrow’s three o’clock patients.
ELIZA: They cancelled?
ROBERT (shyly): Mmhmm.
ELIZA: Good for them. I forgot their names. What are their names?
ROBERT: That was an issue, yes. You hadn’t used their names in fifteen years, they said. It ‘was the drop that made the camel overflow’, they said. Charles and Charles.
ELIZA (laughs): Charles and Charles?
ROBERT: Were their names, yes.
ELIZA: They cancelled? I’ll have the afternoon off. Why’s that bad news? You mean like in…forever? Eternally? Gone? (Swipes her sole, as if extinguishing a bug). Like that?
ROBERT (shyly): Mmhmm.
ELIZA: Charles and Charles? A gay couple? You must be joking. They were straight. The woman, the female, she had a mustache. That was their problem. They didn’t have an Oedipus, but she had a mustache. I could never mention her facial hair, of course, it would have been the end of it. And…yes, it would have been politically incorrect. We are not politically incorrect.
ROBERT: Indeed, Ma’am.
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