Conversion Rites and Wrongs.
ISBN: 9781301808281.
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Conversion Rites and Wrongs.
(A HUSBAND is kneeling centre stage, facing the audience. With a little uncertainty he lowers his forehead to the floor for a few seconds, then stands and brushes himself off)
HUSBAND: That’s not so hard.
(Pause)
HUSBAND: But can I do it five times a day?
(Pause)
HUSBAND: It’ll be like five smoke-o breaks a day! The Dean won’t be able to argue with that. Equal Employment Opportunity legislation rocks!
(He does a little victory dance)
HUSBAND: Now where is my lovely, devoted and endlessly obedient wife? I need an honourable witness for my Shahadah.
(His WIFE enters)
WIFE: Witness for your what, darling?
HUSBAND: Oh, baby, have I got news for you.
WIFE: (Suspiciously) Yeees?
HUSBAND: Guess what it is, sweetheart?
WIFE: Your novel’s made the shortlist for the Man Booker?
HUSBAND: Uh, no. Not yet, anyway.
WIFE: Your latest short story’s been accepted for publication?
HUSBAND: Sadly, that’s not happened either.
WIFE: I know! They’ve published your Letter to the Editor in the campus newspaper.
HUSBAND: (Clasping her hands in his) Honey, I’ve decided to convert to Islam.
WIFE: You’re doing what now?
HUSBAND: Islam. I want to convert to Islam. And that’s what I want you to witness. My declaration of faith, or, as I am reliably informed by Wikipedia is the correct terminology: my Shahadah.
WIFE: You’re going to do it yourself?
HUSBAND: Of course.
WIFE: Without anesthetic?
HUSBAND: Uh, what are we talking about?
WIFE: Your Shadeedoodah?
HUSBAND: Huh?
WIFE: Your willie-ectomy?
HUSBAND: What?
WIFE: Your, you know, circumcision.
HUSBAND: Honey, you’re thinking of the Jewish faith. It’s not a requirement to surgically remove ones foreskin …
(He shudders at the thought)
… to become a Muslim.
WIFE: Oh. Pity. But why do you want to be at one with the Imams, to bed with the Bedouin, go rocking at the Kasbah, etcetera etcetera, anyway?
HUSBAND: Well, I guess I’m getting lazy in my old age but I just want to grow a big, bushy Muslim beard.
WIFE: Gross.
HUSBAND: Ever since I was 13 years old I’ve been scraping the hair off my face and I’m sick of it.
WIFE: So it’s the Grizzly Adams look for you, now, professor?
HUSBAND: I’m sick of the nicks and cuts.
WIFE: ZZ Top?
HUSBAND: Sick of the ingrown hairs.
WIFE: Osama bin Laden?
HUSBAND: Sick of buying expensive razor blades, shaving cream and aftershave.
WIFE: Germaine Greer? No, wait. She’s got balls but no beard.
HUSBAND: I need to be part of a culture that respects an unshaven man.
WIFE: No offence, darling, but that’s a piss weak reason to take up religion.
HUSBAND: Well, there’re the nifty little hats as well. You know, those embroidered prayer caps. I’m sick of trying to hide my bald spot.
WIFE: Are you serious? You’re having me on, right? I mean, you used to be proud to be called an Infidel!
HUSBAND: Hey, what have I got to lose? I mean, I’ve got to be a defacto Christian living and working here in the decadent West, anyway. I have to put up with Easter, “Bless you!” whenever I sneeze and I can’t schedule classes on a Sunday. Is it really any different to pretend to be a Muslim as it is to pretend to be a Christian?
WIFE: Well …
HUSBAND: I grew out of the Jesus fantasy when I was a kid and at least the Islamic holy book does not have a chronology of creationism. As Wikipedia says, the ambiguity in the Koran at least permits the possibility of an old Earth.
WIFE: And did Wikipedia also tell you that there’s no Christmas in Islam? You love Christmas, remember: singing carols, decorating the tree. Just a minute, is that why you like dressing up as Santa? The beard?
HUSBAND: Of course I know there’s no Christmas, and, sure, I’ll miss that. But there’s Ramadan: fasting all day and then gorging yourself stupid come sundown.
(Weakly)
That’s gotta be fun ….
WIFE: You’re an idiot. Did you tell your Mum about this great plan? Um, I mean, before she died?
HUSBAND: Hell’s bells, no! It’d have broken her heart. I let her pass peacefully, serene and content in the knowledge that her beloved first-born son was a university graduate who was going to see her again in Heaven, some day. Hmm, some day, that is, when I actually start believing in Heaven …
WIFE: You’re going to Heaven because you finished uni? And will there now be 72 virgins waiting there for you?
HUSBAND: I do try but I’m hardly a martyr and, to answer your first question: no. I was born premature so the rush was on to baptize me before I died, so I wouldn’t languish for all eternity in Limbo. And despite the ubiquity of the dance at parties, Limbo does not rock. Lo, I survived, and ever since Mum’s expected miracles of me.
WIFE: I can just picture you, all bundled up in your white baptism frock, your little red face screwed up in anger as you struggle in vain to quote Richard Dawkins! You, the born scientific rationalist, who knew who Charles Darwin was by the age of three!
HUSBAND: If nothing else, Dad was always keen on discrediting organized religion around us kids. And then he decided that they were gonna use contraception. Mum promptly confessed the sin to the local Catholic priest and was no longer made to feel welcome in the congregation. Still, it made the subject of divorce that much easier for her to broach, some two years later.
WIFE: So this is some kind of belated backlash against the Papists? You’re gonna go all fungus-face to make a point about contraception?
(Pause)
You know what’s wrong with you?
HUSBAND: Well, there are occasionally times when I can’t …
WIFE: I don’t believe it! Who actually answers that question? Who does? You do! Because what’s wrong with you is that you think you have the answer to everything. You have to answer every single question, no matter how rhetorical! As if your opinion is infallible. As if the world would be a better place if everyone dropped what they were doing and simply asked for your point of view. And so you blurt it out, which just makes things worse!
HUSBAND: Well, you know, that answer is almost word for word what I was actually going to say …
WIFE: Shut up! No don’t shut up! Your likely mid-life crisis aside, give me one sensible reason why you should convert to the inherently questionable wisdom of Mohammed as opposed to the equally questionable acumen of Jesus?
HUSBAND: Well, Islam is also the wave of the future. Look at our neighbours to the North: Indonesia is the most populous Muslim
country in the world. They’re bound to invade Australia some day. I gotta get with the strength.
WIFE: (Exploding) But you’re intelligent! You're an atheist! And a feminist! How can you take on a religion that treats its women so badly? Like second class citizens! I mean, the Burqa always to be worn in public, any education for girls discouraged, blaming the victim of sexual assaults and rapes, honour killings if a women marries for love as opposed to the …
HUSBAND: Actually, that’s another thing I’m sick of. I’m sick of competing with women. My boss at the faculty is a woman. The vice-chancellor is a woman. 70% of my students are female. The fairer sex should be subservient to the male. She should respect her husband … Not challenge his authority … Look after his household … Not parade about skimpily dressed in public … Never go …
WIFE: (Interrupting angrily) Well, good luck with that one, buster. Like your late mother, I think I’ll look into getting a divorce … on religious grounds. I hope you and your old man beard and your bald spot-hiding prayer cap have a nice life together and I’ll see you, hmm, let’s see, never again. (She exits)
(Pause)
HUSBAND: (Calling) What about I convert to Wicca, then? You can be a White Witch and I can be your bearded Warlock!
(Pause)
HUSBAND: (Calling) Honey? Um, I was just talking hypothetically … You know I’ll always be like you at heart, a born again atheist!
(Pause)
HUSBAND: (Feeling his face) I better have a shave.
CURTAIN.
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