James withdraws the joint in the act of passing it.
EM. What?
JMS. You haven’t answered a question. When is the battle of Hastings?
EM. James …
JMS. What?
EM. James, it’s just me and you. So what’s the point in asking me a question?
JMS. I can see your little smile!
EM. Fuck up.
JMS. Ok. Here’s the joint.
James passes the joint.
EM. Mmm, shredded cheap Marlborough tobacco. The finest smoke known to humanity. Draws like a rusty gate.
Emmett blows a large white cloud out across the room and coughs.
JMS. We travel through passages in life that take us effort to get through, and having passed through the gate, we expire.
EM. How very true. I have never appreciated the poetry of your filthy tobacco.
JMS. No.
James opens his Daily Mirror to the TV pages.
EM. James.
Silence.
EM. James.
James continues, absorbed in his literature.
EM. JAMES!
JMS.Wha?
EM. James, what can the TV pages teach us?
JMS. Well, that’s hard to say. I’m not sure.
EM. You seem uncertain.
JMS. I’m not certain about what you’re asking me.
Silence for a time.
EM. Hmm. What would it be like if we all spoke in single-letter symbols?
JMS. You mean, if I were to say ‘Q’ instead of, say, ‘Pass me that joint, please?’
EM. Yes.
JMS. Might be more efficient.
Emmett becomes agitated. He bites at his lower lip.
James returns to reading his newspaper.
Emmett is agitated for several minutes.
EM. [Outburst] Jesus! I hate that idea. Does everything have to be more efficient? We lose something important when we compress it to the confines of a symbol.
JMS. You can’t do without symbols.
EM. I want reality.
JMS. Q.
Emmett passes him the joint.
EM. Where is reality?
James is uncomfortable; he is silent.
EM. Probably reality is underneath this chair.
JMS. Q.
EM. You’ve already got it man.
JMS. Negative Q.
Emmett accepts the joint.
EM. We should be expanding our language not restricting it. Or get rid of it altogether.
JMS. You can’t get rid of it.
EM. Why?
JMS. It’s how you exist. You can’t exist without words.
EM. Some people exist without them – chairs, dogs, houses.
JMS. ‘Chair’ always represents ‘chair’. You can’t even identify it without a symbol.
EM. That doesn’t mean it is the symbol.
JMS. The symbol is the whole of it. Maybe there is no other world because we can’t conceive of it.
Emmett becomes unhappy-looking.
EM. I see. I can’t name what I desire, because it’s the thing that cannot be named.
JMS. No. The thing that cannot be named has a name. So it does not exist.
EM. If I’m silent, am I naming reality?
JMS. Silence is nothingness though.
EM. Fuck.
EMMETT AND JAMES: a dialogue
Act 2
Emmett and James are watching TV. Levin walks into the room.