Setting

A large park in a metropolitan area. Stage has a park bench in the center and some background alluding to the bench being situated in a park. The stage is well lit indicating a nice sunny day.

List of Characters

Man One The first of three similarly aged men. Man One is wearing a long rain coat, sensible shoes, and possessing today's paper.

Man Two A man dressed in an unremarkable manner. He possesses a sketch book and pencil.

Man Three A man wearing Bermuda shorts and a t-shirt. He has a large camera around his neck.

Token Woman A woman who is not entirely unattractive, dressed in a moderately conservative manner, very prim and proper.

The play opens with the three men on stage. Man One is sitting on the park bench reading his paper. Man Two is also seated on the bench with his sketch book on his lap drawing. The third man is off to one side of the bench busying himself with his photography. All three men are casually glancing up from what they are doing. After an indiscriminate time all three men's heads rise sharply in unison and look off into the audience on their left and slowly turn their heads to their right as if they are watching a person walk across their field of view, which in fact they are. Man Three snaps a photo, Man Two scrawls in his sketch book.

Man Three remarks to Man Two: My this park provides lovely scenery.

Man Two: Yes very inspiring.

Again all three men's heads snap up from their sketch book, camera, and paper respectfully and track the progress of an unseen figure across the audience. Man Three snaps a photo. Man Two adds some more lines to his work.

Man Two: Such lovely light today too. Not overly bright, yet plentiful enough to illuminate the surroundings.

Man Three: Indeed, it doesn't provide too sharp of a contrast, very subdued, very natural. Sometimes the sun can be so artificial.

Man Two: True, I have often found that the sun's light makes most artificial looking shadows when reproduced on the page.

Man Three: I concur. I usually use a reflector to get that more natural look for my serious sessions, that and my set of three eighty Watt Halogen lamps. They have a most outstanding Watt to Lumen ratio.

Man Two: Of course when one is indoors one can control the environment to such a higher degree...

Once more all three men's heads snap up and look to the left. They swivel their heads in unison to the right this time all bobbing their heads up and down as they do so. Man Three snaps off a fury of photos. Man Two turns to a new page and scribbles madly into his sketch book.

Man Two: and one is less prone to distraction, but outside the fresh air, the chirping birds... continuing to draw frantically.

Man One: The joggers.

Man Two and Three in unison: Ah the joggers.

Man Two: Most inspirational.

Man Three: Indeed, they have very interesting locomotion.

Man One: Especially when they are that stacked eh?

Man Three: The grim determination on their face as they stride confidently forward striving to go a little bit faster, a little bit farther.

Man Two: The way the perspiration and the flushing of their skin from their strenuous exertion causes them to almost glow with vitality.

Man One: The Spandex clothing.

Man Two and Three in unison: Ah the Spandex.

Man Two: Like the knights of old resplendent in their armor, the joggers of today boldly go forth to battle clad in their chosen garb. They fight not for king and country, they fight for themselves, theirs is a battle of wills, a fight against time. They quest for their own personal holy grail, it is self improvement and for some few perfection.

Man Three: Yes, yes well put my good man, but unlike the armor of yore which sought to obscure and protect, Spandex clings and caresses. It smoothly covers their taunt lithe forms like a second skin, revealing as much as it covers. It is not rigid, it bends with each sinewy muscular curve as if they are fused as one. Their quads, hamstrings, and glutes all working in unison, simply sublime.

Man One: Are you talking about their butts?

Man Three: Indeed the three gluteus muscles in each leg are also known by that in some circles.

Man One: I thought so, I took some biology back in high school.

Man Three: One would never have guessed.

Once more all three men look up and follow the progress from left to right of an unseen figure. Man Three takes a picture. Man Two turns to a new page and begins another sketch.

Man Two: Of course inspiration can often come in more mundane forms.

Man Three: Indeed ordinary people going about their daily business can teach us much about human nature.

Man Two: Take that business woman for example, although not glowing she still gave off a certain healthy vibrance.

Man Three: And she too had a very determined look on her face. Undoubtably in a hurry to get to some meeting or another.

Man Two: Undoubtably, and is not her blazer and skirt also like a knight's armor? Her battlefield is not some glen or glade but rather the corporate boardroom. Her weapons are not the lance, the sword and the shield, but rather the fax machine, the computer, and the telephone. And the courage and valiance with which she fights is it any less commendable?

Man Three: I think not. And although she is clad in clothing emulating her male counterparts and her battles are fought in a male dominated world. She still manages to retain her feminity.

Man One interrupting: That babe was all woman.

Man Three: [coughing] Indeed, the style of her hair cut, her make up, the fact she was wearing a skirt left her sex in little doubt. But she does try to blend in with her male counterparts, choosing subdued colors, a conservative hairstyle and a modestly cut skirt.

Man Two: Very observant, a woman's struggle with her desire to fit in and be excepted and yet not wanting to lose her feminity, all as played out in her choice of clothing. That could make a most interesting collection of works. I'm sure there must be some psychological reasoning to support this observation.

Man One: She looked damn fine in them heels.

Man Three: Yes, the elevation of the heel produces an elongation of the leg and a most alluring curve of the calf muscle. This is further enhanced when combined with silk stockings.

Man Two and One in unison: Ah silk stockings.

Man Two: She stood, a sight to make an old man young.

Man Three: Tennyson?

Man Two: I believe so.

Man One: Tennis un? What does tennis and the French Open have to do with watching chicks? Well some of them are aren't bad looking in their white tops and little skirts. Martini Hingis or some such, she's from Czechoslovakia or Slovakia, one of the vakias.

Man Two: Ah yes tennis, modern day Amazons wielding their double handed weapons with such fury and aggression. Their blazoned skin reflecting in the sun as it beats down upon them unrelentingly while they attempt to vanquish each other.

Man One: Enough with the similes.

Man Three: You are mistaken that was not a simile.

Man Two: It was a metaphor.

Man Three: Perhaps it could also be considered hyperbole.

Man One: Hyper what?

Man Three: Hyperbole, deliberate poetic exaggeration. But I believe he was right. Gesturing at Man Two. It is only a metaphor.

All the men stop and stare transfixed at something off stage to the right. After a moment they awake as if from a daze.

Man One: Damn! what a body.

Man Two: I fear my skill is insufficient to capture her beauty on the page, though I shall die trying.

Man Three: What a most inconvenient time to be out of film.

Man One: You mean you didn't get a picture of her. What kind of voyeur are you to miss that?

Man Three: A voyeur? Preposterous I am merely doing research.

Man One: Research! What are you looking for models or something? Are you some kind of fashion photographer?

Man Three: No, nothing of that sort.

Man Two: Are you a movie producer looking for your next young starlet?

Man Three: No, no, no.

Man One: A porn director?

Man Three: Certainly not, don't be ridiculous.

Man One: Then what job could you possibly be doing research for by taking pictures of good looking women in a park?

Man Three: Plastic surgeon.

Man One and Two simultaneously: Ah.

Man Three: I need a lot of visual references to provide my clients with. Also a little inspiration is necessary from time to time when one is trying to create perfection. My aspirations are not unlike our artist friend here.

Man Two: I felt we were kindred spirits.

Man One: Enough of this, back to the babe. Can you believe that outfit. It fit her to a 'T'. I couldn't imagine her looking any better in any other get up. Now less clothing...

Man Three: She wore a short skirt and a tight sweater and her figure described a set of parabolas that could cause cardiac arrest in a yak.

Man One: Parabolas?

Man Two: What Woody Allen film was that from anyway?

Man One: She gave me a woody. And I'm not talking about "Toy Story" here.

Man Three: Woody Allen! Short, balding, Jewish guy wears glasses. Not some computer animated talking toy you Visigoth.

Man One: I'm not a Visigoth.

Man Three: You don't even know what a Visigoth is.

Man Two sketching in his book: Do you think her face was more oval shaped or angular?

Man Three: She had very pronounced cheek bones. Said while moving to look over Man Two's shoulder.

Man Two: True, what about her eyebrows did they arc in the middle or slightly off the center to the outside.

Man Three: Off to the outside I think.

Man One: Make sure you get her butt right and her legs. As he shuffles along the bench to get a look at the sketch book.

Enter Token Woman. She enters the stage unnoticed by the men who are huddled over Man Two's sketch book.

Man Two: She did have the most amazingly long legs, they went from the tips of her toes to the bottom of her chin at least. And each inch was more succulent then the last.

Man Three: I concur, they were one of her more striking physical features, she must do a significant amount of exercise to keep them that well toned.

Man One: Don't forget her breasts they were real beauties.

Token Women: Excuse me?

All three men look up and notice Token Woman.

Man One: I said... Don't forget what is best is her inner beauty. I was just chastising these Visigoths about objectifying women Ma'am.

Token Women: You're absolutely correct about inner beauty being the most important. These, these, savages obviously are bereft of social grace, enlightenment, and education. They still think they are living in the Neolithic age where you can just club a woman over the head and she's yours. Look he's still practicing his cave drawings. Pointing at Man Two. And him, he is only slightly more evolved. Gesturing at Man Three's camera. They are nothing more then a couple of 'Peeping Toms'. Our parks should be cleansed of such riffraff.

Man One: Standing to his full height. Indeed, maybe you gentlemen should be moving along.

Other two men rise, Man Three puts his arm on Man Two's shoulder and says: I believe our presence is no longer welcomed.

With Man Three's arm still across his shoulders they start walking off the stage.

Man Two remarks to Man Three as they exit: Who was that?

Man Three: A woman of no importance.

Exit Man Two and Man Three.

Token Women: It is refreshing to find there are a few educated gentlemen left in this barbaric city, age of Enlightenment... Huh! Mind if I join you on the bench?

Man One: Please. They both sit down on the bench.

Token Women: Such manners, you really are a refreshing change from those barely evolved Cro-Magnon Men. What is society coming to today, when perverts pollute our parks? Women are not completely blameless either. I saw this lady, to use the term loosely, who was wearing a ridiculously short skirt and a sweater so tight it probably constricted her breathing. It is that type of irresponsibleness that encourages such uncouth behaviour.

Man One: Indeed.

Token Women: I blame television, movies, even books they all promote such loose morals. Even the arts are becoming more illicit. Everything is always sex and violence. How I hearken back to Shakespeare's time when the stage was not infested with such nonsense.

Man One: I concur. Standing.

Token Women: The language back then was so much more eloquent and the arts had less bloodshed, murder, betrayal, adultery, incest, war, and death. If you portray that constantly on film, television, and in the theater is it any wonder that society is in the deplorable state it is in?

Man One: No. Moving until he is standing beside the woman.

Token Woman: It is such a relief to talk to someone as well adjusted as yourself.

Man One moves in front of women and throws open his rain coat with his back to the audience. Above his shoes and socks is bare skin. The woman shrieks and the curtain falls.

The end.