Directed by James Baldock

Featuring Christian Whitaker

Mr. Eastwood Speaks ⓒ
By Christopher Chen
Actor playing Eastwood should study his convention speech in detail, learning to imitate its tone, inflections and speech patterns exactly.
A podium onstage with an empty chair.
ANNOUNCER:
Please welcome to the 2012 Republican National Convention… Clint Eastwood!
[Prerecorded raucous applause. Theme to THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY. CLINT EASTWOOD comes onstage.]
CLINT EASTWOOD:
Thank you, thank you… Save some for Mitt!…
[He smiles, applause dies down.]
So I, uh… uh… I brought someone here tonight, he’s sitting, sitting right here… The President, Mr. Obama… I thought I’d uh… uh… ask him some, some questions…
[Prerecorded laughter…]
So we should uh… uh… get right down to that shouldn’t we… Okay then… what? So anyway, okay. (to the empty chair.) So uh… Mr. President, I just have some questions for you, uh… uh… So what, Mr. President, what… do you do. What do you do with the… the… with the uh… uh… the promises you make. The promises–do you uh… do you keep them? Do you keep the promises you make or do you– do you uh… uh… NOT keep them, uh… Or uh do you keep uh…. keep some of them and uh… not keep others? You know, how that goes… uh… that whole thing… What?… anyway, so how about that?
[Prerecorded raucous applause. Theme to THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY.]
Thank you, uh… save some for Mitt!
(to the empty chair) So uh… Mr. President. I hear… I hear you want to uh… close Gitmo, that’s the uh… talk around the town, close Gitmo, and you know, that’s fine, that’s… the choice that you’re making. But then I also hear that uh… that some of your uh… Afghanistan policies aren’t that, uh… that good. They need some uh… some looking in to. How about that? How does that sound?
[Prerecorded raucous applause. Theme to THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY.]
Or maybe uh… maybe they ARE good, I don’t know I haven’t… uh… looked into it too much myself. Heard it from some people around town, and uh… you know how that goes… You know it’s uh… it’s like buying fertilizer for your lawn!
[Prerecorded raucous applause. Theme to THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY.]
You know, some fertilizer is uh… is good, but then maybe… maybe you need to uh… get some other fertilizer that uh… that you hear is better, makes your grass healthier. You hear that from some folks and uh… and uh… maybe the new fertilizer is better, or maybe it’s not and uh… you have to try it out though, and that’s the point, because otherwise you have uh… uh… no way of knowing for sure… how about that?
[Prerecorded raucous applause. Theme to THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY.]…
But then of course you also have to take price into consideration… which one is cheaper. So that’s uh… that’s something we’ll have to uh… have to look into. Alright.
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(to the empty chair) What?
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So anyway… (to the empty chair) So Mr. Obama, I just have uh… have a few more questions for you here, uh… you know some people say that we uh… Hollywood folks are just… left of Lenin, you know? Listening to the Manhattans all the time, and uh… cynical about uh… about America, and… you know saying we’re a dying species, and all that talk… so uh… what do you say, Mr. President… to those people who say we’re a dying species since uh, you know, since it’s uh— from the moment we’re born we are, in fact uh, dying. So when we say we’re living our life, we can actually think of it as… as uh, uh DYING our life, how about that. So that’s definitely something we should… look into. Alright.
[Prerecorded raucous applause. Theme to THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY.]
Yeah okay, save it for Mitt! Save it for…
(to the empty chair) What?… What?… No I’m not going to do that. You’re insane… Because I don’t want to do that… I said no!… Because it’s takes over an hour to bake once it’s in the oven, and I don’t come home til 6!… Well next time you need to–will you let me finish?!… next time you need to give me at least two days lead time before inviting your parents over, you can’t just spring this on me at the last second, that’s a terrible, terrible, terrible thing to do… yeah… yeah that’s right!… (in a guttural, growling roar) SO THIS IS YOUR PROBLEM NOW!!!
[Prerecorded raucous applause. Theme to THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY.]
Well maybe we can just order some Chinese food. Alright… so anyway… uh…. uh…. uh…
[Actor should treat the “…’s” and the spacing as pauses. They should be drawn out. Excruciating. Awkward. Surreal.]
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[Prerecorded raucous applause. Theme to THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY.]
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[Prerecorded raucous applause. Theme to THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY.]
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(to the empty chair) So uh, Mr. President, I have some very, very important questions for you. So what… what do you do when you know that your uh… uh… your TERM might… expire soon. When you know that you uh… might not have time to…to do… everything you’ve always wanted to do when the uh… the end might be drawing near and… uh… do you uh… try and, SAY things or uh… uh… DO things while you still have an audience. Before your time runs out or uh… uh… uh… uh… uh… uh…
[He continues his “uh’s” as lights slowly fade out.]

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