Directed by Janine Evans

 

Featuring Laura Jane Bailey, Andre Abrahamians & Anne Kobori

 

It’s the 1970s.  We’re in a professor’s office where there’s a desk, a chair, a ficus, and a spray bottle filled with water.  The ficus is hooked up by wires to a polygraph machine on the desk.

 

Characters:

Professor Fox (Andre), plant biology professor.  Buttoned up, nerdy, intellectual, doesn’t realize he’s cute; corduroy blazer, glasses.

Jasmine (Anne), pretty and demure secretary, hair pinned up.  Secretly loves Prof Fox, is afraid to show it.

Dr. Barbara Mann, (Laura Jane), salt-of-the-earth plant biology dept. chair who’s trying to create profitable crops without pesticides, was hoping Fox would be her business partner.

Lights up on Professor Fox in his office smoking a cigarette. Walks over to his ficus and looks intently at it.  

Professor Fox

(to the plant) I missed you too.  (starts singing)

Don’t go changing, to try and please me

You never let me down before

Don’t imagine you’re too familiar

And I don’t see you anymore

(As he continues singing, tiptoes over and looks at what machine is recording, returns to plant and starts scribbling notes on a legal yellow pad)

I don’t want clever conversation

I never want to work that hard

I just want someone that I can talk to

I want you just the way you are…

Jasmine enters with a small potted lettuce and pack of cigs, hands them to Dr. Fox; he puts cigs in pocket and looks kindly at lettuce.

Jasmine

Here’s the baby lettuce you ordered, Professor Fox.  Oh, and your Kool Milds.  (beat) Were you just singing to yourself — again?

Professor Fox

Yeah…no.  Thank you, Jasmine. (taking the lettuce & cigarettes)

Jasmine

(lighting up) I’ve switched to menthol too.  I hear it’s better for the environment — you know, mintier.

Professor Fox

Good point, Jasmine!  (scribbles a note on his pad) That’s so smart.

Jasmine

So, how’s the article coming?  Can I start typing it yet?

Professor Fox

No…yeah.  I’m just finishing up —

Jasmine

You know Barbara wants to read it today.

Professor Fox

Shh — don’t say her name too loud in here.

Jasmine

Also, I got you these sweet pea seeds — you know, for April, your birthday month.

Professor Fox

Oh!  (beat) Jasmine, there’s something I need to tell you.

Barbara enters smoking and in a hurry.

Barbara

Let’s see it, Doug, I’ve got genes to splice.

Dr. Fox

May I have just a bit more time, Dr. Mann?

Barbara

Yeah…no.  What I need TODAY is an article that validates our research on pest-resistant, genetically modified tomatoes.  It’s always a race to the patent, Doug.  I even have a tagline for our product: Flavr-Savr Tomatoes: They’ll Explode In Your Mouth.

Jasmine

(surprised) You’ve been…experimenting on all those tomatoes I bought for you?

Professor Fox

Yeah…no.

Barbara

No?  I thought we had a deal, Doug. So what HAVE you been working on?  It better not be what I think it is.

Professor Fox

Let me explain.  I have proof.  You see, when I’m happy, she’s happy.  We even have the same taste in music!

Jasmine

(surprised and flattered) It’s true, but — what do I have to do with this?

Professor Fox

I’m sorry — not you.  Her.  (looking at plant)

Jasmine

Oh right — how silly of me to think.

Barbara

What, Doug.  Out with it.  Or am I speaking too loud for your girlfriend here? (eyeing plant suspiciously)

Professor Fox

She’s not my girlfriend.  But what I’ve found using the polygraph is that plants THINK.  They FEEL. The machine captures everything.  (showing his excitement a bit) It’s a whole new field!  Barbara, we could be…pioneers!

Barbara

Pioneers of crack science!  I asked you to drop all this new age stuff.  Proving a plant likes Mozart is not going to get us seed money for our company. No pun intended.

Professor Fox

Actually, I play her Coltrane.

Jasmine

You do that (beat) for her?

Professor Fox

Yeah…well no, not exactly.  One day I was listening to A Love Supreme in the office, and I noticed the ficus was almost…reaching for the record player.  I swear.

Barbara

Fantastic.  But.  (taking a long drag off cigarette) How is your research going to get family farms back on their feet?  The people don’t want pesticides anymore, Doug —

Jasmine

(interjecting) It’s true…I read about it in Silent Spring.

Professor Fox

You read that?

Barbara

— so we need an alternative.  And we can’t leave it to nature…do you think people are actually gonna pay extra for ‘organic’ foods? (cig beat) How do you even market something like that? (laughing)

Professor Fox

Look, I didn’t go searching for any of this.  On a hunch I hooked up some electrodes to her, and — voilà! (making his big announcement) — Plant Parapsychology was born.

Barbara

Plant Parapsychology. (beat) Remember the first time we cross-pollinated, Doug, in ‘71?  And made an almost criminally gorgeous hybrid of our petunias?  And how we knew that with our combined smarts, we could parlay our experiment into a profitable crop — like Flavr-Savr tomatoes — that also might not poison people?

Professor Fox

I do, Barbara.

Jasmine

(trying to contain her hurt) I’d just like to know her name.  And how long this has been going on.

Professor Fox

It’s Helen.  Maybe six months now?  Look, it’s not what either of you think —

Barbara

(resigned) Well, you can kiss any hope of tenure goodbye.  As for the tomato business — you’re out. (putting cigarette out in Helen’s pot) You know, Doug, humans and plants use each other just like people use each other —  it’s not like it’s a bad thing. Just how nature works. (exits)

Professor Fox

I just didn’t feel right messing with plants’ inner lives like that, you know?

Jasmine

That’s actually really nice.  (still hurt but curious) What else have you learned from your time with…Helen?

Professor Fox

It’s funny.  I’ve had the polygraph switched on all the time lately, and it’s picked up some interesting things.  Like when Barbara comes into the room, she exhibits a “fight or flight” response.

Jasmine

(relaxing a bit) Wow, she must be really sensitive.

Professor Fox

She is. I don’t think she’s even capable of lying.(shyly) Want to see a graph of when we were in the room together? You know, you and I.

Jasmine

Okay. (they go over and look at graph data together)

Jasmine

They’re beautiful, but you know I can’t interpret any of this…

Professor Fox

At first the lines were erratic — lots of spikes and valleys — looked a lot to me like a difficult emotion.

Jasmine

Like jealousy?  (beat)  I’d better go pick up your egg salad before the line at the deli gets too long — (tries leaving)

Professor Fox

And then the pattern evens out.  See how the lines almost dance together on the page?

Jasmine

I guess.  I don’t think I understand what you’re saying, Professor Fox.

Professor Fox

I think you do.  Please, call me Doug. (nervous but working up courage)  Jasmine, she helped me see.  Helen thinks that no matter how scared we are, we should give it a try.  And I completely trust her judgement.  Would you walk with me in the botanical gardens?

Jasmine

Yes, I’d love that.  Just gimme a sec –(picks up spray bottle and spritzes plant, mouthing a “thank you” at it)  Lights/Finis

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