July 30th, a play

List of characters
Giorgio Vasari, born July 30, 1511
Thorstein Veblen, born July 30, 1857
Emily Brontë, born July 30, 1818
Henry Ford, born July 30, 1863
Delta Burke, born July 30, 1956

Setting: the Catherine Palace, Russia

(The stage is dark. A great clatter is heard. Lights come up on Giorgio Vasari and Thorstein Veblin in the Amber Room . They stand up, look around, brush themselves off)

Giorgio Vasari: Eh, looks like it’s Russia again, Vebby my boy.

Thorstein Veblen: Harumph. Conspicuous consumption, if you ask me.

Giorgio Vasari: True. But you must admit, it’s one of our finer options for our birthday party. I hope we don’t have any new attendees this year. I quite tire of explaining the very simple concept that brings us all together each year.

Thorstein Veblen: You mean the alteration of the time-space continuum that allows all notable figures who were born on the same day to gather for a birthday party in a location that must have also hosted a notable event on that day?

Giorgio Vasari: Yes, that! So simple, really.

Thorstein Veblen: I think you just tire of explaining who you are to newcomers.

Giorgio Vasari: Well, of course! Everyone should know me! I am revered among all serious art history students for Le vite delle piu eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori. Where would art be without me? I was friends with Michelangelo for Pete’s sake!

Thorstein Veblen: At least you don’t have to try to explain evolutionary economics.

Giorgio Vasari: We should be okay as long as that dreadful Delta Burke doesn’t show up.

Thorstein Veblen: Agreed. I don’t know how she does it though. The only people who are allowed to pass through the continuum are dead.

(Emily Bronte enters, forlornly)

Thorstein Veblen and Giorgio Vasari (together): Happy birthday, Emily!

Emily Brontë: Oh, hello boys. Happy birthday to you.

Thorstein Veblen: What have you been up to Emily?

Emily Brontë: Oh same old, same old. Wandering on the moors.

(Henry Ford drives in; the radio is playing “Bangledesh” by George Harrison)

Henry Ford: Beep beep!

Thorstein Veblen (dancing and singing along to Bangladesh): You know, if there’s a better song that was released this day, I certainly don’t know what it is.

Emily Brontë: I rather liked it in 1792 when 500 men in Marseilles sang France’s national anthem for the first time.

Giorgio Vasari: I hate the French. I must, for I am Italian.

Henry Ford: Is Schwarzenegger here yet?

Giorgio Vasari: No, he is governor of California if you can believe it. 60 today.

Henry Ford: Any sign of Delta?

Giorgio Vasari: Not yet.

Thorstein Veblen: Talk about conspicuous consumption!

Emily Brontë: I am chilly here.

Giorgio Vasari: You are chilly everywhere.

Emily Brontë: I like to wander on moors.

Henry Ford: We’re all aware, Emily. The playwright did not care much for your book when she read it in high school, and so it seems that wandering on moors is doomed to be your only character development in this ongoing play.

Thorstein Veblen: At least she read your book. She just scanned my Wikipedia entry to refresh her memory on me.

Henry Ford: I think she’s ambivalent to me. She drives a Toyota.

Giorgio Vasari: Well, she just loves me! She had to cite me all the time in her renaissance class in Italy!

Emily Brontë: I can’t wait until Kate Bush comes. Her first single was called “Wuthering Heights.” She will understand me. Kate is 49 today.

Henry Ford: Now, what happened here again?

Giorgio Vasari: On this day in 1756, the architect presented this palace to Empress Elizabeth. Now people come and wait in line forever to see the restored Amber Room. They get let in for fifteen minutes and try to take as many pictures as possible before they’re kicked out again. That is certainly not how we treat people at my buildings. My buildings include the loggia of the Palazzo degli Uffizi, and renovations of Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce.

Henry Ford: Er, right. Well, this is certainly cheerier than that birthday party in 1839 aboard the Amistad! Or the 1870 party aboard the burning Staten Island Ferry.

Giorgio Vasari: True, true. All right, it looks as if we’re all here….

(loud boom. Smoke. Delta Burke enters. Everyone grimaces)

Delta Burke: Hello! I made it! My husband, Gerald McRaney and I were just vacationing in Russia and so I made it!

Thorstein Veblen: Well, hello Delta. We thought this year the continuum might actually be closed to you.

Delta Burke: Of course not! I’m a July 30th! The continuum always opens for me!

Henry Ford: But if you can make it, why can’t that Lisa Kudrow? She’s adorable.

Delta Burke: Have you eaten yet?

Giorgio Vasari: Let’s cut the cake. Just like all other years, it is the best birthday cake in the world, a Funfetti cake.

All: How lovely!

Delta Burke: Gerald McRaney, TV’s Major Dad, is in the car. He loves Funfetti cake.

Giorgio Vasari: Who doesn’t, Delta. But he can’t have any.

Delta Burke: He was also on Simon & Simon.

Giorgio Vasari: (Slams down cake knife) I am getting sick of discussing Gerald McRaney’s body of work every year! We have one day a year we get to gather, Delta! One day a year that some of the finest minds in history get to gather and talk, and instead of talking about my friendship with Michelangelo or amusing anecdotes that I made up about Giotto, we have to discuss Gerald McRaney! Do you even know who Cimabue is? Does Fra Filippo Lippi ring any bells for you? I coined the term Renaissance!

Delta Burke: Calm down, Giorgio. I understand you. After all, I am a Designing Woman myself. (giggles) Also, I was Miss Florida.

Emily Brontë (gets on all fours, arches back like a cow): Mooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooors.

Thorstein Veblen: This is a conspicuously consumptive conversation, if you ask me. Giorgio, cut the cake.

(they all eat in awkward silence)

Delta Burke: I like Russia better than I liked the birthday party we had in 579.

Giorgio Vasari (slamming the cake down) Don’t even start with me Delta.

Delta Burke: What? Who wants to eat Funfetti cake while watching a man die?

Giorgio Vasari: I do, if that man was Pope Benedict I. I can think of nothing more honorable than watching the end of a pope’s reign.

Delta Burke: But Giorgio, there was a famine. The Loopheads were destroying Italy.

Giorgio Vasari: It’s Lombards, you idiot.

Delta Burke: Plus, the scene just wasn’t very drawn out.

Giorgio Vasari: Well, there weren’t many records of that time, were there? The Lombards destroyed them!

(silence)

Delta Burke: You know, when Gerald McRaney and I were on vacation at the beach this year, I tried to read everyone’s books. (everyone looks up, expectantly) but I didn’t finish them. (everyone looks down again)

Emily Brontë: (finishing cake) This cake is so good that I want to wander on moors and then die of a broken heart.

Henry Ford: Well, if no one minds, I think I’m going to go see if I can go for a drive in Baltimore, founded this day in 1729.

Thorstein Veblen: Can I go with you can just say conspicuous consumption over and over?

Henry Ford: Of course, you’re the birthday boy! Emily, ride to the moors?

Emily Brontë: Yes, I want to go there and wander.

(they exit)

Delta Burke: Giorgio, I wasn’t trying to say that I didn’t want to be with the popes on my birthday.

Giorgio Vasari: What were you trying to say then?

Delta Burke: I liked the birthday party we had in 657, when St. Vitalian began his reign as pope.

Giorgio Vasari: You did?

Delta Burke: Of course! A pope involved in the monothelite controversy, and that Archbishop Maurus of Ravenna controversy! Why, People Magazine could not come up with anything juicier!

Giorgio Vasari: Oh, Delta, you do understand!

(they embrace)

Delta Burke: Oh Giorgio, it’s been so long.

Giorgio Vasari: About a year, my dear. How long do we have?

Delta Burke: Well, Gerald McRaney and I have plans to go the Hermitage and then to Patio Pizza.

Giorgio Vasari: Just a few minutes, then, my love. A few minutes with you, a true work of art, is all I need the whole year through.

(they kiss, and the lights go down)


The End