Thanks for the Memories

Excerpt from stage play

Act One
Scene One

Wednesday, 15 March, 1989. A single motel room, decorated in the "pop art" style of the sixties.

Duncan, a businessman in his mid-50s, walks in, carrying a briefcase. He is dressed casually, but we can tell he is wealthy and well-educated by his bearing and even by the style of his clothes (though they are more of a 1980s fashion). After looking around, examining the room, he sits down and switches on the television.

He flicks channels - the theme tune to a classic sitcom here, a 1960s news story there. He scribbles something in his pad.

A knock on the door. He switches off the television.

DUNCAN: Come in.

Sunray, 24, enters. Usually a sweet-faced, demure young woman, she is currently in character: bright and chirpy, dressed like a hip London trendsetter, circa 1965, complete with beehive wig and false eyelashes. She is carrying a small suitcase, owned by Duncan, and exhibiting an impossibly cheery smile.

SUNRAY: Your suitcase, sir.

DUNCAN: Thank you.

SUNRAY: That's cool, sir. Hope your time with us is hip and groovy.

DUNCAN: (pause) Thank you. What's happening tonight?

SUNRAY: Dude, we have a clambake happening you just won't want to miss.

DUNCAN: Sorry?

SUNRAY: We've got Herman Hansom and the Hipsters playing the hits of Phil Spector. Should be a real funky scene.

DUNCAN: "Funky", hey? Well I'll see if I can make it.

SUNRAY: Neat-o. Anything you need right now?

DUNCAN: A newspaper would be good.

SUNRAY: A newspaper? It's a happening thing. I'll twist on over.

She exits.

Duncan shakes his head, not sure if he really heard all that. He switches on a radio by his bed. Every station plays a hip, sixties tune. He switches it off, shaking his head again in resignation.

Another knock on the door.

DUNCAN: Yes?

Enter Sunray, with a newspaper.

SUNRAY: You wanted to check out the news?

DUNCAN: Thank you.

He takes at the newspaper.

SUNRAY: Ciao, baby. Might see you at tonight's shindig.

DUNCAN: (mutters) Jesus Christ...

SUNRAY: You cool, sir?

Duncan suddenly notices something in the paper, which startles him.

DUNCAN: Vietnam is heating up?

SUNRAY: Yes, sir. That paper gives you the biggest stories of nineteen sixty-five.

DUNCAN: Why would I want this? Give me the latest. Today's paper!

SUNRAY: I'll ... see if we have it.

DUNCAN: Good. I like to know what's happening in the world.

SUNRAY: I'm sure we can make things groovy for you, sir.

DUNCAN: "Make things groovy"? What sort of language is this?

SUNRAY: The script-writers haven't been appointed yet, Mr Conroy. I'm speaking like this in the meantime.

DUNCAN: It's ridiculous.

SUNRAY: (nervously) Sorry, Mr Conroy. Just trying to give you some idea.

DUNCAN: I appreciate that, Sunray.

SUNRAY: Penny.

DUNCAN: Sorry?

SUNRAY: I'm - I'm in character. Please call me Penny.

DUNCAN: Penny?

SUNRAY: Thank you.

Sunray turns to leave.

DUNCAN: By the way, Penny ...

SUNRAY: Yes, Mr Conroy?

DUNCAN: It's looking very good so far. Well done.

SUNRAY: (smiles) Thank you, Mr Conroy.

Sunray exits. Duncan switches on the radio. It's playing a sixties song, of course, but something more laid-back (like Tom Jones).

DUNCAN: Ah, now this is good.

He sits back, relaxing, trying to sing along ... until there is another knock on the door. He turns down the radio.

DUNCAN: Come in.

Simon, 19, pokes his head through the door. He is a raggedy student, looking deliberately bohemian.

SIMON: Mr Conroy?

DUNCAN: Yes.

SIMON: Mr Duncan Conroy?

DUNCAN: Of course.

Simon bursts in, followed (more discretely) by Emma, 20. They are both carrying placards saying "Save the forest" and suchlike things. Both are bohemian young students, but Emma is tidier, less radical.

SIMON: Congratulations. You have just started destroying one of the most pristine native forests in the ACT region.

DUNCAN: Goodness, some of you actors are good.

SIMON: To many concerned citizens, it's a National Park. To you, it's a development area, a place where you can build your nice little hotels and theme parks. Make your money somewhere else, Conroy. Leave our parks alone!

EMMA: What he said, except not so loudly.

DUNCAN: You seem almost real. Perhaps the hotel room is the wrong place for this performance, though, don't you think?

EMMA: You trespass on native land, we trespass in your room.

SIMON: Take your park somewhere else, Conroy!

DUNCAN: (pause) This isn't part of the show, is it?

The students chant in what sort of resembles unison: "Leave our forests alone! Leave our forests alone!"

Duncan, no longer quite so entertained, makes a phone call.

DUNCAN: Greg, please come over here. Now! We've got trouble! Thank you. (He hangs up.) How did you two get in here?

SIMON: Over the fence! What's it to you?

DUNCAN: You're annoying me.

SIMON: Good!

DUNCAN: Needless to say, I want you out of here.

SIMON: You'll have to arrest us. Go on, I dare you!

EMMA: Shut up, Simon. We want to confront him, not be arrested.

SIMON: Speak for yourself!

EMMA: (to Duncan) He's always like this.

DUNCAN: Is that so? What about you? What are you like?

EMMA: Mr Conroy, we'd like to know what you're doing here.

DUNCAN: You'd like to know what I'm doing here?

SIMON: Tell him, Emma. By force if you have to.

DUNCAN: My office has all the details. It's all perfectly legal.

EMMA: At what expense to the native forest?

DUNCAN: Good Lord, you people are narrow-minded. This is the future of tourism.

SIMON: (threatening) Come here and say that.

Reading from notes, Emma starts singing (if that's the word) to the tune of "Waltzing Matilda". Duncan remains unmoved, glancing at his watch.

EMMA: Old-growth forest ranges
Beauty for a million years.
Here come the tractors, to knock down the trees.
There is so much beauty, but soon we will have none at all.
Who'll come and save native forests with me?

EMMA and SIMON: Save native forests, save native forests.
Who'll come and save native forests with me?
If we leave them alive, they'll be there for us in years to come.
Who'll come and save native forests with me?

SIMON: Enough singing! We need action.

EMMA: Like what?

SIMON: There's two of us. Maybe we can abduct him.

Rolling her eyes, Emma launches into another verse.

EMMA: Here's the developer, in his techno-paradise.
Here come his backers - the oil companies.
Are you all so blind to this beautiful environment?
Who'll come and save native forests with me?

Greg, 29, enters, dressed in very way-out sixties gear. Despite his clothes, he is aloof, well-dressed and good-looking - and he knows it. At a nod from Duncan, he grabs them by their collars.

SIMON: What are you doing? Arresting us?

GREG: No. Just getting rid of you.

While Greg is grabbing Emma, Simon handcuffs himself to the leg of a chest of drawers.

SIMON: I'd like to see you try.

Emma rolls her eyes.

GREG: Sorry, mate, it's not going to work. We're not about to get the police here, or have you beaten up, or do anything else that might give us bad press. I'm just politely asking you to stop wasting your time and get the Hell out.

EMMA: Let's go, Simon.

SIMON: No way! Since when did you give up so easily?

Emma hands Greg a key to the handcuffs.

EMMA: (sighs) I always carry a spare.

GREG: Thanks.

SIMON: Hey! What are you doing?

Despite a valiant struggle, Greg unlocks Simon's handcuffs.

SIMON: What's your game, Emma?

EMMA: I'm not sure we're doing this the right way.

Greg leads Simon and Emma out of the room.

Once they have gone, Duncan picks up the phone.

DUNCAN: Sunray, get over here -- and come as yourself, please.

He puts the phone down and waits a few seconds. Sunray appears at the doorway, her usual demure and nervous self.

SUNRAY: You - you wanted to see me, Mr Conroy?

DUNCAN: Call me Duncan. I'm the man with the money, but it's your project.

SUNRAY: Yes, Mr Duncan. I mean -

DUNCAN: And as it's your project, how do you explain the protestors I just had in my room.

SUNRAY: P-protestors?

DUNCAN: Yes.

SUNRAY: It - it's only a prototype, sir. This is the only room in the hotel.

DUNCAN: Don't worry about my room. How did they get on to the site?

SUNRAY: We - we haven't installed security yet.

DUNCAN: Sit down, please, Sunray. (She quickly obeys.) I see a problem here. For some reason, I'm putting everything into this idea of yours, making it my top priority. Yet despite all the work we've put in, there are still major hitches in the project.

SUNRAY: There - there's always a few teething problems. At least, that's what I've been told.

DUNCAN: That's not what you said when you sold me the idea, was it?

Sunray shakes her head.

DUNCAN: You're very tricky, aren't you?

SUNRAY: I am?

DUNCAN: But obviously, it wasn't just your shrewdness that got me interested, was it?

SUNRAY: I hope not.

DUNCAN: Remind me, Sunray: how did you make me plough my money into this vision of yours? What made me think that, here in nineteen eighty-nine, there might be some future in a holiday resort set up to look like the nineteen-sixties? How did you convince me to do Sixties World?

Snap blackout.