Hubris

ii: the sirens

II: THE SIRENS

characters:

CIRCE, a singer / caretaker

ODYSSEUS, a poor girl trying to navigate the social pressures of teenage life

"THE HATE GROUP": EURYLOCHUS, PERIMEDES, ELIPHOR & POLITES, Odysseus' friends

"THE #1 FANS": KLIEO, CALLIOPE & MELPOMENE, Sirens superfans

"THE HERD", other school girls being squealy and "THE INDIFFERENT GROUP", who have a self-explanatory name

"THE SIRENS": TELES, RAIDNE, MOLPE & THELXIOPE, a boy band

SCENE 0 - PRELUDE

[Enter CIRCE, in caretaker's overalls, with a mop and bucket. She begins to clean the stage alone, speaking at the same time.]

CIRCE: [picks up stray poster with THE SIRENS on it posing beautifully. She holds it gingerly between two fingers, as though disgusted.] This is how it always starts. The Obsession.

[CIRCE scrumples up the poster with a sigh.]

CIRCE: You never even know where they come from, do you? One day, you wake up, and bam. There they are. These pasty little white boys that look like they barely eat three meals a day but are somehow the apple of every girl's eye. [Pause.] And the occasional boy's eye, of course.

[She continues to mop, maybe a little more aggressively than before, then picks up where she left off.]

CIRCE: You know the weird thing about The Sirens? Even if you don't care about them, you kind of do. You'll scoff and laugh and make what you think is probably a witty comment about how the blonde one needs a haircut, but then the fact that you made the comment in the first place means you at least know something about them. And then it all gets split into what I like to call the Three Groups.

[She places the mop in the bucket and her hands on her hips. Suddenly goes from looking reasonably commonplace to far more powerful.]

CIRCE: One. The hate group. [CIRCE clicks her fingers. Enter ODYSSEUS, her posse in tow, scowling.] This group is so outspoken about their hatred for the boys that you can't help but wonder. For girls who supposedly don't care about them at all, they know an awful lot. [At this, they turn to glare at her in unison. CIRCE only raises her eyebrows in response.]

CIRCE: Two. The indifferent group. [CIRCE clicks again. Enter a nondescript group of girls, who look reasonably, as their name suggests, indifferent.] This is the group who really doesn't care. You want to trash talk? Fine. You want to squeal about them? That's fine too. Their song comes on the radio? They won't switch. They have accepted their life with the presence of a boy band in it calmly and quietly. [CIRCE pauses.] I like this group. [INDIFFERENT GROUP nods in acknowledgement.]

CIRCE: [reluctantly] And then, there's group number three. The -- [she is cut off by the entrance of THE HERD, wearing an abundance of SIRENS merchandise, waving flags, blowing whistles, and screeching at the top of their voices. INDIFFERENT GROUP looks at them with some mild alarm, and ODYSSEUS ET AL. with disgust, moving away from them.]