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1968 Dr. Kheal
First Published: Promenade and Other Plays.
Synopsis
Before a blackboard Dr. Kheal begins a lecture, a monologue on knowledge, by writing 'The Outline' and mouthing a question to his students ,the audience. Members of the audience reply but he tells them they are wrong, and that he is 'the master'. He replaces "The Outline' with 'On Poetry' instructing that poetry, politics, history and philosophy are nothing. He moves on to 'On Balance', to 'On Ambition' and to the role of individual will and religious belief. He asks the audience/his students for their views only to tell them that the individual alone directs their own life.
Aided by charts he dominates as he moves on to 'On Energy', 'On Truth' and 'Anecdote'. Cleaning the blackboard he writes 'On Beauty and Love'. He discloses that his displays of power have destroyed a past relationship and attempting to expand further on beauty and love he acknowledges the impossibility of speaking of them. He resorts to mathematics to address 'Love' and moves on to 'On Hope', 'On Cooking' and 'Summing Up' to sing his conclusion that "Man is the rational animal."
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This premiered at the Judson Poets' Theatre, NYC, directed by Remy Charlip. David Tice played Dr. Kheal. Remy Charlip also directed a fundraising production in aid of the Caffe Cino at the New Dramatists Workshop where Dr. Kheal was played by Phillip Bruns. The play went on to be performed elsewhere in the city and the US, plus England, Canada, Australia, amongst others. It was not directed by Fornes until 1974 at the American Place Theatre, NYC. |
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