Miranda Marks 

Kelsey Pottenger

Becky Stracener

Zack Wells

Tanner Yelken

 

A MEDICINE SHOW

 

 

A song- to the tune of Sixteen Tons.

Becky, Kelsey

 

I was born one morning when the sun didn’t shine.

I picked up my guitar and ran the railroad line

I sang songs for the workers and songs for the poor

And when you came around I sang a few more.

 

Chorus All

Twenty years of singing what do you get?

Another dime later, your needs barely met

Till I found the Medicine Show and here I am

I sing for the miracle cures of man.

 

**

 

Zack, Barker:

Welcome, Welcome!

Come and see the amazing bouncing woman!

Come and see miracle cures!

And it costs not one quarter, not one dime, not one penny

Yes you heard me it’s all free!

For your entertainment we have devised a cornucopia of wonders, amusements, and fun times for all!

 

So welcome, you there with the red shirt and you with the yellow one (use the actual clothing colors of members of the audience), come right up and behold the marvel of the continuously bouncing woman! (Tanner) Yes, she’s been bouncing for 23 hours, 57 minutes and ten seconds, and is headed for a new 24-hour record right now! Just two minutes more, let’s watch as she finishes this amazing feat of endurance and vitality! And all of this energy is available to you though one of our miracle cures, specially formulated by our own Dr. Zen Buchanan, respected healer, published in several reputable journals.

 

**

Continuation of the song to the tune of Sixteen Tons

Becky, Kelsey

 

Think your thoughts are strange and bound to be judged

We’ve got a cure that will solve people’s grudges

When you’re out on the line with an original thought

Take our cure ‘cause it’s all you’ve got.

 

Interruption of the last line- Miranda Lucy Parsons: No one will listen to me!

 

Scene begins as Lucy Parsons walks into the Medicine Show Crowd. She looks upset and frantic. Medicine Man points her out.

 

Kelsey Medicine Man: Hey they’re ma’am! Why the glum look? Something we can help you with? Tooth Ache? Sore Back? Women’s Problems? We’ve got a cure for everything!

 

Miranda Lucy Parsons: (In a hurried and urgent voice) No! No! No! It’s nothing like that! Look, my name is Lucy Parsons and my husband Albert Parsons and four other innocent men are on death row! There is nothing you can do to help me!!

 

Kelsey MM: (Interrupting) I’ve got a killer cough syrup! That might do the…

 

Miranda LP: (Jumps in) There was a bomb thrown into a group of policemen at Haymarket Square in Chicago, and they were accused of the crime.

 

Kelsey MM: Chicago!? Well, I’ve never heard of this “Haymarket” or any of this other nonsense you keep going on about.

 

Miranda LP: (Speaking to audience now. Ignoring Medicine Man) Let me explain. There was a gathering at Haymarket Square the night of May 4. Some men had been killed a few days earlier protesting the lack of an 8-hour workday. It had been a peaceful gathering until the bomb was thrown. No one knew who did it. They had no evidence. None of those four men were even there when the bomb was thrown! And they’ve been declared guilty for throwing it! Albert and the rest were only arrested because they were Anarchists! Because they threatened the capitalist system! Because they had different ideas!

 

Kelsey MM: Whoa, whoa, whoa!! What about some of these “Headache Away” pills?

 

Miranda LP: (Cutting in) Let me finish! There was a trial. If you could call that charade a trial… The jury had been selected to convict. The judge was a shady bastard. And there was no real evidence against the men. Now, in a few short days my husband and four other innocent men will be hanged! HUNG!!

 

Kelsey MM: Parsons? Lucy, was it? Listen. I’ve got it! For real this time!!

 

(Medicine Man brings Parsons up to the stage. While he is speaking, Lucy Parsons hands out flyers to crowd announcing an upcoming rally supporting her husband and the other men on death row.)

 

Kelsey MM: Ladies and Gentlemen! This woman here is a perfect example of the next new and not to mention USEFUL product I’d like to tell you about! Now, Mrs. Parsons husband and a few other men have gotten themselves in some trouble that COULD have been avoided had they used my product. Their CRAZY Anarchist ideas have landed them on DEATH ROW!! Now, Ladies and Gents, I’m certain that you’d like to steer clear of the trouble that Parsons and his gang have landed themselves in, and to help you do just that I’d like to present…. A cure for original thinking! Keep you and yours away from the gallows and back to the flock! Perhaps you’ve got one of these troublemakers in your family?? Tired of family get-togethers turning into a war zone because Uncle Anarchist or Aunt Socialist won’t quit preachin politics? Slip a little of this miracle in their drink and before you know it, they’ll be quiet as a lamb! Now that my friends, is a beautiful thing!!

 

**

Continuation of the song to the tune of Sixteen Tons

Becky, Kelsey

 

Tired of being Arab or Asian

Black or Jewish or Indian

We’ve got a cure for it all, wherever you go

You’ll be part of one large homogenous show.

**

 

Becky MM: Excuse me sir, yes. I see you are sick? Addressing a Native American in the crowd. S/he places a statue or poster of an “Indian” and smiles at it.

 

Tanner NA: Who, me? Whatever do you mean?

 

Becky MM: Well, sir. I mean no disrespect. No, certainly not in such progressive times. But I happened to notice you are not, well, uh… not white.

 

Tanner NA: Ah yes I’ve noticed.

 

Becky MM: Well sir, never you fear. We’ve got just the thing to get you down with manifest destiny. I bet you are sick of being called Indian.

 

Tanner NA: Well…yes. I haven’t even been to India

 

Becky MM: Exactly. Well our Cockatoo Indian Medicine Company’s Natural Native American Healing is Guaranteed to Take the Indian out of You.

 

Tanner NA: Did you work that one out with the U.S. government? They’ve been peddling that cure for some years now. But instead of taking a swig of your concoction, they created the boarding schools. My hair was cut, my clothes changed, and the language I spoke forbidden. I was trained to be an agriculturist and give up the ways I previously knew to sustain myself.

 

Becky MM: But sir, this cure is different. It’s subtle, painless!

 

Tanner NA: Those boarding schools didn’t work very well. In fact, their intent often backlashed. Instead of taking the Indian out of the children, we often bonded with each other to form a unified Indian identity. And when we returned to the reservation, we learned quickly that our agricultural and trades training were of no use in reservation life.

 

Becky MM: No, our cure is effective, without those unintentional side effects.

 

Tanner NA: Well, I wont take your cure. Perhaps your intentions are honorable, you wish to save me the pain of discrimination perhaps? But the cost of your cure is too great.

 

**

 

Zach MM: Hey ladies, having trouble keeping up with that hourglass figure?

Tired of broken ribs and miscarriages?

Think you need a constrictive corset to impress the gentlest of gentlemen

Well let me let you in on a little secret.

On a recent trip to Uganda I found a special virus that will specifically target that problem area

That’s right, you’ll be able to protrude in all the right ways while those little buggers eat up the rest

Now, ladies, the Ugandans are serious dieters, after all they are starving, so don’t waste another minute, and remember there’s no way better way to show your man your feminine bravado than a good old-fashioned faint.

 

**

Continuation of the song to the tune of Sixteen Tons

Becky, Kelsey

Tired of being an oppressor

Think being a victim is quite a bore

Take our cure and from then on out

You’ll know what freedom’s all about

 

**

 

A Representative for the American Medical Association Tanner comes from the back of the audience sneakily trying to sell very similar-looking products as the Medicine Show, like cough syrup, except that they are labeled AMA APPROVED on them. S/he then goes onto the stage and starts tacking AMA DISAPPROVES!!! on all the Medicine Show products. As the next chant happens, three people from the medicine show back off stage and go sit in the audience. The chant between the AMA and the MM should be a crescendo, like they are climbing a ladder as they are speaking.

 

Miranda MM: And NOW, for our grand finale of this spectacular show, we’re going to give you something you will never forget. Yes, that’s right ladies and gents; this is A CURE FROM ALL YOUR CHAINS. Now most people think I shouldn’t do this, because this is a cure that might make you never need to come back here. That’s right, I feel so good about this that I’m going to show you how we don’t need each other ANYMORE. Forever. Hallelujah. (interrupted by AMA commotion)

 

What do you think you’re doing?

 

Tanner AMA: What do you think you’re doing? By order of the Federal Food and Drug Act of 1906 it is a misdemeanor to manufacture sell or transport misbranded drugs. Your show defies all three. As well, we as the American Medical Association have founded the cooperative advertising bureau. Now we are the authority on how medicine is practiced and recognized in this country. And you make too much money.

 

Miranda MS: You make too much money.

 

Tanner AMA: On Untested drugs

 

Miranda MS: Are your drugs tested for their health?

 

Tanner AMA: we patent our products

 

Miranda MS: we patent our products too

 

Tanner AMA: Our products are GOOD for the people.

 

Miranda MS: Our products are BETTER

 

Tanner AMA: WE decide it

 

Miranda MS: We decide it, so?

 

Tanner AMA: we are supported by the US government

 

Miranda MS: We support ourselves

 

Tanner AMA: We are the doctors

 

Miranda MS: shrugging We are doctors.

 

Tanner AMA: You are cruel and unusual

 

Miranda MS: You are unusually cruel

 

Tanner AMA: The people need real medicine

 

Miranda MS: The people need real medicine; the people don’t need your medicine

 

In Unison:

Tanner AMA: The people need us, not you

 

Miranda MS: The people need us, not you

 

Shouts from the audience, in quick succession, almost overlapping

 

1. Becky Help! My kids are floating their paper boats in raw sewage!
2. Zach Help! We are living in a tenement with 30 people and no water; we have to walk six blocks to the nearest water pump and there we wait in line!
3. Kelsey Help! I drank the water when I was pregnant I was so thirsty and now my baby’s ear is missing and no one will help me

 

The barker notices that the AMA is still on stage, so s/he runs off. AMA mumbles.

 

Tanner AMA: Yes! Hum, We’ve been researching these problems on a day-to-day basis. Everything takes lots and lots of time and money to make these cures happen. So if you could fill out form A 327 B, and for you ma’am form 9767 and you sir form 4, we will approach these problems as soon as possible. Well, time is money got to go!

 

Runs off, stealing a bottle or two from the Medicine Show shelf.

 

 

**

The company that is not presently speaking helps to break down the show and put all set, props, and costumes back into the wagon in which it came, while humming the tune of sixteen tons softly underneath the following speech.

The Medicine Show came to a struggling end in the 1960’s. The end came, in large part, because of the competition from other forms of entertainment. The premise of the Medicine Show was that a free performance would sell a product. The premise was a sound one; and radio and television developed it on a scale far beyond anything dreamed of by the traveling medicine showman. Ironically, in doing so they helped to put the Medicine Show out of business. But something of the old spirit continued.

 

**

AL FIN. A television, on a cart perhaps, is wheeled on stage. It plays the following (or similar)  commercial. 

Sad? Lonely? Miserable? Hungry? Whatever your problem, organic all natural Roladimanimanon is just what you need. Using an all-natural organic, placebo type technology scientists have the pill for your problem. Are you too tired? Not high enough? Millions everywhere agree Roladimanimanon is the answer!

Shot of group of people randomly saying “Roladimanimanon rocks!”

What’s the secret? 

Using the theories of everything scientists have brewed a concoction not to be trifled with, says many scientists. Roladimanimanon is super, so call 1-800-noitsnot and we’ll send you a bottle of your own. If after two weeks to two months and you’re not happy then your money back! 

**

As the company is leaving the stage, traveling with the cart in the opposite direction than which it entered, they sing the final verse of the song to the tune of Sixteen Tons.

Can you blame us if you don’t believe?

We’re just providing what you say you need

And with enough of a show we’re sure to please

(one voice)

Buy a bottle and you will see.