STUDENT
1: A Chemistry major with poor coordination skills. (Athletic part.)
STUDENT
2: A History major with poor coordination skills. (Athletic part.)
NARRATOR:
A typical pretentious narrator.
SCIENTIST
1
SCIENTIST
2
SCIENTIST 1 speaks with a powerful,
portentious tone throughout.
SCIENTIST 2 is handling papers.
(SCIENTIST 1 takes center stage.)
SCIENTIST 1: Symmetry. An unnatural state, made
familiar only by the shape of our own bodies and our Euclidean
figures? Or the
fundamental frame of all things?
This question—
NARRATOR
walks up and taps SCIENTIST 1 on shoulder.
NARRATOR: Excuse me—unless I misread my part,
I’m the narrator for this sketch.
SCIENTIST 1: (Checks script.) Oh, sorry.
SCIENTIST
1 leaves, embarrassed.
(Pause.)
NARRATOR: (Clears throat.) Corridor etiquette. Merely a trivial social
grace? Or the
underlying foundation of modern civilization as we know it?
STUDENT 1
walks by, chanting: Chemistry.
Got to get to chemistry.
Can’t skip chemistry.
Got a test in chemistry.
Chemistry. Got
to get to . . . Exits.
STUDENT 2
then walks by in opposite direction, chanting: History. Hurry up for history. Half an hour tardy. History. History. Have to stay for
history. History . .
. Exits.
SCIENTIST 2 (pacing aimlessly): It
looks like . . . No, that can’t be it. I’ll have it in a
minute. It’s got to
be there somewhere. (Continues to pace.)
(Short
pause.)
NARRATOR: Observe, for example, the following
scenario. Two typical
college students meet in a corridor going in opposite directions.
STUDENT 1 and STUDENT 2 pace slowly onstage
and see each other. At
a distance, they stop walking, smile, and raise a hand in
greeting.
NARRATOR:
These two students are suffering from a typical case of Excess
Casuality Syndrome. They
have now seen each other five times today. Even though they have
never met, they both believe that the other knows their name,
and are therefore obligated to greet each other.
STUDENT 1:
Hey, how are ya.
STUDENT 2:
I’m good. You?
STUDENT 1:
Doin’ alright. How’s
your sister?
STUDENT 2:
What sister?
STUDENT 1:
Yeah, what sister? Same
here.
STUDENT 2:
Yeah.
NARRATOR: Now
observe this classical mishap.
The STUDENTS continue to walk, both veering
upstage. They stop
again. They then
resume, veering downstage. Both
stop. Once more, they
veer upstage. They
are now face to face.
STUDENT 1: ‘Scuse me.
STUDENT 2: Sorry.
THE STUDENTS laugh. They try to pass each
other again, without success.
They continue to attempt passage during the following
lines.
NARRATOR: The
mechanics of Simultaneous Veering Phenomenon, or SVP, were first
laid out by a Swiss sociologist named Andreas Geser in 1833. They are closely
related to the fields of game theory, quantum physics, and
Freudian psychoanalysis.
Simultaneous lines:
| STUDENT 1:
Okay, you go right, and I’ll go left.
| STUDENT 2:
Okay, you go left, and I’ll go right.
Students bump into each other.
STUDENT 1:
You remind me of my mother.
STUDENT 2:
You are a latent phallic symbol.
Students bump into each other.
NARRATOR: It
is said that through intense study of Zen Buddhism, one can
ignore the question of corridor veering entirely, as the effect
will dissipate between iterations as long as excess thinking is
avoided. Those of
us who have not studied how to empty our minds, however, are at
a disadvantage.
STUDENT 1:
Okay, let’s grab each other as if we were dancing and spin
around. Got it?
STUDENT 2:
Yep!
Students assume exotic dancing stance and
attempt to spin in opposite directions, first one way, then the
other. On a
paricularly large swing, they fly apart, still no closer to
passing each other.
STUDENT 2:
This is ridiculous. I
have to get to History.
STUDENT 1:
Sure is crazy. I
can’t miss Chemistry.
Students babble about passing each other in
the background through the following lines.
SCIENTIST 2: I’ve got it! The universal center of
symmetry is located in Northfield, Minnesota!
SCIENTIST 1: Really?
SCIENTIST 2: Would I lie to you? It looks like it’s
somewhere on the Carleton College campus!
SCIENTIST 2 walks up to students and observes
their struggle, scribbling notes on his/her script.
SCIENTIST 2: How interesting . . . Hardly any sign of the
St. Olaf effect at all . . .
And where did you say you were from?
Struggle intensifies as SCIENTIST 1 speaks.
SCIENTIST 1: It has been speculated, over the
ages, that the universe began in symmetry. From the moment that the
expansion of matter began, to the present day, all matter and all
energy—Nothing. It is
all equivalent to nothing. Somewhere,
somehow, it must all balance out . . . .
NARRATOR (mocking
SCIENTIST
1): Blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah.
Silence.