This is the beginning of the first playlet in BEYOND BELIEF.  It is entitled ORAL REPORT.





                                   Three women in their seventies sit on
                                   ALMA'S porch in a blue collar
                                   neighborhood of eastern Massachusetts. 
                                   It is a balmy summer evening, and the
                                   women relax in what appears to be a
                                   nightly ritual--sitting and gabbing and
                                   catching up on neighborhood activities.

                                   GERT is direct, opinionated.  ALMA  is
                                   losing her hearing, and has evolved
                                   through life assimilating only the
                                   basic information necessary to make it
                                   to her late seventies.  MARJORIE is
                                   quiet, intelligent, circumspect,
                                   careful.  Each lady has her own sense
                                   of humor, even irony, though none of
                                   them would acknowledge that irony has
                                   anything to do with anything.

                                   As the curtain rises, we find the women
                                   staring out at whatever it is that's in
                                   front of their eyes.  Silence, for a
                                   moment.  Finally, Gert contributes.

                                   GERT
                          (laughs, with insidious joy)
            He can't park there, you know.

                                   ALMA
            What?

                                   GERT
            He can't park there.

                                   ALMA
            Who?

                                   GERT
            Him.  There.  With the car.  Sister Bernadetta'll be outa the
            convent before he gets outa the car.  You watch.  She don't
            want anybody parkin' in the school parkin' lot.  Since they
            got the new lines drawn and all the new spaces so it's easy
            to park, she don't want anybody parkin' there.

                                   ALMA
            Why not?

                                   GERT
            It's like all her life she's been waitin' for her own parkin'
            lot or somethin'.  She's 12, her mother says whatdya wanna
            be, she says a nun or a parking lot attendant.  She's like
            Mussolini with the parkin' lot.  Look.  Here she comes.
                          (beat, as they watch)
            Look at 'im.  "Yes, Sister.  Yes, Sister.  Sorry, Sister." 
            You'd think she was carryin' a gun.

                                   ALMA
            She has a gun?

                                   GERT
                          (loud; directly to Alma)
            No.  You'd think she was.

                                   ALMA
            Who?

                                   GERT
            Bernadetta.

                                   ALMA
                          (long beat, to Marjorie)
            I didn't see a gun.  Did you?

                                   MARJORIE
                          (loud, so Alma gets the point)
            It was a joke, Alma.  Gert told you a joke.

                                   ALMA
                          (chuckles)
            Oh.
                          (beat, stops chuckling)
            I guess I don't get it.

                                   GERT
                          (looks to parking lot)
            There he goes.

                                   ALMA
                          (longer beat; then, to Gert)
            What's his name?  Mussolini?

                                   GERT
            Never mind about Mussolini.
                          (to Marjorie)
            So did you see 'im?

                                   ALMA
            Who?

                                   GERT
            On the T.V.

                                   MARJORIE
            I saw him.

                                   ALMA
            Who?

                                   GERT
            Lookin' in the camera as if he's talkin' right to me, sayin'
            them things to me like he knows me.

                                   ALMA
            Who?

                                   GERT
            His nibs!  In Washington.

                                   MARJORIE
            The President.

                                   GERT
            Thinks I don't know he's full of it.

                                   ALMA
            The President?

                                   MARJORIE
            He's a politician.

                                   ALMA
            They say he mighta did it with...uh...

                                   GERT
            Oh, he did it, all right.

                                   ALMA
            Uh...that girl.  The fat girl.  With the funny hat.

                                   MARJORIE
            But the people still like him.

                                   ALMA
            It was on the T.V.

                                   MARJORIE
            All the polls.  They like him.

                                   ALMA
            The Polacks like him?

                                   GERT
            I'll tell you who likes him.  The people who do what he done
            like him because they done it too, and they wanna keep doin'
            it and it makes 'em feel better to know he done it and he's
            gonna get away with it.

                                   MARJORIE
            He just might.