Attention Deficit Theatre: “Mad Men,” Season Two, Episode Eight

As the Unbound Edition players prepare to present “A Night to Remember,” you might want to pack a suitcase. We’re all going on one hell of a guilt trip.

(Curtain up)

Scene: Early morning at the Draper house. Betty has just returned from riding and hugging her horse.

Don: Hidey. When did you wake up?

Betty: I need you to fix the outlet in the dining room.

Don: Can’t you call an electrician?

Betty: All you have to do is unscrew the fuse and replace the plug.

Don: Un screw? Fraid not, m’lady. Now if there was some screwing to be done…

Betty: Seethe

Scene: Anita’s house. Peggy has stopped by for a visit.

Peggy: Hi. I stole some office supplies for your kids.

Anita: I’m dowdy and depressed. My husband is a malingerer. Mom has bunions. Save me.

Father Gill: Howdy.

Anita: Oh lord. Not the kind of saving I was looking for.

Father Gill: What’s your deal, Peggy? You seem uncomfortable at church. You don’t participate.

Peggy: Um.

Father Gill: Now, I wouldn’t be a good Catholic if I didn’t guilt you to death. I need you to help design a poster for the school dance.

Peggy: Sigh. OK.

Scene: Duck’s office. He has summoned Harry for a meeting.

Duck: I’m clearly on the path to suicide here, but I’ll make myself feel better by yelling at you.

Harry’s tighty whities: Fill.

Duck: Your placement of a Maytag ad in a show last might made them look like Commies. Get your department in order.

Harry: I’ll trotsky right on back to that big ol’ department of mine and open up a can of whoop-ass.

Scene: Don’s office. Duck and Pete walk in to talk about Heineken.

Duck: No one wants to drink that skunky Heineken.

Don: Der. Housewives are stupid and think Holland is the same as Paris. Put some of it in fancy supermarkets where rich women around here shop.

Pete: Housewives love green!

Crickets: Chirp.

Scene: The Draper house. Betty is cleaning for an upcoming dinner party.

Dining room chair: Wobble wobble.

Betty: Oh yeah?

Dining room chair: What, you want a piece of me? Come and get it.

(Betty picks up the chair and wussily starts to bang it on the floor.)

Dining room chair: Christ. You’ve got the skeletal structure of a squid. Put some effort into this, or we’ll be here all day. Do I need to call Pete Townshend?

Betty: Quiet, you.

Dining room chair: Seriously, Spaghetti Arms. This is just making me sad. Just take me outside and let me throw myself in front of Francine’s car when it drives by.

Scene: Harry’s office

Joan: Hi. Roger said you needed help.

Harry: Yeah. Can you read all of these scripts and make sure we’re not making asses out of our clients?

Warren: Speaking of ass, you look great, Joan. You are so much woman.

Scene: Dinner party at the Draper house. Sally has just finished an unfortunate ballet performance for the guests, which include Roger and his wife and some guy named Crab and his wife, Petra.

Betty: She’ll be Piglet in her school’s performance this year. Fully appropriate.

Sally: Can I go upstairs and develop an eating disorder now?

Duck: I’m here. My date cancelled. Hi, Sally. Who’s this?

Don: This is Bobby.

Duck: Do you like gladiator movies, Bobby?

Roger: Duck, Crab. Crab, Duck.

Petra: I’m a lush.

Betty: We’re going to take a little trip around the world with a bunch of awkwardly placed stops. We’ll start in Spain with gazpacho, followed by rumaki from Japan, even though rumaki is Hawaiian. Then we’ll swing by Ireland for leg of lamb and have egg noodles from Germany. And you can have burgundy from France or a frosted glass of beer from Holland. My people are Nordic.

Duck: Oh, Don. You are good.

Don: Yuk yuk. Hoot. Holler.

Betty: What’s so funny?

Duck: You fell for his little experiment with Heineken.

Betty: Let me understand this, ‘cause, ya know, maybe it's me, I'm a little f’ed up, maybe...

Petra: Woo! You and me both, sister.

Betty: I'm funny how? I mean, funny, like I'm a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh? I'm here to f’in’ amuse you? What do you mean funny? Funny how? How am I funny?

Scene: A meeting at the church. Father Gill asked Peggy to come and calm down the old biddies who thought her poster for the dance was porn.

Peggy: “A Night to Remember” holds the wholesome promise of the kind of handholding that may one day lead to marriage. Or at least one hell of a romp on the office couch.

Biddy #1: They’re dancing too close together.

Father Gill: Right you are.

Biddy #2: The slogan makes it look like it’s a lesbian dance.

Father Gill: Sing it, sister. OK then, Peggy, can you totally start over?

Peggy: Way to throw me under the bus.

Father Gill: I sure did. Wow, I agree with everything.

Peggy: You’re a tool.

Father Gill: You’re so right. Can we have our big “Thorn Birds” scene yet?

Scene: Joan’s apartment. She’s reading scripts when her doctor fiancé comes home with Chinese food.

Fiancé:  You didn’t set the table, wench?

Joan: Oh, sorry. I’ll get plates. Why is my voice so high pitched and squeaky in this scene?

Fiancé: I have no idea, but it’s creeping me out. I didn’t know you could read. I much prefer you stupid and non-threatening. You should be sitting at home, eating bonbons to soothe your cravings. Get me some water.

Joan: Cravings? Holy crap. I’m not pregnant, am I?

Fiancé: Where’s my water, wench?

Scene: After the party at the Draper house. Don is on the couch and Betty approaches him.

Betty: You embarrassed me.

Don: Wha?

Betty: You embarrassed me.

Don: Yes, you mentioned that.

Betty: You embarrassed me. You knew I’d buy that beer.

Don: I am a marketing genius.

Betty: I know you’re having an affair with Bobbie Barrett.

Don: Am not.

Betty: Are too. How could you? She’s so…old. And her jackets are all so worn out.

Scene: Conference room at Sterling Cooper. Harry and Joan are meeting with people from Sea & Ski Suntan Lotion.

Harry: Women do love their stories. You should buy time on “Love of Life.”

Joan:  Hold off there, my hornrimmed cohort.  “As the World Turns” is gonna be unmissable this summer. A corpse will spring back to life.

Client: Mmmm…corpse. I like what she says and I love the way she says it.

Joan: Hell yeah. Look at how big my britches are! I can’t wait to put Peggy in her place. Oh yes, watch me put 18 million cracks in this glass ceiling! I’ll be running this place tomorrow!

Scene: That evening at the Draper house. Don comes home and finds Betty, still in last night’s dress, all drunk and disheveled on the bed.

Betty: I rooted through all of your personal belongings and didn’t find anything.

Don: Stop it.

Betty: I would never do this to you.

Don: I hope not. I really don’t want to sit around here in bad hair all day. Did you see the pompadour I had in my last flashback? The horror.

Scene: Later that night. Don’s asleep on the couch.

Don: Oh, thank God. You finally took a shower.

Betty: I don’t want it to be like this.

Don: Me, neither. Can’t you take some acting classes? You’re killing me here with that delivery.

Scene: The next day in Harry’s office.

Joan:  You wanted to see me?

Harry:  Roger said to let you go. I can’t imagine why he’d have any kind of vendetta against you. So now we have Danny here, pulling in $150 a week to be in charge of broadcast operations.

Joan’s ego: Deflate.

Scene: Peggy’s office. Father Gill is using the copier for the dance posters.

Father Gill: Do you have something you need to talk about?

Peggy: My bangs are bumming me out.

Father Gill: You don’t take communion.

Peggy: Oh, that. I don’t think you’d understand.

Father Gill: Why are you pushing everyone away? Spill.

Peggy: Um, well. Er. Hey, look, your copies are done! Ok then, off you go!

Father Gill: Thanks. I look forward to more awkward probing of you in the future.

Peggy: Yay! I’ll stand here holding my stomach with a horrible sense of guilt.

Scene: The Draper house. Betty is making dinner.

Oven: Look at me in the first shot! See how they cleverly moved right to me after showing Peggy cradling her bun-free oven? Nice work, Weiner.

Betty: Um, hi. This is about me, not you. Stop stealing my thunder, even though you have more natural acting talent than I do.

Jimmy: Here’s my creepy Utz potato chip commercial on the t.v.!

(Betty picks up the phone and calls Don)

Don: Hi.

Betty: Don’t come home.

Don: Huh?

Betty: I don’t want to see you.

Don: Oh.

Scene: Father Gill’s room. He undresses and busts out his guitar.

Guitar: Strum strum strum.

Audience: Oh no. It’s not “Peggy Sue,” is it?

(Father Gill starts to belt out “Early in the Morning” by Peter, Paul and Mary while we see a montage of various characters.)

Father Gill: Help me find a way to the promised laaaand…

Peggy: Sigh. I went to the promised land with Pete, and all I got out of it was a new set of chins. Oh, and maybe a kid. I can’t remember.

Father Gill: This lonely body needs as helping haaaand…

Joan: If my boobs get any bigger, this bra strap is going to cut straight down to my ribcage. Ouch.

Father Gill: When the trumpet blows, won’t you call my naaaame?

Bobbie: Hi. You called for me and my jacket?

Don: He said trumpet, not strumpet.

(Curtain down.)

Well, look at you Betty, so perceptive that after all of these years and lord knows how many affairs, you’re finally on to something. That ONE affair Don has had. I will say, he’s good at covering his tracks. Then again, he’s in advertising, so lying comes naturally. Ahem. No way will she really leave him, though. Remember what a pariah last season's divorcee with the hair-stealing creepoid kid was? Poor Joan, though. There she was, Big Girl pants pulled up high, and Roger pulled the rug out from under her. And what is the deal with Father Gill? Am I alone in thinking there's something sinister there?

Here's a preview of the next episode, "Six Month Leave," when Roger and the boys, well, go somewhere. There's not a new one this Sunday because they want us all watching the Emmys instead.

Still got a hankerin' for more "Mad Men" chat? Wave a howdy to the lovely ladies over at Basket of Kisses .