A Short, Mediocre Play Featuring Tom Milone

by
April 20, 2012

ACT I

(The curtain rises to reveal TOM MILONE, left-handed pitcher for the Oakland A’s.)

TOM MILONE: My name is Tom Milone, of the Oakland baseball club. My ambition is to become a character in a great play!

ACT II

(The office of a GREAT PLAYWRIGHT. TOM MILONE enters.)

TOM MILONE: Sir, my name is Tom Milone, of the Oakland baseball club. My ambition is to become a character in a great play!

GREAT PLAYWRIGHT: A great play? I’m not aware that such a thing exists anymore.

TOM MILONE: But I thought you were a great playwright?

GREAT PLAYWRIGHT: I’m a fictional character!

ACT III

(CARSON CISTULLI’s dream from last night. TOM MILONE appears suddenly.)

TOM MILONE: Carson Cistulli? Hello. I’m Tom Milone, of the Oakland baseball club.

CARSON CISTULLI: Of course.

TOM MILONE: My ambition is to become a character in a great play!

CARSON CISTULLI: Great play? I’m not aware that…

TOM MILONE: That’s what the great playwright said.

CARSON CISTULLI: Oh. (Thinking and rubbing chin thoughtfully, handsomely.) What about the idea of baseball-as-drama? That’s not satisfying for you?

TOM MILONE: I’ve considered it, but the foundation for the metaphor is weak. Baseball games bear resemblance to plays, but are not them — much like spiders, while resembling insects, are not insects. In the end, baseball games are baseball games; great plays, great plays. It’s my ambition to be a character in the latter.

CARSON CISTULLI: (Thinking, still handsomely.) Well, what about this — what about a short, mediocre play?

TOM MILONE: (Grimaces slightly, dissatisfied.) What would that accomplish?

CARSON CISTULLI: You start off in a short, mediocre play; you work your way up.

TOM MILONE: That’s a thing?

CARSON CISTULLI: Consider Prince Hamlet. He was a character in a number of short, mediocre plays before appearing in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

TOM MILONE: Are you lying?

CARSON CISTULLI: Sometimes one must lie to tell the truth!

(At this, TOM MILONE and CARSON CISTULLI laugh and laugh and laugh, like children in the kingdom of heaven.)





 

Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.

11 Comments
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Dino
11 years ago

i don’t get it

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Resolution
11 years ago
Reply to  Dino

It’s easy. Tom Milone is preparing for a career in the (other) performing arts, clearly in anticipation of the Oakland baseball club’s inevitable and imminent contraction.

Carson Cistulli (not to be confused with a great playwright), simply reminds him that much in the same way he had to play for the short-season and mediocre Vermont Lake Monsters before he was able to play for the great* Oakland Athletics, Milone will have to settle for work in theatre on a lower scale in the hopes of rising to greatness.

In other words, Milone must learn to walk before he runs, despite his desires to perform the reverse. A lesson we are all encouraged to learn.

* in this instance, great merely designates being something that is not the ‘Vermont Lake Monsters’.

3