ACT ONE

O.O. Martinas is the owner and proprietor of a 13-story meat department store. He has trained his sales staff to sing and dance in an attempt to apply the new turn-of-the-century technique of advertising. 

 

Selma Chargesse, the most attractive of the salesgirls and O.O.’s mistress, backed up by other salesgirls and salesmen, poses for a series of seductive photographs that will be distributed like Victorian rotogravure postcards to promote the O.O. Martinas Emporium.(GOOD OLD O.O.)

 

Wilmer Flange, an idealistic young dreamer, happens upon the scene. He is smitten with Selma and she also is attracted to him. O.O. sees what’s happening and has Wilmer thrown out of the store, but not before Wilmer and Selma have made a date to meet in a nearby park during lunch hour. 

 

When they meet in the park, Selma learns Wilmer is unemployed and penniless. He is searching for the key that will give his life meaning and purpose. They both are lonely and they both share an interest in movies.  They wonder if perhaps this might be the key that binds them together. (PARK SCENE)

 

O.O. uses all his ploys to persuade Wilmer that Selma is not the girl for him, and when that does not work, he beguiles Selma with the promise of wealth. Money wins out, and Selma exits with O.O. Martinas.

 

Wilmer is heart-broken. He contemplates suicide but decides he will go to the movies instead. (I’M GOING TO THE MOVIES) Upon coming out of the theatre, Wilmer meets a doll salesman, who convinces him that dolls, not movies, are the key to life. Wilmer buys his doll suitcase, and the pitch-man disappears into the night, just as a storm threatens.

 

Meanwhile, having met Wilmer, Selma finds life with O.O. boring. Even though it is night and it is raining, Selma throws a raincoat over her negligee and leaves to search for Wilmer. (RAIN)She finds him on the street, hawking his dolls. (DOLLS) She works her wiles on him, (OPEN YOUR EYES) and they are reunited. He convinces her that dolls, not movies, are the key, and they set off together to see if they can make a life for themselves.

 

During all this time, we have passed through several periods of social history. The play began with the booming energy of turn-of-the-century America. It passed through a period of romantic optimism in the park scene. We now find ourselves in the 1920’s, a hard-edged era where the main goal was to make a buck, and it seemed as though the opportunity was there for every man to do so. (SEIZE THE OPPORTUNITY)

 

We find O.O. seated at a cafe table in some speakeasy. After unsuccessfully trying to proposition his waitress, O.O. watches a cafe singer who sings a song about how everything has a price. (HOW MUCH?) Encouraged by her come-on, O.O. tries to hook up with her, but she rejects him for one of her night club chums. Left all alone, O.O. realizes how much he misses Selma.

 

 

Meanwhile, Wilmer has convinced himself he needs a gimmick to succeed in the doll business. If he could create a doll that has the capacity to get sick and die, he could make a fortune and support Selma—and Bez, a son they have acquired along the way—in high style.

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At this moment O.O. Martinas again appears upon the scene. He has kept in touch with Selma all along, even helping out with material support. Once again he tries to impress upon Wilmer that the only thing that matters in America is money. He sings a paean to meat, (THE MEAT BALLET) and when he is done he takes Selma and Bez away. Wilmer is left holding one of his mangled dolls. 

 

ACT TWO

Just as Wilmer’s attempt to build a more human type of doll has gone bust, so has the whole country. The streets are lined with unemployed people, and Wilmer is forced to seek a job as Santa Claus giving away meat tidbits for tots from the O.O. Martinas Emporium. (WHAT HAPPENED?)

During a mild snowstorm, Selma encounters Wilmer wearing his bedraggled Santa Claus costume. They have a brief moment of reconciliation, but then she decides once again that it is more sensible for her to remain with O.O. Martinas. (YES, WELL, ANYWAY)

A war has begun, whether World War I of II, or the Korean War, or the Vietnam War, or the War in Iraq; at any rate, a war. (SAY FELLA) Wilmer has enlisted. For a while he tries to convince himself that military history is the key, but an encounter with a German-Japanese soldier convinces him of the folly of this idea.

 

After the war, America enters an era of renewed prosperity (THE WORD ON THE STREET.)  Selma and O.O. have grown rich beyond their wildest dreams, but they are still not happy with each other.  (TWO FAT CATS.) After the explosion of the Atomic Bomb, Selma decides that she is no longer willing to pay the price of living with O.O. (RED EYE OF LOVE.) She sets out once again in search of Wilmer.

 

She finds him on the same park bench where they first met. By now they are old. They have passed through endless cycle of boom times and depressions, of war and peace. They decide once again to try to make a life together.  But Wilmer insists that this time it has to be on his own terms. He still clings to a dream that if he lives way out there among the Navajo, (AMONG THE NAVAJO) he still might discover the key to life.  Selma, ever amenable, agrees. She is, and always has been, all things to all men. She is the muse of Wilmer and O.O.  

 

At this moment, O.O. Martinas shows up. Convinced that Selma and Wilmer are determined to go live way out there among the Navajo, he begs them to take him along with them. The three of them have lived together so long that it is inconceivable that any of them could live without the others.

 

At last they are convinced that they have found the key. It is simply the three of them, idealism and materialism in pursuit of The American Dream.  (THREE’S THE KEY FINALE) They define America.