OXFORD SPIES (Play)

1990

Alistair
Cardiff
Reid
Sanford
BBZ correspondent

They are drinking heavily.

A. Yes, we gave our lives as spies for socialism.

C. You are our Welsh poet in residence.

R. And I know I'm not called Red just because of my hair.

S. I fought fascism in Spain early in my life.

A. We know now Stalin was not on our revolutionary calendar.

C. No one could write a memorial poem on him and certainly not a hymn, even as spies our life

was lived on a whim.

R. Stalingrad is still in my memory.

S. Never to expect the pact with Hitler to be forgotten.

C. Stalin stole socialism from out of our hands as Orwell knew it he blew; it was ill gotten.

R. Hell, we were recruited for a high purpose we thought at our idealistic age.

A. I hear the door, it's the BBZ correspondent . Don' t worry the cold war is over; peaceful

coexistence works. They can't hold us captive for the past and we know the BBZ is our friend.

BZ. I'm BZ;poet, reconteur, art director of interviewer for the BBZ.

C. You're not here to out us.

A. He's our confidante.

C. BZ is simpatico.

BZ. I know you were on missions to the Soviets.

C Not planting violets.

S. Did you think we were atomic spies.

C. I'm all eyes, for we wanted to witness a better history than at the despised Un Americans

versus Brecht,not politically correct. We who were so wise wanted a classless society, a hell

instead of a lost paradise. But you got another unwise variety on the forgotten classless society.

A. We were for the underdog.

C. And Stalin was our wonder god who really thought the workers would spend time in the

library cages more than gambling away their wages.

A. I saw very few workers at the promenades.

C. And very few with Party cards.

A. Long live the vanguard.

B. And the avant-garde.

S. So we bitch all day but we do not not resolve our inner conflicts of self destructive acts.

C. A collective amnesia has taken over the political world and we can only record our memoirs

as we live out our leisure.

BZ. It's hard to be single minded for intellectuals to be transparent even spies apparently.

R. In politics there is a only critic's game plan always from the revolutionary or reactionary

sidelines.

BZ. Was it Khrushchev's revelations, Hungary, Poland or Prague's revolts that was the last straw.

C. It was all four. But we knew more revelations were in store, though we didn't want to hear the

Stalin revelations on the BBZ any more.

BZ. Did you all four get along.

C. Wine, men, women, bong and song. What and when could we go wrong.

BZ. You don't seem to have much shame.

C. What was meant in our name is bent as a tree and we thought ourselves free of all law

entirely. We have our own jury.

BZ. As of now the whole world is watching our broadcast.

C. And arn't we a beautiful cast for the BBZ.

BZ. All the injuries you caused are more than historical footnotes.

C. Socialism's flaws are saved by news year's quotes for our cause or in a ballot of Labor votes.

BZ. It's a false god that failed together with the firing squad.

C. We had ambition, and no admonition.

BZ. You will force us to think.

C. Now watch us wink at this time.

BZ. For the greatest of historical crimes. Millions who witnessed the truth of the revolutionary

justice,the purges and the Gulag will discover and uncover the truth. And perhaps we will

all answer what is truth.

C. Are you judging me?

BZ. I will leave that to history and the God that exceeded in exposing us all.Thanks for the

interview.

THE END.