Everybody Hates Hitler

AT RISE:  BOB HITLER is lying on a couch.  He looks like Adolf, minus the mustache.

BOB

Of course I hate my brother!  Everyone hates him…why should I be any different?  He’s so desperate to be famous that he doesn’t care who he hurts.  I feel bad for all the people he’s killed, but his little massacre hasn’t exactly been easy on me either…but no one cares about that, do they?

(sitting up)

Everyone just assumes that all Hitlers are evil because Adolf is, but I assure you, Bob Hitler is nothing like that power-hungry jackass!  Adolf is ruining my life…especially my sex life.  You know what my type is?  Jewish women!  Adolf knows that, and he went ahead and started the Holocaust anyway!  How am I supposed to get laid now?  He’s always been competitive, but I can’t believe he would kill all the Jewish women just because he wants to cockblock me!  I know he claims that he murdered millions of Jews because he was trying to create the perfect world, but I’m pretty sure it was actually because he’s still a virgin.  And that’s just wrong…if he’s a virgin, it’s no one’s fault but his.  I told him that no woman would sleep with him until he shaves off that weird little mustache, but he wouldn’t listen.  He thinks it makes him look distinguished; I told him it makes him look like someone shit on his face.

(snickering)

Doesn’t it?  Genetically superior, my ass!  That moron didn’t even finish high school, and now he’s the fuhrer?  What is wrong with this country?  We’re letting a guy who couldn’t pass ninth grade biology decide who makes up the Master Race?  You have to wonder about a guy who decides to kick off an ethnic cleansing by slaughtering his own people…I guess he thinks that being a quarter Jewish doesn’t count!  Did I mention he failed math too?

(angrily)

I’m the smart one, and I can’t get a job to save my life!  When an employer sees the name Hitler on a job application, believe me, that application goes straight in the trash.  I can’t say I blame them-would you hire a Hitler?

(sighing)

If it weren’t for Adolf, I’d still have my old job and I wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.  I loved being a bank teller-I know how important money is to people, so I really felt like I was doing something meaningful with my life.  But then Adolf had to go and throw all the Jews in concentration camps, and all the banks went out of business!  That was really stupid on Adolf’s part-who’s going to manage our money if the only people who are good at it are dead or being tortured somewhere?  You might think the whole “Jews are good with money” thing is just a stereotype, but it’s seriously true, doc!  One time I gave my friend Gerald fifty bucks, and he invested it in the stock market for me…a week later, I had five thousand dollars!  It was amazing…like some kind of beautiful magic trick.

(sadly)

But that was in a simpler time, before my loser brother threw Gerald in a gas chamber.  Now my frugal Jewish friend is dead, I don’t know anything about stocks, and I’m going to be evicted if I can’t come up with two hundred dollars by the end of the week!  I don’t want to live on the streets!  Have you seen the streets lately?  There are dead bodies everywhere…it’s gross!  But I have to admit, I’d rather be homeless than move in with Adolf.

(Bob stands and begins pacing.)

BOB

I can’t let that happen!  Adolf is not easy to live with.  He’s bossy, he leaves toenail clippings on the floor, he snores, he doesn’t wash his hands after he uses the bathroom, he lets his giraffe shit all over the house, he kills millions of people for no logical reason…he is so annoying!  Oh, and get this-he thinks he’s an artist!  He does these ridiculous paintings of swastikas wearing hats, and he forces me to tell him they’re masterpieces!  I don’t even want to look at them, let alone pretend they’re not the worst paintings in the history of art, but if I don’t, the insecure bastard will kill me!  Seriously, swastikas with hats?!  Why would anyone think that’s something that needs to exist?  And why would a swastika be wearing a hat in the first?  It doesn’t make any sense!

(shaking his head)

I’ll never understand why Adolf turned out like this.  We weren’t raised any differently than the kids who didn’t turn out to be genocidal maniacs.  Like most women, Mom was a beekeeper, and Dad-well, he just the most typical father you can imagine.  He was an arsonist by day, circus clown by night.  When we misbehaved, he would beat us with his giant clown shoes while smashing pie in our faces.  If we were really bad, he would steal our noses.  I always knew Dad was just pretending to steal our noses, but Adolf never quite figured it out-every time Dad did it, the big baby ran away screaming, “I can’t breathe!  I can’t breathe!”  To this day, Adolf is terrified of curly red hair and banana peels…I guess that says a lot about him, but it still doesn’t explain why he grew up to become the biggest asshole in history.

(looking at his watch)

We’re about out of time, aren’t we?  I don’t know how you escaped my brother’s wrath, Dr. Steinberg, but I’m glad you did.  I’m grateful that you agreed to see me, considering the circumstances, but I can’t really afford therapy, so I have a proposition for you…you don’t charge me for my sessions, and I won’t tell Adolf that he missed you.  How ‘bout it, Doctor?  Do we have a deal?

(chuckling)

Who am I kidding?  Of course we do.  This is an offer you can’t refuse…

(Bob smiles as the lights fade to black.)

Copyright ©2007

By Crystal Smith

                                          Everybody Hates Hitler

AT RISE:  BOB HITLER is lying on a couch.  He looks like Adolf, minus the mustache.

BOB

Of course I hate my brother!  Everyone hates him…why should I be any different?  He’s so desperate to be famous that he doesn’t care who he hurts.  I feel bad for all the people he’s killed, but his little massacre hasn’t exactly been easy on me either…but no one cares about that, do they?

(sitting up)

Everyone just assumes that all Hitlers are evil because Adolf is, but I assure you, Bob Hitler is nothing like that power-hungry jackass!  Adolf is ruining my life…especially my sex life.  You know what my type is?  Jewish women!  Adolf knows that, and he went ahead and started the Holocaust anyway!  How am I supposed to get laid now?  He’s always been competitive, but I can’t believe he would kill all the Jewish women just because he wants to cockblock me!  I know he claims that he murdered millions of Jews because he was trying to create the perfect world, but I’m pretty sure it was actually because he’s still a virgin.  And that’s just wrong…if he’s a virgin, it’s no one’s fault but his.  I told him that no woman would sleep with him until he shaves off that weird little mustache, but he wouldn’t listen.  He thinks it makes him look distinguished; I told him it makes him look like someone shit on his face.

(snickering)

Doesn’t it?  Genetically superior, my ass!  That moron didn’t even finish high school, and now he’s the fuhrer?  What is wrong with this country?  We’re letting a guy who couldn’t pass ninth grade biology decide who makes up the Master Race?  You have to wonder about a guy who decides to kick off an ethnic cleansing by slaughtering his own people…I guess he thinks that being a quarter Jewish doesn’t count!  Did I mention he failed math too?

(angrily)

I’m the smart one, and I can’t get a job to save my life!  When an employer sees the name Hitler on a job application, believe me, that application goes straight in the trash.  I can’t say I blame them-would you hire a Hitler?

(sighing)

If it weren’t for Adolf, I’d still have my old job and I wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.  I loved being a bank teller-I know how important money is to people, so I really felt like I was doing something meaningful with my life.  But then Adolf had to go and throw all the Jews in concentration camps, and all the banks went out of business!  That was really stupid on Adolf’s part-who’s going to manage our money if the only people who are good at it are dead or being tortured somewhere?  You might think the whole “Jews are good with money” thing is just a stereotype, but it’s seriously true, doc!  One time I gave my friend Gerald fifty bucks, and he invested it in the stock market for me…a week later, I had five thousand dollars!  It was amazing…like some kind of beautiful magic trick.

(sadly)

But that was in a simpler time, before my loser brother threw Gerald in a gas chamber.  Now my frugal Jewish friend is dead, I don’t know anything about stocks, and I’m going to be evicted if I can’t come up with two hundred dollars by the end of the week!  I don’t want to live on the streets!  Have you seen the streets lately?  There are dead bodies everywhere…it’s gross!  But I have to admit, I’d rather be homeless than move in with Adolf.

(Bob stands and begins pacing.)

BOB

I can’t let that happen!  Adolf is not easy to live with.  He’s bossy, he leaves toenail clippings on the floor, he snores, he doesn’t wash his hands after he uses the bathroom, he lets his giraffe shit all over the house, he kills millions of people for no logical reason…he is so annoying!  Oh, and get this-he thinks he’s an artist!  He does these ridiculous paintings of swastikas wearing hats, and he forces me to tell him they’re masterpieces!  I don’t even want to look at them, let alone pretend they’re not the worst paintings in the history of art, but if I don’t, the insecure bastard will kill me!  Seriously, swastikas with hats?!  Why would anyone think that’s something that needs to exist?  And why would a swastika be wearing a hat in the first?  It doesn’t make any sense!

(shaking his head)

I’ll never understand why Adolf turned out like this.  We weren’t raised any differently than the kids who didn’t turn out to be genocidal maniacs.  Like most women, Mom was a beekeeper, and Dad-well, he just the most typical father you can imagine.  He was an arsonist by day, circus clown by night.  When we misbehaved, he would beat us with his giant clown shoes while smashing pie in our faces.  If we were really bad, he would steal our noses.  I always knew Dad was just pretending to steal our noses, but Adolf never quite figured it out-every time Dad did it, the big baby ran away screaming, “I can’t breathe!  I can’t breathe!”  To this day, Adolf is terrified of curly red hair and banana peels…I guess that says a lot about him, but it still doesn’t explain why he grew up to become the biggest asshole in history.

(looking at his watch)

We’re about out of time, aren’t we?  I don’t know how you escaped my brother’s wrath, Dr. Steinberg, but I’m glad you did.  I’m grateful that you agreed to see me, considering the circumstances, but I can’t really afford therapy, so I have a proposition for you…you don’t charge me for my sessions, and I won’t tell Adolf that he missed you.  How ‘bout it, Doctor?  Do we have a deal?

(chuckling)

Who am I kidding?  Of course we do.  This is an offer you can’t refuse…

(Bob smiles as the lights fade to black.)

Copyright ©2007

By Crystal Smith

Give Hell a Chance

AT RISE: SATAN, wearing a business suit and red tie, is passing out brochures to a group of angels. There is an open briefcase on the table next to him.

SATAN

I know what you’re thinking and I don’t blame you. You have every right to be suspicious…so although the name-calling was a bit unnecessary, I won’t hold it against you. I’m not here to cause trouble…all I’m asking for is two minutes of your time. Just two minutes, and then I’ll never bother you again. You have my word.

(clearing his throat)

Now, I know you’ve always been told that you live in the greatest place in the world…a paradise, if you will. And I won’t disagree with that…but I do want you to be aware of your options. So please just try to keep an open mind as I tell you about another utopia… (dramatic pause)Hell! I realize that Hell is known as a horrible place of misery and suffering, but if you look through the brochures I’ve given you, I think you’ll see that everything you thought you knew about Hell is untrue. I know you all worship God, and I respect that. You think you can trust him, and why shouldn’t you? Well, I’ll tell you why…he lied to you!

(collective gasp from the angels)

Why would he lie, you might ask? It’s simple really-he’s jealous of me. There was a time when we were friends…but our friendship ended the way most friendships do. God and I were inseparable until about two thousand years ago-that’s when she came into our lives. I was standing at the gates as I did every day, deciding who to let in. It had been a disappointing day so far-business was slow and I was getting restless. But then I saw her standing there, an angel in a white halter top and skintight leather pants. Her name was Sapphire and she was a dancer. She wasn’t on the list, but I said I’d let her in anyway…if she would let me take her out to dinner.

(taking a deep breath)

When God found out, he demoted me-he said that I broke the rules and that Heaven was no place for a girl like her…until he saw her and decided he wanted her for himself. He started buying her jewelry and naming planets after her, but she wasn’t interested, so he kicked both of us out of Heaven. He’s never really gotten over the fact that she picked me over him. He has devoted his entire life to making me look bad…and I’m not a bad guy! He’s told so many lies about me that everyone thinks I’m this awful person…and none of it is true! I don’t eat babies or steal people’s souls… And I don’t care what anyone says, I am not responsible for Freddie Prinze Jr.’s acting career-I can’t believe that so many people think I’m capable of such evil! Every time something bad happens, I get blamed for it…all because God can’t let go of some little thing that happened two thousand years ago.

(pause; he regains his composure)

But I digress… I know what you all think, but I’m here to tell you that Hell is not the torturous world it has been made out to be. It is in fact a happy place…just like Hawaii!

(gradually becoming more animated)

In Hell, the weather is warm and the fun never ends! You’ll love our refreshing spa, where you’ll have access to hot springs, saunas, and an Olympic-size swimming pool! Or you can work out in the gym-our state-of-the-art facilities are quite impressive…believe me, you’ll have no problem sweating off those extra pounds! We also have our own amusement park, Satan’s Fiery Pit of Fun, which includes plenty of rides, as well as an arcade, petting zoo, and miniature golf course! Check out our world-famous casino, voted number one for the fourth consecutive year by Travel Magazine! You can even start your day off at the bar if you’d like-here in Hell, no one judges you for drinking before noon! Have you ever dreamed of meeting a celebrity? Well, then come on down! Rock stars, actors, world leaders…we’ve got tons of them! And let’s not forget Karaoke Thursday! So as you can see, Hell is the real paradise…it’s the Jamaica of the afterlife! If you still aren’t convinced…have I got an offer for you! The first thirty days are free of charge, and once the trial period is up, you can go back to Heaven if you are not one hundred percent satisfied! No strings attached! Give Hell a chance-what have you got to lose? This is a once-in-a-lifetime offer, so you better act fast! You could be making the biggest mistake of your life if you let this opportunity pass you by!

(long beat)

Would I lie to you?

(The lights fade to black.)

Copyright ©2002

By Crystal Smith

                                       Give Hell a Chance

AT RISE:  SATAN, wearing a business suit and red tie, is passing out brochures to a group of angels.  There is an open briefcase on the table next to him.

SATAN

I know what you’re thinking and I don’t blame you.  You have every right to be suspicious…so although the name-calling was a bit unnecessary, I won’t hold it against you.  I’m not here to cause trouble…all I’m asking for is two minutes of your time.  Just two minutes, and then I’ll never bother you again.  You have my word.

(clearing his throat)

Now, I know you’ve always been told that you live in the greatest place in the world…a paradise, if you will.  And I won’t disagree with that…but I do want you to be aware of your options.  So please just try to keep an open mind as I tell you about another utopia…

(dramatic pause)

Hell!  I realize that Hell is known as a horrible place of misery and suffering, but if you look through the brochures I’ve given you, I think you’ll see that everything you thought you knew about Hell is untrue.  I know you all worship God, and I respect that.  You think you can trust him, and why shouldn’t you?  Well, I’ll tell you why…he lied to you!

(collective gasp from the angels)

Why would he lie, you might ask?  It’s simple really-he’s jealous of me.  There was a time when we were friends…but our friendship ended the way most friendships do.  God and I were inseparable until about two thousand years ago-that’s when she came into our lives.  I was standing at the gates as I did every day, deciding who to let in.  It had been a disappointing day so far-business was slow and I was getting restless.  But then I saw her standing there, an angel in a white halter top and skintight leather pants.  Her name was Sapphire and she was a dancer.  She wasn’t on the list, but I said I’d let her in anyway…if she would let me take her out to dinner. 

(taking a deep breath)

When God found out, he demoted me-he said that I broke the rules and that Heaven was no place for a girl like her…until he saw her and decided he wanted her for himself.  He started buying her jewelry and naming planets after her, but she wasn’t interested, so he kicked both of us out of Heaven.  He’s never really gotten over the fact that she picked me over him.  He has devoted his entire life to making me look bad…and I’m not a bad guy!  He’s told so many lies about me that everyone thinks I’m this awful person…and none of it is true!  I don’t eat babies or steal people’s souls…  And I don’t care what anyone says, I am not responsible for Freddie Prinze Jr.’s acting career-I can’t believe that so many people think I’m capable of such evil!  Every time something bad happens, I get blamed for it…all because God can’t let go of some little thing that happened two thousand years ago.

(pause; he regains his composure)

But I digress…  I know what you all think, but I’m here to tell you that Hell is not the torturous world it has been made out to be.  It is in fact a happy place…just like Hawaii!

(gradually becoming more animated)

In Hell, the weather is warm and the fun never ends!  You’ll love our refreshing spa, where you’ll have access to hot springs, saunas, and an Olympic-size swimming pool!  Or you can work out in the gym-our state-of-the-art facilities are quite impressive…believe me, you’ll have no problem sweating off those extra pounds!  We also have our own amusement park, Satan’s Fiery Pit of Fun, which includes plenty of rides, as well as an arcade, petting zoo, and miniature golf course!  Check out our world-famous casino, voted number one for the fourth consecutive year by Travel Magazine!  You can even start your day off at the bar if you’d like-here in Hell, no one judges you for drinking before noon!  Have you ever dreamed of meeting a celebrity?  Well, then come on down!  Rock stars, actors, world leaders…we’ve got tons of them!  And let’s not forget Karaoke Thursday!

So as you can see, Hell is the real paradise…it’s the Jamaica of the afterlife!  If you still aren’t convinced…have I got an offer for you!  The first thirty days are free of charge, and once the trial period is up, you can go back to Heaven if you are not one hundred percent satisfied!  No strings attached! Give Hell a chance-what have you got to lose?

This is a once-in-a-lifetime offer, so you better act fast!  You could be making the biggest mistake of your life if you let this opportunity pass you by!

(long beat)

Would I lie to you?

(The lights fade to black.)

Copyright ©2002

By Crystal Smith