LYMAN: How do you propose to remove this wall, Grover?

GROVER: Easiest thing in the world if you’ve got the right tools, isn’t that so, Steve?

STEVE: I guess so — if you’ve got the right tools.

GROVER: Mm. Let me see. It shouldn’t take but three or four hours to take the whole thing down; patch up the paint and rough spots, and throw out the crud in that room.

LYMAN: But how?

GROVER? How? That’s the least of it. Nowadays they’ve got all kinds of machinery for crap like that. They’ve got these small bulldozers — isn’t that right, Steve?

STEVE: How would you get a bulldozer in here, Grover?

GROVER: Let’s see. Ah, that’s it. We’d remove the front window. Nowadays they’ve got demolition units rigged just like those snow removal outfits that melt the snow and cart it off as water. With that kind of unit we could get the wall down in two seconds flat, and then we apply this huge suction unit —

STEVE: And you’ll cart it all off as liquid plaster, wood, nails —

GROVER: That’s right! And while we’re on that front window —

DAN: Have you gone out of your mind, Grover? Why are you talking about tearing this place apart three weeks before our party? I thought there were all kinds of other questions —

LAMIA (to Anastasia) Who’s that?

ANASTASIA (whispers to Lamia): Another crank.

DAN: Another what?

BEN (who sits near Anastasia — loudly): Another crank!

OLYMPIA: Dan, do you think we should never make changes in the space where we live and work?

GROVER: Somehow we got into this other subject, Dan, and the fact is that Lyman here has a whole theory about that picture window.

LYMAN: I wouldn’t exactly call it a theory. It’s my feeling that if you’re going to use this room as a display area, the presence of that window defeats your purpose.

DAN: If we’re going to do what?

GROVER: What Lyman means is this, Dan. With that window there, we can’t focus the spectator’s eye on our work. Now if I had my business laid out oft those shelves, I sure as hell wouldn’t want the spectator’s eyes wandering off to look at the landscape!

DONNA: But you had them remove my plants because you said you wanted more light.

GROVER: That’s right, Donna, but that was years ago, and I forgot it would be natural light that streamed through that window. What art needs is artificial light.

TONI: Grover, you are such an incredible bullshit artist —

OLYMPIA: Is that really true, Toni? I hear Grover trying to make the commune’s expositions even livelier and more meaningful than the first one —

GROVER: Holy shit! I’ve got an appointment ten minutes ago! If anyone gets that demolition equipment be sure to let me know; I’d like to be in on that. (Grover exits left)

BEN: That’s the sickest farce I’ve ever seen.

ANASTASIA (to Olympia): Who’s he?

BEN: Yet another crank, lady. This place is infested.

OLYMPIA: I don’t understand what you’re calling a farce, Ben. We’ve been discussing improvements that have been needed for at least five years, and I personally think the various suggestions are creative and exciting.

TONI: Even though you know it’s all bullshit.

OLYMPIA: Do you think it’s bullshit, Toni, to improve the space where we spend most of our working hours?

BEN: I don’t want to get sucked into the debate about the walls; I have my own opinion about its significance.

OLYMPIA: Could you give all of us a glimpse — ?

BEN: No, I couldn’t, Olympia. Something else bugs me. I thought there were some things we all took for granted. I thought some things were repulsive to all of us. I thought we made certain compromises only in order to survive. Recently I learned —

PHILIP: If this is the beginning of another arid political debate, I’m leaving.

OLYMPIA: Wait a minute, Philip. I’d like to know what Ben learned recently.

BEN: I heard you were applying for a State grant to the arts.

BARRY: Where did you hear that?

DAN: Cut the innocent act, Barry. I heard about that grant over a year ago.

OLYMPIA: Ben, you seem so agitated. I’ve never seen you like this. Are you really so upset about a nonexistent grant, or are there Bother things?

PHILIP: Perhaps your own political frustrations, Ben?

DONNA: I don’t understand what’s going on. Olympia, you talked to me about such a grant two years ago. I didn’t see what was wrong with accepting it. But why are you three acting as if Ben were crazy?

OLYMPIA: Oh, Donna, I didn’t know you were here. Yes, that’s just the point. All the people in this room have been talking about that grant for the past two years. That’s why I don’t understand Ben’s surprise, his sudden agitation.

TONI: Two years! Then how come this is the first time I’ve heard anything about it?

BARRY: Where have you been, Toni?

SHARON: I haven’t heard about it either.

OLYMPIA: Well, now everyone is acting as if I’m crazy. Dan and Donna seem to have known all about it.

TONI: Who else knew all about it?”

OLYMPIA: Apparently everyone in the community except you, Toni. I myself discussed this question with almost everyone in this room.

BARRY: I don’t see the relevance of this discussion.

BEN: Do the world a favor by dropping the word “community,” Olympia. Your newest circle of friends, concerned as they are with our displaying and marketing our commodities — that’s not community; it’s the exact opposite.

OLYMPIA: You’re hurting people’s feelings, Ben.

BEN: A state subsidized art business — that’s not community; that’s what tears community to shreds, which has been happening right here; it’s like that demolition machine Grover invented earlier.

OLYMPIA: Are you finished?

BARRY: You don’t even know what you’re talking about, Ben, and this isn’t either the time or the place —

TONI: When is?

PHILIP: Labyrinthine, that’s what this discussion is. Byzantine. Ben, you sound just like a political crank resurrected from the sixties.

OLYMPIA: Surely you’re exaggerating, Philip. But honestly, Ben, your outburst certainly does seem irrational and unmotivated. The fact is, and you know it, we’ve never received any type of grant from the State and we’re rot getting such a grant now.

BARRY: Which means, Ben, that there’s nothing to discuss, and you’ve been wasting everyone’s time.

DAN: What happened? Did the State turn you down?

OLYMPIA: Why Dan, I don’t understand your tone. You thought the grant such a great idea when I discussed it with you.

DAN: I — I hadn’t thought out its implications.

LYMAN: Excuse me for intervening on this matter, but this debate seems to be taking place in a vacuum. Many people here seem to be unaware that there are no implications to this grant, there are absolutely no strings attached. And secondly, we did not get turned down. Many of the commune’s programs are eligible for funds earmarked for precisely such programs. We didn’t receive a grant for this fiscal year only because we submitted the application too late —

BARRY: Lyman, this isn’t the time or the place for that —

OLYMPIA: I’m thoroughly confused. Your words to me, Dan — I don’t remember them exactly — were: “What’s wrong with us ripping off the State for some bread if we can get away with it?”

DAN: I guess the verb tripped me up. I should have asked: What’s wrong with us being financed by the State.

OLYMPIA: I don’t see the difference.

DAN: It’s what Ben was trying to say. You get so you depend on the State to support a community independent of the State, and finally you make friends with bureaucrats like these two dudes to help you apply for larger grants.

PHILIP: I won’t have you insulting our friends, Dan. They have as much right in this community as you do, and it so happens I’ve felt more comfortable working with them than I ever felt with you.

TONI: When will you introduce us to the rest of your community, Philip — the politicians on the city council, the corporation directors?

PHILIP: I haven’t met any of them yet.

BEN: But you’ll call them the community as soon as you meet them.

PHILIP: I’m not able to contend with this harangue of political rhetoric, and its volume hurts my ears. I take it that the meeting is over.

(LYMAN, ANASTASIA, EARL & LAMIA exit left)