SPRING BREAK: OYMYAKON! (A PLAY IN ONE ACT)
INT. RAMADA INN, ROOM 705: DAY 1
[Three men and a little lady are gathered around a small table in a motel room. One man makes notes onto a dry erase board, as the other three pay close attention.]
TOLSTOY*: Alright you guys, this is a big deal- BIG! Of all of the 500 people who could have been chosen in this entire town, we got picked to act as “Spring Break Committee Team 2015,” you guys, we! I mean, us! This is a huge responsibility and I do not intend to take it lightly, are you with me?
LENIN: I have to pick up my girlfriend at four. Do you think we’ll be done by four?
MCCARTNEY, clearly annoyed, chuckles.
LENIN: What?
MCCARTNEY: Nothing.
OKSANA BAIUL: I don’t know you guys, do you really think this is gonna work?
TOLSTOY: This is what’s gonna put us on the map you guys, this is our ticket to the big time right here! Now we just gotta put our heads together and think. If we could just come up with one cool line to hook them I think the kids might be like “Cancun who?”
MCCARTNEY: Who?
TOLSTOY: Exactly! I used the Google website to look into this “spring break” phenomenon and it seems to be quite the “cray” as people are apparently saying over there these days.
MCCARTNEY: Oh we should ask Lenin’s girlfriend to help us then, she knows all about cray.
LENIN: Real nice. Or maybe we could just play that Christmas song McCartney wrote and just drive everyone cray instead. We could just do that, too!
[LENIN and MCCARTNEY stare at one another like alpha dogs for a solid three minutes, uninterrupted, as the others watch. A bird flies into the window, snapping everyone out of their trance.]
OKSANA BAIUL: I don’t know if you understand the allure of spring break, according to the Google website-
TOLSTOY: www.google.com?
OKSANA BAIUL: Yes, it’s the same Google website, I checked. Anyway, kids like to use spring break for having parties and going to the beach. Apparently there is the occasional Jesus person who does volunteering but I think even their parents think they’re annoying, so whatever. Either way, it’s not looking good for us, guys.
TOLSTOY: Alright, so maybe we live in the coldest city on the face of the Earth. And maybe not many people are willing to fly 10 hours, then drive two days through the mountains to come to a city that at one time saw temperatures as low as -89 degrees Fahrenheit. But there’s another maybe I’m just not willing to... not consider, and that’s the possibility that maybe- just maybe- this is the year Oymyakon, Russia finally blows that cocky showoff Daytona Beach right off the stupid map!
OKSANA BAIUL: You know what Tolstoy, you got me! We’ve spent far too many years being known only as the coldest city on Earth, it’s time the rest of the world see us let our hair down and go totally “craze!”
TOLSTOY: Yes! That’s the spirit! This shouldn’t even be that hard, there are tons of awesome, fun things about Oymyakon, Russia that would totally attract a group of early-twentysomethings. Lenin, call your girlfriend, we’re all gonna be outta here in no time!
[Six and a half hours later.]
TOLSTOY: We could play on the fact that we’re the coldest city on Earth? You know, use it to our advantage?
OKSANA BAIUL: I think we should kill ourselves.
TOLSTOY: Yes! That’ll surely get some media buzz around this place, good thinking Oksana!
LENIN: Not it!
OKSANA BAIUL: No, I didn’t mean... let’s just... okay, maybe we need to think about what the crowds want and meet their needs. What do the kids do on spring break?
MCCARTNEY: I heard from somewhere that they like to do volunteering.
TOLSTOY: It looks like they like screaming with their tops off and drinking water beer. It all looks very sexy.
MCCARTNEY: You look very sexy, boo.
TOLSTOY: Not here! What have I said about mixing business with pleasure? Besides it being a super exciting sexual fantasy of mine?
OKSANA BAIUL: That’s it! Sex! Sex sells!
TOLSTOY: “Oymyakon: Warm up with some sex!” “Oymyakon: It’s really, REALLY cold, but you can still have sex with each other!”
LENIN: Chips! Kids love sex and chips! And God knows we’ve got the potatoes.
TOLSTOY: “Oymyakon: Come for the sex, stay for the chips!”
OKSANA BAIUL: No chips, let’s just stick with the sex angle, I think we’ve got something there.
MCCARTNEY: “Oymyakon: All sex, NO chips!”
TOLSTOY: “Oymyakon: Give us a (spring) break, PLEASE come here, even just one of you. All I have in this entire lonely world is one ox and like, 13 wool sweaters. Sometimes I get calls from a Moscow area code that I answer even though I know it’s just a debt collector. When I answer he’s like ‘Hello, is this Mr.-” and as soon as he looks at the name he just hangs up on account of that one time I insisted on talking about Northern Exposure for almost 45 minutes. Please.”
[TOLSTOY has emotional breakdown; cries inconsolably for upwards of 20 minutes.]
[All four look at one another.]
OKSANA BAIUL: Yeah, I’m fine with that.
LENIN: Yeah, sounds good, let’s go.
MCCARTNEY: Can you at least write, “All sex, NO chips!” on the board, please?
*Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.
