from Basho’s Phonebook
Three One Act Performances
by Travis Macdonald
Program Front:
Program Back:
Program Back Inside:
Furu ike ya
kawazu tobikomu
mizu no oto
-Matsuo Basho
Cast of Characters:
DT Suzuki
Nobuyuki Yuasa
Makoto Ueda
Stage Directions: All audience members, with assurances that they will never be sold or used for commercial purposes, are encouraged to provide the performer(s) with their mobile phone numbers prior to the performance in order to achieve maximum effect.
ACT ONE
DT Suzuki:
444:66:8:666: 8:44:33: 2:66:222:444:33:66:8: 7:666:66:3:
2: 333:777:666:4: 5:88:6:7:7777:
9:2:8:33:777[’]7777: 7777:666:88:66:3[!]
ACT TWO
Nobuyuki Yuasa:
22:777:33:2:55:444:66:4: 8:44:33: 7777:444:555:33:66:222:33:
666:333: 2:66: 2:66:222:444:33:66:8: 7:666:66:3[,]
2: 333:777:666:4: 5:88:6:7:33:3: 444:66:8:666: 9:2:8:33:777 [—]
2: 3:33:33:7: 777:33:7777:666:66:2:66:222:33[.]
ACT THREE
Makoto Ueda:
8:44:33: 666:555:3: 7:666:66:3: [—]
2: 333:777:666:4: 555:33:2:7:7777: 444:66[,]
2:66:3: 2: 7777:7:555:2:7777:44[.]
Travis Macdonald keeps his back to advertising and his eyes on Sallie Mae and her hungry dogs. When the dogs are sleeping or distracted, he sometimes manages to make words do his bidding. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming from The American Drivel Review, Anemone Sidecar, The Bathroom, Bombay Gin, Columbia Poetry Review, CounterExample Poetics, Court Green, Cricket Online Review, Ditch, e-ratio, Hot Whiskey, Jacket, Matter, Misunderstandings, Other Rooms, Otoliths, Source Material, WE magazine, Wheelhouse, and elsewhere. In his spare time, he co-edits Fact-Simile Editions in Santa Fe, New Mexico.