DINA GOES TO SAFARI JUNGLE
by Dina Kelberman

CHARACTERS (in order of appearance)
DINA, a girl
PALM TREE, a palm tree
TIGER, a tiger
LION, a lion named darl
ELEPHANT, an elephant
OTHER ELEPHANTS & ELEPHANTS, the elephants besides ELEPHANT
WATERFALL, a whispering waterfall that takes the cake
SOMEONE, a person

ACT I

DINA: My, this safari weather sure is very hot!
PALM TREE: You’ve got it!
DINA: I can barely keep this pith helmet on!
PALM TREE: It’s very flattering on you.
DINA: Thank you.

ACT II
TIGER: Heads up, Lion!
LION: Fuck!
TIGER: You so dead.
LION: I shall strike you down with my ferocious blows!
The Tiger puts the Lion’s head in his mouth.
TIGER: Now this is what it is!
The Lion cries.


ACT III
LION: Get over here!
ELEPHANT: Oh dear!
LION: That’s right! Now you’ll get yours!
TIGER: The tops!
ELEPHANT: This is tragedy!
LION: I’ve got you in my grasp for good, Elly!
ELEPHANT: O-Harm!
The Lion puts the elephant’s nose in his mouth. Bear
in mind during this scene that the Lion’s head is
still in the Tiger’s mouth so it’s really quite a
bundle, those three.

ACT IV
Dina comes upon the three guys.
DINA: Holy crap!
TIGER: Get out!
LION: You’ve seen too much! Grrrrrr!
TIGER: I’ve got everything under control.
DINA: This is FAR OUT.
ELEPHANT: Please save me.
DINA: I have a certain asleep fondness for elephants,
as I was once very interested and studied in them,
when a child. Also, I had an elephant collection,
which is still in my attic at my parent’s house and,
among other things, features a 10 year old elephant
made out of a potato.
LION: There’s no way.
Dina somehow rescues the elephant.
ACT V
ELEPHANT: I know not how to sufficiently repay you.
DINA: Oh boy.
OTHER ELEPHANTS: You have saved that one elephant from
certain doom!
DINA: T’weren’t nothin’.
OTHER ELEPHANTS: I proclaim you to be the new QUEEN OF
THE ELEPHANTS!
DINA: What a thing to happen! How will this play out?
OTHER ELEPHANTS: Get her the queen of the elephants
hat!
The hat comes into play.
DINA: I wonder how I look in this hat.
ELEPHANTS: You of course look ravishing, you doll.
DINA: Thank you.
SOMEONE: Remember when you were a kid and you read
that giant book about elephants and you were so proud
of yourself for having read such a big book for such a
little book report? And how you felt like you were
way better than everyone else? And also how in the
book one of the elephants got siphilus and it had
graphic descriptions of the elephant’s green, rotting
dick?
DINA: Yup.

ACT VI
DINA: Not much happening.
LION: Coo! Coo!
DINA: Is that a gentle dove I hear?
They fall in love in a great SWOOP.
DINA: This presents some problems for me,
politics-wise.
LION: Banish yourself away with me! Leave your queen
of the elephants hat behind! Let’s dart to the jungle
together!
DINA: Darest I leave such pleasentries behind me? And
also the implications of tratoring!
LION: THIS IS SURELY THE STORY OF THE AGES.


ACT VII
With a whispering waterfall that takes the cake.
DINA: sighs
WATERFALL: Sweet princess, what is your sob story?
Rest your sorrows upon my wat’ry ear.
DINA: Hmmm.
WATERFALL: Truly, my sweet, sweet butterdrop, you must
wish to flee your troubles from thier heartstring
bindings? Tell of your woes to me, I will wash them
up.
DINA: This is the old lion/elephants contest.
WATERFALL: Sounds to me like someone’s got a case of
the me’s.

ACT VIII
They reflect on the recent comings up.
ELEPHANTS: This has happened, and we’ll better have
war about it.
LION: My pride! My leige! A mighty sword behath me!
ELEPHANTS: It’s our feelings for each other that make
us act this way.
LION: Yessir!
ELEPHANTS: We will bash each other to smithereens
maybe!
DINA: Oh jeez! I’m really caught up in the middle of
this crazy situation!

ACT IX
TIGER: Boo!
LION: Wait!
ELEPHANTS: Ah!
TIGER: Hi. I came over to delcare war on you two.
LION & ELEPHANTS: Both us two?
TIGER: Yes, and for a reason.
LION & ELEPHANTS: Well isn’t that an odd coincidence!
TIGER: The reason is politically charged.
LION & ELEPHANTS: Crazy!
TIGER: Ya’ll just keep on takin’ my shit apart!
LION: This situation is unprecedented and way out
there!

ACT X
LION: Well, it seems that we are now on the same side
of a coin.
ELEPHANTS: Word.
LION: Isn’t that something.
ELEPHANTS: And to think! Of before! You know? How
we were going to fight each other? But then the tiger
came over and we ended paired up? It really makes you
think.
LION: It’s really something.
ELEPHANTS: I know!
LION: It’s seriously really something.
ACT XI
DINA: Although I am very flattered and you are
indebted to me eternally, I have found that I must
relenquish my hat.
ELEPHANTS: We understand.
The elephants are no longer in the play.
DINA: I must return to my own kind of people, Darl.
LION: But what of our love?
DINA: That was a whisp of a dream which floated away
in the wind.
Spotlight on Palm Tree. Dramatic!
PALM TREE: It seems that we, gentle travellers, have
come upon a conclusion not so foreign as our selves
would have us suspect. This cosmic journey is tight
around our skin, stuck firmly to everything around us
with the glue of eternity. life? The stars glide on,
feathers flap through the jungle leaves and yet . . .?
This is all we can hope to be. But as for me,
comrades, I choose to see things a little. .
.differently.
Palm Tree puts his hands in his pockets and saunters
offstage, whistling a saucy tune.
A beautiful songs plays.


THE END