% Demo file for using ScriptTex 1.03%version

% This isn't a particularly exciting script, but it is demonstrative of what
% you can do with ScriptTex.

\input ../screenplay.tex

% optional \twoside
% optional \jlbrooks

\TV % or \movie (\TV is default)
\proof % or \manuscript or \shoot  (\proof is default)

\series{}  % Optional
\title{Boreoeutheria} % used on title page and in \proof footlines
\author{Joseph Mack} % used on title page and in \proof footlines
\basedon{based on a chapter on tenrecs in "The Song of the Dodo"}
\draft{First draft} % used only if \proof is in force
%\date{25-OCT-1991}  % defaults to \today
\showcopyright{\number\year}
\address{5112 Longwood Dr \\
         Durham, NC, 27713-8010 \\
         (919) 401-2047\\
         jmack@wm7d.net}

\maketitle % creates a title page

%%%%
%%%% Main script begins here.
%%%% For the first part of this script, I won't take advantage of any synonyms
%%%% or shortcuts.
%%%%

%\act % 

%\open{fade in}

\stage
Females

\introduce{Messenger}

\introduce{Believer} wants to believe there are males with external testicals. 
sweet and pleasant.

\introduce{Sceptic} doesn't think there are males with external testicals. 
incredulous and critical. thinks the other two females are stupid.

\stage
Males

\introduce{MC} can become Male\_1 after reading the introduction.

\introduce{Male\_1, Male\_2} have internal testicals (appear to have no testicals)

\introduce{Male\_3} has external testicals

\act % 

\open{fade in}

\scene{ext.\ day}

\stage
The three males are upstage with males in numerical order 
left to right, as in a lineup.
None of the males speak.

\stage
Male\_1 and Male\_2 are trying very hard to be attractive to the females.
I suggest they pose like Arnold.
Maybe Male\_1 and Male\_2 can be weedy guys,
so that their posing looks comedic.

\stage
Male\_3 is nonchalant, doing things like looking at his watch, 
reading a book, sipping coffee, looking at his cell phone.
For casting, pick Male\_3 as a person the audience 
knows and likes, 
or will accept as a popular romantic figure, 
that the women will like 
and the males won't feel threatened by.
Gerald would be good for this.
A happy gay guy would do too.
Anyone who is a contrast to the guys posing like Arnold will do.

\stage
Believer and Sceptic centerstage,
act as background to the MC.
The stage-converse animatedly, 
but do not make any sounds.

\stage
MC downstage

\dialog{MC}
As I'm sure everyone here knows,
humans, being primates, belong to the clade Boreoeutheria, 
or northern placentals.
Naturally, being Boreoeutherians,
everything about Boreoeutherians is of interest to us.

\dialog{MC}
However to have any hope 
of understanding our Boreoeutherian nature,
you need a thorough background in
taxonomy, phylogeny, and natural selection.

\dialog{MC}
Still, taxonomy, phylogeny and natural selection are fiercely complicated concepts.
They are so complicated, 
that you need a PhD in life sciences to have any hope of understanding them.
Fortunately, I {\bf have} a PhD in life sciences, 
and in order to help you follow this piece, 
I've prepared a comprehensive tutorial on the subject, 
explaining everything you need to know.

\dialog{MC}
So here we go. Are you ready?

\dialog{MC}
\paren{reading like an academic lecture}
Since the days of Linnaeus,
the taxonomy of mammals had changed little. 
Mammalian taxonomy was based on anatomy,
in particular the very different 
and complicated female reproductive systems of mammals.
An understanding of the mammalian female reproductive system 
had allowed taxonomists
to easily assign mammals to orders, families, genus and species.

\dialog{MC}
Of course, as we all know, the male reproductive system is much simpler
and varies little between mammals.
It is no surprise then, that the male reproductive system
had proved of little value in understanding taxonomic relationships. 

\dialog{MC}
Recently, information from DNA sequencing has revealed 
a different and clearer set of relationships between the mammals.
This new understanding has overturned the previous anatomy based Linnaean taxonomy,
and now humans belong to the large clade of Boreoeutheria
or northern placentals. 

\dialog{MC}
Consequently this new clade, the Boreoeutheria, 
contains groupings of mammals, 
not previously thought to be related,
There was much head scratching amongst taxonomists
looking for the anatomical features
that might unify the Boreoeutheria.
It was clear that the female reproductive system
was not the unifying anatomical feature.

\dialog{MC}
Then one day, 
someone realised that all the Boreoeutherian males 
had external testicals.

\stage
MC pauses for effect

\dialog{MC}
Today we go to the Serengeti,
back in the time of the Cretaceous, 
to find out what happened,
at that critical and decisive moment in our evolutionary history,
that provided the Darwinian selection,
to produce the first Boreoeutherians.

\stage
MC pauses for effect

\stage
MC walks off stage, or assumes role of Male\_1. 
Male\_1 and Male\_2 
give each other high 5's and look contemptuously at Male\_3,
then start posing ernestly like Arnold.
Male\_3 confidently ignores them and looks nonchalant.

\dialog{Believer}
\paren{romantically remembering}
Thagg came around last night.
For dinner, he brought this huge lizard.
It was so big, he had to carry it over his shoulder.
It was a paleosaurus.
I love paleosaurus; it's my favourite.
We just sat around and talked, 
while the paleosaurus roasted in the fire.
For dessert, we had dodo eggs that I'd collected in the morning.
It was a wonderful romantic evening together.

\stage
Messenger bursts on stage and rushes over to join the other two females

\dialog{Messenger}
\paren{incredulous}
Guess what! 
Zelda just told me that she spent the night with a guy.
You won't believe it, but he had a pair!!

\dialog{Believer}
\paren{hopefully}
No! ... Do you mean ... a pair ... of balls?

\dialog{Sceptic}
Oh come on!!!
They don't exist.
We heard that, all through grade school.
It was just a bunch of Fairy Tales. 

\stage
Messenger and Believer take little notice of Sceptic's imprecations.
They suddenly have other things on their mind.

\dialog{Messenger}
That's what she said.

\dialog{Sceptic}
There's no such thing!
They were all just jokes or lies!

\dialog{Believer}
Maybe you could introduce me.
He sounds like someone I'd like to get to know.

\dialog{Sceptic}
Oh get real!
No males have a pair.
Everything we heard back then was lies!
Remember, you were supposed to get pregnant if
you kissed a boy when you were having your period!
They tried to scare us to death.
Nothing we heard back then was real!

\dialog{Messenger}
No hope. I thought the same thing.
She won't tell me who he is or where he lives.

\dialog{Sceptic}
Listen, I checked out all the boys back in grade school,
while you two were still playing with dolls!

\dialog{Believer}
I checked out my Ken doll. 
I was most disappointed.
It was the first thing I did when I got him.
...
The boys are grown up now;
maybe things are different. 

\dialog{Sceptic}
There was nothing there to grow up!
Believe me, I looked!

\dialog{Messenger}
Well it won't hurt to check.
Maybe things are different now.
All men should have a pair.

\dialog{Sceptic}
Oh for goodness sakes.
Males only have a pair in Fairy Tales.

\stage
Messenger and Believer approach Male\_1.
Sceptic goes back too, but stands to the side
as if she doesn't want to have anything to do with it.

\dialog{Messenger}
\paren{to Male\_1}
OK relax. We're just here to have a look around.

\stage
Male\_1 stands still.
Male\_2 continues to pose but takes an interest in
what's happening to Male\_1.

\stage
Male\_3 ignores it all and continues to look nonchalant.

\stage
Messenger pulls back Male\_1's elastic waisted
gym shorts to peer down the front.
Male\_1 looks puzzled.
Once she's done so,
Believer pulls back the elastic too, 
so there's enough room for them both to look at the same time.
Both peer around for quite a while 
(enough to make the audience laugh)
so it's obvious that they're having a really good look,
but can't find what they're looking for.

\stage
Both Messenger and Believer slowly give up,
look at each other silently as if to say "oh well",
shrug their shoulders, 
and let the elastic of the gym shorts gently back onto Male\_1's body.
The women give a "no thanks" wave to Male\_1.

\dialog{Sceptic}
See! Toldya!
There's no Easter Bunny or Santa Claus either.
It's your parents.

\stage
Messenger and Believer move to Male\_2.

\stage
Male\_1 looks surprised and wonders why they passed him by.
Starts posing again but gives up, 
realising none of the women are interested in him.
He looks over to see what happens to Male\_2.

\stage
Male\_2 poses hard to impress

\dialog{Messenger}
\paren{to Male\_2}
OK you can relax too. 
We're just looking around.

\stage
Male\_2 stops posing and stands straight.

\stage
Messenger and Believer investigate Male\_2's gym shorts
just as they did for Male\_1.

\dialog{Sceptic}
\paren{palms her forehead, or whatever a woman would do here}
See!

\stage
Messenger and Believer move to Male\_3, 
who continues to look nonchalant,
but now cheerily welcomes the attention of the women.

\stage
Male\_1 and Male\_2 look incredulously at each other
and can't believe they've been passed up.

\stage
Messenger and Believer repeat the steps from the previous
two males, but quickly are wreathed in smiles.
They look over to Sceptic to get her to come over and look.

\dialog{Sceptic}
What? You're not kidding me are you?

\stage
she runs over and peers into the held open gym shorts.

\dialog{Sceptic}
Oh I can't believe it,
after all these years thinking it wasn't true.
Fairy Tales {\bf DO} come true.
He's ours girls!

\stage
The three women hug Male\_3 and scream like they were at a Beatles concert.

\stage
Male\_3 looks cheery and happy.

\stage
Male\_1 and Male\_2 can't believe what just happened.

\stage

\fadeout
\stage
-----------------------------------------------------

\stage
Author's comments:

\stage
In "The Song of the Dodo" (1996) David Quammen, Touchstone NY, ISBN 0-684-80083-7, 
2nd chapter, talks about tenrecs.
These are mouse sized mammals in Madagascar.
Knowing next to nothing about tenrecs,
but having heard of them and realising I probably should know what they were, 
I looked in wikipedia.
I found their nearest
relative to be the african elephant.

\stage
You get used to surprises like this in biology.
However even though I'm used to being surprised,
I was more than surprised to find this out.
I thought I knew all the elephants.

\stage
It turns out that the african elephant belongs to the clade
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrotheria
Afrotheria (african placentals).
I'd never heard of Afrotheria.
It's a clade, a new clade, first proposed in 1998.

\stage
Starting in the 1990s,
advances in DNA sequencing 
have resulted in a new understanding of taxonomy.
The taxonomy I learned in the '60's has been abandonned. 
We (humans) now belong to the clade
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boreoeutheria
Boreoeutheria (northern placentals or northern beasts),
which originated in the late Cretaceous
in the northern continent of Laurasia, 
which consisted of North America, Greenland, and Eurasia 
(including Southeast Asia).
Other mammalian clades I'd never heard of are
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenarthra.
There is a cladogram in
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boreoeutheria
showing Atlantogenata, Xenarthra, Afrotheria, 
Boreoeutheria, Laurasiatheria, Euarchontoglires.

\stage
In the old anatomy based taxonomy, tenrecs weren't elephants,
but now they're in the same clade as elephants.

\stage
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euarchontoglires).
The earlier taxonomy was based on anatomical features,
but so far, few if any anatomical features that support the clades,
e.g. the clade Euarchontoglires, have been recognized.
Nor does any strong anatomical evidence support alternative hypotheses.
It seems that anatomy is not a good predictor 
of the clade to which the creature belongs.

\stage
The background information, 
on which this piece is based, 
that all boreoeutherians have external testicals,
is a little stretched;
the Cetaceans and the Rhinocerotidae,
both Boreoeutherians, have internal testicals.

\stage
The premise of this piece, 
that women are interested in or like men's bodies,
is a little dubious.
Women don't seem to like men's bodies in the way
that men are attracted to women's bodies.
Whether this is intrinsic, 
or the result of growing up
through years of sexism and being treated as sex objects, 
is not clear to me.
Here I've cast the women with the power, 
and they select their mates.
I don't know if that helps resolve the issue of whether women
like men's bodies or not.

\stage
Thanks to Guy for his suggestion, 
to set the stage back in prehistoric times,
by having the two women discuss their romantic lives, 
before Messenger starts the scene.

\stage
Thanks to Yoram Bauman for the bit about having a PhD
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVp8UGjECt4).

\stage
Thanks to Gary Larson for the cavemen name, "Thagg".

\stage
I showed this to Anoo and not being a biologist and not knowing
anything about phylogeny, she didn't get it.
She wanted it rewritten so that theatre people,
who know no biology would have it explained to them along the way.
She wanted someone to be comedically doing sign language,
like Greg sometimes does at Transactors shows.
She also wanted me to tell the audience why I'd written the piece.
To me, the audience doesn't care why the author wrote the piece.
They get whatever they get out of it.
However I wrote the piece because I thought it would 
be funny for women to have played a role in the selection
of men's bodies and for women to be interested in 
and discussing men's bodies in public. 
(It's likely that men played a role in selecting
large breasts in women.)


\stage
I rewrote it Anoo's way, but it seemed like much of
the piece was now written for people who didn't get it.
I decided that it was pointless to perform a piece
in front of an audience who wouldn't get it.
Instead, here I've returned the piece to the way it was before
I showed it to Anoo.

\stage
Anoo did not pick up on the lies involved 
in the females character's lives
and skeptic's role in pointing them out.
This is the backbone of the counselling I do.
I want people to see the lies on which their lives are built.

\theend

%%%% Always end with \bye.
\bye % cleans up and exits
