Follow Us
Drama Around the Globe
  • Home
  • About
  • Maerten van Heemskerck
  • Contact
  • Articles
  • Books
    • Academic >
      • Barrymore Handbook
      • Distortions
      • Germans in English Short Stories
      • How to develop professionalism among student writers
      • Literary Exile in the Twentieth Century >
        • Stefan Heym
        • Hans Henny Jahnn
        • Hermann Kesten
        • Else Lasker-Schüler
        • Heinrich Mann
        • Stefan Zweig
      • Writer Perception, Writer Projection
      • Wuppertal- Bethel Exchange Program
    • Creative >
      • Iran, Iran: Secret Poetry--an introduction
      • Iran, Iran: Secret Poetry samples
      • Who's Afraid of Noam Chomsky?
      • WriteWriteRewrite
      • Workbook Poetry
      • Kreative Schocks, Creative Shocks
    • Educational >
      • Aristotle's Word Processor
  • Drama
    • Plays >
      • A Doll's Confession
      • Alan Lost in Boston
      • "Beat me, Beat me!"
      • Canterbury Tales
      • Encounters
      • Happy Shalom
      • Mah Own Constitution
      • Mendelssohn Does Not Live Here Anymore
      • Metronome Ticking
      • Private Moments
      • Rent-controlled Apartment in the Village
      • The Americans are Coming
      • The Astrologer
      • The Funeral: A comedy
      • The Girl on the Other Side of the Fence
      • The Rehearsal
      • Van Gogh's Jewish Daughter
      • Victorian Holiday
      • Vow of Silence
    • Rescued Jewish Theater
    • Videos
  • Essays
    • Education Essays >
      • How to develop professionalism
    • Language Essays >
      • Language
    • Literature Essays >
      • Literature
  • Film
    • Private Moments
    • The Americans are Coming
    • Victorian Holiday
  • German
    • Artikel
    • Biographie
    • Bücher
    • Gedichte
    • Geschichten
    • Schauspiele
  • Interviews
  • Poetry
    • Poem Blog
    • America
    • Friends
    • Humor
    • Passion
    • Tributes
    • War Zones
  • Reviews
  • Satires
    • Satire Blog
  • Stories
    • Stories Blog
    • Stories: Europe
    • Black Shoe Polish
    • Santa Claus on an Overcrowded Train
    • Stories: America
    • A stained-glass window that no longer allows light to come through
    • Free Italian chandelier
    • Old Tibetan carpet dealer visiting the U.S.
    • Stories: Asia
  • Translations
    • Translations: Dramas >
      • La Ronde, Henrik Eger translation
    • Translations: Stories >
      • The Message of the Christmas Night
      • Spoerl, Waiting. Warten.
  • Translations: Misc.
  • Workshops
  • Individual Reviews
  • Editor's Desk

"Beat me, beat me!"
by Henrik Eger

Synopsis
This one-minute play sets out to do the impossible:

(1) To explain a joke to a person from another culture and a radically different worldview who has no idea what the world of leather and S&M means to its practitioners, and

(2) to create a scene that sets out to be both informative and entertaining, trying to build a cross-cultural bridge. 

Picture

Characters

Haygen:     Mid-twenties, fashionable young man, punkish at times, always wearing a leather
                      jacket, a student who has seen more than most of his contemporaries.
Maria:         Young, religious immigrant student from Latin America and Haygen's classmate.
Professor:   Teaches Communication and likes to challenge his students.

Excerpt

Haygen: Hi. I’ve never talked with you. Would you like to work with me?

Maria: Sure. I’m scared because I don’t know too much about American jokes.

Haygen: No problem. And what do I know about Latin America? Here we go: At a leather meeting at the Bike Stop, a skinny young man follows a big hunky guy in a leather jacket and with chains wherever he goes. The young man finally corners him and says, “Sir, I’m going crazy over you.” The leather master just grunts, “Oh, yeah?” The young man then plucks up all his courage and says, “Sir, please, please beat me, beat me as hard as you wish.” The hunky older lather master looks at him, full of disdain, says nothing, but shakes his head—a clear “No.”

Maria: What happened next? And why would anyone want to get beaten? I got beaten in Mexico and it was terrible. 

Haygen: Good, we have a winner. I can now explain it to you.
                         (Maria, puzzled, looks at Haygen, totally confused.)

If you are interested in producing or adapting this copyrighted play, please contact the playwright.  ​
Back to PLAYS
​Click below for a translation into your own language 
from Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, and  Azerbaijani to Vietnamese, Welsh, Xhosa, Yiddish, Yoruba, and  Zulu—​thanks to the latest version of Google Translate.
Picture
Tower Of Babel
by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1563).
Click here to contact the Editor
Copyright Henrik Eger, 2014-2020.
Update: December 30, 2020.
All images are credited to the best of our knowledge. We believe known sources should  be shown and great work promoted. If there is a problem with the rights to any image, please contact us, and we will check it right away. 
​