Y— character inspired by Cervantes’ Don Quijote fighting against the windmills; an idealist, stubborn, absurd, brave, but considered crazy

 

M— vending machine serving drinks and candy; outlandish prerecorded sounds characterize it

 

Y is dressed up as the knight, wearing a knight’s helmet / serious costume. Furious, he/she comes before the vending machine and accuses:

 

Y: You! Capitalist society’s perverse machine of consumption! Even with your inflated body, your little delicate mouth relentlessly swallows our coins!

 

M: “Ding!’ Ah, what a charming sound! This clear little sound reminds me of waltz’ joyous note; it drives me crazy! I love the feeling of accomplishment when the coins fall! Give me your money, I can give you the goods! Equality and justice supreme!

 

Y: Equality? You’re a greedy pit, a greedy, bottomless pit! Our wealth will never be able to satisfy wretched belly! How much wealth has accumulated in the shadows of your obscene belly! Why, counterfeiter, don’t you ever bring this significant revenue to light?

 

M: Let’s see what is written in the Declaration of the Rights of Man: “Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived…“ Incontestably, my wealth must remain in total obscurity, not a single ray of light being able to enter. On the other hand, I show you all my goods with my white neon lights, free of cost.

 

Y: There’s your pretentious generosity! All this is just to drug us, as if with candy. If you are as generous as you say you are, why does your body keep these goods imprisoned? The transparent display window is nothing but a cage of temptations.

 

Y turns towards the audience, raises his/her arms, makes large gestures, like those of an enthusiastic politician[1], and proclaims:

Comrades! Be wary of the sweet bombs of capitalism[2] (Mao Zedong).

The candy bombs! Yes, the candy bombs!

 

M: I, the vending machine, I offer you the taste of life. You have free choice. Man exchanges his wealth against his desire. Some troublemakers want to steal my good, they will be punished. Because I am still very kind. Do you know that each year a great number of people are crushed by my friends?

 

Y: Fat penguin[3]! Stop with your moralist hypocrisy and your rotten virtue! Organic products are sold for the rich! And the poor drug themselves up with your sweets! Marketing, tool of sorcery! You even use research from psychology, sociology, aesthetics, economy as means to your ends...

 

You! Number 22 and number 23, identical mineral waters, why do you camouflage yourselves under two different appearances? What real necessity is there to parade around under different clothing? Misleading peculiarities! And You, Coca-Cola and machine-made coffee, even cleverer, you seduce with your images...Money is only for the images!

 

M: The world is diverse and forces us to have (need) diverse choices. I affirm that I offer the liberty to choose and to consume. Having the power to buy is having the power. Everything depends on your needs. With me, the individual is well treated. Do you want to live in a monotone world without this variety? You have to admit, “the vice inherent to capitalism is the inequitable sharing of wealth. The vice inherent to socialism is the equitable sharing of misery.”[4]

 

Y: Stop with your outdated talk. Ridiculous! Man submits to bondage without realizing it. Man loses his freedom even when he thinks he has it. Don’t confuse individualism with individuality! Man is conditioned by your logic; classification of product, specification of the gesture, codification of our daily lives and glorification of their putting of things in order. Yes, it is there that we find the virtue in the rotten capitalist way of life. You don’t do anything but take profit! The prices of your products are very much inferior to the value of the work. This is bullshit!

 

M : My little one, you seem a bit excited, you come again to a moral of the past; it makes you bring out old schemes and join us in the current day. These days, people are happy to have a job, to be exploited, and to be able to consume. And fate will teach you that the goddess of victory will always stay by my side.

 

A third voice from the sky: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."[5]

 

Y: Fate is the eternal return to your trial! I denounce your sins before the entire world!

 

You, nomad machine, mobile machine belonging to the herds of neo-liberalism and global colonization, you walk in the four corners of the world, and once you are set up, you get rooted. Since your arrival in this building, your body hasn’t budged an inch.

 

Nourished by the electrical networks, you function 24 hours a day. The blood of capitalism impregnates the cement architecture. The unfortunate take what you propose to them like on goes mushroom picking. But they are poisonous! Deadly tumor! Proliferation of cancerous cells. The shameful parasite drives to the erosion of society’s foundation. Behind you, your power cord connects a million of your plots, pollutes the blood vessels of the earth. You think you’re irresistible and indestructible, but I’m telling you, you golden age is coming to an end!

 

Y: (towards the audience) I declare, the vending machine guilty! All its goods are to be distributed to the public!

 

Y rushes ; he/she unplugs the power cord and all of a sudden the vending machine is turned off. Y takes out a cord, attaches it to the machine and hangs a sign: guilty (?).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[2]  Candy Bomb, sugarcoated bomb, an important metaphor used by Mao Zedong starting at the party’s meeting in 1949.

"You must resist the capitalist values, ideology and way of life "(Europe)

 

[3] “Song of the Stormy Petrel,” a short text by Maxime Gorky, Russian writer working in the genre of socialist realism, “And the foolish penguins cower in the crevices of rocks...”

 

[4] Winston Churchill

 

[5] Quote from Mark Twain