A brief history of Vassals on the Loose, part II

Part I.

When we last left our protagonists, their operetta was beginning to take a definite form. We had the two main groups of characters, and a general idea of how they would interact. The Barbarians, having moved to England for no particular reason, had decided to make a peace offering to the British Vassals. Unfortunately, due to their yokelish naivete, they planned this offering to be one of weapons, a dangerous present to the bloodthirsty Brits. This culminated in a battle scene containing some of my proudest lyrical accomplishments. I was able to plagiarize from not just one, but TWO of my favorite humor writers in creating a chant for the British.

Shoot me, shoot me, shoot me,
GO BRITS!
Shoot me, shoot me, shoot me,
GO BRITS!
...

"Shoot me, shoot me, shoot me" came from one of Scott Adams' books; he described the American victory in the Revolutionary War as due to the fact that the British marched around in straight lines chanting "Shoot me." "GO BRITS" I lifted from Dave Barry. This was one of the phrases that the British soldiers supposedly formed when marching to battle. (The Hessians, of course, had huge problems with this, as they were German and had to translate said phrase into comically long German words.) I am still incredibly proud of that chant.

We hadn't yet come up with a conclusion to the battle, and this turned out to be one of the most volatile parts of the operetta. Indeed, the battle was originally unscripted, centering around a musical background. We slowly added more and more dialogue and sung lines until it became a full act in itself. We still couldn't find an appropriate conclusion, though we tried various methods of reaching an agreement between the two sides. One involved a song sung to the tune of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus with the lyrics

Epilepsy! Epilepsy!
Epilepsy! Epilepsy! Epilehehepsy!
[I think you get the drift]

You really don't want to know why.

Meanwhile, we fleshed out the initial relationships between the Vassals and Barbarians. This is where our true absurdist genius came in. We had roughly a page and a half of dialogue between two equally dysfunctional characters who really don't know what they're doing. One of my favorite parts comes when Hector, the Barbarian Chief, describes a package of weapons to King Henry:

Hector: That comes with a caboose.
George: A caboose??
Hector: Oh, no, not a caboose. Oh, what do you call it, a. . . a . . . Oh, yes, a ballista piloted by one of these 3 fair maids.
[maids appear dressed in bright red dresses and covered with grease]
Maiden the first: YO [very masculine voice]
Maiden the second: YO! YO! [even more masculine voice}
Maiden the third: YO! YO! YO! [really masculine voice]

I initially balked at the "covered with grease" line, choosing to redact it to "doing aerobics," but it has grown on me. Something about it is simply unparalleled in its absurdity.

The basic form of the play now complete (we also added a fourth act showing their lives after the battle), we were now free in our adolescent hubris to pursue the production of this inestimable piece of art.