FOOLIN’ AROUND WITH INFINITY
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Foolin’ Around With Infinity purports to be a meditation on the horror and the madness of nuclear war. But Dietz is just foolin’ around with words and images. In fact, according to a program note by the playwright (which is read during the play by one of the actors), Dietz actually got the idea for the play during a game of “dueling typewriters” played one night with a fellow Minneapolis playwright named David Erickson. Erickson sat at one side of the kitchen table trying to invent a character “based entirely on Law and Order.” Dietz sat at the other side trying to invent one “based on Free Will. Instinct. Zen in overdrive.” This character became a woman named Luke, the primary character in Foolin’ Around With Infinity.
The play looks like it was created as a lark, without much thought given to its meaning. Instead, Dietz seems to have invested heavily in the eccentric form of the play, hoping that would distract people from the absence of content.
Neckties are symbols for Luke. The word, she says, is an acronym for “Nuclear Emergency Crisis Kit to Insure Eternity.” She keeps several in an oatmeal container and likes to go up to men and ask them what their neckties mean. If they answer “It’s just a necktie,” she pities them and gives them a dollar. Most of Luke’s dialogue consists of rambling non sequiturs, such as, “A woman in Denver just discovered that if you look at your husband the wrong way, you will stop loving him.” Occasionally she begs her father to tell her the story of Plumbob, which turns out to be the code name for a nuclear test in the Nevada desert in 1957. The story includes a lyrical riff about a soldier who volunteered to remain in a trench 500 yards from the blast, exposing himself to a destructive dose of radiation.
