Words, Words, Words

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Words, Words, Words is a short comedic play written by David Ives. The play is about three intelligent monkeys who are put in a cage together under the experimenting eye of a never seen Dr. Rosenbaum, who has the hypothesis: "Three monkeys hitting keys at random on typewriters for an infinite amount of time will almost surely produce Hamlet". The monkey characters confront and converse with each other in order to understand the purpose of the exercise put upon them.

The play is a a parody of the infinite monkey theorem.

Milton is the most realistic of the three; he knows what has to be done and knows how to do it. The rough draft on his typewriter involves poetry from Paradise Lost written by John Milton in 1667.

Swift is ambitious and somewhat of a rebel. He figures out fantastic plans to get out of the cage and into the world, despite Milton's sarcastic and annoyed discouragement.

Kafka is the dreamer. She has managed to press one button on her typewriter, and has done so for twenty lines. She likes to put her two cents in, but rarely uses very big words.

Words, Words, Words premiered in January 1987, in the Manhattan Punch Line Theater of New York City. It starred Warren Keith as Milton, Christopher Fields as Swift, and Helen Greenberg as Kafka. In December 1993, it was combined with other plays such as Sure Thing and Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread in a production of All in the Timing at Primary Stages in New York City. Daniel Hagen was Milton, Robert Stanton was Swift, and Nancy Opel was Kafka.

Performed in Prague at divadlo Na pradle in May 2003 as part of an evening of American plays. The cast included Brian Caspe as Milton, Todd Kramer as Swifty and Andrea Stuart as Kafka.

IMDB page for Warren Keith = [1] IMDB page for Christopher Fields = [2] IMDB page for Helen Greenberg = [3] IMDB page for Brian Caspe = [4] IMDB page for Todd Kramer = [5] IMDB page for Andrea Stuart = [6]