Staging by Thomas Boulier (playing Michael)
and Youssef Benzakour (playing Sheldon, a.k.a. The Geek)
Cast of Characters : Sheldon, a geek.
Michael: A dumb student
Setting: In a dark dorm room. A laptop computer on one of the desks.
Time: Mid-afternoon.
[Sheldon is wearing a hoodie. Michael is dressed like a rapper with a big gold chain around his neck. Sheldon is working on his computer. The public can’t see the screen, just his hands typing in frenetic bursts on the keyboard. Michael enters the room. ]
[Sheldon is wearing a hoodie. Michael is dressed like a rapper with a big gold chain around his neck. Sheldon is working on his computer. The public can’t see the screen, just his hands typing in frenetic bursts on the keyboard. Michael enters the room. ]
Michael: Hey dude. My name’s Michael, I’m your new roommate. [Michael moves his hands towards Sheldon but he doesn’t seem to react. Sheldon keeps looking at the screen.]
Sheldon: Hi. Please excuse me if I don’t get up to welcome you but I am in the middle of something very important.
Michael: Don’t sweat it, dude. I wasn’t expecting any welcoming party. [Michael starts looking around.]
Sheldon: I am configuring my computer so I can access it remotely from any computer in the labs or from my computer back home. I have setup secured tunnels with SSH through the University proxy. This is actually very easy, so I created an IRC bot that could automatically set up the connection and environmental variables. In order to communicate efficiently between the bot and the main script, I used a socket...
Michael: Suck what ?
[Sheldon shakes his head.]
Sheldon: A socket. It is a special file used by Unix systems to communicate between programs on the same computer. Basically, it’s just a FIFO pipe.
[Michael freezes for a second. His face shows his concentration. ]
Michael: My big brother would love to talk with you. He knows all about pipes. He’s a plumber.
Sheldon: [Mumbling] This has nothing to do with... [Louder] As I said before, I don’t have time for small talk right now.
Michael: No problem, man. You won’t even notice I’m here. [Michael continues to check out the room. He sees the plasma lamp on the desk and plays with it.]
Michael: Awesome dude, you’ve got one of these cool lightning lamps. 
Sheldon: [Still staring at the laptop’s screen] Please be careful. This thing is very fragile. For your information, it is called a plasma lamp, or an Inert Gas Discharge Tube, as its inventor, Nikola Tesla, first called it. What you see is the result of the ionization of an inert gas under low pressure thanks to the high frequency and high voltage current between the inner electrode and the outer glass that acts like an insulator.
Michael: [With his palm on the lamp] Look. I’m like that guy from Star Wars with lightning bolts coming from his hand.
Michael: [With his palm on the lamp] Look. I’m like that guy from Star Wars with lightning bolts coming from his hand.
Sheldon: That guy, as you call him, is the Emperor a.k.a. Darth Sidious, Dark Lord of the Sith a.k.a. Senator Palpatine from Naboo when he started plotting against the Republic. Did you know that it's the same actor, Ian McDiarmid, who portrays the Emperor in Episode VI back in 1983 and Palpatine in the prequel trilogy?
Michael: Woah. That’s an amazing story. You must have picked up so many chicks with it. [Michael laughs out loud. Sheldon waits a few seconds before answering.]
Sheldon: Wait. [Looks closely at the screen] I think you should see this.
Michael: [excited] What? What is it?
Sheldon: [With the same serious tone.] I just received an email for you. It’s Mister T. He wants his jewelry back.
Michael: Well, I got a message for you, It’s ... [Freezes for a few seconds trying to find something clever to say] It’s McGyver and... and he says you’re a nerd.
Michael: That doesn’t make any sense.
Michael: [Pointing at Sheldon’s face] Neither does your face.
Sheldon: Let me google it. [Types on his keyboard] I was right. It’s exactly what I thought. The Wikipedia page says that your joke stopped being funny in 1998.
Michael: [Gets really angry] Stop messing with me. You think you’re better than me just because you know all these useless things.
[Michael takes his jacket ff and does some push-ups]
Michael: [Doing some boxer moves] Come here, wuss. We’ll see who’s the bigger man.
[Sheldon slowly closes his laptop, takes of his hoodie off to reveal his suprisingly strong arms and stands up. He is twenty centimeters taller than Michael.]
[Sheldon slowly closes his laptop, takes of his hoodie off to reveal his suprisingly strong arms and stands up. He is twenty centimeters taller than Michael.]
Sheldon: [With a very intimitading expression.] Who’s the bigger man now?
Michael: [Putting his arm on Sheldon’s shoulder] Come on, bro. You know I was kidding.
[Sheldon grasps Michael’s arm and takes it off his shoulder, then stares at Michael for a few seconds. He starts moving his arm and Michael flees]
[Sheldon grasps Michael’s arm and takes it off his shoulder, then stares at Michael for a few seconds. He starts moving his arm and Michael flees]
THE END.
Final Photos: The Creative Writing Class at Polytechnique, promo 2006, with Cédric at center and the lamp from his play.
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