UNPLUGGED!
a screenplay by Raleigh Marcell
raleighmarcell@gmail.com rmarcell@juno.com
a contemporary comedy about HEALTHCARE REFORM
At the Greater Duluth Memorial Hospital for the Incredibly Ill a comatose teen girl is unplugged, declared dead, and slated for cremation. But her sister believes her to be alive. She kidnaps the body, defying grandiose Doctors, rabid Secular Humanists, court orders, an instant TV Movie of the Day, and the hospital Clown Chaplain. A wild and weird romp through the netherworld of the hospital follows seemingly ending in a probe heading to Pluto. A steel-cage death-match pitting Weekend At Bernie's versus The Terry Schaivo Story <<< a bit more >>>
Two sisters, Maria and Thanatopsis Jones, enjoy a fire in their backyard. Maria is a girl who won’t give up, even if it means having to sit and listen to Thanatopsis recite some of the hundreds of poems she has memorized. A meteor smashes into the backyard.
Miraculously, Maria crawls away from the crater. Tragically, Thanatopsis is rushed to the Greater Duluth Memorial Hospital for the Incredibly Ill where she lapses into a coma. Her family are confronted with the irrefutable scientific fact that Thanatopsis’ case is hopeless.
Urged on by a pair of “right to life” Secular Humanists, the parents decide to PULL THE PLUG. Though pronounced DEAD and scheduled for CREMATION, Maria refuses to give up on her sister. She claims that she can hear Thanatopsis speaking to her.
It seems that everyone, including her parents, is determined to incinerate her sister, so Maria and her boyfriend kidnap Thanatopsis, setting off a bizarre chase through the netherworld of the Hospital. They must evade her parents, doctors, rabid secular humanists, and the hospital Clown Chaplain (a Silly in Service to the Savior). It is only when Maria is slowed to a crawl by a sudden great hunger and weakness that the forces of death triumph and Thanatopsis is cremated.
The one silver lining of this tragedy is that Maria’s boyfriend manages to smuggle Thanatopsis’ ashes aboard a NASA probe heading to Pluto.
Yet Maria can still hear her calling. Can still hear the poems because … It is Maria who lies in a hospital room, unplugged, her feeding tube having just been removed, Thanatopsis reciting to her as she has every day for the past two years. But now the end is near and Maria passes away in full and vivid but uncommunicable awareness.