PUNITIVE WORM SCRIPTS AND DOCUMENTATIONS 
written and directed byNikki Ochoa

A



PUNITIVE WORM GOES HOLLYWOOD

2220 Arts
December 2024

BAND
Mas Guerrero Luke Moran Casia Levine Dagger Wound Rocco Rivetti

PLAYERS
Atlakatl Ce Tochtli Nikki Ochoa
Farah Abouzeid Sophia Howell Advent
Shiloh Nic Rocha
Inky Smith Nicole Andrews Rocco Rivetti

5 MOVEMENTS [with lighting cues]

I. Radio [purple and spotlight]
II. Water [blue and dr. Emoto projection] III. Hollywood [pink]
IV. Hootenanny [orange red flashing]
V. Bad Actors [green]

Four minutes each

MUSIC

I. Static, Atonal, Acappella II. Ethereal
III. Cinematic, Melodic
IV. Western

V. Extreme
Four minutes each

Acting is done with a trans-Atlantic strangeness. Oh Boy! Oh Girl! 90’s love story grain. Overly dramatic death scenes. Deep tableaus. Cut scene. Fur and diamonds and fat chains. Unearthing a beautiful clay pot, slowly. This is a performance about capital, falseness, and existing through the all encompassing and disorienting portrays of life from media and Hollywood. Suffering and Joy as a concept that we watch. Freedom, a concept for the feral.

RADIO

Purple and Spotlight.
Music Static, Atonal, Acappella
Shiloh sitting in spotlight at table with radio. She is slowly drinking a glass of wine and changing the radio station sobbing. Nic and Advent fan her with huge leaves. Sophia Mail and Farah are picking bugs out of her hair eating them and singing each radio station song as the dail shifts, sometimes it is a commercial playing. Nikki and Ce walk past. They are exchanging strange lines of poetry that slightly sound like talks of gentrification, upbringing, nobility and gossip. “His Mother was a Catholic, His Father a Protestant, their child, Comanche.” “Every promise has a tail.” “Bending Angel” “Some days are a carnival of desire and some days are deep decay” “Happy commercial, palatable, how about I rip my face off and leave it in the street to collect every angle of sunlight?”
Farah Mal and Sophia say in unison “One Lucky audience member will win a 75 dollar TGIF Friday’s gift card. Stay Tuned! Stay Tuned! Stay Tuned!”

WATER

Blue
Dr Emoto Video Projection on screen.
Music Ethereal
Inky begins reading transcript. Farah Mal and Sophia are facing audience and putting on makeup while pretending to be in a shaking airplane. Makeup is getting all over their faces. Shiloh Advent and Nic are walking throughout the crowd moving a cart as airplane stewards handing out water and telling people to put on their seatbelts and to look for exit signs, cryptically telling them to know their exits and to prepare for an unexpected landing, also that there are snacks and drinks for purchase. Ce is center stage interpretive dancing to Nikki reading poetry “I would be honored to transform myself into a vessel....... Let’s see if Dr. Emoto’s experiments work, look toward your neighbor and think loving thoughts, now critique their outfit in your head.” Inky says “Let’s scan the water, the human molecule.” All collect themselves into a circle around the stage and complete a simple movement sequence as a large human water molecule.

Hollywood

Pink
Music Cinematic, melodic
The vibe drastically changes. While in a large circle everyone starts talking about various crushes and exciting love stories. One speaker says two lines then in unison the group says, uh huh uh huh! Summer Lovin’, Grease-esque. The commentary becomes darker, and shifts from exciting love to sinister stories of capital as a predator. “When I look at people, their forearms and hands, I find it so easy to fall in love.” “Uh huh Uh Huh” “We were sitting on the sofa and he put his hand up my shirt. I had a parking ticket that quadruped in price.” UH Huh Uh Huh” My medical insurance doesn’t cover cavities. Etc.” The entire group begins playing some form of twister. Weaving and bobbing into each other’s bodies. Speaking out loud as their worst self, from a place of jealously or lust. Classic relationship freak out.

Hootenanny

Orange and Red flashing.
Music Western
Western background projection on screen then possum footage.
The vibe changes drastically again. Everyone begins to chew on their piece of wheat. Rocco announces that it is now time for the Audience Give Away. He urges everybody to look under their chairs for a silver star. Nicole, who has been an audience plant from this point, jumps and squeals. She has won. Rocco

and her embrace, they kiss, everyone cheers, everyone square dances. The music is extremely jovial. The cast reads in unison. “Certain places smell deeply of soil, earth, I stick my face into my favorite places over and over again to take it with me. To become them, to save them forever, to access them in the face of falseness. I win because I can remember. I win because my origins trace back further than what is easy, luxurious, or put together like legos and called a condo. Fuck those fake wood grey linoleum floors.” Ce screams there’s possum loose. Everyone scrambles to catch it and runs throughout the venue. It’s fun. Suddenly Rocco and Nicole bicker and quickly escalate into a serious duel, the cast splits directly in half and eggs them on. Yes! No! Yes! No! They take out their pistols, shoot, and both fall to the floor.

Bad Actors

Green
Music Extreme
Everyone approaches Rocco and Nicole and call out that they’re still alive and warm. Everyone slowly backs away from them awkwardly. iPhone’s have previously been placed all over the venue in a large circle. Cast moves to their phones and create a very large group call and put it on speaker. Nikki monologue “I’m sick of all you bad actors, watching death through your phones, killing passively. Don’t you know its so much more satisfying when its done with your hands?” Group re-approaches Rocco and Nicole and gorges their sacks of spaghetti. Eating them with forks and manners or roughly, however they’d like. This is a moment of celebration. Siri gives directions over the speaker.
Ce stands up “We are NOT taking any questions.”

End

Props

Water cups, water, airplane cart, makeup, lines of poetry printed for each movement , Emoto transcript, radio, wine glass and wine, gift card, spaghetti in a bag. Pieces of wheat. Thunder dome quote ‘ Shasta mountain quote [secret reading] , pistols.