Sean Hannity Goes to Heaven-a play by Luke Krueger

(Stage is dark. Bright light slowly floods the stage, blinding the audience. A figure steps into the light so we see only his outline. The light fades to normal stage lights. The man is Sean Hannity. Attached to Hannity is the Statue of Liberty perched on his right shoulder, much like the cover to his book _Deliver Us from Evil_. To his left is St. Peter at a desk. The desk has a computer and is piled high with thick folders. St. Peter looks tired, worn, and resembles something of a young office temp)

PETER: Mr. Hannity. Have a seat. My name is--

HANNITY (moving to Peter): Oh, you need no introduction, sir. I'm a big fan. Big, big fan. (Shakes St. Peter's hand).

PETER: Right. Please, have a seat.

HANNITY (sitting): You look younger than I thought.

PETER: Perk of the job, makes up for the ungodly hours.

HANNITY: It's nice to have you here.

PETER: I don't follow.

HANNITY: This is my show right?

PETER: No. It's heaven.

HANNITY: That's what a lot of my viewers think of the show. I've got the E-mails to prove it. (laughs)

PETER: Uh-huh. Mr. Hann, um Hannity, right?

HANNITY: Call me Sean.

PETER (looking at a file): That's against protocol.

HANNITY: Sure, I understand. Can I call you Pete?

PETER (doesn't look up from the file): Absolutely not. (sets the file down) It says here you were a political talk show host.

HANNITY: I like to say soldier in the Army of God/freedom fighter.

PETER: Well, let's stick with talk show host. What exactly is that?

HANNITY: You never saw it?

PETER: No. (pats the stack of files) I've got enough to do.

HANNITY: Well basically, I engaged guests in political discourse to get to the heart of political issues that are important to the country.

PETER: And which country is this?

HANNITY: You don't know?

PETER: Frankly they're all kind of the same, and up here it makes little difference.

HANNITY: Oh, well, um, the United States of America.

PETER: Oh, yes, I know that one. We get a lot of people from there. Nice folks, but a little fat if you ask me. Um, what's that on your shoulder?

HANNITY: Lady Liberty.

PETER: A memento of your wife?

HANNITY: You don't know Lady Liberty?

PETER: The name sounds familiar. I think that was the stage name for a stripper I admitted not too long ago.

(Pause. Hannity is a little uncomfortable)

PETER: I'm not saying your wife is...

HANNITY: No, of course, I get what you mean. Now, I wanted to ask you --

PETER: Let me ask the questions. There are a number of folks I need to get to before lunch. So to start: What do you think your greatest accomplishments in life were?

HANNITY: My show.

PETER: I mean something that made for a better planet.

HANNITY: My show.

PETER: Besides that. Deeds. What did you do besides talk?

HANNITY: I did my darndest to make sure America was the Christian country it's always been; I made sure the second ammendment was protected, and I made sure hard working families kept the money they earned and that it didn't go to pork projects of the federal government.

PETER: God, guns, and gold?

HANNITY: Sure.

PETER: Sort of like Columbus.

HANNITY: Yeah! Just like that. By the way, I noticed on my way in that he wasn't with the fifteenth century crowd.

PETER: Yeah...how 'bout that.

HANNITY: He got his own suite?

PETER: Let's start with the glory of God part. How did you work for that?

HANNITY: I lead the defense when secularists declared war on Christmas. I fought to make sure kids could pray in school.

PETER: They can I thought.

HANNITY: Well, sure, but it's not mandated everyday.

PETER: What if someone's not Christian.

HANNITY: I was trying to prevent that. I was trying to make sure God was protected in our schools, in our courts, in our homes, across this great nation.

(beat)

PETER: Let me get this straight...you were defending God?

HANNITY: Someone has to.

PETER: Someone has to...stand up for...the Almighty?

HANNITY: The liberals won't.

PETER: Do you think, God is so weak that he needs to be defended like a little brother who's getting bullied on the playground?

HANNITY: No. It's just...I saw God disappearing from America.

PETER: Isn't America continent?

HANNITY: You know what I mean.

PETER: No I don't. I've got a Sunday tee time with God on the links every week. He's not disappearing.

HANNITY: What's his handicap?

PETER: I'm still not clear, why did you have to fight for God? Is he so weak?

HANNITY: The US is a land founded by God-fearing Christians --

PETER: No it wasn't.

HANNITY: Yes it was. And I was saving my country from falling out of favor of the Almighty. Don't you start telling me what God had intended for my country.

PETER: Didn't you read that one little part in the Bible, where Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world"?

HANNITY: That's Old Testament. It doesn't count.

PETER: It's in John.

HANNITY: Oh.

PETER: Hmm.

HANNITY: What?

PETER: It says here you titled a book, _Deliver Us from Evil_.

HANNITY: It was a best seller.

PETER: It's also level two blasphemy.

HANNITY: What!

PETER: You took a piece of the Lord's prayer as a title to sell books.

HANNITY: That's not blasphemy.

PETER: You want me to show you the regs? (beat) Let's just keep moving. The second amendment, as I read it here is about arming a well regulated militia.

HANNITY: It's a little more trickier than that.

PETER: Did you serve?

HANNITY: Huh?

PETER: Were you in the Army, or militia or whatever?

HANNITY: Oh, no.

PETER: Did your country have a draft?

HANNITY: Yes, we did.

PETER: How'd you not get drafted?

(short pause)

HANNITY: The funny thing about the second ammendment is that it goes beyond that narrow interpretation, and it guarentees all Americans can have a gun to protect them and their families.

PETER: And protect God?

HANNITY: Well, sure, they're protecting the safety and lives of their fellow citizens so they can lead a wholesome life in service to God. So in a way, sure, I was making sure that God was protected.

PETER: So you wanted everyone to have a gun?

HANNITY: Law abiding citizens, yes.

PETER: How do you know?

HANNITY: Know what?

PETER: That they'll always be law abiding citizens. I mean one day, couldn't someone just break the law and use the gun illegally?

HANNITY: Sure, but that's impossible to ever know and just --

PETER: The chance you have to take? Couldn't you just not let people have guns?

HANNITY: See that's the problem. Then only the criminals would have guns.

PETER: And the police.

HANNITY: Sure, but they can't be everywhere. What if someone and their family were killed.

PETER: They'd come here.

HANNITY: Is that right?

PETER: You saying Heaven isn't a good place to be?

HANNITY: No! That's...I'm not saying Heaven is a...a...a bad place but why should we hasten someone's return to the Father. Don't they have a right to life?

PETER: Oh God, you're one of them.

HANNITY: Well but do you get what I'm saying? About the guns?

PETER: No.

HANNITY: We need them so people can be safe.

PETER: Don't guns kill people?

HANNITY: Exactly, that's how they keep us safe.

PETER: Sounds like doublespeak.

HANNITY: Well, we'll agree to disagree.

PETER: No, we won't. That's not an option. It's doublespeak.

HANNITY: People need to hunt. How 'bout that?

PETER: Fine. Let's move on.

HANNITY: I just want you to know the important facts about this issue.

PETER: Why?

HANNITY: So you understand that my intention behind fighting for the second amendment was for the good.

PETER: Moving on. Pork projects. Explain.

HANNITY: I wanted people to keep the money they earned and not be taxed by an inefficient government that would spend it on silly wasteful programs.

PETER: Like war.

HANNITY: No war is necessary.

PETER: That's good.

HANNITY: What?

PETER: Well, you never served in the military so you have no ulterior purposes when war starts.

HANNITY: I can explain my lack of service --

PETER: It's okay. So if the people...wait, it says you were in favor of tax cuts for the wealthiest of your country.

HANNITY: They earned it. God's blessings fell upon them as demonstrated by their good fortune. They should keep it.

PETER: So the poor are being punished by God?

HANNITY: Yes, but they can work their way back into his favor and get rich.

PETER: You never heard, "A cammel has a better chance of getting through a needle's eye than a rich man does getting into heaven"?

HANNITY: I made it policy not to read Islamo-fascist material.

PETER: Jesus said it.

HANNITY: Look, they had a right to their money to do with it as they want. And rich people aren't all bad guys. They donate to charity. It's great for tax breaks.

PETER: So they got more tax breaks on top of the others by donating to charity?

HANNITY: Great system.

PETER: Seems disingenuous. (to himself) God, I wish for the days of render onto Caesar that which is Caesar's. (To Hannity) So what other wasteful programs did you fight against?

HANNITY: Socialized medicine.

PETER: What's that?

HANNITY: It's socialism.

PETER: And...?

HANNITY: It's bad.

PETER: Why?

HANNITY: Because it's socialism.

PETER: Why is socialized medicine bad?

HANNITY: Because it's socialist.

PETER: Can it kill people?

HANNITY: Sure. That's what socialism does. It's an incidious dogma that looks to wipe from the earth capitalism.

PETER: Capitalism is good?

HANNITY: Bestowed on us by God himself.

PETER: I don't recall the word capitalism in the Bible.

HANNITY: You look; it's in there.

PETER: So explain socialized medicine. I'm not familiar.

HANNITY: Basically, it would tax all the rich people in order to give every person healthcare. It's asinine.

PETER: How?

HANNITY: They want healthcare, they can get a job that gives them healthcare.

PETER: That's a bit of an oversimplification. I just processed a guy who died; worked eighty hours a week, at three jobs, and the companies he worked for wouldn't give him full time hours because then they'd have to pay for health insurance.

HANNITY: Of course, the companies have a bottom line and a responsibility to their stock holders to turn a profitt. That's capitalism.

PETER: It killed him.

HANNITY: Look, I'm not going to get into the economics; you obviously are unaware of how this all works, and I understand because you got bigger things to take care of. But this is the best system we have and people deserve to keep the money they make, and not be taxed to death.

PETER: Except for a war.

HANNITY: Right. We need those.

PETER (jotting down notes in the file): So let me get this right: Your entire life was spent making sure people had guns, which kill people, and also making sure people didn't have health insurance, which could have saved people.

HANNITY: Now, who's over simplifying.

PETER: Excuse me?

HANNITY: Look, I don't need to get dressed down by some office temp. There's no way you are St. Peter.

PETER: You see the name on the door? I'm the real deal, hoss.

HANNITY: Oh, I see! You're a John Kerry lover! Jesus, you Libs, just can't get it through your thick skulls about issues that are more complicated than you will ever know.

PETER: I know quite a bit.

HANNITY: You don't know about America.

PETER: Because we don't care about that here! Mr. Hannity, I'm sorry, but you don't make a strong case for entry. It seems like you spent your whole life making a name for yourself on God's coat tails, and making sure people were expedited to death.

HANNITY: Is this Heaven or Nancy Pelosi's girdle? I don't have to sit here and take this.

PETER: You're right you don't.

HANNITY: You liberal pinheads have destroyed everything. The US, Heaven, everything.

PETER: There's the door, Michael will escort you down.

(Hannity leaps across the table and grabs Peter by his shirt)

HANNITY: You listen to me. I'm Sean Hannity. That might not mean much to you but on Earth it sure as hell does. Now, I'm not going to sit here and let you tell me I'm a good or bad man. Who the hell do you think you are? You go out there, and you talk to anybody from America, who's died in the last twenty years, and I guarentee they will tell you to let me in to Heaven.

(Peter effortlessly removes Hannity's hands. He holds him by the wrists. Hannity is in pain)

PETER: The thing is, Heaven is not a democracy. We don't admit by vote, and frankly, if I go out there, and ask of you, no one remembers who you are because in Heaven your deeds on Earth are like bile here. We have no interest in it, and people soon forget the petty jibes and twaddle you kicked around on the idiot box for so long.

(Peter releases Hannity)

PETER: Now get out of my office.

HANNITY: Fine, I get it. The liberals took over.

PETER: Get out!

HANNITY: I will. This isn't Heaven. This doesn't represent the God I know.

PETER: Of course not, because you invented some non-existent God to sell books and get ratings.

HANNITY: Oh, piss off you liberal pile of horse crap. I'm gone.

(Starts to exit)

PETER (Pulling a post-it note from the file): Mr. Hannity. Leave the Statue. I've got a post it note here from up on high that says you dishonored they symbol.

HANNITY: Make me!

PETER: Do we really have to do this again?

(Peter starts chasing Hannity around the office, until Peter finally trips Hannity. With Hannity on the ground, Peter removes the statue from Hannity's shoulder and places it on the desk. Hannity gets up)

HANNITY: Fine, I didn't want it anyway. It's French. It was made by a guttless, coward Frenchman. You can have it.

(Hannity exits. From offstage we hear him shout)

HANNITY: Heaven's full of a bunch of liberal bastards!

PETER (sitting back down behind his desk. Shakes his head. Picks up a phone): Janice, who's next? / How many are there? / Forty? / Yeah, I know. That is a lot for one day / Let's just fast track them / No, I think He'll approve. They're babies, and their moms didn't have access to prenatal care. Just have the paperwork for me to sign when I get back from lunch.

(blackout)