The Party

AUTHOR (at the door)

Is this the cast party?

HOST

Yes. Who are you?

AUTHOR

I’m the author.

HOST

You can’t come in!

Good work follows bad work

And good work follows good.

Sometimes bad work follows bad.

If you’re the author you can’t come in.

AUTHOR

What about bad work following good?

HOST

If you’re the author you can’t come in.

AUTHOR

I only said I was the author.

HOST

No one but the author would say that. No, go away! Good-bye!

(The door is closed.)

From “One Thousand Avant-Garde Plays” (Alfred A. Knopf: $16.95, cloth; $8.95, paper; 166 pp.). Koch, who lives in New York, is the author of many books of poetry, including several on teaching poetry to children and one on teaching poetry to the elderly. This volume of 112 miniature plays includes a set of five utterly different settings of Hamlet’s “To Be or Not to Be” soliloquy.