Geese!

The poster for Geese! Being a poster for a musical, it does not actually have to make sense.

Geese! (alt. title: Waterfowl: The Musical) is an award-winning musical about one man's ability to overcome his Multiple Personality Disorder. Most of it is set on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean. It has been criticized as "unrealistic" and "difficult to perform," and like all great failures, people couldn't wait to see it and award it everything they could.

Plot Overview

Daniel Scruptwin, businessman, takes a trip across seas for some unknown business-like reason. Unbeknown to his family, co-workers, and most of himself, he has a terrible secret: Multiple Personality Disorder has plagued him for decades. Mostly it was unnoticeable; in fact, most of the characters don't seem to realize his disorder. The audience, however, is tipped off by Scruptwin's sudden exclamation of "I'm a pancake!" partway through the first scene in conjunction with sudden, jerking "flipping" movements. Mostly his friends dismiss such "episodes" as "Stress of the business," as co-worker Nick says repeatedly through Act I. Nick himself is rather convinced he is a zebra with an above-average intelligence, so Daniel's outbursts seem quite tame.

At the end of the first act, Daniel convinces himself he is a sea turtle and abandons ship to find freedom. He finds it in Act II, clinging to his suitcase as he floats across the sea, singing the number Help, I Can't Stop Rhyming. Eventually he washes up on a deserted island that turns out to be filled with geese. He spends his first days and nights there singing to himself, surprised every time he switches to another personality. At the end of another very long musical number, all fifty-two of them realize that their body is stuck on an island. Eventually Daniel adapts the only way he can — assuming the personality of a goose.

After another song, I'm A Goose, I'm A Goose, I'm A Goose (But I Still Can't Stop Rhyming), a storm blows his suitcase open. A single piece of paper blows past Daniel and gives him a papercut on his finger. The traumatic experience makes him burst into song once more. At the end, he finally realizes his true identity as a businessman. His newfound geese friends grab him and fly him to America during one of their shit-bombing runs. Daniel lands in America, cured of his disorder, blood pumping through his veins, opportunities unfolding before him, and promptly becomes part of the obesity epidemic and dies three years later of a heart attack.

Performance Notes

The original author of Geese! called for real geese to be used in the musical. Unfortunately, the animals tended to be rather uncontrollable, and led to one critic's comment: "There was nothing but shit onstage that whole performance, figuratively and literally."

Reaction

Reviews of Geese! were so terrible that people flocked to see it. It was every bit as bad as they expected. Still rubbing their eyes in disbelief, people went back for more, eventually bringing their entire families to the show. Ironically, it became a favorite for those with MPD, as people wanted to give each and every one of their personalities a viewing.

In May of 2007, some loyal Geese! fans held the first annual "Act Like a Goose Day" in an attempt to gain some inspiration, as Daniel Scruptwin did. Several people with disorders reported being "cured" after the experience: In one notable example, John Aglethorpe overcame his Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder by not washing his hands for one full day. Eventually he picked up Bipolar Disorder as a reasonable substitute. "...I wish I had picked up this disorder ages ago," he writes in his autobiography, "it's so much more interesting; no two days are ever alike; it is far better than OCD, where everything is alike..."

Sequel

The creators of Geese! are currently working on a sequel, to be released in late 2008. It is to be entitled Doorknobs!!, with the plot still unreleased to the public. So far, the only official statement is this:

“ It's going to be great, just like Geese!... except instead of geese it's going to involve doorknobs, but we know it's going to be better because it's got that second exclamation point. Little touches like that make all the difference. ”