DOUBLE TROUBLE.

 

 

DOUBLE TROUBLE

 

A Comic and Absurd Farce in Four Scenes

Author: Benjamin Gavarre

benjamingavarre@filos.unam.mx 

DOUBLE TROUBLE: A Comic and Absurd Farce in Four Scenes. © 2026 by BENJAMIN GAVARRE is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

DOUBLE TROUBLE is a farce in four scenes. The play operates as a fast-paced comic mechanism where royal stinginess, predatory bureaucracy, and bedroom secrets collide through identical twins separated at birth: a ruthless, tax-obsessed Minister of Finance and a country boy of preposterous sweetness. Written for both lively reading and high-energy physical staging, the piece thrives on blatant theatrical artifice—oversized props, papier-mâché scenery, and deliberate anachronisms—relying on relentless slapstick and vaudevillian timing to drive the madness from the opening gavel to the final chase.

 

 

Characters:

• KING GORGONIO: A pot-bellied, greedy, forgetful tyrant, perpetually pickled in cheap red wine and rancid spirits.

 

• TULIO (1st Twin, by order of birth): Minister of Finance of the Kingdom of Tax-Tax. A cynical, bitter, rude usury addict who believes he is an orphan fished out of a dry well.

 

• MANFRED (2nd Twin… born three hours later): Resident of the neighboring Kingdom of Cauliflower. Naive, dreamy, polite, and absurdly empathetic; he believes he is an orphan found under a cabbage leaf.

 

• AMANDA: The royal wet nurse. A woman of iron will, aggressively maternal, armed with a dented tin milk jug, and the sole guardian of the scandalous truth.

 

• POPPY (Amapola): A passionate, loud, and slightly unhinged young woman looking for love in all the wrong places.

 

• QUEEN PHILOMENA and PERCY THE SEXY STABLE BOY: Clandestine lovers. They have lived locked inside a cage in the royal courtyard for twenty years as punishment for their steamy affair, though their supposed sentence is suspiciously cozy and enviable.

 

SCENE ONE: Love Pays the Bill, Plus Compound Interest

 

The palace courtyard in the Kingdom of Tax-Tax. The stone walls are wallpapered with overdue tax notices stuck on with cheap school glue. On the right stands a towering structure, almost a watchtower, where TULIO presides perched atop an antique university lecturer's podium. But Tulio is no professor; he is a bean-counter… He wears a long green eyeshade, black sleeve-protectors up to his elbows, and three goose quills jammed behind his ears. On his solemn podium-desk sit a child's abacus with primary-colored beads and a cast-iron flyswatter.

 

Upstage left stands the Royal Cage of Eternal Punishment, though inside it looks like a posh tearoom: it features a Persian rug, a fringed oil lamp, velvet cushions, and a clothesline hung with royal bloomers embroidered with little red hearts. Inside, QUEEN PHILOMENA lounges in a hammock fanning herself with a cabbage leaf, while PERCY THE SEXY STABLE BOY, dressed in a tuxedo jacket from the waist up and black rubber firefighter boots from the waist down, makes toast in a modern electric toaster, repeatedly poking a metal fork inside to see if the bread is done.

 

PERCY: (Finally pulling out a smoking piece of toast and spreading butter on it with a silver knife) Happy twentieth dungeon anniversary, my little turtle-dove! Twenty years locked up on bread and lettuce... (Wildly fake, wiping away invisible tears) Oh, how we suffer, my Queen! Though thank goodness the warden is my cousin and swaps our water for vintage Rioja and our lettuce for Iberian ham in truffle sauce.

 

QUEEN PHILOMENA: (Taking a bite of the ham toast and sighing with pleasure) Oh, Percy of my loins! What a keen eye I had when I cheated on my drunken husband with you in the stable hay. Thank heaven we got caught... If we had eloped, we’d be paying rent, utilities, and basic cable, sweeping the kitchen, and putting up with your miserable mother. Instead, here we are, fully subsidized by the state’s lifetime prison budget! Pass me the back-scratcher; my royal shoulder blade is itching.

 

PERCY pulls out a horse currycomb and vigorously scratches the Queen's back; the Queen purrs like a cat with bronchitis.

 

TULIO: (From atop his podium, slamming the cast-iron flyswatter down so hard the whole structure shudders) Silence, you lecherous lovebirds! Your purring is throwing off my decimals! (Scribbles furiously in his ledger). Let's see... "A fifteen percent surcharge on Queen Philomena for using courtyard oxygen to sigh with pleasure, plus three copper coins billed to the stable boy for excessive wear and tear on the royal back-scratcher."

 

PERCY: (Poking his head between the bars and flicking a walnut shell at Tulio) Relax your fiscal sphincter, Tulio! Climb down from your perch and have a glass of wine with us, man, don't be such a sourpuss!

 

TULIO: (Dodging the shell and catching it mid-air with a velvet pouch) Aha! A nutty projectile launched during business hours! This shell is hereby confiscated as crown property! And get this through your head, overvalued lackey: I don't drink, I don't laugh, and I don't blink. King Gorgonio pulled me out of a dry well just to save himself an accountant's salary! My only mother is the Multiplication Table and my father is this blessed abacus!

 

QUEEN PHILOMENA: (Looking at him with pity while filing a nail) Poor creature... What you need is a good girlfriend to ruffle your eyebrows and tickle your abacus. Look, speak of the devil, here comes that deluded lunatic who’s been chasing you!

 

An out-of-tune tambourine rattle is heard. POPPY enters executing terrible classical ballet leaps, wearing a dress covered in oversized bows and carrying a gigantic bouquet of prickly thistles and stinging nettles.

 

POPPY: (Throwing herself to her knees at the foot of Tulio's podium, hands clasped) Oh, Tulio, scorpion of my sleepless nights! Vinegar of my salad! Look how my bosom heaves just hearing the dry crunch of your unlubricated joints from down here!

 

TULIO: (Peering over the edge of the podium like a gargoyle, pointing an iron compass at her) Halt right there, sentimental trespasser! You are standing on workspace flooring without paying my exorbitant consultation fee! What have you got in your hands, you paste-brained woman?

 

POPPY: (Raising the bouquet with unhinged passion) I brought you flowers that match your personality, my love! Prickly thistles, stinging nettles, and three sprigs of poison ivy freshly ripped from the palace garden! Take them, pin them to your vest, and tell me my eyes remind you of a freshly minted gold coin!

 

POPPY stands on tiptoe trying to reach the bouquet up to Tulio, but since he is too high, she starts whacking the base of the podium with the weeds. Tulio sways left and right like a pendulum, juggling his ledger and inkwell in mid-air.

 

TULIO: (Swaying wildly) Stop battering my privileged perch, you insolent anarchist! Back off or I’ll swoop down like a furious gargoyle and make you eat those weeds stem by stem!

 

POPPY hysterically hurls the bouquet into his face. Tulio deflects it with his ledger, grabs a giant magnifying glass, and examines the leaves with forensic coldness.

 

TULIO: Just as I feared! Four hundred grams of wild flora poached without a pruning permit from the royal grounds, plus two green caterpillars riding as stowaways on a leaf without paying transit tolls! (Slams three large beads across the abacus with a loud clack). You owe me seven coins for administrative processing, six silver coins for botanical larceny, two for attempted manslaughter of a tenured bureaucrat, and four for eardrum depreciation caused by your cheesy declarations!

 

POPPY: (Sighing enraptured, pressing her body against the podium) Oh, what a virile, sensual, romantic man! How he adds, how he subtracts, how he despises me with statutory authority! Come down from that summit, my love, and give me at least a nun's pinch on the cheek! I know all that rudeness is just the armor of a sad little orphan boy who needs someone to sing him a lullaby!

 

PERCY: (From the cage, applauding with the toasting fork) Come on, Tulio, don't be a blockhead! Climb down from your bureaucratic cloud and give the girl a smooch—you're even making me want to see you two frolic!

 

QUEEN PHILOMENA: Don't bother, Percy! If you pried his chest open with a can opener, instead of a heart you'd find a pickled Alien!

 

TULIO: (Climbing down the podium like an enraged spider, tape measure in hand) A smooch?! Do you have any idea how many unproductive bacteria are transferred in a kiss and what the cough-syrup expenditure costs the public treasury?! (Plants himself in front of Poppy and starts measuring her skull with the tape measure). Let's see: thirty centimeters of cranial perimeter completely devoid of common sense. Listen to me closely, Poppy, and get this through your cork-stuffed noggin: love is a fraudulent bankruptcy! A waste of calories! If I loved you, I'd have to buy you chocolates on your birthday, and sugar carries a thirty-percent import tariff!

 

POPPY: (Pouting and opening her arms to corner him) I don't care about chocolates, Tulio! We can live on fresh air and gaze into each other's eyes by the light of the moon! Kiss me, pinch me!

 

TULIO: (Scrambling on all fours right between Poppy's legs and popping out behind her, dusting himself off) Moonlight causes joint rheumatism and fresh air stimulates the appetite, which increases per-capita bread consumption! Go sigh in a sewer outside my jurisdiction! And since you have no cash to pay the nettle fine, I am proceeding with the immediate repossession of your footwear to auction it off at the flea market!

 

With a lightning-fast hook of his measuring stick, TULIO yanks the right shoe off POPPY's foot and locks it inside a heavy iron safe with three padlocks.

 

POPPY: (Hopping on one foot, instantly shifting from blind infatuation to absolute outrage) My Sunday patent-leather shoe! Give it back, you sleeve-wearing tick! I brought you my heart on a platter and you leave me lame on the right leg!

 

TULIO: (Holding up a stamped receipt) Here is your confiscation voucher! You may reclaim the shoe in forty years upon presentation of a tax stamp and your own death certificate! Now get out of this courtyard, you're breathing oxygen reserved for solvent taxpayers!

 

POPPY: (Yanking off her left shoe in a fury and brandishing it like a war mace) That does it for my poetic delusions, Tulio! I thought you had a tortured soul like a romance-novel prince, but you have the spirit of a boiled bedbug! Shoe thief! I am leaving this wretched kingdom this instant! I’ll cross the border out of Tax-Tax and march straight into the Kingdom of Cauliflower, where people are happy eating vegetables, breathing free fresh air, and not walking around with an abacus wedged between their ears!

 

QUEEN PHILOMENA: (Tossing a pair of embroidered royal slippers from the cage) Here, girl, put on my royal slippers for the road and don't look back—the only man worth a damn around here is already locked in my cage!

 

POPPY: (Slipping into the Queen's oversized slippers, she takes her left shoe and slams it squarely against Tulio's forehead) Take the left one so you can match the pair in your safe, you sour-ink monster! I hope someone kicks you in your sleep! (Exits shuffling awkwardly in the giant slippers, full of dignity, slamming the gate behind her).

 

TULIO: (Rubbing his forehead, picks up the shoe, sniffs it with delight, and locks it in the safe) What a productive morning! One shoe repossessed by law and the other surrendered as a voluntary donation. Four hundred grams of nettles for my lunch soup, and one less woman hogging my oxygen. Now then, time to charge the flies a traffic tax! (Begins chasing an invisible fly around the podium, whacking wildly with the iron flyswatter).

 

SCENE TWO: The Mirror in the Kingdom of Cauliflower

 

An absurdly pleasant rustic landscape in front of a quaint cottage in the Kingdom of Cauliflower. Giant papier-mâché cauliflowers dot the stage, and cloth birds hang from visible strings. MANFRED wears a daisy-embroidered apron; he is kneeling on the ground speaking tenderly to an earthworm while holding a watering can.

 

MANFRED: (With infinite compassion) Forgive me, dear earthworm, for stepping on you by mistake. At least the shock was brief and squishy... I don't know if you have a family… or had one… Poor little thing, I'll say three vegetarian Hail Marys for your soul...

 

POPPY enters dragging a battered suitcase, disheveled, sweaty, and clomping along in the Queen's giant slippers. Seeing Manfred from behind, she stops dead in her tracks, eyes wide as saucers.

 

POPPY: Ha! I knew it! A tax collector never lets go of his prey! Did you follow me all the way out here just to charge me late fees, you wretched Tulio?!

 

MANFRED: (Stands up and turns around with an angelic smile and open arms) Oh, a weary traveler! Welcome to the Kingdom of Cauliflower, where the veggies grow plump and hearts are as soft as mashed potatoes...

 

POPPY doesn't let him finish: she delivers a monumental slap across his face with all her might.

 

MANFRED: (Staggering without losing his smile) Goodness gracious! What an energetic greeting you have in your homeland. Would you like me to return the slap out of politeness, or should I offer the other cheek so my face swells evenly?

 

POPPY: (Baffled, fist still clenched) Stop play-acting, you demon bureaucrat! What did you do to your voice? Did you swallow a flute to disguise yourself as a village idiot and repossess my suitcase while I'm asleep?

 

MANFRED: (Rubbing his cheek sweetly) Dear lady, I swear by this cauliflower that I have never repossessed anything except my own emotions while watching a sunset. My name is Manfred, at the service of God, my wet nurse, and your little hand that hits like a carnival mallet.

 

POPPY: (Stepping closer with narrowed eyes, sniffing him like a bloodhound) Liar! Scoundrel! Pip-squeak! You're Tulio! Tulio, the miserable wretch! Hold still... (Grabs his face with both hands and stretches his cheeks mercilessly). It's the exact same hook nose for hanging sausages! The same unemployed-bat ears! (Pries his mouth open with her fingers). The same crooked fang! And the same shriveled-chickpea mole near your mustache!

 

MANFRED: (Speaking with his cheeks stretched out) Goo-goo, what soft hands you have, miss! Soft and powerful... If you're going to rip my head off, please do it slowly so I can enjoy looking at you up close a little longer.

 

POPPY: (Releasing him abruptly and backing away in horror) Holy Patron Saint of the Cross-Eyed! He's smiling! Tulio has never shown his teeth except to laugh at an evicted tenant! And besides, you smell like fresh-cut basil instead of rancid ink and loan-shark sweat! What's the trap, the scam, the hustle...?!

 

MANFRED: No trap at all, most beautiful maiden. I am one hundred percent rustic and organic.

 

POPPY: We'll see about that! No Minister of Finance survives the hard-currency test. Look at this! (Pulls a handful of silver coins from her pocket and flings them into the mud). Go on, Tulio! Dive snout-first into the muck! Bite my ankles for these silver coins, my life savings! Calculate the mortgage interest!

 

MANFRED: (Gently picks up the coins, wipes them clean on his apron, and hands them back to Poppy with a bow) Oh, poor creature! All the silver buttons have fallen off your dress. Here, put them away quickly before a draft blows into your bellybutton and gives you the sniffles.

 

POPPY: (Trembling with emotion, hands pressed to her chest) He gave the money back! And he didn't charge me a bending-over fee! (Grabs him by the lapels and shakes him). Say something rude to me right now or I'll faint from confusion! Call me a "tax parasite"! Call me "air-brain"! Call me a "strident time-waster"!

 

MANFRED: (Blushing) But how could I call you that, when your eyes shine brighter than two fireflies in a jar of honey! Truth be told, ever since you gave me that wallop across the jaw, I feel like my heart is dancing a frantic polka inside my chest.

 

POPPY: (Falling madly, instantaneously, and exageratedly in love) Oh, mother of pearl, a polka! That's my favorite dance, and nobody dances it anymore! How lucky can I get?! You have the exact same scoundrel face that drove me crazy in the other kingdom, but you're like a sweet little puppy, a lettuce leaf with mayonnaise, a banana with cream and honey! Kiss my hands, Manfred—I'm staying with you and your giant cauliflowers until Judgment Day!

 

MANFRED: (Kissing her hands with overflowing enthusiasm) What joy! And to think I was resigned to staying a bachelor talking to myself! But tell me, my beauty... who is this Tulio fellow who stole my handsome features with such terrible manners? I am one of a kind in this world: a humble orphan with no kin, found under a cabbage by my good wet nurse Amanda before I could even say "moo."

 

POPPY: You're an orphan too? Well, that Tulio lives six miles from here, serves as Minister of Finance to King Gorgonio, istwenty years old to the day, and also swears he's an orphan fished out of a dry well!

 

MANFRED: (Gasping in theatrical astonishment) An identical friend! And an orphan like me! Heavens, Poppy, what a thrilling mystery! I always felt that whenever I scratched my right ear, somebody else felt ticklish on the other side of the world. We must go meet this gentleman at once! Perhaps he knows who cast our lovely noses from the same mold!

 

The cottage door flies open with a kick and AMANDA the wet nurse charges out like a raging bull, swinging her oversized tin milk jug above her head. Manfred and Poppy dive flat on their bellies; Amanda brakes hard and slams the tin jug onto the ground with a deafening clang.

 

AMANDA: Nobody move or I'll hand out jug-wallops free of charge! Manfred, let go of that disheveled lunatic and get inside to peel onions! You're not setting foot in the Kingdom of Tax-Tax by mistake, and certainly not for a loose-slippered hussy!

 

POPPY: Hey, watch your mouth, lady! Don't be such a killjoy! Over in Tax-Tax there's another boy who is a carbon copy of your kid, only pickled in vinegar!

 

MANFRED: I am deeply sorry, dear nurse, but the love of this giant-slippered lady who slaps so delightfully and the riddle of my double call to me like a bugle. Let's go to the neighboring kingdom to uncover the truth! (Takes Poppy by the hand and they bound offstage with ridiculous leaps).

 

AMANDA: (Pulling her hair and spinning in circles) Cursed be the hour I conceived those two nitwits! If King Gorgonio puts the two halves of his drunken binge together, he'll fry us all in hog lard! Wait for me, you fools—here I come with my milk jug to blow the lid off the royal sewer before heads start rolling! (Dashes off after them, brandishing the tin jug).

 

SCENE THREE: The Alley of the Fiscal Mirror

 

A narrow, filthy alley outside the palace in the Kingdom of Tax-Tax. A crooked sign on the wall reads: "CASTING SHADOWS PROHIBITED WITHOUT MUNICIPAL PERMIT." From the left, TULIO enters walking backward while measuring the cobblestones with a tape measure and taking notes on a mile-long scroll. From the right, MANFRED enters also walking backward, waving a handkerchief at an imaginary bird, while POPPY lags a few steps behind shaking a pebble out of her slipper.

 

TULIO and MANFRED collide back-to-back with a dry drum thud. Both jump, spin around simultaneously, bump nose-to-nose, fall flat on their backsides in perfect symmetry, and rub the tips of their noses with the exact same gesture.

 

TULIO: (Roaring) Ow, my IRS bloodhound nose!

 

MANFRED: (Sighing sweetly) Oh, my dainty little sniffer!

 

Both freeze, staring fixedly at each other. They stand up at the exact same moment, brushing the dust off their knees in unison.

 

TULIO: (Squinting, nearsighted and furious) What kind of government waste is this? Who ordered a full-length mirror installed in the middle of a public thoroughfare with state funds? And with fogged-up glass that makes me look like a grinning idiot!

 

MANFRED: (Marvelling, addressing Tulio as if he were a grand lord) Oh, what distinguished manners they have in this capital! Good day to you, sir. What an elegant suit you wear, though I notice your brow is a bit furrowed, like a frustrated snail.

 

TULIO: (Jumping back) The mirror talks! Or worse, there’s a vagrant hiding behind the frame! Let’s see—if you are my reflection, you are physically obligated to obey me without drawing a salary. Optical synchronization test!

 

The mirror routine begins: TULIO, testing whether he is facing glass or suffering a work-induced hallucination, makes grotesque faces. MANFRED, assuming this is the refined courtly etiquette of the capital, imitates him with absolute seriousness and enthusiasm so as not to appear rude.

 

TULIO sticks his tongue out to his chin and pulls both ears outward. MANFRED sticks his tongue out delightedly and tugs his ears while executing a comical courtly bow.

 

TULIO lifts his right leg like a dog at a lamppost and scratches his belly with both hands while making monkey noises. MANFRED lifts his leg with balletic grace and scratches his belly, smiling tenderly.

 

TULIO sticks a finger in his mouth, puffs out his cheeks, and pats the top of his head three times. MANFRED does the exact same thing, producing a hollow sound.

 

TULIO: (Satisfied) Phew, thank goodness! It is a mirror. For a second I feared some freeloader was walking around using my face without paying me royalties. Though it has a smudge of dirt right here on the cheek...

 

TULIO pulls out a filthy handkerchief, spits noisily on it, and vigorously scrubs MANFRED's cheek.

 

MANFRED: (Closing his eyes, deeply moved) Oh, what a maternal gesture! Nobody has washed my face with such affection in weeks. Let me return the kindness, good sir!

 

MANFRED takes his basil-scented apron, grabs TULIO by the ears, and plants two loud kisses on his cheeks.

 

TULIO: (Shrieking in terror and leaping backward like a scalded cat) Help! Guards! The mirror just spat basil perfume on me! A subversive doppelgänger! A face counterfeiter! Someone pirated my bitter mug!

 

(POPPY runs in and stands right between them, arms spread wide).

 

POPPY: Neither a mirror nor a counterfeit, Tulio! Shut that bitter bureaucrat trap of yours and take a good look at who's standing in front of you!

 

TULIO peeks over POPPY's right shoulder; MANFRED peeks over her left. TULIO ducks down by POPPY's waist; MANFRED ducks on the other side. They begin running in circles around POPPY chasing each other: TULIO trying to strangle MANFRED with his tape measure, and MANFRED chasing TULIO with open arms for another hug.

 

TULIO: (Running in circles) Hold still, you vile usurper! I’m confiscating that nose—it’s registered as my personal private property! Poppy, where did you dig up this cheap knockoff of me?!

 

POPPY: (Dizzy from watching them spin) In the Kingdom of Cauliflower! Stand still, both of you! His name is Manfred, and he is living proof that your face isn't to blame for you being an insufferable jerk! I'm marrying him, because he has your exact profile, only he's a sweetheart with a heart as soft as marzipan!

 

MANFRED: (Stopping dead in his tracks, causing TULIO to slam into his back and bounce onto the floor) Dear Tulio! You have no idea how thrilled I am to meet the former landlord of my fiancée's eyes! Here, I brought you half a raw cauliflower as a token of eternal friendship between nose-colleagues. (Stuffs the cauliflower into Tulio's mouth while hauling him up by his shirt collar).

 

TULIO: (Spitting out cauliflower leaves, purple with bureaucratic rage) Ptui! Untaxed produce! Let go of my uniform, you country bumpkin! (Pulls out his notebook and a giant goose quill). I am writing you a citation for first-degree anatomical plagiarism this instant! Confess before I throw you in the dungeon: who leased you my lip wart? What underground sweatshop copied my crooked fang? What is your date of manufacture? When do you expire?!

 

MANFRED: (Standing at attention like a schoolboy) I was born exactly twenty years ago, Mister Minister, during the Great Gale of Saint Swithin, the night it rained frogs and the turnips froze solid.

 

TULIO: (Drops his quill, picks it up, and drops it again) What did you say? The Night of Saint Swithin? Don't try to muddle my audit with false data! That night is my night, my date of birth, and I hold the copyright!

 

MANFRED: What a lovely coincidence! Our mothers must have been neighbors who went into labor at the same time. Well, I don't actually have a mother... My good wet nurse Amanda told me she found me abandoned under a cabbage, wrapped in an old blanket embroidered with a cross-eyed horse.

 

TULIO: (Clutching his throat, on the verge of collapse) A... a cross-eyed horse with a green horseshoe on its ear?

 

MANFRED: Precisely! And three moth holes in the tail! How did you know?

 

TULIO: Because I have the other half of that blanket locked in my trunk! King Gorgonio swore to me that I was fished out of the dry well behind the royal stables that very morning! Wait a second... roll up your left trouser leg!

 

MANFRED: But sir, right here in the middle of the street? Is that decent?

 

POPPY: Roll it up already, Manfred, for crying out loud!

 

TULIO and MANFRED roll up their left trouser legs simultaneously and stick their ankles out toward the center.

 

POPPY: (Examining both ankles with Tulio's magnifying glass) By all the saints in the court! You both have the exact same birthmark shaped like a half-chewed turnip!

 

MANFRED: (Jumping for joy and clapping) Now I understand everything! We aren't two different people, Tulio! We are one single person who split in two, and if we hug tightly enough we'll fuse back together!

 

POPPY: (Giving Manfred an affectionate smack on the head) Don't be a donkey, my love! You're identical twin brothers! You came out of the same belly, they cut the blanket in half, and they fed you both the exact same institutional lie!

 

MANFRED: (Bawling his eyes out with happiness) A brother! I have a little brother just as funny-looking as me! Come to my arms, flesh of my flesh, other half of my blanket! (Pounces on Tulio, lifts him into the air, and spins him around).

 

TULIO: (Kicking in mid-air, eyes bulging) Put me down, you blockhead, nincompoop, scatterbrain! This is no cause for celebration—it's the biggest labor scandal in history! Are you telling me there were two units from the same batch, and they sent you on permanent vacation to water cabbages while enslaving me for twenty years adding up taxes for that pot-bellied King?!

 

MANFRED: (Setting him down gently) Well, at least they gave you a nice high desk and a ministerial title...

 

TULIO: They gave me a peptic ulcer and zero wages because the King claimed I owed him my life for not feeding me to the stable pigs! Twenty years of unpaid overtime! This violates every collective bargaining agreement of orphanhood! (Grabs Manfred by the ear and Poppy by her braid). March straight into the royal courtyard right now! Today King Gorgonio pays me twenty years of back bonuses or I repossess his flannel underpants!

 

MANFRED: (Walking along happily while Tulio drags him by the ear) Oh, Poppy, look what a decisive leadership style my brother has! Look how hard he pinches my ear, just like my wet nurse's tongs! I love him!

 

All three stumble offstage toward the palace courtyard.

 

SCENE FOUR: The Milk Jug and the Privileged Bosoms

 

Back in the palace courtyard of the Kingdom of Tax-Tax. In the cage upstage, QUEEN PHILOMENA and PERCY THE SEXY STABLE BOY are cozy as can be: they are roasting giant sausages over a brazier while Percy paints the Queen's toenails with a camel-hair brush.

 

Down center enters KING GORGONIO riding a hobbyhorse broomstick, dragging his royal robe stained with ketchup and mustard, and guzzling desperately from a patterned leather wineskin.

 

KING GORGONIO: (Singing off-key) Giddyup, financial steed, today we tax the beggar's need! (Trips over his own belly, rolls across the floor like a barrel, and lands sitting up without spilling a drop from his wineskin). A miracle! The monarch's tailbone is cracked, but the vintage Rioja in the wineskin survived! Tulio! Tulio, you filing-cabinet rat! Come pick up your King before the ants charge me ground rent!

 

QUEEN PHILOMENA: (Peering through the cage curtains with opera glasses) Look, Percy, my fat husband just fell on his backside again. I bet you two fat sausages he doesn't even remember what century it is today… And don't give him any sausages, look how gassy he gets.

 

PERCY: No way, my little pigeon, all the sausages are for us. Now give me your other little foot...

 

Suddenly, the courtyard doors fly open with a synchronized kick. TULIO and MANFRED march in lockstep, followed by POPPY banging on a dented drum.

 

TULIO and MANFRED: (In unison, though Tulio roars and Manfred sings) Down with the tyranny of the stingy old villain!

 

KING GORGONIO: (Blinking, covers his left eye, then his right, and stares warily at his wineskin) Holy God of Red Wine! This vintage went straight to my head—I'm seeing double! I see two Ministers of Finance! (Staggers to his feet and approaches the twins). Let's see, which one of you is my tax-collecting rat, and what's the other one... a rat or a mouse?

 

THE KING laughs uproariously at his own joke and delivers a loud slap to TULIO's cheek.

 

TULIO: Ow! That's me, the tax-collecting rat, you decrepit old goat!

 

KING GORGONIO: Aha! If this one hurts, the other one must be the mouse. (Delivers an equally loud slap to MANFRED).

 

MANFRED: (Without losing his smile) Aww, how sweet, he called me a mouse! I've always wanted to be a field mouse!

 

KING GORGONIO: (Leaping backward and crossing himself with the wineskin) Help! The little mouse talks! This is a nightmare or a curse! Bring holy water, bring an exorcist! Tulio, why did you multiply without my royal authorization?! Two ministers mean double rations in the palace cafeteria!

 

TULIO: (Shaking a scroll in the King's face) I am not a hallucination, but I am about to become your worst nightmare, you greedy crowned lobster! This grinning simpleton is Manfred, my twin brother! Here is the forensic evidence: same hook nose, same half-blanket with the cross-eyed horse, and the exact same half-chewed turnip birthmark on our ankles! (Both twins lift their left legs simultaneously and shove their hairy ankles right under the King's nose).

 

POPPY: Take a whiff, Your Majesty, take a whiff! The unmistakable stench of fraudulent orphanhood! For twenty years you told Tulio you pulled him out of a well to avoid paying him wages, while hiding poor Manfred away in the Kingdom of Cauliflower!

 

MANFRED: (With teary eyes) Sire, I didn't come for the money... I only wanted to meet my whole family.

 

KING GORGONIO: (Cornered, throwing his broomstick to the floor and turning purple with rage) Your family?! That's a stretch! Fine, you want to know where you came from, you spawns of adultery?! Hold onto your trousers! You aren't orphans from the well! You are the filthy bastards whelped by my adulterous wife with that stable boy who smells like chewed alfalfa! (Points an accusing finger at the cage).

 

Inside the cage, PERCY swallows the bristles of his camel-hair brush in sheer shock.

 

QUEEN PHILOMENA: (Shoving her head so far between the bars her ears nearly pop off) What did you say, you walking keg?! Repeat that, you bloated Pilates ball!

 

KING GORGONIO: I speak the historical truth! Twenty years ago I caught the two of you rolling in the royal hayloft! I locked you in that cage for high treason, and shortly after, I found these two gremlins bawling in the palace crib! I disowned them for having stable blood, shipped one away so I wouldn't have to look at him, and kept Tulio because he had long fingers for counting coins!

 

PERCY: (Rattling the bars with the horse currycomb, thoroughly outraged) Hold it right there, you scepter-waving slanderer! I may be a freeloader and a poacher of royal bedrooms, but a deadbeat dad? Never! Queen Philomena and I are completely innocent of those two big-nosed brats!

 

QUEEN PHILOMENA: Tell him, Percy, give it to him without anesthesia! Look at this waist, Gorgonio! (Hikes up her skirt to reveal three corsets layered on top of each other). I have never birthed so much as a hiccup! Whenever Percy and I snuck into the hayloft, we practiced extreme precaution!

 

TULIO: And just what were you doing in there, madam?

 

PERCY: Playing strip dominoes in the hay! Totally safe, son—the best method for not having kids you can't afford!

 

KING GORGONIO: (Scratching his scalp underneath his crown) What do you mean, safe dominoes?! Then who the devil put two identical babies in the royal crib on the morning of Saint Swithin's gale? The storks?!

 

A deafening crash of pots and pans echoes from the entrance. AMANDA the wet nurse charges in, swinging her massive tin milk jug over her head. The twins and Poppy hit the deck; Amanda skids to a halt and slams the tin jug onto the flagstones, making the King jump two feet in the air.

 

AMANDA: Your grandmother's storks, you bird-brained King! Those two little angels came straight out of this belly of mine, and the guilty stallion wasn't the stable boy—it was you, you old bag of bones!

 

ALL: (Jumping to their feet at once) WHAT?!

 

KING GORGONIO: (Trembling) Lies! Total slander! I have never touched a wet nurse except to ask for a glass of milk!

 

AMANDA: (Advancing on the King while poking his belly with the tin jug) Well, that's precisely what happened, and you took a little more than a glass! Jog your memory, you walking barrel! Twenty years and nine months ago, on the night of the Great January Freeze, you drank four casks of gunpowder-spiked Rioja all by yourself. At three in the morning you started bellowing from your royal bed: "Bring me hot milk with cinnamon or I'll have everyone beheaded!"

 

KING GORGONIO: (Sweating bullets) Well... red wine gives me heartburn, you know I prefer white...

 

AMANDA: I walked in through the dark carrying the jug of steaming milk! And you, so blind drunk you couldn't tell a candelabra from a bishop's wife, grabbed me by the apron, pulled me onto the feather mattress, and whispered in my ear: "Come here, my warm little heifer, my feet are freezing and you smell like fresh cheese!"

 

ALL: (Making collective faces of disgust) Ewwwww!

 

KING GORGONIO drops his wineskin, which Poppy catches mid-air. The King approaches Amanda in slow motion, sniffs her left shoulder, then her apron, and his eyes fly wide open in wonder.

 

KING GORGONIO: By all the saints! Boiled milk and goat cheese! You were the warm little cloud, the gorgeous dairy cow made flesh! And for twenty years I thought I had cuddled up to a voluptuous merino sheep that wandered in through the balcony!

 

AMANDA: Your mother's a voluptuous sheep, you drooling old fool! The next morning you were snoring like a hog and didn't remember a thing. Nine months later, I birthed these twins behind the pantry. Knowing you'd hang me for trespassing on the royal mattress if you found out they were yours, I wrapped them in the stable boy's blanket and slipped them into the palace crib so you'd think they were your wife's bastards. And then you hired me as wet nurse to feed my own babies with these two magnificent bosoms of mine!

 

KING GORGONIO: (Clapping his hands to his face and bursting into a monumental belly laugh) Bahahaha! What a masterstroke! So I'm not a ridiculous old cuckold after all—I'm a loving father twice over!

 

ALL: (Wavering their heads skeptically) Mmmh... well... not really...

 

KING GORGONIO: …And best of all, frankly speaking: I saved myself twenty years of child support! Come here, you monsters of my bloodline! (Opens his arms to the twins).

 

MANFRED: (Running to hug the King's belly) Daddy dearest! I knew a loving father's heart beat beneath that ketchup-and-mustard-stained cape!

 

TULIO: (Whipping out his abacus at top speed and clacking the beads) Hold everything, nobody move! If I am the legitimate son of the King's loins, that voids my foundling contract and automatically makes me a Royal Highness entitled to twenty years of retroactive princely salary, compound holiday bonuses, moral damages, and inheritance of the throne... (Smiles for the very first time in his life—a terrifying grimace). I'm rich! Rich and immune to prosecution!

 

KING GORGONIO: (Wiping away tears of paternal pride as he looks at Tulio) Listen to him, Amanda! He just found out he has a father and the first thing he does is calculate my foreclosure! He's the spitting image of me when I deposed my grandfather with a wooden chair! Tulio, son of my soul, for being the most ruthless, greedy, cynical, and heartless of the two, I hereby name you Sole Universal Heir and Acting Regent! Take the crown—it pinches my forehead and I'm tired of signing decrees! (Jams the crown down over Tulio's ears).

 

MANFRED: (Clapping happily) Bravo for my brother! And what do I get, Daddy King? Can I be Minister of Eco-Culture and Sustainable Progress?

 

KING GORGONIO: You?! You're dumber than a box of rocks, Manfred! With that sweet-roll smile of yours, you'd bankrupt the realm in fifteen minutes building sustainable utopias and progressive gardens. No, no, no… I name you Lifetime Duke of the Floating Cloud, grant you three acres of tax-free cabbages, and give you permission to marry that girl staring at you like a hungry wolf.

 

POPPY: (Leaping onto Manfred's neck) Hallelujah! I get the handsome twin, a duchess title, and no accounting ledgers in bed!

 

QUEEN PHILOMENA: (Rattling the cage door until it screeches) Hey, Gorgonio, less crown-handing and more justice! If the twins belong to you and the wet nurse, Percy and I are innocent of bastard-smuggling!

 

KING GORGONIO: Well, yes... I suppose... Fine, you're free! Now you'll have to get a job and kiss your state benefits goodbye! (Pulls a giant key from his belt and unlocks the cage). You are officially pardoned, divorced, and evicted!

 

PERCY: (Peeking warily out of the cage) Evicted? Say, Your Majesty, couldn't we stay locked up for another ten years? There's no draft in here and they bring us breakfast in bed...

 

QUEEN PHILOMENA: (Dragging Percy out of the cage by his ear) Move it outside, Percy, don't be a lazybones! With the twenty years of sausages and silver cutlery we stashed under the mattress, we'll buy a roadside inn at the border and play dominoes in the fresh air! Goodbye, cuckolds and in-laws, we're off to live the high life! (The Queen and Percy exit dancing a wild conga line and tossing cauliflower petals).

 

KING GORGONIO: (Plopping a straw beach hat on top of his wig and offering his arm to Amanda) And now, my warm and voluptuous dairy queen, to make up for twenty years of royal amnesia, I declare by perpetual edict that your life-saving attributes shall be emblazoned upon the national coat of arms under the title of "The Privileged Bosoms." Grab that milk jug, woman—you and I are going on a twenty-year-late honeymoon to soak up the sun on the beaches of Cancun!

 

AMANDA: (Giving the King an affectionate shove that nearly knocks him over) Lead the way, you dirty old man, but this time you're warming up your own cinnamon milk!

 

TULIO: (Climbs atop his podium with the crooked crown on his head, banging a judge's gavel) Halt this procession of happy freeloaders! As Acting King of the Kingdom of Tax-Tax, I hereby enact Law Number One! Ten gold coins abdication tax for my father! Fifteen coins nobility-title licensing fee for my brother! Twenty coins marriage surcharge for my ex-girlfriend! And a fifty-coin fine for my mother for giving birth to me without a revenue stamp on my bellybutton! Guards, bring out the taxpayer-catching net!

 

AMANDA: (Raising her tin milk jug) Run, Gorgonio, the boy turned out to be an even bigger crook than you!

 

TULIO leaps from his podium chasing everyone with his tape measure and giant ledger; KING GORGONIO, AMANDA, MANFRED, and POPPY run in circles around the empty cage amid shouts, laughter, and swinging milk jugs as the curtain drops with a thud.

 

FAST CURTAIN                 

DOUBLE TROUBLE: A Comic and Absurd Farce in Four Scenes. © 2026 by BENJAMIN GAVARRE is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0