You've heard about the movie Eyes Wide Shut; maybe you were even unlucky enough to see it with your eyes wide open!

And now, in this world exclusive, The Bug is proud to publish the words to the world-famous play on the making of the celluloid masterpiece that has the whole world of critics talking.

Sadly, it proved the expectedly brilliant but tragically final offering from the pen of famed British playwright, Cubby Brick-Stanley, who died of a heart attack after being punched by a theatre lover only weeks after finishing what must truly be regarded as his greatest masterpiece ever, if early critics' reviews from around the world are any guide to such matters.

So, without further ado, The Bug proudly presents......

Hype floats
..... an 11 act, one scene play by Cubby Brick-Stanley (dec.)

Scene: a swank Indian restaurant in a narrow side street not far off Piccadilly Circus proper and a stone’s throw from Soho.
It’s late July, 1997, summer London is all swelter and bustle outside and famous film actors, husband and wife team, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, are doing lunch with legendary director, the reclusive Stanley Kubrick.
Kubrick, the force behind such masterpieces as Full Metal Jacket, The Shining, Doctor Strangeglove and 2001: A Space Oddity, examines the remnants of his extra hot beef vindaloo through his trusty eye glass, first from one angle, then another and finally a third. With a sigh, he places the eye glass on the table and picks up his mobile phone.

Kubrick: As I was saying before lunch, the last 58 days here have not been wasted, my children. In fact, I believe I have finally worked out exactly how to frame this upcoming masterpiece.
Across the room, sitting close together in a bay window near the front door, Kidman and Cruise lean forward excitedly, indeed like little children being offered a special sweet, pressing close to their matching his and hers Nokias.
Kubrick (excitedly): I’ve decided to open Eyes Wide Shut with this long, extremely gratuitous rear nude scene of you, Nicole, and end it with your character saying the word “fuck”.
Kidman and Cruise (looking at each other and then saluting Kubrick, in half shadow in a corner diagonally across from them):
Kidman: Mate, pure genius through and through.
Cruise: (nodding, fires off a fresh salute, holds it steady for the regulation four.) Ditto.
Kubrick (a shy man in many ways, looking down slightly): Thank you.
Kidman (giggling): So it’s all about sex then. Is that why you’ve been asking a lot of questions about our private lives these past two months, Stanley?
Kubrick: Partly.

Scene: the same restaurant, one week later.

Kidman: I’ve already read some media reports about how raunchy it’s going to be. (giggling) Do we get to do it on film? Do we, Stanley, eh?
Cruise: Nik, please!
Kubrick: Sort of. I spent last night envisaging this steamy scene where your two characters kiss while standing beside a bathroom mirror.
Kidman (giggling): Oh, goody, a knee trembler.
Cruise: Yeah, okay. Sounds fun. Count me in. But no shooting the milk crate, okay?
Kubrick: Milk crate?
Cruise: Nik reckons she’s got legs like Waterworks Road.
Kubrick: I don’t get it.
Kidman (giggling): They go all the way up to The Gap!
Kubrick: I still don’t get it.
Kidman: Neither does Tom unless he uses the milk crate.
Cruise: Now cut that out, you crazy Ossie bitch.
Kidman: Short-arsed septic tank!
Kubrick: That’s it. Now hold that tension between you two. That indefinable sexual chemistry is why I've hired actors married in real life. I want that passion to literally jump out of the screen at the audience. You must maintain that intensity for when we start shooting in about a year’s time.
Kidman (giggling): Thank God at least someone will be doing some shooting!
Cruise: Now, Nik....
Kidman: So help me, Stanley, I wouldn’t really mind them being blanks as long as he could get a decent shot away every now and then.
Cruise: Hey com’on. Stanley doesn’t want to hear about that...
Kidman: You know, Stanley, whoever said you could gauge the size of a man’s penis by the size of his nose should be taken out and shot.
Cruise (angry): Hey, leave my nose out of this.

Scene: the same restaurant, a week and a half later.

Cruise: So, Stanley, what’s the film about then?
Kubrick: I’m not quite sure yet. I only got the screenplay from Frederic Schnitzler last year and I’m in the process of reworking it.
Kidman: Not snappy enough?
Kubrick: Not long enough. Schnitzler’s only written for one and three quarter hours. I’m in the process of putting in the other hour and a quarter at the moment.
Cruise: So what’s the gist of it all, man?
Kubrick: Well, you two play an extremely happily married couple – besotted in fact – beautiful daughter, great medical career for your character, Tom. Well off, beautiful Manhattan pad. Then, one night after a party, Nicole, your character confesses to once having this powerful and erotic fantasy about this uniformed stranger she saw once in a hotel foyer. This sends Tom off on a 48 hour odyssey of sexual retribution and carnal excess, seeking an outlet for his altered and confused carnal desires from prostitutes and the like.
Kidman: Lots of luck, ladies!
Cruise: You godammned crazy Ossie bitch!
Kubrick: You stumble across the password for entry into this creepy country mansion, where this pagan ritualised sex orgy is taking place with hundreds of masked men and women.
Cruise: This guy goes haywire just because his wife that he loves madly confesses to a fantasy? It just doesn’t make any sense.
Kubrick (head slightly bowed): Thank you.

Scene: the restaurant, mid autumn.

Kidman: My mum’s been reading all these media stories about our love scenes and she’s a bit worried. It’s not going to be that racy is it, Stanley?
Kubrick: Look, you two’ve only got the one short sex scene where you kiss briefly. And quite frankly, if I can’t get you fired up on the set like you were the other day, I’ve got this horrible feeling that you're both going to give off about as much heat as a pair of very tired old glow worms.
Kidman (pouting): Well we are married.
Cruise (supportive, touching Kidman's forearm): Yeah, that’s right, honey.
Kubrick: No, it’s the orgy scenes that will get people all fired up. I’m planning this long, exceptionally gratuitous section in the middle of the movie where your character, Tom, stumbles into the orgy unannounced and uninvited. I’m going to use this circle of naked women – the most beautiful, long-legged models we can find from around the world...
Cruise (interrupting nervously): I don’t have to stand too close to them, do I?
Kubrick: ...and on the balconies around this enormous columned room will be hundreds of men and more naked women with pointy breasts wearing masks. There will be happy masks. Sad masks. Grotesque masks. Beautiful masks. What antithesis! I’ll shoot them over and over again in closeup and vibrant rich colours. It’ll be so arty! So crafty! So European. It’ll be a laid-down misere to garner five star reviews from all those boring old farts of film reviewers around the world who fall hook line and sinker for that sort of thing.
Kidman and Cruise (nodding appreciatively): Surely the work of the master’s master.
Kubrick (hand half raised in modest protest): Thank you, children.

Scene: the same restaurant: the next day.

Cruise (tapping his mobile): I don’t think I’ll be able to talk for long today because I think my mobile’s battery is starting to beep. I could lose you at any ..........

Scene: the same restaurant, a very cold day in early 1998.

Cruise: Well, if nothing else, I’m really looking forward to working with Harvey Keitel.
Kubrick: Tom. Can I get back to you?
An hour later. One of the mobiles on Kidman's and Cruise’s table rings and Cruise picks it up.
Cruise: Hello?
Kubrick: Tom, it’s me, Stanley.
Cruise (waving to the corner): Yes, I know.
Kubrick: Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner but I wanted to break the news to you the right way. Tom, you won’t be working with Harvey. He left the project some months ago. Instead, you’ll be doing that crucial scene I mentioned the other month with none other than Sydney Pollock.
Cruise: Pollock?
Kubrick: So I'm told. Yes.

Scene: the same restaurant 10 days later.

Kubrick: Children, after we chatted yesterday about this and that, I got home and it came to me in a flash as to how to handle the music for this project. I think I mentioned the other month that I wasn’t happy with the music score Jocelyn Pook sent me last year.
Kidman: Not stirring enough?
Kubrick: Not long enough. The silly woman only wrote for a tad under two hours. But I’ve worked out how to fill in the remainder of the three hours minus one minute running time. I want to underscore any dramatic moment in the film with a single piano note repeated over and over again.. (Kubrick uses his index finger to thump on an imaginary keyboard at his table). Tink (pause) tink (pause) tink (pause). I don’t think it’s ever been done before.
Cruise: There could be a very good reason for that....
Kidman: Don’t listen to limp dick, Stanley, I think you’re an absolute genius.

Scene: the same restaurant, a week later.

Kidman: I read somewhere where the orgy scenes are really going to be explosive.
Kubrick (nodding): That’s right. Patrons will be going to see Eyes Wide Shut expecting hardcore porn with their popcorn. We’ll have them believing they’ll be lucky if the film doesn’t burst into flames in the projector gate before the screening is a bare 10 minutes old.
Cruise: That hot, eh?
Kubrick: Not really. I’m going to use some scenes with simulated intercourse and there’ll be some oral sex scenes between men and women and women and women where their faces will be nowhere near where they should be if they were really doing the business. A bit like your opening scene, Nicole.
Kidman: How’s that?
Kubrick: After you’ve sat on the toot, I’m going to get you to wipe yourself only you miss the mark by a good six inches.
Kidman: A good six inches. Now I’d like to see that!
Cruise: Crazy Ossie bitch.

Scene: the same restaurant, a day later.

Kubrick: Last night, I worked out the final peg on which to hang this entire project.
Kidman and Cruise (gentle applause to the corner): A man at the very absolute peak of his powers.
Kubrick: Thank you. Your character, Nicole, speaks really slowly all the way through the film – you’re either stoned or pissed all the time, right? Same with you, Tom. Even though you’re supposedly a bright young doctor, there’s this long scene with Sydney Pollock where we can almost hear your brain ticking over as you try to work out how this woman who tried to warn you of the dangers of being at the orgy has ended up dead in a gratuitous, overlong morgue scene I’ve got planned. Then it came to me. Ticking. In those scenes where I’m not using the single piano note over and over and over and over again to underscore what I perceive as a dramatic moment, I’m going to use the ticking of a clock instead. (Kubrick raises his right hand and moves it from side to side slowly). Tick (pause) Tock (pause) Tick (pause) Tock (pause). All interspersed with your painfully slow, staccato style delivery. It’d be my own special little tribute to High Society.
Kidman and Cruise: Noon.
Kubrick: Is it? Well, let’s order then.

Scene: the same restaurant, eight days later.

Cruise: So, Stanley, these chats have been wonderful, but when are we going to start shooting?
Kubrick (puts down his mobile briefly and frames his famous players through outstretched hands, his fingers pointing upwards, thumbs slightly touching. He slowly picks up his mobile and reflects for some minutes before speaking): You know, children, I’m no spring chicken any more. This might well be my last chance to be regarded as an equal to the famous British director Jonathon Orrlington.
Kidman and Cruise: Orrlington?
Kubrick: My childhood inspiration. An absolute perfectionist in everything he did. Do you know that in a brilliant career spanning more than 50 years, he never, ever, signed off on a picture until he was absolutely convinced it was as perfect as it could possibly be in every minute detail?
Cruise (frowning): I’m sorry but I’m not familiar with his work. What were some of his better known movies?
Kubrick: He never actually made any movies.
Cruise: Oh...
Kubrick: The perfectionist’s perfectionist. You know, Terrence Malick and I have always placed him so high on this pedestal that we were grateful if, in our own careers, we reached a standard high enough just to reach up and touch this great man’s feet. And that’s why, my children, this movie will take as long as it takes. If a car-door opening sequence that I used to be able to put in the can after a mere 127 takes ends up taking 350 or more, then so be it.

The same restaurant, two months later.

Kubrick: And that’s why. If this takes two years to complete, then so be it.
Cruise: Two goddamned years!
Kubrick: Look, if you two want to go off and do some other projects in between, then please do it. Naturally, you’ll be on full wages throughout the two years regardless.
Cruise and Kidman (putting down their phones and rising to face Kubrick’s corner): We stand humbled in the presence of greatness (tears unashamedly streaming down their faces and now beginning to applaud): Auter. Auter! (applause gets louder). Auter. Auter.

Other diners begin to realise that they too are in the presence of an exceptional power; an almost divine creative force.
They rise in dribs, then drabs and finally a torrent to turn to Kubrick’s corner.
Crowd: Author! Author! (shouting in the fading late afternoon light, mistaking the shadowy figure in the corner of the restaurant for Salman Rushdie).

CURTAIN