CHARADE A play by JOHN MONTELEONE CONTACT: e-mail: writing@johnmonteleone.com PO Box 2723 Sag Harbor, NY 11963 IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDING PRODUCTIONS STUDENT CLASS PROJECTS If this is for a student class project you may use this text or sections of it free of charge but I want to know that you're doing it for my resume and would love a video tape of the production, and/or quality rehearsals. PRODUCTIONS OF ANY KIND OR LEVEL You may read and use this text-based script for considering work but if you want to produce my work as a student, amateur or professional production you must purchase scripts from me online and pay royalties per performance. __________________________________ Copyright 1997 by John Monteleone All Rights Reserved Registered with WGAE A small four by four foot stage with steps leading down from all four sides sits dead center stage. Both stages are black. No other set pieces exist. The characters speak stage directions and then they or the characters they are speaking about do the directions. DIRECTOR A Man enters quietly. Looks at the audience. Smiles. Stops smiling. Describes the set in detail. A bare black stage with nothing surrounding it but black, creating the illusion of eternity. The stage is bare. Here is a black border around a large, grey rectangle and a small, four foot by four foot, mini- stage within the larger stage, up center, also painted black. The stage within a stage has stairs leading down from all four sides. One spot of light center stage creating an almost ghost- like resonance, light bouncing off the floor. The characters are, Director, that is me. Woman, a Woman. Man, a Man. And Child, a male or female about twenty. He looks at his empty white pad. Only the stage directions written on it. I am the writer and director of this play. What you are about to see is a play in the making. That is, a play that will be written by me, in front of your eyes. After all, it is a mirror. A reflection. And we, the characters in the play are creating the play as we go along. He pauses again. Tonight, you and I, and the other characters you will meet shortly, are creating an illusion together. The play. I sit and begin to let the characters speak on the page. As I write, a Woman enters. Stage right. A Woman enters. WOMAN Enter a Woman dressed in a dress crosses down stage center and speaks to the audience. I am a character. I am definable. You too are characters and definable in your characterization of yourself. All of us, here, in this room, are characters. You are characters watching me, a character perform in a play about character. However, and I must point this out, I am not the character you think I am. I am a character, like you, creating a character, here, performing. You watching me are also human. As I am. We could say that all of us are human beings, acting as characters in the play of life, some watching a play, others within the play, where characters are acting like other characters, for the characters watching the play from a seat in their play of life, where they have many roles - one being a patient audience member. But I don't want to confuse you. Pause. So I'll just say I'm a character in a play you paid to see and so we'll get on with the show. She exits left. She exits left. DIRECTOR I don't know if this idea is going to work. An impulse. A Man enters... A Man enters. MAN A Man enters from off stage right, to balance the Woman exiting off stage left. He stops downstage center. Looks at the audience for a very long time in silence until they laugh. Then speaks to them directly. I am a Man playing a Man in the play you are watching. In life, it seems I am insignificant. But here, in this world of the play, I am the leading role. WOMAN You are not. DIRECTOR No dear, the line isn't you are not, it's bullshit. WOMAN Oh, I'm sorry. The actress playing Child enters. CHILD The Child enters, crosses to the small stage. Sits. DIRECTOR Tableau. a soft blue light on them. CHILD The play we, the characters in this play play, is a farce... WOMAN Serio comed... CHILD Farce... WOMAN Serio... CHILD Never mind. It's a play. MAN I think it's time to cut the blue lights and get on with the play. DIRECTOR NO. I'm only exploring this idea. I want the play to have an open, curious atmosphere. CHILD The play will begin, introduce a crisis, and be resolved. DIRECTOR There is no beginning middle or end. Everyone wants to define everything because really, there is no definition other than the illusion of definitions. We contrive air to postpone the reality of our death. Pause. DIRECTOR Yes, that's a thought. We are on a rock. Floating in a vacuum of endless space. And we have had to survive as scrounging for some kind of identity. Yet it is through identifying illusions we've so accepted as our only reality that we can find the essential meaning of our lives. Blue lights shift to red. But what is the essence of life here on Earth. Blue lights shift to red. DIRECTOR A harsher tone. Like the fire of the blazing sun ruptured in a frozen universe. A world that was once, nothing. Now, life. We are from the sun. And we enact. But under it all is the foundation of our universe. Space. Endless, nothingness. and here in this space, I create the lives of these characters. You create your lives. Your characters. You teach each other how to perform. I direct them how to act. I make them up As you make yourselves up. And the question always exists, "who writes the play, the author, or the characters?" Who writes yours? WOMAN The actress playing mother breaks from her tableau. DIRECTOR The red light turns to amber. The writer sits, writes, and watches his mind, unfold, before his very eyes. Rolaids in hand. CHILD I am a character. You're not going to take away my character are you? MAN First they type cast you, so you can't create characters different from your own personality, then they want to explore eliminating it altogether. CHILD I'd feel naked without my character. What would I do? WOMAN I want to sit down... DIRECTOR (to Woman) Smile (Woman does. To Man) Anger (he creates a state of anger. To Child) Innocence . (Child poses) The idea of Character seems to create a prison for the full human being to find expression. The There can be no growth if character exists, only development of a restricted personality. The director smiles with a brief moment of intellectual satisfaction, then frowns, because he is unsure that his perception is correct, or how to make these thoughts work theatrically. Characters break tableau. MAN A CHARACTERLESS PLAY? What are you saying there is no play? DIRECTOR This is the play. MAN What is the play? DIRECTOR THIS. MAN That's ridiculous. DIRECTOR Beyond ridiculous. Absurd. Impossible. Unbelievable. MAN BEYOND SANE YOU MEAN! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TRYING TO KNOW. DIRECTOR Are you the ACTOR playing the CHARACTER or a character playing the character? CHILD He's the actor trying to understand the concept. WOMAN I'm trying to understand the concept. DIRECTOR You are the characters but you're not developed yet. MAN I'm developed. DIRECTOR I'm exploring you and the form, finding a structure that will bring all of these feelings and ideas in my brain into focus. CHILD I want a plot. DIRECTOR Where does that leave us? CHILD With something to do. DIRECTOR Always "to do". Actors freeze. Perhaps a MIsperception? Building a character has, in the past, been thought of as a means of developing the self. I am exploring here, I think, the idea that character destroys the self. Kills us. Turns us into fowl liars. WOMAN This is ridiculous. I'm a character and I'm playing a character in this play, who is in turn playing another character in a play in this play. But if you take away the character in this play or my character who is playing the character in the plays play, then there will be no play. Are you saying that there is no play? DIRECTOR This IS the play. The interaction. CHILD Wait a minute. Just hold everything here. I've got to get my bearings together. Okay. This is the play. O.k. I'm an actress. This is the stage and in the play I'm nineteen years old, I've been through nineteen years in a contemporary American family... This is my mother and this is my father... and I'm their Child. So, where do we go from there? DIRECTOR There's no where to go. Those are your roles to one another. Not the character. A relationship is separate from character although characters do have relationships. ALL What about our feelings? DIRECTOR What are you feeling? ALL Me the character or me the actor? DIRECTOR You the person. ALL The actor, then. DIRECTOR No, you the human being. That amazing creature. ALL But the human being is, an actor. DIRECTOR But the actor is a role you play in society, not you. You are far greater, more amazing a miracle than a mere job or position. ALL All my feelings? DIRECTOR That which you are aware of inside of you... ALL I feel tired... DIRECTOR Go on. CHILD I feel sad... WOMAN ...confused... MAN ...dismayed... CHILD ...alone... WOMAN ...abandoned... MAN ...fearful... CHILD ...a sense of belonging... WOMAN ...a sense of not belonging... MAN ...a sense of knowing... CHILD ...where I'm going but of being killed at any moment... ALL Of death... DIRECTOR Closer. MAN Dyeing... dyeing.... DYEING...?!!! OH MY GOD!!! HE IS TERRIFIED, FALLS TO HIS KNEES. DIRECTOR A bit overdone. CHILD HOLD EVERYTHING! Child, crosses down to the audience and speaks directly to them. Director, observes her, hand on chin. Woman and Man freeze in a tableau of confusion. Excuse me. You're the audience right? HELLO? I'm talking to you. I'm standing here talking to you as an actress, not the character. I've stepped out of the play completely. These aren't the words of the character. They're mine. MINE! YOU HEAR ME, MINE? STAGE MANAGER From the audience... No dear, it's not "Mine mine you hear me, it's... CHILD SHUT UP STAGE MANAGER! WOMAN Reading from her script... no it says right here..." Don't blow the play". STAGE MANAGER No I'm sure it's "please listen to me". WOMAN NO - "It's don't blow the play". STAGE MANAGER NO IT'S NOT! WOMAN YES IT IS! STAGE MANAGER BULLSHIT!! WOMAN BULLSHIT YOURSELF, I'M READING IT RIGHT OUT OF THE PLAY TEXT!!! STAGE MANAGER Which draft do you have? WOMAN The final one. STAGE MANAGER Oh. Sorry... I have the second draft. Let me follow in the text for you. Can I borrow yours? WOMAN Sure. STAGE MANAGER Woman gives the Stage Manager her script. Thanks. WOMAN Sorry. DIRECTOR But it's not what I just wrote. WOMAN WHAT DID YOU WRITE? DIRECTOR Those words you're reading. WOMAN But it's not in THIS script. STAGE MANAGER Or THIS one. DIRECTOR Pause... He writes, they live. WOMAN Maybe the actual writer knows the answer to this problem about which script to believe. MAN Well, ask him for god's sake, he's writing these words right now as I speak... DIRECTOR The actor playing director, playing the writer, writes madly, as directed in the script he's writing. MAN Ask him.... CHILD Excuse me? DIRECTOR No answer as he pretends to write these actions as they occur, but is only acting from memory. CHILD Ex... cuuuuuse... me? DIRECTOR Again, No answer. Rises and crosses down stage right, thinking. The characters stop in a state of worry and loneliness. He pauses. Is life absurd? Illogical? It is not, what we need it to be. Yet we give it form. A gift to ourselves. Some sense of order in the shape of ideas, beliefs, structures, designs. But what do we lose when we create form? What do we sacrifice of our experience? Isn't there a sense of an overriding theme within all of that? A sense of senselessness? A meaning that cannot be defined? MAN I go to work. I make money. I relate to everyone around me to survive. I hold in most of my real feelings and substitute them with ones I know will please the other. I act like my job. I respond to my surroundings. I know what I've created as my life and I accept what I believe as what I believe. My beliefs are believable enough. I know them. I defend them. The money I earn pays specific amounts of other numbers I earn and the rest I invest in other numbers to support my set up. In my life everything adds up and my life is very logical so don't go throwing all that mystical crap at me so I feel lost. Even if I feel lost I won't let you know it. I will act logical so I feel Like I'm together. Do you understand? Answer me. DIRECTOR The Writer stares at his creation. Man, grows uneasy. CHILD This is great. Just terrific. The writer, though expressing himself to the audience through us, won't talk to us, his own creations, even through the Director who is the writer representing himself. WOMAN Answer the question please? DIRECTOR I can't! CHILD WHY NOT? DIRECTOR Because I'm only exploring questions... MAN Pause. They all look at one another in a hopeless desperation attempting to understand the play they exist in. But we must have answers to these questions. DIRECTOR Cut. The characters freeze in a state of deep desperation. This isn't working. He seems upset. Bewildered. I don't know where to go with this. Here I am, a product of an environment that is completely made-up, created, attempting to create a world in this space that is also created. This imaginary world within what we call our real world is created to penetrate into a deeper level of the "real" world which is made-up. He laughs. Perhaps one of these actors, I mean characters, I mean human beings, knows why? He stands looking at the Woman playing a character named Woman. WOMAN She turns. Stares at him blankly. There is nothing in her eyes. It's as if, his questions have completely confused her beyond any confusion she has ever known. A mythical state of transcendental confusion. DIRECTOR The Director contemplates, ideas continue to emerge. MAN It's always there, isn't it? It always hangs over us all. The next moment. DIRECTOR AND CHILD WHO ARE WE? WOMAN Everything we say is written in that book. And we, the actors, are able to convince them, the audience, that each thing we say is in fact said for the very first time and gives the impression of the truth, while all along the play has already been written. DIRECTOR The writer writes madly, but is really only faking it. MAN Are we bringing a written illusion to life, or are we enacting what has always been written? CHILD I bring out more than what was written. I interpret the play in its entirety and then use my personal experience, or imagination to bring the character to life. But here, there is no character, no plot. What is going to happen? What could possibly happen? How can you, the director playing the writer hold the audiences attention? DIRECTOR AND WOMAN WHAT IS IT YOU WANT TO KNOW? MAN I want to know if I am who I am, or if I am some invention of someone I've never met who invented me out of his or her imagination? DIRECTOR Both. CHILD Maybe if we analyzed the text... MAN I read the book and interpreted the play. I memorized the damn thing but I still have no answer to my part. I am an actor playing the character, who is seeking to know which is beyond the role. CHILD You're an actor playing a badly written character. MAN I am not, badly written. CHILD You are flawed, characteristically. DIRECTOR WHAT IS IT YOU WANT TO KNOW? MAN Am I the actor playing the character finding myself in the role? Or the role in myself? DIRECTOR Both. BOTH! MAN Or, is it that life is transformed in some small way given meaning through taking part in the theatrical event? STAGE MANAGER No. I'm sorry the line was... MAN I DON'T GIVE A GOOD GOD DAMNED WHAT THE LINE WAS I'M CONFUSED AND I'M TERRIFIED.... HE WEEPS AND FALLS IN THE CHAIR. I want my freedom and my identity. That's all. Is that so much to ask? That's why I've always acted. It's a way to know myself. But if I create a character, give breathing life to a series of words on a page, who's character is it? Am I the owner of that role, or just an enactor of someone elses madness? My God, I feel trapped in a work of art. How, could I ever be free in the chaos of society? CHILD I've got it. We are only characters in a limited play! STAGE MANAGER No, that's not the line. MAN I'm not free. I'm entrapped, encased, enclosed by the limitations of this brain in this head within only five senses that I know, in this world in this universe, right here in this play. I'm entrapped by the words in this play. I, the actor, can't simply come out and say what I want. I have an obligation to make the play work. If I did what I wanted, I'd have to leave the text. But how can I? How can we? We'd have to mutiny. And if we did, what would we do? If we did mutiny, the play would still remain in the text right. We'd be without the words. Wordless. Alone. Human flesh without communication. We have a chance with the words at least. Don't We? We can make up things with the words? Can't we? WE are the words we speak, aren't we? Or, are we more than the words written in the play. Or in our lives? What's the difference? The words are our lives, right this moment. Or am I thinking of something totally different, then what I'm saying? Am I hiding or am I exposing all that I am through my character? The words give us some kind of form. They're so powerful. They create reality. But then, what is reality? In truth? But what is the truth when you really come right down to it. WHAT, IS, THE, TRUTH? WOMAN A revelation that seems right? CHILD The interpretation of the interpretation? MAN I thought the more words I used, the greater I would know things. But perhaps, this idea called knowledge, is simply complex illusions creating meaning where there actually isn't any... No, that isn't right. Is it? DIRECTOR AND CHILD WHAT IS IT YOU'RE TRYING TO KNOW? MAN What is reality? And who am I, who are we, within it?! Am I real? Is this real life? DIRECTOR A part of it, perhaps. WOMAN Don't you see? People need to make sense out of the senseless. No that's not it exactly ... so it SEEMS like it makes sense. No, it's not specific enough... Um... CHILD Are you aware that you are attempting to define being specific about making sense out of the senseless? DIRECTOR A beat in the play... MAN Looks out aimlessly from the edge of the small stage... it's really just a desert, an abyss permeating our lives. Looming over our heads without care, without compassion, without promise. And we create everything to ignore it, to comfort it. WOMAN How can the very thing that created us, that we came out of not care about us... MAN I don't know... That's what bothers me. DIRECTOR From audience. Perhaps he doesn't know what to do? WOMAN Please take back those thoughts. MAN I take them back. WOMAN Thank you... MAN But where'd they go? CHILD Out there... Pause. Or in here, points to her (his) head. DIRECTOR Rises. As he does, the actors stop. The theatre becomes filled with stars. An absolute stillness exists. No motion. The set fades out making the three characters appear to be in space. Director attempting to dig deeper into this idea, sits and writes. MAN Characters live again as they break from their imposed tableaus ... Another beat in the play? WOMAN A new thought? CHILD You know what bothers me about this play? MAN What? CHILD You never know if what's really happening is really happening or if what's really happening is being made up. WOMAN Why bother doing this at all? CHILD Actions? MAN Movements? WOMAN Words. Interactions. Costumes, Make-up? MAN To continue..? CHILD It depends on the interpretation. MAN Right, as long as we interpret? WOMAN It's all in how you chose to see... MAN Can we really accept this? WOMAN Accept what? MAN All... this..? DIRECTOR Alright, let's take it back. MAN From where? DIRECTOR There. WOMAN Where? DIRECTOR Right from there... CHILD WHERE? DIRECTOR That moment, a human being filled with all that ever was or will be... SGE MANAGER THOSE AREN'T THE LINES! DIRECTOR Sorry, I meant "as far away as the farthest point in eternity, and as close as your own heart. Why isn't that enough?" Right? STAGE MANAGER Closer... MAN ...Because we're human. I need less than eternity. I can't do anything with eternity. I need substance. I need parameters! DIRECTOR Let's stop this charade, we have schedules... MAN What is your purpose of putting us on this stage? WOMAN ANSWER US OR I SWEAR, WE'LL MAKE SOMETHING UP... CHILD NO ANSWER AGAIN? NO ANSWER!!! ALL THEY TURN THEIR BACKS ON HIM. DIRECTOR No don't do that. Shit, writers block! Pause. To them. What is the problem? ALL WORDS. TOO MAN GODAMN WORDS. NO TRADITIONAL PLOT DAMN IT!!! DIRECTOR I DON'T WANT A PLOT. I WANT TO FIND OUT WHAT I DON'T KNOW. A PLOT IS CONTRIVED. THERE'S A STORY IN EACH MOMENT. EACH MOMENT MAKES UP THE EVENT. ALL WE NEED OUR CHARACTERS AND OUR OBJECTIVES TO HAVE AN IDENTITY. WE TOLD YOU THAT. YOU DIDN'T LET US SPEAK. YOU DIDN'T LISTEN TO US. WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU HAVE THAT RIGHT? DIRECTOR Wait a minute. I'm your creator... ALL ALL YOU NEED IS THE RIGHT WORD TO FREE US FROM THIS TERROR. CREATE A PLOT. GIVE US SOME FOCUS. LIE TO US IF YOU MUST. DIRECTOR They look at The Director with hate, revenge in their eyes. They begin to walk toward the director in a menacing way. WOMAN I have no objective anymore. Do you know what that means? MAN I have no direction. CHILD I'M NOT EVEN SURE WHERE THE BATHROOM IS!!! ALL WE'RE SICK OF IT!!! DIRECTOR YOU ARE CREATIVE BEINGS! The characters stop and look at him, he them. MAN Yes, we have creativity. CHILD To make things up. DIRECTOR Child, begins to introspect. She moves to the small stage. CHILD I walk. MAN We make things up. CHILD I feel my body move. MAN Identifiable things. CHILD I sense. DIRECTOR Look at this space. Things in the space. CHILD Parts of myself I can't touch.. MAN Like these objects. CHILD I'm moving my body. WOMAN We made them from the space. MAN We remember our selves... CHILD It's so spontaneous... MAN Our rhythms. CHILD That I can't really feel it happening. WOMAN Our habits. CHILD My legs coordinate... MAN Our thoughts. CHILD With the movements... WOMAN SET UP ... That sounds familiar. MAN Yes. We need, the familiar... CHILD My knees bend. WOMAN Set things up? Setting things up? Parameters... CHILD Precisely. MAN Voices, clothing, routines, ideas, reflections, images... CHILD My feet. WOMAN The set up ... It gives us something to... CHILD Meet the ground... MAN Setting things up. Making things up. So we have... CHILD Touch the earth. WOMAN Comfort? CHILD And merge with it. MAN Comfort. Routine. Set up. Yes. That feels better already. WOMAN I want an identity... NOW! Let's look for it in this space. CHILD Each ligament and muscle moves. MAN This is awful, still no parameters... If you don't find anything, make something up. CHILD Bones support my body. WOMAN The set up gives us... something to... hold onto... Where is the set up? CHILD Muscles move it. MAN Here? Somewhere. WOMAN Look for nothing if you can't find something. CHILD For balance. MAN That's insane. CHILD I can't feel my nerves... WOMAN It gives us something to do. Occupies time. CHILD Sending signals... MAN For what? CHILD Throughout my body... WOMAN So we feel... CHILD I can't hear my brain thinking... MAN Wait... I'm remembering things. WOMAN What? CHILD To coordinate the movement of my body... MAN I remember people telling me who I was and what I was supposed to be. How to act. That's better. WOMAN Right. How to behave? How to look? How to dress. What to think. What not to think. How to feel. How to react. MAN YES! THAT'S RIGHT. THAT'S RIGHT. AND DISAPPROVAL! CHILD I continue... MAN Someone would disapprove of a behavior and you'd act a behavior that was then approved. CHILD My heart... MAN Even though it wasn't true. It was a replacement. CHILD Pumps blood. MAN We kept replacing everything. CHILD My lungs. WOMAN To be liked? CHILD Breathe life... MAN Yes. I became frustrated, but I couldn't express it. CHILD Air... MAN No one would listen? CHILD Saturates the blood... MAN They'd get annoyed. Or didn't care. It was... "just the way it was". CHILD I exhale. MAN I remember that saying. (another voice) "IT'S JUST THE WAY IT IS". CHILD Every cell... MAN (another voice) "THAT'S LIFE". Statements like that. CHILD In the body... MAN They made all the pain seem painless! CHILD Born from eternity. MAN As if that was the way it was supposed to be. CHILD Is flooded with oxygen... MAN I hated it but felt compelled to go along with it. CHILD In the blood... MAN No one thought it could be different. CHILD Food is carried... WOMAN There were... reasons. MAN Yes I remember reasons... CHILD Throughout the body... WOMAN Reasons to go along with it. CHILD As it moves... WOMAN The set up. CHILD But I sense nothing but the movement... MAN It gave us reasons to go on. WOMAN Indifferent. Bored. Content. MAN KEEP GOING. CHILD I hear something... WOMAN I remember ... CHILD But can't identify... WOMAN Cliches...? CHILD What sound is... WOMAN Cliches. MAN Things we picked up from perceptions of the set up.. CHILD I see something... WOMAN There must be more than this. CHILD But cannot identify what sight is ... WOMAN There's got to be more to it. CHILD I hear something... MAN Let's do something else. CHILD But cannot identify what hearing is... WOMAN What? MAN Dream something up. CHILD I smell something... WOMAN (spontaneously yells) "DINNER'S ON THE TABLE!" CHILD But can't know smell ... MAN (bewildered) What was that? CHILD I move as my body aches for food... WOMAN I don't know where that came from. CHILD I chew, I hear the sound... MAN No. No. That rang a bell. Say it again before you forget. CHILD I swallow, I feel the movement... WOMAN (yells) "DINNER'S ON THE TABLE!" CHILD The food is digested... MAN That reminds me of something ... CHILD As I live... WOMAN "DINNER'S ON THE TABLE!" MAN (spontaneously yells) "WHAT A DAY AT WORK!" That feels better. CHILD My body feeds itself... WOMAN Yes that rings a bell.. MAN (spontaneously yells) "WHADJYAMAKE HUN?" CHILD I feel the air move over me... WOMAN That's it. That's it... MAN Oh what relief.... CHILD My legs... WOMAN Thank God. CHILD And groin... MAN Right.. O.k. ... I say ..."WHADYAMAKE HUN"... and you say ... CHILD I sense tempeture... WOMAN Um..."It's Tuesday"... "Same thing"...? CHILD Cold... MAN Right right right, oh good ..! CHILD Warmth... WOMAN What do you say? CHILD At the same moment as all this happens... MAN "Same thing huh?" No! With disgust at the routine... CHILD The universe is within me working as it does... MAN O.k. now I've got it. Let me try it again... (with disgust) "Same thing huh?" CHILD I think a thought... WOMAN Something like that. And I'm up to my ears with grief and so I want to vent and I say something like.... CHILD A thought... WOMAN "I was tired...I was very tired... CHILD A thought, pops into my brain... WOMAN O.k. let me try it with emotion.. (with emotion) "I was tired.. I was very tired..." CHILD A thought from space ... MAN Right... And I ignore you and I'm all involved in relaxing, getting the world off my mind... CHILD My brain, thinks... MAN So I exit into the bathroom when you need my attention... CHILD Thinks thoughts... WOMAN Right ... And then I say something like ... "sonny didn't do well on his exams and spots peed on the rug. CHILD My brain can know things... WOMAN ...and I've just about had it with him! I don't know what I'm going to do CHILD Thinks by itself. Without me even knowing I know. WOMAN (screams) I'LL HAVE A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN!!!!!" How was that? MAN Not bad... It's closer. And I'm beat and so I want dinner and I don't want to listen to you... WOMAN Perfect... CHILD I react... WOMAN And I say... "I'm beat too. I'm disgusted. I want to go out and find a job... CHILD I act... WOMAN THAT'S IT! THAT'S IT..! CHILD I feel. WOMAN Oh good, I feel like a person... CHILD I know... MAN Me too. (very large reaction) "Same thing huh... Tuesday.. Oh brother... What else? CHILD Inside, I am alone with myself and all that is going on. WOMAN This isn't working. CHILD But I don't want to be alone. WOMAN It began to feel good for a while, but then I started to think. Maybe if we switched roles? CHILD So I begin to behave... MAN Reverse the indifference, the anger the... CHILD Create reactions... WOMAN Reverse everything? O.k., where should we take it from? CHILD Actions... MAN What do you mean? CHILD I enact what's expected... WOMAN (slowly) Which part of the script should we start repeating from? CHILD Because of my fear... MAN I don't know. CHILD As I act, I change myself... MAN I'm back where I started again. CHILD A cycle of movements... MAN You think you're going forward but you're right back where you started. CHILD Like a merry go round... WOMAN QUIT COMPLAINING. CHILD I make myself up... MAN O.k., o.k... CHILD I apologize for myself... WOMAN I don't know why I screamed like that. Seems natural? CHILD I act out of these habits... MAN Used to it... CHILD I come to transitions... I don't know what to do... MAN (frightened) Um..."It's Tuesday"... "Same thing"..? Is that it? CHILD I don't know what my character should do... WOMAN Right right right... MAN What do you say? CHILD I make something up... WOMAN "Same thing huh?" No! With disgust at the routine... CHILD I am torn between myself and possibility... DIRECTOR WHICH IS YOU?! WOMAN O.k. now I've got it. Let me try again... (with disgust) "Same thing huh?" CHILD I'm not sure who I am... DIRECTOR WHICH IS THE ACTOR?! MAN Something like that. CHILD So, I repeat... MAN And I'm up to my ears with grief... CHILD And repeat... DIRECTOR WHICH IS THE CHARACTER IN THE PLAY?! CHILD And repeat... MAN ...and so I want to vent and I say something like... CHILD And repeat... MAN "I was tired..." CHILD I seek to find a new definition... MAN I was very tired..." DIRECTOR WHERE IS THE TRUTH? MAN O.k. let me try it with emotion... DIRECTOR WHY AM I ASKING THESE QUESTIONS?! MAN (with emotion) "I was tired.. I was very tired..." CHILD But now there are too many walls... WOMAN Right... CHILD I am locked inside a cage, called me... I want to be free outside of who I've become. DIRECTOR WHAT'S THE POINT OF ALL THIS? WOMAN But I ignore you and I'm all involved relaxing, getting the world off my mind... So... so I exit into the bathroom when you need my attention... CHILD I relate to these imitations and feel secure... MAN Right... And then I say something like ... I'LL HAVE A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN!!!!!" How was that? CHILD I am human. But now, more than my humanity. WOMAN No better. CHILD I have become other people's definition of ... me. WOMAN We're in a play. We can change the story if we want.. Can't we? DIRECTOR NO. IT, SEEMS TO CHANGE US! I MUST RESOLVE THIS MADNESS...PAUSE... The actors look at him. Long transition. A new beat in the play. WOMAN Where are we now? CHILD In a play. MAN In a theatre. WOMAN Where? DIRECTOR Could be anywhere. CHILD Our objectives? DIRECTOR To experience something? To create an experience? WOMAN Who are you? DIRECTOR Your creator. CHILD Frightened, but you are really only a part of this cast, aren't you? DIRECTOR Yes. MAN I have a history. CHILD We all have histories... WOMAN Based on certain histories. CHILD And our desires. WOMAN Is that who we are? DIRECTOR Does that make you feel secure? WOMAN Are we our histories? MAN Or our goals? CHILD We're asking you. DIRECTOR I'll make something up. WOMAN PLEASE? DIRECTOR Don't be angry with me, I'm still learning about myself. MAN We are characters in your play and you don't know us exactly? DIRECTOR I don't know myself... exactly. WOMAN It's ours too. We're here. We write as much as him. Is that right? DIRECTOR Closer. CHILD Then we matter? We all matter? We're important? DIRECTOR As far as it goes. MAN And we're alive? We re really alive aren't we? DIRECTOR Until the last moment? WOMAN Don't say that. DIRECTOR I said it, I'm sorry. CHILD It's terrifying. I don't want it to end. MAN I don't end. I can never end. I'm in a book. CHILD This can't be, I'm nothing but words on a page in the middle of a book on a shelf... I'm not real? DIRECTOR He sits and writes madly. It's coming closer. I can feel it... The meaning of the play will soon make logical sense. WOMAN With every syllable. We end. DIRECTOR I'll save you. CHILD KEEP IMAGINING. MAN Every consonant. We die. DIRECTOR I'LL KEEP WRITING. Growing tired. CHILD DON'T STOP ... DREAM ON... WOMAN Each thought. DIRECTOR I'll resolve it. I'll create a sequel. CHILD NO. MAN Each feeling we're over again. DIRECTOR I'LL MAKE SOMETHING UP UNTIL MY IMAGINATION DIES... CHILD GIVE ME THE PEN AND THE PAD. WOMAN Every second we come to the close. DIRECTOR DON'T YOU SEE, I'M NOT THE REAL CREATOR. PLEASE WHOEVER YOU ARE, DON'T STOP WRITING. WE DON'T WANT TO END.... CHILD TO CEILING... GIVE ME THE POWER TO BE IMMORTAL!!! WOMAN Or begin again and again. CHILD I feel it, the last... moment? WOMAN Not the last... moment? MAN The ... last ... moment..? CHILD Long pause. Terrified. But what happens...after the play? DIRECTOR Perhaps there is no play. Only an experience. Pause. Standing, on the mini-stage, the characters look at each other. Then away. Stop, in tableau, looking out over the audience in different directions, each neatly lit by a thin blue spot. The Director sits at their feet, on the edge of the stage within the stage, in the play within the play, within life. No words for a long ...moment. The stars remain in the theatre, motionless. A dark, loneliness, surrounds the players and the audience. Director crosses downstage to the audience, framed neatly by his creations upstage of him. He looks at the audience. Smiles reassuringly. The lights fade out very very slowly. End of Play