play on words

Here's the core of a play I'm writing. Tell me what you think.

Voices

Black and white like our print is the black and white of our knowledge. Until we can speak in color, silence will be our best proximity to voice.

mary

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The cast:

Narrator /only a voice

Man/ wears all white, deep rich voice

Another/ Man wears all black

Woman / dressed in black with cloak

People / group of about fifteen to twenty dressed accordingly

Little Girl/ in a puffy colorful flower dress

Middle aged/ woman holding bread and knife

A Lady / she is wearing a long white gown with a scarf of different colors

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The curtain is drawn, but the stage is dark. Music is played of archaic tunes, poppy and happy. The music is over lapped by loud clicking of someone typing. The clicking louder and louder and louder until it is almost unbearable. Then it stops just in time with a scream of horror.

Silence for a half a minute.

Narrator: There are certain things a person can’t let go, a song, a memory, and dream. For some of us it’s more than others, but it all matters the same amount. It is what creates us and holds us together to take on tomorrow. I’m going to tell you about mine. It all started with a piece of paper.

Lights turn on. Man enters stage. Stage is empty except for the black screen behind him. He is wearing all white. The light is coming from behind him so he is just a shadow. There is quiet jazz music playing in the background. The man is holding onto a piece of paper the size of his palm. It is white and there is no writing on it. But on it is a single triangle written in black ink.

He stands in the middle of the stage.

Man: This paper, what is its use? [Holds the paper up and shows the audience] Maybe you can’t see it. [Holds it farther out] Ah you still can’t see it. But you will see soon enough, maybe too soon. I don’t know. Do you?

Man dressed in black enters wearing a black coat. He takes from his coat a white clock and hangs it at eye level on the back screen. The clock is not moving and time has stopped. The man in black softly says “time” and walks out.

Man: Oh time, another lie. Won’t you tell me more lies? I bet you could tell me more than I can imagine. Forget it! I’m tired of you. You make me sick [screams].

[He walks over to the clock so that he is standing in front of it and covering it with his head, so no one sees it.]

A woman dressed in black enters. She is wearing a cloak and sways from side to side when she enters. She looks as if she is in mourning because of her black shawl as well.

Woman: Sir, sir! You forgot your umbrella! You left it on a bench. I found it. Please take it back sir.

[All the sudden a full stream of people come in and leaves. They all leave a black item in the scene. They’re all wearing black. Some bring tables, chairs.]

The screen, as the people bring in items, turns to a black to white. The items are seen as shadows. The man still stands in front of the black clock. He has his arms crossed. People have brought in items in the according fashion. In the background is the sound of people murmuring.

Little Girl in puffy flower dress: [she brings in a small black bear] children [she whispers and leaves].

Man: I thought it was possible…I’m so wrong. Here was the infidel and my dear. Oh the pain. I cannot speak, but listen.

[A drone plays softly.]

Man: More like it. I can hear that drone, it’s kind of like life for the lots of you. An endless drone that doesn’t stop! How do you live this way? Every day in and out, going out of your homes, and in, back out. The same thing, just living, what a pity, what a pity.

[The drone stops.]

Man: I never was quite too fond of anything or anyone. I think that how this all got started. I bicker all the time with people to the point that I just look away. You can all relate with me at least once? When mankind turns their back on you, or was it the other way around? Oh, it doesn’t matter. Just listen real close won’t you. I don’t want you to forget this: sometimes people will come to you and just piss you off, just take and let it go ok? We can all live a little better that way.

Middle aged worried woman enters from the right. She’s holding bread and a knife.

Woman: I, I….

Man: no need to explain, you’ve lost it have you? Every last bit of it?

Woman: am quite. Unhappy. [Leaves the knife on the table on the left of the stage.]

Man: Ha, I knew it. [Looks down to the ground.] Darling, you can clean the world clean, but the mess stays, oh it stays inside of you and you’ll never be content. Click, click, click. I’ll sing for this clock here [walks down stage]. Click, click, click…

[continues to say click]

[more people enter and leave items on the floor and everywhere, this time they are faster, almost running, the intervals b/w them faster]

[man stops clicking]

[the last person walks out slowly]

Man: I remember dreaming this up before, yes I remember quite clearly. It was a Sunday afternoon and the trees were singing a lullaby, something new. And it sort of went on and on until I had fallen into a sleep. There was a sort of beat in the air, the type that makes you wonder if everything must be connected somehow. The same rhythm and song, just proposing the meaning of this life, ah this is life. Take it easy my fellows, easy.

An old man enters: I am tattered, wife just died, you understand, she’s gone.

[Middle aged people stream in, so many that the stage is full of the passing back and forth. The old man walks back and forth as well, but the Man stays still. They walk and whisper words while looking straight at the audience, but not to each other. They all say death, death, death.]

Man: Lifts his hands up in the air. [it all stops, everyone stops looking at the audience]. Go ahead, whisper back your sadness, the death inside of you, let it out! Go ahead, only if you let it all out will you begin to heal. The death of love, the death of your soul. Go ahead, grow up, renew! Why are you holding it in? It’ll just drill itself deeper into you, what are you scared of? You have to live; you have to die, so go forward toward the light!

The screen turns black.

The whole room becomes dark, and there is one light, the clock before turns into a white light.

Man: In your mind, you capture every memory like another light, and another, and another.

Parts of the stage’s light turns on, and a person is lit each time, or a few people, it doesn’t matter.

Man: and another another! [each another lights the stage]

Man: go on and pick one [in a calm tone] [lights turn off, but it lit right on the Man]. Unravel the light. [light changes to the clock]. Unravel! [light changes to a person on the side] Understand that that is how you will live on with this miserable life of too many words. Visualize it, feel it when you unravel it to other, when you say it to others, when you say it to yourself.

Lights all turn on [the people are still staring at the audience, but they are not in mid walk with turned heads, but stand straight forward]. Light turns off. Light turns on [the people’s back are to the audience]. Light turns off. Light turns on [the people are all gone]. The man remains in center stage through all this.

Man: I’m not telling you to forget those lights. But to unravel them to more lights so that you have one light to guide your way to who you are and who you will create.

I hope you can see [looks away from the audience to the ceiling] there’s so much more to this life than bickering. [He sits down and continues looking up.] Even if it seems like your day rushes in such a moment [people enter and walk out quickly back and forth]. [Man looks at the audience, the people are gone] and you feel alone in a room full of people, they’re just like you, as confused, as lost as sad.

[A Lady enters her smile large and her eyes sparkling]

Lady: Kind sir, kind sir. There’s sunshine today outside.

Man: I had forgotten. Take my hand, my lady.

Lady: Not so quickly, not so quickly. Take this token of receipt as my promise to take your hand. [Gives him a small piece of paper with a triangle].

Man: A triangle?

Lady: You’ll see in due time, there’s more than the letters of this world.

Man: A shape, a figure, a form.

Lady: Sing with me.

Man: I cannot sing.

Lady: Do not lie to me, you sing of so many pains, and broken heart, of loneliness and deceit inside of you.

Man: I do not sing well.

Lady: You do not sing in colors. Sing in colors. Sing in voice, sing in your heart more.

Man: I will try to sing my story in my own way.

Lady: Then you will touch the real world of imagination. And I will take your hand so that we may walk away from this darkness.

Man: This darkness! [The lights turn off] [The lights turn on, and he’s holding the hand of the little girl.]

Girl: And that was how mother was like?

Man: Yes, she wanted me to tell you not to be sad, because that is what killed her trying to understand that of others.

Girl: Let’s go daddy.

Man: Alright.

[Man leaves, but comes back]

Man: And your voices will rings in this theater forever, your thoughts will combine and float in this atmosphere and it will form with that of the next ten thousand years! But how are you going to take it? A burden? Or beauty?

Ring! For we are all one. Sing because this is mankind! And know that though we can’t let go, let go of anything, we shouldn’t let it take over are very soul with sadness!

[From his coat takes a tape player that plays the ticking and ticking of someone typing.]

Man: The art, this art, the same always. The scribble of a quill to now the clicking of the divine speaking through that creates more colors through black and white.

Hold on! Hold on! My darling! Hold on! I’m soon to come! We’ll all meet again in due time! A triangle of my love and my child that is what she had meant for my happiness.

It becomes dark, and the sound of clicking continues, with the sound of laughter that becomes louder and louder and stops.

Narrator: There are certain things a person can’t let go, a song, a memory, and dream. For some of us it’s more than others, but it all matters the same amount. It is what creates us and holds us together to take on tomorrow. I’m going to tell you about mine. It all started with a piece of paper.

The writing of this play.

[One light is on the stage, and slowly dims in silence until it is nothing.]