[lit-ideas] Re: SUNDAY PLAY
- From: "Julie Krueger" <juliereneb@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 23:36:57 -0500
Okay .... you must promise there is an Act 2 in the making....
Julie Krueger
laughing and glad since it's 97 degrees at 11:30....
On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 9:47 PM, Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> EDEN ROCK
>
>
>
> ACT 1
> Scene 1
>
>
> CURTAIN UP.
>
> [Cain is on stage. He is shucking corn. Next to him is a large wheelless
> wheelbarrow full of unshucked corn. Upstage and on either side are two
> sacrificial altars. Cain has a pensive, serious, almost angry look to him
> as he works with practiced ease. Abel's voice is heard off stage calling to
> his sheep.]
>
> ABEL: [off -- a lilting, musical quality to his call] Woooooooooooo,
> sheeeeeeep. Sheep, sheep, sheep. Woooo sheeeeeeeeeeep. Come to papa.
> Come, come, come, come. Woooooo sheeeeeep.
> CAIN: [to himself] There's got to be more to life than this. There's
> just got to be.
>
> [Eve enters stage right. She is looking for something.]
>
> CAIN: What are you looking for, Mom?
> EVE: [distracted] I don't know. I can't remember.
> CAIN: You've been eating mushrooms again, haven't you?
> EVE: Have I? I don't know.
> CAIN: Leave the red ones alone, I've told you that a hundred times.
> They're going to kill you if you don't.
> EVE: Really? What does that mean -- "kill you"?
> CAIN: It means you'll die. Do you want to die?
> EVE: I don't know. I've never died before that I know of. Don't know
> anyone who has died. I don't even know what "die" means. I mean, really,
> what happens? And what's happened to all the animals? Huh? They used to be
> so friendly. Now they all run away when they see you coming. I don't like
> it. Not one little bit. So much has changed since that damn snake came
> through here selling apples or whatever.
> CAIN: Where is Dad?
> EVE: I don't know. Out somewhere naming things, I'm sure. He's always
> out naming things. Last week he rattled off a list of some two thousand and
> some-odd names of things. Can you believe that? He told me to write them
> all down. "Write them down?" What does that even mean "write them down"?
> CAIN: I don't know, Mom. I plant corn. I harvest corn. I shuck corn.
> I eat corn. That's the sum total of my life.
> EVE: Ah! That's it. Now I remember what I was looking for.
> CAIN: What's that?
> EVE: Corn. I want to make some corn pie for your father so he won't
> get so bent out of shape when he finds out that I didn't [gestures
> parentheses] "write" down his stupid list of names. You know how much he
> loves corn pie.
> CAIN: More than sex.
> EVE: Oh, yes. A lot more.
> CAIN: Well, then, take what you want.
> EVE: You're a good and loving son.
>
> [Eve pats Cain on the head and gathers an armful of corn and exits right]
>
> CAIN: "A good and loving son". Whatever "good" means to her
> and "loving". It ain't easy, inventing language.
>
> [Abel enters stage left. He is dragging a dead sheep behind him that he
> drops close by his altar]
>
> ABEL: Sing out, all you rocks! For here sits my brother Cain, come to
> greet me home from the hills. Mine own dear brother Cain, who's so full of
> philosophical pain, that when he cries oh my, t'is more like rain.
> CAIN: Let's not get started, OK?
> ABEL: Once he cried for forty days and forty nights, cried till all the
> land was out of sight and the seas had all turned salty too.
> CAIN: I'm warning you.
> ABEL: Ah, my dear Cain, mon semblable, mon frere. One day those words
> will have meaning and so too will you.
> CAIN: I'm not in the mood.
> ABEL: I hope you're in the mood for sacrificing some of your rock
> hard corn. It's the Sabbath, you know.
> CAIN: Already?
> ABEL: Comes once a week, mein bruder. Just like clockwork.
> CAIN: Almost nothing you say has any meaning, do you realize that? You
> speak gibberish. Every other word has no fucking meaning.
> Pure gibberish.
> ABEL: Poor Cain. You need to spend more time with Dad. He and I spend a
> lot of time together wandering the hills and dales of this poor planet. He
> busies himself naming things and I spend mine chasing away wolves and making
> up rhymes to help him remember the names.
> CAIN: That's just great. We live in a cold dark cave and gnaw on raw
> meat whilst you and Pop hop around the hillsides verbalizing. Verbalize
> "fire", why don't you? And "cooking" and "house". O wait, you can't
> verbalize it until it exists and you can't make it exist because you're too
> damn busy verbalizing and rhyming. God, I hate literary types.
> ABEL: Alas poor Cain. His hands are tough as the husk, the softness of
> cornsilk confuses him. Earth, our Mother who succors all souls in their
> sorrows, weeps for its darling gardener, Cain, who's gone quite insane
> again.
>
> [Abel takes out his knife and cuts off the ear of the sheep he's about to
> sacrifice, waves it in the air, kisses it, takes a long string of sheep ears
> from the side of the altar. He pokes a hole in this ear and laces the ear
> onto the string of ears.]
>
> CAIN: [having watched in disgust] I swear to God, if I were God, I would
> kick you in the nuts for that.
> ABEL: What?
> CAIN: Your string of ears. It's insulting.
> ABEL: No, it's not. It's elementary. Keep receipts. You never know.
> CAIN: Do you honestly think that God Almighty will demand proof of your
> sacrifices?
> ABEL: You never know. That's all I'm saying. Better safe than sorry.
>
> [Abel builds a pyre on his altar and hefts the sheep onto it.]
>
> ABEL: All right then. Let's do this thing.
> CAIN: Have at it.
> ABEL: [confused] I'm ready.
> CAIN; OK, then. Do it.
> ABEL: But...
> CAIN: But what?
> ABEL: Aren't you going to do it?
> CAIN: No.
> ABEL: No?! What do you mean 'no'? You can't just not do it?
> CAIN: Watch me.
> ABEL: But you've always done it.
> CAIN: Yes, I have, but never again.
> ABEL: Are you crazy? Don't you know what he can do to us?
> CAIN: Nothing. I don't believe in him.
> ABEL: Hush! Hush! Shut your mouth!
> CAIN: There's no him to do anything.
> ABEL: Shut up! I'm warning you, shut up! He's sick, Lord. He's crazy.
> CAIN: [stands, shakes the ear of corn in his hand at heaven, shouts
> defiantly] I don't believe in you!
>
> [Stage starts to grow dark]
>
> ABEL: [in a panic, moves away from Cain] Oh, no, oh no, oh god no, oh
> shit, oh goddamnit shit. Strike him, Lord, him. Him. I believe in you. I
> believe.
>
> [Stage grows darker and darker. Thunder and lightning, very, very
> frightening. Then quiet and lights up. Cain and Abel are no where to be
> seen. Lilith, the Mother Goddess, is standing center stage, arms akimbo.
>
> LILITH: [calls] Georgie Porgie, where are you?
>
> [The overturned wheelless wheelbarrow, rises. Cain is underneath. He sees
> Lilith. Addresses her.]
>
> CAIN: [much confused] Are you God?
> LILITH: Ess.
> CAIN: Yes? [devastated] Oh, no, you mean there really is a God?
> LILITH: [upbraidingly] I am Goddess, not God. There is no God except in
> the minds of fatuous men.
>
> [Abel emerges from behind the altar, sees Lilith, he's interested,
> moves upstage]
>
> CAIN: Thank god! I mean goddess. But to tell you the truth, I was hoping
> there was only us, us people, that is.
> LILITH: Never ever under estimate the power of metaphor.
> ABEL: [to Cain] Who's the chick?
> CAIN: That's the Mother Goddess.
> ABEL: Oh yeah? Wow, what a rack on her, hey? Jesus Christ, wouldn't you
> love to dive between those thighs?
> LILITH: You must be Abel.
> ABEL: Able and willing. Yes. Eager in fact. [grabs his crotch] Oh,
> yes. Yes, yes, yes. Abel is able.
> LILITH: [she approaches him and speaks with all the authority of the
> universe] I am the white raiser, the red reaper, the dark winnower of
> grain. The mover of mountains, sender of seasons, dispenser of rain. Do
> you dare think that you can have me?
> ABEL: Sweetheart, I know I can. I'm the man you've been wanting. My
> hands on your haunches pressing you into me, my mouth all over your body,
> my prayers of adoration whispered into your ears, the insistence of my
> excitement pressing against you, this is what you live for, my darling girl,
> to be overcome and loved as you've never been loved before. Come, let me
> make a Goddess of you.
> LILITH: [sighs deeply] Let's go.
>
> [Abel and Lilith exit]
>
> CAIN: [howls] Noooooooooooooooooooooo!
>
> [Lights down. End scene 1]
>
>
>
>
>
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