© 2014 by Warren John Deacon. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
SAMPLE
PAGES
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Dr. Werner Heinche (Hynney)......a vital man in his late 60's.
Anna...................................a
young trainee at the
center, 20's, dark.
Michael......................another trainee, 20's, long hair.
Dr. Ellen Alsing....................A
professional woman, late
30's, very serious and businesslike.
Dr. George Fields..........................Professorial,
50's.
The action of the play takes place at an isolated
retreat on the Pacific coast.
The time is the late 60's.
The Setting
Large, multipaned windows on all three walls. Outside, trees
reflect a green caste
from a wild landscape.
Center is a low platform at the upstage end of a large,
narrow room. A simple
chair on the platform.
A smooth, unfinished wood floor. The boards run parallel to
the side walls, creating
a slight forced perspective.
Bright pillows are scattered around the platform. Many
plants in large earthen
pots. A low cupboard filled with cups, a
coffee urn, small
refrigerator, water cooler and a table.
At right, a door leads to HYNNEY's bedroom which is
dominated by a huge
stone fireplace. A roll top desk piled high
with books and papers.
Some comfortable big chairs centered on an
elaborate oriental
rug. A large old Victorian bed with bedposts
and bed curtains.
A door right leads to the bathroom.
Off left through a sliding glass door is a patio deck of
redwood planks surrounding
a circular pit and an open fire ring.
ACT ONE
Scene 1
Morning.
2
Later that evening.
ACT TWO
Scene 1
The following morning.
2
Several days later. Evening.
--------------
ACT ONE, Scene 1.
Morning.
The stage is almost dark except for
a single light on the platform.
HYNNEY is already in place,
standing in silhouette facing the
platform, his back to the audience.
He steps into the light.
HYNNEY
I dreamed of
you again just now. I wonder if I am still
dreaming. Perhaps
we all are. Then there are these times --
a sudden clear
moment when we wake.
Sits on the edge of the platform.
HYNNEY
I and some others
are running through a forest chasing you.
We are boys.
I can't see our faces but our limbs are smooth
and thin and
on my chin there are no whiskers. You keep
moving away
because you have the head start. You always
lengthen the
race course, dashing away with the carrot. It's
a race. A game.
Even in my dream I know it. Young animals --
leopards and
wolves and tiger cubs -- they play this game,
too. They run
and chase each other and jump into the air and
scuffle about.
But they are only practicing for the day when
they will chase
and stalk and kill in order to live. But we
are boys, playing
this racing game as though it was real, as
though we would
someday have to use these skills. It seems
important to
play. So we play.
Morning light slowly appears
through the windows during the
following.
HYNNEY
We come to a
clearing, a meadow. Free and open. Stretching
out in front
of us between the rows of trees. We crash into
the grass, running
like hell onto the bright land. Some of
the boys trip
and fall, crackling like fire in the long dry
grass, leaving
little indentations, little oval hiding
places. We rest.
You lean with your back against a tree and
your head turned
down.
Gets up. Lights a cigarette.
HYNNEY
You light a
cigarette. The blue smoke drifts about your head
in the sunlight.
I stand in the exact center of the meadow
and wipe my
forehead with my shirt cuff. I suddenly think,
"Why am doing
this? I can't catch you. You were born long
before me. You
died when I was young. I can't ever be over
here and over
there too, talking to you." So, we speak
across the meadow
with smiles and nods and hands waving in
the air. I am
here now, and if I keep walking, I will
eventually get
there. Perhaps I'll smell your smoke in the
air, or see
a tiny place made by your foot in the dark
earth. But I
will never be able to stand by your side and
talk to you.
I have continued this talking with you for so
long. All this
time, from Berlin, Vienna, through the war,
to America.
All this time, I talk to you. I talk to you. But
you do not answer.
Perhaps it is you who are dreaming? When
will you talk
to me? When will you wake from your dream?
A long pause. His eyes fall on the
chair in the corner. He walks to
it. Holds it firmly.
HYNNEY
We both must
wake soon. There isn't much time. When I die,
you'll be gone,
too, in my memory. My dream ends this way:
there is a tremendous
implosion. I, standing in the grass,
and you leaning
against your tree -- we come together across
the meadow.
You are no longer over there and I no longer
here. We become
each other. My body is older. I can feel my
whiskers. Yours
is younger, your shoulders lean, not
stooping with
the years.
He picks up the chair and places it
directly in the center of the
platform. Faces it.
HYNNEY
The implosion
focuses on one spot. Here where I have placed
this chair.
I know the way to awaken you!
He moves in on the chair, as though
stalking an animal.
HYNNEY
You see! I have
got you now.
He laughs gleefully.
HYNNEY
I have got you
now! You are right here, sitting in this
chair.
He sits in the chair. There is a
subtle change in his voice and
posture. He stares at the floor for
a moment, then looks up.
HYNNEY
You may come
to regret my awakening. Now my mouth is open,
you have given
birth to my voice and there is no telling
what will come
pouring out.
He leaps up, dances about the
platform.
HYNNEY
Oh yes! You
can speak. Let your words pour out. Oh, my! I am
brilliant, am
I not? I've done it. The silence is ended.
Which one of
us is dreaming now do you think? This is very
good! This is
wonderful! After talking to myself for
decades, I finally
get an answer. Michael says I have a
compulsion about
you. "Why do you have this polemic
relationship
with a dead man?" he wonders. "Your position is
solid. Someday
you will be as famous as he. Let him be." But
I cannot.
Sits in the chair.
HYNNEY
Michael is right.
It amazes me Dr. Heinche that you refuse
to see the hold
I have on you. You laugh and make jokes
about my digging
into the past. Like a pig, you say, rutting
about in the
slops. But I say you do not like the past
because it reminds
you of unpleasant things. So you have
built your entire
method on the present. Not because, as a
scientist, you
think it is better. But because, as a man, it
is more comfortable.
There are no ghosts.
Stands quietly. His exuberance
seems to drain away. Faces the
chair.
HYNNEY
The only ghost
is you. As for my work, it must be built on
what I know,
as yours was. And what I know is this: your way
does not work.
People can lie on your couch for years and
decades and
centuries. Still they cannot change the past.
And the future
is not yet here. So what is left? Only the
present. Of
course I live in the present. So did you when
you were alive.
Because for both of us -- all of us, there
is nothing else.
I am leaning against your tree now. But I
cannot smell
the smoke from your cigarette. I cannot find
even a trace
of your footprints. I never caught up with you.
Now, I wonder
why I ever thought it was important.
THE LIGHTS CHANGE.
The morning sunlight is now quite
bright, revealing ANNA asleep in
the bed.
Hynney goes into the bedroom,
stands looking down at her.
HYNNEY
Good morning.
She opens her eyes.
HYNNEY
We have a session.
ANNA
My father used
to come into my room at night and stand
beside my bed.
He just stood looking down at me in the dark.
He never said
anything.
HYNNEY
Perhaps he was
afraid to sit on your bed.
ANNA
Are you?
HYNNEY
Things change,
Anna. Fathers grow older. Daughters become
beautiful women.
ANNA
Did you sleep?
HYNNEY
Very little.
But I dreamed a great deal. For that, I am
thankful.
She gets up, goes into the
bathroom.
ANNA
Take your pills?
HYNNEY
Not yet.
ANNA
Try to remember
your pills, Hynney.
She comes out, gives him two pills
and some water.
HYNNEY
I don't need
to. You remember for me.
Takes the pills. They get dressed.
ANNA
You didn't come
to dinner last night.
HYNNEY
I was working
on the book.
She glares at him.
HYNNEY
I can eat anytime.
What are they saying about me?
ANNA
Do you care?
HYNNEY
These people
from the schools are very important, Anna.
ANNA
Bullshit.
HYNNEY
A favorite word
of the young. It seems to explain
everything.
I am afraid it is no longer as simple as that.
Did you see
this Dr. Alsing at dinner?
She nods.
HYNNEY
What do you think
of her?
ANNA
She's okay.
Why?
HYNNEY
She wrote a
book. A very good one.
ANNA
The guy with
her's a real asshole.
He reaches for her. Surrounds her
in a great bear hug and kisses her.
HYNNEY
My poor Anna.
ANNA
I hate all of
these people coming here.
HYNNEY
Yah. Well, I
would rather have these people sniffing around
here than sitting
in some seminar talking about me behind my
back.
ANNA
You care what
they say behind your back?
HYNNEY
I do.
MIKE, DR. FIELDS and DR. ALSING
appear in the patio.
ANNA
I wish I could
keep you all for myself.
HYNNEY
This cannot
be. At my age, there is only the work. This is
the difference
between you and me. I know as I am walking on
the sand that
the waves will wash away my footprints. You
think they will
stay there forever. But our existence is not
proven because
the footprints are there. It is not disproved
because they
are gone. It is time. We mustn't keep them
waiting.
ANNA
I remember when
you deliberately kept people waiting.
HYNNEY
They have come
to see what I can do. I will show them.
He goes into the center room. Sits
in the chair.
HYNNEY
My chair here
has changed everything. It can't be like it
was. Let's have
them.
He arranges himself. The chair
seems to become a throne and he a
king waiting for an audience with
his subjects. Anna goes to the
patio door.
ANNA
We're ready
to start.
