(A man is sitting alone at a table. He occasionally glances over at the wall to his left, muttering incoherently under his breath. Every few minutes or so, he drunkenly reaches for the whiskey bottle and ensures his glass is filled to the rim, but pays less attention to the golden brown droplets of spirit accumulating what looks like a “ring of fire” on the table. After emptying his glass, he staggers over to the corner of the room and removes the vinyl record of Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line” from the gramophone. He then sways back to his vacant chair, singing light – heartedly the hook of the song which he had just listened to. Silence. Brandishing the cross on the rosary beads hanging from his neck, he begins making the sign of the cross as he is praying.)
Noel: (In a drunken slur.) The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Answer me. (Turns to the painting of Jesus hanging on the bare white walls and points an accusing finger.) Reasons. It’s all I want. (Pause) And you call yourself Jesus . . . It looks like the Power of God, the Root of David is lacking answers. You know what, I’ve always wondered why, why people, ordinary people, have flocked to these places you call churches for hundreds of years? They’re not talking to God. No one has done and no one ever will.
(Juliet walks in on stage right and grabs a chair facing Noel at the far end of the table. She is holding a small wooden crucifix in her right hand. Noel ignores her and carries on talking.)
So what? I blaspheme. But only when I have a drink in my hand. (Waves the glass around enough to topple a little more whiskey onto the table.) Only when the demons in the whiskey take over my conscience. (Taps his head with his index finger.) I’m patient. I’ll wait. Or am I not worthy of your wisdom, Jesus? Am I too much of a heathen to be given the answers I’ve searched for my whole life? I must be a sinner. I must be. In the eyes of you, Jesus. But, in my eyes, I have done what any father would have done for their wife and child. You’re just too ignorant to see it. Ignorant. Ignorant. (He begins crying with his head in his hands. Juliet remains in her seat, surveying Noel.)
Juliet: I admire you.
Noel: (Recovers) That’s the best compliment you’ve ever paid me. (Smiles solemnly.) Even during our marriage, you never said why you stuck by me. You were just there. Never faltering. Healing my sores and relieving my pain. Making every day more bearable. I don’t think I ever said how much I appreciated your persistence. Your compassion. I suppose that’s what made you do it. That’s what made you end it all. Because I couldn’t buck up my ideas and be a man for once in my pathetic little life.
Juliet: What an understatement, Noel. What you went through doesn’t require you “bucking up your ideas”. It takes time and whole lot of strength. And you’re the living proof of that time. That strength. I didn’t make it. And the only very few times I felt strongest was when I was drugged up to the eyeballs with anti – depressants. The legitimate drug that’s just as bad as whatever drugs you get nowadays. That’s not strength. It’s the complete opposite. Weakness. But, against all the odds. You didn’t give up. You kept on going. And I’ve never met a man who can talk so much sense with a whole bottle of whiskey down them. (Laughs)
Noel: You call this “keeping on going?" I will do absolutely anything for a drop of this stuff. (Points to the whiskey bottle.) I am dependent. I am an alcoholic. Some nights, I get cold turkey. The agony is close to breaking – point.
Juliet: But, you haven’t “broken” yet, have you? You haven’t yet claimed the right to have your remains turned into ash, or your identity demoted to a few words on a gravestone. Like I have. You have been granted that second chance in life.
Noel: What if I don’t want that second chance?
Juliet: It’s your decision. Come with me. Or keep on fighting. I know which one I would choose.
Noel: Then why didn’t you choose it? Why aren’t I the one in that seat now?
Juliet: We both know why. I failed you before you failed me.
Noel: Yet, I still ended up failing you. I put too much on you. I made your problems worse. But you made mine better. I feel it’s now my time to repay you.
Juliet: If you loved me that much; if you loved Jesus that much - (Clasps the wooden crucifix in her hand.) you wouldn’t do this.
Noel: I love you too much. I love Jesus too little. The reason why I want to do it.
Noel: (In a drunken slur.) The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Answer me. (Turns to the painting of Jesus hanging on the bare white walls and points an accusing finger.) Reasons. It’s all I want. (Pause) And you call yourself Jesus . . . It looks like the Power of God, the Root of David is lacking answers. You know what, I’ve always wondered why, why people, ordinary people, have flocked to these places you call churches for hundreds of years? They’re not talking to God. No one has done and no one ever will.
(Juliet walks in on stage right and grabs a chair facing Noel at the far end of the table. She is holding a small wooden crucifix in her right hand. Noel ignores her and carries on talking.)
So what? I blaspheme. But only when I have a drink in my hand. (Waves the glass around enough to topple a little more whiskey onto the table.) Only when the demons in the whiskey take over my conscience. (Taps his head with his index finger.) I’m patient. I’ll wait. Or am I not worthy of your wisdom, Jesus? Am I too much of a heathen to be given the answers I’ve searched for my whole life? I must be a sinner. I must be. In the eyes of you, Jesus. But, in my eyes, I have done what any father would have done for their wife and child. You’re just too ignorant to see it. Ignorant. Ignorant. (He begins crying with his head in his hands. Juliet remains in her seat, surveying Noel.)
Juliet: I admire you.
Noel: (Recovers) That’s the best compliment you’ve ever paid me. (Smiles solemnly.) Even during our marriage, you never said why you stuck by me. You were just there. Never faltering. Healing my sores and relieving my pain. Making every day more bearable. I don’t think I ever said how much I appreciated your persistence. Your compassion. I suppose that’s what made you do it. That’s what made you end it all. Because I couldn’t buck up my ideas and be a man for once in my pathetic little life.
Juliet: What an understatement, Noel. What you went through doesn’t require you “bucking up your ideas”. It takes time and whole lot of strength. And you’re the living proof of that time. That strength. I didn’t make it. And the only very few times I felt strongest was when I was drugged up to the eyeballs with anti – depressants. The legitimate drug that’s just as bad as whatever drugs you get nowadays. That’s not strength. It’s the complete opposite. Weakness. But, against all the odds. You didn’t give up. You kept on going. And I’ve never met a man who can talk so much sense with a whole bottle of whiskey down them. (Laughs)
Noel: You call this “keeping on going?" I will do absolutely anything for a drop of this stuff. (Points to the whiskey bottle.) I am dependent. I am an alcoholic. Some nights, I get cold turkey. The agony is close to breaking – point.
Juliet: But, you haven’t “broken” yet, have you? You haven’t yet claimed the right to have your remains turned into ash, or your identity demoted to a few words on a gravestone. Like I have. You have been granted that second chance in life.
Noel: What if I don’t want that second chance?
Juliet: It’s your decision. Come with me. Or keep on fighting. I know which one I would choose.
Noel: Then why didn’t you choose it? Why aren’t I the one in that seat now?
Juliet: We both know why. I failed you before you failed me.
Noel: Yet, I still ended up failing you. I put too much on you. I made your problems worse. But you made mine better. I feel it’s now my time to repay you.
Juliet: If you loved me that much; if you loved Jesus that much - (Clasps the wooden crucifix in her hand.) you wouldn’t do this.
Noel: I love you too much. I love Jesus too little. The reason why I want to do it.
Dear Moderators,
ReplyDeleteDue to having developed a serious bout of flu a week ago, I was inclined to post a couple of days after the deadline and I apologise if it affected the times in which you were able to moderate.
Many thanks,
STARDUST.
Hi STARDUST,
ReplyDeleteDon’t worry about posting your work slightly later, it’s a really original piece and I can see you have put much thought into it. I would just like to apologise for my lack of feedback lately- I have just moved into a new house and will not have the internet until mid October, which is proving very frustrating!
So, to your script. Firstly I thought that the characters you created were very compelling and many dimensional, which is a great achievement in small snapshot of dialogue. You gave the sense that there is much history between Noel and Juliet and this made them believable, which is essential in any play if the audience is to suspend their disbelief and find credibility within your story. I enjoyed the tone you set at the beginning of your script with Noel glancing ‘over at the wall to his left, muttering incoherently under his breath. Every few minutes or so, he drunkenly reaches for the whiskey bottle…’ this behaviour draws the audience in before the character has even spoken and intrigues them. When Noel finally does speak I like the way he addressees Jesus and seems to spill his thoughts in an uninhibited rush, which makes the audience feel they are eavesdropping on his personal thoughts.
Your detailed stage directions at the beginning of this script show me that you have thought very carefully about the atmosphere you wish to create, even as far as the choice of music. Some playwrights do give such precise details, yours in fact are very Tennessee Williams-esque and would be very useful to an actor or director. However I feel you could cut them down slightly or make them more concise as sometimes they may be too elaborate- ‘Every few minutes or so, he drunkenly reaches for the whiskey bottle and ensures his glass is filled to the rim, but pays less attention to the golden brown droplets of spirit accumulating what looks like a “ring of fire” on the table.’ Some things can be left up to the actors or director’s interpretation.
I was really intrigued by the character of Juliet and loved her opening line- ‘I admire you’, as I felt it was so simple yet highly profound and poignant. I was also interested by the relationship between Noel and Juliet, they were obviously married at one point and she stuck by him through all his problems even though she had problems with depression herself. I found their dialogue very intriguing and the tone you set very believable. However I did feel that sometimes the chunks of dialogue you gave your characters were too long and this hampered the naturalistic nature of it slightly. In real speech we have very little time to edit what we say and think of the best/most poetic way to say something. Also in natural speech there is often pauses and characters cut across each other and it is less free flowing than the written word. You could try to incorporate this into your dialogue to ensure that it is as believable as you can make it.
I thought that you met the criteria of including tension and conflict well- I felt much tension between Noel and Juliet’s interests: her trying to convince him to come back to her and he subjecting himself to defeat. I felt that your ending was strong and deliberate, but also had a ambiguous slant as it was left to the audience to decipher what Noel decides to do.
Also, just out of curiosity where did you envisage your play being performed, in what type of performance space? A vast, expansive performance space, or a small intimate theatre? Did you imagine it performed in the round (with the audience on all surrounding sides) or in simple end-on staging ( the audience on one side, directing in front of the stage)?
I look forward to reading more of your work soon,
Shadi
Stardust, hello again. Well, this is a very strong and committed piece of writing, with an intriguing twist that shows great dramatic scope (you see an actor walk on stage, you assume they’re real, alive, whereas - correct me if i'm wrong - your Juliet is a ghost). In fact, if I was directing this on stage, I would want to remove or tone down the lines in which Juliet straightforwardly states that she is dead (“You haven’t yet claimed the right to have your remains turned into ash, or your identity demoted to a few words on a gravestone. Like I have.”) as this would make it more ambiguous, and allow the actors more scope to show the fact of the situation, rather than have it told.
ReplyDeleteYou set up the character of Noel very well, through the stage directions and his opening monologue. A line like “It looks like the Power of God, the Root of David is lacking answers” adds depth to the character – he is not just saying the obvious things, but is showing deep knowledge.
The introduction of Juliet – even before we work out she is not alive – is a good piece of tension-building theatre, particularly because she remains silent and just watches Noel. She is watching him, just like us, so we begin to wonder what she will say, if her opinion will match the one that we are already forming of this man.
You explore Noel’s ideas – about himself, about religion – succinctly, although perhaps he is a little too direct in his self-analysis. Addressing Jesus, when drunk, he lays it on the line, as anyone would. But “I must be a sinner. I must be” is somehow more believable than “I will do absolutely anything for a drop of this stuff… I am an alcoholic. Some nights, I get cold turkey” – this seems too starkly ‘to the point’. I would expect him to talk around the pain when it comes to himself.
Similarly, Juliet saying “And the only very few times I felt strongest was when I was drugged up to the eyeballs with anti-depressants. The legitimate drug that’s just as bad as whatever drugs you get nowadays” sounds like exposition, like she’s saying something that both of them already know, but for the reader’s benefit. The trick in scenes like this can be to get the message across indirectly, rather than stating it as a fact. That way we feel we are discovering the characters, instead of having them shown to us.
Other stuff: “I’ve never met a man who can talk so much sense with a whole bottle of whiskey down them” is a lovely line.
The ending: you could perhaps go out on more of a limb on the ending. After the ‘reveal’ that Juliet is dead, there are no more major twists in the scene. She comforts him, and he suggests that he will kill himself, while still leaving it open – I’m not sure we truly believe him, or rather, it’s left up to the interpretation of the reader, or the actor, as to what happens. That is fine and well, but there is scope for you to do more with the characters in this space, for one of them to somehow shock the other, some revelation. Not necessarily, just a thought. In general, I am very impressed. Well done.
Hi Shadi,
ReplyDeleteAs I wrote my piece, I did have a vague, rather subliminal idea about the type of setting that would be most suitable from the scope of the audience, and that was a simple and theatrical end - on staging. I guess it could work in any performance space, with certain adjustments to the stage directions.
Many thanks for your comment,
STARDUST.
Thank you ever so much for your comments, Shadi and Jonathan. I'm sure you know by now that your input is golden and I really look forward to hearing from you in the next task.
ReplyDeleteSTARDUST.