An Untitled Drama

Sunny Basham

A figure creeps slowly to the front of the theater, milling about. When the audience

begins to take notice, the figure speaks:

Figure:

I walk through crowds unseen, (put head between two audience members

as if listening to them) hearing conversations no one is supposed to hear. (Resuming walk

to stage) I am the impossibly frightening observer lurking in your shadow every which

way you turn. Do not fear me, in twenty-four hours I will become opaque and

visible again, such ill comfort in tangibility.

Pale light shines on the scene of a bedroom with a single sleeping form, tossing and turning on occasion.

The figure stands by the bed.

I shall travel around the world, visiting each country in it's secluded night. My

thoughts will merge with those of the sleeping, the dreaming, and, in very special cases,

the screaming. Visions that they dare not think of during their waking hours will be

superimposed on my momentarily closed eyelids. I will see the moon from a thousand

angles. As the stars begin to fade I would move on to the next night and the next and

the next... (Light pulsates slightly.)

With word "Or..." the light is turned off abruptly and a soft multi-colored glow brightens on next scene, of

snow. The different colors fade in and out independently. The figure stands in the middle.

Or, perhaps, I will go to the South Pole. There, I can watch the penguins slip

and slide in the indescribable glow of the aurora australis intoxicating the endless sky.

The moon draws thoughts and emotions I wouldn't have dreamed I possessed had I not

come to this place where the cheap modern ideals of the world fall to the snow

crunching beneath me. Only in a place such as this are the ideas that created the world

brought to their knees, weeping snowflake tears in the eternal winter of Antarctica.

Lights disappear with "Maybe...". Now a bright light shines on the next scene, one of an opera being

performed in pantomime. Figure stands in the midst of action, yet unnoticed.

Maybe I'll doff the dreams of others and the cruel cold to play in the innermost

dimensions of an opera. Librettos and arias transcending all boundaries to become

vibrations on my cheek. I shall feel music as it was composed, not caressing only the

auditory and visual senses, but the notes forming tastes as the pain and sorrow drip

from my tongue. The virtual-reality music video, seen by the soul.

Opera pantomime freezes after "...tongue." Light disappears abruptly after "soul". A single spotlight on

the figure in middle stage with darkness surrounding it or a lighted stained glass window in a church can

be used for next scene.

Regardless of my activities, with my twenty-fourth hour approaching I will

place myself in the stained-glass window of a gothic cathedral. As my visibility returns

I will pour the newly exposed intricacies of my mind onto canvas and pads of paper

with the invisible ink of imagination and the vast color of phantasy.

Curtain falls on darkness.

Note: The figure should be dressed in black from head to toe with no visible parts except eyes and

mouth. Silver glitter sprinkled on the figure could also be used for added effect.