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in the beginning were words like these
well not quite in the beginning
but they've come to seem as though they were in the beginning
(walking through Southampton Common
on a full-bellied sunlit evening one late Summer):
| Inner Voice: | You are to be a playwright |
| Me: | A playwright? I don't know anything about playwriting |
| Inner Voice: | Well, it's going to take a long time, then, isn't it! |
Then (later) other words that were there in the beginning:
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without equality there is no freedom
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Hierarchical group: Inequality depends upon uniformity |
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If you keep getting in my way I'll smash your face in in my aloneness I have so many seeds language is the precisest tool people possess where there is no people the vision perishes word without action is static |
practically all I have been - done - tried for
has come out of words like these
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unholy saint
(i)
blue eyes i imagine he had
beneath his carrot hair
and a mind that could not see
clearly beyond his age
if he had glimpsed his history
and acted accordingly
he has left no record of the fact
no miraculous utterance has been arranged
to illuminate his creed and his kingdom
has remained unattested by the world
the signs are of a man moving
like the damned into his own dark corner
acting as a thousand men would act
in the same situation too much a part
to follow the familiar plot beyond its limits
twisting and evolving into faith
perhaps even there was no intuitive need
to do this thing and he was ignorant of
his own eternal crucifixion
yet what knowledge ran to earth
at his death did not take with him his name
but left it naked to the tongues of all
who have made him what they would deny
the unconscious unacknowledged saint
of human action and its dark recesses
the scapegoat symbol of minority
representative of his own despisers
betrayed by them the betrayers whom
they say he has betrayed
his
trade mark
is branded distinctly on their haunches
and his image is moulded in their hearts
if jesus is here then judas and jesus share
between them this posterity of little christs
or put this way - thirty pieces of silver
(payment before the act that stained the hand
like blood and would not wash away) was all
he got for dirty work that he was chosen for
the anointed carrier of guilt
divinity in him
led on to sacrifice - the eternal god
made earth his poignant hell and he became
the one unsanctified unholy saint
the antithesis of the glory of christ
which he had succoured and whetted with his kiss.
i do not ask your pity for him but your understanding
his face is yours in the mirror - he works
not by mysterious ways but from the heart
and carries like you the burden of its errors
jesus can bear his crucifixion having come
to earth with the firm intention
of dying on the cross
his soul was armoured from the start
against the sticks and stones of scribes
nothing went wrong - he lived a joke
of which the trinity already knew the point
but the birth of judas has had no commentary
and he sold himself to the ideal of good
without the immaculate conception
needed to see it through
which jesus had been given as a guarantee
before he stepped into the virgin's womb
i do not hate jesus or think more of judas
for they are intermingling symbols
and really indivisible - j
three dashes s will do for both of them
the same in spirit as in letter
at the beginning and at the end
each with a finger in the human pie
the legend of judas is the legend of man
the son of man in christ the son of god
renouncing only that a ghost is holy
and the incomprehensible example
of the perfect good
tides of human loving swing
from agape to eros
and suffering has alternate springs
in calvary and judas
the middle ages understood
that mary was as much to blame
as judas for the holy rood
and glorified her name
judas alone was left condemned
in the cell of the human heart
and loaded with immortal sin
for playing the human part
the sticks and stones have built a church
that hurt the word of jesus
but a dishonoured name has broken the bones
of the body that was judas
(ii)
the betrayal of human confidences
arising out of fear
of any action we do not know the end of
is a sore but sure point in our defence
innocence is ignorance in a court of law
and what we do not know can cause
a knowing crime - we should assert
our right that we should not be trusted
we do not want to feel the weight
of the world on our bare hand
the man next door and our closest friends
will carry it between them up the long
passion to death - this is the only answer
to crying out of our blood at the load
but we assert no right and listen in
to confessions broadcast on a private set
and then relay them out the other ear
long before trouble has had time to get
lodged in the memory and to canker there
ourselves retain the glory and pass on the sin
jesus it will be seen has his human moments
leaning in this way on judas and the cross
and judas tries to return the thirty pieces of silver
and hangs himself thinking death will cut down the cost
(iii)
jesus and i went to a party
given in honour of him and his twelve disciples
and jesus was eyeing me strangely all the time
until it came to supper
(i was afraid he had something in for me
and tried to tell myself i was imagining things
though the look was there all the same)
and while we were eating and laughing
god (who was giving the party) came in with a handful of cards
and said in his usual way
after supper we'll have a game of murder
it was a game i enjoyed and i had played it much before
but god's words had quite an effect on jesus
whose eyes were shining like points and his face was flushed
and his hands clenched as if his life was going to depend
on this amusing but not important game
perhaps that is why as god was handing round the cards
i found myself thinking with a little malice perhaps
if it comes to me i will murder jesus
whom i was beginning not to like
because he was getting too big for his boots
and had been treating me strangely all evening
and as luck would have it god gave me the black ace
which was the murderer's card
i think it must have shown in my eyes
for jesus looked at god and god looked back
and both were hard put to it to hide a smile
i was beginning not to like this at all i can tell you
certainly jesus made it easy for me to kiss his cheek
(which was the way in those days signifying death)
and i could not help noticing he was shaking all over
but whether it was from tension or relief i could not say
meanwhile the others were wandering around in the dark garden
excited and half afraid as the innocent always are
when they do not quite know what is going on
but sense like animals there is something queer in the air
jesus cried out when i kissed him as the rules say
and everybody knew it had happened and was glad
and we all returned to the house laughing and chatting idly
but god had gone to bed
everybody went silent like a shot sensing the danger
and in the deathly silence christ came forward
smiling queerly and holding a card in his bleeding palm
it was the king of hearts - the detective's card
i saw the trick he had played on me but it was too late
i was furious but there was nothing i could do
the other disciples were already beginning to threaten me
with eternal damnation and wanted to lynch me there and then
but christ would not give the word but just looked at me
with that inhuman smile on his lips and pity in his eyes
until he had me believing i had done something wrong
and i saw he was telling me to go and hang myself
to save his disciples from dirtying the word
nor would he take back the black ace i held in my hand
but made great play
of branding it amid jeers and catcalls on my brow
with a steady hand and a grip as cool as ice
i tried to wash it off with my tears but it was no use
and all my crying only made them laugh the more
through the window behind christ's head i could see the trees
creaking in the wind and the lonely moon
i went into the garden and hanged my body on a tree
and i have longed for death ever since
but christ is alive and will not let me die
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THE ROSTRUM THEATRE (Small amateur theatre company First production Othello roped in 30 (mostly inexperienced) actors Plays tackled |
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(poem accompanying a dance-drama based upon the Grimm brothers' story: The King of the Golden Mountain, danced to Sibellius' Second Symphony)
a. prologue
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beware belzivetta the enchantress - she beware belzivetta - how she purposes |
b. frederick's arrival on the island
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frederick come lashed you near death exhausted lie black castle walls on crags alive dazzled in the white the hissing eyes attack attack your mind's in flood a new peace stalks |
c. the song of the white snake
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do not strike us stranger we ghost this island stranger resist three tortures stranger rise undestroyed o stranger |
d. the tortures over
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his tortures ended |
e. the song of the ladies-in-waiting
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princess elvira remember your promise elvira elvira no longer enchanted |
f. the wishing ring
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belzivetta has a book she conjures up a wishing ring |
g. prologue to the second part
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some time has passed since elvira (freed alas as she had hoped so proved - the ring
see now how belzivetta rises |
h. the adventures
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(i) introduction his home in ruins to the golden mountain four desperate trials
softly mist suppress all sight yet if you cannot steal his breath
once more the muffling mists enclose back they push and back squelching and splotch- but no
safely! - distorted joke till almost beyond redemption
immediately a barrier of thorns |
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(examples)
(a)
drip
drip
drip drop drip
drip drop drip drop
splash
drip splish
drop splash
spit spat
spitter spatter
dribble bubble
gurgle guggle
splosh
(b)
wild-dog walrus
dromedary rhinoceros
camel hippopotamus
polar-bear seal
leaopard zebra
cheetah mongoose
elephant hyena
kangaroo baboon
wild-dog walrus
etc
penguin deer
chimpanzee panda
buffalo boar
alligator mamba
wild-dog walrus
etc
tiger llama
jackal giraffe
monkey puma
rattlesnake wolf
wild-dog walrus
etc
brown-bear boa
lion antelope
jaguar cobra
crocodile ape
wild-dog walrus
etc
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(c) ii iii iv v . |
(d)
chicken's claw
by a dank and ancient coffin
in the gaunt and gloomy hall
alone and sighing deeply
crouched the sorriest crone of all
her worn hands clutched a feather
her eyes were sore with tears
her lips were mumbling slowly
through the burdens of her fears
her clothes were drab and tattered
her body drooped and old
she waited waited waited
her blood let in the cold
she waited waited waited
a chill draught killed her sighs
day slunk down from the windows
night spied with its evil eyes
the mildewed sagging curtains
dragged on the harsh stone floor
and the fitful crash re-echoed
of the limping thickset door
a distant churchbell gloated
a groan grew in the trees
a shudder of horror shook the coffin
the crone sank to her knees
the coffin lid was lifting slowly
a weird light glowed within
and a hand as thin as a chicken's claw
seized the crone and pulled her in
* * *
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