A
MODERN
CRUCIFIXION

A Play in Two-Acts

Christina Conrad

(Draft)

C H A R A C T E R S

HERA: Obsessed painter in early 50s. Dark, haunted, and
magnetic. Long, wild hair. Bare feet. Wears white,
paint-spattered trousers and a shirt bound round waist
with blood-red cord. Voice like an ancient instrument
wells up out of the throat.

THEA: Hera’s daughter by first marriage. 24-year-old student. Child-like, petulant, small, yet full bosomed. Blonde hair falls in two plaits. Large green eyes. Short black dress, tight-fitting waist, black leggings, flesh-pink ankle socks. Leg shows between socks & leggings. Feet in brown, ankle boots.

JOSEPH: Hera’s first husband. A lawyer in mid-50s. Tall,
thin, stooped. Little, sharp teeth. Sandy moustache. Pale, fanatical blue eyes stare behind small, gold- rimmed spectacles. Black, formal suit. Slim, black- leather gloves (never removed), black tie, black
Homberg, white shirt, white handkerchief. Large
antique silver watch on chain hangs over hollow
stomach. Blood-red rose bud in lapel. Carries a
black, shiny cane, black attaché case. Feet in
tight black shoes.

YVES: Hera’s eldest son by second marriage. 17-years-old.
His huge black eyes contain the sorrow of the world.
Nose like the beak of an eagle. Long red-black hair falls to shoulders. Black top hat, dead white face. Torn, white-silk
pajamas. Feet bare.

___________________________________________

SETTING
Hera’s two-storey, studio/house.

TIME
The present

ACT ONE

SETTING: In a stark, white studio: two, blood-red stairways
wind to the left and right of a tall, narrow, glass door
with an arched top. This door resembles an upturned
coffin. A soft wind blows bits of paint-smeared toilet
paper causing seven, long white candles to flame in
the crudely carved candelabra hanging by a rope
from the ceiling. A tall, metal easel holds at a
precarious angle a sculptured painting of a man.
His grotesque, over-sized head falls hopelessly on to
his chest.

The space is furnished with a fat couch clad in crumpled grey-blue velvet. A table with claws,
circular and scrubbed. A tall, full-throated, flesh-pink
jug (filled with goats’ milk). A bread board, black
bread, goats’ cheese. A half-pecked seed bell sits on the edge of the table.

AT RISE: Stage dim. HERA’s back is to audience. She fanatically manipulates the papier-mâché head,
wet with paint. Big, stiff, mutilated paint tubes
writhe in a heap on the floor. Everything is besmirched with paint, like dried blood.

THEA appears at top of right stairway. Light distorts
her doll-like beauty, transforming her temporarily
into a man.

THEA
(In a harsh, male voice)
We dragged them out of their filthy caves,
broke them on the wheel,
bound them to the stake.
Burnt them by the thousands.
That stench of burning flesh terrorized the masses.
(Beat)
The ones who confessed fell to their knees
begging to be cleansed.
(SHE is shouting)

THEA (Continued)
The eyes!
The eyes gave them away!

(Stage lights up)

(HERA stops manipulation of head,
stares at painting)

(THEA comes down stairs)

THEA (Continued)
(In soft, wheedling, female voice)
What happened to that little egg pie you promised me?
(Pause)
Hera?
(Beat)
What happened to that little egg pie you said you’d buy me?

HERA
There are no pies.

THEA
Which cake shop did you go to?

HERA
I was transported to the one down by the water.

THEA
I’m starving!

HERA
I did not see anything remotely resembling a little egg pie.
(Beat)
There were some rather brutal white buns.

THEA
Iced?

HERA
Naked.
(Beat)
I took the opportunity to purchase a tube of white lead.

THEA
Only you could digest that.

HERA
The throat has a way of enlarging itself.

THEA
What about the cake shop by the bank?

HERA
It was dark on the interior. She had gold teeth.

THEA
Who?

HERA
The one who takes the money.

THEA
Why didn’t you buy me one of their meringues?

HERA
She was hovering over a burial mound of old scones.

THEA
Scones! I love scones. Those fat white ones with real cream.

HERA
Artificial cream.
(Beat)
There’s black bread and goats’ cheese on the table.

THEA
I only like processed cheese.

(HERA continues manipulating the
head)

THEA (Continued)
Daddy used to feed me with little shellfish. He’d prise them
off the rocks.

HERA
Your father was subservient.
(Beat)
It’s been twenty years since I’ve eaten the flesh of an animal.

THEA
The perversity of your appetite has deprived me of a mother.
I want a mother!

HERA
I serve a grim apprenticeship to the Self. Ah! See how the
blood-red cord pulsates!

THEA
It was severed at birth.
(Glancing sideways at the painting)
Your last lover didn’t have such a big head.

HERA
I have been manipulating it all morning.

THEA
So you didn’t go out!

HERA
I went out… of my body.

THEA
One day you won’t be able to get back into it.

HERA
When I put my fingers into the empty caverns of his eyes…
it’s as if I am being sucked into a vortex.

THEA
The head’s too big. You’ll never be able to keep it on.

HERA
There is a slippery element I dare not control.
(Beat)
He does not endure under my hands.

THEA
That’s an obvious aspect of your predicament.
(Beat)
You’re in love with Death.

HERA
Yes. Fatally. I finger him as I slide between grubby sheets on
that voracious bed of Ego.

THEA
Who is he, anyway?

HERA
Lucidity.
(Pause)
Why do you come to haunt me?

THEA
I’m one of your ghosts.
(Beat)

THEA (Continued)
I dream I’m lying in an open coffin. I call out… where are
you? Oh, why did you leave me?

HERA
I was in the hands of Obsession.

THEA
Another one of your lovers.

HERA
I gave up everything for him. Husbands, children, houses,
money… reputation.

THEA
You ruined my father.

HERA
His curls were wrapt mice.

THEA
You dropped a bag of white, powdered lead on the prize-winning
painting of his mother.

HERA
There was a hole in the bottom of the bag.

THEA
You selected my father as your sole audience.

HERA
He knelt at an illusory altar, licking the gilt of deception.

THEA
All his teeth fell out.

HERA
There was no money to have them pulled.

THEA
He spent it all on paint… for you.
(Beat)
You never loved him. You ate him away whilst trying to impress
your image on his gentle surface.
(Beat)
Daddy is too kind!

HERA
He hid me in his house.

THEA
It’s a wonder they didn’t lock you away.

HERA
Those who dare to speak the truth shall be taken for the
last ride.

THEA
If only you could drive.

HERA
I am driven. Driven to the edge.

THEA
Your rabbit-hutch mentality prevents you from taking part
in the world.

HERA
Yes! On the edge, I conduct the infamous ravings of Ego.

THEA
Do you think my eyes are too small?
(Beat)
The beautician said I should draw black lines around them.

HERA
Black lines drawn around eyes create the impression of
one looking out from behind the bars of a cage.
(Beat)
You have Jewish eyes, like your brother’s.

THEA
They float on my forehead. If only I could find a way to
bring them down.

HERA
Those who measure with calipers…

(The head falls to the floor with a dull thud.
HERA picks it up, and slams it back on to
the canvas)

THEA
If only my eyes were bigger. Look at me! I’ve got no hips, no
eyebrows; my bosoms are too big. I’ve never had a mother.
When you weren’t painting you were lying in bed, weeping
over your lovers.

HERA
I was listening to the droning of the mason bees as they
made their nests in the broken knobs of the old brass bed.

THEA
You gave me nothing. I had to break open my money box
to buy a jelly baby.

HERA
The hair of a rat’s nest shewed through a crack in the ceiling.

THEA
My stomach aches as if a rat gnaws.

HERA
Greed deprives.

THEA
Your black ego deprives me.

HERA
You have been talking to your father.

THEA
My father sustains me.

HERA
(Looking at painting)
His head is too slippery.
(Beat)
How will I ever connect it to his body?

THEA
Daddy thought you were a genius. God knows why.

HERA
Your father collected objects…
(Pause)
He had a face like a wall clock.

THEA
His punctuality never failed me.

HERA
It protected him from chaos, the chaos I needed to create
with.

THEA
The only time you ever noticed me was when I drew.

HERA
You crouched at the table, drawing people with whirlpool
eyes, their hands exploding firecrackers.

THEA
Their hearts hung on their chests.

HERA
At spring tide, the sea ran up the steps, calling me out of my
body. I ate every pill I could find.

THEA
Save me from the squalor of your past.

HERA
We are the consequences of the act.

THEA
You never wanted me.

HERA
What appears to be cast off returns, not always in the shape
one expects.

THEA
How can you behave so indifferently ?

HERA
Blinded by oddments of deceit.

THEA
There are so many of them.

HERA
Precariously balanced on the hump of the world.
(Beat)
My paintings are my curséd children. I spill my blood for
them. I lift the lid off the top of my head so they can play
with inspiration.

THEA
I’d force-feed you with a bit of reality.

HERA
Whose reality?

THEA
The world’s!

HERA
I trace the full circle with the white stick of the blind.

THEA
You cast me aside so you could give full vent to your fantasies.

HERA
I was not acquainted with love. Fear and his brother, Torment,
took me at an early age.

THEA
God! I inherited your phenomenal fear.

HERA
Fear is the dominating factor in our struggle for union.
(Beat)
When I had taken too many pills, I’d crawl into your cot. Your
father brought me carrot juice with leaves of celery. He said it
would soothe my mind.
(Beat)
It shot up into the arc-shaped chamber, covering it with a
milky substance.

THEA
Everything went wrong after the birth of my brother.

HERA
They took him away. They would not let me see him.

THEA
A white, linen suit would give you credibility.

HERA
My body is hollow for the flame to rise.

THEA
Gas is dangerous. You could burn off your eyebrows. Why
don’t you buy one of those wands with the red handles to
light it with.

HERA
I wear a blood-red cord round my waist. I need more
paint! I must cover Lucidity in a coat of white lead.

THEA
What you need is an agent.

HERA
No! Don’t let them near me! They must be kept away from
the broken limbs of the tortured.

(HERA stares as if SHE has seen
a ghost)

THEA
Calm down. For God’s sake, they’re only paintings.

HERA
They are all my broken loves.
(Pause)
On the night of your brother’s birth, a huge, dark-blue bird
flew into the room. He bore down on me, beating his wings.
(Beat)
Swords of light shot from his eyes.

THEA
Daddy… Daddy always knew what to do.

HERA
He threw a black cloth over the bird.

THEA
The bird came to take my brother.

HERA
The black cloth fell off the bird.

THEA
Daddy is a man of honor.

HERA
He left us alone with the bird.

THEA
Daddy wouldn’t have left you.

HERA
He went out and slammed the door. The baby was screaming,
tearing at my hair. The bird circling, beating his body against
the walls.
(Beat)
It was a hot night… a vine, heavy with black plums, pushed
against the open window… he opened his eyes… they were
gleaming, as if he saw something I could not see. Then he fell
back with a rattle.

HERA (Continued)
(Beat)
Gone! Out of his body.

THEA
I never got any of those plums. They were the black kind. The
ones with the thick, juicy flesh.

HERA
The bird flew out of the window.

THEA
Everything is a myth. Why can’t you be honest for once? You
sent me away. I had to stay with Daddy’s aunt, the one with the
fork mark on her nose.

HERA
Branded by her inheritance.

THEA
I need sustenance. Give me sustenance!

HERA
Each life is a death.

THEA
You are oblivious to my needs.

HERA
You will find sustenance in the vital body of black bread.

THEA
I don’t want black bread! It’s only the white sort…

HERA
I need white paint. White paint!

(Pause)

(THEA gazes at the painting)

THEA
Paint is the last thing you need.
(Beat)
Daddy never let you have too many tubes at a time.

HERA
He kept them locked in a cupboard.

THEA
I wouldn’t let you have any paint.

HERA
Without paint… I cannot live.

THEA
You’d soon get used to it.

HERA
No! No!
(Touching the head)
I have a great body…

THEA
I see no evidence of this.
(Beat)
` Where’s the neck?

HERA
In this configuration, the neck is not necessary.

THEA
If only they could be sold.

HERA
I do not want the destructive eyes.

THEA
Don’t speak of eyes!
(Puts her hands over her eyes)

HERA
The superfluous eyes shall be wrapt in cotton wool and
shut in a black box.

THEA
And where is the love? The love!

HERA
A gnawing hunger for love drives me to paint. The act of
squeezing tubes causes me to forget Insatiability and his
excessive demands.

THEA
Someone is sure to love me. So many men look at me in the
street.

HERA
You are loved.

THEA
Not by you.

HERA
By Love herself.
(Beat)
Ah! How she claws at the bars of her cage!

THEA
Why can’t you just tell me?

HERA
You sound like your father. I cannot declare love on demand.

THEA
Is that why you never had any milk for me?

HERA
That is not why.

THEA
You had milk for your sons.

HERA
Inspiration flowed.

THEA
It was the milk I never suckled.

HERA
I wept milk!
(Beat)
I was a river of milk!

THEA
They sucked and sucked. Yves would still be sucking if he
were here. Why wasn’t there any for me?

HERA
The vessel was empty.

THEA
I need milk. Milk!

HERA
There’s goats’ milk in the jug.

THEA
I want real milk!

HERA
Goats’ milk is the nearest thing to mother’s milk.

THEA
That’s why you fed me with cow’s milk!

HERA
It was special babies’ milk. In a tin.

THEA
I was forced to suck on a rubber tit.

HERA
I was the sheep who couldn’t feed her lamb.

THEA
A sheep who popped pills and bleated for my father to buy
her cappuccino ice creams. You sent him out in a taxi!

HERA
I was addicted.

THEA
If only you’d been addicted to me!

HERA
I learnt my first lesson from the sheep.

THEA
Brainless submission.

HERA
No! The dignity of acceptance.
(Beat)
In spring, the sheep dragged their swollen bodies over the
land. I, too, was pregnant. I could not submit to my fate.
(Beat)
The sheep lifted their faces to the sky, chewing quietly whilst
their lambs suckled.

THEA
The lambs were taken away from their mothers.

HERA
Big trucks came to take the sheep away.

THEA
The lambs bleated all day.

HERA
The sheep’s throats were cut. The land was drenched in
blood and suffering.

THEA
I was a lamb!

HERA
I was a sheep.
(Pause)
Every time the trucks came, I was sick with fear.

THEA
I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know!

HERA
We cannot hide from it. In the name of materialism, we
take the lives of people and animals. We sell their flesh.
(Beat)
We devour their flesh.

THEA
Yes… I remember. I lay under a painting of this.

HERA
“As the sheep are slaughtered, so shall they be.”

THEA
It fell off the wall. It nearly killed me.

HERA
The hook wasn’t big enough.

THEA
No one bought it.

HERA
It was not for sale.

THEA
My nerves were destroyed by a diet of white sugar.

HERA
I didn’t become a vegetarian until you were four.

THEA
My fingers were so dry, I had to keep licking them.

HERA
I licked mine, too.

THEA
Whilst you lay in bed.

HERA
As if offered on a swooning plate.

THEA
Daddy was the sacrifice.

HERA
Nailed to the vice of Self.

THEA
You overworked him. He could have been famous.

HERA
He was mediocre enough. He painted portraits of his
mother.
(Beat)
I was fed on silverbeet juice.

THEA
That’s probably what gave you your persecution complex.

HERA
I was stuck between two worlds.

THEA
Ego mania and child neglect.

HERA
I wear the continually changing masks of many lives. Under
the masks is this old, rotting skull.

THEA
I can see that.
(Beat)
I’m starving.

HERA
Eat bread!

THEA
I long for Daddy’s moon biscuits.

HERA
The memory of his moon biscuits overwhelms me. I will
not let him set foot in this house.

THEA
Don’t get paranoid. It took him ten years to recover.
(SHE drifts over to the table)

HERA
I still lie on the crumbs.

(THEA picks up an old, half-pecked seed
bell)

THEA
What’s this?

HERA
(Dreamily)
A seed bell.
(Beat)
All the little seeds clinging to the bell.

THEA
You should buy one of those fat ones with the big seeds.
Daddy… Daddy was telling me…

HERA
Don’t tell me!
(Takes seed bell from THEA)

THEA
What would you do if you sold some of your paintings?

HERA
I no longer wish to barter with Death.

THEA
There is a possibility they might buy one of the more palatable
ones.
(Beat)
If I was a bird, I would peck up all the little seeds.

HERA
I long for the companionship of a white cockatoo.

THEA
Isn’t your lover enough?

HERA
Lucidity, Logic, Torment and his brother, Sorrow…

THEA
All concocted out of dreams.

HERA
If I reach out my hand… nothing is solid.

THEA
You’ve always been afraid of birds.

HERA
I have a recurring dream… a huge bird… his wings beating…
his eye riveted to mine… rips open my heart.

THEA
Tell me! How will you sustain the apparition of a white
cockatoo?

HERA
(Fondling the seed bell)
I will learn to love his white, downy throat… the feel of his
beak… his old, enchanted eye.

THEA
Put it down! It’s too old and shriveled.

HERA
However old and shriveled, the bell gives sustenance. See how
its seeds glitter. They are the eyes of millions… terminated at
the seed. Their dual qualities merging into one.

THEA
I’d throw that old seed bell away.

HERA
It shall hang in the cypress grove where the trees are green
flames. It is there I shall meet the white cockatoo.

(THEA snatches the bell out of HERA’s
hands, breaking it into little pieces)

THEA
A cage will be the answer. A cage with a tower.

HERA
At the sound of his wings I shall be delivered and laid in a
cypress grove.

THEA
Forget it.

HERA
I cannot forget. I must forge a way through darkness.

THEA
Everything is your way. What about my way?

HERA
Unless you can untie the knot that binds, you shall be as
pitiless as the rest of us.

THEA
There are people who lead normal lives.

HERA
Under the grey scum of normality is the scream we all try to
smother.
(Beat)
The scream has a life of its own.

THEA
I intend to survive the holocaust of your ideas.

HERA
They are your inheritance.

THEA
I am ill without the sustenance of a little egg pie.

HERA
Raw inspiration sustains.

THEA
I cannot believe you are my mother!

HERA
We cannot believe. Caught in the futility of our own reflection,
we hold up Ego as if he were a black chalice to drink from.

THEA
I have come to lay the futility of my life before you… You took
everything… even the pearl buttons.

HERA
Pearl buttons!

THEA
Daddy’s mother’s.

HERA
I sucked them on long, dark nights.

THEA
I have been forced to use zips.

HERA
So many things get caught in the teeth of zips.

THEA
One day I’ll stop coming to see you.

HERA
Yes. I shall remain hidden, hidden by the walls.
(Beat)
Your brothers ate the stamens of lilies. They ran between
the legs of bulls in their diapers.

THEA
You are responsible for Yves’ mania. When he and Fer got
in the way of your painting, you left them like you left me.

HERA
Yes… I abandoned you all. Took the pearl buttons. Little, fallen
moons, stitched to my breast with blood-red thread.

THEA
I’ll make you go down on your knees.

HERA
My paintings are my apology.

THEA
Those lead-based protrusions!

HERA
That which I called up and gave birth to demands a place to
hang.
(Beat)
My paintings are orphans.

THEA
I had to force my way out of your womb.

HERA
You slipped past the sentry waving your rattle.

THEA
It was all your idea. I never would’ve chosen you for a mother.
Your paintings are out of date.

HERA
Yes! In darkness, I grope, devouring stagnation, manipulating my
damned existence.

THEA
You set my brothers against me. Fer doesn’t want anything to
do with you.

HERA
They love me!

THEA
Their father is as crazy as you are.
(Beat)
My father is well-balanced.

HERA
His lack of passion drove me mad.

THEA
Anyone who is not like you has no passion.

HERA
Estranged from life, we grovel before the myth.

THEA
This gets me nowhere.

HERA
Only the ambitious get somewhere. They slide up and down
the glass mountain, slashing their wrists on its jagged contours.

THEA
I was unloved before birth and after.

HERA
A cloak of darkness fell around me, obscuring love in her
wicker perambulator.

THEA
I smothered in your darkness.

HERA
Someone had taken over my body.

THEA
It was me!

HERA
I came to that conclusion.

THEA
I was stuck in a bloody tunnel.

HERA
The labyrinth.

THEA
You wouldn’t push me out. Why didn’t you push me out?

HERA
I flew out of my body. I looked down. People with masks
were tearing me to pieces.

THEA
I could have died choking on your blood.

HERA
I lay on a board people ice cakes on.

THEA
I said, why didn’t you push!?

HERA
Voices were calling me. The blood-red cord lay writhing
between us.
(Beat)
I died without a name.

THEA
I looked straight into the blue flame of my father’s eyes.

HERA
I cradled you in a white shawl. Blood oozed between my legs.

THEA
I felt for your breasts. There was no milk. I tell you, there was no
milk!

HERA
Through the tortured haze of my mind…

THEA
I’m a victim of your imagination. There was no milk! Just this
blind tit.

HERA
Past, present, and future were clashing together. The doctor wore
the head of a crocodile.

THEA
I was your whimper.

HERA
Even before birth we were at cross-purposes.

THEA
I was a fetus!

HERA
Do you think that is all you were?

THEA
Don’t question me!

HERA
When I last knew you, you were a man.

THEA
Oh God! This is what I have to deal with. Are you mad?

HERA
No. Only aware of the multiple complexities of Soul, and
the weird division we create between male and female.

THEA
You chose isolation.

HERA
Yes!
(Beat)
It is that curséd womb that cuts across inspiration, that turns an
artist into a woman. From birth, she is a flower to be plucked,
left to wilt in houses filled with incestuous clutter, whilst the men
go out to hunt the mystery of life.

THEA
You are your own curse… and mine!

HERA
We are all cursed. In the name of Desire, we call up Life and
her lover, Death.

THEA
I had no choice.

HERA
We choose! We grasp the fetish! Multiplying in our weakness.
We stare into the face of Doom.
(Beat)
I could not succumb to being a woman. I struggled to give birth
to an idea. It was stuck inside me, blinding me in spasms of light.

THEA
They had to cut you open to let me out.

HERA
They broke into the labyrinth… they… they…

THEA
There’s just one of you against the world.

HERA
Yes. Every way I look, I am confronted with Self. I stare at this
huge, gloating creature who goads me into desiring… devouring.
(Beat)
Who am I? I have pondered this before Life, before Death.
Yea, I am viciously spotted; heinous in velvet darkness. I
stroke monstrosity.

THEA
Listen to you! My mother’s a snake with a flaming tongue.
Fiendish in her fascination with herself. Shut away in a
stone house as if she were her own concubine.
(Beat)
Pity me in my exposure as your child.

HERA
I search the labyrinth for an answer, for a way to slay Ego.

THEA
You wouldn’t be anything without your ego. None of us
would… though you’ve gone too far with yours. Built it up
disproportionately.

HERA
In the name of Ego we commit crimes against Self and each
other. These crimes are perpetuated through aeons.

THEA
(In a harsh, male voice)
You! You wear the eyes! Heretic’s eyes!

(HERA breaks away from THEA’s stare)

HERA
Memory haunts the Soul.

THEA
(In a male voice)
We will wipe you out.

HERA
Light awakens Heart. Empties Mind of its paltry assumptions.

THEA
(Male voice)
We will destroy every man, woman, and child.

HERA
I shall no longer cower under the black shroud of despotism,
where Treachery gives birth to Death.

THEA
(In a male voice)
The door of God’s house shall be flung open to receive those
sheep who have sinned against divine law. If they swear
allegiance to the church, they will be cleansed and forgiven.
(Beat)
Let us kneel and eat the bread, drink the wine.

HERA
Never!
(Runs up left stairway. THEA follows.
HERA stops halfway as THEA clamps
her hand down on HERA’s shoulder)

THEA
(Male voice)
Listen child to the voice of God, and you shall be saved!
Many rich and powerful men have invested in you. Your
strange talents, if used for devotional purposes, shall bloom.

THEA (Continued)
(Lays her hand on HERA’s arm)
It is not too late to shelter under God’s hallowed roof.

HERA
Your insidious power shall never draw me into that circle
of rampant saints.

THEA
(Male voice)
Renounce your diabolic beliefs!

HERA
Bind me to the stake at one of your mass burnings. I shall
never bow before Hypocrisy and Corruption.
(Beat)
In the name of God, you drain the earth of justice; slaughter
the innocent who have vowed not to kill.

(There is a loud knock at the door.
JOSEPH can be seen through the glass,
seemingly magnified, and menacing
in his black attire. The knocking
becomes louder. Knock after knock…
relentless)

(HERA clutches frantically at THEA’s
arm. THEA throws her off. HERA staggers
against the wall)

HERA
They have come for me! Don’t let them take me!

THEA
(In a male voice)
You have made your choice.

(The knocking continues. HERA climbs the
stairs to the landing where she crouches in fear)

(THEA descends the stairs and opens the
door. JOSEPH steps in, puts his briefcase and
hat on a chair by the table. HE looks round,
zealously)

JOSEPH
Is she here?

THEA
(Male voice)
Yes, she is here.

JOSEPH
I intend to take her quietly.

THEA
(Male voice)
She is hysterical.
(Beat)
If… if we could keep her… hidden…

JOSEPH
Only the devout are safe.
(Beat)
I took five hundred heretics this morning.

THEA
(Male voice)
Will they stand trial?

JOSEPH
They shall burn at midnight under a full moon.
(Staring at THEA with zealous eyes,
shows his teeth)
A spectacle you cannot afford to miss… Agony in a tarred
bonnet.
THEA
(Male voice)
A little more time… a little more faith, and we shall bring the
Virgin to her knees.

JOSEPH
I intend to shew no mercy. Whilst wood is dry and abundant,
there shall be no obstacle to mass burnings.
(Beat)
Even our great forests must be sacrificed.

THEA
(Male voice)
Trees… Trees I have cherished… spiritual willows… sustaining
oaks…
(Beat)
I dream of lithe branches.

JOSEPH
(Showing teeth)
In the name of God, they shall fall under the bright blade.

THEA
(Falling to knees as if to pray)
Brother! I implore you… as a prominent member…

JOSEPH
(Prods her with cane)
Get up! You fool!
In our quest for Light and Truth we must negate all sense of
Self.

THEA
(Staggers to feet)
Together, we nurtured… instructed our little Virgin.

JOSEPH
Never allow the salacious eyes of the Devil’s children to defile
the sacred. You must believe implicitly in the power of the
Church.

THEA
Even after they have been consumed by fire, their disembodied
eyes stare, stare at me. As if I am the one who has denied God.

JOSEPH
(Shows teeth)
A clattering tongue earns an unexpected penalty. Remain tacit,
or you shall be taken in an instant.
(Beat)
Quite devoid of Grace.

(A loud bang as the papier-mâché
head falls off HERA’s painting)

(HERA’s shadow falls across the stage
as SHE slowly descends the stairs. A
spotlight illuminates her face as SHE
raises it to the audience)

HERA
Soul cannot be destroyed by fire.

JOSEPH
Fire shall burn up the insolence of your tongue.
(Turning to THEA)
Darling! You look a trifle pale. You may need an iron tonic.

THEA
Daddy! Not that vile kind in the brown bottle!

JOSEPH
Please refrain from judging medicinal merit by the color of
the bottle. This is the type of thing your mother…

THEA
She promised to buy me a little egg pie.

JOSEPH
My darling, your mother does not nurture little egg pies.
However, I shall procure some for you in due course.

(HERA picks up head, and stares at it)

JOSEPH
Still nursing dementia, Hera?

HERA
His forehead is a temple. I must ignite the candle in the
arc-shaped chamber.

THEA
I inherited Daddy’s legs.

JOSEPH
Your mother never liked my legs. Just as well they have taken
refuge in the legal profession.

HERA
Where they pursue their victims with zeal.

JOSEPH
May I remind you in your dangerous oblivion, Hera, my calling
is to defend the innocent… to expose the guilty.

(HERA fumbles with the head, trying
to put it back on the painting)

HERA
I cannot attach his head…

JOSEPH
Your attention, please, Hera!

HERA
I will not listen to you.

JOSEPH
All my life, I have been an audience. I have learnt to subdue
my desire, to perform unnaturally. However, through laborious
exposure I have earned a right to speak.

HERA
I have no desire to witness the croak of mediocrity.

JOSEPH
Please! Decorum is a vital ingredient to the threat of life.

HERA
I do not wish to know.

JOSEPH
My dear Hera, your father and I shared the anguish of a
grave injustice inflicted by an outrageous daughter and totally
callow wife. Together we nursed this injury – oh yes! I,
acting as his confidante, solicitous in undying loyalty to
the cause.

(Pause)

HERA
My concern is with Lucidity’s head.

JOSEPH
There comes a time when one must awaken to reality. Your
father has passed away. He was most tastefully cremated. He
choked on a crumb, Hera. Passing rapidly from these troubled
realms, he left himself fully accounted for.

HERA
I severed all ties with him thirty years ago.

JOSEPH
He was slowly eaten away by pain and disappointment.

THEA
I would have thought as one of his heirs…

JOSEPH
Patience, my sweet. All shall be revealed in the full glory of time.

THEA
I’m hungry.

JOSEPH
My darling, one must be careful not to eat when one is excited.

THEA
I’m not excited.

JOSEPH
One must be very careful of the type of flesh…

THEA
I’m tired of being treated like a child!

JOSEPH
You must learn to wait your turn. Bread and cheese is all you
need.
(Beat)
I was rather efficient at making goats’ cheese in the days when
we lived off the land.
(Beat)
Unfortunately, my legal calling put an end these earthy activities.

HERA
The head! The head will be the death of me!
(Beat)
The Soul rises from the body like a sheath from a sword.

JOSEPH
My dear, you must stay your hand.

HERA
I must leap through a hoop of white flame.

JOSEPH
You are endangered by excessive behavior.

HERA
You are afraid of the Truth!

JOSEPH
I would not be too quick to judge, my dear. This suit hides
faculties that may surprise you.

HERA
It does not hide them well enough.

JOSEPH
A little charity may prove helpful. Part of your problem is
your complete lack of order. An impediment to your talent.
A talent which I am pleased to remind you was discovered
and carefully nurtured by me!
(Beat)
Regard the way you conduct your life. Paintings and people
strewn with no regard for love or consequence.

THEA
(To audience)
Every time she didn’t get her own way she threw herself on
the floor, banging her head, and screaming.

THEA (Continued)
(To JOSEPH)
You were her nurse. Nothing more.

HERA
The lid was lifting off the top of my head. A huge bubble fixed
itself to one eye. I saw everything double.
(Looking at JOSEPH)
Someone was manipulating my brain.

JOSEPH
I functioned at a grave disadvantage. Bowled over by your
extraordinary character. I could refuse you nothing, not even
the loss of my teeth. No longer able to grind them, what was
I to do in the face of my introversion? Yes, Hera, a galling pain,
my fusion with you.

HERA
I cry for paint as I once cried for firewood. My apprenticeship
to the invisible blinds me to human need.

JOSEPH
One must lift oneself… high above degradation.

HERA
In my obscurity I have willingly worn the hat of the fool. Yet,
unexpected help comes from invisible realms.

THEA
She’s insane.

JOSEPH
My darling! In the realm of untimely speculation, one must
apply caution. If she is willing to submit to God, she will be
saved.

THEA
Before she became obsessed with Lucidity, she painted her
lover, only him. Part of him was so big it was all you could see…
plus a pair of spectacles.

JOSEPH
Under guidance, she could show in the best galleries in the
world.

HERA
I shall not submit to the sordid presumptions of the art world.
They extol mediocrity; they slay inspiration.
(Beat)

HERA (Continued)
I have given form to dreams. Ruthlessly, I have torn them out
of their nebulous state.
(Beat)
I would rather burn! than hang… in a gallery.

JOSEPH
Fear is your enemy, Hera. Unadulterated fear of exposure. Take
my advice - a public airing would lighten dark thought-patterns.
I have influential friends…

HERA
(Backing towards the left stairway)
No, No! Do not bring them near me!

JOSEPH
They are already here.

(HERA begins backing up the stairs.
JOSEPH follows her. HE places an
authoritative hand on her shoulder)

JOSEPH (Continued)
Please quieten your vehicles.

(HERA shakes uncontrollably)

THEA
You’re still fascinated by her.

JOSEPH
When I first saw her, I knew I would have to accommodate
her. It was almost as if I owed her something. My hand was
forced by an urge I could not control. She was a prize! A
dubious prize. She stripped me of my middle-class background,
attacking my sense of dignity in the most appalling way. Her
view of the world was unreal and precarious. She wanted to
hide. She selected me to hide her. Unfortunately, I was
dangerously exposed.

THEA
You couldn’t live without her.

JOSEPH
(Voice rising to a thin scream)
Darling please! I was forced to take restraining measures.

THEA
I was stuck between the two of you like a mad bolster.

JOSEPH
I was bound by duty. Compelled to perform!
(Beat)
I gave you the best, my sweet.

THEA
I had nothing! I played with a dried seahorse.

JOSEPH
She hated my hands.

THEA
You were excited by her repulsion.

JOSEPH
A worthy vessel does not leak. You must study circumspection,
my darling.
(JOSEPH goes to the table, pours milk
into a goblet, holds it to THEA’s lips)
Drink this milk.

(SHE sips. JOSEPH tears off a morsel
bread)

JOSEPH (Continued)
Partake of this bread.

(SHE gobbles the bread, angrily)

THEA
All I wanted was a little egg pie.
(To the audience)
Don’t stare at me!
(To JOSEPH)
Take them away!

JOSEPH
My darling, they have paid for their seats. They are the children
of God.

THEA
They don’t look like it. Why do they crouch in the dark?

JOSEPH
They are here to witness… Truth! … as we perform it.

THEA
They have eyes… like the eyes in her paintings.

JOSEPH
Her paintings are shockingly part of her.

THEA
They stare at people and follow them around.

JOSEPH
One cannot afford to come too close, or one could be dragged
into the void.

THEA
Some of them are filled with eyes weeping blood.

HERA
They are the eyes of those who were taken… They float
disembodied, eternally staring.

JOSEPH
The eye is forced to witness the unhealthy relationship between
the painter and her creation.

THEA
Some of them are filled with arms and legs, piled up into weird-
looking pyramids.

JOSEPH
They should be restrained in iron frames.

HERA
(As if in a dream)
Their bodies were broken…

(JOSEPH advances towards HERA.
HE places his hand on her shoulder)

JOSEPH
Whose bodies? Hera!

HERA
(In a child-like voice, cringing)
The ones…

JOSEPH
Speak up, Hera!

HERA
The ones… the ones… the ones who… who…

JOSEPH
If you wish to keep the door unlocked you will hold your
tongue.

HERA
Don’t shut me away! Don’t hurt my paintings!
(Goes to painting, cradling the
head to her bosom)

JOSEPH
You must be careful not to be taken over. It could lead to the
most unpleasant circumstances. Please don’t think I lack sympathy,
but I will not tolerate female hysteria. It could rise up and drown
me.
(Beat)
There is something horribly cloying, from the precarious
position of my maleness. I advise an oblique approach.

THEA
You never had eyes for me when she was around. Just the bare
essentials, really. You neglected yourself. That’s why your teeth
fell out.
(Beat)
She keeps her’s hidden. Have you noticed mine?
(SHE bares her teeth)
They’re one of my best assets.
(Beat)
Of course she’s always primping herself.

JOSEPH
Darling, please! Consider your audience. Their fulsome body
must be fed with economy. You would not like them to tire
of you before you have attained their belief.

THEA
Remember the way she behaved once she became a
vegetarian? We were never allowed to eat flesh. Yet she gave
full vent to her own proclivities.

JOSEPH
Darling, where is your sense of dignity?

HERA
It will be as if we are walking in our sleep. If we wake, we will
fall.

(HERA cradles the bloody, painted-smeared
head of Lucidity in her arms)

THEA
Don’t think we’re fooled by you. You’re not motherly.
(To JOSEPH)
You’re afraid of her.

HERA
He has the hard, blue stare of a canary, pecking an eternal
seed bell.

JOSEPH
Seed bells are very cheap, my dear!

THEA
I want both of you to realize what you’ve done to me!

JOSEPH
Darling, please don’t puff yourself up. It could prove repellent.

HERA
We must all realize the danger of demanding evidence of our
existence.

THEA
You’re not interested in me.

JOSEPH
But you have me, darling. My heart spills over.

HERA
Too much spilling has been done already.

JOSEPH
One must attain temperance of thought, deed and emotion.
One must beware of blatancy.

(THEA sits down at the table.
JOSEPH joins her. THEA angrily
punches the bread, flings it down)

JOSEPH (Continued)
Unfortunately, I didn’t have the mental or physical attributes
to satisfy the appetite of an artist.
(Beat)
She had a taste for fetishes. She fell in love with my best friend.
Alas, he was unable to endure her extreme demands. He was
compelled to withdraw.
(Beat)
This gave her the scope to turn him in to a fetish.

HERA
The sacred proportions of the fetish inspire one to unfold
into the nebulous ethers of the dream world. It is here one
can realize the abstract potency of the archetype.

JOSEPH
It was spring when I met her. She was already pregnant.

HERA
He took me to a back-street abortionist.

THEA
Daddy rescued you! If only you had loved him, I would’ve
had the milk. The milk I was denied!

JOSEPH
Please!

HERA
My flesh crept at the sight of him.

JOSEPH
She had an insurmountable lack of taste.

HERA
I could not bear the smell of you.

THEA
What kind of smell was it?

HERA
Not a physical smell.

JOSEPH
(Wringing his hands, shrieking)
Please! Please!

HERA
More of a soul smell… a woolen blue clashing with a swollen
red.

(JOSEPH takes a sip of goats’ milk,
and splutters)

JOSEPH
Really, my dear, this exposure of your fantasies is entirely
unnecessary. Your brutal disregard for my person could force me
to leave before I divulge the entirety of the news I hold in my
black receptacle.

JOSEPH (Continued)
(To audience)
I was foolish enough to lay my modest potential before
her so repeatedly it could cause me to blush. Owing to
extreme anemia, I am unable to spare the blood.

THEA
Your anemia is due to your long-term of vegetarianism at
the hands of my mother.

JOSEPH
Darling, I was anemic long before I met your mother.
(Takes off spectacles and polishes
them with a handkerchief)

JOSEPH (Continued)
Certain deprivations in early childhood… I find a moderate
intake of steamed flesh… the tender breast of a turkey. . .

(As JOSEPH finishes, YVES makes
the bizarre imitation of a turkey gobbler.
They all look up. An eccentric figure –
YVES - in shabby, white-silk pajamas
and top hat, appears at the top of the
left stairway. His hair is long and untidy.
He slowly descends the stairs, gobbling
spasmodically. THEA stands and
rushes to embrace him)

THEA
. Yves!

(YVES steps backwards, hands up as
if HE is about to be shot)

YVES
Don’t touch me!

(THEA falls back, frowns)

THEA
(To JOSEPH)
My brother does not allow me to touch him.

JOSEPH
One must apply caution to one’s approach… to physical
contact. A discreet touch is applicable only with permission.

(YVES stands as if in a dream.
HERA continues to manipulate
the head)

JOSEPH (Continued)
(To audience)
Let me introduce you to Hera’s eldest son… of course, I
had nothing to do with his conception.

YVES
My mother was released from your clutches long before the
tragedy of my conception… or should I say… my fall.

JOSEPH
I have had to guard my reputation.

THEA
She hid my brother from me.

HERA
I rocked his cradle. His legs lay… ivory bones in his diapers.

YVES
My cradle rocks on a dead sea of incestuous refuse. My stay
here is but transitory.

HERA
Long time I have awaited your return, vigilant before the memory
of your eagle’s beak.

YVES
Stiff with the curse of memory. I choke on Death’s flower.

HERA
I have tended thorns. Laid waste to ignorance.

YVES
In secret groves, I walk amongst ghost trees… ripping their
bark with holey teeth. I scream for an answer.

JOSEPH
I have no time for this hysterical euphemism. The boy must
make an appointment with a reputable dentist… I am here
strictly on business. I must ask you to conform…

YVES
I hung on her nipple. Marbled and grim with Life’s blood, I
trail the umbilical cord as if it were a bloody toy.

HERA
A milky sea lapped over us.

(THEA leaps up and grasps the jug
by the throat)

THEA
He got all the milk!
(SHE bangs the jug down on the table,
sits down)

YVES
I dipped my spoon into a prolific junket.

JOSEPH
(To THEA)
I fed you on warm cow’s milk, my darling.

THEA
(Staring angrily at YVES)
I wanted her milk!

JOSEPH
Calm down, my dove.

THEA
She worships men!

HERA
I have erected too many icons in glittering distance of Love.

YVES
(To THEA)
I dribbled on a velvet bib.

HERA
I attended the fires of my femaleness. In a parody of Love, I
selected the largest logs. Ruthless in the final hour when ideas
spill… I drown alone, washed up at the feet of men.

THEA
She is old and cunning.

JOSEPH
We must bide our time.

THEA
(Seizing the bread knife, hacking
at the bread)
I have waited long enough in the shade of her neglect!

HERA
I struggled to cast off my womanhood. Fumbling beneath
that weird disguise, I discover I am both male and female.
I feed off these dual qualities with the forked tongue of a
serpent.

YVES
She left me on my seventh birthday… she took my brother…
I could not live without him.

THEA
She left me when I was seven.

(JOSEPH coughs discreetly, polishes
spectacles)

JOSEPH
She left me in my thirty-fourth year. An auspicious year. I won
first prize for portraiture. It was a large, flat oil on canvas.

THEA
Your mother. She was rising out of a kind of black cloud.

JOSEPH
The cloud depicted her long and chronic illness.

YVES
I crouched in the pentagonal room where I was born. It smelt
of mother’s milk, dripping onto the fleece of a dead animal.

THEA
Daddy made me a cake. It was white all over. He decorated it
with little silver balls.

YVES
Mercury.

JOSEPH
Please! They are manufactured out of a type of hardened icing…
of course, it is not advisable to… crunch them.

YVES
She never came back.

THEA
She didn’t keep Fer for long. She sent him back.

YVES
It was always cold under the pine trees. We searched for pine
cones in the long grass. They felt like warm owls in our hands.
The sack had a hole in it. When we reached the house, it was
empty.
(Beat)
The house was her body. The wood was old and mellow. Sunk
in dreams, we ran our hands over its satiny surface.

THEA
It was riddled with worms.

JOSEPH
Borers, my darling.

THEA
Daddy had a borer gun.

YVES
The doorknobs were her breasts.

THEA
Not those porcelain ones.

JOSEPH
Darling, decorum, please!

THEA
They were probably those brown Bakelite ones. They make
them out of the husks of peanuts.

YVES
The house was full of old velvet. We pretended it was her.
(Beat)
We began to hate the game. We hated her. I stopped going to
school. I stayed at home… so I could watch.

THEA
What did you watch?

YVES
My life. It appeared before me like a black and white movie.
I would get stuck in one scene… images blew up in my mind…
I kept watching. Nothing else mattered.

JOSEPH
I have come strictly on business…

YVES
I thought if I kept watching, the pain would go away. It got
worse. I struck a match. Snakes of flame licked the pink velvet.
They leapt into the eyes of her winter portraits.

JOSEPH
(With a sinister voice)
Economy of mind and emotion is the key. The key must fit the
lock… We shall watch with a stringent eye, rooting out those
marked with profanity.

YVES
I fell through days, nights, years… my head is lit with tongues
of flame.

HERA
The white flame of inspiration.

YVES
My father made a sculpture of a blood-red cow. She stood on
her hind legs. She wore a skull cap with the twelve astrological
symbols engraved on it… He nailed her tail to the floor so
she would not fall when we climbed over her.

HERA
He took over my studio… the gray dust of chiseled stone
fell on my paintings. I begged him to leave.

YVES
He called her an old cow.

HERA
I seized an axe.

YVES
My brother and I stood one on each side of her. She chopped
the door down. She pushed a huge stone woman on to my
father. He threw her off. He pushed her into her painting. She
was crying.

HERA
I fell on to the wet throat of a jug…
(To YVES)
You were nearly seven.
(Beat)
The jug was broken.

(YVES and HERA move together.
THEA and JOSEPH move together)

THEA
In dreams, I pursue her, touch her.
(Beat)
She is as cold as Death.

HERA
Death! Death on a bed of flames!

YVES
(Agonized, slow, choking)
Bring me wet leaves… wet leaves.

(HERA moves towards YVES as if in
sleep; her voice is long and drawn out)

HERA
Lift your arms above the flames.

(Yves lifts his arms, slowly, painfully.
HERA’s and YVES’ eyes are shut, faces
anguished)

HERA (Continued)
Put your head on my shoulder.

(YVES’ head slowly falls on to her
shoulder. HERA’s head falls to her
breast. A smoky light encircles them)

(Stage lights dim)

JOSEPH
The Devil has freed their arms.

THEA
They cannot run away now. The little flames are dancing.

JOSEPH
The wood is too wet.

THEA
Our lovely lady, Venus - the evening star - is partially obscured.

JOSEPH
They will burn slowly.

THEA
The ecstasy of anguish plays exquisitely under a fulsome moon.

JOSEPH
I prefer the cleansing calm of a new moon. The dense body of
smoke disappears with a clarity which causes the heart to thump
as the flame leaps into heretic eyes, burning up all evidence.

THEA
It is our task to eradicate darkness.

JOSEPH
Under the heavenly eye of God all shall be illuminated!

(THEA and JOSEPH are in darkness.
Light encircles the heads of HERA and
YVES)

(A black curtain falls)

END ACT ONE

ACT TWO

SETTING: The same studio, as in Act One.

AT RISE: YVES paces up and down in his white, silk pajamas, top hat and bare feet. JOSEPH stands mid-stage,
beside his black briefcase. HERA stands beside her
painting. THEA stands at the table. She fiddles with
the throat of the jug.

HERA
A lake with an azure eye weeps!

YVES
I drown in this lake of blood!

THEA
Listen to the frogs croak!

HERA
Whilst Hypocrisy exposes his dual intentions.

JOSEPH
It is my duty to reveal… the terms of the will.

THEA
Daddy was always wiping things down with a dish cloth.

JOSEPH
My dove! Please respect the man who has performed the most
menial duties in the name of father and mother.

THEA
It was made out of a kind of furry nylon.

JOSEPH
Imitation velvet, darling. They do not effectively soak up water.
The foam rubber ones are considerably more durable.

THEA
You used them until they were a greyish pink.

JOSEPH
Please!

JOSEPH (Continued)
(Beat)
The life of a male is fraught with the preconceptions of
dangerously presumptuous women. I am afraid denial and
misunderstanding inhibit the boldest of men.
(HE polishes his spectacles)

THEA
(To YVES)
Daddy teetered from Mummy to law.

JOSEPH
Too true, my dove. You speak with your mother’s tongue.
You will, perhaps, go a long way.
(Turning to YVES)
Yes, I crave security… and a powerful position. I am one of
Life’s contradictions. Hideously reflected in the privacy of a
mirror. I dare not scream and turn back. I must edge onwards.

THEA
Daddy’s got one foot bigger than the other. He has to ease
his left one in with a shoe horn.

JOSEPH
Darling! Why must you persist in exposing the terrifying secrets
of a man doing his best to facilitate his own imperfections and
other people’s… whilst trying to present a bland exterior?
(HE glances at the audience)

THEA
The shoehorn had a picture on it of a lake with a volcano
rising out of it. It was painted on the bit he used to wedge
his foot in with. Even when I scratched it with a knife, the
picture wouldn’t come off.

JOSEPH
Darling, your destructive instincts come to the fore far too
frequently.
(Beat)
It was presented to me by a nun from the Home of
Compassion. Now, if you will settle down, I shall proceed.
(HE takes the will from his
briefcase, polishes his spectacles)
Hera, your late father…

THEA
(To HERA)
He had the same type of floppy earlobes as you’ve got. He
used to let me feel them.

HERA
I put my head in a gas oven.

THEA
(To HERA)
It was full of crumbs. Daddy had a big, stainless steel, pop-
up toaster.

HERA
I was afraid they would come and take me away.

JOSEPH
(Staring at HERA with fanatical eyes)
Those you have denied shall come back to haunt you.

HERA
I hid all evidence of my life. What was I to do with the body?

YVES
Our goat died with a chain around her neck.

JOSEPH
In grave respect to my late friend… your father…

HERA
He was not my father!

JOSEPH
Legally yours, my dear! Legally yours.

HERA
When I lay in bed at night, I saw an eye pressed to the keyhole.
It swelled up. Bursting through the keyhole, it floated,
disembodied, around the room.

JOSEPH
(To YVES)
Please ignore this unbalanced emotionalism. Please let me
explain: she was sixteen when she ran away from the security
of her father’s home! A dangerous and totally-impressionable
age.

HERA
I was afraid of him.

JOSEPH
He was full of the milk… of human kindness.

THEA
I never got the milk.

JOSEPH
A little more control, darling, and we shall be on top of
things.

HERA
I was afraid of them both.

JOSEPH
Of two, prudent and respectable men?
(To Yves)
She was inclined to stampede, reminding one of a wild
pony. Seemingly untamable. Yet I held the oats… gradually
she ate from my hand until… she was quite unable to live
without me.

HERA
That which I had pulled down upon myself and swallowed
I vomited up in the shape of apparitions which slid around
me, formless yet solid in their cruel consequences.

JOSEPH
Where is the justice for a man who knelt before you, totally
subjugating his own desires? My multiple talents were left to
wilt.
(HE plucks at his lapel)

HERA
The hand of justice is deceptively gloved. You pontificate
in the coat of a liar.

JOSEPH
Hand-made, my dear. Please, take some professional advice,
the sadly inevitable outcome which you draw towards yourself
in such unseemly haste shall not be quite so violent if you
were willing to surrender to those people who know what is
good for you.
(Beat)
Now, in regard to the last will and testament.

HERA
The Will and Ego are fatally entwined. Awesomely erected
on a black throne, they demand audience.

JOSEPH
My dear, you lack reverence for those who have passed on
to heavenly regions, and those who live in accordance with

JOSEPH (Continued)
Light and Truth, quietly applying a tenacious will in the face
of those who plot to destroy the Tower of God.
(Beat)
You shall be forced to face reality.

HERA
Stripped of reality, I trace the shadow of Death, plunging
deeper and deeper into corruption.
(Beat)
The throat is long and dark… blood-red.

JOSEPH
The unchaste shall be demolished in the sight of God.

THEA
Who will love me?

HERA
Ego! He serves us all! The throat is silvered, ready for the
knife to rip, slicing the Soul in half.

JOSEPH
(To THEA)
Darling, I am here for you.

HERA
Skating on the icy confines that guard realization.

THEA
Daddy!

HERA
Slithers in dishonest secretions, insidiously leaking into the
sponge of life.

(JOSEPH feels in his pocket,
takes out a bottle of pills, gobbles
a few)

JOSEPH
Your father was a man…

HERA
Hidden in the crevices of time, I fondled the pendulum
of a grandfather clock… shut inside its mahogany case.
I pressed my lips to the glass.

JOSEPH
You should have been nipped in the bud at an early age.

HERA
I grasped the pole of a revolving clothes line. Someone
with rodent eyes screamed: He is not your father!

JOSEPH
This disgraceful rejection is…

HERA
Driven by an ever-sharpening hunger for love, I crouched under
the macrocarpa trees. I gnawed on their hard, poisonous nuts.

JOSEPH
(To THEA)
She will pay the full price.

HERA
Suffocated by the density of universal guilt, I lie at night as
a corpse lies.

JOSEPH
She will be dealt with.

HERA
I cry out as loss straddles the body, his fingers caught in
the fetid fur of the beast.

JOSEPH
(Polishing spectacles)
I will not tolerate this obscene display.

HERA
I probe the sky with a broken wand, whilst Life peers
through a bleary monocle, demanding proof of Death and
his properties.

JOSEPH
Have you no compassion?

HERA
The man you so mercilessly offer is mine… by law only!

JOSEPH
Law prevails, my dear. Anything else would prove to be purely
speculative.

HERA
At an early age I tested the unpalatable qualities of his suit…
slid down the grey artifice of fatherhood...

JOSEPH
In the pride of your obstinacy you are both calculating and
relentless.
(HE feels the rose in his button-
hole, then turns to THEA)
His last thoughts were for you, my dove.

THEA
He loved me!
(Beat)
What happened to his long, black umbrella with the goose’s
head?

JOSEPH
The head cracked years ago, darling.

THEA
The goose was white and slippery.

JOSEPH
It was made out of porcelain, my sweet.

THEA
When the umbrella opened, the goose’s head shot up
the handle.

JOSEPH
(Peers over spectacles)
Most unsuitable!
(Beat)
Darling, he has bequeathed you his house with the red
tower.

THEA
You said I could have the white house!

JOSEPH
Totally incorrect.
(Beat)
My little pet is prone to hallucinations - something we may
have to work on or she may become the spitting image of
her mother.
(Beat)
He wanted me to possess the big, white house, darling. Owing
to its extremely isolated position, he felt it was a suitable

JOSEPH (Continued)
location for those fallen prey to dark influences. After much
soul-searching he perceived I was the one to penetrate his
long-accumulated ideals into the light.
(Turning towards the audience,
his face changes to a fiendish
aspect. HE shows his teeth; his
eyes stare)
All the doors possess double locks. The windows are all well-
situated and barred… No, No! Please don’t misunderstand.
The bars are charmingly wrought with fruit and flowers… leaves.

(YVES looks stunned. HE
jumps up and runs towards
the left stairway. JOSEPH
pursues, puts his hand on his
shoulder, turns him to face
the audience. YVES is
passive)

JOSEPH (Continued)
I am afraid we shall have to detain you. Please stifle any impulse
relating to your immediate departure.
(Turning to THEA)
Come now, my little sweet! You must try to comprehend the
magnitude of your grandfather’s intentions. A valuable house
in a harmonious neighborhood, complete with a large, red
tower. What more could a girl desire!

THEA
I hate the red tower! He used to shut…

JOSEPH
We must not allow our fertile imagination to lead us astray,
darling.

THEA
It’s a creepy, dark red.

JOSEPH
We can arrange for it to be stripped and sanded, painted
a suitable color… a glossy white, perhaps… with a hard
finish.

THEA
There’s a crack where it’s joined to the house. I used to put
my finger…

JOSEPH
A laborer cemented up the crack last spring, darling.
Around the time my friend realized his declining health.

THEA
He had a lump!

JOSEPH
Darling! I beg you not to stimulate feelings of grief. He was
a humble man, prone to partaking of a slice of light Madeira
in the late afternoon, with a cup of weak tea balanced on his
lap. He would gaze out at the lighthouse. He possessed just
the two houses - the house with the red tower, and the majestic
white one on the coast in quite an inaccessible position. Many
times I have been doused by unruly waves as I picked my way
around the rocks. There is something almost heathen about
the way one is forced to approach. They say the crumb was
most lethally lodged near the uvula, blocking any chance of
air. He had set his heart on establishing a house for those
deprived of moral fiber.
(Shoots a glance at YVES)
He felt these unfortunates could be… re-educated.

HERA
In the sight of dictators who torture and brain-wash those
wretches who stumble on Truth, who try to break away
from the iron claw of a vicious hierarchy.

THEA
I hope the silver nutmeg grater is still there.

JOSEPH
In the campaign for truth we must not allow ourselves to
be weighed down by trivia, darling. The nutmeg grater shall
be situated in the mahogany spice cupboard. Your grandfather
kept it locked for reasons never disputed.

HERA
Those orphans of love shall be fed on red jelly crystals.

JOSEPH
The profane shall be disciplined according to a programme
suitable to those who willfully stray in impertinent fields.

HERA
Spotted from birth, they skip the black stones of oblivion.

JOSEPH
I intend to drain the swampy land where a profusion of bull-
rushes grow, quite unsuitably near the house.

THEA
I have heard people stuff cushions with the fluffy white seeds
inside the bull-rushes. They burst out when the bull-rush…

JOSEPH
Please! The swamp is not congenial to my health, which could
deteriorate at the drop of a hat.
(Beat)
Let us not stray from the path.

HERA
The path is a wilderness.
(Beat)
We wander in the multifarious traps Ego has set for soul.

JOSEPH
Some paths lead to unpleasant places, however we must flee
onwards towards our glorious goal.
(To THEA)
He has left you the red, Morris Oxford, darling.

THEA
I hate the Morris Oxford!

JOSEPH
It is an excellent vehicle for a young woman who is not yet
able to handle excessive amounts of traffic. The gear box is
in spanking order.
(Beat)
There are just the two cars. I shall take the black Bentley. It
is quite a collector’s piece.

THEA
I used to wipe my hands on the red velvet seats.
(Beat)
Why should you have the Bentley? You’re not even related
to him!

JOSEPH
The wire wheels shall be replaced with normal wheels.
(Beat)
My dove, please try to assimilate my connection. I was a
mere ex-son-in-law, uncertain of my role. It was the objectivity
of a common goal that drew us into brotherhood. United, we
knelt before the Cross - shepherds in the grim pastures of Life.

HERA
I dream of a huge, black cross. It sways in a burnt and ravaged
landscape.

JOSEPH
The Bentley has an impudent horn.

THEA
It’s a rubber one. When you squeeze it…

JOSEPH
We do not wish to be served extraneous details. I shall seek
a horn that relates to the eardrums…
(Beat)
He has placed his entire library in my care.

THEA
I suppose you’re taking everything.

JOSEPH
On the contrary, darling.
(Beat)
He possessed a truly riveting collection of rare books. Books
fastidiously bound… in blood-red kid.

THEA
The dye comes off on your tongue.

JOSEPH
Great books! So heavy with truth they appear to be stone -
stone tablets balanced in the hallway of knowledge. So close
to the heart, one’s very fingers smolder. These books
instruct the reader on the complexities of the Inquisition,
the astounding valor, the total commitment of those disciples
of God who fought to wipe out the filth of heresy… those
infamous recalcitrants who denied the divine hierarchy…
these books are kept under lock and key in a black chest.

THEA
It looks like an upturned coffin.

JOSEPH
Light falls around this sturdy vehicle. An old tree constantly
taps at the crossed window. It has some very unpleasant spots
on the trunk. I shall have it hewn down
(To THEA)
You shew a grievous lack of faith for one who rocked you in
the cradle.

THEA
I’ve got this softish bit on my head where I fell out while you
were singing “Pop Goes The Weasel”.

JOSEPH
Humiliation floods the heart of a hollow-chested, flat…

THEA
I love you Daddy!

JOSEPH
Me too, darling! I shall arrange to have the seats in the Morris
Oxford re-upholstered.

THEA
In red, crushed velvet?

JOSEPH
Plush will suffice.
(Beat)
However, I can no longer tolerate these constant deviations.
Let us now focus on the palpable phenomena of the will.
(Pause)
He has left a considerable fortune in stocks and bonds. Not
to mention extraneous amounts of cash in a variety of world
banks. Banks where he secreted jewels quite monumental
under a naked eye.
(Beat)
I once beheld a religious ruby…

THEA
He kept his jewels in velvet bags.

JOSEPH
Only the meek shall inherit.

THEA
I thought it was the discreet.
(Beat)
He had a gold ring with ruby bits…

HERA
Those who have eaten shall fall beneath the voracious eye
of the ruby!

THEA
The crust is always hard on the egg pies you get at the shop
by the bank.

JOSEPH
It was a great source of grief that he was never granted an
introduction to his grandsons. However, I feel this was most
merciful.
(Stares at YVES)
They do not feature in the will.

THEA
He always offered me big, sugared nuts out of a red tin.
Sometimes the lid got stuck and he’d…

JOSEPH
You will have to learn to structure your appetite.
(To HERA)
He has bestowed one million English pounds on our little
pet.

THEA
I’m rich.

JOSEPH
That is a matter of opinion, darling. There are legal documents
yet to be signed before one can grasp those fruits that dangle.

THEA
I signed them.

JOSEPH
Come now, darling, your mental vehicles appear to be gravely
disordered. There could be a penalty for those who cast a
slanderous light… on…

THEA
But I signed them with his pen. It had a chewed end. He…

JOSEPH
Purely fictitious! My late friend lost his own vital teeth in a fall
prior to an early retirement from a vastly competitive field in
criminal law, where he was a fount of strength in the harbor of
debauchery.

THEA
You told me!

JOSEPH
I told you precisely nothing!
(Beat)
I would not like to think I have reared a pernicious person.
(Beat)

JOSEPH (Continued)
Now, if you will count to ten whilst taking deep breaths. . .
I am sure the truth shall prevail.

(SHE puffs indignantly)

JOSEPH (Continued)
Not like a bullfrog, my sweet!

THEA
I’ll be rich and famous.
(Looks at YVES and HERA)
They’ll be forced to stand by and watch.

JOSEPH
Everything in the fullness of time, my darling! Meanwhile,
you must learn to conceal your attributes, however dazzling.
(Beat)
There are dangerous predators on every corner.

THEA
Daddy is paranoid.

JOSEPH
Cautious, my sweet.
(Pause)
One million English pounds bequeathed to Joseph Cordell.

THEA
You!?

JOSEPH
(Coughs, feels rosebud)
The man who never let his baby down… not like some
people who…

HERA
Cough up abominations.

JOSEPH
(To HERA)
There are those who say your father was in line to be bestowed the
honor of acting as judge in the law courts.
(Beat)
That was before he folded up.

THEA
He had thick, white hair.

JOSEPH
It fell out at the pinnacle of his career.

THEA
He swallowed dark-red medicine out of a thing you squeeze
eye-drops in with.

(JOSEPH squeezes THEA’s arm)

JOSEPH
Come now, darling, our audience must be feeling quite stiff.
(To audience)
Refreshments will be served later, in the lobby, for those who
can afford them…

THEA
They have Eskimo Pies in long, thin boxes. There’s a kind
of cardboard flap you pull…

JOSEPH
The habitual habit of interrupting is a dubious method of
attracting attention. My little pet must learn to harvest her
own silence.
(Beat)
The boy is dangerously quiet. What has become of your
tongue, boy?

(YVES raises his eyes, stares at JOSEPH
as if in a dream)

YVES
Tongue is weary of wagging in dark interior of mouth.
Weary of Treachery.
(Beat)
Teeth hang at slanderous angles, gnawing on Truth… teasing
throat who swallows crumbs with an ease resplendent of
Mercury at his most superficial.

JOSEPH
He has inherited his mother’s salacious tongue.

YVES
Mania plays leap frog with madness, testing the virility of a white
flame trapped in the lower regions of brain.

JOSEPH
She has wormed her way into your mind. You will have to be
re-educated… somewhere solitary.

YVES
Memory haunts, twists… the stench of your soul wafts familiar…
fatalistically fashioned, I hasten to my doom.
(Beat)
Fatefully fateful… your tick on its ignoble chain.

JOSEPH
This unfortunate bears the taint of the beast… queerly, his marked
orbs flare with a decidedly putrid flame.

YVES
I am but a strange bird, born in captivity. Would somebody please
drape a black cloth over my head.

JOSEPH
An unwholesome seed.

THEA
You can buy seeds compressed into a square block with a
black loop to hang them from.

JOSEPH
One must take the state of his economy into account.
(To HERA)
My dear, you are extraordinarily privileged. A bestowal coming
as it were out of a dark corner, late in an unfortunate’s life.

HERA
Fervidly, he wheedles inheritance as if taunting a slobbering
beast.

JOSEPH
Please don’t deny you have not longed for hard… cash.

HERA
I have longed for Love! Yet I am fatally bound to falsehood.

JOSEPH
He was most concerned for the welfare of his daughter.

HERA
Dilapidated by an endless quest for the golden seed.

JOSEPH
You must remember… he had not laid his eyes on her for years.

HERA
Forced to stare at the indecency of Self, whilst parading before
Doom.

HERA (Continued)
(Beat)
The world is a bag of dust.

JOSEPH
My dear, your late father laid aside the respectable sum of four
hundred thousand pounds.

HERA
Give me Solitude to study the universal plight of Greed and
Treachery.

JOSEPH
However, there is a clause that may entail unexpected
repercussions.

HERA
For those who devour the dead moon?

JOSEPH
He instinctively felt… that a woman of your mentality would
be totally incapable of handling… money. Of course, he acted
strictly on my advice.

HERA
Treachery erects his own monument.

JOSEPH
My dear! These funds shall in no way be legally accessible to
you. Your late father fortuitously selected Thea to preside over
what may appear as a weighty fortune.

THEA
I am the Chosen One. I know what she needs! After all, I am
her legal daughter.

HERA
Cut off from the placenta, the festering cord hangs.

JOSEPH
(To HERA)
My dear, you will apply to Thea for whatever you imagine you
need. The results of this application shall rest entirely in her hands.

HERA
Glory tests the flesh of the disinherited.

JOSEPH
(Feeling the rose in his lapel)
He was a sincere man who possessed visionary facilities. We
shared uncanny likenesses.

HERA
You have not yet been cremated.

JOSEPH
My dear, what on earth gave you the idea he was cremated?
(Beat)
He was buried in a plot of great depth and magnitude.
(Beat)
A monument resting upon a cliff…

THEA
With an iron fence around it.

JOSEPH
Please!

THEA
It’s a huge, black-marble cross with blood-red veins.

JOSEPH
A costly venture.

THEA
There’s a naked Christ with a bleeding heart nailed on it.

JOSEPH
Naturally, he left more than enough to cover… the costs.

HERA
What fiendish depths have I plumbed to attract this mercenary?
How shall I cast off the black shroud of the past, the present, the
future? Yea, I succumbed to fear… laid out on a black bed.

JOSEPH
There is a breathtaking view of the ocean.
(To HERA)
Come now, my dear, we must not deviate from the
systematically laid-out boundaries of divine realism. The
journey is fraught with danger. There are some who shall
never reach God’s pastures.
(Beat)
We must draw on the sustenance He hath provided.

THEA
The egg part of the egg pie often sinks to the bottom.

JOSEPH
A uniform for the fallen is not entirely out of the question…
spun from serviceable thread.

HERA
The green hair of the stinging nettle?

THEA
(To JOSEPH)
You forced me to wear a uniform.

JOSEPH
Come, come, it was compulsory, darling. Those gentlemen on
the school board felt it would neutralize vanity… so unfortunately
prominent in the female species.

THEA
I wanted to wear black leggings, and boots. Boots that laced all
the way up…

JOSEPH
I was forced to resort to punishment!
(Beat)
Punishment for rebellion. It was entirely for your own good,
darling.

THEA
You never believed in me.

JOSEPH
A father’s love is indisputable.
(Looking at audience)
I am sure God’s children. . .

THEA
Why should you suck up all the limelight?

JOSEPH
Not lime, darling. Light! Ineffable Light!
(To YVES)
Do not presume you are forsaken. Just temporarily forgotten by
one who is overworked up to his eyeballs. As you know, you do
not feature in the Last Will and Testament, although you are
irrefutably part of the divine plan.
(Shows his teeth, then turns to
audience)

JOSEPH (Continued)
Please, please do not misinterpret. My conscience is as clear as
jelly.

THEA
What happened to that aluminum jelly mould of a hare on
his hind legs?

JOSEPH
(Stares at HERA and YVES, fiendishly)
Like attracts like.
(Lifting gloved hand)
The maladjusted seeds.

THEA
I’ll have the cypress trees clipped into long, buffy shapes.

JOSEPH
(To THEA)
They grow too close to the tower. I shall have them rooted out.
(To HERA)
My dear, you must apply to Thea for whatever you imagine
you need.

HERA
Multiplying in vacuous neglect, we suck on our own extremities,
scaling up the totem of a worn-out God…

JOSEPH
(Staring zealously at HERA)
Thea may feel sedation is the answer.

HERA
Perishing on the vicious talons of Ego…

JOSEPH
(To THEA)
I firmly advise tranquilizers… in a conveniently liquid form.
So much easier to swallow. We do not wish for a recurrence
of foreign matter lodged between the uvula and the...

THEA
I told you… those long, green and black pills melt instantly.

JOSEPH
I would not be so sure, darling. You must get this into your
little head, that I am the one who shall ultimately take the reins.

JOSEPH (Continued)
(To HERA)
You shall be attended to in a multitude of ways that a woman
of your caliber deserves.
(Beat)
We are totally in the hands of the Almighty.
(HE turns to THEA, a movement
of his head indicating the door)
Darling, if you would be so kind.

(THEA goes out, and returns
carrying a large, luminous, golden-
colored harp. SHE places it in
the centre of the room)

HERA
The harp!

JOSEPH
Your late father’s harp.

HERA
My father’s harp!

THEA
He kept it locked in the tower.

JOSEPH
He possessed an astounding talent. Latent for many years,
it streamed like living water from Heart to fingertips.

THEA
He gave off a kind of white vapor.

JOSEPH
He was a private man.

THEA
He kept it in a black case lined with blood-red velvet.

JOSEPH
Modest to a fault, he plucked it with a gold fork.

THEA
His fork flashed.

JOSEPH
He played like an Angel. Restrained, yet full on those obtuse
angles of Life.

JOSEPH (Continued)
(Beat)
I do not intend to dwell upon the sinister, yet there were shocking
episodes that he was quite unable to control. The wretched instrument
possessed… a voice.

THEA
You could hear it long after he locked it up in the tower.

JOSEPH
Blasphemous lamentations that caused the tower to vibrate.

THEA
He used to grind his teeth.

JOSEPH
The grinding was a technical issue. The lower plate did not
adapt to his jaw. He wept as he plucked… tears appeared
as if illuminated on the Instrument’s body.

THEA
He always admired my teeth.

JOSEPH
He was most susceptible to beauty.
(Beat)
He was far too soft. My hands itched to destroy the Instrument.

THEA
(To JOSEPH)
What do you think of my teeth?

JOSEPH
Far too prominent, my sweet. Perhaps we will have them forced
back with a wire brace. To be worn only at night, of course.
(Best)
We must all apply forbearance. His wife, tragically, passed away
whilst giving birth… to Hera.

THEA
They pulled her out with forceps.

JOSEPH
I have always thought they squeezed the unfortunate’s head
a little too tightly.

THEA
They had to tie her down in an iron cot.

JOSEPH
For security reasons only.
(Beat)
She was subsequently denied mother’s milk.

HERA
The throat is an ugly receptacle for propaganda.

JOSEPH
Apparently she was a wonderful wife, possessing a most-angelic
soul. Her chances of living were extremely slight.
(Beat)
He loved her to death.

HERA
He stole the harp from my father.

JOSEPH
Really! Who is this mysterious man, my dear? We crave an
introduction.

HERA
He is no longer in his body.

JOSEPH
An amazing coincidence.

HERA
Professional vultures siphoned off his power.

JOSEPH
Do you realize exactly what you are insinuating? A totally
professional man steals harp from a totally non-existent man!
(Beat)
He was a pillar of society!

HERA
They took everything.

JOSEPH
Imagination becomes an exceedingly dangerous vice when
devoid of logic.

HERA
You and my false father passed as towers of respectability.
You erected falsehood in the form of a serviceable reality.

JOSEPH
I am afraid the power of institutions… Institutionalization is
a very necessary accessory to mental disease, however. Madness
is an unfortunate term. I should not like to feel it is contagious
on the eve of revelations disturbing to the distortions of some.

HERA
His moustache served to hide that which could not be revealed.

THEA
He used a walking stick with a ruby eye.

JOSEPH
Immediate removal has always been the most effective method.
Fully condoned by the Law, of course!
(Beat)
We might have been twins…

THEA
The stick was hollow.

JOSEPH
He was a benevolent man. He wanted his daughter to possess
the instrument.
(Looks at HERA)
As his fingers plucked… so shall yours.

THEA
He used a fork!

JOSEPH
I have no desire to continuously expose the tool which he
used to draw out the divine music.

HERA
My father’s voice… was the voice of the harp.

THEA
He wore a tight waistcoat.

HERA
His fingers were fire salamanders.

JOSEPH
Fire has been used most successfully… on many historic
occasions.

HERA
I dreamed life’s bloody thread slipped in a noose around
his neck.

JOSEPH
Passion is an illness. It must be forcibly eliminated.

HERA
He died in a mental institution. I was twelve-years-old. It was as
if he had never existed.
(Beat)
Yet I saw things. In twisted colors, I perceived the world as a
configuration of snakes. Devouring one another, nesting on black
eggs that exploded into millions of shards.
(Beat)
Each shard… a life.

THEA
He had a big, milky opal. I looked into it… I saw…
someone burning. . . yes . . .
(To JOSEPH, accusingly)
It was me!

JOSEPH
A total impossibility!

THEA
I was a really powerful man in high boots. A big gold cross…
it hung on my…

JOSEPH
My sweet, as one of the pillars of the Church you chose the type
of death suitable to each individual betrayal.
(Beat)
One could say burning at the stake was your forte. You condemned
millions of Heretics to Death by Fire.

THEA
Liar!

JOSEPH
Ah yes, she sacrificed many famous forests…
(Beat)
Without trial, I might add.

THEA
You’re a liar! You betrayed me!

JOSEPH
I cannot stand the odor of female hysteria. Please lower your
voice. The ear is too sensitive an organ without ear plugs.

(THEA spits at him)

THEA
You filthy traitor!

(JOSEPH takes handkerchief from
pocket, wipes his forehead, fussily)

JOSEPH
Our little pet is well-acquainted with the punishment for Liars.
(To HERA and YVES)
The jaws are forced open whilst a reasonable amount of soap
is carefully placed under the tongue.

THEA
You threw me into the flames as if I was any old piece of rubbish.

JOSEPH
She is dangerously mediumistic.

THEA
My blood-red velvet cloak swept the ground. It was clasped at
the breast with real gold claws that held a huge diamond.

JOSEPH
A bulbous affair - it protruded as if something was secreted
behind it, the source of which was never investigated.
(To HERA)
He went up in flames in a instant. Most inflammable stuff,
velvet.

THEA
Coward! Murderer!

JOSEPH
My dove! You must not identify with those wretches who
became victims of their own treason.
(Aside, to audience)
The mother is a pernicious influence.

THEA
I hate you!

JOSEPH
(To audience)
I fed the little pet with goats’ milk… sucked from a teat with
a large hole in it.

THEA
I wanted mother’s milk!

JOSEPH
(Stretching out arms)
Come now! Take sanction beside me and my Piety.

THEA
Your Piety stinks.
JOSEPH
All foul and ill-placed thoughts shall be put to rest.

(THEA runs towards the right
stairway, pursued by JOSEPH.
HE puts a gloved hand on her
shoulder, leads her back to
center stage)

JOSEPH (Continued)
You shall stay precisely where I choose to put you!. My little
pet.

HERA
All day, he walked up and down on the edge of a precipice.

YVES
A crowd of people gathered to watch.

THEA
He hid inside the harp.

JOSEPH
Please!

THEA
(To audience)
Sometimes they shut me in the tower with the harp. It smelt
like someone had died. There was a black box. I tried to prise
it open.
(Beat)
I’d take the harp out of its case. If I spat on its body, then
polished it, I could see the face of an old man. One day, I
found the key. I unlocked the box. There were some moth-
eaten papers in a foreign language, and a photograph of the

THEA (Continued)
old man. He was cowering against a wall. He had a number
on his arm.
(Stares at YVES)

THEA (Continued)
He had eyes like yours! Staring! Like a mad owl.

YVES
Owl perches in tree of Life and Death. Pecks hollow trunk,
watches berries explode into flames.

HERA
They took him away. They locked him up.

YVES
(Slowly)
I see it all.
(Beat)
As if it happened to me.

JOSEPH
The authorities permanently detained him. He was a threat to
himself and the community.

YVES
They put him in a straitjacket.

HERA
They exploded his brain with bolts of electricity.

YVES
He no longer played the harp.

JOSEPH
(To HERA)
Your father kindly sheltered the instrument.

YVES
They took away his voice.
(Beat)
It was winter; pine needles lay on the ground.

JOSEPH
(Clears his throat)
As a legal man, your father was trained in the formalities of
the world.

HERA
His coat became a skeleton… sleeves rigid, buttons staring.

JOSEPH
Black vermin crawled over the instrument. Your father was
forced to disinfect it at regular intervals.
(Beat)
The body was horrendously tarnished.
(Beat)
In time, he was able to siphon off the heavenly music. I
advised him to wear gloves. He preferred the fork. I do not
think one should presume to tamper with the Fallen or the
Fallen’s properties. A swift strike with a flint, and a young
flame multiplies, shoots up to gigantic proportions, licking
at the unclean. It rapidly devours.
(Beat)
However, the fate of the instrument is not yet in my hands.
(Turns to HERA)
I have passed it on to you as your father instructed.
(Beat)
How could I act otherwise. In the service of Christ, I
continuously kneel and pray, thereby renewing Godly
power. I wear rubber ear-plugs at night so that the voice of
the instrument shall not penetrate… my dreams.

THEA
His earplugs are a kind of dirty-yellow rubber.

JOSEPH
Please leave me my modesty. Do not divest me of everything.

HERA
He cometh as an undertaker in a black suit.

YVES
He professionally mourns.

HERA
Concealing the hands… in black gloves.

JOSEPH
I am elected as the bearer of God’s wisdom. I prefer to keep
the hands concealed. They bear signs that could threaten my
safety.
(HE touches the rosebud on
his lapel, looks at THEA, shows
teeth in a snarl)

JOSEPH (Continued)
In the delicate bud of a rose, one can recognize the essence
of a virgin. In her purity, she shall be sacrificed to God!

THEA
(As if calling him)
Daddy! Daddy!

JOSEPH
(To HERA)
My path has been infamously crossed by three women. I shall
name these women before my audience. . .
(Facing audience)
They shall bear witness to my extended suffering.
(Staring at audience in rapt zeal)
The mother…! the wife…! the daughter…!
(Pause)
Culprits of horrendous cunning, they have all applied the ancient
art of smothering divine tendencies to perform before the Father…
(Beat)
the Son…
(Beat)
and the Holy Ghost.
(Pause)
No man of worship would dare to plumb the fathomless depths
of this shameless triptych.
(Beat)
My late father-in-law suffered from a shockingly similar plight.
We were predestined to meet on legal grounds… harassed as if by
hornets.

THEA
He had a black, rubber fly swat!

JOSEPH
I suffer from a modern-type of crucifixion.

HERA
In sight of love… suckling a donkey.

THEA
(To HERA)
You have slain your own daughter’s dream of a mother.
Burnt and branded, you wander terrified of the one you
have deserted.
(Beat)
I am the innocent one! I lick the wounds you have inflicted.
My own father is worn to a deranged stick.

JOSEPH
Please! Only the irreligious dare to expose that which must
remain gloriously shaded… on a palm Sunday. The tower
must be resurrected.

THEA
Daddy has been heavily taxed by the demands of the instrument.

JOSEPH
Once the red paint has been stripped away… and a glossy-
surface applied…

THEA
Daddy is on pills. Not the long, green and black ones. Little
pink ones. He could easily take an overdose like my
grandfather.

JOSEPH
Please excuse the little pet. Her mind is seriously impaired
by loss. We may be forced to jolt it with the most modern
methods possible, so subtly applied the patient need never
suspect heavenly hands crushing vice.
(Beat)
I wear white, kid gloves at night, so essential for perfect
performance. My wounds become considerably lighter when
the moon slides behind a cloud.
(Beat)
It is a long and arduous commitment, rigorously seeking in
the dead of night for those secretly cloaked in indigo to imitate
the night sky.
(Beat)
Order! I shall create order on earth as it is in heaven! I shall
not crush the merest ant as she creeps beneath my feet.

THEA
He kills cockroaches with his shoehorn.

JOSEPH
My heart ticks with divine precision. As Christ is merciful, so
shall I be.

HERA
A wall clock affects untimely sainthood.

JOSEPH
(Stares fanatically at HERA and YVES)
They shall land lightly in those fields of divine correction… their
punishments shall…

HERA
Reek of dishonor.

JOSEPH
The wicked fall… into fathomless darkness.

THEA
(To audience)
Daddy’s got a huge black cloak. He only wears it at night.
The hood covers his…

JOSEPH
The cloak is worn on those official occasions whence I am
called to administer the stamp of authority.

THEA
(To YVES)
My father is a highly-educated man. My mother left school
when she was fifteen. My brother…

YVES
Tediously wheedles his spoon, chasing the chalk of calcification,
dreadful on the tongue.

HERA
In the struggle for education, humanity plummets.
(Beat)
The mind is a book, fatally bound in human skin. Ceaselessly,
we turn the pages.

THEA
(In a man’s voice)
My God! She’s a one-off!
(To HERA)
How do you do it?

HERA
` By conducting raw energy as it shoots up into that mysterious
vehicle, brain. It is transformed into white flames. These flames
burn up all knowledge.

THEA
She’s got the low forehead of a bushland monkey.

HERA
I long for dense jungle.

JOSEPH
There is an unfortunate lack of true intelligence.
(Beat)
She is unable to recognize the God head!

HERA
The womb is the throne of emotion. Those who allow
Desire to seduce mount the blood-red throne.
(Beat)
The throne of Life and Death must remain empty.
(Beat)
The fetus floats in the high-walled tomb. Sweet waters lap,
lulling memory. A deadly flash of light awakens Soul.
Bursting out of the skin coracle, he pushes his way down
the dark labyrinth to light, Imitation light!
(Pause)
The horror of full materialization is contained in the blood-
red moon. The blood-red cord dangles, like a hang-man’s
rope.

YVES
Clothed in flesh, we peddle life on the black market.

HERA
All my seeds! Doomed, shriveled, violated by the artifice of
Ego, bowing before hypocrisy of self-surrender. Like carrion
crow, we swoop down on love and her chattels. We must break
this curséd chain. Tied to the wheel of Life and Death, our
screams echo in the Soul.

THEA
I’ll get the Morris Oxford hotted-up with mag wheels. They’re
really high off the ground. I’m getting the steering wheel covered
in blood-red velvet.
(Beat)
You can do anything with money. There’s a shop in Queen
Street…

YVES
I have lived all my life in empty rooms, screwed by Ego to
an unwieldy philosophy. I take ghosts as lovers, unable to
come… or go. I hack at the circumference of the circle.
Haunted by a thin veneer of Love, I howl with ruby eyes.
There is a fly screen over my heart. I burst with the curséd
juice of multitudes.

(JOSEPH stares fanatically at
YVES. YVES stands, head
bowed)

JOSEPH
There is a distinct probability the tongue shall be forcibly
removed. In sight of God’s children, a certain economy shall
prevail. Of course… I pray for eternal decency. I care for
humanity as a whole. A complete whole!

THEA
I’ll hang blood-red curtains to hide the eyes. I’ll tie them
back in the daytime with thick, golden cords.
(With a male voice, staring
at HERA, who has her head
bowed)
I was a man in my prime. My task was to break her will. She
burnt with the majesty of a tree goddess.

JOSEPH
She called out God’s name, in vain. A holy flame shot up
in the fatal direction of her eyes…

THEA
(Looking at YVES)
His flesh was determined; heavily smoked, the swine
would not burn.

JOSEPH
One of God’s faithful servants stabbed him with a pitchfork!
He fell forward into the heart of fire.

THEA
The moon, fat and bursting in the first night of her fullness,
though a fickle cloud brought unwelcome shade.

JOSEPH
(Feeling rosebud)
At the crucial moment she was radiant. We all knelt on the
ever-blackening earth, weeping before Divine Love sacrificed
on the altar. The Holy Eye gazed down as if upon a miracle.

YVES
If this is Truth, give it to me inside-out that I might view it
with a dead eye.

JOSEPH
All punishments shall be meted out with a truly charitable
hand.
(Beat)
Fathomless! Fathomless is darkness!

YVES
Crudely sandwiched between Life and Death, I am wet
with the blood of the world.

JOSEPH
Your request for a black cloth shall be answered.

HERA
I speak for the sightless, the formless. In the stillness of
night I hear the soundless cry of the persecuted… the
heart spins slowly, a great wheel beheading flowers.

THEA
The horn on the Morris Oxford doesn’t work.

YVES
Bring me the square block of compressed seeds that I may
twitter and peck, that I may hang from the black loop.

(JOSEPH tears open his bag, takes
out a big, black cloth, throws it over
YVES’ head. YVES gives a long,
bird cry)

JOSEPH
The servants of God shall not permit light to shine upon
heretics. The last will and testament must under no
circumstances be lost.
(Pause… then to THEA)
Please turn out the light.

(THEA turns out the light,
yet the room remains eerily lit.
The figures appear ghostly, as
if they are drowning in misty
water. A gentle light wavers
over their faces)

JOSEPH (Continued)
(Facing audience)
I have always felt under cover of darkness much can be achieved.
(Beat)
One must never be forced to gaze upon agony undisguised. Subtle
is most suitable for the Soul, the Spirit. Subtle on the night’s
hidden eye.

THEA
(A chilling scream)
Daddy!

JOSEPH
Let us kneel.

(They all kneel. The black cloth
slips off YVES’ head)

HERA
We have battled with the elements for too long. Weary, dying
out from our own cause, thrown from realms shadowing the
Soul as long trees divine the night.

(A black curtain falls from above)

THE END

SYNOPSIS
A Modern Crucifixion

A Modern Crucifixion explores the predicament of an obsessed painter who in the name of inspiration loses everything: children, husbands, lovers, money, reputation. Caught in the act of creation, she is in a dangerous position; the fear of being locked away devours her. Working with forces more potent than herself, she dares to reach into the whirlpool. However, expectations placed upon a woman do not harmonize with raw, creative power. This power, in its unconducted shape, tears through the creator causing her to behave in a manner that appears ruthless. The artist has no choice; she must journey on. Rejecting the past she must seize the present. The blood-red cord unwinds. She must follow it.

This play is about a self-induced sentence, about persecution in the name of righteousness, and the slow and terrible realization of the artist who in the act of creation has caused much suffering to her family. The ideas she has given birth to take on a life of their own… a haunting story unfolds.

NOTE: This play is a tragic comedy. The act of birthing a play is a seemingly solitary endeavor, where one is drawn to stare at self’s plight in a universal mirror. Into this distorted mirror one stares, eternally reaching out with ghostly hand to touch that which appears out of reach. At last the eye loses sight of self. One calls up characters who speak of truth draped in lies, of justice mounting dishonor, of kindness swathed in cruelty. A rent is torn in the veil. Through this the audience shall stare as if into the heart of desire – at fame and fortune swaddled in hypocrisy, at love and hate falling into the dust of the arena, rising again and again to grasp that which appears as reality.