DRAMATIS PERSONAE
\nANGEL\/ BELLA
\nGIRL
\nPARTY GUESTS
\nBELLA AT 16\/ YOUNGER MAXINE
\nMAXINE
\nCARA
\nDOCTOR
\n6 YOUNG MEN<\/p>\n
SCENES:
\nA CHILD\u2019S BEDROOM; A LIVING ROOM; A LABORATORY; A SUSPENDED ANIMATION TANK<\/p>\n
A child sleeps in the foreground,. An angelic being, completely burnished gold with lengthy gold braids and golden vestments appears beside the sleeping GIRL.<\/p>\n
ANGEL
\nWake up little one
\nWake up
\nIt\u2019s time for another sort of bedtime story
\nThe GIRL continues to sleep, stirring somewhat, nevertheless, the ANGEL continues<\/p>\n
ANGEL:
\nA girl turns sixteen,
\nA party scene is revealed, at first a play of silhouettes and then finally lit up. It is BELLA\u2019s 16th birthday party, surrounded by friends and loved ones, she opens gifts. She gets a makeup kit, psychedelic tights, her favorite CD\u2019s and an anonymous gold wrapped package\u2026<\/p>\n
BELLA
\n(Delighted) This is the one that came in the mail this morning, right mom? Who\u2019s this from?<\/p>\n
MAXINE
\nOh I didn\u2019t see that one, hmmm\u2026. (handles the present) out of state address\u2014who could that be? (she suddenly blanches)<\/p>\n
BELLA
\nMom, you okay? What\u2019s wrong?<\/p>\n
MAXINE
\nNothing pet, nothing\u2014I\u2019m sure. Let\u2019s see what it is\u2014<\/p>\n
BELLA opens up the package and the entire Birthday Party exclaims \u201cwow!\u201d in concert. The surprise on BELLA\u2019s face transforms into something quizzical. Without warning she spasms and falls on to the floor in a seizure. Disbelief turns into a relief effort as everyone dives in to help. The scenario becomes muted and dimmed as the Birthday party becomes once again a play of silhouettes. MAXINE steps forward.<\/p>\n
MAXINE
\nIt happened during the baby shower. We invited everyone we knew, even people we didn\u2019t. But we didn\u2019t want my sister in-law Cara there. So no one told her\u2014
\nThe birthday party scene has become a baby shower. A buoyantly pregnant YOUNGER MAXINE sits on the couch with friends and well wishers. The table is laden with huge presents.<\/p>\n
MAXINE
\nNo one told her. And that\u2019s how she knew.
\nThe doorbell rings. Enter CARA, uber-stylish and vampish.<\/p>\n
CARA
\nSurprise!!! Missed me darling?<\/p>\n
YOUNGER MAXINE
\nCara, h-how wonderful that you could m-make it\u2014<\/p>\n
CARA
\nY-yes M-maxine. Considering that I wasn\u2019t invited. Not that that\u2019s your fault of course\u2014naturally you had nothing to do with the planning\u2014<\/p>\n
YOUNGER MAXINE
\nI\u2014<\/p>\n
CARA
\nNevertheless, see what a lovely girl I am\u2014 I brought you a present!<\/p>\n
CARA hands YOUNGER MAXINE a huge gold wrapped parcel. It looks suspiciously like the one from the birthday party. YOUNGER MAXINE handles it as though it were a letter bomb.<\/p>\n
CARA
\nGo on, open it\u2014don\u2019t be timid.<\/p>\n
With trepidation, YOUNGER MAXINE unwraps the present. There is silence at first and then a collective \u201cWow!\u201d as the content is revealed. YOUNGER MAXINE swoons and the babyshower becomes a relief effort.<\/p>\n
MAXINE
\nMy poor baby.
\nI went into shock, the doctors were afraid I\u2019d lose her. But I didn\u2019t. They said she\u2019d be okay\u2014except for the fact that I had experienced a neural surge\u2014they suspected that that this caused the brain tissue of the fetus to be scarred.
\nIt was too early to tell what impact this all had. We were to watch and wait and caution for signs of petit mal or severe epilepsy. Years and years and nothing: we watched and waited and sighed relief each time extreme excitement left us behind with a relatively normal young girl.
\nA healthy beautiful girl.
\nMy beautiful little girl.<\/p>\n
MAXINE walks away, a DOCTOR steps up to take her place.<\/p>\n
DOCTOR
\nSometimes this condition is dormant. When Bella was brought here, the excitement of her 16th birthday party had triggered such and extreme neural surge that it thrust her into a severe coma. A most unusual case, specialists from the world over have come to examine her<\/p>\n
In the background BELLA, now played by the golden ANGEL floats in suspended animation in a tank. It is impossible to tell if the tank is filled with sky or water, the colors are deep ocean blues and greens and turquoises that deepen and intensify and flash like lightning on water or vivid storm clouds.<\/p>\n
DOCTOR
\nWe call her Sleeping Beauty.
\nYears have passed since the incident,
\nthe world has changed.
\nHer parents passed on,
\nteenage companions married, divorced,
\nneurotic with
\nchildren of their own to love or torture.
\nYet our sleeping princess remains unmoved
\nImmortal,
\nunfading in the bloom of her youth.
\nUnaware in her glass tank
\nSuch that the world spins its web of time and trauma
\nspawning new generations of medical students
\nand researchers who travel
\nfar and wide to ogle the sleeping spectacle.
\nHer beauty,
\nher enigma…<\/p>\n
For the moment,
\nlet us imagine she dreams the world
\nand we are all figments of her neural firings<\/p>\n
The DOCTOR leaves.<\/p>\n
BELLA\/ANGEL continues to float suspended in the tank. The atmosphere in the tank glows with even deeper luminous depths as BELLA\/ANGEL begins to speak. She is sleeptalking, her eyes are closed.<\/p>\n
BELLA\/ANGEL
\nA man is never truly awake
\nso science tells us
\neven in one\u2019s waking life,
\nthere are even deeper awakenings and revisionings,
\nrevelations
\nsometimes called Truth
\nat other times,
\nBeauty
\nand time there is
\none falls away from these
\ndeep deep into a slumber
\na deep lucid coma
\ncalled Love
\nso the polemic is triggered:
\ncan we speak of sleep states
\nin opposition to waking states?
\nare not the two
\na grand gray scale equation
\nof being?<\/p>\n
The luminosity of the tank begins to pulsate with mild flashes of blue and green<\/p>\n
BELLA\/ANGEL
\nBeta. 33 to 14 hertz. The world of fight and flight with 33 Hz being the heightened awareness of orgasms and 14, the level of capacity needed for filing alphabetically at your corporate day job.<\/p>\n
the pulsing slows down\u2014gradually as she speaks<\/p>\n
BELLA\/ANGEL
\nAlpha. 14 to 9 hertz.
\nThe relaxation stage.
\nA reefer induced drone.
\nthe zone
\nwhere all is mellow
\nyou flow, you\u2019re slow
\nHeavy, heaviest, heavier,
\nyour eye lids start to drop
\nYou are in<\/p>\n
(The tank vibrates at a slower hypnotic rate)<\/p>\n
Theta 5-8 hertz
\nyour eyelids begin to flutter
\nrapidly
\nrapidly rapidly rapidly
\nrapid
\neye
\nmovement
\ninto the realm of Morpheus
\nthe realm of dreams
\nheaven, hell
\nfuture
\nghosts
\nand seasons past
\nbent, stemmed, filtered
\ninto
\nsubtle quantum flux
\nsuch is the nature of dreams
\nbeneath Morpheus,
\nlies Delta,
\nthe state of deep cellular repair
\nhere,
\nAdam is retrofitted with Eve
\nand vice versa
\ngene pools devised
\nor revised
\nin a hothouse to guide
\nthose libidinal instincts
\nresponsible for Jack \/Jane
\nboy meets girl
\nsyndrome
\nall these formed and
\npulsing at the same vibration
\nas the planet
\nthere you have it
\ntime passes, worlds revolve
\ngravity throbs
\nI do not change
\nmy sleep, a strange sort of immortality
\ncells oscillating at the rate of eternity
\nAnd in my body,
\ndreams
\nYou may ask,
\n\u201cOf what?
\nWhat does she dream of in her coma?\u201d<\/p>\n
Lighting reveals her to be suspended at the center of a vast shimmering spider web. As she speaks, the characters are revealed to cling to or hang from this web\u2014like insects caught in a spider\u2019s lair\u2026<\/p>\n
BELLA\/ANGEL
\nA young boy on the hill
\nA green man in the woods
\nA knight astride his horse
\nA prince upon his throne
\nOne who walks by the sea
\nAnd another watches stars<\/p>\n
For a moment there is silence. BELLA\/ANGEL remains suspended, the young men suspended on different points of the web. A flash and the image of a briar patch net of thorns and roses drops over them like a curtain. The first young starts climbing up towards her\u2014<\/p>\n
BELLA\/ANGEL
\nAnd sometimes I dream he will save me<\/p>\n
The young man is about to reach and there is a lightning surge, a flash. The briar net disappears and he with it. Darkness for a moment. The web takes on the illusion of thick golden braids The second young man goes for it\u2014he limbers towards BELLA\/ANGEL\u2014<\/p>\n
BELLA\/ANGEL
\nSometimes I dream he will save me,<\/p>\n
Lightning surge. Flash. The braid appears to snap, he falls, darkness. The web takes on the form of thick green curling vine. The third young man steps up to the task.<\/p>\n
BELLA\/ANGEL
\nSometimes I think he will save me<\/p>\n
Lightning flash. Vine breaks, boy falls. Darkness. The lights back on,<\/p>\n
BELLA\/ANGEL and the fourth young man are now suspended upright, opposite each other\u2014almost like a bee nuptial. They reach out to kiss.<\/p>\n
BELLA\/ANGEL
\nSometimes I wish he will save me<\/p>\n
Lightning flash. They both fall away from each other. Darkness. Lights. BELLA\/ANGEL and the fifth young man floating opposite each other. They reach to kiss<\/p>\n
BELLA\/ANGEL
\nSometimes I dream he will save me<\/p>\n
Lightning. Flash. They fall away. Darkness. Lights. BELLA\/ANGEL and sixth young man hang opposite each other, reaching\u2014<\/p>\n
BELLA\/ANGEL
\nSometimes I dream he will save me,<\/p>\n
Lightning flash. They fall away. Darkness. Lights. BELLA\/ANGEL goes into spasms of lightning surges and flashes. The tank darkening dimming and glowing in sequence\u2014<\/p>\n
BELLA\/ANGEL
\nSOMETIMES I THINK HE WILL SAVE ME
\nSOMETIMES I WISH HE WILL SAVE ME
\nSOMETIMES I DREAM HE WILL SAVE ME
\nSOMETIMES I DREAM HE WILL SAVE ME
\nSOMETIMES I DREAM HE WILL SAVE ME
\nSOMETIMES I DREAM HE WILL SAVE ME<\/p>\n
SAVE ME
\nSAVE ME
\nSAVE ME
\nSAVE ME
\nSAVE ME\u2014<\/p>\n
She becomes muted and dimmed as our attention is once again in the foreground with the sleeping child, thrashing fitfully in her sleep\u2014<\/p>\n
GIRL
\nSave me save me save me save me save me\u2014<\/p>\n
MAXINE rushes into the room and wakes her up.<\/p>\n
MAXINE
\nMy poor baby, it\u2019s alright honey\u2014it\u2019s just a bad dream, only a dream, pet\u2014<\/p>\n
GIRL
\nMom, I had a horrible dream\u2014<\/p>\n
MAXINE
\nSsshhh\u2026just a dream<\/p>\n
GIRL
\nI dreamed I was in a coma mommy<\/p>\n
MAXINE
\nIt\u2019s alright pet, you\u2019re too young to know what a coma is\u2014<\/p>\n
GIRL
\nAnd it was caused by a neural surge you had when you were pregnant with me,<\/p>\n
MAXINE
\n(freezes) my poor baby, don\u2019t listen to them\u2014<\/p>\n
GIRL
\nIt happened because Aunt Cara showed up\u2014<\/p>\n
MAXINE
\n(crying freely and rocking her child) NO! No no, no\u2026. I don\u2019t believe them!<\/p>\n
GIRL
\nAnd I dreamed that one day<\/p>\n
MAXINE
\nNO NO NO NO NO<\/p>\n
GIRL
\nOne day\u2014<\/p>\n
MAXINE
\nNo baby, don\u2019t listen to them\u2014<\/p>\n
GIRL
\nOne day he will save me
\nOne day he will save me
\nOne day he will save me
\nSave me
\nSave me
\nSave me mother
\nSave me
\nSave me
\nSave me<\/p>\n
BLACKOUT<\/p>\n
\u00a92004, 2013 onome ekeh<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DRAMATIS PERSONAE ANGEL\/ BELLA GIRL PARTY GUESTS BELLA AT 16\/ YOUNGER MAXINE MAXINE CARA DOCTOR 6 YOUNG MEN SCENES: A CHILD\u2019S BEDROOM; A LIVING ROOM; A LABORATORY; A SUSPENDED ANIMATION TANK A child sleeps in the foreground,. An angelic being, completely burnished gold with lengthy gold braids and golden vestments appears beside the sleeping GIRL. ANGEL Wake up little one Wake up It\u2019s time for another sort of bedtime story The GIRL continues to sleep, stirring somewhat, nevertheless, the ANGEL continues ANGEL: A girl turns sixteen, A party scene is revealed, at first a play of silhouettes and then finally lit up. It is BELLA\u2019s 16th birthday party, surrounded by friends and loved ones, she opens gifts. She gets a makeup kit, psychedelic tights, her favorite CD\u2019s and an anonymous gold wrapped package\u2026 BELLA (Delighted) This is the one that came in the mail this morning, right mom? Who\u2019s this from? MAXINE Oh I didn\u2019t see that one, hmmm\u2026. (handles the present) out of state address\u2014who could that be? (she suddenly blanches) BELLA Mom, you okay? What\u2019s wrong? MAXINE Nothing pet, nothing\u2014I\u2019m sure. Let\u2019s see what it is\u2014 BELLA opens up the package and the entire Birthday Party exclaims \u201cwow!\u201d in concert. The surprise on BELLA\u2019s face transforms into something quizzical. Without warning she spasms and falls on to the floor in a seizure. Disbelief turns into a relief effort as everyone dives in to help. The scenario becomes muted and dimmed as the Birthday party becomes once again a play of silhouettes. MAXINE steps forward. MAXINE It happened during the baby shower. We invited everyone we knew, even people we didn\u2019t. But we didn\u2019t want my sister in-law Cara there. So no one told her\u2014 The birthday party scene has become a baby shower. A buoyantly pregnant YOUNGER MAXINE sits on the couch with friends and well wishers. The table is laden with huge presents. MAXINE No one told her. And that\u2019s how she knew. The doorbell rings. Enter CARA, uber-stylish and vampish. CARA Surprise!!! Missed me darling? YOUNGER MAXINE Cara, h-how wonderful that you could m-make it\u2014 CARA Y-yes M-maxine. Considering that I wasn\u2019t invited. Not that that\u2019s your fault of course\u2014naturally you had nothing to do with the planning\u2014 YOUNGER MAXINE I\u2014 CARA Nevertheless, see what a lovely girl I am\u2014 I brought you a present! CARA hands YOUNGER MAXINE a huge gold wrapped parcel. It looks suspiciously like the one from the birthday party. YOUNGER MAXINE handles it as though it were a letter bomb. CARA Go on, open it\u2014don\u2019t be timid. With trepidation, YOUNGER MAXINE unwraps the present. There is silence at first and then a collective \u201cWow!\u201d as the content is revealed. YOUNGER MAXINE swoons and the babyshower becomes a relief effort. MAXINE My poor baby. I went into shock, the doctors were afraid I\u2019d lose her. But I didn\u2019t. They said she\u2019d be okay\u2014except for the fact that I had experienced a neural surge\u2014they suspected that that this caused the brain tissue of the fetus to be scarred. It was too early to tell what impact this all had. We were to watch and wait and caution for signs of petit mal or severe epilepsy. Years and years and nothing: we watched and waited and sighed relief each time extreme excitement left us behind with a relatively normal young girl. A healthy beautiful girl. My beautiful little girl. MAXINE walks away, a DOCTOR steps up to take her place. DOCTOR Sometimes this condition is dormant. When Bella was brought here, the excitement of her 16th birthday party had triggered such and extreme neural surge that it thrust her into a severe coma. A most unusual case, specialists from the world over have come to examine her In the background BELLA, now played by the golden ANGEL floats in suspended animation in a tank. It is impossible to tell if the tank is filled with sky or water, the colors are deep ocean blues and greens and turquoises that deepen and intensify and flash like lightning on water or vivid storm clouds. DOCTOR We call her Sleeping Beauty. Years have passed since the incident, the world has changed. Her parents passed on, teenage companions married, divorced, neurotic with children of their own to love or torture. Yet our sleeping princess remains unmoved Immortal, unfading in the bloom of her youth. Unaware in her glass tank Such that the world spins its web of time and trauma spawning new generations of medical students and researchers who travel far and wide to ogle the sleeping spectacle. Her beauty, her enigma… For the moment, let us imagine she dreams the world and we are all figments of her neural firings The DOCTOR leaves. BELLA\/ANGEL continues to float suspended in the tank. The atmosphere in the tank glows with even deeper luminous depths as BELLA\/ANGEL begins to speak. She is sleeptalking, her eyes are closed. BELLA\/ANGEL A man is never truly awake so science tells us even in one\u2019s waking life, there are even deeper awakenings and revisionings, revelations sometimes called Truth at other times, Beauty and time there is one falls away from these deep deep into a slumber a deep lucid coma called Love so the polemic is triggered: can we speak of sleep states in opposition to waking states? are not the two a grand gray scale equation of being? The luminosity of the tank begins to pulsate with mild flashes of blue and green BELLA\/ANGEL Beta. 33 to 14 hertz. The world of fight and flight with 33 Hz being the heightened awareness of orgasms and 14, the level of capacity needed for filing alphabetically at your corporate day job. the pulsing slows down\u2014gradually as she speaks BELLA\/ANGEL Alpha. 14 to 9 hertz. The relaxation stage. A reefer induced drone. the zone where all is mellow you flow, you\u2019re slow Heavy, heaviest, heavier, your eye lids start to drop You are in (The tank vibrates at a slower hypnotic rate) Theta 5-8 hertz […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3627,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,16],"tags":[17,18],"class_list":["post-81","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-excerpt","category-theater","tag-drama","tag-grimms-weimar-republic"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3637,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions\/3637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}