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(.................13sept) 'The Poet and the Reader', a morality play
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(The POET is standing on the street, trying to buttonhole people as they walk by.)
POET: Excuse me...
(MAN IN SUIT, with briefcase, speeds up his steps and looks at his watch with a worried expression.)
POET: Everyone is in such a hurry!
(POET appears to be in deep thought for a moment. Then he goes into a nearby Drugstore. When he comes out, he carries a box of Markers and a big pile of white poster board.
POET scrawls Epic Poem on 100 poster boards, in tiny print. He mounts them all on a brick wall along the sidewalk.
THE PEOPLE GO BY —
men, women and children —
each one in a hurry,
each one 'on the clock' —
A DOG stops and sniffs;
it seems to look at the poem;
but then it smells food,
and runs off, sniffing the wind.
POET sits on the curb, head in hands.
The MUSE appears. (Note: the reader may imagine the MUSE any way he/she likes, on a continuum from 'Angel' to 'ordinary human being'.) MUSE is standing silently behind the POET. He sits for quite awhile. Finally, he feels her behind him, and turns.)
POET: Who are you?
MUSE: Don't you know?
POET: I think I do!
MUSE: Come with me!
(The MUSE takes the POET back through time. Imagine them flying, perhaps, or walking through a dark corridor. They arrive at a gabled,3-story brick house on a quiet suburban street. The year is 1960.
A telephone is ringing loudly — the old-fashioned rings.
MOTHER is in the kitchen, stirring a pot while something else sizzles in a pan.)
MOTHER: (shouting at top of lungs) : EEEEEEDDDDDDGGGGGAAAARRRRRRRR! TEEELLLEEPHHHONNNEEEE! !
(The big, oaken door in the nearby foyer opens, and a moment later closes with a loud, wooden-and-metallic crash.
DAD comes in with his briefcase, a little sweaty, with 5 o'clock shadow.)
DAD: Well, Courtney said he may have the new line soon. I went to Artiphone this morning. They said maybe next time. Garber wants to have us out to his farm this weekend.
How are the kids?
MOTHER: You wore that shirt with that jacket again?
DAD: Leave me alone, will ya!
MAW (mother's mother, sitting in TV room with brace on her knee, her curved, wooden cane on the sofa beside her) : Albert, you leave her alone! You're a dicTAtor!
(Sounds of Edgar coming down the stairs.)
Enter Edgar.
MAW: Hello, Albert-Sonny-Harriet-Cora-Freddie-Edgar!
Edgar: Hi, Maw.
MOM: Fred rolled over on the guinea pig last night, in his sleep. Edgar, who was that on the phone?
Edgar: Morty Rosenfeld.
DAD: Where's Fred?
MOM: Up in his room.
MUSE (to POET) : What do you feel?
POET: It's so confusing! It's like a great Beast with ten mouths, all going at once!
And it got a lot worse than that! It didn't even stop with the nuclear family. Mother's sister was the most hysterical of all! My ears feel as if they're trying to close their flaps, right now!
MUSE: And that does not include the secrets you carried around for so many years, that you could never even breathe aloud?
POET: How can we dramatize those?
MUSE: We'll find a way.
But you shouldn't stereotype your family. You have the idea that they never listened to you, and that that's why you feel 'the reader' won't.
But don't forget this:
(in the Sunroom, one Spring night, DAD and EDGAR)
DAD: Ok so in your story you're going to have the boy climb up to the top of Mount Fuji. But he's not even there yet. You just had him telling his father what he wants to do. If he's done, and something else is going to happen somewhere else, you have to get him there. You always have to get your characters from one place to another.
EDGAR: The mom can call everyone in to dinner.
DAD: ok. And...
EDGAR: And then the next morning, he'll get up early and start walking.
POET: Yes, he took the time to sit and work on 6th grade themes with me. He did listen sometimes. I forgot there were more positive things between us, that had to do with writing, than the time he looke at me
spitefully and said, 'You'll never be a writer! The one thing writers have in common is a miserable childhood, and you didn't have one!
MUSE: Let's go now.
(POET is back on the street. Epic Poem is still up. The people are hurrying by oblivious, but one YOUNG MAN, around 20, is bent over the very last poster. He comes away and silently walks over to the POET.)
YOUNG MAN: That touched me more than anything I can remember reading. Is it true?
POET: Well, its essence is.
YOUNG MAN: Well, look I don't know if I'll ever see you again, but I want to thank you. I had no idea where I was headed in this damned crowd! I don't know how you did it, but you've given me a sense of some things I at least want to explore.
POET: Well, keep looking with your heart, and I'm sure you'll find.
YOUNG MAN: Until now, I feel I've known only loss.
POET: Sometimes a lot needs to be cleared away. And it can be extremely painful. But that kind of loss actually becomes gain. Though of course, we can't know that at the time.
YOUNG MAN: Well, I guess I'll go now.
POET: Thanks for stopping by. You've done a lot for me, too.
(The two embrace, and the YOUNG MAN goes on in the flow of pedestrians.)
MUSE has returned, and is standing behind POET again. As before, he eventually notices her and turns to face her.
MUSE: You're fortunate. We aren't usually given to see how we've affected —or even that we have affected — another life.
POET: Sometimes we need to see.
MUSE: And so, sometimes you do. Just remember, when you're craving recognition, that to touch onelife is a great thing.
POET: For once, I have nothing to say...
CURTAIN
Max Reif
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Comments about this poem ((.................13sept) 'The Poet and the Reader', a morality play
by
Max Reif
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comments about this poem ((.................13sept) 'The Poet and the Reader', a morality play by
Max Reif
)
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Subroto Chatterjee
(8/22/2009 5:30:00 AM) |
Quite an innovative attempt here. I'm surprised you didn't get many comments for this one...There's some nebulous dialogues here...but the message is heart-felt...
Sometimes....and oddly...the simplest of messages don't appeal to people, but a long-winded, high-falutin, jargon-spouting, abstract and difficult spillage (even the poet doesn't know what and why he/she has written it) will get a tsunami type of response...a deluge! ! That's people, ...people...Thanks for sharing.
Cheers.
Subroto
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Alison Cassidy
(9/13/2007 8:36:00 PM) |
This is an unusual and thoroughly satisfying read, Max with a moral worth its weight. You certainly have an ear for dialogue and the structure of your play works to maximize its dramatic effect. I enjoyed reading it. love, Allie xxxx
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