Tuesday 17 November 2009

The play

Well, the first readable/performable draft is finished. I'm not entirely sure it gets its point across clearly, but I am quietly cheery about the results. Considering this is the first time I have attempted to write a script, I'm quite pleased.

I have been told the "writing (Read: Conan's language) is too esoteric", however I'm thinking that's just a synonym for "the theatre students are dumb". I'm thinking I'll just ignore that and steam ahead; I like Conan hamming it up and being ludicrously verbose.

Anyway, here it finally is. Draft 3, The Draft That People Could Read. Part I. Take 2.

(You may have to click it on the right, it's too big and badly formatted to fit on this page. Yea, I suck at converting Word docs into HTML)

In A Wicked Age






Characters: (they are quite
noticeably of identical build)







ROBERT HOWARD: a tall, well
built 30 year old Texan author.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA: a tall,
well built 30 year old fictional character with long black hair and
blue eyes.











The two men are sitting. They
start facing away from each other. ROBERT HOWARD is dressed in black
jeans and black flannel shirt, while CONAN OF AQUILONIA is wearing a
chain shirt and black jeans. They stand in a corn field, almost ready
for harvesting. It goes on forever, there are no signs of humanity.







ROBERT HOWARD



I took mother out for a drive
today.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



Across the fields.







ROBERT HOWARD



Across the fields, yea. She
needed the air. Clears her chest up fine, lets her breathe for a
while. She needs the air.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



Her cough gets worse every day.







There is a long pause. The two
men are not awkward about it.







ROBERT HOWARD



There's blood now.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



There has always been blood.







Another pause, shorter this
time.







ROBERT HOWARD



True.







Another pause. As long as the
last.











ROBERT HOWARD



I'm weak, you know.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA does not
react.







ROBERT HOWARD



I mean... I mean I'm strong an'
all. I could lift you clean over my head if y'asked. Let me show you.







ROBERT HOWARD stands and makes
a move towards CONAN OF AQUILONIA with his arms out as if to pick him
up. CONAN OF AQUILONIA stops him with a stern look, stands quickly,
then speaks.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



Do you deem yourself strong,
because you are able to twist the heads off civilized folk, poor
weaklings with muscles like rotten string? Hell! Break the neck of a
wild Cimmerian bull before you call yourself strong. I did that
before I was a man.







Silence. ROBERT HOWARD sits.







ROBERT HOWARD



I wish I could take a break now
and go boxing. I wish I had a beer. I wish I had time. I have to work
twice as hard to earn half as much, what with looking after mother
taking up my time.







I lay awake at night listening to
her. Holding my breath to hear the wheezes and the chokes; they're
killing her while telling me she's still alive.







I need to rest, to be alone.







ROBERT HOWARD stares at the
floor and speaks in an imitation of the townsfolk who talk about him.







What kind of young man
would go around mumbling to himself? Punching an imaginary enemy?
What kind of young man chooses to write for a living? That ain’t
no living. Why, he’s just leeching off poor Isaac Howard, that
nice doctor. And you know what he spends all his time writing about?
Ghosts and warriors and harlots. All just sex and violence. He
should be ashamed of himself. I heard he carries a pistol in his car.
And he sleepwalks at night!”







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



Civilized men are more
discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite
without having their skulls split, as a general thing.







ROBERT HOWARD stops staring at
the floor.







ROBERT HOWARD



I caught them following me last
week.







I was picking up some of mother's
well-wishers and noticed a movement in the fields. Harvesting season
is almost on so the fields were high but my eyes... my eyes are
sharp; I saw the rustling, the bending stalks.







They were watching again.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



So you thought.







ROBERT HOWARD



So I knew.







Long pause.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



What happened there?







ROBERT HOWARD draws a .380
Colt and stands.







ROBERT HOWARD



I took out my Colt and shot off a
few rounds into the field by way of a warning.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA nods
slowly, looking thoughtful.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



You see devils where there are
none.







ROBERT HOWARD



I'm not going out of my way
looking for devils, but I wouldn't step out of my path to let one go
by.







Long silence.







ROBERT HOWARD



One has hold of mother. She has
done nothing but help others her whole life, and she suffers like a
dog. The devil is on her back laughing at me, using her as a shield.
It wants me, it's always wanted me. It put me in the wrong age and
watched as it fell apart.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA looks
somewhat disinterested throughout.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



Give me a clean sword and a clean
foe to flesh it in.







ROBERT HOWARD



(Sullenly)



It's a liberty we rarely enjoy.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



For which I pity your civilised
age.







ROBERT HOWARD



(ROBERT HOWARD turns on CONAN
OF AQUILONIA somewhat aggressively during this. Gesticulating with
his gun)



My age? At least my age is real!
Yours is all illusion. No, delusion! Just a wish! Just...







CONAN OF AQUILONIA turns on
ROBERT HOWARD and interrupts.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



I know not, nor do I care. Let me
live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat,
stinging wine on my palate and the hot embrace of white arms, and I
am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over
questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion,
then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real
to me. I live, I love, I burn with life, and am content.







An angry silence. ROBERT
HOWARD sits.







ROBERT HOWARD



(With rising desperation)



She's dying you know. She's all I
have left. Do you know how that feels? To be alone? To be helpless?







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



When I cannot stand alone, it
will be time to die.







ROBERT HOWARD looks at CONAN
OF AQUILONIA for a long while, as if thinking, then leaves, CONAN OF
AQUILONIA looks on after him.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA



All fled, all done, so lift me on
the pyre;



The feast is over, and the lamps
expire.







CONAN OF AQUILONIA sits down.