"Your tears serve but to wash my wounds in salt." - Biweekly Theater Writing Challenge #9

Last night I found myself inspired and started working on this scene. It would be part of Sundan, where our tragic hero's closest friend Bastian finds out that he's loves their friend Juliana. From Sundan I am going for shame turned into rage at his helplessness to positively deal with his feelings and his situation. With Bastian I'm trying to convey that mixture of pity for the sufferer's plight and profound embarrassment on their behalf that you are seeing something they would rather hide. As a person who is often deeply ashamed to be a victim or to be helpless in dire straits, the situation resonates with me on both sides. Though it could use some polishing, I think I'm on to something, and I believe there is some real poetry among these lines. It needs a clearer lead into the scene, and it needs a firmer ending, but the meat of it is something real.

BASTIAN: Jesus wept, sweet Sundan, can it be so
That you love our fair friend Juliana?

SUNDAN: Speak not of this to me.

BASTIAN: Heaven forfend but I see past your eyes!
O most ill-starred and tragic turn of fate!
O most pitiable of fortune’s dogs!

SUNDAN: Speak not of this! As you love me, speak not!

BASTIAN: Never till this moment had I seen.
How canst thou have hid a thing like this,
A weight and meaning of such vast import,
With scarce a word or nod even to me?
Have I not shed my blood beside you, kept
Your counsel, stood first among your men,
Your dearest friend, and yet you told me not?

SUNDAN: This thing was never meant to leave the dark,
Not before your eyes nor Juliana’s!
When hope is dead before even its birth,
What profits aught for it to come to light?

BASTIAN: How long? How long have you lov’d her, Sundan?

SUNDAN: Ever, always, then and now.
A truth I buried deep for fear that she
Would never look on me as I on her,
Until the day when I resolv’d to speak,
A boy in my command won her away,
And sure I saw what I had ever known.
Wherefore do you groan and grimace so?

BASTIAN: My heart is torn in two for you.

SUNDAN: Your heart must no rival in tenderness,
That I am most wretched of love’s fools,
And yet Bastian bravely suffers so.

BASTIAN: I pray forgive but pity lays me low.

SUNDAN: Villain that you are for that pity,
For naught but its cruel blade may bleed me else,
As torn and bare as this has left me.
You drag my darkest bruises out all whilst
You twist in borrow’d shame for my sad state.
For shame hide thy long and louring face!
Your tears serve but to wash my wounds in salt.
Beset me no more with condoling blows
Lest you draw your keen compassion from its sheath
And with your loving kindness cleave me raw.
To think we make much of love and mercy!
Of mankind’s wonder, gloried gifts of God
To raise us to more than ungentle beasts,
One murders me by inch and ell for years,
The other works but to draw out my pains.
I’ll no more of man’s glories, sir, and pray
God may make me unmoved as a stone
To be no more burn’d with human warmth,
Or else consum’d, to bleed for this no more.

BASTIAN: In justness to your wishes I defer.
I’ll not presume to prick your plight anew.
For all the grieving fullness of my heart,
I can do naught to set things right for you,
And my empty words make you no solace.
Beyond them I have nothing.

SUNDAN: If have you nothing, I’d have that nothing from you,
For nothing can be remedy alone,
In only nothing may my sorrows end.

BASTIAN: You speak as with some evil toy within
You as I could not bear to see you act.
I fear behind those palled eyes does haunt
The glimmer of some desperate thing.

SUNDAN: Fear not but that all desperate things have chas’d
On heels one after other through my mind.
But long time can teach us patience as we
By no means other, hard or well, may learn.
Time I’ve had in plenty in this state,
In no lesser measure than but pain,
And my stern schoolmaster has laid it out
To learn elsewise is where perdition lies.
With soldier’s steadfast pace, I soldier on,
And as in war, in time all turns to scars.

BASTIAN: Thy wounds look fresh to me, old friend,
Fresh as engaged rings on fingers slipp’d.

SUNDAN: New wounds are habit too by now, so just
The same I’ve learned to bear them as they break.
There is no ministering to this hurt,
So well content to do me no more pain.

BASTIAN: Forgive me more most hollow words, but know
Naught would I spare to change this thing for you.
If it within my power lay, the earth
Would shake and groan to see it were not so.

SUNDAN: Then were my Bastian Atlas, with shoulders broad
To move both the earth and a lady’s love.
Leave me, old friend. Spare me the burden of your eyes.

(Exit BASTIAN.)

SUNDAN: It is as if I crumble piece by piece.
Now Bastian has my ancient secret out!
In span of years I ne’er myself betray’d.
It is this gnawing madness breaks me down;
With each day it wears more away my soul.
Sure that Marcus envies no man his joy,
Nor genders no man’s pity. There is no way
That he does not exceed my measure.
Oh, if my old friend could see the whole of it.
No mercy Bastian owes to me besides
Such pity as we show a fallen horse
With leg too shattered again to rise.

Stubborn inefficient piggy

Whenever I have a number of projects going at once-- which for me is most of the time --I always want to work most on the one that is the lowest priority at the given time, and usually have zero motivation to get going on the one that I should be focusing on. When I first conceived of my idea for Just So, the funny short play based on that episode of Frasier, I was raring to go on it, but I should have been devoting my energy to the verse piece that was due sooner. Then later, when Just So's deadline was looming, I could not think of anything I wanted to work on less. Right now I should be thinking about homework, but all I want to do is work on things I can't hand in. I want to brainstorm for Imperium, the idea I had for a larp set in Ancient Rome, even though I have promised myself that I am putting larp writing on hold for the moment in favor of dramatic writing. I want to work on Sundan, the grand, Shakespeare-style tragedy I have conceived of where, in the course of trying to destroy a man who has stolen away the woman he loves, our hero destroys himself. Or maybe Mrs. Hawking, a Holmes and Watson type story, where a working class girl finds a calling through an unlikely partnership with a frustrated-genius high-class lady who she teaches to be a little more human. But neither of those projects satisfy the assignments I've been given, so they can't be used for school. Thus, of course, is my piglike nature, that I never want to do anything that I should be doing, and indeed, even if I used to want to do it, as soon as it becomes priority one I'd rather be doing anything else.

Biweekly Theater Writing Challenge #8 - Early Sundan monologue in blank verse

SUNDAN:

I feel today I am a man anew,
Standing here as I’ve never stood before.
I’ve served Lynesse, the dread duchess Ilan,
In martial venture on her honor’s fields,
And in her council chambers lent my voice.
No more sought I than plain becomes a man,
To do my liege the best I had in me,
But for my service she has lov’d me well.
Through blood and labor I’ve so prov’d myself
That she’s pronounced this day to honor me
‘Fore all the court her most true and loyal man.
And in the thoughts of this new man I find
A stranger courage than aught before had grown.
There is a woman, to all senses a lady,
That all men do know as Juliana.
She is without compare, a girl so bright
That I have fell so far in love with her
The earth would tremble at its breadth and break.
For joy I’ve been my lady’s constant friend,
But the deep truth I never dared to tell,
A secret I have closely held through all
Long ages knowing she would not in kind.   
Strange, but I no more can recall the time.
It feels as if there’s never Sundan lived
Who did not Juliana love. My God!
How can men have called me bold when in this
I’ve gone on so long a coward?
I have a soldier’s years, and led brave men
To hazard life and limb in war,
And yet I fear no foe upon the field
As I dread the measure of those matchless eyes.
But with turns the world has chang’d, and so have I;
No more that humble, fearful boy I was,
But commended now, esteemed by men.
As journeys course, and fortunes veer thus far,
I sense this just begins the turns ahead,
That what I’ve been shall be requite in kind.
A clever man must see when chances come
And damned be if I seize not mine now.
Once Lynesse proclaim my worth today I vow
I’ll speak to Juliana of my love.
Though it break and bow me else to try
To stand commended in my angel’s eyes,
And win that angel’s love as dearest prize.

Current work

Been working on my next blank verse assignment for school. For once I got lucky and was actually struck with an idea for something without having to drag some subject up out of nothing, which usually results in a better final product. The trouble is, this is for the professor who has specifically barred me from writing in Shakespearean diction, and the subject matter is very classically theatrical and would be particularly suited to that language style. I wanted to write about a man who has finally resolved on the day he is about to receive a commendation from his liege to at long last tell a woman he's in love with her, only to see her accept a marriage proposal from his lieutenant. He then swears to ruin this man in the eyes of everyone around them such that even his lady will turn away. Then I could write a tale of dramatic scheming and desperation to end in a terrible tragedy, probably where all parties involved end up taking their own lives. Very Shakespearean, no? *sigh* I suppose what I can do is try and write it according to my teacher's specifications, and later adapt it to the language I'd really like for my own purposes. Seems a little bit like a waste of time, at least on the journey to a final product, but I need to write something for this assignment. At the very least it will help me sharpen my blank verse.

I also need to write another new ten-minute play for my next primary assignment. Wonder of wonders, I actually kind of have an idea for that too. There's a really great episode of Frasier, one of my all-time favorite TV shows, that is one of two shot in "real time," as in one long continuous scene in one location rather than a serious of cuts. I find it to be hilariously funny and because of the nature of it always believed it would make a great play. I would really like to write my next ten minute play in the style of this Frasier episode and capture the sort of comedy it utilizes. The only concern I have is that it might be tough to basically not just rip off the episode, to find a way to capture the style while making a distinct piece. Originality can be so tough! Ah, well. I think I'll give it a try, just to see if I can pull it off without making it too similar to its inspiration. Posts, as usual, to follow!