ALL CHARACTERS AND EVENTS ARE FICTITIOUS

 

Friday, July 30, 2004

 

DRAFT ONLY

 

BRYAN ADRIAN'S DRUID DEEP SPACE DRAMA [SKETCH]

marylandsquare.com

By Bryan Adrian

 

Dark stage. Curtain up.

 

A single spotlight is on the lead actor character in darkness, writing at home, alone in his study, on a laptop, 4AM. Bait the audience at first with loads of very subtle atmosphere, from the very start, to have them guessing frequently, where are they going to be taken, on this frightening, but redemptive journey.

 

Try to bring out the many frustrations [in the dialogue of the characters] which ALL TYPES of Americans deal with, no matter what class, or race, or occupation, or politics they have, because of our current lack of community and culture here in the States [that is, the perseverance and connectivity that other communities and cultures share, e.g., that one can much easier find in, say, Denmark, Canada, France or Germany, or even in Bulgaria]. [NOTE from today: Inject observations you made during your recent travels to London, Germany, Italy, Slovenia] .

 

Keep in mind the American public being gulled by GW Bush, his War Machine, and his craven politics, which are triggering a whiplash against us in most of Europe now, and which is in addition quickly mushrooming into a global anti-Americanism.

 

In the very first initial stage setting, have PERGOLESI’S "Stabat Mater" playing medium loud at 4AM in the publisher’s living room. He is turning off his laptop and stretching in dim light. He then pours a whiskey, and reviews alone numerous slides on his blank white study wall, from his semi-recent past, as the "Stabat Mater" continues playing.

 

Final Slide of a letter, to a friend this time, hinting at what is going on, so that the audience is not lost, but rather feels smart, because they sense something larger than their lives is going to take place, e.g.:

 

"Dear Manfred, the publications are a minor success, ... some people are following me, but I can’t prove a thing. …", etc.

 

DIALOGUE:

 

Phone rings. The publisher [named Vance for now], bourbon still in hand, tired from reviewing the slides, picks up his phone -------->> nobody on other line.

 

[click ... dead dial tone]

 

In walks the Sharon Stone character [named Sonia for the time being], 4AM.

 

Sonia: Are you still up? Anything new in the slides?

 

Vance: Just that the last few years have made me look much, much older, Sonia. Wouldn't you agree?

 

Sonia: Funny. I’ve never noticed. Have you actually aged at all since we started this? I never had the time to ponder such matters. What's that slide all about with the man on a bicycle being run off of the road by a speeding car?

 

Vance: That’s me in Takoma Park just outside of Washington DC.

 

 

…. Continue dialogue here

 

 

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Initial notes for a PLAY: The use of names Judy Davis, John Malkovitch, and Sharon Stone are for “type” and “personality” only, they each embody somewhat the complexities of the characters I have in mind for the play’s purposes.

 

 

[CHARACTER A] Female lead written somewhat tentatively for Sharon Stone [if she likes the play when I am finished she may pay to produce it for her own opportunism or creative self-_expression!]. The two main characters will "redeem themselves."

 

[CHARACTER B] Male lead based somewhat on myself [my own experiences as an underground political publisher on the internet for the last 7 years].

 

The Actor who plays Character B must be capable of both gentleness, fairness, and ... fierceness ... when under attack, attributes the lead needs to have as a publisher in a dangerous field of social agit-prop. This play will come off as a wee bit Brechtian, but with well developed soul and feeling, not just head and thinking, like Brecht.

 

REMAINING CAST:

 

[CHARACTER C] Somebody like Judy Davis, Australian actress, middle but crucial role. Female Supporting Lead.

 

[CHARACTER D] Somebody like John Malkovitch, Steppenwolf Theatre founder (who acted with Judy Davis in Clifford Odet's ROCKET TO THE MOON, 1987) to dovetail with Judy Davis in this middle yet resonant crucial character range. Perhaps they are lovers in this drama, too. Character D will be the Male Supporting Lead.

 

Secondary performers:

[CHARACTER E] ... he is the only one on the staff that can truly stand up to the publisher protagonist, when everyone is under fire, when the publisher is not as clear in his direction as he thinks he is; better than anyone else on the staff to deal with the often brooding publisher, even more able than the publisher's lover, the Sharon Stone wife-partner character. This character steps in during times of duress, because he is not a "Yang force" threat to the publisher, he is valued and needed by the publisher, as his reliable associate editor, and as his [gay?? ... modeled somewhat on Alan] friend and advisor and confident.

 

[CHARACTER F] Female, mid-20s[??]. She is the comic relief and a kind of intermission from all the building and fomenting angst. As graphics artist for the entire magazine staff, and liked by all, she has access to everyone's ear on an equal basis, and sort of knows better than anyone what is going on, from what she hears from them. [modeled on the young Vera?]

 

(a Six character cast, Characters A thru F, with an "extra", a black actor with a walk-on role for the subway dream sequences, and two "fill-in-for-all humanity" actors to be the extras when needed) Therefore, NINE performers are needed for each performance.

 

[there will be some actors needed for crowd scenes … use the same three people [including one black actor] to represent everything possible required. Recycle the non-starring actors to play many different roles, rather than using fresh people for all the background characters]

 

Plot: [sketchy still ... it will be based on the travails of the publisher illustrated by the slide show based on real conflicts i have experienced in the last six years ... how many slides will actually be shown in the opening scene is still quite unclear .... my characters will grow as I write the dialogue, of the publisher and his lover (live-in-partner), [his complementary co-publisher and co-habitator], discussing things with the two main leads, [their friends, in the Central Park South area townhouse.] . Most of the play will take part in this townhouse which doubles as a publishing house. There will also be some dream sequence scenes in a nightime subway car of NYC which mirror the publisher's external reality, of the last few years, shown in a stream of consciousness slide show to open the play.

 

Use a Eugene O'Neill depth and tone, but not so pathetic. [footnote: Eugene O’Neill was emotionally powerful in his plays, and knew the theatre, but he is much too fatalistic, and seems to have piled up debts with outside occult agencies, perhaps due to his parents influence, like the Booth and Baldwin families. Too much Shakespearean Masonic mumbo jumbo in O’Neill … I must write my play on a more non-Masonic scale and scope, with a triumph of the central character over the forces that weigh him down.

 

 

It has been written that O’Neil used a kind of numerological structure in his EMPEROR JONES, with everything in a geometry of a SIX SHOOTER revolver chamber. O’Neil, in none of his plays, rarely had an effective or true hero, a leader, or a champion of a Resistance, a Jesus Christ radical. Not even a character with a simple game plan, against the status quo, who could somehow triumph, if only in spirit.

 

Go for spiritual depth. Don't use generic American family or suburban values in this play, since you never learned them well at home nor in life [except those years in Germany with Theresa and her little daughter, Charlotte, the Dresden and Cologne years, as a language teacher where I learned Germanic home and hearth values, and some from Biliana's family home in Sofia, Bulgaria, from that summer living in the same house with the former Deputy Minister of Defense, in Sophia, who married Bilian's younger sister.] Base "NYC family life" atmosphere in the Central Park townhouse on these experiences. This will not be a Disney family theme, nor anything Ron Howard could handle.

 

Play's Story:

 

Male lead is an underground magazine publisher, putting out his stuff on the internet. His live-in partner is his co-publisher. Much dynamic interplay between them, sometimes pleasant, sometimes unpleasant, oftentimes tender, but the magazines live on and so does their commitment to each other and to these publications, no matter what. Their affable associate editor is a central character, but not fully developed yet, in text. The graphics expert on their publishing staff is a likeable character too.

 

The Malkovitch character and Judy Davis character are daredevils and very close friends, who drop by the magazine staff office often, to spend time with the co-publishers, their best friends, [their publication office is also their small townhouse, placed near Central Park in the lower West 60s]; these two Off Broadway friends often contribute cultural and political writings to their magazines; they are very witty and quite close with the two joined-at-the-hip publishers.

 

** The Malkovitch and Davis characters are also Off-Broadway actors, besides being serious intellectuals, with the political motivations to change American culture, away from trivial commercialization and towards a national health care system and several other major reforms [although this will not be overly emphasized in the dialogue]. They both can write well and often contribute to the webmagazines.

 

Produce a slide show the best you can of images like these, or some such similar scenarios, from your past.

 

·        Slides of secret Australian telecommunications installations, underground, near the AEC in Gaithersburg, MD, just outside of Washington, DC. Slides of the power lines, enormous power towers, and ominous wires, leading directly to the Atomic Energy Commission in Germantown, MD.

·        Slides of Valentin’s Bulgarian commandos [former Deputy Minister of Defense] literally bolting the publisher inside his "trusted" Bulgarian fiancée’s family home in Sofia, with a nice chunky Bulgarian bodyguard from Salamander Commando Services to watch over him vigilantly, too.

·        Takoma Park, Maryland, Masonic-Tibetan Lodge. Entranceway. Then ... Slides of satellites orbiting in dark space, watching all human activity. Then show the Intelsat HQ corporate satellite interior in Washington, DC. Quick slide progression here, pick up the tempo, to the music as the Hungarian chorus women continue to sing in a fast building crescendo, much more passionately than earlier, the lugubrious but sweet STABAT MATER!

·        Slide of a dim-witted DC Beltway intelligence spook, in his car, as he runs a man off of the roadside as he is pedaling on his bicycle, in a near fatal sideswipe.

·        Slides of a brutal stabbing in the pre-gentrified and then deadly Logan’s Circle, in Washington, of the publisher, with a filed off Phillips Head screwdriver, by two murderous assailants.

 

 

Music switches to Christmas carols, although barely audible, as a kind of ironic twist, from Stabat Mater.

 

USE SOME OF THESE SLIDE PROJECTIONS TOO--

 

·        Men-in-Black slides [MIB]. Slides of AAME (American Association of Mechanical Engineers Headquarters in Wash DC), in which the whole staff had MIB screensavers.

·        Slide of the giant Meteor that slammed into Greenland in 1998.

·        Dripping with irony, show a slide of a baby Phillips head screwdriver kit, presented as a gift by executive officers of the AAME to the protagonist publisher, as a Christmas office employee X-mas present. Stabbing happens with a 9 inch filed down Phillips Head within 12 hours of this presentation. [i.e., the centimeters-from-death stabbing from a filed down Phillips Head screwdriver.

·        "Join Us" slide, inside the offices of Medtap, the heart defibrillator manufacturers, par excellence, which led to my hasty departure from their compound in a state of alarm and confusion when they formed a circle around me chanting to "join us" their secret sinister society.

·        AIEE, American Institute of Electrical Engineers HQ, with closeups of their full color brochures on advanced androids [with fluorescent yellow-green eyes, when seen in a special lighting], already manufactured today, where they had three Bryans and three Adrians working there in my department nearby, on a two day temp job i had there, bugging the shit out of my sense of individuality. A friendly guy there, [android?] asked me if I knew what the gas company workers were doing watching a hole in the ground, outside their window, day after day after day, provoking the android-like friendly employee to state "I think they are here to watch you".

·        Slide of Council of Churches, NYC, Riverside Drive, vampire priests/rabbis, of all fucking persuasions, no boundaries here between Episcopalian and Jewish and Buddhist, on Riverside Drive. Everyone has very red eyes in the building.

·        Next, slide of Petrossian Caviar HQ [Armenians], NYC meat packing district; scads of large Black Sea and Caspian Sea mother sturgeons seemingly crying out their grief like the Colchian women at the time of Jason & the Argonauts in the same region, thousands of years ago, as they are being slaughtered for their caviar eggs, and for the isinglass from their bladders, on the Chelsea district stainless steel dissection tables of Petrossian's.

·        Next, the Armenian lawyer from a temp assignment in midtown NYC, and his obnoxious daughter; he is head honcho of a NYC Masonic temple, and has a military Army intelligence portfolio on the internet, boasting of his high family and New York State Masonic connections.

·        Slide of Conde Nast Publications Headquarters, NYC, old executive offices before they moved to their swank Times Square tower, where I am a temp working alongside the old CFO and his innermost staff . Psychic head scanning very very intense. Strongest confrontation of telepathic brain scanning warfare for me to date, it seemed at the time.

·        Immediately afterwards, Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" screening, premiere night. Some other psychic scanner was sitting behind me the whole damned movie, making trouble, challenging me -- [an Irish friend with me noticed and remarked on it to me, out of the blue, "someone is trying to get to you without words, Bryan, I can feel it coming from the seats directly behind us".].

·        666 5th Avenue building. Bad vibes, bad times, bad headaches, working there as a temp for a giant law firm at this 666 address, that defends the major chemical and mining companies, especially involving liquid nitrogen, benzene, and radioactive metals.

·         

Squeeze all these images into a quick moving and compelling slide show that opens the play as the publisher is reviewing his life at 4AM, Kentucky bourbon in hand, and the Hungarian Womens' chorus is singing their hearts out in their rendition of Stabat Mater.

 

At conclusion of this slide sequence, display slides of letters from friends, over the years, exhibiting anger and suspicion that the publisher and protagonist of this play ... is now nuts!

 

Switch to a series of slides of acutely visible brainwave scanning wars in libraries, between combatants, where any partially observant person in the library could notice something very peculiar is going on, even if they don't believe in psychic scanning nor telepathic warfare.

 

A play of this nature may work, dealing with this theme, especially if the dialogue is good, and the human element is noble and victorious.

 

DIALOGUE to be continued ...]

 

[footnote: later in the play, create a scene with strange acoustical effects, on stage, of a night subway coach … a black professional intellectual is confronted by hostile rednecks, obviously discriminatory midnight strap holders, not overtly physically threatening to him, but really extremely rude and offensive… use "flash" dreamlike techniques and lighting, ... but keep the subway car atmosphere hyper-realistic.

In this scene, make the audience feel the next subway stop is theirs, and how much they can’t wait to get off the bloody fucking subway. This scene is to show the audience that the social conflicts which a black intellectual in America [with strong opinions] has, are nearly the same social torments as the white publisher of this drama in his occult battles and hostile encounter with agents of the occult and intelligence agencies. Play with this scene, draw it out for all it is worth. Work on it a lot.

 

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I once met Seth Dillinger, an extremely gifted composer and creative bass cellist, on the Bedford L platform. He leads an avante garde Quartet, very cutting edge, yet capable of clean and conventional classical, in the Village at St. Mark’s Place. He emailed me saying he would like to contribute to a stage production, if i ever pull it off. Seth just performed here in Williamsburg at the Galapagos Club last week.