Jude Rall and Michael Anderson

PLAYGE! - Excerpt, Scene One

From the point of filing in after the song. Here is the order: David is in front, with his head up (red bandana flag-like), a stick in his right hand like a scepter. He thumps down into a set on a long bench table, he faces the audience . Next, another proud one, Lewis marches with even more gusto than David. His knees are reaching up to the sky, his arms are swaying - he is lost in the music, and when filing, he wipes sweat, and sits on a bench to the right, perpendicular to David's bench (Diagram of stage furniture upcoming). He seems to be happy, as the others file in around him, but as the music quiets he loses his tenor quality and scowls. He looks around, as outside the plague shouter shouts, and slowly rests her head on the table as one does to sleep. Next in the line up, Bliot, who marches with a casualness, he has done this many times before, he has facial hair - a goatee - and is markedly out of place due to his old age. He is at least 30. He pats David on the shoulder as he passes and whispers something in his ear then sits to his left. He relaxes in his chair. Next in the line up, much prouder than each an every person in the room to the point of disdain, is Roland, who wears a homemade crest on his shirt and has a what appears to be a wood sword tight into his rope belt, but does in fact have a real steel blade beneath its scabbard. He wears a small washbasin on his head. He does not take a seat, but stands vigil at the back wall horizontally in between the two tables. Beetleby is next. He wears circular glasses and walks bug-like with a hunch. He walks in the march distractedly, yet participates with the same vigor of action necessary to show that he is part of the group. When he sits, to the right of David, he procures a tome from under the table and opens it on the table. He does not read but stares forward at the audience. Cramdore comes next with an inexplicably white shirt and perfectly brown slacks. He sits directly down next to Lewis at the side table, takes a rag out of his pocket and wipes down all areas around him. Charlemagne breaks from the line and seeks out a seat next to Beetleby, but is interrupted in this action by Bliot, who stands and ushers the plus-sized very-young kid next to him on the left. Charlemagne waddles over, sits, and is slapped on the back of the head hard by Bliot. Bliot laughs excessively. Blaster comes silently, lingering at the back, not singing, not marching, and kids flinch as he passes. He ends up standing by the doorway on the left. Attached to his waist is a small bag of stones. 

After everyone files out, in this order, and takes their seats, in this afore mentioned order, and plague is yelled from the alley shouter and that sound penetrates the window and thus the audience and after that has time to let simmer there is a knock on the door. 

Steward: Entering on orders of the King Himself.

David gets up and lets him in. Who notices the intrusion: Roland, with a glare, Charlemagne, with fear, Bliot, with surprise. 

Steward: Well that’s all of you. (He marvels at all the kids in the room, then turns to David.) Quite the lot. Would you have a caretaker I could speak to? 

David: No, sir. Our fine crew is completely free and autonomous. 

The steward pauses. He looks around yet again. 

Steward: (in doubt) That's just fine then. 

Roland: (Nearly shouting) And if the noble sir would kindly state his business, that would be greatly appreciated. Some folk around here have grand intentions indeed and if you might be (I in fact don’t know and in the case that you are, never would guess) to be in fact be the lowest form of rabble that goes around dressing in noblemen's clothing we would kindly appreciate it if you left. But if sirs is the sort of fine noble that works to learn of the world and comes crawling into fine castles that have been invested with parentless vermin then I would very much like to do anything you ask. So sir kindly state your business or I will have you dispatch you with no less of a stroke with my blade than I would take across a giant's neck. Sir.  

Steward: On the order of the king. I am to inspect the cargo stored here. That would be all of you gentlemen. (The king’s Steward starts to make his way across the room looking over each boy's shoulder as he walks.) The King has had a tragic sort of life. If you all have heard anything about it.

Bliot: I am only a child Sir, but I have heard of this… blight, sir. And to repeat I am only a child in residence at this orphanage, but to my knowledge all of the kings heirs have either been slain, poisoned, or betrayed him in the gravest of circumstances. 

Steward: That’s exactly it…

Bliot: I’m Bliot, sir. 

The steward stops between the two tables. He looks again at Bliot. 

Steward: You don’t seem an orphan’s age. 

Bliot: I’m not sure what you mean. 

There is time to this, in a pause, about this revelation. 

Steward: That's neither here nor there. I was saying the King has felt his own blood… his own blood was tainted. He would like to put his feelers in this Orphanage, (The King's Steward starts to move towards the table to the right where Lewis appears to be sleeping.) He'd like to do something to tease out the more unworthy candidates - it is the King after all. (He stops behind Lewis.) What is wrong with him? Is he sleeping? (Actually distraught). 

David: Appears Sir, that Lewis has got the Plague. 

Steward: Will he wake up? 

Beatleby: He will not, sir. He has- had the Plague. 

Steward: (Very distraught) You (he points at Cramdore) would you check? Check if he is awake? 

Cramdore: I will not touch his body. Besides the plague, he has a disgusting body. 

David: We’ve lost a kind soul today. We will feel this weight. 

David walks to the leftmost table and braces himself on it. He shakes his head. Through the rest of the room reactions are this: Cramdore, disgust, Roland, stiffening, Bliot, nothing, Beatleby, nothing, Blaster, a hand in the rock pouch, Charlemagne, tries to understand what is going on and gets hit in the head by Bliot, Lewis, dead. 

Steward: You should carry him outside. The cart will be around again soon. I passed it on the way here. It’s a tight loop. 

Cramdore: They won’t listen. 

Bliot: He deserves to remain here. In fact the law of the orphanage requires it. There is not leaving unless adopted. There is no leaving - even in death. 

Rain begins, lighting flashes, the lights go out, lighting flashes brightening the stage, in that flash Lewis is walking, a ghostly figure, and walks through the rightmost wall and into the void gap to the right of the ‘room set’. Lightning flashes again (all actors are paused in motion during this ghostly break in the action!) Spot light flicks on and the ghost love seat is revealed in the void. Lewis sits on the front edge of it, facing the audience. 

Lewis: Stuck here. Attached to the building. Going up would be like going through a big clogged drain. And down like slipping on pajamas, but both’s impossible. Tied here like to railroad tracks. Neither of these references are to things I know - but you do. The universe won’t even adopt me. And now I’ll watch these saps take this shit. This stewards shit. Didn’t even want to be part of the game in the first place. I mean, it would have been nice to at least be given a shot. At least a leg in a race. I’m the most disadvantaged of all of them except maybe Charlemagne who gets his head swiped by Bliot every ten minutes. I don’t got the gumption of Roland. I don’t have the psychopathy of Blaster in the corner with his bag of rocks. He’ll throw them eventually, you’ll see. I don’t got the brains of Beatleby or Cramdore’s obsessive nature. Nor the passion of David or the longevity - that's a good word for it - of Bliot. People say, ‘he’d be better off dead.’ They say that to us alot. They’d be better off dead. I hate to think that. Because I know it’s not true. I am dead. You can see that. I am dead, really, this isn’t makeup. And it takes the life out of you, really. It’s like having all the air pushed out of your lungs. You feel like such a - such a sad-sack. You just drag along. Man, just drag along. I’d much rather be nothing in there, feeling, bleeding, loving, than nothing here: with the rest of nothing. (Pause, wind blows, God's voice?: Who do you think is going to win?) Who do I think is going to win? That is really just a terrible question. In two ways. The first, that it doesn’t matter. The plague will get them all in the end. And second, if the plague didn’t, it's very obvious who would come out floating? Isn’t it? I won’t say. I don’t want to soil imaginations. 

The lights on the love seat go black, shut off, go out, and light returns to the main room of the orphanage. Lewis is replaced by clothes filled with bones. (Or his ghost returns into the room and lays his head back down) The rain stops. The King’s steward looks startled. He seems to have felt the ghost or something in that vein. For everyone else the quick blast of lightning is a normal occurrence. Steward looks at the bone-clothes (?), but does not look surprised by their appearance, he only looks. 

Steward: The King is well known for his liking of riddles. 

(Aside) Bliot to David.

Bliot: He wants to get out. 

David: But he still thinks one of us is IT. 

Bliot: You’re right, peer. The ghosts freak out these well adjusted folk. 

Steward: He has decreed that whomever can craft ‘A Riddle Most Impressive’ will become his heir. I will be leaving now. I’ll be back in the morning. Good day. I mean good night. 

The steward rushes out of the room.