If you have any comments, please leave them. We will also be looking for help at some point in the near future (actors, tech people), so if you have any interest in being part of what will be an amazing multi-disciplinary, multi-media arts event, and live in the New York/Massachusetts/Connecticut area, drop me a line and we’ll be glad to utilize your talents.
Περσεφόνη
I. The Temptation/Seduction
Today's Lesson : The earth is not a chocolate covered cherry
Materials:
1 pen/pencil
1 chilled chocolate covered cherry
1 paper towel
1 serrated knife
1 diagram of the earth's layers
Step 1: Spread paper towel and carefully place chilled chocolate covered cherries in the Do not eat it.
Step 2: Using your knife, cut the cherry in half, as neatly as you can. Use a sawing motion to cut through the shell to prevent the total collapse of the candy's shell (Dissecting a chocolate cherry is very messy business, work slowly and carefully).
Step 3: Describe the layers of the cherry covered chocolate, labeling each layer and writing one unique characteristic of your choice for each layer.
Step 4: You may now eat one half of your candy.
Step 5: Diagram the Earth's layers and label each layer correctly. Describe each of the Earth's layers using one unique characteristic of your choice and explain in your own words how it correlates with each layer of the chocolate cherry.
Crust: Chocolate shell - the outer most layer -brittle and easy to break
Mantle: The Goo- it is flexible and somewhat fluid.
Outer Core: The Cherry - very liquid but dense, just like the cherry.
Inner Core: The Pit - solid iron inner core
(Usually the pit is removed before the cherry becomes candy… so use your imagination)
Step 6: Next explain in your words, how the Earth is NOT like a chocolate covered cherry and how you know this to be true.
Step 7: You may now eat the other have of your chocolate covered candy. Clean up your workstation and wash your hands
PERSEPHONE
Gorgeous isn’t it?
HADES
Isn’t what?
PERSEPHONE
The World.
HADES
How do you know?
PERSEPHONE
How do I know what?
HADES
You can’t see most of it.
PERSEPHONE
I can only judge what I see.
HADES
That’s a fairly dumb answer.
PERSEPHONE
Well you don’t have to listen to me.
HADES
If I don’t, will you keep talking anyway?
PERSEPHONE
Feel free to keep walking.
HADES
What’s your name?
PERSEPHONE (pause)
Persephone. And you are?
HADES
Uhh. Steve?
PERSEPHONE
Hi Steve. So you don’t think it’s gorgeous today?
HADES
I’m withholding judgment.
PERSEPHONE
Why bother?
HADES
I don’t like to be wrong.
PERSEPHONE
Well then I guess you don’t say very much, huh?
HADES
Well I just know a lot.
PERSEPHONE
I bet.
HADES
Ask me something.
PERSEPHONE
Why? So you can impress me with your vast knowledge?
HADES
Well it would just be a shame for someone so beautiful to be so stupid.
PERSEPHONE
You’re an ass hole.
HADES
See? You’re getting smarter already.
PERSEPHONE
I guess so.
(Pause.)
HADES
So did you ever think about what you can’t see?
PERSEPHONE
What do you mean?
HADES
What you can’t see.
PERSEPHONE (pause, stares)
I’m not deaf, thanks. Are you talking about like the thousands of bacteria swarming all around the air and my body, or are you talking about a realm of reality beyond my senses.
HADES
The latter.
PERSEPHONE
So you’re asking me if I think about the things I can’t sense, have no way of sensing, may or may not exist, and have no way of affecting anything I will ever do?
HADES
More or less.
PERSEPHONE
Why would I bother?
HADES
You have no interest in why things happen?
PERSEPHONE
No.
HADES
Oh.
PERSEPHONE
As long as my world continues to behave as it does, what do I care if an unseen force is pulling the strings?
HADES
Well, what if it’s not a benevolent force? What if it’s a sinister one?
PERSEPHONE
It’s been pretty good to me so far.
HADES
Fortunes change.
PERSEPHONE
And what do you have in mind?
HADES
Get rid of it. Learn how to pull the strings myself.
PERSEPHONE (Pause)
Well good luck with that.
HADES
Or worse yet, what if nothing is pulling the strings?
PERSEPHONE
I don’t see how that’s worse.
HADES
Doesn’t it worry you that the floor could drop out from under you at any minute?
PERSEPHONE
I don’t know you well enough to get into that.
HADES
Everyone has doubts.
PERSEPHONE
Not everyone.
HADES
What are you doing right now?
PERSEPHONE
I’m talking to you.
HADES
I mean generally.
PERSEPHONE
Tending to my garden.
HADES
Oh.
PERSEPHONE
Why?
HADES
You know, I thought maybe you’d want to take a walk with me.
PERSEPHONE
Sure, Steve.
II. The Journey into the Underworld
There is no music. It’s just this high-pitched squeal. Persephone finds herself alone.
Persephone upstage left (backed-into-a-corner-esque)
Sound of a door opening
Voice1: begins to whisper a confession/plea for help (and/or self-torture)
Another door opens
Voice 2: overlapping with voice one - similar elements different confession
Voices add and build in volume - till it is high speed, chaotic noise (the sound of doors opening an closing are added to the voices)
Hades enters, the sound of a door shutting, silence
Movement/interaction of Persephone and Hades in silence
Drawing together- pushing apart - never actually touching, but almost caressing
Building up to the point of almost kissing
Freeze
P: don't touch me (she kisses him)
He pushes her violently away, they stare at each other, she steps forward, he turns and exits. TV turns on. The floor is divided into sections with white tape. Film the taping of the floor as it happens or film before, and broadcast simultaneously. Persephone is pushed into the square by Him.
"You'll stay here until you love it."
She stays there on her knees at first. Then She starts crawling on her hands and knees around the circle, slowly getting down to lying on stomach and barely moving. Then, he comes back, kneels next to Her.
Him: Do you love it here?
P: yes.
Him: No, you don't. You don't love it.
P: Yes, I do.
Him: I don't believe you. You're lying to me.
P: I love it here.
Him: Liar! You'll never love it here. You don't love me.
P: I love it here.
Him: With passion.
P: I love it here.
Him: More passion.
P: I love it here.
Persephone's head drops. He drags her motionless body out. Blackout!
When lights are up, He drags Persephone’s body into the same square.
"You'll stay here until you love it."
III. ALONE In the Underworld
Video of people in their rooms. Actors watch, backs to audience. Lounge.
Overnight, staying up...
Blood. toothbrush
Persephone upstage left (backed-into-a-corner-esque)
sound of a door opening
Voice1: begins to whisper a confession/plea for help (and/or self-torture)
Another door opens
Voice2: overlapping with voice one - similar elements different confession
Voices add and build in volume - till it is high speed, chaotic noise (the sound of doors opening an closing are added to the voices)
Hades enters, the sound of a door shutting, silence
Movement/interaction of Persephone and Hades in silence
Drawing together- pushing apart - never actually touching, but almost caressing
Building up to the point of almost kissing
Freeze
P: don't touch me (she kisses him)
He pushes her violently away, they stare at each other, she steps forward, he turns and exits
a TV turns on
IV. Becoming Queen of the Underworld
It is dark. We see nothing but darkness. Hear nothing. And then, breathing. Two notes on the piano. High Low. And then, the smallest of lights. Illuminating, just barely, the faces of our two reclining heros, intertwined and in love. The light is, perhaps, concealed in the hand of one hero, tenderly caressing the face of the other. They breathe. Slowly. Almost together. Almost one soul in this village of the damned. But there is resistance, too. There is something keeping the two from becoming singular. It is expressed in a halting of ones breath, in the slightest repulsion to the other’s skin. It is small. But it is there. And it is IMPORTANT. Absolutely CRITICAL. These two continue breathing, caressing. Slowly.
They speak together. The light flickers.
Well?
well?
Hmm.
Yeah.
Yes.
Well.
Mmm.
Okay.
There are massive tree-flowers that suggest organs of a body, torn out, still glistening with undried blood; there are harsh cries and sibilant hissings and thrashing sounds in the garden as if it were inhabited by beasts, serpents and birds, all of savage nature…
Love.
Love.
Hmm.
The light dies out.
Some more breathing. Some more piano.
Breathing stops.
And all is well in the world.
V. Persephone Speaks
I found myself wanting to hang out with Satan. Somehow he seemed a little less intimidating than Jesus. I was laughing in Devil’s face when he pointed to me and exposed my “drinking and drugging” problems. But that was still OK. Whether I laugh or not, I know I’m in Hell, I already saw people in pain – I’m Ok with that. Maybe I wanted to stay in the darkened red smoky cozy room because it was hot in there. I love hot. Hot is awesome especially when it is pouring outside, and it’s freezing, and I just don’t want to move anymore because I’m tired, and I have stomach pains as it is.
So when they dragged us into the white room with the creepy Angel and the Jesus…I didn’t feel like praying. Then all scary Christians say Congratulations and sing Evangelical songs, and offer me some pink-red-diluted blood looking punch and donuts. Uh, no. I don’t feel like eating those donuts in this big white room where you can “pin your sin on Jesus.” All I wanted was to go back into that small, stuffy, smoky, red room with Satan. I just wanted to be WARM.
I've been watching a lot of TV lately and it has got me thinking.. As I watch yet another 3AM marathon of the three stooges.. Suddenly it all makes sense –the universe tips forward to show me its cards: three threes.
It may not be a winning poker hand, but I'm starting to see threes everywhere.. in my cereal -snap/crackle/pop – in a late night infomercial for "The Best of Peter, Paul and Mary Volume III", and in a classic 'three men walked into a bar' joke that greets me in the break-room at work.
Let’s dig a little deeper- there's Freud's id, ego and superego and Aristotle's principle of the three unities of time, place and action. There's the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In Hinduism, the manifestation of the Godhead is seen in Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva and they are related to the three gunas of reality: rajas, sattva and tamas (okay so I looked that one up when I should have been working, but who's counting). Time is represented by Three: past, present and future. Action is also represented by Three: subject, verb, object.
Three strikes and you're out. Third time's a charm. Bad things happen in threes. Three primary colors. Once, Twice, Three times a lady. Threesomes (need I say more?), los tres caballeros, three tenors, three wise men, three musketeers, three's company. Three is a magic number in fairytales: three wishes three bears, three little pigs, three billy goats Gruff, it often takes at least two failed attempts for any hero to succeed..
In Greek mythology: 3 fates, 3 furies, 3 graces, 3-gorgons, 3 Cyclops, 3 harpies, Hades dog Cerberus has three heads, his captive bride, Persephone, was doomed by three pomegranate seeds…or was 4..or 6..
(pause)
But what do I know? I haven’t slept in days.
VI. Leaving the Underworld
People cutting open pomegranate. Lots of pomegranate. Ripping open. Tearing. Squeezing. Forcing. You know, like...opening pomegranate. Pomegranate is violently smeared on Scott's bare chest and face.
Shouted: The interior is blended with a fantastic garden which is more like a tropical jungle, or forest, in the prehistoric age of giant fern-forests when living creatures had flippers turning to limbs and scales to skin. The colors of this jungle-garden are violent, especially since it is steaming with heat after rain. There are massive tree-flowers that suggest organs of a body, torn out, still glistening with undried blood; there are harsh cries and sibilant hissings and thrashing sounds in the garden as if it were inhabited by beasts, serpents and birds, all of savage nature….
That’s all for now! Coming soon: What you won’t see released at MacWorld S.F. 2007!
