A video of The Blind Tongue by Gary Lee Joyner and Mark Warhol can by found at this YouTube link (I wrote the libretto and directed this production):
Here is the libretto:
THE BLIND TONGUE
Gary Joyner
© Copyright 2000 by Gary Joyner
“Our motions resolved the landscape into concentric circles revolving at different rates depending on the distance.” Witold Gombrowicz
INTRO SCENE
Flute enters and begins playing. Flute is joined by He, She, and Marimba in a ritual circle. He gravitates to the center of the circle. Flute stops playing, turns to him, leans over and extends flute toward him . They can’t quite manage to touch.
He: (Sings to Flute)Some stammering god spit
And I was hurled into being
Against my will
Hesitant, unsure
(Spoken) No, that’s not right
(Sings to Marimba) Existence was injected into me
An inoculation of enthusiastic quickening
Immunized against this daily disease
(Spoken) Try again
(Sings to She) Someone sent a message
That never arrives
In a language I cannot read
He looks at the message, but the language is in the music, the flute repeats sounds from the opening of the play.
In the beginning was the word
And the word was night
And the night was a stammering circle
Of repetition
(He stops singing, looks to the left, to the right, and down. He suddenly looks straight ahead and says clearly) Begin
SCENE I
Flute enters, followed by He.
He: Ah, this one
I haven’t seen it for weeks
The message will be in blood
On the wall
Here
He continues to explore the area and follow Flute. Flute points out a new development. A woman has appeared. Her head is draped with a large cloth. She takes a step one way, stops, takes a step another way. Her fingers individually move as if they possess vision. Through the rest of the scene he moves around her in a diminishing spiral until he is near enough to remove the covering from her head.
He: (Spoken) Something new
She: He had the head of a rooster
With aquarium eyes
A leaky birdcage heart
That beat da-DA, pa-PA, da-DA, pa-PA
His hands were military parades
He was simplicity
He was a museum coat rack
He was an open window
He was the stillness at the center of a chessboard
He: Sister
Your fingertips
Alter the walls of this cave
They draw hunger and the hunt
They give shape to desire and need
(Whispers) Come to me
She: What do you see?
He: I hear the decay of ice
She: What do you see?
He: My nostrils flare
The stench of rotting snow
She: What do you see?
He: Mouth inside of mouth
Beyond the cave door
I see the horizon lift its lip
Exposing teeth smeared with blood
They laugh like a startled jackal
She: You confuse me
He: I see yellow eyes of wisdom
She: (Moans)
He: I see a heaving breast
Wordless
Animal
Breath
She: Temptation
Music builds to the instant when the man reaches out and whips off the drape. A red sash is bound around her head and eyes. She remains blinded.
He: (Looking out) Begin again.
Blackout
SCENE II
The woman is at a table. She is a seer of some sort. She studies a layout of fortune-telling cards. He enters.
He: I return.
She: Return?
He: I was here last night
She: It means nothing to me
He: (He holds up a picture of himself) What do you see?
She: I see a man
He: (Spoken) Ha! Your are wrong
(Sung) As always, you are wrong!
It is the image of a man
How can you help me
If you can’t get this right?
(Presents himself) What do you see?
She: Now I see a man
He: (Spoken) Wrong again!
(Sung) You are hopeless
I too am an image
A phantom of the night
She: What do you want?
He: To throw light on a mystery
She: Light creates shadow
Illusion is its child
(Looking into the cards) A dying red ember in a bowl of darkness
He: (He looks over her shoulder) What do you see?
She: First you must confess.
He: There is nothing.
She: Confess!
He:: (thinks a moment) In my home
Not one thought remains
I am naked
Before I undress
She: More.
He: (Looks at Flute, who has moved near him) I met a woman in a bar
She had the eyes of a cat
Her teeth were torn from a wounded fox
Her scars screamed blasphemies
I followed her into the night
She leaned against a tree
And wept like a lion in church
The flesh is weak.
Wash it away!
Now, what do you see?!
She: (laughs at his pretension as she repeats his words) The flesh is weak
He: (Spoken softly. He kneels before her at her table) Tell me what you see.
She: Rubies drip from a blue cloak
While a tongue is numbed by ice
No more
He: What do you see?
She: No more!
He: Say it!
She: (She stands, looms over him, he crawls away and she follows, towering over him)
A locked door
Lonely thirst
A blade of steel
Hidden in a block of ice
Numbing cold
Painless, a tongue is shredded
The taste of blood excites flesh-lust
Ribbons of scarlet
Cascade from an unbelieving mouth
He: I don’t understand
She: (Laughs long)
He: (Looking out) Again
Blackout
SCENE III
He is down stage, throwing cards into a hat in utter and lost boredom. She moves around an altar up-center. It has a candle and a wolf’s head with an open maw.
She: No icons
No alters that rage
Only brilliant shadows
Across a landscape of holy need
He: (Spoken) She wore a silver amulet
In the shadows below her neck.
He: (Moans) The torment
When she bent forward
I ran my tongue over her body
Tracing unknown letters on her breast
He: First it was dry
Caught and dragged across her skin
Then pink streaks appeared
In a moist trail.
She: I melted with each pass of his tongue.
She: (leans toward him and laughs sensually deep in her throat)
No icons
No altars that rage
Only brilliant shadows
Across a landscape of holy need
She: A noise at the door.
He: It’s nothing
A messenger who never arrives
She: We embraced
In a fury of snaps and snarls
He: It’s only natural
It’s only…
A howling
She: A yelp
A bellow
A howling
He: I bite a bellow
A howling
I am natural
I bite nature on the thigh
She: Midwives revolt
Infants give
Midwives revolt
Infants give birth in the
He: Revolt
Infants give birth in the sunlight
And are sunlight
And are dragged beneath the revolt
She: Infants give birth in the sunlight
And are dragged beneath the sky
He: By red sunlight
And are dragged beneath the sky
She: By red veils
He: Coyotes crawl from their turbans
She: Coyotes crawl from their holes
He: And are dragged beneath the sky
By a red snare
She: Coyotes crawl from their holes
He: And erupt in their holes
She: And erupt in support
He: Another yelp at being holes
She: And erupt in support
He: Another yelp at being reborn
Both: With a broom to dust off
The yelp at being reborn
With a broom to dust off the moon
And howl again at the moon
And howl again at something beyond
They sing together wordlessly, in the new language. The music that finally fades up and away like the howls they described. Then, an uncomfortable silence.
He: (Looking out) Again…
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