Wednesday, February 1, 2012

The Blind Tongue Libretto

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):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruS4RMPsmEQ&feature=related

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…


He:            A yelp
A bellow
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…

Slow fadeout

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