A PERSON SITS AT A
DESK AND TALKS
WRITTEN & PERFORMED:
2018
CAST OF CHARACTERS:
~ Person
2018
CAST OF CHARACTERS:
~ Person
STAGE DESIGN:
The audience enters a barren room that contains only a desk, at which a person is sitting. A projector displays scattered clips of video, ranging from things as ordinary as a cup of tea cooling, to something extraordinary like a woman giving birth. The projection overlays the actor, who is blindfolded and whose hands are bound with barbed wire. In front of them sits a microphone on a stand, from which the person begins to share a series of stories.
** The following passage of text is a only a short excerpt. Please purchase a box of Samphetamine to read the full playscript. **
** The following passage of text is a only a short excerpt. Please purchase a box of Samphetamine to read the full playscript. **
PERSON: I sometimes…wonder…I look…back…think back…what was life like…what was grief…like. Was it…more personal…or perhaps lonelier?
My word. Such loneliness.
My word. Such loneliness.
Such…deception in times of quiet…
Perhaps human behaviour has changed…because of the world of screens we live in. I’m sure George Orwell is sitting somewhere saying,
“I fucking said so”.
“Yes, Mister Orwell” – the public says – “But could you keep it down? Love Island is on you see”.
Perhaps…perhaps I’m being a tad overdramatic. But don’t you think it takes a certain amount of theatricality to grab people’s attention? At least nowadays perhaps. What with Facebook and the news.
Sorry.
I’d hate to start off by boring you. Not because I have some compulsive need for attention that most likely stems from some unmet childhood need for acknowledgement. Nor does it stem from a need to shock strangers to a level that borders on the sociopathic.
I’d hate to start off by boring you. Not because I have some compulsive need for attention that most likely stems from some unmet childhood need for acknowledgement. Nor does it stem from a need to shock strangers to a level that borders on the sociopathic.
And whether you believe I’m being authentic or not is rather irrelevant, when you consider the big scheme of things. As in comparison of the entirety of the universe to an insect. Or the entire history of existence, both future, past and present to this very moment.
This very moment, in which we are both experiencing for the first time and remembering at the same time. This very moment in which we have decided to spend together as an act of living, whilst simultaneously hurtling towards to the inevitable oblivion of the unknown ‘afterlife’. A concept which I find logically hilarious and yet philosophically unsettling, not because of the ramifications presented by many organised cults, cults not religions as they’re all the same fucking thing, in which I am inevitably condemned to fiery judgement for swearing or not fucking my cousin or whatever the fuck they go on about these days. But because of the concept of an eternity in which my consciousness is doomed to…well…complain about the situation.
This very moment, in which we are both experiencing for the first time and remembering at the same time. This very moment in which we have decided to spend together as an act of living, whilst simultaneously hurtling towards to the inevitable oblivion of the unknown ‘afterlife’. A concept which I find logically hilarious and yet philosophically unsettling, not because of the ramifications presented by many organised cults, cults not religions as they’re all the same fucking thing, in which I am inevitably condemned to fiery judgement for swearing or not fucking my cousin or whatever the fuck they go on about these days. But because of the concept of an eternity in which my consciousness is doomed to…well…complain about the situation.
[PAUSE]
I’M SURE GEORGE ORWELL IS SAT SOMEWHERE SAYING, “I FUCKING SAID SO!”
Sorry. I’m sure this must all be very…alienating. I’m sure many of you are used to a certain…format of performance. I’ll make you a deal. When the performance is finished, I’ll say ‘the end’. That’s your signal to clap or cry or storm out in indignant rage. However, in return I have one request. Don’t…don’t anaesthetise yourself to this. Just this once. Don’t view this through the eyes of a theatre audience. Just…be present. Be here, with me, right now. Notice everything. The texture of the walls. What you can smell. What you can hear. Be… Present.
[PAUSE]
Perhaps...I should back up a bit?
To…the beginning. Even that one word sends my fractured thoughts reeling. Ricocheting off the walls like the unheard prayers of the masses in decayed buildings that were erected in honour of a glorified imaginary friend. You may be asking ‘Why are we here?’, as in why are we listening to this rambling recitation of nonsense. ‘Why are we here?’ oh Christ none of us are drunk or stoned enough for that conversation, let’s move on.
To…the beginning. Even that one word sends my fractured thoughts reeling. Ricocheting off the walls like the unheard prayers of the masses in decayed buildings that were erected in honour of a glorified imaginary friend. You may be asking ‘Why are we here?’, as in why are we listening to this rambling recitation of nonsense. ‘Why are we here?’ oh Christ none of us are drunk or stoned enough for that conversation, let’s move on.
To be perfectly frank. I don’t know. I don’t know why you’re here. I don’t know why I’m here. Again, to clarify, I mean within this room, within this social construct we call ‘theatre’ in which you the ‘audience’ observe me the ‘performer’ in some arbitrary act. Not the existential question of ‘why are we here?’
Perhaps to give some shape to the proceedings of this ‘performance’, I should give you some insight into the kind of thought process I go through every day.
Perhaps to give some shape to the proceedings of this ‘performance’, I should give you some insight into the kind of thought process I go through every day.
I’ll go into a coffee chain whose name is so deeply embedded in our collective consciousness that it’s one step away from being defined in the dictionary as ‘a place one goes to autofellate ones’ sense of self under the guise of custom’.
I see a veritable sea of, insert designer brand here, children drinking their hideously overpriced coffee of which the farmers will still see only a miniscule share of. Marketed as fair trade to preserve the illusion of the moralist consumer. They do this while vomiting contemporary jargon into their hideously overpriced pieces of plastic of which the assembly line workers will still only see a miniscule share. Faces illuminated in the same way the inhabitants of Chernobyl looked on towards the developing mushroom cloud.
I see a veritable sea of, insert designer brand here, children drinking their hideously overpriced coffee of which the farmers will still see only a miniscule share of. Marketed as fair trade to preserve the illusion of the moralist consumer. They do this while vomiting contemporary jargon into their hideously overpriced pieces of plastic of which the assembly line workers will still only see a miniscule share. Faces illuminated in the same way the inhabitants of Chernobyl looked on towards the developing mushroom cloud.
But please don’t for one second think I’m speaking from atop my moral soapbox.
Oh no.
I couldn’t haven’t thought up a sentence of this without my low-fat low-sodium gluten and dairy free organic all natural colours coffee, which milk was sourced from a free-range cow that was masturbated hourly to ensure that your drink would taste of absolute satisfaction as to cut out the middle man coming down your throat with gold flaked jizz.
A car screeches loudly as it slams into my inoffensive colourless genderless significant other. Catching under a wheel they are severed into two equal pieces that satisfy the OCD of the crowd looking on in silent horror with unhinged jaws in unison as they mutually masturbate about what they’ll tell their court ordered therapist. Black sludge spills out of my significant others equally split torso. Scorching the road and bubbling with self-entitled obscenities about free parking, compensation and the X-Factor. Now you may be asking how I could know such visual detail of this wreckage. Well if you’ve been paying attention then you’ve probably guessed... I pushed them.
I blink and it turns to night. There’s screaming and laughing echoing in the street, and yet it’s deserted. Turning a corner, I see an endless gaping maw, gurning and drooling as a generation voluntarily poisons itself. Playing hopscotch for the pavement tiles not covered in vomit. I stumble through a crowd of banshees whose once pristine makeup now resembles a damp Salvador Dali painting, the paint now dripping down the canvas into a puddle of self-deprecation. Making it through the bulk of the horde I find the trail of carnage left behind. Bodies scattered along the road, crying and shoving unidentifiable meat in their jaws.