Ovid's Meta-Mulberries

Here is the script of a short play I wrote as part of my Creative Writing degree. It's part of a module called Transformations, in which we've studied Ovid's Metamorphosis, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Ali Smith's Girl Meets Boy. All of these texts talk about how we're always transforming, and here is my attempt to demonstrate the module's overall theme, that stories themselves can be entirely original, even when they're just a bunch of other texts transformed...

Ovid's Meta-Mulberries

Bare stage. PATRICK and KRISTIE shuffle on from opposite sides. Patrick wears a Golf brand T-shirt and light brown chinos; Kristie wears black lipstick, high boots and a T-shirt with Iron Maiden’s Seventh Son of a Seventh Son album cover on it. They stand still six feet apart, hands behind their backs, neither facing the other. They focus on the audience.

PAT: Hi.

KRIS: Hi.

PAT: Hi.

KRIS: Hi?

PAT: Oh did I already-

KRIS: Woo two?

PAT: What?

KRIS: Woo two - it means what you up to.

PAT: Oh, not much. You?

KRIS: Not much.

BOTH: Oh, I’m doing a performance actually-

PAT: Yeah I’m in front of an audience right now.

KRIS: Me too.

Long pause.

PAT: So.

KRIS: Yeah. It’s nice.

PAT: The audience?

KRIS: I guess. Do you like them?

PAT: I don’t know.

KRIS: Yeah I get that.

WILL is in the audience, a normal guy in plain clothes. He stands up.

WILL: Boring!

PAT: (after a pause) Did he just?

KRIS: I think so. Do we...?

PAT: I don’t know.

WILL: (moving onstage) You two. I can’t bear it. We can’t sit and watch this. You need to do something. (looks back to audience) Oh.

If my outburst has offended,

Think but this and all is mended:

These two but perform a dream!

Some young playwright now unseen

Directs even dreamy me     (puts on a Shakespearean ruff)

Through their mirthful tragedy.

Now watch as I transform their act - (produces a handful of mulberries)

With mulberries from Ovid ‘sacked - 

From one that’s tediously brief

To one of passionate relief.

These berries red with ancient blood

Reveal, when taken in as food, (puts a berry in pat and kris’ mouths)

The true colours of them who ate -

Patrick and Kristie, who have been swooning, clutching their heads and looking dizzy since eating the berries, now fall to the ground, asleep.

They’ll speak their malefactions straight.

They’ll drop that actor’s dream, deceit,

And play their characters complete.

I give you now two tragic youth,

Who shall for you perform their truth!

Will kicks Patrick and Kristie and runs backstage. They wake up, rubbing their heads, and then-

KRIS: O quell this flame that torments me!

PAT: Does heartburn maim and torture thee?

That was a spicy mulberry!

KRIS: My heart doth burn, and painfully,

But bury thoughts of berries - I

Am hot for thee, by sight of thy

Proximity am thus inflamed.

By Cupid’s shaft my flesh is maimed.

PAT: Who is this Cupid? He shall die

That ever he did pierce my

Beloved Belle-

KRIS: He is a myth!

PAT: He could be man, he could be Miss,

But I shall never miss my chance

To kill this Cupid you entranced.

KRIS: Though you be stupid, still my love

Compounds, compels, wants me to move

To kiss, to cuddle, and, what next?

To lie with you and to -

Pause. Pat looks at Kris with pleading excitement

- I’m vexed.

PAT: But do not now your thoughts betray!

It seemed you were about to say-

KRIS: -I know not ‘seems’. My burden is

To know that we shall never kiss.

PAT: Not kiss? But love, you just declared-

KRIS: -And now I have become too scared.

PAT: Is this that shaft of Cupid’s fault?

She won’t withstand my wrath’s assault-

KRIS: Don’t kill ‘Miss’ Cupid. Turn instead

Your beautiful mis-tutored head

Toward this crowd that cackles down; (gestures at audience)

I can’t kiss you while they’re around.

Will peeks out from backstage wearing a stage technician’s outfit. He gestures to Kristie, who sees him. Patrick does not see.

KRIS: Await me love. I’m called backstage.

PAT: Brief absence seems a tedious age

When love is-

KRIS: -Right. I’ll not be long. (exits backstage)

PAT: Within my heart’s where you belong!

Alas, she goes, and with her, light

That… lightens my brain’s load. I’m bright

As long as I’m with her, although

From your guffaws you say ‘not so.’

A stopped clock’s right when wind blows East-

Oh God perhaps she’s killed by beast?

Patrick delivers this line and turns away, just before the backstage curtain opens and Kris emerges, with a paper plate over her face with a lion’s head drawn on it. She stumbles around, unable to see. Will, back in bard costume, emerges and guides her toward Patrick.

Why does she dwell so long off-stage?

My youth is drained, I crease with age!

How long must I be- (turns)

Christ the Lord!

Will claps a single clap and the characters freeze - Patrick in a rather humiliating stance of terror, Kris in nervous confusion. Will steps forward.

WILL: Well now we’re all no longer bored,

I thought I’d bring a lion in,

To wear its wearer’s lying thin.

Now she can’t see her audience,

She’ll have no need for more defence.

She’ll kiss this ass for comedy,

And you’ll all thank me heartily.

Will claps again and the characters move. He stays onstage this time, watching, but neither character notices his presence.

PAT: Stand, beast! Art thou the foul thing

Called Cupid? Now to thee I’ll bring

Destruction, death-

KRIS: -I’m not, my love.

I am your love, by God above.

PAT: Then you are Kristie quite transformed!

KRIS: I may be new, I feel warmed

By features furry, teeth blade-sharp

But that force which my body warped

Has kept my soul the same. It’s me!

You’re Pyramus, and I’m Thisbe.

PAT: I’m Patrick, but I’ll take your word.

You have the voice I’ve never heard

In anyone but Kristie. Roar,

Then, why we couldn’t kiss before.

KRIS: Are we alone? I cannot see.

PAT: If no-one’s there do you agree

To tell?

KRIS: I do.

PAT: We’re solitary.

KRIS: I couldn’t kiss until you knew

The secret I have kept from you.

Now we’re alone, I truly can

Reveal to you: I am a man.

PAT: (aside) Oh bring a blade to me, of steel

That cuts through bodies clean! The real

Brief tragedy emerges now,

Brought by my lies! For tell me how

It’s possible to tell my man

To lose his lion mask. We’ve ran

Into our tragic fate! If he

Unmasks, he’ll hate the lying me.

This doesn’t seem to be going to Will’s plan at all. But he hurries backstage and produces a sword, seeming reluctant to give it to Patrick.

He’ll know you witnessed him perform

His coming-out, and me he’ll scorn!

But if he stays this beast, the Earth

Will lose its Kristie, font of mirth -

Whiche’er man’s name he now does choose - 

This is a man our world can’t lose!

Patrick seizes the sword from Will. Kristie, oblivious, is clawing at his own mask.

Now I might do it, Pat, and end (stabs himself)

My story - I could not pretend

To be a truthful man when I

Have lied so gruesomely; goodbye!

The prospect of his scorn-

-I die. (dies)

Kristie pushes a hole in his lion mask, jumping happily.

KRIS: I’ve managed to unchain one eye!

But what rare vision does it see? (sees patrick)

Do eyes have dreams? Mine lies to me.

My love asleep in crimson bed,

To die, to sleep - god! Is he dead?

Most nightmare-like this scene appears,

Here dramatized my nightly fears

That he would scorn my lion’s-pride

Though both our hearts were close-allied.

I can’t believe he’d so betray-

And yet! You’re here, as plain as day! (looks at audience)

My love the actor couldn’t take

The truth. Well neither shall I fake. (picks up sword)

I die for his, my, your, mistake. (kills himself)

There is a long pause, and then Will steps awkwardly around the bodies.

WILL: Well that’s not quite what I’d intended.

But… Just think this and all is mended:

Erm… I’ll be honest here guys. I’ve got nothing. That was fucked up. I guess your consolation is that this was just a play? So none of it was true.

Patrick and Kristie stand up, smiling, dusting themselves off.

KRIS: William! you should know better than anyone that all plays are true. (to Patrick) Dave, we’ve been performing this onstage love for a long time now and I’ve got something to tell you. 

PAT: I’ve got something too. Is it that you love me for real? Because I’d rather you didn’t say that in front of everyone.

KRIS: You learned nothing from this play, did you? (they kiss)

Blackout. End.