The audience waits in dim light. They hear the sound of paper fluttering, sliding, and crinkling, before they see the source of the sound: a scroll continuously winding and unwinding around two invisible spools. The paper of the scroll is thin, translucent, skin-like. Ink seeps into the paper to form words, like blood bleeding out of veins behind the skin. For a while, the light remains dim, so that the audience can only recognize the dark shapes as words but cannot read them. Then, gradually, the light becomes bright enough for the audience to read the words that continuously unroll on the moving scroll, only fragments of phrases in focus at any moment.
Not a sound
no sound but the crinkles
vibrating over a membrane
a skin with no flesh
drained of blood
how thin you have become
a surface of haze
Light moves up from the moving scroll so that the audience can see two hands cranking it from above. The skin of the hands is thin, translucent, paper-like.
No lips to part
lips too dry to squeeze words into shape
the words you once made me speak
now flattened, colorless, stilled, yet still moving
as a voice I visited you, remember
how thin I was then
a blur in the shadow
Light moves further up. From the hands emerge the arms, and then a body of dark veins, all entangled like lines of words. The veins climb towards a dark opening at the edge of the lighted area. Silent shapes of words gush out as dark lips continuously touch and part.
No lids
eyes wide open
screens pumped by dark veins
waiting for footsteps pressing into the skull
the beginning of next breath
the sudden flash
Light moves further up. Two eyes catch the light and glimmer like pools of ink. They are dark, infinitely deep, saturated, unlike the frail and arid scroll paper.
No black out
no fade to light
always a shade
eyes turned to the page
small black strokes that suck them in
the only way to close eyes while open
thought you were safe, didn’t you
in that little world behind your eyes
waiting for nothing but the next word
all the while
straining to breathe
to hear the feet
to close the lids
The rolling speed of the scroll picks up.
Brain tired straining
all the time
weighing down the breath
softening the footsteps in the skull
squeezing the lids when the flash comes
tearing words into painless sounds
cannot go on
all the time
Breath shaking
footsteps piercing
sudden flash
words cutting through flesh
Losing heart
cannot go on
all the time
so you thinned
and I thickened
sucking you out of you
absorbing you into me
It is rolling so fast that the entire scroll is trembling. The paper and the body become almost indistinguishable from each other, simultaneously merging into and tearing away from each other.
Imagine me
The rolling speed of the scroll slows down.
my eyes
Light gradually moves down—
my lips
—until only the hands are visible.
my voice
The scroll pauses for a moment and then continues to roll.
Ever guess where the flash came from
ever try to guess what it was like
body slowly drying up till so thin
a sheet like the page
remember how it was
how quietly I screamed behind every word you read
a roar too low to hear
how plainly I gazed at you as you saw through me
a skin swallowed by shadows
It starts again in you, doesn’t it
you feel it rolling, don’t you
get your eyes off me, you would have screamed
let me speak, you would have pleaded
unrelenting fingers, you would have sighed
look at you now
a skin with no flesh
drained of blood
so pale in light
too powerless to fight
a wrapper ever folding in on itself
Light begins to dim.
On and off
around and around
words thicken into shadow and shadow thins into words
Light has now become so dim that the words are mere shadows.
No sound but the crinkles
in this crinkling voice I speak
it starts again in you, doesn’t it
you feel it rolling, don’t you
on and off
around and around
…
The play restarts in the dim light as the scroll loops back on itself.
read
Crankie, the following words, and
imagine
being a theatre audience is not as natural as it seems. Among the many expected tasks to be accomplished, the most problematic—yet indispensable and intuitive—one is to act along with those on stage and commit to the construction of an invisible wall. As if that is not challenging enough, now experiment with
read
it, theatrical by itself, as if the premise of physical reality could be disregarded. Unlike an audience, readers neither bother to hide in the dark, nor have any moral concerns about being an omnipotent peeper. The violation, however tactfully concealed under this act, is nearly as condemned and acknowledged compared to that of watching due to its nature.
read
the small black strokes, drift, the eyes, sucked into the brain, and in there the space, the action, and the audience is
one.
read
to look at the invisible, we witness the perpetual cycling of death and reincarnation as our eyes caress the words, only to find a vitality so strong it burns, an uncanny intimacy…how
she
had lived…lived on and on…[1]
in pure isolation,
read
………, Words.
right, phew, all relieved.
no breath, not a human being, not a character growing flesh and skin, so thin, in
the Reality.
yes…
eyes wide open…cannot stop…right back
stares…
certain vowel sounds…What?…who?…no!…she!…….the buzzing?…..yes…….all dead still but for the buzzing[2]
read
those imprisoned. On or off stage, we are no different on either side of the wall. Cannot go on. Thought you were safe, didn’t you? Now the space is filled with disturbance, and the darkness encompasses an anxiety of full exposure.
read
shadows: the perfect metaphor for a half-being, with the ability to simultaneously become and decease, to be, just shadows, forming and disappearing, always there and not there, talking to somebody and to no-body, screaming to get out and sinking right back in.
read
theater? Are imagination and performance contradictory? Is it problematic to assume that a script is to be read? How is a script, a “theater to be made,” considered theater at all? Should we create a world with no limits on a physical stage, or at least present that infinity? Is watching (in comparison) more ethical? Why do we immediately accept, or ignore the theatricality of presentation and representation in any form?
read
the crankie. How cruel: paper is not more organic than the human body, and the crinkling sound only reminds us of what it was, then melted, and then reformed, so are
words.
what could stand in between us?
What…who?…we?…no!
Is it problematic to assume that Crankie and the following words should be “read”?
Being a theater audience is not as natural as it seems. Among the many expected tasks to be accomplished, the most problematic—yet indispensable and intuitive—one is to act along with those on stage and commit to the construction of an invisible wall. As if that is not challenging enough, now experiment with reading.
It is theatrical by itself, as if the premise of physical reality could be disregarded. The violation, however, tactfully concealed under this act, is nearly as condemned and acknowledged compared to that of watching due to its nature. Unlike an audience, readers neither bother to hide in the dark, nor have any moral concerns about being an omnipotent peeper. The words are sucked directly into the brain, and in there the space, the action, and the audience merge into one.
To read is to look at the invisible. Readers witness the perpetual cycling of death and reincarnation as their eyes follow the lines, only to find a vitality so strong it burns, and an uncanny intimacy, generated from pure isolation.
It is not real.
Right…phew…all relieved…no!… words are moving…eyes wide open…stares back…What? . . . who? . . . no! . . . she![3]
Not real. Not a human being, not a character growing flesh and skin in “the reality.” Just shadows, forming and disappearing, simply be-ing, always there and not there, talking to somebody and to nobody, screaming to get out and sinking right back in.
Where is the wall? The emperor is not wearing any clothes. We are no different from those imprisoned on stage. Now the space is filled with disturbance, and the darkness encompasses an anxiety of full exposure. Cannot go on. Thought you were safe, didn’t you? Thought you were in charge, with your body hiding in the dark and your eyes still in your control. Forget about acting, just blend into the shadows—the perfect metaphor for a half-being, with the ability to simultaneously become and decease.
Are imagination and theater contradictory? How is a script, a “theater to be made,” considered theater at all? Should we create a world with no limits on a physical stage, or at least present that infinity? Is watching (in comparison) more ethical? Why do we immediately accept, or ignore the theatricality of presentation and representation in any form?
How cruel: paper is not more organic than the human body, and the crinkling sound only reminds us of what it was, then melted, and then reformed.
What?…who?…we? …no!
[1] Samuel Beckett, The Collected Shorter Plays (New York: Grove Press, 1984), 206.
[2] Beckett, 204.
[3] Samuel Beckett, The Collected Shorter Plays (New York: Grove Press, 1984), 204.