To Live (without sound)

SCENE ONE

One, Two figures stand onstage. Both are dressed casually. One, Two breathe in and one, two, three spotlights are turned on behind them. The audience is gasping, in some cases fainting. One ascends (using rope and sandbags) up to the rafters. Two descends, via trapdoor.

[Laugh track]

Setting: Apartment, empty. Five men sit around a wooden table. After a few minutes of silence, each man slowly rises to his feet and exits. Empty set for five minutes. Man knocks on door; door opens. Man enters. Silence for several awkward seconds, Man falls to his knees. Startling noise erupts in the otherwise silent stage. Audience looks puzzled, but soon realizes the man is screaming.

"NOT NOW, NEVER HERE" is screamed, with such passion that several Audience members are brought to tears. Smoke fills the stage, Man disappears.

Two hours pass, the smoke clears. Several Audience members have left. Most have remained. A small, rhythmic tapping can be heard. The tapping grows in volume for the next thirty seconds or so, until a women in high heels walks across the stage. She disappears, stage right. Gunshot rings through the theatre.


SCENE TWO

A small boy, carrying a plastic animal (ambiguous), waltzes across the stage, right to left. After the boy has gone, music begins to play. Screeching and out of tune, it causes several audience members to leave. An elderly gentleman crawls out of the audience and onto the stage. He boasts, in a foreign language, of a revolver taped to his forehead. An armchair is lowered from the rafters, and the man takes a seat. A coffee table, atop of which sits a newspaper, is then slid violently across the stage. It comes to rest in front of the man.

The elderly man peruses the newspaper for twenty minutes or so until, with no explanation, he removes the revolver from his forehead and exits, stage left. Audience member 124 stands and begins to chant: "Nos Volo Magis, Прежде, чем этот показ закончен"

All Audience members stand, and a flurry of curses and screams are thrown at the stage. Anarchy erupts, fights break out. Suddenly, through the doors opposite the stage (behind the quarreling Audience), a dozen doctors run into the theater. On stretchers, the Audience members are carried out into the street. Several Doctors are killed.

SCENE THREE

Time reverses. All that was done has been undone.

One, Two figures stand onstage. Both are dressed casually. One, Two breathe in and one, two, three spotlights are turned on behind them. The audience is gasping, in some cases fainting. One ascends (using rope and sandbags) up to the rafters. Two descends, via trapdoor...