Mapping the Soul

By Lucy Gough.

© Copyright 2004 Lucy Gough. All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transcribed in any form or by any means, including, but not limited to electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other means, without prior written permission of the Author.

Characters:

ADAM.

EVE.

POET.

THE POETS SOUL.

THE POETS SHADOW.

SKULLCOAT/GOD.

FELLSWOOP (WHO IS MASKED AND WEARS A TATTOO OF AN ANGEL WING ON HIS ARM)

UNDERLIFE (ALSO MASKED WITH A TATTOO OF A SNAKE ON HIS ARM)

THE ANATOMIST.

HIS ASSISTANT.

SPECTATORS (MADE UP FROM CHORUS'S)

DEATH.

BEAUTY.

HUNG MAN.

2 GRAVEDIGGERS.

CHORUS 1:

CHORUS 2:

MADE UP OF SINEATERS, WOLFPACKERS, SIRENS and BEGGARS.

GUARDIANS OF THE CORPOREAL BODY:

FLESH.

BONE.

SINEW.

THE DEAD AT THE FEAST.

SETTINGS:

PARADISE: LIGHT, WITH ONE TREE.

WILDERNESS: DARK, OUT On the edge with gangs of young men wolf paCking WEARING wolfskins. some yOung girls (SIRENS) ARE tattooing skulls and crossbones on themselves. THERE ARE ALSO packs of beggArs, AND sineaters, ALL OF WHICH MAKE UP THE SECOND CHORUS. ALL ARE DRESSED EITHER in the SUBCULTURE OF THE 21st CENTURY OR MEDIEVAL, SOME A MIXTURE OF THE TWO.

A NUMBER OF UNLOCATED POOLS OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS.

A GRAVE.

AN ANATOMIST'S TABLE.

A CROSSROADS.

UNDERGROUND.

ACT 1: THE FALL.

ACT 1: SCENE ONE:

IN DARKNESS.

ChORUS 1

On the edge of our minds is a place.

A savage wilderness.

From which thought longs to return.

And where the deepest darkest thoughts lurk.

Away from the light.

Where allegory strides the forests naked.

And metaphors swim the seas until bloodily harpooned.

In this place.

In this darkness.

The genesis of The Fall is in it’s creation.

FROM OUT OF THE DARKNESS CHORUS 1 APPEARS.

ChORUS 1:

In the beginning was the word.

And the word was…

ADAM AND EVE ARE SITTING IN A PATCH OF SUNLIGHT (PARADISE) BESIDE A TREE. EVE IS CUTTING OPEN A POMEGRANATE, ADAM IS ENGROSSED IN A BIG BOOK.

ADAM:

Cag…

(READING FROM THE BOOK)

Cag. Cag. Cag.

ChORUS 1:

Destiny.

Sanity.

Life.

Depending on the repetition of a word.

EVE OPENS THE POMEGRANATE.

EVE:

(SEDUCTIVELY TO ADAM)

Pomegranate?

ADAM:

No!

EVE:

(SUGGESTIVELY)

I could feed you with it.

ADAM:

(NOT LOOKING UP)

Leave me alone… I’m concentrating.

EVE LOOKS FED UP, ADAM STAYS ENGROSSED IN HIS BOOK.

ChORUS 1:

From Genesis to Genome.

Man has straddled the cusp of knowledge.

Teetered on it’s precipice.

Until plunged into it’s darkness as the final grasp is made,

and the principle of death is born in the fall.

The beginning is the end.

The creation is the fall.

The tree of knowledge rifled.

The fruit eaten.

And the map of man is written.

Into body.

Into book.

EVE IS EATING THE POMEGRANATE SEDUCTIVELY TRYING TO ATTRACT ADAMS ATTENTION. MEANWHILE ADAM IS STILL STUDYING THE LARGE BOOK HE IS RECITING STRANGE WORDS THAT ARE ALMOST LIKE A SPELL.

ADAM:

(AS HE CONCENTRATES HARD ON THE BOOK)

Cag, cag, cag.

EVE:

(OFFERING A SEED)

Just a little of it?

ADAM:

(IGNORING HER)

Cag, cag, cag.

EVE:

You can do all that later.

ADAM:

I’m concentrating.

EVE:

I could feed you; seed by seed.

SILENCE FOR A WHILE AS ADAM CONCENTRATES ON HIS BOOK AND EVE PICKS SEEDS OUT OF THE POMEGRANATE AND EATS THEM seductively to attract adam’s attention. HE IS NOT TAKING ANY NOTICE. SUDDENLY ADAM SHOUTS, STARTLING EVE.

ADAM:

Yes! Got it! I’ve got it. It’s here, it’s all here!

(HE WALKS OVER TO EVE. AND SHOWS HER THE BOOK. HE IS FULL OF HIMSELF AND BEING VERY ARROGANT)

See this? I have it!

EVE:

(DISMISSIVE. POPS ANOTHER POMEGRANATE SEED INTO HER MOUTH)

A book?

ADAM:

(IGNORES HER. HE CARRIES ON)

I have it all. The knowledge. I have mapped out Man. Every bit of him. Every gene. I know everything there is to know! What diseases he will die of. Every bit of him is mapped out. See here.

EVE:

(DISMISSIVE)

But we knew already the parts of a man, what’s new about this?

ADAM:

I can read man like a book. Every bit, every word is here. I can read the destiny of any Man.

EVE:

So now you will want to change man’s destiny.

ADAM:

(SARCASTICALLY)

Yes.

EVE:

(TAKES THE BOOK)

Let me see.

(STUDIES THE BOOK)

This is like a magic spell. It makes no sense.

ADAM:

(REELING OFF KNOWLEDGE)

We have twice as many genes as an earthworm.

EVE:

(SARKY)

That many?

ADAM:

And the fruit fly.

EVE:

(SARKY)

They have wings which is more than you do.

(POINTS TO SOME CODE IN THE BOOK)

What about that? What does that say?

ADAM:

(DOESN’T KNOW)

Nothing.

EVE:

How can it say nothing?

ADAM:

It’s just rubbish. There’s a lot of rubbish in this genome stuff! Just rubbish.

EVE:

Why am I not surprised?

ADAM:

(MOVES ON)

But the big thing. The important thing is this!

(PROUDLY HOLDING UP THE BOOK)

In this book I have proof. I have proof that man has no soul.

EVE:

The sort of thing you’d expect an earthworm to say.

ADAM:

(IGNORES HER)

I have discovered that there is no such thing as a soul. There is no DNA for the soul!

ChORUS 1:

Mortality becomes predestined.

Like Tireseus’s curse;

Knowledge becomes ignorance.

A deep dark ignorance.

With the loss of the soul.

BACK TO ADAM AND EVE.

ADAM:

Man exists without a soul.

ChORUS 1:

It began as nothing.

And in nothing it ends!

AN ALARM SOUNDS. ENTER SKULLCOAT WITH HIS GOD MASK.

GOD:

Who has been meddling?

ADAM:

(PANICS)

It was her! It was her idea to meddle. Her idea to find out everything. I tried to tell her…

EVE:

You snake.

ADAM:

Look what you’ve done.

EVE:

Me?

ADAM:

(WHISPERING)

If you hadn’t…

(LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO BLAME HER WITH. POINTS TO THE POMEGRANATE)

If you hadn’t eaten that. If you hadn’t cut it open and consumed it.

GOD:

(SHOUTING)

What is going on?

ADAM:

It’s all right I’m getting her under control.

EVE:

(TO SKULLCOAT)

He says there’s no soul. He says there is no such thing as the soul.

ChORUS 1:

Like Tireseus’s curse;

Knowledge becomes ignorance.

A deep dark ignorance.

With the loss of the soul.

GOD:

(FIRMLY)

You stand in your shadow, making it night.

You must leave this place, you are banished from it’s light.

ADAM:

(FEEBLY)

Can I take my book with me?

GOD:

For all the good it will do you.

GO TO BLACK OUT.