Film Study + The Long Walk
by David Brennan

Film Study

(THE FLY, as played by Jeff Goldblum, swings from side to side of stage, disappearing
momentarily into the wings and reappearing to continue his speech.  Below him RAND,
BRENNAN, WORDSWORTH and COLERIDGE cower.  Tied together at the wrists, they
perform an interpretive Dance of Fear.)

THE FLY
            Passion cannot be verbalized.
            When too much needs saying, and words
            Submerge, but you need, you try
            To say, you harp, you cheep, you are bird
            With single song and wrong vocabulary,
            You say and you say:
           
            Please, Please
            Be finished with me,
            Please finish me off with this
            Nothing litany,
            Nothing if not pain
            Tempered into study. 
           
            It preoccupies your body like a mind.

(Fear is realized.)

The Long Walk

(A giant casket, stretching the length of the stage.  At each corner of the casket stands
a young child.  These children are the PALLBEARERS.  Behind the casket stands THE GREAT
HOW.)

THE GREAT HOW
            The oval moon
            Wears a carnival face
            To gaze down upon
            This casket for the longest bone
            That ever fit a man. 

(PALLBEARERS do the hand-jive.)

            Placebo muse
            Grinning dimples of fire.
            The skin melts.
            The form crumples.
            The box is a feather,
            Hollow and in flight. 

(PALLBEARERS do the hokey-pokey.)

            Sam!  Will!  Dave!  Rich!
            Lift the wood
            To your shoulders.
            We will walk from here. 
            I have been told
            The trail is worn at one end only. 
            How about
            The rest of the way?