Take The Plunge
/Two men, bathed in light, perch upon the edge of a precipice:
SAMUEL: C’mon now. It’s time for more learning and growth.
Take the plunge!
CHIP: Yeah. No. This ain’t gonna’ happen.
SAMUELl: But, don’t you see….
CHIP: I don’t gotta’ see! Don’t you see?
CHORUS: (A small group of people downstage stage left) - In unison: Neither sees! They don’t see!
LITTLE PRINCE (Enters and “Floats” across stage below.) “It is such a mysterious place, the land of tears.”
FLOWER: (Enters and crosses stage below.)Tears from the sky nourish me!
HEART: (Enters and crosses stage below) Tears cleanse me.
CHIP: Yeah, well, what do floods do for ya’?
SKIPPING GIRL (Skipping across stage below) From the end springs the beginning.
CHI[: (To the audience:) Will someone please shoot her?
CHORUS: (Singing:) What will be will be and There will be an answer...Let it be…
CHIP: (Sighing) Anyway, it’s been such a long time since my last reincarnation gig. It must be so different now. I’m afraid.
SAMUEL: What exactly are you afraid of, Chip?
CHIP: That I won’t recognize it. That I won’t know it.
SAMUEL: It won’t be your job to know it. It’ll be your job to live it, to learn.
CHIP: Learn what?
SAMUELl: What you learn.
CHIP: Yeah, well. No thanks. I mean, look, man! Why would I leave all
this (He makes a sweeping gesture to encompass all the area about him as heavenly colors swirl about the stage and celestial music underscore his words. He bursts to his feet and gestures down stage including the audience.) for that?
(Lights and music begin in blended, earthy tones only to crash into blinding, deafening discord.)
CHIP: Seriously! You want me to leave this (Heaven lights and music again flash the stage) for that? (the Earth-life lights and music flash the stage.)
(A dark corner of the stage comes up in light revealing the playwright, Shakespeare, at a desk, writing. He ponders as if stumped for a
moment then, experiencing a lightbulb moment, to the audience triumphantly exclaims, “To be, or not to be!”
He then eagerly turns back to his quill and paper to memorialize his brainstorm.
The corner returns to black.)
(CHORUS- In unison:) That is the question!
SAMUE: (Standing up and lightly shaking Chip by the shoulders.) Come on, Chip. Take the plunge - Go and Grow!
CHIP: (Wrestling Samuel off.) I’m not ready! I….
A sudden gust of wind knocks Chip off the precipice.
CHORUS sings: The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind.
The answer is blowin' in the wind
As he is falling - the stage light illuminating Chip goes dark. He is no longer visible to the audience. In a moment or two, the light
comes back up and we now see and hear a meld of both the heavenly and earthly lights and music. Suddenly all effects stop short!
Silence fills the stage flowing out to and thru the audience which sits suspended in the moment until…
The theatre resounds with the cries of a newborn baby.
Stage lights hit their spot dead center on the grand drape curtain as it falls for the final scene of the evening, spelling out the words:
The End
By Fran Pearce
From: United States
Facebook URL: https://www.facebook.com/franpholisticharmoniesca