NEW YORK NEW YORK

The reality that questions itself deep down inside

Scene: a rowboat in the centre of the stage. This rowboat turns slowly around, as if it was bobbing. All around the rowboat a mist arises. There are no oars present.?

Characters: two castaways.?

A : Mo Hamlet.

B : the bartender.

Playwright: the playwright.

Director: dr Mess.

M.: spectator.

A: how do we start?

B : with what?

A: ha, unnoticed, it has already happened, the beginning has started by itself.

B : the beginning of what?

A: the beginning of the game.

B : the game? I picture our circumstances somewhat more desperate.?

A: that is the game.

B : evoked drama, now, even now, in these dire straits?

A: as in a play, I want to use our circumstances to translate it in such a way that it questions itself deep down inside.?

B : seriously?

A: yes, and I want to do that through improvisation.

B : and do I have to participate in that?

A: as soon as the beginning started, you started too, there is no way around it.

B : is that so? And if I go on a strike?!?

A: but you don’t have a cardboard sign to write something on. And you can’t walk around here in circles and be angry and shout out that you want this or that.?

B : well, suppose, I am willing to participate in this bold plan, how do we question this deep down inside? Or is this yet another attempt of yours to explore the boundaries between the real and the unreal? Because I think it is real as hell that we are lost, floating around in this immense sea.?

A: that is why we need to do this, to verify whether we can escape, to save ourselves by the imagination, the idea that all of this is not what it seems to be, and that the play that we are performing now will be our salvation. That we are not here to drown, but to ask the question: where is the earth, where is the solid ground?

B : your imagination is so ridiculously large, you lose yourself in it; I regularly jump back into reality to prevent a total embedding.?

A: but we cannot do anything else, can we? Our situation is quite hopeless. And is it really that absolute? I mean the boundary between reality and unreality??

B : you have to determine the boundaries within which you operate, outside of them chaos reigns.?

A: but yet it is possible that something appears first in a dream and only afterwards in reality, and then you have to ask yourself the question what is more real, which appearance was more real.?

B : well, I believe that you can overcome certain barriers through the imagination, but with the new imagination acquired through these actions you are actually throwing up new barriers.

A: in order not to be blinded, the last imagination is that what is left for us; I try as long as I live to depict, between myself and the Great Imagination, with her unbearable light, a hint of opacity, indeed, drawing on the same Great Imagination, to restrain her inevitability…

B : the hint of opacity, this mist, which you invented?

A: and the boat.?

B : also the boat?

A: and our characters.

B : you invented me?

A: and myself, that was much more difficult, almost impossible.?

B : and why didn’t you invent the oars?

A: because I didn’t invent the sea either.?

B : but this boat you did invent? And why the hell are we spinning around?

A: for the effect, the spectator’s view of our faces, our gestures, changes constantly after all, as if we are a film projection incarnated, or, as if we are standing still and a camera is circling around us.?

B : and how is this going to end??

A: with the mist clearing and the light getting brighter.?

(this happens)

B : we cannot escape it?

A: we cannot escape the end, this play has to stop at one point.?

B : and we cannot escape the real end either?

A: the real end is the last barrier, the demons are waiting for you there, the demons that have been in sync with your intellect inside your head, but now have rushed ahead to outsmart you.

B : my demons? But what about your demons?

A: that is you.?

(B becomes indignant, stands up, A follows his example, they grab each other by the shoulders and start to push each other (in slow-motion), the boat wobbles, the mist clears even more, the light gets stronger)

B : I have to… I have to push you, my best friend, over the edge, so that you will not overwhelm me, because if I am your demon I must surely die before I see the light?

A: which you cannot bear, the light, I can, if I push you over the edge at least, you, my last barrier.

B : it is so hot, suddenly all around the boat these flames, as if we are bobbing in a sea of sulfur, do I have to go under in that?

A: that will be your new reality.?

B : my demons, I see them in the flames, they reach out their hands to me…?

A: but above me, in the light, the hands of my angels reach out to me…

B : fortunately it is not real.?

A : I am real, because…

‘Stop stop,’ the playwright suddenly shouts, ‘that was very good, but I lost the ending, I don’t know how to end it, I don’t know how to put one in the light and the other in the darkness, I cannot and do not want to make that choice! Let the light get brighter, (the light gets brighter) so bright that we cannot bear it, let heaven and hell scorch us, stir up the fire, (the flames are stirred up) so that the stage goes up in flames (the stage goes up in flames) and all the spectators will flee the room (all spectators (i.e. M.) flee the room) and we also, (the four men flee the room) back into the intolerable but precious reality, this street full of permanent mist and obscure neon light!