Here is a group i invented for this play:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=63832908543
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THE CHARACTERS:
EDGAR: A spirit. The essence of Edgar Allan Poe. He is the story teller. He is the advocator. He is the essence of the play. EDGAR is ageless. Younger looking; his age and wisdom is in his eyes.
MR. POE: mid 30’s; a writer.
ANNABEL LEE/ANNE MARIE: Annabel Lee is a delusion Mr. Poe has created. Annabel is everything good she is love and beauty. She is pure, but she is a delusion, she is the disillusioned form of Anne Marie. Anne Marie is a 15 year old girl addicted to pain killers.
LUDWIG: A writer and critic. He comes from a wealthy family who is tied heavily with the major publishing companies on the east coast. Ludwig is his pen name Rufus Wilmot Griswold is his real name. Ludwig is in his late 20’s.
DOCTER: A doctor. To be played by the actor playing EDGAR. The actor playing EDGAR should not drop EDGAR when he plays DOCTOR
TICKNOR: A Publisher. To be played by the actor playing EDGAR.
RUMOR 1: A rumor. The voice of the outside world. To be played by one of the chorus.
RUMOR 2: Another rumor. The voice of the outside world. To be played by one of the chorus.
CHORUS: A group of people separate from the main four (POE, LUDWIG, MR. POE, and ANNABEL/ANNE MARIE) They are the inner voices, they are the outer voices. They are the crew. They are the world.
VOICE: A voice, it is unclear who it is. It is Ludwig.
ANNABEL’s VOICE: A voice calls from a distance over time and space. A transition. It calls in song, a gentle melody, chilling our hearts with beauty and sadness. It is recorded and quite near the same every time.
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ACT ONE
Scene 1
MEMORIES
A single light shines downward, center stage.
Out of the darkness and the shadows a puff of smoke rises intermingling with the sharp downward light. A figure smoking a cigarette stands in the shadows. He steps into the light. In one hand a cigarette in the other a glass of gin. He is ageless. A harsh wisdom in his eyes.
EDGAR: Do we ever die? We are born. We live. We stop living, yes. But, do we ever truly die? Do we ever truly pass on? Do we ever truly cease to exist within this universe, within this reality? Over and over we live our lives. Through our words. Through our devices. Through our art. While our bodies decay in polluted soil, within the parameters of a wooden box. 84 by 28 by 23. 9 inch nails. Bam. Bam. Bam. Then down, down, down. “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.” Our legacy lives. I have lived my life hundreds of times. Every time with the same dreadful results. Consistently the same story. The same joys and the same pains. The same affection and the same detestation; and every time the same conclusion. Death.
(pause; pained)
- I want to live.
VOICE: New York Daily tribune. October 9, 1849. Edgar Allen Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore on the day before yesterday.
/1/ OPENING MUSIC(instrumental)
A voice calls from the darkness.
RUMOR1: What say of it?
/2/ “ANNABEL LEE”
A silhouette of a figure. It is MR. POE
MR. POE: (sing)
IT WAS MANY AND MANY A YEAR AGO
IN A KINGDOM BY THE SEA
THAT A MAIDEN THERE LIVED WHOM YOU MAY KNOW
BY THE NAME OF ANNABEL LEE
AND THIS MAIDEN SHE LIVED WITH NO OTHER THOUGHT
THAN TO LOVE AND BE LOVED BY ME
A second voice calls from the darkness.
RUMOR2: What say of it?
EDGAR: (to himself) ...“What say of conscience grim, that specter in my path?” (a chuckle)
MR. POE: (sing)
AND THIS MAIDEN SHE LIVED WITH NO OTHER THOUGHT
THAN TO LOVE AND BE LOVED BY ME
EDGAR portrays DOCTOR, addressing the audience straight ahead as if he is speaking to MR. POE.
DOCTOR: Mr. Poe, after reviewing your file I have come to the conclusion that you must leave New York. You understand that I only have your best interests at heart. Therefore I strongly advise you to find a place you can live at ease. Somewhere other than the city.
Otherwise you are highly at risk of damaging your condition further.
Do you understand? (brief pause) Good.
MR. POE: (sing)
I WAS A CHILD AND SHE WAS A CHILD
IN THIS KINGDOM BY THE SEA
BUT WE LOVED WITH A LOVE MORE THAN LOVE
I AND MY ANNABEL LEE
WITH A LOVE THAT THE WINGED SERAPHS OF HEAVEN
COVETED HER AND ME.
A figure stands silhouetted. It is LUDWIG.
LUDWIG: He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many but few will be grieved by it.
An Echo in the darkness. One voice becomes many. The CHORUS.
CHORUS: (echo until MR. POE begins his poem)...Few will be grieved by it...by it...by it...
Light comes up on MR. POE sitting in an office.
MR. POE sits alone. Writing. Musing. A cigarette. Some gin. Some paper. And himself. Quite alone.
MR. POE:
“From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.”
LUDWIG: ...The character of Mr. Poe we cannot hope to attempt to describe.(pause) ...We can but allude...
The rumors appear, shadows, voices of gossip. Figures silhouetted. Faceless voices. Isolated.
RUMOR1: Have you heard he...
RUMOR2: Did you hear that...
RUMOR1: (startled)What?!
RUMOR2: (telling a story)...when...
RUMOR1: (confused)Why?
RUMOR2:(continuing a story)...where...
RUMOR1&2:(startled)How?
LUDWIG: ...We can but allude to some of the more striking phases.
MR. POE:
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
-When the rest of Heaven was blue-
Of a demon in my view.
RUMOR1: Revolting.
RUMOR2: Idiotic.
LUDWIG: He was at times a dreamer, dwelling in ideal realms, in heaven or hell, people with creations and the accidents of his brain.
RUMOR 1: Is he?
RUMOR2: What?
RUMOR1: Out of his mind?
RUMOR2: No.(beat)Yes.
RUMOR1: What?
RUMOR2: Well, - yes. And no.
RUMOR1: Which is it? It must be one.
RUMOR2: Neither.
RUMOR1: For God’s sake it must be one or the other.
RUMOR2: Neither.
RUMOR1: But that can’t...
RUMOR2: No, you don’t understand. He’s...different. I like him.
LUDWIG: He had, to a morbid excess, that desire to rise which is vulgarly called ambition, but no wish for the esteem or the love of his species, only the hard wish to succeed, not shine, not serve, but succeed, that he might have the right to despise a world which galled his self-conceit.
MR.POE: (sing)
BUT WE LOVED WITH A LOVE THAT WAS MORE THAN LOVE
I AND MY ANNABEL LEE
EDGAR: Pain. Misery. Un-forbearance – the life of the city. Fumes and nods. Deceit and wretched debauchery. People. Despicable, vile, loathsome rats. Coming at the pores. Crumbling sepulcher of hopes and dreams in a sea of despair. The city.
I left.
We hear the sound of a train whistle. Then the slow chug of the train moving down its tracks. As the chorus comes to life the train sounds begin to die off.
CHORUS:
In visions of the dark night
I have dreamed of joy departed-
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken-hearted.
Ah! what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon the past?
That holy dream- that holy dream,
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
A lonely spirit guiding.
What though that light, thro' storm and night,
So trembled from afar-
What could there be more purely bright
In Truth's day-star?
The sounds of the ocean. Waves. Birds. Wind.
MR. POE: At last. I smell the salty air. (takes off shoes)I feel the sand beneath my feet. I taste the delicious purity of a virgin land. At last. I feel alive. At last.
LUDWIG: ...we cannot attempt to describe.(beat)...“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.” (a chuckle)
(EDGAR Chuckles; ironic)
DARKNESS
COPYRIGHT 2009 all rights reserved
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I hope to post the rest of the play here but this is just a taste. =) If you want more or you enjoyed it or whatever else you wish to say lemme know. The whole script is done it just takes me the time of formatting it on here. So the rest should be up soon.
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