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(The stage is poorly lit, ideally giving the impression of a night on which the moon though no longer new is still less than a third full. Enter a park, on castors. A three by three square of lawn will suffice for this. A parkbench is lowered from above. Silence.Uneasy silence, for much too long. Corpses are dropped from above, in the number of ten to fifteen. Preferably, these corpses are played by real actors. If the Company of Performers is small, a combination of actors and mannequins is permissible. Enter a man on a magic flute, which has the resemblance of a bicycle. Around his neck, a rifle hangs on a cord of sufficient thickness. It hangs in the manner in which one might hang an albatross around one's neck. The look in the man's eyes is blue. He dismounts and moves around the stage in a disoriented fashion, with a staggered gait comparable to Thomas De Quincey's. It is important that the other actors and mannequins are very still and hushed. Enter a young woman, in a closed coffin, lowered slowly from above. On the visible side of the coffin it is written, in the cut-out style of Dadaist poem: PLEASE TAKE GOOD CARE OF THIS COFFIN AND ITS INHABITANT. "THANK-YOU." If the Set Designers desire to add any form of illustration or ornament these should be in the Byzantine style. The man takes up his rifle. He shoots the coffin, anywhere between ten and fifteen times. Gunshot sound will vary from quite-loud to very-loud. Fall curtain. If the theatre is not fitted with this special variety of curtain, it is tolerable that two corpses should rise to draw a more humble curtain across from each side.) |
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