Ceci n’est pas une Pièce (this is not a play)
(first movement)
directed by Christine Säng
Sound design by Elliott Mazzola
Random sources & inspirations:
Jacques Derrida
by P. Hal Sims, 1935
Man in Jacques Derrida t-shirt
My high school religion book
Gérard de Nerval, my hero
A guilty pleasure
by Robert J. Stoller, 1974
Excerpt
GOD (stands up)
What is sloth?
(During the following response, GOD, overcome with fatigue, flops back down on his chaise lounge.)
CHORUS OF YOUNG MEN
Sloth is laziness of mind and body which causes one to neglect his duties.
SECOND CHORUS MEMBER
Tell us a story, Daddy. Please?
GOD
There was a calf; that’s half.
There was a wall; that’s all.
SALLY
(playing with her fingers in the air)
love love love love
THIRD CHORUS MEMBER
She saw the moon!
She saw the moon!
She saw the moon!
MADAME ETIQUETTE
Oh dear, you dreamed it.
It was only a dream.
SALLY
fall down fall down fall down
down down down down down
to the ground
FIRST CHORUS MEMBER
She can’t smile.
She can’t talk.
She can’t dream.
SALLY
don’t dream don’t dream don’t dream
no no no no
she she she she
he he he he
who who who who
CHORUS OF YOUNG MEN
In the smallness of this world
In the smallness of this world
In the small small smallness of this world
Bleu I, by Joan Miró, 1962
René Magritte, 1928-29
I began writing this piece during a tumultuous time of loss and at the beginning of a great love. Only Jacques Derrida’s anti-conclusive world view could console me at the time. There are three distinct movements and I was writing the third while studying with Charles Mee at Brown University in 1999. He told me to hold onto love in that movement. I did and remain forever grateful to him for that.
This piece has had numerous concert readings under Christine Säng’s direction, among them: Dixon Place, The Writer’s Voice of the West Side Y, The Flea Theater, La MaMa La Galleria, and Perishable Theatre (as part of Brown University’s New Plays Festival).