The Ostraka Plays: Volume FIVE - CONSTANTINOPLE, ITS DREAMS

By Francis Hagan

Here, in Constantinople, a skinmaker hides an imperial map inside the folds of his own flesh, marionette-makers carve divine models based upon the newly dead, a senator is lured into a trap by assassin-mimes, a woman spends her days tearing herself out of all the books she can find, a map-maker draws maps only to entomb the living against their own falling sense of loneliness, an architect mocks the weight of the City and yearns to design it again as a mirror to the barbarians who always besiege it, a fading actress is condemned to act out her dying biography, and even in the endless Fall of the City, a wilful woman coerces the Turks who have finally broken in to heave the books away to a faint West and herald the Renaissance . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Francis Hagan
• Release date: Jan 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466031517

Francis Hagan

I have been writing on and off since I was a shy lad hiding under the bed and scribbling in an out of date diary (I think it was about my space travels). Most of my works have been either plays populated with grotesques who stumble around ruins and those odd places we forget about or epic tales of those last Roman legionaries as they falter and fall at the end of Empire. Over the last three years, I have embarked on a series of plays which I have entitled 'The Ostraka Plays' and in which I am exploring that space where the irrational and the seductive collide. I remain fascinated by a poetics which allows an imagination to populate a forgotten nook in history outside our conventions and expectations. In these plays, the audience is invited into worlds which remain provisional and insecure - and where freedom is that release from convention. The other side of my writings could not be more opposite - in these stories, the dying light of Rome flutters one last desperate time as I seek to follow the last of the Eagles down into their fates. Here, archaeological record, literary fragments, and my own invention intertwine to set a stage ripe for heroics and betrayal.

Book preview

THE OSTRAKA PLAYS, VOLUME FIVE

CONSTANTINOPLE, ITS DREAMS

By

FRANCIS HAGAN

Published by Francis Hagan at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Francis Hagan

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given

away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an

additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or it was not

purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

C O N S T A N T I N O P L E, I T S D R E A M S

A pamphlet of mania

By

Francis Hagan

They held in their lifeless hands

The riches of their fathers

Without inheriting the spirit

Which had created and improved

That sacred patrimony. . .

Their languid souls seemed incapable of thought and action . . .

Edward Gibbon, on the Byzantines

S C E N E S

The Meeting with the Mimes

The Hands of the Mannequin Maker

The Fingered Flesh of Usurpation

The Cartographer’s Delirium

The Lapsed Chapter of Oblivion

The Architect’s Passing on the Line of Division

Theodora’s Last Lament

The Fall of Constantinople

The City of Constantinople; various locales within, both geographical and metaphysical, after Piranesi and Calvino.

The Meeting With The Mimes

(A dark atrium lit with distant candles like stars. Shadows move as if alive.)

(A Man enters. A sea of Mimes face him.)

Man . . . She said I would find . . . If I came quickly, that is . . . And I see she was not wrong. Go to the taverna in the corner by the Golden Pillar, in the back room there, you will find them, she said. But hurry. They are like shades which flit and you must be fast or they will be gone. Flit, that’s what she said. Such an odd word. It reminded me of bats, of course. And now I see she was not being fanciful at all. No. Precise, it seems. She was not wrong. Here you all are. And here am I . . .

(The Mimes crowd around, all in black with silver masks.)

. . . How exquisite. How delicate these masks are. Such workmanship. I swear I have never seen the like. The detail – and the carving. Wait – is that solid silver? Of course. Of course it is. I apologise. She said I would recognise you as much by your gilt as by your art and she was not wrong. You do crowd so. Forgive me. I am a rich man. Powerful, of course. I am not used to such crowding. I will endure it! You see, I understand my flaws and seek to improve. Is that Thracian workmanship? I really cannot express my admiration enough. Such beauty, you see. May I touch –

(The Mimes withdraw.)

No. Of course not. I apologise – again! I am such a bore. They have limits, foibles, she said. Enter but do not intrude. She was most exact about that word. And I see that she was not wrong . . .

(The Mimes settle about him.)

. . . I am the Senator Albalius and I seek mimes to entertain at my party. I seek the best you understand and she said you were unparalleled in all Constantinople. Unparalleled. It is a lavish party, of course. There will be no expense spared. My guests will drown in luxury. She quoted a price which frankly I thought preposterous. Extravagant. Now I see she was merely being honest. One of these masks alone would . . . A party and it will be attended by all the finest Senators in the capitol. She quoted me another price. A darker price, if I may be so circumspect, which was almost double the preceding one. I do not want any old mimes, you see, at this party. No, far from it . . . And you do all come so highly recommended. Yes, a sum double that of the first. Worth two of these masks, it would seem . . . Ah, a tableau of Hercules slaying the lion, I see. How exquisite. Yes, there is a fellow Senator, he will attend. I won’t bore you with the details. We are mortal enemies. It is refreshing to say that. Out loud. These silver masks – which I must say allow a certain reflective sheen wherein my face does seem to glisten so . . . No, these masks allow me a freedom to unburden, it seems. Yes, he is my mortal enemy. The details are not important – in fact, to be utterly honest, I can scarcely recall how it all began. A slight at some other party, no doubt. Or perhaps some letter sent that was never replied to. It does not matter. This Senator will be there and she quoted a price, a black price, and you all do so come highly recommended . . . Was she wrong?

(The Mimes all draw long curved knives.)

Ah! I see she was not. I did have my doubts, to be honest. Her praise was extensive and I thought a trifle ridiculous but now I see she was merely detailing and not selling . . . It is most curious how these blades reflect so in the silver, multiplying like the tongues of the Hydra. Wonderful. I will pay the price. Of course. I will not boast on how such a sum is of no consequence to my wealth. That would be vulgar. I will say however that the murder of my mortal enemy is made all the more pleasurable by how little it costs me to have him removed. There, I’ve said it. Murder. Out loud to a room crowded with silence.

(The Mimes close in on him, raising their knives.)

Wait!What is this?Do you not know who I am –

(The Man is enveloped in black and vanishes from view.)

(A pause.)

(The Mimes withdraw to reveal the Man unharmed.)

. . . I – am not dead. Those knives, they flashed in so, the masks framed me, my face, like mirrors. I saw my own face in its fear of death. The knives, they . . . cardboard, of course. A cheap trick of foil and paste. Of course . . . I applaud your art. I need not say I was fooled utterly, I think. I need not say that. My actions spoke enough. I fell into a well of blackness pierced with mirrors and silver serpents. Ah, how you dramatise death. I applaud you, I do. I see now that you are worth every coin she asked for. Not only will you murder my mortal enemy at the height of my party, you will have also shown me how he will feel in that moment of death – and those masks, each one a mirror to the horror in his face. Oh, this is sublime, it truly is. You shall make of the victim a spectator to his own death. It will be my final gift to him! This is too much. Never could I imagine such an exquisite end. Truly.

(The Mimes settle about the Man.)

The price she named was modest. I see that now. All her descriptions tawdry compared to such elegance and torture as you will inflict upon my enemy. This is magnificent – and yet I cannot stop myself from staring at my face in this silver. How it gaped with horror at the thought of my own death. I look into my eyes and see them crowded with those serpent-like blades – and I shudder still. My enemy will feel such fear and see it also as did I – and yet, perhaps, such a death is too much? Can revenge have limits, I wonder? Perhaps his transgression, now so long ago it has lost its imprimatur, was not so abominable after all? There is the matter of decorum it must be said. This death is