The Prodigal Son: With Esther and with Gethsemane

By David Swartz

The Prodigal Son is a trilogy of dramas, ambitious as Sophocles', each of its own the first since Milton's "Samson" to attempt the scale and evocative power of ancient myth.

The Prodigal Son, the first, restates the Biblical parable in starkly contemporary fashion-the prodigal, having dissipated seven years, now diseased and the lone attendant in a house of prostitution, attempts passage into his father's heart through a substitute, Komos, who possesses the youth and beauty he has squandered.

"Esther", the second, enacts the Old Testament story with a geriatric Ahasuerus, King of Persia, and an Esther, Queen, heavy with child by Haman, the very soul who has condemned her race to death.

"Gethsemane", the third, captures the agony in the Garden, an all too cynical eleven disciples, and a Judas, the Twelfth, whose betrayal of his Master is couched in peculiar regret. The Guard in Command-"These friends of yours are hardly bold./Strange as it might be/I'd trade your Judas for the pack of them./Woman that he was/he had the strength to betray you."

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 26, 2006
• ISBN: 9780595834433

David Swartz

The author, like Hemingway, was blessed with two stunning granddaughters. He has many books, four with iUniverse, and lives in Bergen County, New Jersey, or elsewhere when the fit takes him.

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Contents

THE PRODIGAL SONTHE

ESTHER

GETHSEMANE

for Johanna

THE PRODIGAL SON (((((((((((((

THE PRODIGAL SON (((((((((((((

a play in verse

a play in verse

We are alone;

I’d give my soul to find the poem

That would address the poem in me;

Your censure’s dust; your praise is perjury.

))))))))))))) METAPHYSICAL QUATRAINS

ACT ONE SCENE ONE ((((( a foreign city, perhaps Antioch, 353 BC

An estate somewhat outside the city and near a village; the dining room, a low table, cushions, as Somnis serves, Rath and his two sons addressing their supper.

RATH OF ANTIOCH ((((( the father, 54, flushed, gray hair and beard

JARAS ((((( eldest son, 33, balding, fat, effeminate, red hair, beard, soiled clothing, a flatterer

GONT ((((( second son, 29, slender, nervous, carping, clean-shaven, longish hair, theatrical effeminate clothing

SOMNIS ((((( elderly serving woman, essentially a dull beast, but more observant than one would first surmise; she stands off to the side, hands folded, as the others eat

Indulge yourself with flesh,                                    (( RATH

(at the head of the table, a sword at his knees) Grilled lamb and sheep. Somewhere Ordar’s eaten by a sleep, No sleep of mine, for he burns in my memory.

And ours, my father.                                    (( JARAS

(speaking with mouth full, gesturing with a bone)

Speak for yourself. I miss him not.                                    (( GONT

(scarcely touching his food)

Sorry enough this dull time                                    (( RATH

To breed such rancor at the innocent.

Wisely said, my father.                                    (( JARAS

I share your sorrow.

Flatterer.                                    (( GONT

You’d slash his belly for a smile. And suck his blood And fatten on the corpse.

What can it matter now?                                    (( RATH

The lad is dead.

Quit of the earth like his mother all these years. I simply know it.

As well as you know                                    (( GONT His innocence. You know nothing.

I know he’s dead.                                    (( RATH

You know nothing.                                    (( GONT

No word for seven years?                                    (( RATH

Nothing.                                    (( GONT

To have vanished such…                                    (( RATH

Not the slightest trace. At times I can’t recall his voice, his stride, his face.

Hardly a deficit.                                    (( GONT

You hate him so?                                    (( RATH

It’s not becoming.                                    (( JARAS

Don’t sicken me, my brother.                                    (( GONT

You loathe him with the same rude passion.

A third of our accustomed comfort has him,

Serving the needs of whores and gamesters here to Galilee,

And you would urge your love?

Had mother been alive

She’d brought an old man to his senses more than Grant a third of his estate to an adolescent

And grieve him in his absence, even now each night to ruin THIS son’s supper With his whining,

Seven loyal years after the fact.

Loyal, I remind you, Rath, my father,

Even that slug across the table, even Jaras,

(indicating his brother)

More to be minded than an apparition, than a boy’s deceit.

This whole topic disgusts me.

(pushing aside his plate, standing)

You haven’t touched your supper.                                    (( RATH

You’d have me fed, then take                                    (( GONT

And eat, not bray about your long lost son.

He’s long left off where we’ve begun.

Come. Sit.                                    (( RATH

We’ll have no more of Ordar.

Yes. Sit.                                    (( JARAS

A son obeys his father.

Ass.                                    (( GONT

(regaining his cushion)

I will sit out of respect, but I will take no food. My appetite is ruined.

Perhaps a bit of sweets?                                    (( RATH

Somnis, bring in something more to the boy’s taste.

(Somnis stirs, half hearing; Gont shakes his head)

No candy? Perhaps a girl from out the village? Is that to suit?

Somnis, the boy would like a wench.

(she stirs again)

And Jaras—look, he licks lips at the thought.

Something brazen, a blaze of skin, bright belly, breasts.

Two bachelors are my sons.

I’d have it otherwise.

Imagine ankles, calves—ascending—thighs.

(lechery in his voice)

Some musk kinship of the flesh. A darker secret.

Cleft fruit drips when the tongue addresses heat.

(Somnis exits through the curtain)

When fruit’s addressed the flesh is sweet.

But listen…What is that sound in the darkness?

(they look about in silence)

I hear nothing.                                    (( GONT

If only he had                                    (( RATH

Sent me his child…a son.

He’s long left off, what you’ve begun.                                    (( GONT

All of you breaking my heart.                                    (( RATH

My name is lost.

(his voice shatters; Somnis enters with a bowl of fruit)

Such theater!                                    (( GONT

A third of your estate is ALL it cost.

You’d have a chaste son fornicate

To purchase some plump darling for your grip

Or marry prematurely, cup to lip.

Some food you’ve served us on this plate!

Brother, mind your father.                                    (( JARAS

And my father’s business.                                    (( GONT

‘Tis enough to turn the tale of some weak scribe

For bitch of sorts to swallow, this tragedy of Rath and Ordar,

The long lost son.

Perhaps the plot is hard to follow. A mother dead upon the ingrate’s birth.

A mother dead and in the earth.

Such poison I’ve bred.                                    (( RATH

To live to hear it? Foul. I bid you cease.

The man needs comfort, not disease.                                    (( JARAS

Then have him love                                    (( GONT

His rightful sons…to please. No more of cankers and despair.

A third of his estate and not a prayer. And not a whimper.

Come, Gont, move your bones.

(standing, heading off past Somnis to the exit)

I’ll eat the wind for what the wind atones.

And drown in some fair Greek like Sophocles.

And kept YOUR books and slaved when I was destined for a scholar.

I’ll eat the wind and night. And blind myself on greatness

By a taper.

Tomorrow’s slavery for a fool who dotes on what he’s lost.

A third of your estate is what it cost.

(exits)

Don’t mind                                    (( JARAS

(in a wheedling voice)

Your second son. He truly loves you.

I scarcely love myself.                                    (( RATH

Too much of me is dead to even care.

A bit of lamb will sooth your spirit                                    (( JARAS

(raises food to his own lips)

You’ve never had the problem.                                    (( RATH

Eating as such. I’ve lost a son. Lost three. Lost much.

CURTAIN

ACT ONE SCENE TWO ((((( farther east, a brothel in Kayos

Here in the toilet of the city’s brothel, Ordar, the lone attendant, addresses

the needs of the local clientele.

ORDAR ((((( Rath’s youngest son, the prodigal, 23, bloated, hair falling

out in patches, rash over his exposed skin, gravely ill, having the appearance of a man of 50 in extreme dissipation; marked tremors, bitter sarcastic voice, dark hair, features

KOMOS ((((( approximately the same age as the prodigal, handsome,

dark, virile, Ordar’s double without the effects of dissolution and disease

TWO ANONYMOUS MALES

As the scene opens, Ordar is alone in this dismal setting, attending to his

towels, his basins, the open stalls, a trough for urination. Stage right, a curtained exit through which come laughter, music, muffled voices.

Reduced to this at 23                                    (( ORDAR

(looking upward and outward toward the audience from a bench center stage)

With all my promise.

My body reeks with the same decay as cloys these toilet stalls,

The trough where old men leak their juice,

Only to fall asleep drunkenly the coming eve with lawful guts,

Their sanctioned whores, and—worse—far worse,

With tainted innocence, a girl, a wife,

No match for sucking lips that tease fierce appetite

Down to the throat of hell.

Such is the bargain of this street, this house, cheap labor in the flesh.

Jagged abscess awaits the spirit.

I am consumed, Ordar in Kayos, the youngest son of Rath,

A goodly man whose only harm was misplaced generosity

To vest a third of his estate

On callow youth who squandered all in seven years of riot,

Only to watch its progress here again, some young and lately clean,

All eaten by an itch, sick as the mouth of Satan,

That grips all heart and spews me here before you,

Stern Jehovah,

Begging no pity but an easy end, cessation of his torment, feeding on

despair,

Who slept a time ago on stark white linen in a rich man’s house,

And woke to servants and a life of ease.

Commute my pain, Maker of all mankind.

My soul’s far worse than my disease.

I’m crippled by the thought

Of my own tongue.

Here now I’m base. To think a father gazed upon this face!

(a male enters, stands at the trough, accepts a basin, towel, drops

change in a metal cup)

THANK YOU, SIR.

(another male enters, leaves, depositing a coin)

AND YOU. ALL THANKS.

(a loud burst of laughter from the other room, at last silence, complete

silence; Ordar, curious, crosses to the exit, parts the curtain, glances

outward; sinks suddenly to his knees, gathers up, returns to the bench)

Dear God, an apparition!

There among the crowd a boy to dazzle all their hearts

And sitting at the gaming table.

What fierceness grips me here in this infected house?

‘Tis much as if I eyed my own cleansed visage in a mirror.

The image of my youth and yet…But this is boundless mystery.

Some seven winters older?

And they shouted his name. Yes. Shouted Komos.

I heard it in the din.

My soul has fled to some clean wench that mothered

Such a lad, as if she were my own,

Fairest of Antioch,

That struggled with my birth until they cut her I might live.

Here in this house my double.

Sans scabs and cankers. Even the hair is right.

Even the hands, the eyes.

Verily my double. If I looked 23, my ACTUAL age.

Is this a curse upon my lot, an anguish?

Must life engender,

Much as Greeks would urge, real as my hand, some endless duplication?

I burst with dizzy exultation, as if the strangest fantasy

Were just beyond that curtain, smiling at a whore,

Some mother’s innocent

About to be reversed. Here, I’ll look again.

(crosses, parts the curtain)

There, he lifts a glass. It is my very own gesture.

Some wayward thrust of destiny has brought him here,

Yoked to my own cruel fate.

Will it or not, he’s poor enough to cast his lot with me. I frame a proposition.

Give the man health and hope, a cleanly bed and comfort.

And all I’ll do is vanish.

Observe from the very edge.

But fix,

He hastens to my thoughts and purpose, stands, begs leave,

And crosses toward this curtain. Some mad and unknown pattern

Grips our lives.

It seems our seed was wasted, yet the seed survives.

Here, chance, you have made us both a winner.

Child at the edge of sin

Would couple with himself, the rankest sinner.

(Komos enters, stands at a mirror, adjusts his gown, and primps, guardedly)

Here, boy, a dracma.                                    (( KOMOS

Give me some notion of this place. Is there disease?

Sickness of flesh and spirit.                                    (( ORDAR

You’ll find more than mischief in these halls. There’s better sport

In your small village

Than you’d find in Kayos. Would you eye the danger, look upon my face.

Perhaps you see your self.

See myself in that rank mask?                                    (( KOMOS

You jest. Even your lips are eaten.

Ah yes. But look closely.