The Collected Plays of Michael P. Riccards

By Michael P. Riccards

This volume is a collection of verse plays by Michael P. Riccards. The author shows how a modern verse style can be used to heighten and deepen the situations and events that characterize a variety of subjects from historical dramas of great men to baseball heroes and famous persons in fables that we all know and love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 17, 2011
• ISBN: 9781450270250

Book preview

Table of Contents

ADMIRAL OF THE OCEAN SEA

ALEXANDER THE GREAT

THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND

DANTE IN HELL

THE DEVIL AND

DANIEL WEBSTER

DIVINE MERCY IN MY SOUL: A PLAY ON THE LIFE OF ST. FAUSTINA KOWALSKA

FIRST DATE

LINCOLN

THE MERRY ADVENTURES

OF ROBIN HOOD

TRULY YOURS,

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

TY COBB AND THE GREAT AMERICAN PASTIME

PREFACE

It was once my ambition to be a playwright, to use a verse style, and to let characters populate the stage. I have seen my plays in different presentations, but I have never really seen my name in lights on a professional theatre. Still I retain a love of the theatre and the written word. I do not know where to trace my interest in the theater, but I think it began when I was taken by the nuns of St. Vincent Martyr School in Madison, N.J. to Union City on a school bus to see two religious plays. The first was a dark experience: a Passion play of the sufferings, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The second I remember was a play featuring the worker priest movement in France and how it was ended by the Vatican bureaucracy. The anguish of those dedicated clergy was a powerful feeling that saturated the play. I enjoyed the plays in Union City; they at least got us out of the monotony of school.

In high school, I was introduced to drama, especially Sophocles and Shakespeare, through the dedication of Dr. Warren Dietrich in my junior year. The first play was Oedipus Rex—a powerful work. We read it, and explored the Greek world of myth and drama. I coincidentally saw it later performed by the Morris Repertory Theatre, and it was a remarkable experience. I sat in the front row, and the Oedipus figure bled with red liquid coming down his face from his eyes as he lamented his primordial sin.

More emphasis was placed in high school on Shakespeare, and in class we read aloud for example the scenes of Julius Caesar. I did some of Marc Anthony’s eulogy, and my usually hard boiled classmates applauded me! In dealing with Hamlet, the teacher again, Dr. Dietrich, asked that we write a final scene to Shakespeare’s masterpiece. Only high school students would be so self-assured to dare to add to the most sacred canon. I wrote a full scene in which the remaining living figures, including Fortinbras, meet to lament the loss of their hero, the Prince of Denmark. Most remarkably I decided to write in iambic pentameter verse, the style of the Bard himself. Dietrich loved the effort, and I became committed at an early age to exploring the possibilities of verse.

The times I grew up in were the high water mark of prose realism—the end of the huge efforts of Eugene O’Neill, the rise of Arthur Miller, William Saroyan, Edward Albee, and Sam Shepherd. Their prose creaked as it desperately tried at times to express intense emotion. There were few new verse plays being written in modern English, although there were important efforts by T.S. Eliot, Maxwell Anderson, and William Butler Yeats. The great poet Stephen Spender who had been appointed Librarian of Congress wrote an article in the Saturday Review of Books on the need to explore dramatic verse possibilities. I quickly wrote him and noted the paucity of verse drama, and how Shakespeare’s dominance has suffocated the next generations of versifiers. That was unfortunate since only verse could provide drama with the union of thought, feeling, rhythm, and structure that allows one to explore the greatest range of human emotions.

Spencer generously handwrote a letter that listed prose plays that had poetic components such as O’Neill’s Mourning Become Electra and Ibsen’s The Ghosts. That view was interesting, but it really did not help much. I read T. S. Eliot and realized that he had written successful plays in verse and also explored the Shakespearean dominance problem. He argued in an essay for a new line to be used in verse—a three beat line which would break up the long sonorous iambic pentameter that echoes Shakespeare. Also it struck me that the three beat line mimicked our modern speech patterns, and so I made it my verse form.

The first play I wrote was Lincoln which covered the Administration of Abraham Lincoln. I then remarkably sought to cast the structure of the play within the context of the Catholic Mass, since Lincoln is often referred to as the Christ figure of American politics. I got a New York City agent, whom my sister Diana discovered, but the woman retired, and I was without an advocate. She was working at one time with the Black Actors Guild to do a very different sort of casting, but the effort fell through. It was only when I was president at Fitchburg State College that Genevieve Fraser, the head of a local playwriting group at Mount Wachusetts Community College, put on the play at FSC as a Civil War musical, and we taped the performance.

I had wanted to be a famous playwright by age 40, but it never happened. Still my love of the spoken word and the theater continued. But all I had was the Lincoln play. Then on a trip to Cape Cod, we stopped for lunch, and I noticed a placemat that told the story of the devil and Dan Webster—an old American tale which New Englanders loved. I was fascinated with it, and made it in 1981 my second play. In the play, the actors cry out the light, the light is all we have. It was an echo of the call for light I had heard from Barbara’s grandmother who had a stroke just before we married.

And so my interest continued. I was determined to prove that I could use the verse form in more than historical drama, and I wrote my father-and-son drama based on the life of the baseball player, Ty Cobb. It is a play on baseball, on patricide, on nineteenth century America, on friendship, and above all on the American cardinal virtue/vice—ambition. It was published in full in Elysian Fields, a baseball literary quarterly. Later it got a reading in the Mint Theatre in New York City, and the producer encouraged me to tease out the father figure more. It was to be performed there, but my colleague Kelly Morgan had a disagreement with the major owner, Jonathan Banks, and he left. Ty Cobb became an unfortunate casualty. It was later done though at my inaugural at Fitchburg State.

I decided to extend my range with a massive trilogy on King Arthur and the Round Table. I submerged myself in Arthurian literature, and remained impressed by the whole legend. The desire for a dream, the difficulty and the betrayal of that dream fit into my own life at the time. Actress Linda Hunt read it, and remarked that one should trust the poet.

Verse can be used on special ceremonies as well. In my inauguration as president at St. John’s-Santé Fe, I wrote my address in poetic style. A guest to the campus was later the great humanist Jacques Barzun and he seemed surprised that I would try verse for that occasion. He said he liked the speech, but never commented on the verse approach.

I also tried to resurrect another English tale, the Robin Hood legend, by making it into a feminist epic—replete with beautiful nature language, the aromas of love, the fairy world, and the triumph of the spirit of King Richard.

Living the Boston area, I noted the interest generated by the local museums and cultural institutes for a year dedicated to Alexander the Great. No major playwright that I knew had ever directed his efforts to a full examination of Alexander’s strange birth, his career as a conqueror, and his mysterious death. It was also the first play in which I looked at exploring the homosexual theme. Coincidentally, there was the beginning of a revolution in social mores in the nation.

Equally of interest was the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s discovery of the New World. But in this play I had Columbus played by two people, representing the twin sides of the idealistic explorer for the faith and the very acquisitive admiral of the ocean sea.

At Shepherd College, I had introduced the first arts festival, and hired Ed Herendeen. He had expressed an interest in someone developing a play that recognized Dante as a contemporary, and so I edited the Inferno, and tried to show the soul mates of our times inhabiting Dante’s circles of hell. Herendeen never did anything with the play, but it is an interesting way to re-introduce the great work to a larger audience.

Later, there was also some interest when I was president at Fitchburg State in a project featuring Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, each doing a monologue. I wrote for producer-actor Kelly Morgan the Lincoln piece—a one man show that analyzed briefly his life and times. Together they stood in front of the college and expressed very different views of race, war and humanity. Morgan also started an arts festival at Fitchburg, and decided to do a series of very short plays on contemporary matters. I took it as a challenge, abandoned my style, and did a short view of student anomie. It was produced in a convertible at the Fitchburg Municipal Parking garage!

I laid down my pen as my life changed with more critical problems and public outreach, a serious illness, and a move to Washington D.C. After my illness, I was introduced by Reverend Richard Lewandowski to a Polish mystic. I became fascinated by the words of Sister (Saint) Maria Faustina of Poland, a young woman who left a long diary of her trip to God. I had never done a one woman show before, so I re-read The Belle of Amherst I wrote a play that explored the remarkable life of this controversial and compelling nun, and her experiences and message about the Divine Mercy of Jesus. Those views are not just the chronicle of a blessed person, but a new twenty-first century paradigm for Catholics—featuring not God’s judgment but His mercy.

I have been interested over the years in how to use verse, theatre, pageantry, dance, music, and a stress on language. And the most powerful way of conveying an emotion is by words that marry thought and sound into verse. It also allows one to move up and down the scale of emotion. I could not help but notice how America’s greatest playwright, Eugene O’Neill, had his language breakdown at moments of intensity because prose could not carry such emotions. At times he even quotes known poetry to get him over the bridge of emotional intensity. So verse is not just an ornament, it can psychologically foster and intensify the climatic experience. At the end of Arthur, I had to wipe away my own tears as he drifts up toward Avalon.

Some of the plays have been shown in different locales—Robin Hood in a park in western Massachusetts; Alexander and Daniel Webster were produced at the Coffin Theater by Louis Roberts on Nantucket Island; Alexander won third prize in a verse competition given by a poetry journal in California; Lincoln became a college musical; Ty Cobb was published and also done as a reading off Broadway and then in a college. But the full plays have not seen the light of the professional theatre, and so they have become literature, only in the sense that they are available now in print. They are offered to you respectfully with that in mind. But please try to imagine the theatricality, the diction, the language. The characters have become live, as the author loses control over the development of their story lines, as their ambitions and feelings become apparent and thus more human.

Dedications

Lincoln (full length)—Diana Riccards

Devil and Daniel Webster—Lou Roberts

Admiral of the Ocean Sea—Margaret Riccards

Robin Hood—Genevieve Fraser

Arthur—Barbara Riccards

Dante—Ed Herendeen

Lincoln (short)—Catherine and Abigail Riccards

Ty Cobb—Patrick Riccards, Father and Son

Truly yours, A. Lincoln—Cheryl Flagg

First Date—Kelly Morgan

Divine Mercy—Rev. Richard Lewandowski

ADMIRAL OF THE OCEAN SEA

ornament.jpg

SCENE ONE

(Backdrop of stage; large cross with flags of the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile draped over a cross. Sounds of Te Deum, the Catholic hymn of praise, gets louder and louder.)

FERDINAND

Now in the seasons of our days,

Now in the times of our youth,

Let us praise the Lord for our good fortune

Which we have gallantly gained

By freeing all Iberia

From the godless Moors.

We have inherited anew

Our own wealth and glory,

We have become the beneficiaries

Of all that we will soon possess.

Isabella, my queen, today

As in our marriage

The houses of Aragon and Castile

Are joined as closely

And as passionately as we ourselves.

ISABELLA

Praise be to God,

And to His beloved Virgin Mother—

All that we do

We do in Christ’s good name,

And in the course of true salvation.

By this task alone

We have earned

A sweet immortality

For each and every soldier

And for ourselves as well.

Kings and queens come and go,

For we too are mortal and must age.

But surely your words are true—

We have returned to the lands of our birth,

Driven the infidels across the straits,

And saved all of Christendom

As must have been God’s plan.

FERDINAND

We have a year’s unfinished business.

(Enter Columbus in quiet darkness)

ISABELLA

And he is first, my liege,

This navigator has waited

For six years here in Spain.

FERDINAND

And seven in Portugal before,

And also in Henry’s England—

No one vies for this man’s attentions.

He is more a schemer than a sailor,

More an adventurer than a discoverer.

(Columbus slowly advances almost hypnotically toward Isabella)

ISABELLA

Christopher Columbus, come here

Share with us this day,

So studded with the jewels of glory,

What you ask of us,

For in life, as with its mistress love,

Timing is all.

COLUMBUS

(Slowly as if thinking of each word)

I am a poorly educated man,

My adventure—and I am an adventurer,

Sire—my adventure will cast

Into the shadows even today’s splendors.

It will so enlighten the waiting world,

So enrich the houses of Aragon and Castile

That you may carry on your holy war

Against the heathens and the Saracens

Until the Holy Land,

And its diamond crown Jerusalem,

Are part of the jewels of

This new kingdom of Spain.

FERDINAND

Sir, you do go on and on—

I would hate to see

If you benefitted from knowing philosophy.

COLUMBUS

It is the enthusiasm

Of a patient warrior in your service,

Of a man who sees

The farthest reaches of the globe

That God has dared to form.

Look here.

(He points to a large globe that lights up on stage behind the king and queen)

It is hard to believe

That in the times of Aristotle and Ptolemy;

Four hundred years before Christ Jesus,

That men believed that the world was flat,

That beyond the edge sailors dropped off.

It was then that men lost faith in God

And came to believe in nothingness.

For at the edge

(He points to the end of the table top)

There is no time,

There is no place,

There is no motion.

Christ did not die

For those beyond the end.

But we moderns know

From just watching

The morning’s horizon

That the earth is a sphere

And our own good brother, Marco Polo,

Has written of the kingdoms we will find—

Of India, Cathay and the Great Khan.

I will sail west to go east

To confiscate the riches of that realm.

The world is at our feet,

Over all dominions man is master.

FERDINAND

Those monks at La Rabida

Tell me that you are indeed

Well versed in the travels of Polo.

COLUMBUS

I am a Franciscan, third class,

Those are good and wise friars.

FERDINAND

They also tell me

That you know of this new world

From a dying sailor who washed

Up upon the shores of the Canaries.

Is it not so that

In his last grateful breath

He told you the way to Cathay?

COLUMBUS

These monks gossip like fisher women,

They know nothing of this.

FERDINAND

The monks have said

That the great sailors of the Nordic sea

And the Irish friars have explored

The very seas you wish to visit

And have found only more islands

Not the riches of the east.

ISABELLA

You men wish to swap stories

Like you swap women,

To entertain yourselves.

I have been to the coast of Africa

And am still displeased

To see only the Portuguese flag there.

FERDINAND

It is best not to dally with them;

We must still pay off this war, my dear,

The Moors are terrible foes,

The Portuguese control the seas;

We should be wary of too much.

Our time must be taken now

With creating a kingdom and

With driving the perfidious Jews

From all of Spain.

Holy Mother Church demands protection

And a vigorous campaign of faith

Before we look for the east

Or to save Jerusalem.

(He begins to fade out and disappear as Isabella gets stronger.)

ISABELLA

We should forget the monks and the scholars—

Scholars do not conquer worlds, my lord.

This man offers us the commanding vision

Of sweeping across the seas,

Finding a steady stream of wealth

To buy and sell the very Holy Land.

(Columbus moves closer to her)

I can not believe

That God in His own kingdom

Will not grant us grace

To do His work on earth.

Even your name is a sign—

Christopher, the bearer of Christ,

The bearer of His Gospel on your broad shoulders,

With the cool fire of your blue eyes,

And with the bearing of a prince yourself.

(They sit down on a bench and come closer)

What do you want?

COLUMBUS

I want to be your personal servant,

Making you a queen the world will not forget.

ISABELLA

What do you want?

COLUMBUS

A simple chance to add to your beauty

The glory of a new crown—

A crown of gold, the gold of Cathay.

ISABELLA

What do you want?

COLUMBUS

For these services, I wish to be

Called your Admiral of the Ocean Sea,

The Viceroy of all I survey,

And received a just portion of all gold

And silver and the profits the new world brings.

I wish all these to be the legacy

For my children so they may know

Their father was a true adventurer

And a wise man despite his poor station.

ISABELLA

We will agree; I know we will.

Here take these jewels,

I have money because of this celebration,

And buy the provisions for your discovery.

If you need more come to me—

But come to me at night,

In silence when he is not here,

For I also have some revenues

From my people in Castile.

(The Grand Inquisitor appears. The stage becomes dark and overcast. He speaks in blunt, staccato ways.)

INQUISITOR

You are Columbus?

COLUMBUS

(Startled)

Yes, I am Columbus.

You have interrupted your queen.

ISABELLA

This is Torquemada,

The guardian of the faith.

INQUISITOR

The faith is all we have.

Now you are telling Ferdinand

Of new worlds—

Don’t we have enough for you

In the old?

COLUMBUS

There are worlds of glory,

Of fame and of wealth

Beyond the dreams of man.

INQUISITOR

Christ died here for our sins,

Do you read the Bible, my son?

COLUMBUS

I do, good father—

But, please believe, I am not

A theologian and am unversed

In the holy nuances of philosophy.

INQUISITOR

There is no philosophy in my work.

I ask people if they believe

If they do, then they are judged harshly.

If they don’t, they have one day

To convert and then

They are judged harshly.

There is no philosophy in being a judge.

The words of Christ are clear,

The commandments are simple,

Obey them and you will earn

A greater world than you can discover.

Disobey and we must force you

To be saved and to obey.

I hear it said, Columbus,

That you are a Jew.

Is that so?

COLUMBUS

Good father, I have lived here

For many years,

Joined the order of St. Francis,

Pray my beads and go to Mass daily.

My life is a Christian one.

INQUISITOR

This kingdom is full of perfidious Jews

Who pray in public to Christ

And yet continue their Hebrew customs.

They believe we do not know

Their secret souls, those lying Jews.

We do and they will burn

Because they do not belong in Spain

And because they are cowards

Who have abandoned

The faith of Abraham and Jacob.

COLUMBUS

It is a terrible flaw

To have to lie.

I wish you well in your work.

INQUISITOR

I am told, Columbus,

You live in sin with a Beatrice,

Even fathering children

Like a dog in heat

With her year after year.

ISABELLA

Enough, this man brings us

The sunlight of a thousand dreams

That your monarchs wish to entertain.

He will bear the good news,

The word of Christ, to the peoples of the east,

The way Marco Polo never dared to do.

He will be a St. Paul to the heathens,

And we all shall reap the rewards

Of the kingdom of the apostles.

INQUISITOR

If those peoples were human,

They would have heard of Christ—

If they are beasts who talk,

It is better to leave them be.

COLUMBUS

All men like to think

That only their world is true,

That only their faith is good,

That only their city is lasting.

But far beyond all of this

There lie worlds beyond compare:

Of peoples at peace with one another,

Of knowledge that illuminates

The dark demons of our souls.

(Inquisitor begins to fade out)

The light, the light is all we have,

And when it fades away,

We pray for endless day

And close our eyes

When nursing death has come.

God in His great wisdom

Has placed man at the center of these worlds,

He bids us come across the sea,

Look down from the mountain tops

Imagine what the rainbow sky is like.

We would betray His charge

If we did not act as restless men,

If we did not pray for courage

To brighten up the shadows in our day.

Surely, my lady, this cannot be

The sum and substance of life—

Even one as fruitful as yours,

To be born, to mellow, and to die

Like wild flowers in the gutters of the street.

It is the rich calling of man

To be a missionary of God,

To bring the gospel to the new,

To kneel in foreign lands,

To uncover our superstitions

And the ignorant ways we still observe.

I am not afraid of the strange light,

I am not traveling off the edges of the sea.

Name me in your service—

For I will be your Admiral of the Ocean Sea

And no fears will ever master me.

ISABELLA

(She begins writing)

Keep this close to your heart,

Today you will have what you wish

And tomorrow it is I

Who will be the acolyte in your discoveries.

(They hold hands for a moment)

COLUMBUS

Bless you, my queen.

SCENE TWO

(Columbus dressed in regal robes is standing on a large platform jutting out. Behind him is a large, circular Indian calendar stone that can be barely seen in the darkened background. In front of him is an elegant, sparking monstrance with an impressive host inside. The stage is bathed in light except for the calendar stone. Next to him is the Archbishop of Seville.)

ARCHBISHOP

Listen well, beloved sons:

By the order of Ferdinand and Isabella,

Monarchs of our new state, Spain:

"We do hereby commission this man—

Christopher Columbus of Genoa

Admiral of the Ocean Sea,

The viceroy of our new unknown kingdoms,

The bearer of the gospel

To the dark, heathen Khan."

Soon the Church will accept his gifts

And pledge them to our Lord and Savior.

(Columbus slightly bows and acknowledges the Archbishop)

COLUMBUS

My lord…

ARCHBISHOP

Further, it reads …

"I, Ferdinand, do grant

A royal pardon to all guilty of crimes

Against men and against my realm

Who enlist with my Admiral

In his mission of discovery

To the Indies and greater Cathay.

I absolve them of all liabilities,

Assume their debts, forgive their infractions,

Which require forgiveness,

Except for heresy and apostasy

Which can only be undone

By Holy Mother Church."

So it reads, my sons, so it reads.

I know that some of you fear

The perils of the long journey,

The inexperience of this stranger,

The uncertain coasts and currents

That wise sailors avoid.

I am not a seaman,

But a fisher of men,

Still I know that God

Wishes this to be done,

And this man is as good as any other

To be the Lord’s willing servant.

COLUMBUS

(Quietly)

Men of little faith.

ARCHBISHOP

(Annoyed)

We all must deal with them,

You can be no different.

Now, let us sing the Gloria.

(He raises up the monstrance as the Gloria is sung and he makes three signs of the cross in each direction with the vessel. Columbus beams his delight and soon the scene fades out with a backdrop of a cool and lonely sea behind him. Standing near him now is a single Navigator.)

COLUMBUS

(Reaches for two journal books)

By wit and careful calculation

I am sure that we will be at the Indies.

But there are men of little faith,

And like you, they must see the shore,

Touch the sands of the Khan’s beaches.

For them I have a separate journal

That shows we have traveled fewer miles

Than I know is so.

I must buy precious time,

They will soon be hungry for real food,

Thirsty for more than cheap port wine,

Good water is what they will prize,

And food without maggots,

And they will not behave

As good seamen should beyond a month’s time.

NAVIGATOR

We are so far away from life,

Only our own company

Is what we have,

Our own songs, our merriment,

Our smells, our real fears.

COLUMBUS

The sea is dangerous even when calm,

Lonely especially under the small moon,

Did I ever show you this sextant?

It doesn’t matter.

This is the way, the breezes tell me so.

NAVIGATOR

The maps say differently.

COLUMBUS

The maps are of no use here.

We are the new mapmakers,

The discoveries that others will chart

Are now our pathways.

They will sit in their studies

While we are on the high seas,

Sailing on the brash rivers,

Settling on the virgin shores,

No one knows where we are

Until we tell them.

We will mine the gold,

Pan the silver,

Control the riches of the East.

NAVIGATOR

What language does the Khan speak?

COLUMBUS

It is a strange tongue, Polo has said—

No sounds like our languages.

I have two men aboard

Who can be understand by signs,

They will bring the gospel to the Indies.

NAVIGATOR

And what if those peoples

Do not wish to know Jesus,

Or pray to their own gods

As the Greeks and Romans did?

COLUMBUS

It is better not to ask some questions.

(The platform is violently rocked and loud murmurs are heard.)

NAVIGATOR

My lord, the seamen are near rebellion.

They wish to go home,

The seas are hostile, and they have no

Hope to see land. This is farther

Than you said it would be.

COLUMBUS

Another week, another day.

NAVIGATOR

You said that yesterday, last week.

COLUMBUS

Look at the log books, my friends,

We have not gone that far

To be so disappointed.

Look at the log books.

(Murmurs: He is a fraud. Fake. Seducer. Kill him.)

If within another week’s time, you do not

Land in a place of honey and riches

Return home, return with me in a coffin.

I will make your mutiny unnecessary,

I will die and you can bury me at sea—

Like a seaman, which I am,

Like a servant of God,

Which I devoutly wish to be,

Stripped of my Admiral rank

And a disgrace to King and Queen

And my own family.

(Murmur: Kill him now.)

NAVIGATOR

Listen to this good man,

He has within him

The lightening of destiny,

Think of what you can say

To your children and their children:

"Once I sailed with Columbus,

Once I discovered new worlds!"

You old men sitting on your shores

Long after energy and the juices of life

Have dripped away—-

(Kill him now, before it is too late for us all.)

Think too of the riches,

How the villagers will sit at your feet,

How many ripe women will be your fruit,

How well you will live forever on,

Yesterday you were criminal scum,

Tomorrow you will be rich heroes.

Long live Columbus—

("Long live, Columbus!)

COLUMBUS

(Quietly)

Damn fools.

NAVIGATOR

They are good men,

Only a little fearful of the unknown.

COLUMBUS

Men of little faith—

Like doubting Thomas

In the gospels…

NAVIGATOR

All great men’s dreams

Are dependent on the weak.

COLUMBUS

Another curse, another cross.

(The sea gets very silent for a while; the Navigator disappears, only Columbus stands alone. He looks aimlessly at the letter Isabella has given him.)

NAVIGATOR

I see it, I see land!

God be blessed,

I am the first to see

The new world of the Great Khan.

COLUMBUS

(Excited)

I see it, I see land

It is well that I am the first

To discover what I prophesied,

Finally, it has come.

(A bird with a twig in his mouth flies by)

Like Noah, by a bird you shall know—

Land is nearby—see the dove,

God has sent it to us as a sign.

It is hope that has winged by,

That holds its golden nest

For this discoverer to lie down in,

With the raiments of Christ

We will baptize the new world,

Convert the savages, make their

Priests and kings bearers of the sacraments.

I will erect cathedrals,

Covered with gold and emeralds,

Crucifixes of silver will hang

In the clear, paved streets,

Cities will offer up the Angelus,

Morning, noon, and night,

To Jesus and dear Mary

And the names of saints and martyrs

Will fill the air and mark the avenues.

These men will be rich—

And I will be immortal

And called blessed.

A fortune beyond a fortune,

A fate beyond death and decay,

A world without end.

(Cheers go up for the Great Admiral of the Ocean Sea—Christopher Columbus, gradually getting softer. Columbus, dressed in formal garb with a sheathed sword, holding a flag of Spain in one hand and a crucifix on a crozier in the other hand, comes down off the platform.)

COLUMBUS

I, Christopher Columbus,

Do claim this world

In the name of Isabella and Ferdinand,

The monarchs of Spain,

And name it in honor of our Savior—

San Salvador.

I, Christopher Columbus,

Admiral of the Ocean Sea,

And viceroy of this realm,

Establish and proclaim

Our rule over all this domain,

And claim all riches, resources

And tithes in my name and those

Of my queen and king.

(He plants the Spanish flag in the soil and holds up the crucifix, taking out his sword.)

Let us pray—

Our Lord, grants us the wisdom

To rule well in Thy Name

And secure the gospel of Christ,

Your son and our Savior—

To do good works in your sacred way,

To praise Mary, his Blessed Mother,

And earn for us all life everlasting.

(Columbus is approached by an Indian chief and priest.)

CHIEF

It has been said by our elders

That once gods came to this place

And that they would return to our people.

We have waited long,

We have remembered

The tales of our fathers by the fire,

Told to us in the stillness of the summers.

You are different

From we expected.

COLUMBUS

(Tries sign language but cannot understand him)

This warrior is a brave friend

To come forth and greet us,

If only we could understand him,

What a tale he could tell.

(The Chief strangely fingers the crucifix.)

This is the Christ we bring to you—

He is a Savior of us all,

On this cross He forgave our sins,

He is the Suffering Servant,

The God Man who gave us His life

So we could be redeemed.

I have brought these good men

To save you and bring life eternal.

Let me be the first

To baptize the heathens.

(He lifts up some water from the ocean and gently pours it over a surprised chief)

I baptize you in the name

Of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

(The Chief seems confused, but senses it is a friendly gesture. He gives Columbus his staff covered with white feathers and capped with a tip of gold.)

Yes, gold, that is a giftFit for the gods!

(Behind him the Calendar Stone brightens up. The Chief speaks in a language that Columbus cannot understand:)

CHIEF

This is the day of the Flayed God,

The sacrifices brought to us by others

Far away in the land of great dwellings

And blood rich offerings.

We dress them up, strange man,

In shining jaguar skins

Covered with rich plumes

And spin aimlessly

This stone of the setting Sun.

That great and terrible god is a beast

Who rips out the hearts of men

And feasts on them in the blinding heat.

He sits and watches the unending wars

Of the Plumed Serpent and the

Dark and evil Lord of the Night Sky.

I do not even know his name.

Here let me show you.

(He begins a pantomime of that struggle to explain to Columbus the tale.)

These wars give us the eternal forms in life:

Earth, wind, fire, and water,

See them in the stone.

(Columbus looks and lamely points to the Crucifix)

Yes, that is the Flayed God?

They raise up human sacrifices in other lands,

We do not do so here.

It brings too many tears

To our peaceful people.

Here I offer up a rabbit,

Caught each year,

To the angry gods and to the Flayed One…

And we are safe and quiet still.

COLUMBUS

What is he saying?

These stones are a record of their lives—

Do they read like we do?

Are these pictures people obey?

Are these pagan gods or tales of heroes?

I wish I had brought the friars with me,

Religious talking to religious is best.

Listen to me,

We will pray the Lord’s way:

(Holds the Chief’s hand)

Our Father, who art in heaven

Hallowed be thy name,

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,

On earth as in heaven,

Give us this day

Our daily bread and forgive us our sins

As we forgive our sinners

And lead us not into temptation

But deliver us from evil.

CHIEF

(Quietly)

As the gods say,

We do not dwell in truth,

Nor in truth did we come to tarry on earth,

Still we must love the calm flowers,

We must go down to the beaded shores

And seek what lies beyond!

For a moment our hearts grew weary;

We are granted the beautiful signs

As but a loan…

For the gods are uncertain guides,

And often they are weak warriors

When the battle is with evil

And his ambitious sons.

(Columbus gives him a cross on a chain and places it around his neck. The Chief gives him a string of shells.)

COLUMBUS

Tell us about the gold

We know is around us.

We do not wish to spend time

Mining it.

Where can we just collect it?

(The Chief doesn’t respond. Columbus gives him a handful of cheap trinkets and a mirror, the latter fascinates The Chief.)

COLUMBUS

That is you, that is your image,

For better or worse it tells you

What you are now.

(Sadly)

I once had golden hair,

Now I have grown old looking for this land.

My hair is white, my shoulders stooped,

My fingers ache at night

And my eyes dimmed

Until I saw this land and you.

Now, my friend, I will be bright

And so very young again.

Come with me and show me the palaces

And the temples of gold and silver—

I promise you the gospels of Christ

For all those mortal riches.

(The Chief seems confused, Columbus become frustrated and reaches for his sword.)

Where are the riches of the Orient?

Give me some simple spices

As you gave Marco Polo.

This will be our first discovery.

(Suddenly becomes intent)

Help me, please, I need to return

With some successes, they insist.

Help me!

(The Calendar Stone begins to spin as Columbus become hypnotized by it.)

Gold! Silver!

(He points to the gold tip of the staff. The Chief nods and gives his belt with small gold pieces and some jewels on it).

Yes, that is it:

More, my friend, more—

Show me where the mines are—

Show us the riches of India and Cathay.

I will take you with me,

Back to Spain, You will be a monarch there too—

Let them see you decked in gold,

The court will see a rich prince,

More dazzling than Henry of Portugal,

What a fine sight—

See, my seamen,

Well built, powerful men

What slaves they will make,

And lithe naked women,

Put here for our pleasure.

Unashamed of themselves

Like the first couple in the Garden of Eden,

Easy, sweet limbed passions,

Quiet and placid people

Fit to be pressed into our service—

They too are riches, are they not?

Come, my friend, let us go for more gold—

More riches, fine, fine wealth.

I will tell you of our world,

And the pleasures of Christ and civilization.

(Calendar Wheel spins with sparks flying out. All that is left on stage is the spinning wheel and the crucifix planted next to the Spanish flag.)

SCENE THREE

(Columbus had landed back in Spain and as he walks from back of the audience up the stage he is greeted with cheers and great celebration. He is dressed in full Admiral and Viceroy garb and on his arm is The Chief, dressed in an elegant cloak and feathers with a parrot on his shoulder and carrying a staff with a golden tip. The stage is sunlit and there are cries: He had returned, Long live Columbus, Long live Ferdinand and Isabella.)

FERDINAND

Make way, for our lord

Of the new world, the Spanish viceroy

Of all he surveys.

Our faith in you, great Columbus

Has been fully and amply rewarded—

Let those who secretly smiled

And thought their king merely insane

For commanding you and Spain to set sail,

Let them marvel now—

You have given us not just another path

To garner the riches of the Orient,

But a bright and enchanting adventure,

A luminous discovery of the strange East.

Children—see here—

This one man should be the measuring stick

Against which you match yourself:

Daring and brave, calm and resourceful—

A man worthy of our royal trust

(Pointing toThe Chief)

And who is this robust prince,

Who is this steady gazed stranger?

(Columbus begins to kneel)

ISABELLA

No, come sit with us, my young lord,

And tell us fabled stories of fabled lands,

Embroider them only with the truth,

For it surely stranger than myth.

FERDINAND

Yes, sit here between us.

(Columbus does, while the Indian Chief remains standing. He looks intently at Isabella.)

COLUMBUS

I have discovered the world I knew was there,

Placed by the grace of a demanding God

For we poor mortals to stumble on.

I know for sure

That there are caves of gold and streams of silver,

Storehouses of spices and stable sweets

That we can profit from

And build an empire for the monarchy of Spain.

The natives there are peaceful and serene,

They will give you what you want.

They are obedient and content,

Willing to learn the joys of serving.

We have brought back several.

This is a priest or a chief—

I cannot be sure—

But he is here of his own will

To talk to our learned men,

To certify to the faint of heart,

Who so interrogated me for years,

That the East can be reached

By the western most route,

That his people are like ours,

Sinners in search of Christ.

ISABELLA

What a wonder all this is!

FERDINAND

It is indeed remarkable.

COLUMBUS

See, here, see:

The chief has brought for us

A walking stick dipped in gold—

For them, for those beautiful savages

Gold is like common dirt to us,

They make no sense

Out of our lust for gold,

Which is a true witness

That gold is in abundance

For it is only scarcity that guarantees value.

See, here, see:

He has a studded belt

Covered with minerals of worth.

I am sure that in the caves

And canyons of his land

We have found the ageless treasures.

FERDINAND

Common natives, half naked

But dressed like kings in gold

And plumed feathers.

Are they all like this?

ISABELLA

What are their women like?

COLUMBUS

Modesty prevents me from a full description,

My Queen, but they are free and naked

Like healthy young animals in the field,

Knowing no shame or guilt.

They must be converted soon—

So they can know that virtue

Prunes the random vices of desire…

ISABELLA

Oh…

FERDINAND

Already the King of Portugal

Knows of this voyage’s successes.

He claims that all you have found

Belongs to his kingdom.

I will appeal to the Pope—

He is one of ours—

He will divide the world

And this time, the Indies will be

Clearly in the Spanish realm.

COLUMBUS

No man should claim

What he has not seen—

ISABELLA

Nor a woman what she has not desired.

COLUMBUS

Yes…it is so;

The lands beyond the edge

Are new to all of us—

The King of Portugal can no more stake

His claim to them than Polo could.

We must establish provinces,

Collect taxes, maintain order

And be well paid for our conquests.

….This is New Spain, my liege,

It can be no other.

FERDINAND

No other.

(Loudly)

Come my subjects, let us prepare

For a glorious and long celebration

Such as we have never known before

(Indian Chief is there but begins to fade out)

COLUMBUS

My queen, you offered me once

Your royal jewels to feed my dreams.

Now I offer you these pieces of gold

In partial payment for your sweet faith.

Blessed be your name,

All generations will know of your fame.

ISABELLA

I will share a secret with you,

I doubted in my heart,

Didn’t you?

COLUMBUS

Never, my queen.

ISABELLA

Ah, how wonderful

To be such a man…

To never know doubt or uncertainty,

To travel all the world

As if no land were strange,

To feel at home

With kings and savages,

As you do.

You are never at a loss for words

Nor fearful of events.

COLUMBUS

Not true, I am at a loss

For words to describe your beauty,

I tremble when I see

What a queen Spain has gained.

ISABELLA

You flatter me—

I am a short common woman

With a robe and crown.

COLUMBUS

You are the only queen

Whose name will overcome the grave.

Like our mother Mary,

Isabella will become

The patron saint of a new world.

Take this necklace of seashells,

It is the first gift given to me

By the native chief on the first island

It will bring you good luck,

For easy fortune is the name

Of the new world we own.

(The stage gets progressively darker and in comes the Grand Inquisitor. Columbus does not see him at first.)

INQUISITOR

Columbus, loyal son of the Church,

Welcome home to you and your seaman.

COLUMBUS

My thanks, reverend Father.

INQUISITOR

How goes the work of discovery?

I hear it is a triumph

If I believe the cheering of the crowd,

But then too their fathers cheered

When the Moors took Grenada.

They are a fickle people,

Subject to fits and heresy.

COLUMBUS

It goes well,

The new world is there,

Dense with virgin souls

Ready to hear the gospel.

Their wealth drops like manna

From the heaven above

To feed the faithful

Leaving on the next crusade.

We will see a Christian Jerusalem,

We will walked up Calvary,

Visit quiet Bethlehem,

Stroll as He did

With the fishermen on the shores of Galilee.

INQUISITOR

I have always wished

To visit the Holy Land

And trace Our Lord’s footsteps.

The Church will owe you much.

COLUMBUS

I owe her much—

The faith by which I live,

The friars who are my steady guides,

The prayers that mark the day,

The stillness that chases

The demons of the night away.

INQUISITOR

You speak well of the Church…

ISABELLA

We must swear that all the riches

Of the East will not blind us

By forgetting the need to save souls.

Did you see the prince who came here?

INQUISITOR

(Steps back into the darkness and examines him closely)

I cannot imagine if I were he

Leaving my court to travel with strangers.

Still I have examined him—

He is a human.

He understands, speaks, smiles—

He has a soul, he is a child of God.

COLUMBUS

Yes…

INQUISITOR

He comes with other people?

COLUMBUS

Five others, they will be

The first servants we can buy,

Another matter to trade.

INQUISITOR

Buy, trade—they are guests!

COLUMBUS

Only in that they do not belong,

Their land is populated by peaceful folk.

INQUISITOR

Then let them be !

You are talking of them

As if they were destined to be slaves.

COLUMBUS

Indeed, they are to be.

They can be treated lightly

And disciplined in only rare occurrences,

Still they need care and direction.

INQUISITOR

You are talking slaves

Not happy children.

You promised gold

And your wealth is slaves,

Your ocean’s trade

Is in people of God?

ISABELLA

No, that is not what will happen.

COLUMBUS

You express horror

After you destroy the Jews!

You preach mercy

After you stoke the fires

In the name of the faith!

What gross hypocrisy!

INQUISITOR

I owe no explanations to you,

But I will give one.

I have sworn before God and man

To be a fierce judge for the faith.

That is true—

Torture is rare, conversion is frequent,

But still there is the harsh judgment

Behind the veiled sacraments.

I admit, I wish it were not so.

But it is better to punish the guilty

To save their souls

Than to eat with the publicans

And employ their ways.

The perfidious Jews—

Are you not one of them?—

Have had a millennium and a half

To see the true faith;

Let them pay for their tardiness.

There are many baptisms of convenience

In Spain because of my crusade.

They do not mean it—

I know that—

But their sons will forget the Jews

And be saved in Christ Jesus.

Yes, I torture at times

But truth emerges—

How would reason prevail

If there were not benefits to conversion

And to adhering to the old faith.

At times, I have erred,

I too am human and I will pay

For my excesses in God’s world,

But I have never denied humanity

To the worst heretic.

You would make these men

Into beasts of burden,

Deny their immortal souls

To gild your roads to discovery.

ISABELLA

No, no it will not be!

We are not traders in misery.

COLUMBUS

(Lamely)

No, of course not…

INQUISITOR

God has given men

The good mixed with the bad.

I am sworn to untwist it

And set the pure free.

But what you do no friar

Can untwine, even God is mute

To this new order of bondage.

Let it be, Columbus—

It is a forbidden fruit, worse

Than what Eve tasted of.

You will not stop,

You will not measure,

You will trade in the adventure’s eye

For a ship full of chains.

If you must, join with me

The work is closer to God’s forgiveness.

ISABELLA

Enough, he is our Admiral

Of the Ocean Sea and new Viceroy.

(In the back of the stage drops a huge map of the New World, with the shadow of the cross in front, and then a stream of images of torture with a procession of slaves from all eras. Darkness prevails.)

SCENE FOUR

(Columbus returns to the New World. Behind him in graphic shadows are slave halters, auction blocks, and the whips, chains and paraphernalia of slavery)

COLUMBUS

(Startled by the sights around him)

Dear God, I have returned a hero

To the empires I am viceroy of,

And what is this

A nation in black rebellion

Against all new authority?

Where is my governor and brothers—

I left them here as conquerors

And all I see are grave sites;

The peaceful people have vanished