The OutR daRk: Performing Arts Series, #4

By Ralph Osgood

My play is about a clash between two men with different worldviews. Larry Durocher has been hired out of the carpenter's union hall by the city art museum to help put together the displays for avant-garde artist Norman Gorm. Larry is a born again Christian, and Norman a raging atheist. Fireworks ensue. Then, late one evening, one winds up dead and later the other on trial for murder.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnabas Press
• Release date: Mar 5, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224089444

Ralph Osgood

I am a poet, an historian, a novelist, and a writer for stage and screen, but foremost a responder to Jesus (Romans 5:8). I was employed for over forty years in the entertainment industry, the last thirty of which I have crunched numbers successively for three of the top ten theater circuits in the US. Back then my forte was numbers, added up in columns and balanced. Now I am hard at work exploring the richness of existence in a passion for words. Words that add up into poems, works of fiction and non, and works to be performed. I am currently writing my third novel, looking out from my window onto the great Pacific Northwest, where I live with my wife Karen. I am self-publishing my first work in June 2022, and from then on, plan to put something out every three months. Join me as I follow the Word.

Book preview

Ralph W Osgood II

Soli Deo Gloria

FORWARD

Welcome to The OutR daRk, the fourth publication in my Performing Arts series, and my first stage play. I came up with the idea for this play in the nineties. In the art world at that time, there was much in the news about artists, such as Andres Serrano, Mapplethorpe and their ilk (crucifixes in glass jars of urine, etc). And it had me thinking about what is creativity - art, beauty, and faith and their opposites. So I visualized a story with a conflict between an atheist avant garde artist and a Christian carpenter charged with putting his exhibit together.

Further, I was inspired by a remark made by that great Christian apologist - C S Lewis - in a letter he wrote to a friend:

About Hell. All I have ever said is that the N.T. [New Testament] plainly implies the possibility of some being finally left in the outer darkness. Whether this means (horror of  horror) being left to a purely mental existence, left with nothing at all but one’s own envy, prurience, resentment, loneliness & self conceit, or whether there is still some sort of environment, something you cd. call a world or a reality, I wd. never pretend to know. But I wouldn’t put the question in the form do I believe in an actual Hell. One’s own mind is actual enough. If it doesn’t seem fully actual now that is because you can always escape from it a bit into the physical world – look out of the window, smoke a cigarette, go to sleep. But when there is nothing for you but your own mind (no body to go to sleep, no books or landscape, nor sounds, no drugs) it will be as actual as – as – well, as a coffin is actual to a man buried alive.

– Letters of C. S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves (13 May 1946).

On the face of it The OutR daRk is a curious choice for the form of this title, but there is a simple reason for it. The title is what it is because of the file naming limitations imposed by software back then. The limit of eight characters meant I had to drop a letter, so I chose to drop the e from the first word and the space between the words, changing Outer Dark to outrdark.

As for the two capital Rs in the title, I will allow you to discover the reason for their presence in the course of your reading. It is my sincere wish that you enjoy it and that it gives you much food for thought.

RWOz2

CHARACTERS

LARRY DUROCHER a thirty-something carpenter. A man with a past, now a believer in Jesus Christ.

TURRELL a shrewd union rep, with an appreciation for Durocher's skill, and an understanding of his idiosyncrasies.

HORATIO STANDISH the art museum director, don't bother him, he has a museum to run.

JULIE CLENDENIN a thirty-something journalist, a woman of the times. Feminist activist, and high school girlfriend of Durocher. AKA - Jule or Jewel.

NORMAN GORM an egotistical avant-garde artist. And a raging atheist, who enjoys snacking on Christians.

MAGGIE SNEDECKER a rich woman, and patron of the arts.

LAUREL a niece of Madame Snedecker.

MYRA another niece of Madame Snedecker.

SAM cameraman for KWZ-TV.

JUDGE SNEDECKER a no-nonsense Criminal Court judge, husband of Maggie and uncle to Laurel and Myra.

JULIAN MORGAN the prosecuting attorney, who wants to nail Larry Durocher three ways to Sunday (to be played by the same actor as Gorm).

ARIEL DIVINE the defense attorney, with surprises galore up her sleeves.

SGT AT ARMS an officer of the court.

NON-SPEAKING opening night gala goers, including an older couple, and aides (one each) to the lawyers, Ariel and Morgan.

SETTING

Urban USA.

TIME

Contemporary.

ACT I

Scene 1 Gallery of an art museum. Work day.

Scene 2 Same gallery. Next day.

ACT II

Scene 1 Gallery, day of the Gala April 28th

Scene 2 Gallery, two days later April 30th

ACT III

Scene 1 Courtroom Much later

Scene 2 Courtroom Later in the day

ACT 1

SCENE ONE

(The slow rhythmic pounding of a hammer against wood echoes as the lights come up.)

(LARRY DUROCHER, a carpenter stands downstage with his back to the audience. He is at work putting together a joist on a makeshift workbench set up on two sawhorses.)

(The left side of the stage is foreshortened, an entrance way into the larger area, that extends clear to the back in front of Larry. Unseen windows dump the noonday sun into this main exhibit area.)

(That the setting is an art museum is apparent from paintings set on the floor awaiting to be mounted on the walls. Also a statue stands to one side, covered with a sheet.)

TURRELL (O.S.)

To be sure, I promise you, there'll not be any problems as long as I'm in charge.

(Turrell and the MUSEUM DIRECTOR enter.)

MUSEUM DIRECTOR

Then see to it that the design is followed exactly. Mr. Gorm is arriving today with the