Looks like this one was actually completed in 2003, but I do remember starting it in 2000 i seem to recall to annoy my playwriting tutor who i know for a fact hated the idea behind it where he wanted a story rather than experimental theatre designed to make people think.

Re-reading this found on a old disc, i am not sure i would have the guts to stage it but it's interesting..

BREATHE AGAIN

(THE AUDIENCE IS ARRANGED IN A CIRCLE AROUND THE PERFORMER (THE MAN). THE MAN IS LYNG BACK DOWN ON THE FLOOR. HE IS STARING UP AT THE CEILING BLANKLY)

(SILENCE. A HEARTBEAT THEN STARTS. A FEW SECONDS LATER, THE MAN SITS UP TAKES A DEEP BREATHE AND SCREAMS OUT)

Man:

I can see.

(THE HEARTBEAT STOPS AND THE MAN GETS ONTO HIS FEET)

(HE LOOKS UPWARDS TOWARD THE CEILING AND THEN WALKS TOWARDS THE AUDIENCE AND STOPS AND THEN SCREAMS OUT)

Man:

I can see what you think.

(HE LOOKS DOWN AT THE FLOOR AND THEN SPEAKS AGAIN)

Man:

I can see what you want.

(WALKS TOWARDS A AUDIENCE MEMBER AND THEN SPEAKS)

Man:

I can see what you are really like.

(HE THEN WALKS TOWARDS A YOUNG FEMALE MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE AND THEN SAYS)

Man:

I can see what you didn’t tell him.

The nights he would spend weeping

, sobbing loudly into his pillow.

The nights you would tell him

your mum was critically ill

while you were secretly seeing

him . I know. Believe me, I know.

(A MALE MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE STARTS GIGGLING)

Man:

Oh god, I was wondering

when you would start.

(STEPS TOWARDS THIS MAN)

Audience man 1:

I’ve done nothing wrong.

Man:

Unless you call sleeping with your 16 year

old step - daughter a crime.

Audience Man 1:

No, I didn’t.

Man:

Oh God. Go ahead it, deny it. You can

bloody well deny it again and again til

you are blue in the face but I know.

I know all about you. I know about the

abuse you dished out to the girl, telling her

“it’s daddy’s little secret. You mustn’t tell

anybody about it.” Yeah, I know all you.

Audience Man 1:

No, I didn’t.

(ANOTHER MALE MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE GETS UP AND WALKS OUT)

Man:

And where the fuck are you off too?

(THIS MAN STOPS, TURNS ROUND AND ANSWERS)

Audience Man 2:

This isn’t theatre. I’ve not paid 10

fucking quid to watch you walk

around and abuse people.

(MAN TAKES A DEEP BREATH BEFORE ANSWERING)

Man:

Okay, what do you call theatre then?

Do you want me to start jumping

up and down on my head and sing

rule fucking Britannia while the walls

cave in.

Audience Man 2:

I, I…

Man (Cutting Straight in):

What do you call theatre? Do you want

me to go and drag a load off you on

stage and re-act Romeo and Juliet

as a  truly modern tragedy, turning the

story into a drug war story with two

young lovers stuck in the middle.

Audience Man 2:

But we won’t be acting it. I, I don’t

Know how to act…..

(PAUSE)

Man:

That doesn’t matter, theatre is not

just about the story. It is about the

emotion it brings out in you.

Theatre when it was first started

was designed to challenge people’s beliefs,

make them question everything that existed

in their lives. Romeo and Juliet at its time

were regarded as a challenging story in the

sense of it did not project the happy

message that existed in stories before.

It was a story that if you read your history

books was regarded as a modern tale, of the

way two young lovers were forbidden from

being together by their families.

It was a brave, honest story that embraced

More modern theories such as Certeau’s concept

Of  the “tactics” of the weak in society. Romeo

and Juliet is perhaps two key examples of his

theory in the way society creating

representations  such as this are packaged in

symbolic and  material advantage in the interstices

of dominant structures.

Male member of audience 2:

I don’t understand you.

(MAN WALKS BACK TO THE FIRST MAN, LEAVING THE MALE MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE 2 STANDING THERE LOOKING GOB-SMACKED)

Okay, let’s look at this from a different angle.

Look at this man. He’s probably come from

a middle class family. His dad’s probably

been in his job for 25 years. Never had a

fucking days off sick in his life. Probably

drives a Mercedes everywhere or something.

When was the last time he had to worry about

every penny he got that comes in every week?

(PAUSE)

What does he, what do you care about society?

What do you put into society apart from trying to

make more and more money for yourself? What

do you care about the homeless, the needy? The poor bastards who freeze their bollocks off on Christmas

Day in some freezing alleyway. The poor who

starve every day in the most disease ridded

out-backs of Africa. What do you care about

society?

(PAUSE)

What do you care about what happens to

people who come from less needy backgrounds.

Parents who worry where their next penny is

going to come from. People who can’t afford to

move out of the shit-hole they were born in and

have to suffer watching their children getting

dragged into the bullshit that drags them into a mindless cycle of violence and death.

Male Member of the audience 1:

I’m not like that.

Man:

It doesn’t matter what you are like,

can’t you see? We are just characters

in some ramshackle story.

(WALKS BACK TO THE MALE MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE 2 WHO IS STILL STOOD THERE GOB SMACKED)

We are all just representations in one

form or the other be in real life or from

some faded pages of some ancient

manuscript. We are just representations

in one form or the other. Whether we live in

the pages of a book or struggle through day

after day in a boring 9 to 5 job.

(POINTS TO THE MALE MEMBER OF AUDIENCE 2)

Look again at Romeo and Juliet. They are portrayed

As the great lost lovers in history, but they are just representations of people. They are projected to us as representations of people we can identity with, images can feel sorry for, cry with, pity, hate and ultimately understand.

Look at other examples.

(PUTS HIS HAND ON THE SECOND AUDIENCE MEMBER’S SHOULDER)

Think about it. I could be your lover. I could be your boyfriend with whom you may pounce around various

gay nightclubs wearing tight pink leather pants

and trap off with anything in sight once his backs turned.

(PAUSE)

Second Male Member of the Audience:

I’m not gay.

Man:

It doesn’t matter. It is just an example. A representation. Just like I could be your conscience, tapping away at your soul, screaming out your darkest desires hoping almost slyly you would take my advice and fall flat on your face.

(PAUSE)

(MAN SITS DOWN. PULLS OUT A CIG AND STARTS SMOKING IT. AFTER A COUPLE OF SECONDS, HE STOPS AND STUMPS IT OUT)

I could be this cigarette that I have just stumped out into the ground. I could be sat here instead of you watching you. I could be sat here, watching, thinking. I could be a nail hammered into a wall living on the edge of a existence wondering when it’s whole existence is about to come crashing down. I could be a Buddhism monk who lives in the most far away area of Tibet who has spent his whole life trying to teach all about the joys of meditation in spiritual development only for it to be ripped away by some over zealous Chinese Soldier who would cut him down without batting a eye-lid because he represents a threat to their way of life, their families, their hopes, their dreams.

(PAUSE)

This is what I could be described as. A threat, perhaps a

Preacher who is just the mouth-point to some Author’s voice-point. A whore an Author can use and use and use until there is nothing else left to use and then throw into the abyss.

Ask yourself then what is the point of your life? I’ve struggled through all kinds of crap just to be here. Just to tell you, just to warn you. I’ve left behind a trail of dead bodies murdered in the back allies of streets, ripping out their hearts simply because I can.

I’ve spent weeks, nay months as the holist of preachers, striving through dis-used street after street trying to find a answer, a way to help those more needy than me. Engulfing their tears, suffering their pain because I can.

THIS IS WHAT I AM TRYING TO DISCUSS.

The representations contained within Certeau’s society, the very tactics of the weak in society where only the strong shall survive and the weak shall get eaten alive.

The representations contained in books or plays tell only a element of the truth. They don’t show the elements we all have to go through. Moments like when we have to keep getting up for work, although we may every moment after it. Life is not black ~ white as fiction directs it is. It is perhaps a muddled grey, or a

Bleak like looking red.

We are all perhaps Romeo and Juliet’s in one way or the other. People un-able to get what they want. Stuck in fruitless relationships with people we never cared for or jobs we never really gave a shit about in the first place.

THIS IS WHAT I AM TRYING TO DISCUSS.

Not my life. Not a fictional account of whatever bollocks I may feel like telling you.

THIS IS WHAT I AM TRYING TO DISCUSS.

(Falls to the floor)

THIS IS FACT, NOT FICTION

(DOESN’T GET UP. A GUN – SHOT IS HEARD)

Or is it?

(DOESN’T MOVE)

(Fade to Black)