Moths
Moths was developed during a series of writer's workshops organised by the Landestheater Nordrhein Westphalien in Castrop-Rauxel, in co-operation with EXIL-Kulturkoordination, Essen under the guidance of the writer Maxi Obexer and the dramaturge Christian Scholze in 2016.
Some extracts of the play and an interview with the author appear in the book, "IN ZUKUNFT! – Neue Theaterstücke zur Gegenwart", edited by Tina Jerman, Maxi Obexer and Christian Scholze; published by [transcript] Theater © 2018 transcript Verlag, Bielefeld.
Extracts:
In the absence of certainty, superstition can be strong medicine. A kind of compass. A star to orient oneself. Superstition as a system to navigate by …
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… the figure caught like wildfire, not least after Wagner’s opera of the same name which was in fact inspired by Heine. With that, the Flying Dutchman exploded into popular consciousness as the epitome of the doomed lover, the eternally heroic, tragic personification of that most seductive of fantasies: failed love, l’amour fou, all that we crave for, the submission to a higher passion and fuck reason and fuck pragmatism, what if I die in the process!
Martyrdom in the name of love.
Sound familiar?
Silence.
A love so great that it demands the greatest of all sacrifices, your life.
Silence.
Will you die for love?
Silence.
Eh voilà that’s me c’est moi. That’s who I am. just come ashore after seven long years, seven solitary and maddening years of sun and storm and salt and stupor and a stone in my heart and a star in my gut.
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JEANNOT
Come on, clear out, wench, you’re in the way, the lords and ladies will soon –
JACQUEOT
Not just lords and ladies anymore.
JEANNOT
What?
JACQUEOT
Lots of in-betweens nowadays you got to take into account.
JEANNOT
What?
JACQUEOT
Gender, Jeannot, gender, you need to be correct, gender’s not binary nowadays, careful with your tongue.
KOMACHI
Not just “nowadays”. It never was “binary”. Not even when I come from.
JEANNOT
“Where” I come from. Not “when”. Careful with your tongue..
ANNEKE
When I come from. I’m talking time-travel here. A thousand years back. Life has always been non-binary.
JACQUEOT
Listen to her!! A time-traveller indeed. Fled from Bedlam, I said so, didn’t I? Pissed and blasted –
JEANNOT
Buzzed and plastered out of her head she is. Right on, okay, doll, let’s get you out of here.
JACQUEOT
What’s the matter, can’t you walk?
ANNEKE
Don’t you see I’m supposed to be a ghost?
***
BRIDE
Today is the day! The happiest day of my life!
KOMACHI
Really? You do realise what that means? Downhill all the way from tomorrow.
BRIDE
I’m getting married.
KOMACHI
Ah, then it probably is downhill all the way from tomorrow.
***
ENSEMBLE
Song # 6Culture Vulture
That’s who I am
I’m a Culture Vulture
I got the yellow eye
I’m always hungry
I got a million reasons
To be always angry
Through all of the four seasons
Culture Vultures
That’s who we are
We are Culture Vultures
Death & pain, they get us high
We hang out in the cemeteries
We measure the pulse of catastrophes
We feed on war and displaced races
It’s all the same whether jihadist or crusader!
We need them / They feed us
We’re vampires / Funeral pyres
And the unburied dead
Are what we recycle to make our bed
Culture Vultures
That’s who we are
Rape loot and torture
Buy us our candy-bars
Culture Vulture is who I am
And if you want to find me
All you need to do is look more closely
At your local neighbourhood Artist!
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© Kenneth Philip George. All Rights Reserved.