Transforming the Darkness
by Jacob Juntunen
MAN and WOMAN onstage on a coffin block lying on its side midway through a heated conversation...
MAN
But have you ever seen a miracle?
WOMAN
When I was a little girl, on an Easter egg hunt, there was a little stuffed lamb that I thought was alive.
MAN
This isn’t a decision for a child.
WOMAN
I still feel it: when ashes are put on my forehead and I’m told, “Remember that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.” When I take the blood and body of the Host. Something transforms in front of me. It’s miraculous.
MAN
But that’s just what I’m saying: What we do here is holy. Why would you walk away from it?
WOMAN
But why can’t I do both? Why can’t there be some accommodation—
The MAN stands up he’s so upset.
MAN
Because the people you’re talking about are evil. Look at their values.
The WOMAN follows him.
WOMAN
But how am I supposed to turn half of myself off? Why can’t religion and theatre co-exist—
MAN
What we do is based on practices of worship that stretch back thousands of years. If you stay, it’s because you’re serving something bigger than yourself, isn’t it? What else does being here get you? Money? Fame? We are here to give meaning to what is otherwise an empty existence.
WOMAN
But I see meaning in so much; I’ve felt at one with everything just walking through the woods—
MAN
And you’ve felt that same connectedness sitting here in this room full of people, drawing in a collective breath. It’s a transformative power that gives an object meaning, but it happens in your mind, not in the real world. You think you have the power to turn wine and bread into blood and flesh?
She stands the coffin block upright.
WOMAN
Here is the cross that contains all the shadow that comes after Jesus’s jagged death: “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. (…) And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks crumbled.”
She pushes the box over so it crashes to the ground.
WOMAN (cont)
And my soul is in this box; it’s as much my coffin as my cross. I’ve made this box transform, right here, before your eyes: a miracle. But I can’t transform the darkness on my own; I don’t know a way out of my coffin except the eternal life that’s promised to me.
MAN
No educated artist believes in an almighty, invisible cloud person who controls our lives. But our audiences, as educated as they are, still feel a void, and need the ritual of live performance in front of them. And I have not directed out of town previews of this show for six months to have you ruin our chance in New York. We are taking this show to Broadway, with or without you.
WOMAN
And I would love to go with you if my understudy could simply play my part for one weekend.
MAN
Easter is our second weekend, right after all the press comes out, and we need our stars in the show. When is the likes of you going to get another chance at a speaking role eligible for the Tony’s? If you feel you can’t be in this production simply because a performance falls on Good Friday, or it interferes with some Easter egg hunt where you hallucinate a lamb, just go. Go home to your ignorant family. But remember: you passed up the opportunity to make something truly great. Well? Are you coming to New York or heading home?
Blackout.
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