Story
Background (possibly on-line, on flyers, on screen)
During
the summer of 2011, the people of Weymouth noticed something unusual taking
place along their sea front. Day by day, an unidentifiable set of unique
looking creatures washed up onto the beach – often in groups of three and five,
and seven: odd.
They
washed up from all over the world.
Initially,
their arrival struck horror and fear through the local community – “they look
like sea–litter!” some cried, “Quazimodo!” others shouted, “are they human?”
some asked.
In a
short time, the local people realized that the new inhabitants were harmless,
powerless, in fact, to be pitied, so they permitted them to remain, as long as
they kept out of the way during popular beach time and, of course, during festivals
or popular events.
But,
these creatures had come for a reason. And, on the eve of the sailing events
for the London 2012 Olympics, when they suddenly appeared in full open view,
there was outrage at their audacity.
The
Play:
(Thursday)
The 'breathers'
gather to celebrate the nautical adventure they are about to set in motion. As
they have done for centuries, they begin to enact a ritual which honours the
power of adventurous spirit, and the breath of the sound west winds. They have,
within them, when they perform this collective ritual, the power to fill the
skies with the great wind.
At
another point on the beach, a contest is taking place, with a dark stony-faced
and stony-souled villain, named Doldrum. The contest is an attempt to destroy
the notion of peaceful competition, and give him a chance to steal the greatest
force in the regions, thus giving him the might to stop the Olympics from
happening.
As he
examines the machines which have gathered the winds from across the regions, he
hears the beach creatures, and, Seeing them, he asks who they are.
“Who
dares to disturb me?”
“A load
of nothing” , he is told.
He is told to pay them no attention, because,
although they are strikingly odd and distasteful, they have no power other than
to offend.
“Nothing more than Sea – litter. Not even worth the effort to pick them up and
toss them away”
But
Doldrum sees something else. He sees in
them, a force unlike any of the machine forces he has seen thus far. He sees in
them the greatest threat to his mission; to stop all human celebration, to
destroy hope.
As the
beach people continue to enact their ritual, Doldrum takes flight, and rushes at them. He intends to capture them,
study them, steal their power, and destroy
them (or make them his servants).
His first
attempt manages only to steal one – and
turn another to stone.
(Saturday)
A day
passes and by Saturday he has now trapped more into see-through bubbles.
Witnessing
their reluctance to be afraid, or run away, he becomes angry.
“You see
what I will do to you and yet you dare to continue!”
Outraged
by their audacity to express joyfulness, he
turns more to stone and finds other ways to entrap them.
But to his frustration, the more he physically traps, the more powerful
they seem to become – as if their power was coming from somewhere other than
physical liberty, strength or might.
Now,
enraged that a sense of celebration seems nearly invincible, he concludes
they must be connected to some manufactured power source, some electrical
surge.
“I will
pull you from the wall – unplug you!”
Doldrum
attacks everything – everything that emits light, sound,electricity. . And for
a moment, it seems he may have succeeded, as the world plunges into darkness
and silence.
And then,
in the quiet of the darkness, a sound waves forward. It is the sound of a
single breath, in and out. Then another and another. Soon the sound of
breathing fills the air like a planet filling it’s lungs with life. And then the beat of a heart, which grows and
greows. It beats from all sides of the
sea front, drumming passion through the sand.
Duldrum
is struck silent and motionless. He listens and watches with astonishment. And
then he realizes the force he has so misunderstood. It is not the power of the
machines gathered from the regions, or the physical strength, or might, or
perfect form that he could steal and
thus stop the Olympics from happening, no, it is the spirit, the breath and the
passion held inside. When he realizes this, his once stony heart and soul
begins to crack, and dissolve.
For the
first time in his life he smiles, then laughs and dances! He dances to the
rhythms made by the crowd. He starts to sing the songs he’d heard coming from
them only days before. He joins in the celebration and gives rise to the South-West winds which now rise
as flames across the sand and out into
the water.
“Breathers!”
he shouts, “the power is inside!!”
And as he
watches the first breather he had stolen fly out and over the crowd, he
breaks into a million tiny pieces of
sand. There is at that moment, a sudden gust of wind, which blows him up and out to sea, and, as he flies, the
skies fill with the sound of his voice, laughing with the breath of freedom.
The
breathers hold sand high in the air,
sing, and let it fly with the wind.
