ANDHOW ! Theater Productions

non-d

by Andrew Irons

SCENE ONE - A BOY IN A BOX

Time: The Present - 2003

The lights slowly rise on the empty gleaming white stage.
A bench, a podium and a box.
The Narrator enters, being led by the hand by A Lass.
She speaks to the audience.

A LASS:

This place. Where legends are born. You have heard the story a thousand times before. A young Man enters this auditorium with an indestructible Mississippi town under his arm. No one could make it collapse. Well, almost no one. No one has seen him in sixteen years. Well, almost no one.
Now. For the first time in public. He is here to speak to you. The American Engineering Association.

A cough in the audience.

She moves away to watch.
The Narrator is in his mid 30's and is a bit disheveled.
A spotlight hits the Narrator.
He winces with the light.

He stutters to the audience.

THE NARRATOR:

I…Um. Well. Ah. I don't know where to start.

The Narrator looks to A Lass for help.

A LASS:

Try the beginning.

Pause.

THE NARRATOR:

The beginning. She says to start at the beginning. Which beginning... a little insensitive just to say go. Go get 'em champ. Make 'em proud. So many beginnings to start from. Just go to the beginning and make 'em proud. (pause) People smarter, much smarter than I. They trace things back to between 12 and 20 billion years ago and they can piece the universe together to within 10 to the negative 42nd of a second. They describe in detail what accounted for the cooling, which allowed mass to form and thus for time to be calculated - or time itself as a dimension - but those same people can't put their fingers on what was between what we call the Big Bang and 10 to the negative 42nd of one second after. One trillionth of a trillionth of a second. Think about that. And when you're done, think about what happened 10 to the negative 42nd of a second before that instant. And they say go to the beginning and make 'em proud. So then. To the beginning we go! Where we see a boy in a box.

Lights reveal The Young Man - he is seven years old.
He is sitting in a box made of toothpicks.
He places toothpicks into the structure one by one.

THE NARRATOR:

To the beginning!

The lights reveal Chick A and Chick B.
There are carnival lights and sirens
and the sound of roller coasters.
Chick A and Chick B push the box to try
to break it. The box bounces almost in
time with the clamor.

TIME-1976

CHICK A:

The freak is at it again.

THE NARRATOR:

Where by the age of six Mr. Mozart was playing for kings, by the Age of eight, this particular young boy was thrust into the, um, ah spotlight of a carnival stage.

CHICK B:

He's like a total little scary little freak.

THE NARRATOR:

Semi annually, in the course of four hours, this boy...Young
Man... would construct a four foot, by four foot by four foot box, a cage-like box around his own body. The integrity of
the box was so very sound, that even after two full hours of
elegantly choreographed assaults by the defensive line of the 1976 Class A State Championship winning High School Football
team - the box. Well. The Box proved completely impenetrable.

CHICK A:

Fucking lucky.

CHICK B:

Totally lucky.

THE NARRATOR:

Every six months for ten years the toothpicks were leapt up
and down on, they were thrown from the stage, and...nothing.

CHICK A:

Tellin' you. Can't break.

CHICK B:

Like it's made of tiny little fucking steel bars.

CHICK A:

Not like little wire.

CHICK B:

But like steel things.

Chick A and Chick B give up and move away from the box.

THE NARRATOR:

But the result. The result was always the same. When The
Young Man had found the circus had to come to its natural
conclusion, he would give a good tug, a solid tug, on one
single specific toothpick and the structure crumbled around
him.

The Young Man pulls a single toothpick,
and the box crashes around him. A thousand toothpicks scatter. The carnival sounds fall silent.

CHICK A:

He's like a total little scary little freak.

CHICK B:

I hear he doesn't talk a word.

CHICK A:

I don't believe it.

CHICK B:

What has he ever said to you.

CHICK A:

Talks plenty.

CHICK B:

But not to you.

CHICK A:

Well you neither.

CHICK B:

He's like a total little scary little freak.

THE NARRATOR:

And there we are. The beginning.