Progression of "The Key"

"The Key"
Music: 'Dido & Aeneas, Act 3: But Death, Alas! When I Am Laid in Earth' by Henry Purcell, Anthony Lewis, the St. Anthony Singers and the English Chamber Orchestra
Poem: 'January' by Lynson Alexander

Main:

When the world returns to vertical, something spectacular happens. Wanna know how to chase love away. Buildings fall, the pavement cracks, the smell of Sulphur returns. I always feel strange at the top of a new year. Telling you this isn’t going to help anything, nothing at all in fact. Sometimes I wonder what my mother thinks. Sometimes I wonder what my father thinks, what I think.

Person 1: (dramatically)

I don’t want to go home!

Person 2: (Desperately)

The silence waits for me at home!

Everyone: (loud and sustained)

HOME!!

Main: (as soon as the chorus stops)

I’ve grown to like noise. Actually, I’ve never liked silence. I need constant noise. (Chorus begins whispering) That’s why I sleep with something on, the TV, the fan, the radio, something. I won't be able to sleep unless something is drowning out the conversation going on in my head. The same conversation has been going on since I was a child. My father says he’s always praying, even when he’s not. I wonder if this is the same thing. This is not an ordinary conversation, not one between friends, not even between enemies. (Gradually increase volume) This conversation has no periods, no breath, no direction, no rhythm. This conversation has no peaks and valleys, no out and ins. I hate this conversation!

Brief Pause:

This conversation is like a door that won't open. The key is somewhere. I had it some time ago. Can you help me find it? I sometimes wonder what my mother thinks of me. I sometimes wonder what my father expected from me. The last time the world returned to vertical was a couple of days ago. I remember his name, even though he doesn’t remember my face. His cologne smelled like autumn and rejection. I wasn’t doing very well that day. I haven’t been for a while actually. I tried to find some recent excuse for my behavior, but things have always been this way. There’s a lot going on right now, somehow there’s nothing going on. There’s a lot going on right now but somehow there’s nothing going on.

Chorus: (desperately)

There’s a lot going on right now, but somehow there’s-

Main: I’ve been falling slowly for the past three days. I'm trying to find where my center is, but just like the key, I can’t seem to find it anywhere. I liked it a few days ago, I feel bad for lying. I’ve done worse, but it was different that time. It was different the time before that too. If I could scream I would.

Person 1: If I could erase my own body I would.

Person 2: If I could touch my own soul I would.

Person 3: If I could trade in my own blood I would.

Main: If I could talk to my grandmother I would. If I could scream I would. If I could beg her forgiveness I would.

Everyone: If I could change I would!

Main:

They say separating your life from your art is dangerous work, and no, that’s not a pun. I’ve been falling slowly for the past few days, and I can't seem to get up. I reached for him but he let me fall. I shouldn’t be surprised. They all do that. It’s ok. I’ve let a few people fall too. I remember going to church with mama.

Person 2: I can't find the key

Person 3: I'm starting to think I never had it.

Main: If you decide for yourself that something is illegal, can you go to jail if you break the law?

Person 4: (Desperately) I can't seem to find the key anywhere!

Main: No matter where I look.

Person 1: One time I could see under the door.

Person 2: The air was cool and I stopped smelling Sulphur.

Person 3: I see everyone passing me by with the key.

Main: I know they’re on the other side of the door.

Person 4: (Weeping) these are the thoughts I'm thinking right now.

Main: Sometimes I hate the way I feel when the world returns to vertical.

Person 1: Sometimes I feel like I just lost something.

Person 2: Sometimes I’m clamoring for what comes next.

Main: Nothing ever comes next.

Person 5: Try to guess who I am.

Person 1: I don’t mean anything in the dictionary.

Person 2: My word is obsolete.

Person 3: (In a comically posh accent) I meant something a long time ago when a suitable context existed for me.

Person 4: They say my name out of nostalgia, or out of riddance.

Person 5: (Enthusiastically) Who am I?

Main: I fell in love with him quickly, but I was only an experiment. A test run, a free sample. My stupidity is worthy of eternal laughter.

(Chorus erupts in billowing laughter for a lengthy period of time)

Main: Why doesn’t anyone want me? I tried telling people how I feel, but some things are better left unsaid.

Person 1: That’s a cliché.

Person 2: Just like me!

Person 3: I’ve been said before, done before, heard before.

Person 4: I am similar to an idiom.

Person 5: They call me in for the closing remarks, the eulogy and the sermon.

Chorus: Who am I?

Main: I had the key a while back but I can't seem to find it anymore. Everyone doesn’t get to have that key, only some. People like me exist on the other side of the door. We live here for a reason. I shouldn’t say things like that. I wonder what my mother thinks is going to happen to me. I want where my father thinks I’m going to go. Where do I belong? Here or there? I can be there, and I can be here, but I look like I always have.

Person 1: Ooooh! Last one I promise!

(Main turns dejectedly to the side)

Person 1: They call on me for dirty jokes and smutty puns.

Person 2: They call on me to point out each other’s shortcomings.

Main: (dejectedly) Who am I?

Chorus: WE DON’T KNOW!

Main: I read two things today and both brought me to tears. Can you see my tears? I am the junction between one thought and the next. I signify the highest degree of separation. The man on my left can be totally unrelated to the man on my right, yet without me they have to know each other.

Chorus: (whispers) Who are you?

Main: When the world returns to vertical…

Person 3: (Angrily, boisterously) Kill him!

Person 4: There is a price to pay for perversion!

Person 5: So help me God!

Person 6: Help me God!

Person 7: Help him God!

My reflection has been looking sour lately. Wanna know how to chase love away? It takes energy to want to live, just the smallest amount of effort to exist, to be three-dimensional. That energy is what I need, and I'm tired.

I don’t belong here and I don’t belong there. Can you help me?

I’m running from my darkest day. Can you help me?

Someone please help me. Can you help me?

The night threatens to swallow me whole. Can you help me?

I read something that brought me to tears the other day. Can you help me?

I thought about you that night when I was alone. I cried out to no one in particular. As the pathetic tears and mucus coated my shame-stained face, I could feel your disappointment falling onto me like February’s dank mist. I know you’re angry with me, but I’m glad you’re the only one who saw me like that. I know you love me, despite what they say, right? Despite what they say…

Please help me find the key

(Long Pause)

I just have one last question.

(Shorter Pause)

Who’s going to pick you up off the ground this time around?

(Another short pause)

Do you love me?

Forgive me for asking that question.

Please forgive me for asking that question. I promise I’ll never ask that question again. I’ll erase that question from my mind. I’m surprised you haven’t left me yet. You’re not going to leave me, are you? I’m a wreck and I’ll never get by without you. You saved my mother when she needed you. I promise I’ll never make light of my transgressions against you ever again.

What are you going to do with my soul after the bell tolls? I want the key more than anything.

When is it going to be my turn? Please help me? I don’t want to be like this anymore. I don’t want to anger you anymore. It’s not easy being an abomination. Please forgive me for what I’ve done. I know things now that I didn’t know then.

I didn’t mean for those feelings to swell within me the way they did that day.

I’m not even sure if anyone knows what I'm talking about anymore.

Everyone can hear me now

None of this makes any sense

This makes all the sense in the world

I'm talking to myself

Help

I'm talking to no one

Help

I'm talking to everyone

Help

I'm talking you

I'm praying even when I'm not

Help.

Do I have the right to be depressed?

If depression were a bus you’d be walking to work that day! The audacity of some people!

Cheer up for fuck’s sake!

Do I have the reason? Am I the reason?

(Comically, accusative) ARE YOU?

Can you help me? I’ve been looking for the key for a really long time now and I'm beginning to lose hope.

What happens when you lose hope?

Help me.

Why won't you help me?

I know I'm black.

I know I'm ugly

I know I can't dance

I know my body confuses you

I know my voice embarrasses you

I know my hair infuriates you

I know my existence contradicts you

But why won't you help me?

Do you love me?

Please love me!

Please help me

Help

Help.

My mother can't save me

My father can't save me

Do what you must

Say what you will

Just don’t turn your back on me

Everyone is saying that you don’t love me

I want more than anything not to believe them, but I'm starting to think I'm talking to myself.

(Voices grow louder and begin to overlap)

This is the rough draft of the script. It started out as a journal entry on a few things I was thinking about right after New Years.

The choreography came differently. I tried to play with different movement ideas before I found something that fit the text.