Resurection trilogy
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RESURECTION TRILOGY
Two monologues and a one-act drama
Martin Burke
I, PETER
Peter runs on stage. He is clearly agitated and hurried. He is breathing hard. He looks about, goes to left and right and then, at centre stage, turns to address the audience
Peter: Have you seen them?
The soldiers?
Have they passed this way yet?
Are they somewhere here about?
They are looking for me-
In fact they are looking for all of us.
They will take anyone they can
That’s the way the army operates at the moment.
A mania has swept through the city and they are part of it.
We are the hunted –hunted and haunted,
Troubled by the past and the present.
Who am I?
Well, I’ll tell you my name in a little while but already you can guess who am I
Do names matter?
Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t.
His name mattered –and matters still
And compared to that nothing matters
Nothing matters.
Nothing and everything.
I don’t know what to feel except this fear
I should feel more than that
And I do
I feel ashamed at what I have become.
I feel ashamed at what I have done
I feel ashamed at the things I have done and said.
Why am I telling you this?
I don’t know.
You look like the sort of person that I can trust
But then again, I am not the best judge of character
Judas for instance –some of us distrusted him from the beginning
But I liked him
He seemed sincere and honest and open
And if he was full of questions then so were we
Not that all the questions have been answered
Not by half they haven’t
Even so I still cling to hope that all will be resolved
Somehow
Somehow
But how I don’t know
It looks as if everything is lost
Forgive me –I’m confused
Everything has been turned upside down and inside out
Nothing is like what it was
Nothing seems stable and solid in the world any more
Everything has changed
Everything
Day has turned into night and faith is now riddled with doubt
Were we mistaken-were we?
Surely it can’t have been a deception,
Surely everything he said and done has not been in vain?
Surely something will survive?
It must!
Yes, it must, or all is lost and beauty has been nothing but an illusion.
No wonder the soldiers laugh
It seems as if they have had the final say
But that can’t be the last word that is to be spoken about this story!
It can’t.
It mustn’t be.
Not that
Not the hollow mockery of those in the city who agree with the army and side with the priests in their judgement against him
Yes, the soldiers laugh
Death has come and they have delivered it
On a cross
The worst of deaths
The hardest thing anyone can face yet when it came to it he had to face it alone
That’s right, alone.
With no one beside him
With no one to help him on his way
With nothing but the jeers of the people and the laughter that accompanied him all the way up the mountain
Slowly and slowly
Falling at times
The terrible weight of the wood biting into his shoulder
And the loneliness that must have been in his heart at that moment
It doesn’t bear thinking about
I can’t think about it
I can’t think about the part I played in that drama
And what part do I play now?
That of a frightened man seeking the shelter of the shadows
Seeking silence and darkness
Seeking an oblivion that will not welcome me
Do you feel the cold also or is this just something that I am subject to?
The cold and the silence and the darkness bite into my soul and will not allow me any rest
It’s more than the chill of spring
It’s something particular to this night
It’s been like that since yesterday
Yesterday –what a simple word to indicate the horror of what happened
Yesterday –simple word and yet…
Nothing can put it into words
You can’t, I can’t, no one can
It’s too horrible for words-
When beauty meets death must death always been the victor?
This is the question that bothers me
This is the question I wrestle with
But I have no answer
I don’t want to answer it
I can’t
It seems as if death has won and beauty has been mocked and the world is more empty because of that
Wait (he crouches down)
Shadows are moving among the shadows
Voices are drawing near
It must be the soldiers
(Footsteps are heard, in unison, faintly at first and then louder, and then they fade away. He slowly gets up and once more comes to centre stage)
I know, forgive me.
I shouldn’t be so frightened but I am.
I can’t help it
I don’t know if I was always like this or if this is only since yesterday.
I should have more faith, and yet
And yet when I look into my soul I see a man who is scared and running from shadows and voices in the night
He must have known I was like that
He must have
He must have seen the fibres of my being and known the stuff of which I was composed
I know he knew
There was nothing you could hide from him
He knew your deepest thoughts your most private secrets
He looked at you and in that look you knew that you stood naked before his compassionate gaze
That’s what I can’t forget-
His gaze
Those eyes
Eyes that loved and forgave you every crime you every committed
Eyes that told you love was possible in the world and that for everything there would be a redemption
If you saw him, if he looked into Your eyes then you would know what I mean
This is something that words also can’t tell
How can they?
Words cannot tell you what he was like
Words are not big enough
Only the heart can know the beauty of his look
Only the heart can respond in befitting ways
Yes, I know what you are thinking
If he was like that then why am I hiding
If that look meant everything then why do I cower like a hunted animal –because that’s what I feel like-
An animal that has lost its lair
An animal that cannot find its way forward in the darkness
An animal that realise that it is without protection in the world
And I am
Without protection
Without him, in spite of my little faith, I am totally lost without him
You think this is bad?
Well maybe it is –but I have done worse
Yes, I have done worse and the shame of it burdens me to the core of my being
You will hear about it sooner or later so it’s best that I tell you what happened
I denied him
There, I’ve said
Out loud and without excuse –I denied him
And do you know what the hardest part of it is; do you know what that part is which is almost too much to bear?
He said that I would
O yes, he looked into my soul, saw the scared animal, and knew that I would deny him
Yet he did not say this with hate or bitterness
He said it without rancour
As if this was also part of the drama
As if this was something that needed to happen, or if it was not needed, then at least something inevitable to the moment in which he would suffer
That suffering was total
It’s something I can’t think about
It’s something I can’t dwell on or my heart will burst –for yes, I denied him
Denied the one who was beautiful
Denied the one who was pure and total innocence
Denied the one who told us that love was the forgiving grace
You can have no idea of the burden this places on me
You cannot suspect the weight which this is and which I will have to carry with me for the rest of my days
I hope for forgiveness –but is there forgiveness enough in the world to wipe away this?
Is there?
There must be or I am totally lost and in truth, without him, I am lost
That’s why I hide from the soldiers
That’s why the shadows within the shadows alarm me
I am nothing without him
Nothing and next to nothing
I am a hollow man burdened in the darkness with his memories
Night is dark
The cold chills my bones and I can do nothing to warm myself
Memories crowd my mind and I don’t know where to begin
Begin?
Is this a beginning?
More likely an end
Everything seems to have ended
Ended and no hope of a future with him
And he is now dead
This is not what we expected
Ended and no hope of a future
What is the future if it cannot be lived in his shadow?
Yes, even though I denied him I have the right to ask this question
His shadow
How often I watch it as we walked the roads of this country
Walking and talking, walking and listening, walking and laughing
Yes, he liked to laugh
He like so many things
I think there was nothing in this world apart from injustice that he did not love
Like is too week a word
He loved and he loved
It was a power that flowed from him into everything that he did and into everyone that he met
You don’t believe me?
Then go and seek out those who met him
Don’t take my word for it
Search it out for yourself but be prepared to be surprised
Love is always surprising –wherever you find it
Especially if you find it in the shambles of this world
This world is a shambles
Without him everything is meaningless and hollow and we are just scarecrows in a field crying out to the wind and rain
So where is that love now?
Who will give it form and expression?
No one will, no one can
No one will ever have the love that he was capable of showing and he showed it to all that he came across
Across –what a double edged word that is containing as it does the cross on which he died
Nailed there like a common criminal
Nailed between criminals
Left there to die
A spectator sport for the dregs of the city to laugh at
And they laughed
Laughed and called out to him to save himself as he had saved others
They laughed and they laughed though only a week before they welcomed him into the city and were ready to do anything he said
It seemed like the victory that we longed for
But he was not deceived
He knew what the jubilation was worth
His head was not turned by the cheers
We were but he was not
He saw to the conclusion of their words and knew what would follow
How then could we suspect what would follow?
How could we know or begin to suspect the plots that would be hatched against him?
We couldn’t
We were blinded by the cheers and by the fact that we were the centre of attention
Yes, pride blinded us but it did not blind him
He knew
He saw beyond the cheers and the palms and saw what would happen
He always seemed to know what would happen
Perhaps that gave him strength to face it
Perhaps he alone could bear to know the future that was waiting for him
If we had known what would we have done?
What would we have said?
Would we have gone within throughout the country and said that we were his followers if we knew what the end would be?
Probably not
No, we would not have gone
Heaven could lure our souls away to him but the thought of the nails and the wood would have been more than enough to frighten us away.
It’s a terribly admission, and one that I am not proud to make
And yet I must make it
This night demands honesty from each one of us and there are conclusions in my heart that I must not seek to avoid
And how can they be avoided
He lies dead in a tomb, the city laughs at us, and the soldiers hunt us down
No, this is no time to avoid conclusions
We must not fool ourselves nor claim to be that which we are not
Honesty, like a knife, must cut through the knot of our lives
We must face the situation as it is and what we have become because of it
I must face the fact that I am a hollow man burdened by his memories –a hollow man seeking refuge from the shadows
Why am I talking to you like this?
What do I hope to gain by this confession?
I don’t know
I only know that I have to speak and I think you will listen
No one in the city will listen
They drink and laugh and drink again and make jokes about his life and death
Yes, I have heard them
Heard them and wept that one so beautiful should be spoken of in such a way yet what can I do?
I am just a single voice talking in the darkness to strangers
Talking and talking
Hoping to come to some understanding or conclusion that I can live with
But I don’t know how to live without him!
That’s the burden
That’s the price I pay for following him
Not that I regret it
I’d do it all over again if I had to for he was everything that was beautiful in life and I was happy even to watch his shadow on the ground
Do you know what living beauty is?
I don’t think so
You never saw him
You never listened as he spoke in simple terms of the most complex of things
You never saw him smile and with that smile change the hearts of all who saw it
He was pure beauty
He was innocence personified and yet…and yet he is now dead and the army appears to have won and the world is empty of all meaning and beauty now that he is not in it
No, you do not know what beauty is
You know human beauty –nature or a beautiful woman, but beauty beyond these lesser things, beauty that was its own definition, its own appearance –you never saw that
If you did you would not sit in your chairs but rise up and sing and dance!
Forgive me
I make no accusation
I only try to express something of the totality which he was and the effect that he had on all who came into contact with him
Perhaps that’s what the priests were afraid of
Perhaps that is what the government were afraid of
He was something they could not control
He was a force they had no authority over
He was a living law that upset and unbalanced all the petty laws of the State
No wonder they feared him
And yes, they feared him
They feared what he would say
They feared what he would do
They feared what he was capable of causing in the hearts of those who heard him
And they were right to fear him
Love can always win in any battle with bitterness and hate
The government feared him as a political force
The priests feared him as a threat to their power
Poor fools
They didn’t understand
That was not the power he was seeking
That was not the power he was capable of wielding
The power he had was the power to change hearts
To heal the sick and ease the minds of those who were troubled
His power brought love into the world and into the lives of those who turned to him
That’s why I’m ashamed of what I did
I thought I loved him more than any of the others did
I thought I was favoured by him in a way that the others were not
And how did I repay him?
What did I do in return?
I denied him.
Said I did not know him and had nothing to do with him-
Is that the love I’m capable of?
Is that my true worth?
It that what it means to be Peter the fisherman –a denier of all that was good and beautiful in the world?
I’m afraid that it is
Perhaps I have no love in me to be what he wanted me to be
Perhaps I never really knew what love is
Perhaps I am a coward at heart and will always remain so
I shudder at the thought
It’s enough to make me understand the despair of Judas
He killed himself when he realised what he had done
So why don’t I do the same
Am I afraid to meet my fate?
Am I afraid to face the fate that will be cast about my name?
Perhaps
Perhaps
And yet I hope
Yes, I have hope that somehow all will be forgiven and redeemed
It’s that thought which keeps me going forward blindly in the night
If there is love then there is hope and in spite of everything I’ve done and in spite of what I have been I love him still and so there is hope
This surprises you?
You think is strange and inconceivable that hope should exist in death?
You didn’t know him
You don’t know the force that flowed from him
But I do
I was with him
I felt that force and saw that love and so there is hope
Not just for myself but for all living things because that’s how he always spoke
Never just to the moment and to the few that listened but spoke to all things and all people as if history was his to command
That’s right –history was in his service!
It wasn’t the other way around which is the way that most men operate
He acted as if history was there to be shaped to a fateful destiny
I’m sorry, I’m not been very clear, am I?
And yet how am I to explain to you what I don’t fully understand myself
I only know that he existed outside the historical moment and historical limitations and that because of this the future will be different
Yes, even with my faults I believe this and nothing will ever change that
I loved him, I love him still, I’ll always love and love until all love will end in the world
History –what a strange thing to think about on a night like this
Do the soldiers recognise just what has happened or does the government feel that some great danger has been averted?
Do the priest suspect that love will outlast the plottings and schemes?
I doubt it
I doubt if they have any idea of the forces that are involved here
If they knew they would have acted differently-
Or did they know and act regardless of what they knew?
If so they are fools
Love will always outwit the schemes of devious men and so, somehow, love will win out and history will be blessed
Yes, even the darkness and the coldness will be blessed and redeemed
But how?
I can’t say
I am no prophet who sees the future
I am only a man but I am a man who saw the master and that is everything
That gives me the right to believe that history will be altered
That gives me the right to speak the way I do
Where are the others?
I don’t know, I can’t say
Some are scattered here about the mountain, others are hiding in the city
We each must face this night alone and we cannot comfort one another
Each of us is cast back upon the most basic facts of our faith and that faith must be examined in solitude in this darkness
I face my long night and they face theirs
I cannot assist them and they cannot assist me
The darkness and the silence has to be faced by each of us alone
It is a necessity
A harsh one, but a necessity all the same
Perhaps they think and speak the same as I speak to you or perhaps they have different thoughts and different ghosts to rid themselves of
Perhaps
I only know this solitude is necessary for me
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