From All Things Evil

Sister

A Fertile Field

Hegemon

“From all things evil, Dear Lord, deliver us…”

A Play in Two Acts
Acting Version

Will be available for download soon.

For reviews of the original production and a complete description of the action of From All Things Evil, please see the dramanovella version under Books.

Cast: 4 male, 3 female

Father Emile Bergeron, 43, Confessor to the Convent of St. Jean Baptiste
Genevieve DeVriese, 33, a sorceress.
The Enemy, of indifferent age,  Bergeron’s inner demon.
Brother Rashad Al Asim, 60, a Dominican Inquisitor.
Mother Phillip, Superior of the Convent of St Jan Baptiste.
Theresa Renault, 14, a novice.
Sister Constance Granetiere, 17, a nun in the Convent of St Jean Baptiste.
Gervaise L’Etienne, Magistrate of the county.

The year is 1345. 

Setting:  A formal set suggestive of a 14th Century sanctuary with various acting areas that can become Notre Dame cathedral,  the priest’s lodgings, a cell in the infirmary, the forest pagan cathedral, a church sanctuary, Bergeron’s bedchamber, the Commons where the tribunal is held and the courtyard of the convent.

Prologue:  The cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris and The Cathedral of the Seven Oaks
Act I: 
Scene 1:  The priest’s home, the dining room.
Scene 2:  Constance’s cell in the infirmary.
Scene 3:  The Commons of the Convent.
Scene 4:  The sanctuary and Bergron’s dining room.
Scene 5:  Constance’s cell in the infirmary.

Act II
Scene 1:  Bergeron’s dining room
Scene 2:  Constance’s cell
Scene 3:  The Cathedal of the Seven Oaks
Scene 4:  Constance’s cell
Scene 5:  The commons
Scene 6:  The sactuary
Scene 7:  The Cathedral of the Seven Oaks
Epilogue:  The courtyard of the convent

Description

The Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris is at last completed at the same time that a new age of humanism, sweeping through Europe, made such grand testaments to faith seem almost an anachronism. 

Father Emile Bergeron is the most virtuous of men, a protector of orthodoxy during a most faithless and perverse time, the Fourteenth Century, which many have said mirrors our own.

Bergeron is unmoved by the temptations of the world until, perhaps aided by the workings of the witch, Genevieve DeVries, whom the villagers call “Our Lady of the Heath,” he becomes obsessed with “the little nun,” Sister Constance Granetiere of the Sisters of St Jean Baptiste and is delivered body and soul to his age-old enemy, the fleshly tempter that the Church calls by the name of Asmodeus, but Bergeron calls, more simply, The Enemy.

The priest’s struggle to banish his devils has tragic results for himself, Sister Constance and the world he inhabits.

From All Things Evil is a psychological horror story filled with magic and passion, both fleshly and spiritual, that lays bare what one critic described as the clash “between Dionysius and Apollo” that is so much a part of the human condition.

Exerpt: From All things Evil

Scene 1: The Rectory

Father Emile Bergeron’s dining room in the rectory adjacent to the convent. Theresa Renault absently sings disconnected phrases of old folk melodies, switching from one to another as she works with no thought at all to continuity.  She is cleaning the room as part of her discipline.  Theresa is 14, and lovely with dark hair and violet eyes.  It is said that all the boys in the village went into the deepest mourning when she decided on her own and with no prompting from parent or priest, to enter the convent.)
Mother Philip: (enters) Has Father Bergeron finished confession
Theresa: (startled)  Yes, Reverend Mother.
Mother Philip:  Have his things been unpacked and put away?”
Theresa:  Yes, Reverend Mother.
Mother Philip:  Good.  He has had a long journey back from Paris, and I know he's exhausted.

(Mother Phillip runs her finger along the table, inspecting it for dust.)

Mother Philip:  I told him he should postpone his duties until he'd rested, but, of course, he would not.
Theresa:  He has the dedication of a saint, doesn't he, Reverend Mother?
Mother Philip:  You admire Father a great deal, don't you?
Theresa:  (cautiously) Oh, we all do, Reverend Mother.
Mother Philip:  Is that the reason for the muffled giggling I sometimes hear in the novitiate's chamber after prayers when you are supposed to be sleeping?
Theresa:  Reverend Mother, I...I didn't know you could hear... I mean…
Mother Philip:  Oh, Theresa!
  I was once a novice, too; and a young girl.  Hard to believe, I know.  You must remember, though, that Father Bergeron has devoted his life to the service of God.  Don't let your thoughts take you too far, hmmm?.
Theresa:  Yes, Reverend Mother.  I mean, no Reverend Mother.”
Mother Philip:  Oh, I share your admiration for him, my dear; he is a striking man, for all his years; he wears his age as well as any man and better than most.  Would you agree?
Theresa:  He has the bearing of a Pericles and the tongue of a Cicero!
Mother Philip:  (Laughing) Well, I’m so glad you are current with your classical studies.  I agree, but, for all that, he is a man of God and his dedication to the Church is unassailable.  You would do well to keep that in mind, my girl.
Theresa:  Yes, Reverend Mother.  Re-dusts the bookshelf)
Mother Philip: However, if he is not more careful with his health, his dedication may earn him an early grave.
Bergeron:  (Enters) At this point, Reverend Mother, even the sleep of the tomb sounds inviting.

Mother Phillip:  (Pulls a chair from the table and beckons him to sit.) Oh.  Father!  I told you, you should have rested before confession.  Three days traveling with a mule train would tax anyone’s constitution.  Sit down; I'll pour you some wine.
Bergeron:  No wine, for me; I have less than an hour before Mass, and…
Mother Philip: The fast must be kept, I know.  Well, rest then.  You really shouldn't drive yourself so hard.
Bergeron:  (Speaking more to the young postulant he’s just noticed in the room than to Mother Phillip.) Wars are won by diligence, Reverend Mother, not by indolence. (Back to Mother Philip)  I suppose, I shouldn't even have taken the time to go to Paris.  My duties here…
Mother Phillip: Nonsense.
Bergeron:  But, to be invited to lecture at the Cathedral was an opportunity I simply couldn't resist.” 
Mother Phillip:  It means your writings are finally gaining the attention they deserve.  How were your lectures received? 
Bergeron: (Hazarding another glance toward Theresa). Reverend Mother, I couldn't begin to describe it!  I get down on my knees every day and thank God for the enthusiasm of the young.  (Smiling at Theresa, who giggles in response.) They may be unschooled and impulsive, but if the future of the Church is in their hands, then I do not fear for its prosperity.
Mother Phillip: (Crossing her arms and smiling at the priest.)  Liked you, then, did they?
Bergeron:  I had them spellbound.  Ha! (Clapping his hands once  and turning his attention back to the old woman.)  I spoke for hours on my defense of the Inquisition alone.  I shouldn't speculate, but I think that lecture may provide the final push to secure my acceptance into the Dominican Order and my appointment as an Inquisitor.
Mother Phillip:  You will be leaving us, then?
Bergeron:  If I am accepted, yes.
Mother Phillip:  We'll miss you.
Bergeron:  The Bishop will send you another priest.
Mother Phillip:  It would be difficult to replace you.  The sisters adore you.
Bergeron:  (startled, as if the woman had read his mind.) Ah.  Yes, I heard.  Reverend Mother, I needn’t remind you that adoration is due only to God.  If I have become a distraction in my parish, perhaps it is time to leave.
Mother Phillip:  Come now, you can't tell me it doesn't please you...just a little?
Bergeron: (Caught.)  A little, yes. (Laughs) But then I know its best that I leave.
Mother Phillip:  I will pray for you, Father, (Patting his shoulder with a familiarity that makes him wince.)  It must be difficult for a man of your talents to find himself wasted in a small parish like this one.  I do not begrudge you your ambition.
Bergeron:  (Miffed) Thank you.
Mother Phillip:  Come, Theresa.  We must leave Father Bergeron alone to prepare for mass.

(Bergeron watches the girl empty the bucket of dirty water out the window and gather up the cleaning cloths.  She is graceful, in an awkward, adolescent way, both self conscious and sure of herself, knowing yet ignoring that his eyes were fixed on her every move.)

Bergeron: (Spinning languidly in his chair) Reverend Mother, I missed one of our nuns at confession.
Moher Phillip:  (Hesitantly.) You know their voices so well?
Bergeron:  (Chuckles) There aren’t that many and I have been pastor here for twelve years.  Is Sister Constance no longer with us?
Mother Phillip:  (Caught off-guard) Sister Constance is ill, Father.  I have confined her to a cell in the infirmary.
Bergeron:  Ill?  What’s wrong with the child?  Nothing serious, I hope.
Mother Phillip:  I decided to take no chances.  Illness spreads so quickly in a convent…
Bergeron:  (Anxiously.)  She shouldn’t be denied the confessional.  Take me to her.
Mother Phillip:  You...are tired, Father.  Is it wise to expose yourself to…
Bergeron:  I have administered extreme unction to people dying of the sweat, Reverend Mother.  Take me to her.”
Mother Phillip:  Theresa, go on ahead.

(Theresa gathers her things and curtseys, charmingly, before skipping out the door.)

Bergeron:  Why did you dismiss her?
Mother Phillip:  There is something you should know before you see Sister Constance, something that must not be generally known.  She is not ill; that’s the story I have spread about.  She is going to have a child.
Bergeron:  Are you certain?
Mother Phillip:  I know the symptoms, Father.  She was sick every morning; that first raised my suspicions.  Then, when I questioned her about it she confided more to me.  Yes, I am reasonably certain.
Bergeron:  How is it possible?
Mother Phillip:  Perhaps it's easy to forget, but beneath these habits, we are still women, Father.
Bergeron:  Of course, but ... Sister Constance…
Mother Phillip:  Has always been ...unmanageable; you know that.  I have often thought she is, perhaps, ill suited for her vocation.
Bergeron:  Why?
Mother Phillip:  Far too high spirited, asks too many questions. Rules are not sufficient for her; she must have reasons. A proclivity that, while admirable for a theologian or philosopher, is inappropriate for us.
 Bergeron:  (Moved) Who is the man?  Did she say?
Mother Phillip: No.  No matter how much I...questioned her, she wouldn't tell me.

(Bergeron pours a goblet of wine and drinks deeply.  Mother Phillips takes note.)

Bergeron:  Well, of course something will have to be done.  She can’t remain here as if …
Mother Phillip:  Father, I ask you to let me handle this in my own way.
Bergeron:  What do you intend to do?
Mother Phillip:  (Dismissive.)  These are women’s matters, Father; it is not necessary for you to know.  You are, after all, a man, and…
Bergeron:  And you are of an age that is long past blushes.  I know what you’re talking about, I’m not naïve, and I cannot permit it.
Mother Phillip:  Then don’t permit it.  Forget it.
Bergeron:  I will not!  Tell me what you intend to do.  If you’re thinking of taking the child before…
Mother Phillip:  No. (Gathering her wits and speaking slowly, to impress upon him that she knows what she is doing.)  The problem is more common, especially among novices, than most laymen, even most churchmen, believe or are willing to allow.  Indeed, if I had not known that Constance would surely confess it, I would have never told you.  She can remain in her cell until her time comes.  I will minister to her myself.
Bergeron:  And then?
Mother Phillip:  Do not press me.  If you would not know the answer, do not ask the question.
Bergeron:  On your vows, tell me the truth.
Mother Phillip:  Unfortunately, the child will be born dead, and will be quickly and quietly buried.
Bergeron:  You would kill it?
Mother Phillip:(Prevaricating.) It will be born dead.  Father, it is the best possible solution.  She has no family outside of the convent...no money.  She came here a desperate little girl.  Perhaps this life doesn't suit her, but it's the only life she has, the only life she knows.  If there is a child … Where will we say it came from?  Did some gypsy pass by the convent in the night and leave it on our doorstep?  This is a small village, Father.  There will be talk.  It’s one thing to give a wink and nod to one of the farm girls, quite another … (challenging) I have promised to protect her.
Bergeron: You are talking about a human soul.
Mother Phillip:  It can be baptized, if you wish. I can't turn her out to certain starvation on the outside.  Here, at least, she is secure and loved.  (Desperately.) Besides, how many Templars were killed in Paris, Father?
Bergeron:  They were convicted sorcerers.  You are talking about an innocent child.
Mother Phillip:  Innocence has nothing to do with it (slamming her hand on the table and leaning toward him, eyes blazing.) We are talking about a bastard child born of an illicit union with a bride of Christ! (Almost unconsciously, she’s happened upon a persuasive argument.)  She won't reveal who the father is; why, for all we know, she might have been seduced by Asmodeus himself, or any of his demi-devils. Even if that were not so,  there is enough doubt of its paternity that... In a world made by men, what kind of a life would it have?  The child is better off dead.
Bergeron:  The subject is closed, Reverend Mother. 

(The light flares in her eyes, but, dutiful child of the Church, she drops the subject, submitting, at least publicly, to his authority.)

Bergeron:  Now, take me to Sister Constance.
Mother Phillip:  Very well, Father. Follow me. 

(Mother Phillip folds her hands across her abdomen in a gesture that might be either acquiescence or defiance and crosses to the UR platform.  Bergeron drains his glass and follows her.  Lights cross fade to the UR platform where Sister Constance is  kneeling before an icon of the Virgin.

Scene Two: Sister Constance’s cell in the infirmary.

(Sister Constance is trying to concentrate on the prayer she has been given to say, over and over again until it beat on her brain like a hammer. It has become, through repetition, mere sound without meaning, and as such, seemed rather silly and makes her laugh.)
Constance:  Oh, no, enough.

(There are so many distractions in her imagination that keep her from prayer and, helpless to prevent them, she gives herself to them.  She feels a breathing on her neck and the delicate touch of fingers down her shoulders. Her friend is back. She calls him her shadow lover for his face was always hidden in the shadow of a hood. She tosses her head back allowing her veil to slip and her long brown hair to cascade down her back.*  So caught up in her waking dream is she that she almost doesn’t hear the footsteps in the hall.)

*Note: The Sisters of the Convent of St. Jean Baptiste did not, as some other orders did, cut their hair.  It was considered a gift from God and, like their patron saint, they would suffer no razor to touch it any more than they would allow an outsider to gaze upon it. 

Mother Phillip: (Enters) Sister Constance? (Mother Phillip touches the girl on her shoulder.)  Father Bergeron has come to hear your confession.

(Constance clasped her hands more tightly and focused her eyes intently on the icon.)

Bergeron:  You may leave us, Reverend Mother.

(Mother Phillip looks from Constance to Begeron, gives him a hard look and exits.  Bergeron stands, observing the small, trembling figure bent before the icon of St. Mary.  He knows she is no longer praying, but he won’t interrupt her.  He waits for her to speak first.
              
Canstance:  You know.
Bergeron:  Yes.
Constance:  She shouldn't have told you.
Bergeron:  (Crosses to get a better look at her face.)  I would have found out, anyway, eventually.
Constance:  I wanted it to be beyond your conscience.
Bergeron: (catching himself staring at her face he turns and crossed to the center of the platform.) It’s better this way.
Constance:  Is it?”
Bergeron:  Yes.
Constance:  You are a priest, Emile.
Bergeron:  And you are a nun.”
Constance:  I haven’t taken final vows.  It's not my life.
Bergeron: What do you plan to do?
Constance:  Have the child.  Reverend Mother says it can be given away.
Bergeron:  I see.  Is that what you want?
Constance:  You know what I want.
Bergeron:  It is a mortal sin.
Constance:  Not to me.  (Sits on the cot.)  Even when Reverend Mother gave me penance, I couldn't think of it as a sin.  Emile, the love between a man and a woman was ordained by God at the creation.
Bergeron:  It is a sin for us.  The Church commands us to deny the flesh.
Constance:  Then, why did God place us on earth in bodies of flesh?  The Church must be wrong.
Bergeron:  Ah!  (laughs) Just like that.  Revise a thousand years of Church tradition. If it were left to you, you might change everything to suit your whims.  But, it is heresy, Constance.
Constance:  Which is the greater heresy, denying God's design or accepting it?  I have accepted it.  I love you, Emile.
Bergeron:  Don’t say that!”  (Turns from her) Oh God, I would rather a thousand devils rose up to face me, that, I could resist; but when you speak to me of love...when the devil cloaks himself in so pure and sweet a form …
Constance:  You speak of devils?  I spoke only of love.
Bergeron:  Yes, the Devil can take on even so pleasing a shape as love to ensnare us.
Constance:  Why do you deny as shameful what I gave you with a pure heart, that which, if what I see in your face is true, I will still give you? (Rises and crosses to  him)  There is no guilt in that!  And, even if there were, wouldn't a loving God forgive all?
Bergeron:  Don't.…”
Constance:  Will you tell me here and now that what happened between us means nothing to you. (She sees a softening in his face.)  Look at me and say you do not love me, and I will let the matter rest and never speak of it to you again.  Can you do that?
Bergeron:  No.  Fool that I was, I thought I could rid myself of you while I was In Paris.  But you followed me everywhere, in the street, in the classroom, and at night...alone on my cot… how I ached for you!”

(She crosses to him and puts her arms around him and pressed her face against his chest.)

Constance:  Then leave with me.  We'll live someplace far away where no one has ever heard the name, Emile Bergeron. We'll say good-bye to musty old brick cells and moldy old thoughts.  I'll have our child...
Bergeron:  (Embracing her.)  Would that it were possible..
Constance:  I've thought it out.  We'll have our own cottage somewhere in the North country.  Maybe we'll run an Inn and be constantly in the company of travelers from far-away places.  I've read of such places:  London, Madrid, Athens, Byzantium! Why, even the names sound exotic and mysterious.  Our son will grow tall and strong in the sun.
Bergeron:  (Shaking his head.) You paint such a lovely pastoral picture, who wouldn’t be tempted by it  But, we can't.
Constance:  We can.   (Holds him tighter.)  What is there to prevent us?
Bergeron:  Oh Constance, be sensible!”  (Grasps  her arms and pulls them from around his waist.)  Look at me.  I am a scholar, a forty-three year old scholar!  For a man like me, there is no life outside of the Church.  Oh, I might be happy for awhile, but a man can run from his true self for only a short time.  In a few years I would grow to resent the life I chose.
Constance:  And me? (Hurt, she pulls  away from him, but her eyes remain locked on his.)  Would you resent me?          
Bergeron:  To live in a place where no one has ever heard of Emile Bergeron, never heard of my work, the work I have been called by God to do, work that cannot be done outside the church as long as the church governs all?  Yes, I would resent you for that, and what about you?  Could you watch me decline into my dotage and still love, when there is so much of your youth left to you?  You must see that it is impossible.
Constance:  Then you don’t love me?
Bergeron:  As much as I’d like to say yes … It’s only the obsession of a foolish old man, not love.

 (Seventeen year old girls are given to extremes, and Sister Constance Granetiere was no exception.  No one feels love, loyalty or betrayal more than at seventeen.  It is not unheard of to die of heart-break at seventeen; there have been accounts.  And so, she could not understand.)

Constance:  All right then. I will speak of it no more. (Turns away from him.)  Return to your books.  Find comfort in them, if you can.          

(Bergerpon places the palm of his hand against her back to comfort her.)

Bergeron:  Constance…
Constance:  No.  Don't touch me. You have made your choice
Bergeron:  Can't you understand…
Constance:  No, I can't.  I won’t!  Please leave me now.

(As completely as she had embraced him a moment before, now she shuts him out.)

Bergeron:  What about the child?
Constance:  That is no longer your concern. 
Bergeron:  What I mean is...does anyone know who the father is?
Constance:  (Turns on him, astounded.)  No, Emile.  No one knows except you and me ... and God.  (As if to prove that she could be as true as he was false) You needn't worry, no one will.  You've chosen your life, as we all do, and I won't get in the way of it. I can’t make you love me, but, because I love you, I won't hurt you.  I will make that my final sacred vow.
Bergeron:  Will you swear to that?
Constance:  What?
Bergeron:  Will you swear by all the saints you will never betray me?
Constance:  Betray you?  I betray you?  Haven’t I already sworn by my love for you that I will not?  That's enough.  The saints are no more real to me than that.
Bergeron:  They are more real to me.
Constance:  Then, you swear by them.

(She faces him, arms folded under her breasts, her head haughty and high, her lips puckered and her eyes heavy lidded and defiant.  It is to him utterly entrancing.)

Bergeron:  Oh, why...why did you ever lay out your lustful passions before me?  Why didn't you keep them to yourself?
Constance:  (Not about to let him get away with that.)  The purpose of the confessional is to reveal our sinful thoughts, for so they were to me then, and receive penance.  Why didn't you give me penance and forget?
Bergeron:  I couldn’t forget.  I couldn't pass you in the corridor on the way to vespers, or catch a glimpse of you at prayers, or even place the Host in your mouth without hearing once again the words that passed between us.
Constance:  That's because you are a man, Emile.
Bergeron:  A man of God.
Constance:  A man in priest's robes.
Bergeron:  A consecrated man.
Constance:  A living man, a breathing man, a man of flesh.  Emile, why can't you accept that?  Your robes don't make up the whole of you any more than this habit makes up the whole of me.

(Bergeron turns suddenly toward the door and listens.)

Constance:  Emile, what's wrong? Emile?
Bergeron:  Quiet!

(The Enemy, a spectral figure, cloaked and hooded in a rust colored monk’s habit, enters and walks silently to the door and stands, waiting.)
              
Constance:  Emile, what is it?
Bergeron:  For God's sake, be quiet! 

(Bergeron presses his ear against the door but, hearing nothing, opens it slowly and looks into the hallway.  He sees nothing.  The Enemy moves on.)

Bergeron:  I thought...I had the feeling that someone was out there...listening,” he said as he closed the door.
Constance:  You're starting at shadows, Emile.  Like a guilty child at the voice of a stern and unforgiving father. Is that the life you want, living only to avoid punishment? I'm sorry for you.
Bergeron:  Attend to your prayers, Sister. Ask the Blessed Mother to forgive you your heresies.
Constance:  There is no need for forgiveness where there is no sin.

(Still she was defiant.  Still she was rebellious.  He would remember that.)

  Bergeron:  Attend to your prayers (Exits.) 

(Left with nothing except the power of the vow she’d made to love, she falls to her knees before the icon.)

Constance:  Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us poor sin-… No, I can't say the word. I can't, Emile, I can't.

(Lights fade to black.)

SISTER

Will be available for download soon.

And, still he watches, still he waits.
The wind and summer rain
That formed him from the clay
Will wear him down some more this year.
The snow will gather in the pock-marks
Of his stony cheeks,
And winter creatures nestle
In the branches of his hair.

The real tragedy of our existence is to grow old and have nothing to anticipate but regret.
In 1974, police broke into a house in Boston Massachusetts and found in it three corpses.  All were in their eighties.  There were freshly purchased groceries on the kitchen table.  Two of the dead, a male and a female, had died only within the past few days.  The third, lying on a couch in the living room, had been dead five years.
From this strange and frightening premise, Jeremy McGuire crafted a one-act play that he called SISTER.  At first comical, in the end, it is the portrayal of two people who are so dependent on their older sister’s authority that they cannot allow her to die.  So, they devise stragegems, mental and physical, to keep her alive and give their lives some meaning.
Brother, in particular, senses the emptiness of a life spent working as an accounting clerk to support his siblings when his soul longs to soar on the wings of poetry.  His idol is Walt Whitman and he fashions himself a poet too, keeping a writing desk in the bay window where he has papers neatly stacked surrounded by an odd assortment of plants.  His “corner” is the only sign of life in the house and is his retreat from despair.
At first, it seems only that his sense of responsibility for the welfare of his sisters is what keeps him chained to the sepulcher of a house, but we discover it is far more than that.  It is his own fear and a deeper more sinister secret that they all share, a secret that Sister used to keep him under her control.
For an electronic downloan of Sister, click here.

REVIEW:
PROCESS PLAYS BIZARRE
Mary Ann Ford, The Pantagraph
(Contains only material relevant to Sister.)

The Illinois State University Process Theatre began its second semester with two bizarre plays Thursday night., “Sister” and “Funnyhouse of a Negro” were presented in Allen Theatre.
Both plays had freaky twists to their plots …
The first  play, “Sister,”  was rather lengthy but seemed to keep anticipation alive for the audience…
The cast was small.  It consisted of Brother, played by Mark Greenleaf, and Little Sister, played by Adele Smith, and Sister, played by Susan Regnier.
The characters are old people and McGuire, in charge of make-up, is to be congratulated for a great job in producing this effect.
Greenleaf portrayed a frustrated old man who never married.  His life consisted of a job as a bank clerk with one joy—going to Kelly’s Bar.  He took care of his two nagging sisters after his parents died.
Brother had one escape from his world – poetry.  He enjoyed writing and desperately wanted to escape the tomb in which he lived.
Little Sister didn’t approve of much that Brother did.  He was too much like his father who deserted them.  She constantly nagged and nit-picked her brother.
Although Sister never spoke and remained perfectly still throughout the play, she had quite an impact on Brother and Little Sister’s lives.  She was, in fact, dead.  Brother and Little Sister continually consulted her, refusing to admit her death.
The story is strange, as Greenleaf and Miss Smith convincingly portray their roles.  They were basically two unhappy people but occasionally experienced lighter moments of reminiscing.
To relate the entire story would ruin the unique twist for future viewers.
All aspects of the play were well done, from make-up to costumes, lighting and set.  All thre performers were good in their roles.
Miss Smith nagged until you could take it no more.  Greenleaf produced the frustrated emotion to such an extent that could easily empathize with his character.
Sister is directed by Don LaCasse. Funnhouse of a Negro is directed by Carl Morrison.  If you get the chance to see them --  do.  You won’t soon forget them.

Excerpt from SISTER:

LITTLE SISTER: (Enters from the kitchen area.  She is a small, thin, nervous woman in her eighties.  Her face is smooth and relatively free of blemishes reflecting an almost childlike naiveté.  The eyes dart about quickly as though examining every niche and corner of the rooms for possible danger or intrusion from the outside world.  She crosses to the parlor)  Mornin', Sister.  Have a nice night did we? (pause, listening)  Oh, I know what you mean.  All them motorcycles roarin' past - gettin' so's a body can't get any sleep at all anymore.  Don't seem to bother Brother none, though,  I swear, that man could sleep through a hurricane. (pause)  No, no, there ain't no hurricanes comin'.  Not in these parts anyway.  Too far from water.  A tornado sometimes, and an occasional hailstorm, but no hurricanes.  Now, don't you go worryin' about storms.  Don't do to worry about things you can't control.  (Adjusts Sister's blanket.)  Well, if you didn't get any sleep, you must be awful hungry.  No no, don't get up.  I'll get your breakfast.  You ain't been feelin' proper lately.  No sense tryin' to hide it.  I'm eighty- three, an' my eyes are as good as they ever was.  You might be able to fool Brother - he's gettin' on - but I know when a body ain't feelin' up to snuff.  Now, you just lay on back there and relax.  I'm perfectly able to take care of you for a change.  I won't be a second.  (Sound of a plane flying over) Them planes! (crosses to front door and opens it) I'll tell you what; one of these days one of them planes'll just fall out of the sky and land on us, mark my word.  Don't say it ain't possible; sometimes planes do fall and no tellin' where they'll land.  Ain't somethin' you can plan on, you know.  (Picks up milk from porch and closes the door. Crosses back to the parlor) Would you like to turn on the TV.?  There, that okay?  Now, you just enjoy yourself and I'll get your breakfast.
(Little Sister crosses to the kitchen.  BROTHER enters from the stairway. He is two years older than Little Sister.  His movements are slower, but there is in his manner the energy of a caged leopard. His humor is wry and deprecatory,a defense against the meaningless life he feels he hassled.)

LITTLE SISTER (off): Lord, would you look at this mess?  I wish Brother'd after himself!
BROTHER: (Brother crosses to the porch to get his newspaper)
Mornin' Sister.  Sleep well? (pause) My God, so did I.  Like a log!
LITTLE SISTER: (off) Just look at this -- crackers and peanut butter all over the counter!  I do wish he'd have more consideration.
BROTHER:  Oh, I didn't know Little Sister was down here.  I'll come back later. (Exits upstairs)
LITTLE SISTER: (off)  How do you want your eggs?  Fried?  Scrambled?  Poached? (Pause. Then sticking her head through the door) Just toast?  You're sure?  That don't seem like no kind of breakfast for a woman who ain't feelin' well.  Okay, if you ain't got an appetite, you ain't got an appetite. (exit) But really, you ought to eat more.  Build up your strength.  If not for your sake, then for Brother's.  You know how he worries so.(Enters with toast and milk and crosses to parlor) Here you are. Dry, just like you like it.  Now, you eat it all up, now, you understand?  Maybe nobody else cares what happens to us, but I do.  Chew it slow so you get all the nourishment out of it. (to television)  Dear Jesus, what's that? You don't want to be watchin' things like that.  Them mornin' news shows!  Do nothin' but scare everybody to death, that's what.  (changes channels)  There, that's better. (Crosses to stairs)  You ain't seen Brother up and about yet, have you?  That man! I swear, he sleeps later and later every mornin'.  Nothin' but laziness, that's what!  Laziness, pure and simple. Well, if he ain't up by the time I get his eggs ready, I'll go up and throw cold water on him just like Mama used to do.  Never failed.  (chuckles in anticipation)  He hated it, but it always worked.

(Little Sister exits to kitchen.  Brother enters from upstairs, without newspaper)

BROTHER:  Is she gone?  Good.  Old fuss-budget!  I can't stand all that chatterin' before I've had my coffee.  Nor after it, as far as that goes.  (Crosses to parlor)  Here now, is that all she's giving you to eat?  Can't get well on that?  That isn't  enough to keep a squirrel going.  (pause) You're not?  Come on, you have to eat something.  Well all right.  If you're not hungry, you're not hungry.  But, we shouldn't worry Little Sister.  You know how skittish she is.  I'll just eat half, okay?  (Picks up a piece of toast and looks at the television) Good Lord.  She forgot the butter.  What’s the matter with that woman?  Just because she likes it dry don’t mean…And, what's this? "Captain Kangaroo"?  Now, is that anything for a grown woman to be watching?  Here, let me change it for you.  My gosh, you'd think Little Sister'd have more sense than that.  Just turns the thing on not payin' any attention to what the program is.  You oughta tell her.  Tell her, "Look here, you old scarecrow, either put something decent on or turn the damn thing off!"  That's what you ought to tell her. (Finishes toast and drinks half the milk) There.  It'll be our little secret, eh?

(Brother crosses to desk as Little Sister enters from Kitchen)

LITTLE SISTER: So, you decided to get up after all, did you?  Didn't put yourself out any?  I was about to throw cold water on you.
BROTHER:  Oh woman, get off my ass!
LITTLE SISTER:  Brother!  Don't you be usin' that kind of language in this house!  Mama never tolerated it and neither will I.
BROTHER:  This is my house, and I'll talk any way I damn well please.
LITTLE SISTER: (Almost singing) This is Mama's house, Brother.
BROTHER:  It's my house.  Mama's dead, so it's my house.
LITTLE SISTER:  You shouldn't talk about Mama dyin' in front of Sister.  You know how upset she gets, ‘specially since she's been s’ sick.
BROTHER:  There you go again, always fussin'.  Maybe...
LITTLE SISTER:  Now Brother...
BROTHER:  Maybe if you'd stop all that confounded fussin' over her and stop tellin' her how sick she is she'd get better.
LITTLE SISTER:  That ain't fair, Brother.
BROTHER:  Isn't fair.
LITTLE SISTER:  I do the best I can.  Can I help it if I care so much?  I'm so afraid Sister'll....leave us.  Then we'll be all alone here.  God only knows what we'd do if...if....
BROTHER: Oh, now I've gone and upset you.  I'm sorry. I know you do your best.  I shouldn't have jumped on you.  Forgive me?
LITTLE SISTER:  Well...
BROTHER:  I don't know what's gotten into me lately.  I get so antsy.  Don't know what to do with myself.  I don't know.  I'm sorry.  (Brother crosses to kitchen)
LITTLE SISTER: Where are you goin'?
BROTHER:  Out back..to look at the garden.
LITTLE SISTER:  Ain’t nothin' planted out there.  Hasn't been for years.
BROTHER:  Yeah?  Well, maybe this year I'll...I don't know, maybe...put put some beans or something.  Maybe something’ll grow out there.  Soil’s so depleted, but maybe, with a little effort…
LITTLE SISTER:  Can't it wait tilt after breakfast?  Your eggs'll get cold.
BROTHER:  I don't want any breakfast.  I just want...I don't know.

(Brother exits through kitchen.  Little Sister watches him leave and then crosses to Sister in the parlor.)

LITTLE SISTER:  Sister, you ‘wake?  It’s Brother.  He's restless.  Don't know what to do with himself just like before.  Oh Sister, it's startin' again.  I can see the signs.  He's started taking the morning paper , and he reads it all the way through!  (points to houseplants)  And the fuss he makes over them weeds is enough to make a body scream!  (pause)  How do you know it'll pass.  It always has, but mark my words, one of these days he'll up and leave us just like Father done.  What if he goes diggin' around in the garden?  (pause)  We can't let that happen, can we Sister?  Not now.  Not after...  No.  Somehow….  Mama knew.  She knew how to do it. "You're the man of the family now," she'd say, Adventure and such foolishness is fine for them that have no responsibilities, but not for you.  You gotta keep the  family together,”.  (Notices half-eaten toast.)  You know, Sister, and I don't mean to nag, but you really ought to eat more.  Got to keep up your strength.  (pause)  Well, all right, if you're sure.  But, we really shouldn't worry Brother.  (Eats the rest of the toast and drinks the rest of the milk.)  I know what the problem with Brother is.  He's got too much time on his hands.  Time sets him thinkin'.  "Idle hands is the Devil's workshop," Mama used to say.  We have to keep him busy.  (Crosses to desk.)  My God!  Would you look at these things?  I didn't mind it when he brought in the philodendron, that was all right, but who do you know keeps milkweed and buckwheat in the house?  Just look at this rug!  Dead leaves all over it.  I wish to God I could just take the whole lot of them and toss them out the window.  Do nothin' but mess up the house, that's what.
BROTHER (enters)  Leave those plants alone!  Don't you ever touch them.
LITTLE SISTER:  I was just...
BROTHER: You were just nothin'.  Leave them alone, I said.  You have no business in my corner.  There's nothin' here that concerns you.
LITTLE SISTER:  No need to be s’harsh!  I didn't mean any harm, really I didn't.  I was just tryin' to tidy up a bit.
BROTHER:  You were meddlin'.  First my plants, then first thing you know, you'll be fussin' around in my papers.  Then what?  I won't have it, you understand?  A man's got rights in his own house.  You stay out of this corner.
LITTLE SISTER:  All right.  Lord!  What a fuss you're makin'.  As if I'd be interested at all in any of that foolishness.
BROTHER:  Foolishness?  Foolishness, is it?  Well, let me tell you...  Oh, never mind.  Where's my newspaper?
LITTLE SISTER:  I'm sure I don't know.  Can't follow you around all day.  I got things to do.
BROTHER:  (mumbles) I’ll bet you do y’meddlin’ ol’…(louder)  I'll find it myself.  Maybe I left it upstairs.
LITTLE SISTER:  Wouldn't be surprised. You’d forget your head if it wasn’t screwed on.

(Brother crosses to stairs.  Little Sister goes imediately to the desk.)

LITTLE SISTER: Must be somethin' awful if he don't want us to see it, eh Sister?  Let's see now:

"Night and sand
The undulating ocean
Copulating with
The unending sky.
They blend.
They harmonize.
They breathe as one.
While I, the solitary voyeur,
Watch."

That's horrible!  It makes my ears hurt..  No wonder he don't want us reading it.

(Brother enters from upstairs.  Little Sister quickly places the paper on the wrong stack.)

BROTHER:  Found it.
LITTLE SISTER:  Good.

(Brother sits on the couch to read.  Little Sister watches him for a moment, then sits in the rocker, picking up her needlepoint.)
LITTLE SISTER:  Anything in the paper?
BROTHER:  Yep.  Print.
LITTLE SISTER:  I have to go grocery shopping later.  Anything on sale?
BROTHER:  Don't know.
LITTLE SISTER:  Well, look.
BROTHER:  Oh, all right. (leafs through pages)  Bananas. (returns to his page)
LITTLE SISTER:  Bananas what?
BROTHER:  Are on sale.
LITTLE SISTER:  Lot of good that does me.  Where?
BROTHER:  If you want to know more, read it yourself.
LITTLE SISTER:  No.  Forget it.

A Fertile Field
A Drama in Two Acts
By Jeremy McGuire

Will be available for download soon.

In 1971, President President Richard Nixon appointed Earl Butz as Secretary of Agriculture, a position in which he continued to serve after Nixon resigned as the result of the Watergate scandal in 1974. In his time heading the USDA, Butz revolutionized federal agricultural policy and reengineered many New Deal era farm support programs. His mantra to farmers was "get big or get out," and he urged farmers to plant commodity crops like corn "from fencerow to fencerow." These policy shifts coincided with the rise of major agribusiness corporations, and the declining financial stability of the small family farm.
Few programs have been more disastrous for farming and have caused more tragedy in rural America than this.   The Eighties saw more farm foreclosures since the Great Depression, causing many in the farmlands to foment active rebellion

A Fertile Field revolves around the shooting of a County Sheriff during a rally protesting the foreclosure of yet another farm as a result of the ill-conceived Federal Farm Program.  An extremist white supremacists group called “The Host of Heaven” has taken up the farm crisis as a way of recruiting members, and it is the Host that is the driving force behind the protests, often showing up armed with automatic rifles as a “show of force.”  The principle character, George Kieffert, and his son, Robby, are suspected in the shooting.  The action of the play depicts how George’s family responds to the shooting and George Kieffert’s escaping from the law.

Cast:  7 men 4 women,  recorded voices of either gender.

Marjorie Kieffert,62  Schoolteacher and farm wife, deferential but with a hidden reserve of strength, a little overweight, but not fat.
George Kieffert, 65,  a life-long farmer, a leader in a fanatical white supremacist organization called "The Host of Heaven", but he still has a great deal of warmth and humor.  No matter what his politics are, he's still somebody's grandpa.
Robby Kieffert, 17,  Marjorie and George's youngest son born late in their lives.  He is thin and wiry like his father but with less intensity.
David Kieffert, 40, Marjorie and George's firstborn and, until Robby, their only child.  Solemn and reflective, he dislikes the farm life he grew up in, but is unable to rid himself of it entirely.  Physically, he takes after his mother.
Lyle Henderson, 5     4, Carroll County Deputy Sheriff, large, pleasant, as unaccustomed to trouble as he is unfamiliar with complex thought.
Pete Jorgenson, 53, a large, coarse man with a well-tended belly.  Loud and brash, he is the local leader of The Host.  He is a manipulator.
Cheryl Leary-Kieffert, 35, "city slicker", slim and pretty with a flirtatious Irish wit. Strong enough to be adaptable.
Kristin Kieffert 6,  daughter to David and Cheryl.
Jake, 32, Deputy Sheriff.
John Jenssen 40, Farmer.  Jovial and pragmatic, Square and sturdy, good Norwegian stock.
Betty Jenssen, 39, John's wife.  The best example of a country girl, good-natured and independent.  Responsible.
Newscaster, Reporter, Deputy, all pre-recorded on tape.

SETTING

One set.  The kitchen, Living room, front porch and yard of a moderate sized farmhouse, circa 1889, in the upper Midwest.  It is furnished simply but with shelves of bric-a-brac bought at innumerable church bazaars.  The year is 1986.  The house was newly furnished in the 1940's and only a few items have been added since then. George prefers to put his money into the land, not into his house.  The only room that has been remodeled is the kitchen at Marjorie's insistence.  It was done in the early 1960's, so there is a lot of formica and aluminum, but it is the cheeriest room in the house.  In the living room, a roll-top desk is littered with old copies of the "Farm Journal" and "Successful Farming", bills of sale, receipt and loan forms.  There are also copies of radical right wing books and periodicals scattered about on the desk, side-tables, and the coffee table.  A stairway off the living room leads to the bedrooms upstairs.  There are patriotic mottoes hanging about along with some pictures of Jesus, looking very Anglo-Saxon indeed.  Religious trinkets and wall hangings clutter the rooms.  A television set faces upstage through which the news reports of the search for George Kieffert is played.  The front porch contains a swing and, perhaps, a few of those tacky wind-chimes or a sunflower decoration.

SYNOPSIS OF SCENES

The action occurs during the course of two days in the Autumn of 1986, in and around the Kieffert home.

Act I
Scene 1:  The Kieffert Home.  Early morning.
Scene 2:  The same. Early afternoon the same day.
Scene 3:  The same. Late night the same day.

Act II
The same, early morning the next day.

Excerpt from A Fertile Field

Act One, scene one

It is early morning.  MARJORIE KIEFFERT is in the kitchen making pancakes and sausage. She is 62, nervous but pleasant and tending toward overweight, a fact that causes her some embarrassment.  She is pragmatic, the maintainer of the home, but she is also a bit romantic.  She is better educated than her husband and most of her neighbors, but in no way does she feel superior.  She hums along with the radio as she works and instills into the simple act of making breakfast her own unique brand of energy and the grace of a dancer.  The back door opens and GEORGE KIEFFERT enters, wiping his glasses.  He is 65, slim and muscular.  His lined face shows the strain of a hard life, but his eyes glisten with an inner fire that adversity has never been able to quench.  His movements are those of a hunter, closing in on his prey, yet his humor offsets his tense end energetic nature.

GEORGE: Lord, there's a nip in the air!  Seems more like November than September.
MARJORIE: Grab a cup of coffee.  Breakfast'll be ready in a minute.
GEORGE: (Notices pressure cooker on the stove.) Canning today?
MARJORIE: Putting up some beans.  'Bout the only thing good coming out of the garden this year.  Tomatoes never did turn red. This has been a crazy summer.  Nobody's garden really worked.  Just never got warm enough.
GEORGE: Well, it's like they say, we may miss a summer every so often, but we never miss a winter.
MARJORIE: I got a feeling this one's going to be awful.
GEORGE: (Indicating the canner.)You know, hon, you don't have to do that anymore.
MARJORIE: I like to.  Besides, what I put up is a lot better than what I can buy in town what with all the stuff you hear they're putting into food these days.  (pokes him in the back) And I don't think I've ever heard you complain about eating it.
GEORGE:  No.
MARJORIE: Then hush! (puts a platter of pancakes on the table) Robby coming in?
GEORGE: In a minute.  He's cleaning the milkers.  Takes him awhile.
MARJORIE:  If he got any slower we could paint him green and call him a shrub.
GEORGE:  He's a boy still.
MARJORIE: Dave coming in, too, or going to his house?
GEORGE: Both. He'll be down after he checks in on Kristin.

(ROBBY KIEFFERT enters from the back porch.  He is 17 and wiry like his dad, but with less intensity.  Temperamentally, he takes after his mother.  Slow to work, he is indefatigable at play. He pulls off his parka and drapes it over the back of a chair.)

ROBBY: God, that wind is great! Can't wait til the first snow.
GEORGE:  We've raised a lunatic, a lunatic I tell ya!  And don't use the Lord's name that way.
ROBBY: Oh.  Right.  I want to get the snowmobile out tomorrow if we get snow tonight.  Gotta check it out.
GEORGE: You’ll do no work on the Lord's day that isn't absolutely necessary.  It can wait til Monday.
ROBBY: But, all we're going to do around here is watch the dust settle.
GEORGE: As long as your feet are under my table you'll do as I say.  Sunday is a day of prayer.
MARJORIE: Did you see David while you were outside?
ROBBY: Just came out of his house.
MARJORIE: I'll put some more pancakes on.
GEORGE: You’d think his good city bred wife’d have his breakfast for him.  You’d think.  Guess they don’t do those things any more.  Not with a McDonalds on every corner.
ROBBY: (To George)  When are we leaving?
GEORGE: In a few minutes.  Pete and Lila are driving in with us.
MARJORIE: Robby's going, too?
GEORGE: 'Bout time the boy grew up.  Found out how the world works.
MARJORIE: He's only seventeen.  Do you really think he ought to get mixed up with ...
GEORGE: When I was his age I was holdin' off county agents with a shotgun.
ROBBY: Ol' "Hipshot Kieffert".
MARJORIE: "Hipshot Kieffert", indeed!
GEORGE: (With some bit of pride) Yeah, your old man was something of a legend in his day.
MARJORIE: Now, don't keep filling his head with such nonsense.
GEORGE: What's the matter with him knowing his dad wasn't always gray and paunchy.  He likes the story and it don't do any harm.
MARJORIE: Doesn't do any harm.
GEORGE: Doesn't do any harm, and I'm happy you agree.
MARJORIE: You cheated.
GEORGE: (Chuckles) Yep. (To Robby)  It was during the dust bowl days, the dirty thirties when folks had to stuff rags under the doors and windows to keep all our good topsoil from blowing in.  There were times, I swear, when we could have planted a better crop on the living room rug than we could in the fields.  Nobody was making it. But, when the bankers came to take my dad's farm, I took a shotgun out to the shed and held 'em off for half a day.
MARJORIE: More like ten minutes.  His father made him give up.  When I heard about it, I was scandalized!  Don't know what made me ever marry him.
GEORGE: (Lecherously)  I do. (Marjorie sniffs playfully.) She was always so prim and proper.  Preacher's daughter, you know.
MARJORIE: Go on with you, now.  It wasn't "Hipshot Kieffert" that I fell in love with. 
GEORGE: (Whispers to Robby) It really was, don’t let her her fool you.  Secretly, every woman, no matter how sensitive they say they want their man to be, wants him to be able to kick ass.
MARJORIE: No, now … It was the man I saw working like a demon on other folks' farms so he could buy this one back.  That’s the man I fell in love with.
GEORGE: Didn't have any luck, though, not ‘til the war broke out.  I saved all my army pay while me an' Patton were chasing Rommel across the African desert.  When I got back home I had enough to make a down payment on two quarters.  I married your mother and she helped out by teaching school in New Berlin. (pronounced "New Ber'-lin") It was tough going, but we made it through.
MARJORIE: Got the farm back and married me.  Two of the best things that ever happened to him.
GEORGE: You'll get no argument from me on that.
MARJORIE: Took a lot to tame old "Hipshot".
GEORGE: (Winks at Robby)  Who says I’ve been tamed?  (Points thumb at Marjorie) We let them think that.
ROBBY: (With admiration) Most men would have just given up...took up another line of work.

(DAVE enters during the following. Dave is 40 and solidly built like his mother.  His temperament, however, is his father's gift to him.)

GEORGE: Your dad isn't like most men.  Look son, you don't choose farming, it chooses you.  I was born with topsoil under my fingernails and the smell of new cut wheat in my nostrils.  There's nothing else for me to do.  If I've learned anything in my sixty-five years it has been this:  a man's gotta do what he does, not what he doesn't do.  For me, that's farming.  For you too, I shouldn't wonder.
DAVE: (Groucho Marx impression) And, if you believe that, I've got some swampland in Florida,  etc., etc., etc.
ROBBY: Don't start that again.  You don't know.
GEORGE: That's right, he doesn't.  He wasn't born to it like we were.
DAVE: Not true.  I was born with cow shit  under my fingernails and the smell of grain dust plugging my nostrils.  Wonderful life, it really is.
GEORGE: You were born into it, but you weren't born to it. (to Robby) You know the difference, son?
ROBBY: I think so.
GEORGE: Give yourself a few more years, you'll know.  Dave here has been a big city lawyer too long.
DAVE: Yes, I have gone over to the enemy.
MARJORIE: You have a right to your opinion.
GEORGE: Can't bite the hand that feeds him, that's all I'm sayin'.  If he wants to criticize, he can go back to the city and make his own way.  But, as long as he's here, he can keep his mouth shut.
MARJORIE: Sit down, Dave, I'll get you some breakfast.
DAVE: (snaps) Price of silence?
MARJORIE: You know better than that.
DAVE: Yeah.  Sorry.
GEORGE: You better eat up, Robby, they'll be here soon.
ROBBY: This is only my first stack.
GEORGE: Sheriff Huseby ain't going to wait for your stomach.  You want to go, we gotta hurry.
MARJORIE: Breaks your heart to think of the Jensens losing everything like that.  They've been such good neighbors.
GEORGE: Yeah.  'Bout all they get to keep is the house and the clothes on their backs...and him with four children.  I don't know what they're going to do now.  Makes you mad.  His great grandfather homesteaded that place.  His father held onto it even through the Depression.  I worked for him after we lost this place.  Who knows who'll get it now.  Some damn international corporation, most likely.  Don't seem right.
MARJORIE: When will you get back?
GEORGE: Late this afternoon, I guess.  I'll get dinner in town.  We'll be going to the hall after the sale.
DAVE: Plan to do some hunting on the way, Dad?
GEORGE: Might. Never know what we'll see on the way.  Squirrels, rabbits...
DAVE: Bankers, lawyers....Since when do you need a mini-14 to bag a squirrel?
GEORGE: Now, don't you start!
DAVE: You're taking them to the rally, aren't you?
GEORGE: What if I am?  What business is it of yours?
MARJORIE: George, no!  If you're taking guns, I don't want Robby there.
GEORGE: Just a small show of force, Marjorie, that's all.
MARJORIE: George, I mean it.  Robby's not going.  I don't want you to go, either.
GEORGE: Margie, we've gone over this so many times.  You can't stop me from doing what I think is right.  The boy's got to grow up sometime, and I figure that time is now.
DAVE: Mom's right.  You got guns there, somebody's going to get hurt.
GEORGE: Not a man there doesn't know how to handle a weapon.  It's just a show, that's all.  We gotta show them we mean business.
MARJORIE: There must be other ways.
DAVE: There are, but they're not exciting enough for "Hipsot."
GEORGE: How?  The Farmer's Union?  The Farm Bureau?  Groundswell?  Oh yeah, let them sing their songs and march around like a bunch of hippies, the county boys and the feds just dance right past 'em.  Get your coat, Robby.
MARJORIE: Robby's not going.  No, I mean it, George, Robby's staying here.
ROBBY: Mom, I'm not a kid anymore.
MARJORIE: I said no!
GEORGE: And, I say yes!  There comes a time when a boy has to leave his mother's skirts and throw in with his father.  I won't discuss it any more.

(LYLE HENDERSON enters through the front yard and rings the doorbell.  Lyle is 54 and a Carroll County Deputy Sheriff.  He's a large, pleasant man who is as unaccustomed to trouble as he is to complicated thought processes.)

MARJORIE:I'll get it. (Crosses to front door)
GEORGE: Get your coat on, Robby. (To Dave)  I don't suppose there's any reason to ask you to go.
DAVE: I don't fight in lost causes.
GEORGE: Boy, John Jensen was your friend in high school, but I don't suppose that means much to you.
MARJORIE: (At door)  Oh, good morning, Lyle.
LYLE: Margie.  Is George here?
MARJORIE: In the kitchen.  George, Lyle's here.
GEORGE: Now, what could he want?  (Crosses to living room)
DAVE: Oh, come on; try and guess. (Follows George)
GEORGE: You keep your mouth shut. (Crosses to living room)  Lyle, what brings you here?
LYLE: Ounce of prevention, George.  Mike's worried.  Some rumors've been floating around that you and the boys plan to bring weapons to the rally.  Now, I don't know if there's any truth to them, but that's what they're saying.
GEORGE: I won't deny it...or admit it.
DAVE: He's got a truckload out back.  (George shoots him a look)
LYLE: Well, I just gotta tell you, Mike plans to have a peaceful sale...everything legal and orderly.  No trouble.
GEORGE: You tell Sheriff Huseby...his message has been received.
LYLE: George, we'd really rather you didn't come to the rally armed.
GEORGE: Seems to me if you take away a man's livelihood you can expect…
LYLE: Now George, if you want to demonstrate, that's your right so long as it's peaceful, but if you want to block the sale you're asking for trouble.  I don't have to tell you that carrying guns is a violation of your probation.  I'd have to arrest you. (pause) George, you and I have been good friends for a lot of years.  Don't do anything to change that.
GEORGE: Just tell Huseby to keep a cool head and we'll all be home tonight enjoying our suppers with our families.
LYLE: I'm counting on that, George.  I gotta go now. (Crosses to front porch)
PETE: (off) Hey, George!  You ready?  Judas is waiting.

(PETE JORGENSON enters through the front yard.  He is 53, a large, coarse man with a well tended belly.  He wears a down filled vest and a baseball cap.  Loud and brash, he is a coward at heart.  A manipulator.)

PETE: Oh, hi there, Lyle.
LYLE: Pete.
PETE: What're you doing here?  The execution's in town.
LYLE: Execution?  What are you talking about now?
PETE: Ain't you vampires supposed to be drainin' the life blood out of John Jensen about now?  Hey, you better high tail it back, boy, you don't want to miss any of the fun.
LYLE: Oh, fer Chrissake!  (To George)  Remember, George, no guns.
PETE: You can't do that, Lyle.  Can’t stop a man from exercising his constitutional right…
LYLE: Got no time for your politics, Pete.  You just mind what I say.  If we see one gun outside of those trucks, we'll throw the lot of you in the slammer.  That's all I got to say.
LYLE: This ain't going to go on forever, you know.  You better just watch your step. There've been four foreclosures this year and more on the way.  How long you think we're gonna put up with it before...
LYLE: Pete, do you think I like what I'm doing?
PETE: I guess now you‘re gonna tell me you‘re just obeyin‘ orders.  (pause. Then, defiantly) Time‘s comin‘, Lyle  You gonna have to decide whose side you‘re on..  Whose farm is going to be next. Lyle?  The Corchorans?  The Olsons?  Me?  All of us've been notified.  We're all what they call "seriously delinquent" in our loan payments.  None of us have been able to pay our land taxes.  What's gonna happen, Lyle?  You think a little piece of paper is going to get me off my land? 
LYLE: I gotta go. (Tips hat to Marjorie) Margie.  George, remember.  No guns. (Exit)
PETE: (Sotto voce)  Damn Judas!
GEORGE: He‘s just doin‘ the job he signed on for.  Bad time to be unemployed.
PETE: Hi'ya, Marge.
MARJORIE: Mr. Jorgensen. (Crosses to Kitchen)
GEORGE: (To Robby) Ready to fly?
ROBBY: Yeah.
PETE: Oh, the cub coming, too?  Good.  Good.  Always use another hand.
GEORGE: He’s coming, but he ain't carrying.
PETE: Aw, come on.  You can handle a gun, can't you, boy?  Any son of "Ol' Hipshot".
GEORGE: I said he ain't carrying.
PETE: Okay, okay.  Whatever you say.  But, we gotta get going.
GEORGE: I just gotta say good-bye to Margie.

(George and Robby cross to Kitchen. Pete and Dave remain on the porch.)

PETE: (To Dave) You coming, too?
DAVE: Not on your life.
PETE: You know what's at stake here?
DAVE: And, I suppose you and the Host are all going to pass a miracle and save the family farm.
PETE: Ain't just that, boy, not just that.  Why, the farm situation is just the tip of the iceberg!
GEORGE: (In the kitchen.)  We're going now.
MARJORIE: Do what you want.
GEORGE: Margie, don't be like this.
MARJORIE: How do you want me to be. George?  You know I don't want Robby to go, but it doesn't seem to make any difference, so go.
ROBBY: I'll be all right, Mom.  Honest.
MARJORIE: It's no place for a boy.

(Marjorie busies herself with the dishes. A chilly silence.  George sips from his cup.)

PETE: (On porch)  You ought to read that book I give your Daddy.  It's all in there.
DAVE: (Mock astonishment.) You read books?
PETE: "Fortress of the Host" by Liberty John Frazier.
DAVE: Sounds like a used car salesman.
PETE: He's the greatest authority on constitutional law in the country.
DAVE: Really?  Now you'd think, him being such an authority and all, that I'd have heard about him, oh, somewhere , say, in law school?
PETE: (Chuckles and shakes his head.)  Well, ol' Liberty John don't travel much in them circles.  Lawyers don't like him.  He scares 'em.
DAVE: Liberty John...Liberty John.  Oh yeah!  Not a day went by when someone in my old law firm hid in the executive toilet at the very mention of him.  Got so we named the toilet after him.  The old Liberty John.
PETE: You can laugh now, but when the revolution comes...
DAVE: Revolution?  You've got to be kidding.  If it ever comes around here it'd better not come on Saturday night.  Folks're too busy drinking beer at Knudt's Korner.
PETE: Look, son, all over this country, there are tens of thousands of people, millions, arming themselves for a revolution that is inevitable.  We’re fed up with the way the jews in the government are screwing things up.  Agribusiness! (Spits.)  I tell you, last summer, I was confused.  Saw all my neighbors being picked off one after the other by an enemy I couldn't see and couldn't name.  Liberty John showed me the enemy and told me how to fight them.
DAVE:  Jews? And if it's the wrong enemy?  Or doesn't it matter, as long as somebody’s in your sights?
PETE: Oh, it's real all right.  The jews control the money and they're using that power to choke the life out of us, taking jobs away from natural born Christian Americans and giving 'em to a bunch a mud-people and aliens who come here expecting a damn handout...
DAVE: In addition to working their butts off to get ahead.  Besides, as I recall, your grandfather was an alien.
PETE: My grandfather was not an alien; he was an an immigrant...a Christian immigrant from Sweden who came here with a trade.  Look, I got nothing against the Jews.  If they want to come here and obey our Christian laws, they're welcome.  But, Liberty John says they're using our taxes and the government school system to tear down our Christian institutions.  Well, if that's what they want to do, they can expect one hell of a fight from us. 
GEORGE: I don't like leaving you like this. (pause)  There was a time when we'd never say goodbye on a sour note.  We promised each other we'd always part on good terms because if something happened to either of us.... (pause)  Margie?
MARJORIE: Somehow it was easier when we were younger.  I'm sorry, George, but sometimes...
PETE: Look, don't judge Liberty John until you've read his book.
DAVE: Honestly, Pete, I'd rather be dragged naked over hot coals.
PETE: How can you judge something unless you’ve read it?  Ain’t that what you liberals are always yelling at us?  Well, now I’m telling you.  (pause)  He's the man who recruited your father, you know.
DAVE: Recruited?
PETE: Into the Host.  The Host of Heaven.  It's a good thing he did, too.  We'd never have gotten this far without him.  He's a man of action.  Me, I'm more of a thinker.
DAVE: Yeah, um,  I can see that.
MARJORIE: George, I've never defied you before, but I really have to insist.  It's no place for Robby.
GEORGE: Margie, he's my son, too.  I’d never let him get hurt.  Now, don't you worry; I won't let anything happen to your...your baby.
MARJORIE: Now George, don't tease me.  Now, do not.
GEORGE: Why not?  You used to like it when I teased you. (Moves toward her)  Didn't you?
MARJORIE: (Trying to stay serious.) Now George, stop!
GEORGE: (Knowing he's always been able to get around her) Remember how I used to tickle you 'til you were red?  You liked that.
MARJORIE: I did not.  George! Now, stop.  I mean it!
GEORGE: Just a little wiggle under the ribs and the rest.
MARJORIE: George, stop. (Indicating Robby's presence)  Not in the kitchen.  Stop, I mean it!
GEORGE: Putting on some weight, aren't you?  Look at this, Robby.  She's getting to be a regular round little mama, isn't she?
ROBBY: Don't tease her, Dad.  She looks great.
GEORGE: Of course she does.  Just a healthy, round little mama.  Look at that!  (Chuckles) You may not be able to get any red in your tomatoes, but look at them cheeks!
MARJORIE: Those cheeks.  You're embarrassing me. (Pause) You promise you'll look after Robby?
GEORGE: (Chuckles) As if he was my own.
MARJORIE: George!

(George kisses her on the cheek and nods to Robby.  Then, they all cross to the porch.)

DAVE: Pete, you've been conned!  This Liberty John is nothing but a fly-by-night huckster feeding you full of populist snake oil just so he can sell books.  Then he leaves you to take the consequences.  Where do you suppose he'll be when ... if this revolution breaks out and the bullets start flying?
PETE: You want him to stick around long enough for the feds to catch hold of him?
DAVE: I'd like him to stick around long enough for someone...anyone... to ask him some challenging questions.  Is he afraid that someone with a little common sense will poke a hole in his scheme?
PETE: You can't poke holes in it.  His ideas are based on the greatest authority in the world...the Holy Bible.  Try to find something wrong with that.
DAVID: The only problem with that whatever you use as your authority defines the argument, any argument.  If your authority is the Bible, that defines it as a religious question and our beloved Constitution prohibits the government from deciding religious disputes.  Better come up with another authority or you’re gonna shoot yourself in the foot.
PETE: (A dismissive gesture)  Ahhh!  Lawyer‘s gobbledygook.. You'll never be half the man that Liberty John is.  You'd better watch out, boy.  When your liberal, humanist, jew friends send the economy down the pisser and the revolution hits, you'll be swept away with all the rest of them.
GEORGE: You ready, Pete?
PETE: Yeah, I'm ready.  Air's getting a little foul around here.
DAVE: I was just thinking the same thing.
GEORGE: You following me?
PETE: Yeah, I guess.
GEORGE: (Nodding toward Dave) Don't pay much attention to him.  He hasn't been around the block as much as we have.
PETE: You'd better talk to him, George.  He's your boy, but I can't guarantee...
MARJORIE: Please be careful.
GEORGE: We will.
ROBBY: Don't worry, Mom.
MARJORIE: Of course, I'll worry.  You just be careful.

(George, Robby and Pete Exit.  Sound of trucks being started and pulling away.  Dave and Marjorie cross to kitchen.)

HEGEMON
A drama in two acts
By Jeremy McGuire

“If you were in Rome, they’d make you a god.”
“Fortunately, I’m not in Rome.” 

Hegemon is in development.

The story of the Roman Procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilatus, in the First Century CE is impossible to separate from that of the revolutionary rabbi he executed. 

It is ironic that the event that made his fame was at the time no more to him than just another day at the office.

Hegemon is set in the modern day in the deserts of southwest Asia largely to disorient the theatergoer just enough to allow the play to unfold as a political rather than a religious drama and prevent the expectation of the elevated neo-classical language that is the bane of most stories drawn from sacred texts. 

Pilatus is a soldier and a politician and his language is rarely polite, elevated or poetical.  With his lifelong friend Triarius, he attempts to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the turmoil that roils the Roman province of Judea.

“How do you govern,” he asks, “When your very presence is an insult to them?”

When I set out to write the play, it was to answer the question:  “Why did this accomplished man default on this question of his power and jurisdiction and bend to the demands of the mob?”  The answer surprised me.  The answer is he didn’t.  The contest between the authorities at the temple and the man who opposed their corruption and venality, standing instead for the common people who were victimized and impoverished by their own leaders, could have but one outcome.  Y’shua Bar Yuseff manipulated the authorities to get what he wanted.  He knew that the violent rebellion exemplified by the terrorist Bar Abba (Son of the Father) would never free the people.  The might of Rome was too strong.  It could only be achieved through the power of an idea.  “Alive, I am one of many,” Y’Shua says.  “Dead I am legend.”

What emerges is not the brute that Josephus portrayed nor the weak bureaucrat presented in the Gospels, but rather a capable administrator who did what was needed to defuse an explosive situation diplomatically and delay the imposition of the Pax Romana for another thirty years.

In 70 CE, the Roman Emperor Vespasian ended the Jewish state which wasn’t revived for almost  two thousand years. 

The point of view of the play is not Christian nor is it Jewish.  It is decidedly Roman.  As such, it mirrors much of the clash of cultures that has been a part of the West’s relationship to the desert countries of Southwest Asia almost from the very beginning.  The failure to negotiate this clash and truly understand the ramifications of that failure was as true in the First Century as it is now.

The Roman Governor, in short, thinks that they are all crazy, Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, all of them  And indeed, from a Roman point of view that was probably true, as true as it is for Americans to think the Shia, and Sunni are all crazy today.

"The more things change…"

However, in this revolutionary teacher, Pilatus sees a possible hope for reconciliation between the factions.  Knowing what he had to do to bring about the result that Y’shua so desired, the survival of the idea, he said to the young man: “If you were in Rome, they’d make you a god.”  To which Y’shua responds, “Fortunately, I’m not in Rome.”

Details of the Play

Cast: 9 Male, 4 female

Pontius Pilatus, 42, Governor of Judea

Claudia, 38, wife to Pilatus, daughter to Tiberius

Triarius, 40, Centurion of the Judean Auxiliaries

Y'Shua Bar Abba, 32, Insurgent General

Y'Shua Bar Yusef, 33, an itenerant rabbi

Kiapha, 51, High Priest of the Yeru-Shalaam Temple

Jochannan, 24, a young Jewish scholar, educated in Rome

Phyllis, 22 wife to Jochannan

Herod Antipas, 56, Tetrarch of Galilee

Herodias, 42, wife to Antipas

Salome, 15, daughter to Herodias, stepdaughter to Antipas

Annas, 64, former High Priest, Father in Law to Kaipha

Soldiers, rebels, peasants.

Setting: Formal setting that can become, at any given time, a battlefield in Galilee, the Praerorium, Antipas' palace, a street, a guard post, or a private office. The decore should be modern, the atmosphere military. Rome is an occupying force and, although the rooms are Southwest Asian in design, the appointments and furniture is military. The costumes should suggest, in silhouette, ancient Roman clothing, but the fabric should be modern. For example, instead of a tunic, the soldiers may wear a khaki shirt and a kilt. The cloaks could be of olive camoflage fabric, and while the helmets may be of modern design, they should be of highly polished metal with a suggestion of a crest and Roman chin-strap. The breastplate would be a kevlar vest, but with an eagle on the chest and a means of afixing a cloak at the shoulders. Women's custumes should also be modern but influenced by Classical design.

Exerpt from Hegemon

Scene:  Pilatus’ office in the praetorium.

Y’shua:  I’m flattered that you find me a worthy object of study.
Pilatus:  Please, no false modesty. Modest men do not become the centers of controversy.  I have spies. Yes. You remember that Centurion with the sick … slave, was it?
Y’Shua:  Yes.
Pilatus:  One of mine. Oh the illness was genuine, believe me.  I have more respect for your perception than that, but Lucius made a very good informant. He does truly believe you had something to do with affecting the woman’s cure.
Y’shua:  Do you?
Pilatus:  I don’t care. Oh, that the woman was cured, I have no doubt. She was sick, now she’s up and about and doing … whatever slaves do, and is very happy about it I am sure. But as to whether you had anything to do with it is a matter of complete indifference to me. We have magicians all over the Empire, and a man of your talents may well have cured her, I don’t know. What matters is that you seem to use whatever power you have for good. Case closed.  Nothing of substance there.  Would you like some water?
Y’shua:  Please.
Pilatus:  Oh. Then there was one of the Aristocrats from Sepphora, do you remember him? He asked you what you meant by “salvation.” It was an important question, and one that Bar Abba would answer quite differently from you. You just told him to sell all his property. Not the wisest advice, I gotta tell you, but certainly no danger. Nothing to get all dusted up about. And, then there was the dwarf in Jericho … Ah. Many spies. Of course, not everyone who challenged you was one of them; you’re not all that important to me. But some. Some.
Y’shua;  What have you called me here for?
Pilatus:  Oh, relax, I would not be sitting here drinking with you if I thought you were at all a threat to me. Kaipha thinks differently. And that little demonstration in the temple didn’t help matters any.
Y’shua:  People were poor and were being cheated.
Pilatus:  Kaipha seems to think you have something against commerce on the Temple grounds.  So, you have no objection to buying and selling in the Temple?
Y’shua:  Of course not. That’s what the Court of the Gentiles is for, like your Forum, isn’t it? It was the cheating I objected to.  If they have to exchange roman coins for temple coins, then the exchange rate should be fair. I just took a few of the money changers to task.
Pilatus:  A penny here, a penny there, soon it mounts up. Where do you suppose it goes?
Y’shua;  You know where it goes.
Pilatus:  Yes, and there our interests coincide. Kaipha knows, too, although I can’t prove it and there I am constrained. If it were simply a matter of a man cadging a few coins for his own purse, well, a man’s got to live, after all. But money unaccounted for may go to the resistance, and that does trouble me. So far, you are the only one that has been able to do anything about it, a little ham-handedly, to be sure, but effective.
Y’Shua:  I wasn’t …
Pilatus: The men you ejected are now in my prison with Bar Abba. And as for the money you spilled into the dust, well, a few of your poor are a bit less so today. You’d better be careful. Isn’t it enough that you have Kaipha against you, must you also be branded among the people as a collaberator?
Y’shua:  The woman and child were poor and they were being cheated in the one place where we should be equal before God.
Pilatus:  I understand, I understand, but you must know how it will be seen.
Y’shua:  It will be seen as it will be seen; I couldn’t allow it to pass.
Pilatus:  You know, you answer true every time. But to business.  I’ve read some of the things you’ve said about Antipas and they are just that much short of treason, but can always be read several different ways, and I’m never sure, from my Roman point of view, just what you mean. As for Antipas, well although he is a profligate old sinner, he is still superstitious and is not about to kill another holy man. I must tell you, he did that against my explicit instructions. I met the Baptizer, did you know that? I found him to be something of a madman, but most Oracles are. Now, I’m a rationalist, I have to tell you. All this mumbo jumbo about souls and spirits and the like, well, I don’t know. I have difficulty even with the priests of Rome that way. But, Antipas - now Antipas is a believer. Not much in the Pharisees, of course, not … well, you know, the afterlife, Hell and all that, but he does believe that his sins may well be punished in this life and he is getting older and if it’s going to happen it must happen soon and … well, he remembers the agonies that wracked his father’s body in the end. He believes you are the Baptizer come back to life. (pause) Well, are you?
Y’shua:  No, of course not.
Pilatus:  Of course not. You are … how old?
Y’shua:  Thirty Three.
PIilatus:  Thirty Three, and the Baptizer was killed, what, last year?
Y’shua:  Two years ago.
Pilatus:  That long? Well, where does the time go?  Others say you are Isaiah. What about that? Any rumblings of dead prophets in the brain?
Y’shua:  No.
Pilatus:  Well, good. I’m glad to see you are a rational man, or as rational as a man can be who talks about the Kingdom of Heaven as if it were next door.
Y’Shua;  It is.
Pilatus:  Now, now, now, don’t get on me about blasphemy or ... whatever you people get on about. I have read reports of what you teach up there in the Galilee and I can tell you I can’t find anything in it that would get anyone’s knickers in a bunch, but, then, I’m not a Jew. I don’t understand why the Pharisees hate the Sadducees and the Sadducees hate the Pharisees and everybody hates the Essenes. It’s all a lot of crap to me.   Now, Triarius there, he understands a lot of it because, well, his mother was a Jew and he was practically raised around here up there in Sepphora. You know Sepphora?
Y’shua:  My Father and I worked there when I was a boy.
Pilatus:  Of course, of course, of course, you would. He was a …
Y’shua:  Builder.
Pilatus:  Builder, right. Wood, stone, clay and the like. Is he still working up there in Nazareth?
Y’Shua:  No. He died three years ago.
Pilatus:  Ah. Right.    About the same time you decided to ….
Y’Shua:  I had been at the Temple since I was thirteen.
Pilatus:  Yeah, Kaipha told me. Protégé, were you?
Y’Shua:  Say again?
Pilatus:  Protégé. Kaipha was your patron?
Y’Shua:  Ah. No. Teacher.        
Pilatus:  Teacher, yes. Why’d you leave?
Y’Shua:  The Temple?
Pilatus:  The Temple, yes, why’d you leave the Temple. You and Kaipha have a falling out?
Y’Shua:  The rebellious heart will never find enlightenment.
Pilatus:  Was that a yes or a no?
Y’shua:  There was no animosity on my part. I just … couldn’t stay. The Temple became a foreign world to me after awhile.
Pilatus:  You didn’t like it?
Y’Shua:  No, no, it wasn’t that; I love the Temple. I revere the rituals and the … There was just something missing. Kaipha and I, our friendship was one born of contention.  In our Temple schools we are set against each other to debate the Law.
Pilatus:  I’m not ignorant of the process; read Plato.
Y’shua:  I have.  More often than not, Kaipha found himself on the side of orthodoxy and I found myself on the other.   Any man, whether he loves God or not, may adhere to the Law, but that, in and of itself is empty and meaningless.  I never abandoned the Law, I am, first and foremost, a Jew, but I wanted to find the God within the Law.
Pilatus:  The invisible behind the visible.  And that’s when you went to Q’Um-Rahn.
Y’Shua:  No, not then.   Have you ever been to India?
Pilate:  Large though it may be, Rome still doesn’t have Alexander’s reach.
Y’Shua:  I followed the silk road through Parthia and then down into the sub-continent. 
Pilate:  Why?  Please, remain seated.  I want to keep you in my eye.
Y’Shua:  My mind was unsettled.  I had questions that nothing I knew could answer.  Do you know, in India they believe that all of us are children of the same God, Hindu, Buddhist, Jew, all of us.  There is one over arching God who unites us all under his infinite love.  We may call him by different names, they believe, and see him in different forms, but all are essentially one.
Pilate:  I suppose that’s ….  What difference does it make?
Y’Shua:  You have conquered us under the banners of your gods.  We oppose you in the name of ours.  If we are all children of the same God which is large enough to encompass all images of it, why then, we see the ebb and flow of political powers, such as Rome’s, as merely the forward motion of history.  That we don’t understand it is our failure, not His.  Above all, it is useless to attempt to overthrow by force a military power that is far greater than our own.  I can’t see how God could demand we sacrifice our lives needlessly.  That would be a God I could not worship.  When I returned, that’s when I went to Q’Um-Rahn.
Pilatus: And did you find what you were looking for there?
Y’Shua:  For a time.  From them, learned forgiveness, and purity of spirit, but, It was there I faced my greatest temptation. 
Pilatus:  And that was?
Y’shua:  Withdrawal.  From life. I mustered all the courage I could and left.  I sought out Jochannan the Baptizer who told me to go into the desert if I wanted answers, to empty myself of everything that I thought and felt and believed, and God would fill the emptiness.
Pilatus:  And, did He?
Y’shua:  In the desert of my soul I sought power and found the Father; in the wilderness of my heart I sought wisdom and found the Mother.  When I had both in equal measure I had the Son, what the Greeks call agape, all embracing, unconditional Love.
Pilatus:  Love.  That’s it?  Pardon me for not being overwhelmed, but …
Y’shua:  I was!  Completely overwhelmed. Love changes everything. 
Pilatus:  No no, my friend, it can’t be that easy.
Y’Shua:  It’s never easy.  Love is hard.  That’s why it is so rarely achieved!  It is all embracing.  Nothing is excluded.  Nothing.  To the extent that the Law divides, excludes, or creates hatred among men, it cannot be of God, you see?  The Temple must be reformed so it is not a hot-bed of divisiveness and hatred, but a shrine for the all-embracing God.
Pilatus:  Does this love extend even to someone who would take your life, to Kaipha?
Y’shua:  It couldn’t be otherwise and still be love.
Pilatus:  And does it extend even to Rome, to Caesar?
Y’shua:  To all.
Pilatus:  You’re right.  It’s not easy to achieve.
Y’shua:  No, it wasn’t.
Pilatus:  Y’see, what I’m trying to get at here, I’m trying to understand why what you say is so polarizing to them. Why are they out to get you? Mind you, I don’t care a fig whether they like you or don’t like you; I have to keep my eye out for any possibility of a disturbance. See? Whatever I may think of you or of Kaipha as individuals doesn’t really matter.  What does matter is what’s going on between you. It matter to me because you both have a great deal of influence. It matters to me because he has armed guards. It matters to me that not a few of Bar Abba’s followers have been seen among your own.  (refers to notes) Jacob and Jochannan, who go by the charming sobriquet, “sons of thunder,” and one Judah Ish Kiriot.  All linked in some way to Bar Abba.  That’s when I start to pay attention. I don’t want you in Yeru-Shalaam. I understand you have friends in Bethany. I will provide you with an escort, say ten men, to get you there unharmed.
Y’Shua;  I thought Rome had no interest in our religious practices. Would you prevent a Jew from observing the holiest day of the year?
Pilatus:  Nice try. It’s not the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur is, and sometimes you just gotta say “what the Hell?” I’m ordering you out of the city.
Y’shua:  Tiberius has a worthy servant in his Pontius Pilatus, but I can’t accept your offer. Kaipha will so what he will do.  My place is here.  My mission is not completed.
Pilatus:  Nor will it be completed if he has his way.  Look at this.  It is a list of all the cases referred to Vitelus from the Sanhedrin.  In all, only five were executed by Rome.  The others were fined, imprisoned, beaten or released.  But within months of their convictions, all were dead.  Some were killed in prison, some were attacked in the street, and others were taken from their homes.  But, they all died.  The odds are enormous against coincidence.
Y’shua:  Bar Abba?
Pilatus:  One can only assume.  There is no proof of any connection to Kaipha.  I’m offering you the protection of Rome.  Not because I care a damn what happens to you …but if Kaipha can find anything to charge you with he will, and he will do so now.  He seems to think that this Passover is portentous, and so he will … do you want to die?
Y’Shua:  No, I assure you I do not.  But worse than death would be to let fear control what I do.  This Passover is … portentous.  Each faction thinks the Deliverer will come from within its ranks.  They forget that great men grow beyond all that has gone before them even partisan loyalty, especially partisan loyalty.  It’s an old battle.  It will end when we decide to end it.  There’s nothing you can do.
Pilatus:  And you think you are the one?  Eh?  Are you the Deliverer?
Y’shua:  I hope not.  May I go now?