THE GERONTES AND THE SAGE-SEER’S GRANDSONShort Stage Version for LagunaThe Confiscated HouseA poetic theatrical performance of about 10 minutes
Characters
THE SAGE-SEER
AXEL, his grandson
THE CHIEF OF THE GERONTES
THE GERONTES
THE ELDER WOMEN
THE CHILDREN OF THE GARDEN
THE CHORUS
I. The House
Darkness.
An ancient breath.
At the center of the stage: a house suggested by only three objects: a chair, a jug, a small lamp.
THE SAGE-SEER is seated. AXEL stands beside him.
THE SAGE-SEER
This house is not a house.
It is a memory.
It stands because of the dead,
because of the women who carried water,
because of the children who ran through dust,
because of the languages whispered
when silence was forced upon us.
It stands because of what the victors
failed to burn.
AXEL
Then why are you trembling, grandfather?
THE SAGE-SEER
Because I saw men enter.
They did not carry torches.
They carried keys.
They did not say:
“We have come to destroy.”
They said:
“We have come to protect.”
And that is how the house was confiscated.
A dull sound. THE GERONTES appear in the shadows.
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II. The Gerontes
THE GERONTES move forward slowly.
They do not walk: they occupy.
THE CHIEF OF THE GERONTES takes the chair and sits.
THE CHIEF OF THE GERONTES
The house needs order.
Memory needs guardians.
Children will forget.
Women will weep.
The young will betray.
Only we :
shall remain.
THE GERONTES
Only we.
THE CHIEF OF THE GERONTES
We shall keep the books.
We shall keep the thresholds.
We shall keep the songs.
We shall keep the names.
AXEL
To pass them on?
THE CHIEF OF THE GERONTES
To protect them.
AXEL
What you do not pass on,
you bury.
THE CHIEF OF THE GERONTES
Insolent grandson.
You were not there.
AXEL
No.
That is why I must know.
THE CHIEF OF THE GERONTES
You will know what we tell you.
AXEL
Then I will know little.
Silence.
THE GERONTES
He disturbs.
He unsettles.
He cracks the wall.
THE CHIEF OF THE GERONTES
Give him a proper memory.
AXEL
A proper memory
is a well-arranged tomb.
I want living memory.
The one that limps,
that weeps,
that sometimes sings out of tune,
but still breathes.
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III. The Women
THE ELDER WOMEN enter.
At first, they do not look at the Gerontes.
They touch the jug, the lamp, the ground.
FIRST ELDER WOMAN
We washed the dead.
SECOND ELDER WOMAN
We hid the names.
THIRD ELDER WOMAN
We fed the children
with crumbs and stories.
FIRST ELDER WOMAN
When they burned the fields,
we kept the seeds.
SECOND ELDER WOMAN
When they forbade the songs,
we sang inside the bread.
THIRD ELDER WOMAN
When they said:
“It is over,”
we answered in silence:
“Not yet.”
THE CHIEF OF THE GERONTES
Ancient women,
your grief has led you astray !
FIRST ELDER WOMAN
No.
It guides us.
SECOND ELDER WOMAN
We come from far away.
THIRD ELDER WOMAN
From so far away
that your lies
arrive exhausted.
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IV. The Sage-Seer
THE SAGE-SEER (slowly rising).
Listen to me.
Memory does not belong
to the one who keeps it.
It belongs to the one who receives it
and makes it clearer.
You have grown old around it
like stones around a spring.
But a spring encircled
becomes a swamp.
THE CHIEF OF THE GERONTES
You speak against your age.
THE SAGE-SEER
No.
I speak against your oldness.
There are elders who open doors.
And there are elders
who close the sky.
You are of that kind.
THE GERONTES
Sacrilege.
THE SAGE-SEER
No.
Transmission.
AXEL
Grandfather, what must be done?
THE SAGE-SEER
Do not become their opposite.
Become their way out.
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V. The Garden
A child’s laughter.
THE GERONTES freeze.
A second laugh.
THE CHILDREN OF THE GARDEN enter with marbles, apricot stones, pieces of chalk, flowers.
They ask for nothing. They play.
THE CHIEF OF THE GERONTES
Who allowed you to enter?
A GIRL
We are not entering.
We are returning.
A BOY
It was our garden.
THE CHIEF OF THE GERONTES
Here, we guard the inheritance.
A GIRL
Then why does nothing grow?
The children form a circle around the Gerontes.
THE CHIEF OF THE GERONTES
Stop this round.
A BOY
It turns.
THE CHIEF OF THE GERONTES
I said: stop it.
A GIRL
Time turns too.
And you cannot stop it.
The children laugh softly.
AXEL
They are not even fighting you.
And already you step back.
THE CHIEF OF THE GERONTES
We do not step back.
A BOY
You shrink.
Silence.
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VI. The SongThe children begin to sing very softly.
THE CHILDREN
Tchikerbahi bom bom bom,
Tchikerbahi bom.
Dawi dawi,
daw daw daw,
Tchikerbahi bom.
Tchikerbahi bom bom bom,
Tchikerbahi bom.
Dawi dawi,
daw daw daw,
Tchikerbahi bom.
The song continues under the words.
THE CHORUS
This is not an army.
This is not a court.
This is not revenge.
It is a garden remembering.
It is childhood returning
to search for its colors.
It is the house refusing
to remain confiscated.
THE ELDER WOMEN
We kept the seeds.
THE CHILDREN
We shall plant them.
AXEL
We received the wounds.
THE SAGE-SEER
You must transmit the light.
THE CHIEF OF THE GERONTES
And us?
A GIRL
You?
She looks at the other children.
You may watch.
The children resume the round.
The Gerontes remain at the center,
useless.
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VII. The Fall Without Noise
AXEL to the Gerontes.
You believed power was a chair.
You sat on it too long.
You believed memory was a chest.
You lost the key.
You believed children were the future.
You forgot
they were already here.
THE CHIEF OF THE GERONTES
Do you want to drive us out?
AXEL
No.
I want you to stop
blocking the passage.
THE CHIEF OF THE GERONTES
And if we refuse?
THE SAGE-SEER
Then the world
will pass around you.
A child rolls a marble.
It crosses the circle,
passes before the Gerontes,
and stops near the lamp.
A BOY
It found the light.
A GIRL
It asked no one for the road.
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VIII. The DreamThe light grows warmer.
AXEL
Grandfather…
I think I saw
the house breathe.
I saw the masks fall.
I saw the women raise their heads.
I saw the children enter without fear.
I saw the elders become true passers-on
or disappear into their own dust.
I wanted to cry:
Hurrah.
THE SAGE-SEER
You may cry it.
But know what that cry demands.
AXEL
What does it demand?
THE SAGE-SEER
Watchers.
A dreamed victory
can become night again
if no one guards the lamp.
AXEL
Then my dream is not true?
THE SAGE-SEER
It is not false.
It is fragile.
AXEL
Fragile like what?
THE SAGE-SEER
Like a seed.
Like a just word.
Like a child singing
before men of stone.
Silence.
AXEL
Then we shall watch.
THE SAGE-SEER
Yes.
But never forget:
the madman who leaves through one door
can return through another,
with another mask,
another flag,
another prayer.
AXEL
I will remember.
THE SAGE-SEER
You dream too much, my son.
You dream too much.
AXEL
Perhaps.
But now
I no longer dream alone.
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IX. FinaleThe women, the children,
AXEL and the SAGE-SEER gather around the lamp.
The Gerontes remain aside, still visible, but already outside the center.
THE CHORUS
The old constellation collapses.
Its last rays flicker
like wounded beasts.
But among the ruins,
a breath persists.
We are not saviors.
We are witnesses
to what begins again.
There is no miracle.
Only living beings
who refuse to go on dying.
THE ELDER WOMEN
Let the dead be named.
THE CHILDREN
Let the games begin again.
AXEL
Let the languages return to song.
THE SAGE-SEER
Let memory become passage.
ALL, except the Gerontes
Let the light
find its way
through our ruins.
And may the world,
far less dark,
dare to survive us.
The children roll the marble again.
It circles the lamp.
The Gerontes reach out to stop it,
but too late.
The marble continues its course.
Darkness.
END.
