(An elevator door opens stage right to reveal the Narrator, a middle-aged man with close-cropped dark hair and dark, bushy eyebrows. His brow is wrinkled in a serious and earnest expression. He wears a dark-colored three-button suit with narrow lapels, circa. 1960. The middle suit button is fastened. An equally skinny neck-tie is tied neatly in a small knot encircling his white collar. He holds a lit cigarette in his left hand. The stage lighting creates deep shadows in the picture he wants you to see. A tight, white, hot-spot on the Narrator darkens the remainder of the stage by contrast. The scene is starkly black and white. Smoke billows from his cigarette. He stares almost intimately into your eyes.)
(Narrator:) “Imagine, if you will, a man, John Blue, to be specific, but names don’t matter here. He could be anyone: the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker – anyone. He could be a skid-row bum or a Bishop. He could be me. . . He could be you. (Gravely, and with a punch.) He has just crossed into the Insight Zone.” Lights dim. Exit Narrator.)
(Enter John, center-stage. Spot comes up three-quarters tight. After an uncomfortably long pause, he speaks to the audience:) “Ah. . . ‘hello, Darkness, My Old Friend,’ apparently, ‘pride’ is a subject of great interest to me, so much so that ‘I’ve come to talk with you again.”
(High-pitched, sarcastic voice offstage:) “Maybe it’s because you are full of yourself and prideful.”
(John, continues his stare at the audience. He is somewhat scornful of the Voice interrupting him.
(John, to the voice located somewhere over the audience:) “Surely not!”
(Voice:) “Oh, really?”
(John:) “Really.”
(Voice:) “Do you realize that you’ve written about ‘pride’ more than four times since April? ‘The Lady doth protest too much methinks.”
(John:) “Are you calling me a ‘lady?”
(Voice:) “No, fool, I’m quoting Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene II, to be precise.”
(John:) “Now, who’s being prideful and a bit pretentious? I know you just looked the quote up on Wikipedia. Get back into your cage!”
(Voice:) “No, I’m not through yet! I’ve just started. Why don’t you write about how you were going to send Pastor Alan an email and correct today’s sermon about ‘pride?’ Why don’t you say that you were fired up to do it, but then you Googled the point and found out that he was correct after all? Do you have some sort of need to be the ‘smartest guy in the room?’ You do know, don’t you, that he already was ‘way ahead of you on the point?
(John:) “And that point was . . .”
(Voice, interrupting:) “Chapter 6 of Esther where Haman is jealous of Mordechai’s honor and is going to have him impaled on his very own fifty-foot pole. You were going to make something of that, weren’t you? The point is not the how of Haman’s ‘high-flying’ end, but the why of his sad tale. Why, I remember a piece that you wrote entitled, Pride Goeth Before a Fall; Great Pride Goeth Before a Great Fall. Do you remember that one?”
(John:) “Of course. I remember most of my stuff. I thought it was pretty good.”
(Voice:) “Oh, please . . .”
(John:) “No, I mean it. I thought the point was well made. The Proverbs say that ‘pride goes before a fall,’ and I added….’ and great pride goes before a great fall.’ Catchy, don’t you think?”
(Voice:) “Catchy? Nobody’s said that in twenty years.
(John:) “Well, I just did.”
(Voice:) Now, there you go again – beginning everything with ‘I.”
(John:) “I did not. I began that sentence with, ‘Well . . .”
(Voice:) “And that’s supposed to count?”
(John:) “I see your point. Err, I mean. . . ‘point well taken.”
(Voice:) “Oh, for crying out loud. ‘You’re so vain. You prob’ly think [this bit] is about you, don’t you?”
(John, interrupts:) “Wait, ‘You’re So Vain,’ that would be a good song title.”
(Voice, dripping with sarcasm:) “It’s been done.”
(John:) “Oh, I see your point.”
(Voice:) “. . . And, yet again.”
(John:) “Yet, again, what?
(Voice, annoyed:) “Beginning your sentence with ‘I.’ And, don’t tell me that you began the sentence with, ‘Oh.”
(John:) “Why are you interrupting my story? Why are you in my spot-light? Why are you making me humiliate myself in front of all the hundreds of people who read my stuff?
(Voice, amused:) “Hundreds, are you serious? Do seriously think that hundreds of people read your stuff? You’re lucky if it’s ten. You’re worse off than I thought. You make Haman look like ‘Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter.’ Except that you’re not Superman inside the white shirt. You’re just an arrogant blow-hard!”
(John:) “Blow-hard? Now, who’s using archaic phraseology?”
(John purses his lips, looks up, then from side to side. He hesitates – thinking – considering.) Perhaps . . . perhaps, you’re right. I do seem to come on a bit strong sometimes, don’t I? But I don’t do it with people – usually – I just do it with you.”
(Voice:) “That’s because I am you. I’m the voice inside your head.”
(John:) “Yeah, yeah, and ‘I am the mask you wear. . .”
(Voice:) “Well, ‘it’s me they hear’ . . . Oh, wait, we’ve devolved into Phantom of the Opera lyrics.”
(John:) “Yeah, I was thinking that too. Perhaps, it’s time to drop the curtain. I get the point. I’m still too proud, and that won’t end well for me, will it? I’ll talk to God about that.”
(Voice:) Now that’s the smartest thing you’ve said all day though I strongly suspect that He’s already heard you on this. But, coming clean would be the thing to do. Just imagine, a ‘pride-less John Blue….’ Naa, it’ll never happen.”
(John:) “It could. Honest. It could. God could take it away – if I wanted Him to.”
(Voice, repeating slowly:) “If I wanted Him to. ‘Aye, there’s the rub.”
(John:) “Cool it, Lord Hamlet. You win. I stand convicted. Pride, yet again. Thanks for calling it to my attention. Somehow though, I feel better- now that I’ve owned up to it. I think you can go back into your cage.”
(Voice:) “OK, I’m going. But you do need to work on ‘pride,’ don’t you? Just remember this, ‘I’ll be back.”
(John, trying to sound triumphant, but honestly – just busted:) “Sure. But, did you have to sign off doing a lame Arnold Schwarzenegger?”
(Stage goes dark. The sound of exiting footsteps can be heard in the dark.)
(Narrator, voice only, dark stage continues:) “Yes, he will be back because, you see, pride always lurks just beneath the surface of John Blue – just beneath the surface of each of us. And, every once in a while. . . it surfaces. Good night.”
So let it be written, so let it be done.
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