Antimasque
by Lee Scrivner
Music murmurs through the Notted Would1 as LORD GARDEN2 and his two assistants FALL and FELL come into view, forming a solemn procession. LORD GARDEN holds open a large blank book in which he sketches a map of the surrounding terrain. Meanwhile at LORD GARDEN’s nod, FALL and FELL tie bows around various local trees to signify that they have been entered into the map’s inventory. A short distance away, sitting under a tree, a young vagabond ASCIAN plays a tune on a small reed pipe. LORD GARDEN takes notice of ASCIAN’s song. FALL and FELL, in turn, notice that LORD GARDEN has become suddenly transfixed.
FALL AND FELL
What?
LORD GARDEN
Listen! Such a beautiful, and yet
An unfamiliar song! Some little bird,
So tender-breasted as to thus beget
The sweetest singing ears have ever heard
Has perched itself upon yon distant branch!
What feather would this clear voice wear about
Its throat? We must approach while there's a chance
To see, and in our notes record its notes.
With a telescope, FALL searches out the source of the sounds. Meanwhile, FELL jots down some of the musical notes in his notebook.
And when we get a fix on them, and fix
Them in our books, we’ll plan a seminar
And teach this song to all uncultured hicks
Who would improve, refine themselves at our
Soon-to-be-opened institution huge:
Lord Garden’s Institute of Art and Song!
A tow’ring monument that’s coming through
In planning stages vast. It won’t be long
Before it will be bliss to be alive,
Before we’re this bird, as our collective voice
Becomes this voice. From which does it derive?
A finch?
FALL
Lord Garden, it's a little boy:
Young Ascian, sent to count the grass blades in
The meadow. Now he's resting and beneath
A tree he sits alone.
LORD GARDEN
But what makes, then,
These notes? For never could a mere boy breathe
So clearly as to sing such beauty.
FALL
I
Believe it's on a reed pipe that he plays.
LORD GARDEN
(Suspiciously.)
I see.
(Concealing his suspicion.)
Well, like a songbird he can pipe.
And, thus, for such a gift, he must be praised!
FELL
(Checking his notes.)
It is most like a bird, Lord Garden.
LORD GARDEN
Yes.
Let us as birds become to him, as if
In answer to his call. We shall from this
High maypole tree and hill descend to give
Young Ascian praise. Let us proceed with all
The proper fanfare as is fitting for
My highness.
FALL AND FELL
Yes, Lord Garden.
LORD GARDEN, FALL and FELL hold crow masks to their faces as they flit between the trees. FALL sings “Lord Garden's Fanfare.”
FALL
Hearken and rise! Hearken and rise!
The Ruler of the Land, Lord Garden!
He is Keeper of the Would.
He is Tender to the Trees.3
So hearken and rise before his eyes.
ASCIAN, startled, hides his reedpipe in his coat, and begins to rise, but FALL and FELL force him to his knees.
And when you've seen
That he is king,
Fall upon your knees
So you can hearken and rise!
Again ASCIAN begins to rise, but FALL and FELL force him to his knees, where he remains.
Hearken and rise! Hearken and rise!
He is the King of Crows, Lord Garden!
Lord Garden has descended
From where the maypole grows,
So hearken and rise before his eyes.
FELL
Dear Ascian, you proved a worthy friend.
You have enchanted us and charmed us by
The pipe within your hand. The King of Crows
Thus must do honor to your name.
FALL
And that
He shall with lofty language he composed
In his descent. He made this charming chant
When your enchanting charm he did reverse,
To thus return the gift that you've embraced
Us with in song.
FELL
For one good turn deserves
To be returned.
FALL
And so at last your praise
Is hereby rebestowed. So hearken to
And rise before the charming King of Crows.
LORD GARDEN begins making a guttural, wheezing sound with his throat.
ASCIAN
Lord Garden? Is there something wrong? Oh! You Are
choking! Are you choking?
FELL
Do not pose
A question till Lord Garden's fully blessed
Us with his song.
LORD GARDEN
It's quite alright. I am
Not choking. I am Crowking.
FALL
Yes,
The King of Crows is Crow-King.
FELL
Oh. His name
Allows for notes no more melodious
It seems.
LORD GARDEN
Ah! Were I but a crow that would
Be so. But see! A Crow-King's throat has, thus,
A coat of kings. And such a vestment should
Soon prove a sound investment, too, when one,
To earn my presence, teaches me to sing.
So not to worry, duty shall be done.
I just must find one lesser than a king!
ASCIAN
I’m not sure I understand.
LORD GARDEN
I understand you are a peasant, child?
ASCIAN
I am?
LORD GARDEN
You are . And so: a treatise on
The reed pipe you must give, for my delight,
An then a demonstration of your art.
FELL
Since you’re lesser than a king.
LORD GARDEN
Indeed. But if you prove your worth,
I might admit you to our tenured fowl
Faculty. So be brave, Ascian. Show
Me what you’ve got.
ASCIAN
Very well. I’ll try. So...
(Producing the reedpipe from under his coat.)
These are the stops. You govern these ventages
with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth. Like so.
ASCIAN blows into the pipe, producing one or two rudimentary notes. LORD GARDEN removes his crow’s mask from his face (abolishing the pretence of the play-within-a-play), stares with an expression of horror at the untied bow dangling around the reed, then faints into the arms of FALL and FELL.
FALL
Lord Garden?
LORD GARDEN
What is this? A sight which blinds my pupils dark
And leaves me lost within the Notted Would
Alone!
FALL
You've shut your eyes, Lord Garden.
LORD GARDEN
Are they shut? For I know not; I cannot see.
My mind’s monomania banishes
All else except this untied bow, which bleeds
Red ‘round this arrow-wand, which vanishes
My best laid plans. He’s played me for a fool.
Like a pipe.
ASCIAN
Lord Garden? What’s the matter? Oh, are you choking again?
LORD GARDEN
No I am not choking, you fool. Tell me:
How did you manage...to acquire that?
ASCIAN
What, the reed pipe? Well, I was counting up your grass blades in the north meadow. Mind-numbing work. These jobs you fling at me are just scraps, aren’t they? So there I was counting grass blade after grass blade after grass blade. I’d been counting all afternoon, taking inventory and all that. Then a fog rolled in. Or maybe things just got foggy. I found myself on a desolate waste, on some slough out past Zandvoort. Haggard mariners were there. Shipwrecked, starved, but still counting waves and bits of spray—taking inventory, but loosing count, and having to start again. The waves kept coming in, then the tide. Their dog starts howling in the north wind. I sympathized with their plight, of man and beast, and grabbed the nearest thing, something that might make a kind of instrument, with which I might howl back to them, to keep them company, or to guide them like a foghorn towards a hamlet or habitation.
ASCIAN blows into his pipe again, causing LORD GARDEN to wince as if the sound pained his ears. FALL grabs the pipe away as LORD GARDEN checks his map.
FALL
Make no
Such childish tale, dear child.
LORD GARDEN
(Checking his map.)
Behold! Within
the meadow there are nine such reeds. They grow
beneath a birch that’s perched beside a pond.
So I’d say this reed was one of these.
ASCIAN
That very well could be.
LORD GARDEN
Then it must be returned to that place.
ASCIAN
But why Lord Garden?
LORD GARDEN
Because I’m making this...
(Unfurling his map in Ascian’s face to sounds of thunder.)
My Mighty Map.
In doing so, my one and only aim
Is to perfectly mimic these, my grounds.
Yea, in it even slightest saplings must
Be found if they are bound within these bounds
Kept since ere you were conceived.
ASCIAN
Really?
LORD GARDEN
Thus
When you take, pluck, or re-arrange my reeds,
Then all MY work is done in vain—for naught!
For see you not how your careless misdeeds
Have made my map...inaccurate?
FALL AND FELL
Inaccurate?!
LORD GARDEN
Your reed is clearly marked here in my map.
But you have pulled it out of place, the world
is out of joint, as they say.
ASCIAN
But why must you make a map?
FALL AND FELL
Ha!
LORD GARDEN
Poor boy. Let’s
Forgive him his benighted state, which itself
Proves the need for my map. For my great plans
It doth facilitate to make a school
For soft’ning all such wrong and uncouth modes.
My map’s a model, a blueprint to guide
A vast public-works construction project:
Lord Garden’s Institute of Art and Song.
Which will be built on this self-same site
All in due time. And if you wish to join, attend, enroll,
You had better let construction go as planned,
And not put cracks in its very foundation.
Ahem. Now, orchestra, play my other theme.
That I might express myself more effectively, in song.
ASCIAN
You can sing after all?
LORD GARDEN
Of course. I was not really Crow-King, you know.
I was only jo-king!
Laughter from FALL and FELL. LORD GARDEN begins to sing “Lost” as he and FALL and FELL continue their original parade through the Notted Would. Eventually their procession comes to the place where ASCIAN’s reed originated, and there they tie it back securely into place.
LORD GARDEN
Lost. We are lost in the wood.
No way to know the way out.
Lost. We are lost in the world.
No way to dispel our doubt.
How can you build a civilization
Without a map of the world?
And how can you build, on misinformation,
An accurate map of the world?
We would not survive.
We would not survive
We would not survive... very long.
Lost. We are lost in the world,
Bread crumbs to show us the way?
Lost. We are lost in the woods.
My map will show us the way.
How can you build a civilization
Without a map of the world?
And how can you build, on misinformation,
An accurate map of the world?
We would not survive.
We would not survive
We would not survive... very long.
From LORD GARDEN’s processional cart, FALL and FELL take some bulky enrollment papers and course catalogs for Lord Garden’s Institute of Art and Song and set them on the ground, near ASCIAN. LORD GARDEN, FLALL and FELL, in procession, then roll on into the distance and out of the immediate vicinity, leaving ASCIAN kneeling on the ground, defeated. He picks up the enrollment papers and reads aloud about the coming curriculum.
ASCIAN
(Reading.)
Enrolment is open for fall term at Lord Garden’s Institute of Art and Song. Music 101: Exploring narcissistic echoes with safe, sanitary, and inexpensive plastic recorders...theory helps us deconstruct…our constructed relation to music as evidence of a neo-colonialist paradigm....motivated by the very desire it purports to transcend. The essentialist full presence of the individualized subject rightly deconstructed, we will break off into discussion groups and therapy sessions and…[academic jargon etc.]
ASCIAN yawns, and, using the enrollment materials as a pillow, falls asleep. Sound of wind. Birds.
Fin
NOTES
1 The Notted Would is an imaginary forest where the flora is knotted to the ground. This knotting to the ground is symbolic and literal: each flower, reed, weed, and tree has a red bow tied around it to indicate that it has been entered into inventory.
2 Lord Garden can be seen as a sort of euhemeristic syncretism between various tax-collecting, town-planning entities such as Count Floris V, Albrecht V Duke of Bavaria, or the Frankfurt School.
3 Tender to the Trees: the etymological derivation of tender is here significant, from the Latin tenere, which has connotations of tenderness, but also means to hold, to grasp. The French verb tenir is relevant here. One might even say “he’s tenir to the trees.”
Antimasque was recorded via Skype on September 29 of this year, with actors from London, Chicago, Washington DC, and Las Vegas. It was originally performed on stage at De Appel in Amsterdam.
Cast
Lord Garden...............Jonathan Law
Fall...............Helena Bonett
Fell...............Kevin Brewer
Ascian...............Burr the Exploder
Musicians
Clarinet...............Laura Carmichael
Baroque Cello...............Johanna Calderon Ochoa
Harp...............Victoria Davies
Guitar...............Lee Scrivner
