Wednesday, July 11, 2007

The Hero And The Traitor Parts 8 & 9- Act 3 scene 2 and 3

Scene 2
The café. RYAN and NIGEL are at the same table, talking as they were before.

RYAN- You see, Nolan couldn’t invent the circumstances of the execution from scratch, so he plagiarized scenes from another playwright, the English enemy William Shakespeare, reprising scenes from Macbeth and Julius Caesar. For days this secret performance played out; The condemned man came into town and prayed, argued, worked, reprehended, and spoke words of pathos- each choreographed by James Nolan to make Kilpatrick look his best before the fall. It’s all very interesting.

NIGEL- indeed it is, but how did you figure this out?
RYAN- Once I found Kilpatrick’s journal, I snapped out of my depression; after all, life can’t imitate fiction. I dug into some files I have from my Great-grandfather’s era, and found a letter of execution from around that time. It was odd in a few ways; first, Kilpatrick had signed it, which is very strange, considering his normal benevolence, and second, the name of the victim had been crossed out. I did some more fact checking, and found out that many witnesses testified the murderer looked like a famous playwright. James Nolan was known for his talent in writing, so the pieces fell together.

NIGEL- that’s quite a tenuous connection. But supposing it is true, what will you do with it? How will this fit into your book?

RYAN- There is a predicament in this case. While Kilpatrick was an honorable man, he is still considered a hero, and this new information would ruin his image. His life will be considered a study in treachery, and even his noble sacrifice will be cast in a horrible light.

NIGEL- So what shall you do?
RYAN- I don’t know. Nothing in his life became him like leaving it.
[em]End scene[/em]

Scene 3

Scene 3
An empty, dark stage, except for BORGES standing under a spotlight. BORGES is in the same position he was in the beginning of the play.

BORGES- In Nolan’s play, the passages taken from Shakespeare are the least dramatic ones; Ryan suspected that the author interpolated them so that someone, in the future, would be able to stumble upon the truth. Ryan realized that he, too, was part of Nolan’s plot… After long and stubborn deliberation, he decided to silence the discovery. He published a book dedicated to the hero’s glory; that too, perhaps has been foreseen.

Fade to black and Curtain Call.
The End

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