Program Notes

Wednesday, October 27, 2004 10:41 PM - 1:09 AM

maybe the muse hits wen the moon ius hiding. I don’t know what it is. Its not exactly as if I had all the time in the world to spare for it, but tonight I took my first crack at revising “Street Preacher.”

I have a friend, a director, who says, “someday, i know you’r ein school now and you have to graduate, but that will be over soon, and why don’t you give me a script or something. I have this idea to do theater on the street like theater in the round, and your street preacher idea strikes me as appropriate.”

I thought it would help to construct a blue print, notes to myself that say “when this happens, the main character would do x or say y.” I learned a couple of things by doing it that way. First of all, its easy to write that way. Second, I know I’m only writing notes right now, but the format I chose for them might just work for the final version as well. To write a script like a program. thats the thing.

here are the notes so far. Examples of the kinds of stuff I have in mind, I guess. I dont have much, but its a start.

1. Whitey, the street preacher, has rehearsed a couple of thigns. He uses them interchangably. They overlap where convenient. He rarely gives them in the same way every time. He improvises considerably.
   • The sermon about fire and brimstone, about rapture, about the end. The one they expect, he calls it.
   • The audience that is there anyway. Whitey sees the legion. Whitey has a sermon about “all the pagans and saints” he calls them. “You must act as if they are always there. You must believe them. Whtehter they exist or not, thats not the point. It’s not whether they do exist or not, its that they must exist”
   • occasionally, he sings a song:
     

     This train is bound for Glory
     This train . . .
     This train is bound for Glory
     This train . . .
     I’ll see my family
     On the great white morning
     This train is bound for Glory
     This train . . .

2. when he begins speaking, or in a lapse between sermons, this is his prayer.

“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. We considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. Yet, by his wounds we are healed.” amen.

3. Whitey has decided to say certain things whenever certain events occur in his environment.

for example, when someone passes him without eye contact:

How else could you want to forget, unless you knew?
or
Doesn’t matter if you think you know, you know? Its just that you need to be reminded. You don’t want to be reminded, thats how I can tell you already know.
or
This is an urgent message: I am speaking to you from the other side of glory!

when he gets aprticularly upset, this comes out:

This is an urgent warning. This is an urgent warning: you should know that you have already missed the rapture. Do not - I repeat - do not receive a mark of any kind on your body, especially your right hand and forehead, from anyone, no matter who they are and no matter what the reason. I am speaking to you from the other side of glory. You are special to God. You are special to God. We’re rooting for you. Be a Rebel. Resist to the end. We’ll see you soon.

as an occasional aside, he reminds:

I don’t really mean all of this, not the way it sounds.

When spirits mingle near him, he acknowledges them, more often than he acknowledges the people who mingle.

4. Whitey has a friend who comes to visit occassionally. His name is “the singin’ evangelist. ” The singin’ Evangelist knows several songs. He plays them when the spirit moves him.

one of those songs is the same of whitey’s song.
He takes requests, but he wont do Amazing Grace. He’s sick of it.
another one of the songs is “His Eye is on the Sparrow”

Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come,
Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heaven and home,
When Jesus is my portion? My constant friend is He:
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

I sing because I’m happy,
I sing because I’m free,
For His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me.

“Let not your heart be troubled,” His tender word I hear,
And resting on His goodness, I lose my doubts and fears;
Though by the path He leadeth, but one step I may see;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

I sing because I’m happy,
I sing because I’m free,
For His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me.

Whenever I am tempted, whenever clouds arise,
When songs give place to sighing, when hope within me dies,
I draw the closer to Him, from care He sets me free;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

I sing because I’m happy,
I sing because I’m free,
For His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me.

5? After introducing The Singin’ Evangelist, Whitey likes to do a routine with him. Whitey puts him on the spot to do requests, If something is requested that the singer can’t remember or play very well, or if the singer messes up, Whitey demands a “better” hymn. If “Amazing Grace” is requested and the singer will not sing it, and if the audience is incredulous about this, Whity will challenge again, insisting that surely anyone shoul dbe able to think of a different hymn.