by Tony Kushner
And even if He did . . .
If He ever did come back, if He ever dared to show His face, or his Glyph or whatever in the Garden again. If after all this destruction, if after all the terrible days of this terrible century He returned to see . . . how much suffering His abandonment had created, if all He has to offer is death . . .
You should sue the bastard. That’s my only contribution to all this Theology. Sue the bastard for walking out. How dare He. He oughta pay.
(All stand, frozen, then the Angels exchange glances. Then:)
ANGEL: Thus spake the Prophet.
PRIOR (Holding out the Book): So thank you . . . for sharing this with me, but I don’t want to keep it.
OCEANIA: He wants to live.
PRIOR (Grief breaking through): Yes! (Pushing the sorrow back, determined to stay composed) I’m thirty years old, for God-sake—
(A softer rumble of thunder.)
PRIOR: I haven’t done anything yet, I—I want to be healthy again! And this plague, it should stop. In me and everywhere. Make it go away.
AUSTRALIA: Oh We have tried.
We suffer with You but
We do not know. We
Do not know how.
(Prior and Australia look at each other.)
EUROPA: This is the Tome of Immobility, of respite, of cessation.
Drink of its bitter water once, Prophet, and never thirst again.
PRIOR: I . . . can’t.
(Prior puts the Book on the table. He removes his prophet robes, revealing the hospital gown underneath. He places the robe by the Book.)
PRIOR: I still want . . . My blessing. Even sick. I want to be alive.
ANGEL: You only think you do.
Life is a habit with you.
You have not seen what is to come:
We have:
What will the grim Unfolding of these Latter Days bring
That you or any Being should wish to endure them?
Death more plenteous than all Heaven has tears to mourn it,
The slow dissolving of the Great Design,
The spiraling apart of the Work of Eternity,
The World and its beautiful particle logic
All collapsed. All dead, forever,
In starless, moon-lorn onyx night.
(The Angel goes to Prior.)
ANGEL: We are failing, failing,
The Earth and the Angels.
Look up, look up.
(Prior and the Angel are looking up.)
ANGEL: It is Not-to-Be Time.
(The sound of the enormous generator begins to slow and then to fail. The lights in the chamber dim.)
ANGEL (Asking Prior a real question, mystified by his persistence):
Oh who asks of the Orders Blessing
With Apocalypse Descending?
Who demands: More Life
When Death like a Protector Blinds our eyes, shielding from tender nerve
More horror than can be borne?
(She returns to stand with the other Principalities, all facing Prior.)
ANGEL: Let any Being on whom Fortune smiles
Creep away to Death
Before that last dreadful daybreak
When all your ravaging returns to you
With the rising, scorching, unrelenting Sun:
When morning blisters crimson
And bears all life away,
A tidal wave of Protean Fire
That curls around the planet
And bares the Earth clean as bone.
(Pause.)
PRIOR: But still. Still.
Bless me anyway.
I want more life. I can’t help myself. I do.
I’ve lived through such terrible times, and there are people who live through much much worse, but . . . You see them living anyway. When they’re more spirit than body, more sores than skin, when they’re burned and in agony, when flies lay eggs in the corners of the eyes of their children, they live. Death usually has to take life away. I don’t know if that’s just the animal. I don’t know if it’s not braver to die. But I recognize the habit. The addiction to being alive. We live past hope. If I can find hope anywhere, that’s it, that’s the best I can do. It’s so much not enough, so inadequate but . . . Bless me anyway. I want more life.
(He turns away to leave. When his back is turned, the Angels silently make mystical signs.
Prior stops, suddenly feeling sick again: leg pain, constricted lungs, cloudy vision, febrile panic and under that, dreadful weakness.
He gathers his strength, then turns again, with a new calm, to face them.)
PRIOR: You haven’t seen what’s to come. You’ve only seen what you’re afraid is coming. Until it arrives—please don’t be offended but . . . all you can see is fear.
I’m leaving Heaven to you now. I’ll take my illness with me, and. And I’ll take my death with me, too.
The earth’s my home, and I want to go home.
Scene 6
Seven A.M. Prior descends from Heaven and slips into his hospital bed.
Belize is sleeping in a chair.
PRIOR (Waking): Oh.
I’m exhausted.
BELIZE (Waking): You’ve been working hard.
PRIOR: I feel terrible.
BELIZE: Welcome back to the world.
PRIOR: From where, I . . .
Oh. Oh I—
(Emily enters.)
EMILY: Well look at this. It’s the dawn of man.
BELIZE: Venus rising from the sea.
PRIOR: I’m wet.
EMILY: Fever broke. That’s a good sign, they’ll be in to change you in—
PRIOR (Looking around): Mrs. Pitt? Did she—
BELIZE: Elle fait sa toilette. Elle est tres formidable, ça. Where did you find her?
PRIOR: We found each other, she—
I’ve had a remarkable dream. And (To Belize) you were there, and (To Emily) you.
(Hannah enters.)
PRIOR: And you.
HANNAH: I what?
PRIOR: And some of it was terrible, and some of it was wonderful, but all the same I kept saying I want to go home. And They sent me home.
HANNAH (To Prior): What are you talking about?
PRIOR (To Hannah): Thank you.
HANNAH: I just slept in the chair.
PRIOR (To Belize): She saved my life.
HANNAH: I did no such thing, I slept in the chair. Being in hospital upsets me, it reminds me of things.
I have to go home now. I had the most peculiar dream.
(There’s a knock on the door. It opens. Louis enters.)
LOUIS: Can I come in?
(Brief tense pause; Prior looks at Louis and then at Belize.)
EMILY: I have to start rounds.
(To Prior) You’re one of the lucky ones. I could give you a rose. You rest your weary bones.
PRIOR (To Louis): What are you . . .
(He sees Louis’s cuts and bruises) What happened to you?
LOUIS: Visible scars. You said—
PRIOR: Oh, Louis, you’re so goddamned literal about everything.
HANNAH (A quick glance at Louis when Prior says his name, then): I’m going now.
PRIOR: You’ll come back.
HANNAH (A beat, then): If I can. I have things to take care of.
PRIOR: Please do.
I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.
HANNAH: Well that’s a stupid thing to do.
(Hannah exits.)
LOUIS: Who’s she?
PRIOR (A beat, then): You really don’t want to know.
BELIZE: Before I depart. A homecoming gift.
(Belize puts his shoulder bag on Prior’s lap. Prior opens it; it’s full of bottles of pills.)
PRIOR (Squinting hard): What? I can’t read the label, I—
My eyes. Aren’t any better.
(Squints even harder) AZT?
Where on earth did you . . . These are hot pills. I am shocked.
BELIZE: A contri
bution to the get-well fund. From a bad fairy.
LOUIS: These pills, they . . . They make you better.
PRIOR: They’re poison, they make you anemic.
This is my life, from now on, Louis. I’m not getting “better.”
(To Belize) I’m not sure I’m ready to do that to my bone marrow.
BELIZE (Taking the bag): We can talk about it tomorrow. I’m going home to nurse my grudges. Ta, baby, sleep all day. Ta, Louis, you sure know how to clear a room.
(Belize exits.)
LOUIS: Prior.
I want to come back to you.
Scene 7
Same morning. Split scene: Louis and Prior in Prior’s hospital room, continuous from Scene 6. Harper and Joe in Brooklyn. Joe sits in a chair; Harper enters from the bedroom, dressed for traveling, carrying a small suitcase.
HARPER: I want the credit card.
That’s all. You can keep track of me from where the charges come from. If you want to keep track. I don’t care.
JOE: I have some things to tell you.
HARPER: Oh we shouldn’t talk. I don’t want to do that anymore.
Credit card.
JOE: I don’t know what will happen to me without you. Only you. Only you love me. Out of everyone in the world. I have done things, I’m ashamed. But I have changed. I don’t know how yet, but . . . Please, please, don’t leave me now.
Harper.
You’re my good heart.
(She looks at him, she walks up to him and slaps him, hard.)
HARPER (Quietly): Did that hurt?
(Joe nods yes.)
HARPER: Yes. Remember that. Please.
If I can get a job, or something, I’ll cut the card to pieces. And there won’t be charges anymore. Credit card.
(Joe takes out his wallet, gives her the card.)
JOE: Call or . . . Call. You have to.
HARPER: No. Probably never again. That’s how bad.
Sometimes, maybe lost is best. Get lost. Joe. Go exploring.
(Harper takes a bottle of Valium from a coat pocket. She shakes out two pills, goes to Joe, takes his hand and puts the Valium in his open palm.)
HARPER: With a big glass of water.
(Harper leaves.)
LOUIS: I want to come back to you.
You could . . . respond, you could say something, throw me out or say it’s fine, or it’s not fine but sure what the hell or . . .
(Little pause)
I really failed you. But . . . This is hard. Failing in love isn’t the same as not loving. It doesn’t let you off the hook, it doesn’t mean . . . you’re free to not love.
PRIOR: I love you Louis.
LOUIS: Good. I love you.
PRIOR: I really do.
But you can’t come back. Not ever.
I’m sorry. But you can’t.
Scene 8
That night. Louis and Prior remain from the previous scene. Joe is sitting alone in Brooklyn. Harper appears. She is in a window seat on board a jumbo jet, airborne.
HARPER: Night flight to San Francisco. Chase the moon across America. God! It’s been years since I was on a plane!
When we hit thirty-five-thousand feet, we’ll have reached the tropopause. The great belt of calm air. As close as I’ll ever get to the ozone.
I dreamed we were there. The plane leapt the tropopause, the safe air, and attained the outer rim, the ozone, which was ragged and torn, patches of it threadbare as old cheesecloth, and that was frightening . . .
But I saw something only I could see, because of my astonishing ability to see such things:
Souls were rising, from the earth far below, souls of the dead, of people who had perished, from famine, from war, from the plague, and they floated up, like skydivers in reverse, limbs all akimbo, wheeling and spinning. And the souls of these departed joined hands, clasped ankles, and formed a web, a great net of souls, and the souls were three-atom oxygen molecules, of the stuff of ozone, and the outer rim absorbed them, and was repaired.
Nothing’s lost forever. In this world, there is a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we’ve left behind, and dreaming ahead.
At least I think that’s so.
EPILOGUE:
Bethesda
January 1990
Prior, Louis, Belize and Hannah sitting on the rim of the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. It’s a bright day, but cold.
Prior is heavily bundled, and he has thick glasses on. He supports himself with a cane. Hannah is noticeably different—she looks like a New Yorker, and she’s reading an issue of The Nation. Louis and Belize are arguing. The Bethesda Angel is above them all.
LOUIS: The Berlin Wall has fallen. The Ceauşescus are out. He’s building democratic socialism. The New Internationalism. Gorbachev is the greatest political thinker since Lenin.
BELIZE: I don’t think we know enough yet to start canonizing him. The Russians hate his guts.
LOUIS: Yeah but. Remember back four years ago? The whole time we were feeling everything everywhere was stuck, while in Russia! Look! Perestroika! The Thaw! It’s the end of the Cold War! The whole world is changing! Overnight!
HANNAH: I wonder what’ll happen now in places like Yugoslavia.
LOUIS: Yugoslavia?
PRIOR (To audience): Let’s just turn the volume down on this, OK?
They’ll be at it for hours. It’s not that what they’re saying isn’t important, it’s just . . .
This is my favorite place in New York City. No, in the whole universe. The parts of it I have seen.
On a day like today. A sunny winter’s day, warm and cold at once. The sky’s a little hazy, so the sunlight has a physical presence, a character. In autumn, those trees across the lake are yellow, and the sun strikes those most brilliantly. Against the blue of the sky, that sad fall blue, those trees are more light than vegetation. They are Yankee trees, New England transplants. They’re barren now.
It’s January 1990. I’ve been living with AIDS for five years. That’s six whole months longer than I lived with Louis.
LOUIS: Whatever comes, what you have to admire in Gorbachev, in the Russians is that they’re making a leap into the unknown. You can’t wait around for a theory. The sprawl of life, the weird . . .
HANNAH: Interconnectedness.
LOUIS: Yes.
BELIZE: Maybe the sheer size of the terrain.
LOUIS: It’s all too much to be encompassed by a single theory now.
BELIZE: The world is faster than the mind.
LOUIS: That’s what politics is. The world moving ahead. And only in politics does the miraculous occur.
BELIZE: But that’s a theory.
HANNAH: You can’t live in the world without an idea of the world, but it’s living that makes the ideas. You can’t wait for a theory, but you have to have a theory.
LOUIS: Go know. As my grandma would say.
PRIOR (Turning the sound off again): This angel. She’s my favorite angel. I like them best when they’re statuary. They commemorate death but they suggest a world without dying. They are made of the heaviest things on earth, stone and iron, they weigh tons but they’re winged, they are engines and instruments of flight.
This is the angel Bethesda. Louis will tell you her story.
LOUIS: Oh. Um, well, she was this angel, she landed in the Temple Square in Jerusalem, in the days of the Second Temple, right in the middle of a working day she descended and just her foot touched earth. And where it did, a fountain shot up from the ground.
When the Romans destroyed the Temple, the fountain of Bethesda ran dry.
PRIOR: And Belize will tell you about the nature of the fountain, before its flowing stopped.
BELIZE: If anyone who was suffering, in the body or the spirit, walked through the waters of the fountain of Bethesda, they would be healed, washed clean of pain.
PRIOR: They know this because I’ve told them, many times. Hannah here told it to me. She also told me this:
HANNAH: When the Millennium
comes—
PRIOR: Not the year two thousand, but the capital-M Millennium—
HANNAH: Right. The fountain of Bethesda will flow again. And I told him I would personally take him there to bathe. We will all bathe ourselves clean.
LOUIS: Not literally in Jerusalem, I mean we don’t want this to have sort of Zionist implications, we—
BELIZE: Right on.
LOUIS: But on the other hand we do recognize the right of the state of Israel to exist.
BELIZE: But the West Bank should be a homeland for the Palestinians, and the Golan Heights should—
LOUIS: Well not both the West Bank and the Golan Heights, I mean no one supports Palestinian rights more than I do but—
BELIZE: Oh yeah right, Louis, like not even the Palestinians are more devoted than—
PRIOR: I’m almost done.
The fountain’s not flowing now, they turn it off in the winter, ice in the pipes. But in the summer it’s a sight to see. I want to be around to see it. I plan to be. I hope to be.
This disease will be the end of many of us, but not nearly all, and the dead will be commemorated and will struggle on with the living, and we are not going away. We won’t die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come.
Bye now.
You are fabulous creatures, each and every one.
And I bless you: More Life.
The Great Work Begins.
END OF PLAY
Notes
Acknowledgments
For Millennium Approaches
From the first edition, published in 1993:
I received generous support during the writing of this play in the form of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Gerbode Foundation, and the Fund for New American Plays/American Express. Further financial and abundant emotional support came from my parents, Bill and Sylvia Kushner, Martha Deutscher, and Dot and Jerry Edelstien. Joyce Ketay the Wonder-Agent, and her associate Carl Mulert have been awesomely protective and farsighted; and from Jim Nicola of New York Theatre Workshop I have gotten wonderfully smart advice.
Gordon Davidson and the staff of the Mark Taper Forum provided the play and its author with the best circumstances for development and production any artist could hope for.
Richard Eyre and the staff of the National Theatre made a timorous and occasionally querulous visitor to British theater feel at home. Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod made the play dance.