The Afterparty

By
Reina Hardy
Reinahardy.com
312-330-3031
Reinahardy@gmail.com

Characters
Claire: female, a poet.
Devon/M: a child/a star, male
and

Aristophanes: male, a comedian (might also play an emperor)

Kepler: male, a nerd (might also play a cowboy)
Henrietta: female, a prude (might also play a weaver girl)
 Claire is sitting in the darkness fiddling with a small
mechanical object.

It's a bicycle light. She gets it working. It flickers.

CLAIRE
Well, ok. So that was the first thing.

She turns the light on definitively.

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
Let there be light!
Except of course that wasn't the first thing. The emancipation of light didn't happen till way
after the first thing. Before that the universe was a hot angry darkness, so jostled with
matter that no photon could travel unencumbered. It took over 300,000 years till we chilled
out enough for light to, you know “be,” which is to say, move, and then it all just lit up like
Christmas. Well, probably not much like Christmas. I wasn't around then. I was born
about 13.8 billion years later, on the third of July.
By that time a whole lot of stuff had happened.

She walks over to a bicycle, and begins attempting to

attach the bicycle light to the bicycle by the light of the
bicycle light. This is actually pretty tricky.
Matter domination, re-ionization, the formation of stars and galaxies, the cooking up of all
the higher mass elements inside said stars, enabling the creation of planets and carbon-
based lifeforms like myself… oh wow! (referring to the bicycle light.) This really is
completely impossible, right? Trying to attach a bicycle light to a bicycle by the light of a
bicycle light? Anyway, my name is Claire. I'm a poet, and I'm in love. I was born at the
center of the observable universe, in the Virgo Supercluster of the Pisces Cetus
Supercluster Complex, in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way...

Having attached the bicycle light successfully, she mounts

the bicycle.
...in the loving orbit of the solar system, in the Western hemisphere of the planet earth, in a
small town outside Madison, Wisconsin in the United States of America, looking up.

There is a ringing noise from everywhere, like first 12 and

then 50 and then 500 bicycle bells. She looks around.
The sound dies out.Then Claire reaches over and rings
her own bicycle bell, just once. It sounds clear for a
moment, then fades away.
Up is a metaphorical direction.
Can you have a metaphorical direction?
(MORE)

(CONTINUED)
 2.
CONTINUED:
CLAIRE (CONT’D)
Can you have a non metaphorical direction?
I hope so, because I'm about to go backwards.

Claire pushes off, and starts to cycle. A sci-fi organ plays

momentarily, thrummingly. Claire bicycles in a circle and
the lights come up, for the first time, and she is bicycling
through and into a starry Midwestern night. A boy runs
onstage, and hails her.

DEVON
Claire! Over here! I'm right here!

CLAIRE
Devon!

Claire leaps off the bicycle and lets it fall, running towards
Devon's arms. Seconds before their embrace, she makes
a quick gesture and they freeze. Claire speaks excitedly
over Devon's shoulder.

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
This is Devon, long since dead. We were sworn sweethearts at the ages of ten and eleven,
respectively. He liked older women and, as a prepubescent, had better game than any
mortal man I’ve met.

She waves her hand. They unfreeze. She moves in and he

pushes her away.

DEVON
I'm not going to kiss you right now.

CLAIRE
Now?

DEVON
Come here. Let's sit down and look at the stars. I want to give you a present.

CLAIRE
A present?

DEVON
Because I missed your birthday.

(CONTINUED)
 3.
CONTINUED: (2)

CLAIRE
I missed you so much I can't even believe it.

DEVON
You look just the same.

CLAIRE
You too.

DEVON
No. I don't.
Here. I'll put my hoodie down. You can sit on it.

CLAIRE
I like the grass. Do you have to go back soon?

DEVON
It depends.

CLAIRE
Everyone missed you. Everyone talked about you all the time. Mrs. Gomez basically cried
in front of the entire class when she was collecting your letters.

DEVON
I got those.

CLAIRE
You got mine.

DEVON
Eight o’clock by the old stone wall. Took me three days to figure it out, the cipher was a
total bitch.

CLAIRE
Thank you. It was the very first cipher I made up by myself.

DEVON
We'll make something of you yet, Ms. Claire.

CLAIRE
I still suck at school math. It's easier when it's not boring.

(CONTINUED)
 4.
CONTINUED: (3)

DEVON
That's how I can tell you're really smart.

CLAIRE
No-

DEVON
Yeah. People don't think you are, because you're pretty. It's good, it will make you a good
spy, because you'll always be underestimated, but you have to remember not to believe
them. Ok?

CLAIRE
I can't-

DEVON
Just promise to remember.

Claire nods.

DEVON (CONT’D)
Are you looking up? It's not bad tonight.

CLAIRE
We decorated just for you. See? We re-arranged the stars in Orion to spell “Welcome
Back, Devon.” You kind of have to cross your eyes, but it's there.

DEVON
How long can you stay out?

CLAIRE
Till 9:30. Does your mom know you're here?

DEVON
What's she gonna do about it?

CLAIRE
She'll worry.

DEVON
She'll worry no matter what. We don't have much time. Here.

He takes something out of this bag.

(CONTINUED)
 5.
CONTINUED: (4)

DEVON (CONT’D)
It's that book I was trying to remember. It's like all the different myths about constellations.
Not just Greek stuff, but like Africa and Norway and everything.

CLAIRE
Stories of the Night.

DEVON
And the coolest part is that after every story, they tell you what the story is for real. Like,
how far away the stars are, and in what galaxies, and how old they are. Like the Greeks
say Hercules was placed among the stars as a reward for his general awesomeness, but his
shoulder is actually made up of a 370 million year old binary system.

CLAIRE
What's a binary system?

DEVON
It's two stars that orbit each other, and from here they look like one star.

CLAIRE
Oh.

(Claire searches the sky, then suddenly,

triumphantly, points.)
Hercules!

DEVON
Yup. See his shoulder?

CLAIRE
It looks just like one star. What do we look like to them, one human?

DEVON
No. By the time they're looking at us, we're not there.

CLAIRE
Oh, come on.

DEVON
Those stars are 400 million years old, and they're still young. I'm ten.

CLAIRE
I should have brought a present for you. I would have, really, but the only store I'm
allowed to walk to by myself is the drugstore. I went over, you know, but they just had-
really stupid toys from tv shows, and lightbulbs, and candy. Nothing like this book.
(MORE)

(CONTINUED)
 6.
CONTINUED: (5)
CLAIRE (CONT'D)
I thought of making you something. I thought of writing you a poem, but it wasn't good
enough. I thought you should get something... really... really fine.

Pause.

DEVON
So you didn't buy candy?

CLAIRE
Um...

DEVON
Because if you bought me candy, that would be the most awesome present ever. I'm not
allowed any, you know.

CLAIRE
Oh, I-

DEVON
Oh my god, did you? Do you have any candy right now?

CLAIRE
Kind of...

DEVON
It doesn't even have to be chocolate, I would eat a jolly rancher or a smarty. What do you
mean, kind of?

CLAIRE
I bought a snickers bar. But I ate half of it.

DEVON
That means you have half left?

Claire rummages in her coat pocket, and pulls out half a

candy bar.

CLAIRE
Welcome home, Devon.

(CONTINUED)
 7.
CONTINUED: (6)

DEVON
Yes, very yes.

He takes a generous bite.

Oh my god, the pleasure centers in my brain they don't even know what's happening.
Claire. Claire. For this service you shall be placed among the stars.
Oh wow. Have you ever tried eating a candy bar and rolling around on the grass and
looking up at the sky all at the same time? Here, take a bite.

CLAIRE
Devon, it's your present!

DEVON
And this is how I want to use it.

CLAIRE
But I already ate half.

DEVON
Not with me. Here. Bite.

She bites. He tickles her. She shrieks, giggles and rolls

back.

CLAIRE
No!

DEVON
Just do it- try it!

CLAIRE
I'm laughing- I can't chew... I'm gonna choke....

DEVON

(his mouth full)

No, no.... open your eyes. Open your eyes. Look up.

Claire is quiet for a second.

CLAIRE
You're right. This is good.

They lie quietly, chewing, looking up.

(CONTINUED)
 8.
CONTINUED: (7)

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
Devon, I have a question.

DEVON
Mmmhmmm?

CLAIRE
It's about something you said.

DEVON
A binary system is two stars that orbit each other.

CLAIRE
No, not that. When I got off my bike, you said you weren't going to kiss me right now.

DEVON
Mmmm.

CLAIRE
But you've never kissed me.

DEVON
Mmmmm.

CLAIRE
So what did that mean?

DEVON
Did Mrs. Gomez teach you about light yet? I mean, the speed of it?

CLAIRE
Um....

DEVON
You know, how it's so fast that here we think it's instant, that I just open my eyes and see
you instantly? But really it's only incredibly incredibly fast?

CLAIRE
Yes.

DEVON
The light from Hercules' shoulder was made 79 years ago. For the life of an entire human
old person, it's been coming toward us, just so we can be looking at it right now.
When I was little, my mom told me a kiss is like that.
(MORE)

(CONTINUED)
 9.
CONTINUED: (8)
DEVON (CONT'D)
If you love someone, and you're far away, and you send them a kiss, it'll find that person.
Even if it has to go all the way around the world.

CLAIRE
Is that true?

DEVON
I guess what I meant is how do you know I haven't kissed you before?

CLAIRE
Show me.

He brings his knuckles to his lips, and kisses his fist.

DEVON
For Claire LeVerrier.

He throws the kiss. It's a little like he's throwing a

baseball.

CLAIRE
Is that going all the way around the world?

DEVON
Or further. People used to think that the earth was just flat, and went on forever, then we
figured out you could go all the way around it. Maybe it'll go all the way around the
universe.

CLAIRE
Oh. How long is that going to take?

DEVON
Longer than the universe is old, probably.

CLAIRE
Oh. Can we maybe send one... in the other direction?

He turns his head, and they look at each other for a long
moment.

Shift. Claire turns to the audience.

(CONTINUED)
 10.
CONTINUED: (9)

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
Were you ever a kid who wanted only one thing with your entire being? Like a trip to the
waterpark, or a particular advertised candy? And it was always, always some very small
thing that you never got.
Particles of light don't have intent, of course. And particles of kisses, while full of intent,
don't have much in the way of existence. If they did, and if it was measurable- holy cats
would they be useful. We would separate two lovers and measure the universe. A scientist
would say this is the kind of crap a poet would say. Anyways.
I never got a kiss of any kind. Not the one coming toward me, not the one he threw away
from me. Maybe if I stick around long enough, it'll come back.

DEVON
Awww crap.

Claire shifts back into the scene with Devon.

CLAIRE
What is it?

DEVON
I'm fine.

CLAIRE
Oh my god, are you going to puke?

DEVON
No. It's just... probably I shouldn't have eaten that candy bar.

CLAIRE
Maybe you should just puke. You'll feel better.

DEVON
NO. No. It's mine. I'm keeping it.

Devon's teeth are clenched. He clutches his own body.

They sit for a moment, miserably.

CLAIRE
Why don’t you…. quiz me on my constellations. You don't have to say anything, just nod
if I get it right.

DEVON
Mmmhp.

(CONTINUED)
 11.
CONTINUED: (10)

CLAIRE
Ok?

He nods his head.

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
Ok. So, we were looking at Hercules. So... there's Perseus. Right?

Devon nods.

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
Perseus slew the gorgon, and had those sandals with wings and all, and when he was
flying around he rescued Andromeda, this princess who was chained to a rock in the sea.
She was naked. (Claire points.) Andromeda. Right?

Devon nods.

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
The gods put Perseus in the sky as a reward for his bravery. And then they put
Andromeda in the sky... because she was.... naked? Ok. And … Cassiopeia. She's
Andromeda's mom, and it was her fault that Andromeda got chained to a rock, because she
was very mouthy about how hot she was, and that got some of the hot lady gods pissed.
Is it punishment or reward to go among the stars?

DEVON
I don't know.

CLAIRE
The gods are really inconsistent.

DEVON
Sometimes, the gods do it when they have mercy on you. There was a king called Merope
who wanted to kill himself after his wife died. Juno felt sorry for him, so she changed him
into an eagle and tossed him on up there.

(points to constellation)
Aquila. That means eagle.

CLAIRE
Why did she change him into an eagle?

DEVON
Because if he'd stayed a man, he would have remembered his wife. Kind of a bitch move
on her part, what if he wanted to remember?

(CONTINUED)
 12.
CONTINUED: (11)

CLAIRE
But then he would have been sad forever.

DEVON
He would have gone supernova eventually.

CLAIRE
We know that, but did Juno?

Devon shrugs.

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
An eagle made of stars. That's pretty metal.

She makes a hand sign.

DEVON
You're doing it wrong again, but in like a different way.

CLAIRE
Do I have the right fingers?

DEVON
Yeah, but you have to make the front part a fist, not all pointy. You’re making the quiet
coyote.

CLAIRE
The what?

DEVON
Don't you remember Mrs. Laghada's class?

CLAIRE
Oh, dude! The quiet coyote.

She makes the quiet coyote. Devon makes the quiet coyote.
Then they both make the quiet coyote with their other
hands. The coyotes all stare at each other.

Claire turns to the audience with her coyote and becomes

a grownup.

(CONTINUED)
 13.
CONTINUED: (12)

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
Now class. If I have your attention....

She picks up "Stories of the Night." Perhaps she slams it

down on a table.
I hope you guys were paying attention to this book- it's very important to what I'm trying to
do here and I don’t have it anymore. This is just a memory of it.
I must have read it every day, afterwards. I’d ride my bike out to the old stone wall and sit
on the grass all by myself.
I think it warped me.
I think it might have ruined my entire life.
Right? This stuff you read as a kid. It’s warping. Like a bunch of cultural black holes.
This book taught me that love is something that conquers you. That changes your life.
Oh you think that sounds fun. You have not read Greek myth

DEVON
Maybe the gods just put stuff up there that they want to remember. Sort of like a
scrapbook. Hey, remember how Cassiopeia was kind of a bitch? I dunno if it's just a
picture of you, or actually you or...

CLAIRE
I always think that a god should look down from heaven, and see some exceptional person,
and just love him so much that she won't let him die. Are there stories like that?

DEVON
Gods fell in love with mortals a lot, but it usually didn't work out for the mortal. So if a
god is like, hey baby, you just say no thanks. Wait, actually, don't, because then the god
will just try and grab you you and you'll have to be turned into a tree. So just stop... stop
being pretty.

CLAIRE
Ha hah.

DEVON
Or don't stop. Just don't let the gods see you. Here.

He takes off his hoodie and drapes it over Claire's head.

DEVON (CONT’D)
Hide under this. I only hope no-one saw you already.

CLAIRE
You better get under here too.

(CONTINUED)
 14.
CONTINUED: (13)

DEVON
Me?

CLAIRE
You're pretty cute. It's not safe for you either.

They hide under the hoodie.

DEVON
Can you see the stars now?

CLAIRE
Not really. But the important thing is, can they see us?
Can they hear us?

DEVON
Sound waves can't travel through /space-

CLAIRE
Shh!

She makes the quiet coyote. After a second, Devon makes

the quiet coyote. The coyotes sneak their way out from
under the hoodie. The coyotes look at each other.

Then they look up.

Then they kiss.

Then someone rings a bicycle bell, just once. Claire drops

her hand.

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
I knew a guy- it didn’t work out- who always liked to ask people “What’s your favorite
story about love?” He said he found the answer very revealing, but I think he just wanted
to tell people that his favorite was “The origin of love” from the Aristophanes section of the
Symposium, which I think he thought made him an enlightened being… because it’s all
about equality…you know, in the iron-forge days of the earth every human was a big ball
with four legs and two faces, until the gods got pissed and split us down the middle, and so
we spend every waking moment trying to smash ourselves back together with our other
halves?
But Aristophanes was a comedian. His job was to make funny stories where everything
works out ok.
(MORE)

(CONTINUED)
 15.
CONTINUED: (14)
CLAIRE (CONT’D)
And while it’s nice to think that we all have soulmates out there, we have to remember that
there were scientists at that party too, and they came to a completely different conclusion,
that didn’t have much to do with equality, and had kind of a lot to do with banging your
teacher.
And honestly that makes sense to me. If you’re going to run around trying to be a part of
something… wouldn’t you try to be a part of something bigger?

DEVON.
Do you want to play a game?

CLAIRE
Sure.

DEVON
Five people you meet in heaven. Go.

CLAIRE
Devon!

DEVON
What? It’s a good game. Mine are Albert Einstein

CLAIRE
This isn’t….

DEVON
Carl Sagan.

CLAIRE
Ok.

DEVON
Benjamin Franklin, Wild Bill Hickhock

CLAIRE
Ok, good.

DEVON
Tycho Brahe-

CLAIRE
Who?

(CONTINUED)
 16.
CONTINUED: (15)

DEVON
He’s my new favorite dead person. He was this scientist from like, Shakespeare times,
who owned his own private astronomy island. And he had a silver nose, and like a pet
moose that drank beer. He’s in this book.

CLAIRE
Did he discover something important?

DEVON
How the planets orbit the sun. Except not really. This guy who worked for him named
Johannes Kepler figured it out, but honestly, Brahe seems like way more fun. He lost his
nose in a duel.

CLAIRE
Cool.

DEVON
Ok, now you go.

CLAIRE
How am I meeting them? Is it one at a time, or is it like a party?

DEVON
Oh, a party.

CLAIRE
Like a birthday party or a grownup party?

DEVON
An extremely grown-up party.

CLAIRE
Ok. Um. Queen Elizabeth. Shakespeare. I’ll also take Albert Einstein.

DEVON
He’s popular.

CLAIRE
Um. Cleopatra, and….

Claire pages through the book.

(CONTINUED)
 17.
CONTINUED: (16)

DEVON
What are you doing?

CLAIRE
I’m looking for a girl scientist.

DEVON
What? Cheating!

CLAIRE
Your party was all dudes and I want a lady scientist at my party.

DEVON
They didn’t let women do science back then.

CLAIRE
That is so sexist, Devon.

DEVON
I wasn’t there!

CLAIRE
Ok, ok. I found one.

(sounding it out, with difficulty)

Henrietta Swan Leavvit. Leave-it? Levit….

DEVON
What’d she do again?

CLAIRE
She worked at Harvard as a… computer?

DEVON
What?

CLAIRE

(overlapping)
She discovered

(sounding it out with difficulty)

Cepheid… variable stars.

DEVON
What are those?

(CONTINUED)
 18.
CONTINUED: (17)

CLAIRE
They measure the universe. I thought you read this book.

DEVON
Not the boring parts.

CLAIRE
Whatever, she’s invited.

DEVON
She doesn’t sound like any fun.

CLAIRE
Ok, so who should I invite instead?

DEVON
How about me?

CLAIRE
You haven’t discovered anything.

DEVON
That’s not fair.

CLAIRE
Neither is sexism. Get back to me when you discover something.

DEVON
I won’t have time.

CLAIRE
Devon..

He starts to exit.

CLAIRE (CONT’D)

(as a grownup)
Devon!

But he’s gone. Claire turns to the audience.

Do you remember your favorite story about love?

I want you to think about it now. I want you to tell it to yourself, as simply as you can,
inside your own head.

(CONTINUED)
 19.
CONTINUED: (18)

Time passes as Claire searches the faces of every

audience member.

She opens the book. It expands into a puppet theatre, or

maybe light shines out of it and the theatre space fills with
potential shadow puppets.

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
Weaver girl and cowboy!
This story is Chinese. The book is multi-cultural. It says so right on the back cover.

As she speaks, the most fabulous shadow puppets possible

appear. They are in fact so fabulous that they are
probably embodied by actors.
Once, long ago, when the stars crowded low to the earth, and the sky resembled a blazing
upside-down city, there lived a cowboy. The book says cowherd, but that doesn't sound
as sexy, and for plot reasons it's better if this guy is sexy. Also, if we call him a cowboy
we can use the horse puppet.

She wiggles the horse puppet, with enthusiasm.

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
This cowboy was everything he should have been. He lived out in the country, with his
cows, had a zither and a pipe, sang, lay on his back in the grass, and looked up.
Sometimes, a star would swing down on one of the sky's many convenient trapezes, and
trade him some celestial milk for cow's milk, which was considered a rustic delicacy by a
whole subculture of stars with a condescending but intense interest in earthly food.
There was a particular window in a particular building of the night city that passed, at least
once a night, over the cowboy's favorite patch of grass.

The Weaver Girl appears, gazing wistfully out her

window.
This building happened to be a sort of starry live/work collective for traditional artisans and
the window belonged to the studio of a young star with a promising career in textiles. In
fact, she was rapidly becoming the favored weaver of the Celestial Emperor,

THE EMPEROR
which was a big deal.

CLAIRE
You couldn't really rise higher than that in the world of star fabrics, and as a result she was
very stressed and driven. Her one nightly indulgence was looking out the window at a
particular patch of grass, which, it has to be said,

(CONTINUED)
 20.
CONTINUED: (19)

WEAVER GIRL
framed the cowboy gorgeously.

CLAIRE
And sometimes, he would look up and she could swear that his eyes reflected her own
bright face. Which just goes to remind us- never underestimate the potential effects of
looking up.
The weaver might have continued staring sadly out her window indefinitely, but one
night...

The cowboy enters, strumming a zither and singing:

COWBOY
IN NO WAY IS ANYTHING
LOST OR FORGOTTEN
FOR ME THERE IS ONE STAR
IN SEVENTY SKIES
MOONLIGHT AND NIGHTFIRE
TO LEATHER AND COTTON
IMPOSSIBLE WEAVER!
PLEASE JOIN THE REPRISE...

COWBOY/WEAVER GIRL
AND OH I WILL SING
TO THE FACE IN THE WINDOW/ LOOKING OUT FROM MY WINDOW
AND THE VALLEY WILL RING
LIKE THE HEAVENLY SPHERES
I THINK YOU COULD LOVE ME
IF I COULD BELIEVE IT
THE ONE STAR ABOVE ME
THAT ALWAYS APPEARS

COWBOY
Good lord, I thought you'd never come down.

WEAVER GIRL
Am I down? Oh-

The star skitters backward, looking at her feet.

WEAVER GIRL (CONT’D)

-dear. I'm not burning the grass. ... I'm not burning anything!

(CONTINUED)
 21.
CONTINUED: (20)

COWBOY
My eyes, a trifle. In a good way. They're not as important as the grass.

WEAVER GIRL
The grass?

COWBOY
It feeds the cows. Then they turn it into milk and that's how I make my living.

WEAVER GIRL
Oh dear, the emperor! How long have I been down here?

COWBOY
I don't know. Around 20 seconds.

WEAVER GIRL
Twenty whole seconds!

COWBOY
Wait, wait, where are you going? You can't just leave.

WEAVER GIRL
I have to work and I'm going to scorch your cattle. I've been here 25 seconds.

COWBOY
And I spent four of them talking about grass! Lady, please. I have seen you every night
for as long as I can remember. My whole life, I never saw anything a fraction as beautiful.
Now everyone knows that the best way to get the attention of a star is to write a song for it,
but I am terrible at writing songs. I've been writing that song I sang for you since I was
ten. Eleven whole years I've been writing that song, and it only gets me twenty seconds?
How long is it going to take me to get up to a full minute? Another decade? Two? Lady, I
just can't, I just absolutely can't.
I mean, I will.
Because I really have no choice.
Maybe you'd stay to hear it again?

WEAVER GIRL
I wonder if I can kiss you without burning you up.

COWBOY
There's only one way to find out.

(CONTINUED)
 22.
CONTINUED: (21)

CLAIRE
And with that, she wrapped him in her arms and flew with him up to the heavenly city,
where they went to her studio and she burned him absolutely into his component particles
and wove him back together again, but with more heat resistance this time, and then they
tried it again but with more helium and the door was locked, and the threads fell to the floor
and all across the valley the cattle wandered and ate grass and leaked milk and lowed.
It was about then that the emperor called and said

EMPEROR
“Incidentally-"

CLAIRE
-Just to explain, when the Celestial Emperor wants to send you a message, there's no
phone, only his voice filling your bedroom-

EMPEROR
"Incidentally, where is that shipment of watered silk I ordered for the pageant in honor of
my daughter's birthday?”

CLAIRE
and the weaver girl looked up from where her face was buried in the reconstituted chest of
the cowboy and her eyes said “oh fuck.” So she leaps up and wraps herself in the butter
yellow comforter and stumbles over to her loom where absolutely nothing is set up, and
loses it all the way. Cries. And the cowboy gets up, nice and slow,

Cowboy enters and approaches Weaver Girl

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
and walks up to the loom and puts his arms around her backwards and whispers...

COWBOY

(His arms around her)

Darlin', there's nothing to worry about. Just call him back and say that you got a little
behind this time, but it's only because you're in love. He'll understand.

CLAIRE
This was the Cowboy's first mistake.

As she speaks, the Cowboy steps inexorably away from

the Weaver Girl, still trying to hold her with his hands, not
being able to.

(CONTINUED)
 23.
CONTINUED: (22)

EMPEROR
The Celestial Emperor, hearing that a new happiness was impeding the work of his favorite
artisan, acted swiftly to sever her from that happiness. He took the cowboy away and
installed him on the far side of the great sky river, the Milky Way, which only the Emperor
can cross.

COWBOY
He shines there still, having been thoroughly stellified by his relations with the weaver. He
cares for their twin sons, who flank him in the sky, and looks across the river to where she
works, unceasing, on the fabric of heaven.

WEAVER GIRL
Once a year, all the magpies in the world take pity on them, and form a bridge across the
milky way so that for one hour they can meet.

EMPEROR
And anyone lucky enough to see two stars wander together on that festival day will be
blessed in love. And you don't need anything else.

CLAIRE
The cowboy is Altair-

A particular star lights up behind her, extra bright.

Perhaps a circle is drawn around it, in the manner of a
planetarium presentation.
-a type-A main sequence star about 16.7 light-years away from earth. It spins round every
nine hours, which is very impressive considering that it's almost twice the mass of the sun.
The weaver is Vega-

Another star lights up.

-the fifth brightest star in the night sky, and the first star, besides the sun, to have its
photograph taken.

Several flashes of light.

She's 25 light years away, a tenth the age of the sun, 2.1 times as big. We've known her
for ages. Altair too. That's why they have particular names given to them by ancient
astronomers, instead of strings of numbers. That's why, if you want to study a star that is
like Vega, you call it a Vega-type star. That's why she is the judge of Heaven in Assyria,
the Vulture in Egypt. In Greece, the handle of Orpheus's lute. Stars like her are important
to us, we think. They are ours, and we are theirs.

DEVON
Which star is your favorite?

(CONTINUED)
 24.
CONTINUED: (23)

CLAIRE
Why would I have a favorite?
Which one is your favorite?

Devon points.

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
Why?

DEVON
You’ll find out.

She closes the book. For the first time, the light comes up.
Suddenly, it's as if we're in a classroom.

CLAIRE
So there's a general idea that poets are dippy and scientists are practical and hard edged.
This....is...true... By and large. But here's another dopey thing some scientists say, and I
mean people with doctorates who write books.
We are the universe dreaming itself into consciousness.
How high do you have to be to write that sentence down?
This is the idea- we.. we humans, with our clever little thumbs and monkey brains, are
capable of understanding the universe. And because we are capable of it, it must be our
job. Just as it is the job of the stars to cook our elements in their hearts, and to shine
energy down on us through the cold night so that we can build telescopes and long-range
radio satellites to send our prayers right back up.
Doesn't all that sound awfully familiar to you? We spend centuries wandering in the
desert, answering to an imaginary tribal lunatic just that we can feel we are chosen
snowflakes, and after we have sixty revolutions and a lot of people die, we haven't gotten
over that feeling at all? Copernicus and Kepler and Galileo and Herschel went to all that
trouble to knock us out of the center of the universe, and here we are again, sitting on our
butts like the Buddha, contemplating that you-are-here dot.

Of course, we are at the center of the observable universe. By definition.

Also by definition. The observable universe is the only one we get.

DEVON
Maybe the gods just put stuff up there that they want to remember. Sort of like a
scrapbook. Hey, remember how Cassiopeia was kind of a bitch?

CLAIRE
Is it just a picture of you, or is it actually you?

(CONTINUED)
 25.
CONTINUED: (24)

DEVON
It usually didn't work out for the mortal.

As she speaks the following lines, the lights rapidly dim

into almost total blackness.
What the books never made clear: Is this just the way things are, or is it the way someone
wanted them to be? Because here we are, privileged matter, a miraculously self-conscious
and incomprehensibly tiny fraction of the four percent of universal stuff that can even
interact with itself. The stars did make us in their hearts, and perhaps it is inevitable that we
stand on beaches and shout upwards into the dark
Choose me! Love me!
But no-one wanted it. No-one intended it. No. Particles don't have intent.
They only have direction.

It is now totally dark. Claire switches on her bicycle light.

CLAIRE
This is a song for a star
It will not dance. It will halt, and plod.
It will tread cautiously, methodically
Stars appreciate that.
Why should I burn with nuclear passion?
Stars can do it better.
Why did they make us
if not for our frailty, and our sense?
I have labored ten years on this song for this star
I have written ten Iliads
all of them burned
and only this stone wall remains
cool on my back above the damp grass
the fallen bicycle
and below the nameless skies.

Another bicycle light clicks on behind her.

MAN
Claire Leverrier. This is for you.

Claire's hand flies up to her cheek. Perhaps there is a

noise, a zing of light.

CLAIRE

(whispering)
I felt that.

(CONTINUED)
 26.
CONTINUED: (25)

MAN
I like your poem.

CLAIRE
That poem?

MAN
Not exactly. What I like is the interaction between that poem and all the drafts you burned
or erased or never wrote down, and the hovering presence of what you want the poem to
be. I'd call it a poem totality. And I liked it.

CLAIRE
That sounds wonderful. Can I read it?

M
You can only write it.

CLAIRE
Can I look at you? Is it safe?

M
At this distance, it is safe.

Claire turns to look at him. She cries out.

M (CONT’D)
Do I hurt you?

CLAIRE
Not physically. You look like… what a boy who died never looked like.
When you're older, and you think back to a boy you loved, he doesn't look like a boy in
your memories. He looks like a man, like someone you'd love now. But if there is a
picture of the man the boy grew into, it shocks you, because it's not the same. You know
what I mean?

M
No.
It is not my intention to choose an image that might upset you.

CLAIRE
No-

M
It's only my inevitable direction.

(CONTINUED)
 27.
CONTINUED: (26)

CLAIRE
I'm not upset. I'm so happy to see you, Devon.

M
Yes. Call me that.

CLAIRE
Do you like it?

M
You are beautiful.

CLAIRE
Oh! Really?

M
You are beautiful.

CLAIRE
Beautiful? I thought it would have to be more than that. Beautiful! It's kind of Greek.

M
Greek?

CLAIRE
I mean, I've waited so long to meet you, and you turn out to be kind of a dude. Like Zeus.

M
I don't think you understand my meaning of beautiful.

CLAIRE
I don't. Would you like to explain it to me?

M
No.
I'm awkward, slightly. I only do this once.

CLAIRE
You're saying this is your first time?

M
Only time.

CLAIRE
I bet you say that to all of the girls.

(CONTINUED)
 28.
CONTINUED: (27)

M
Yes. But all of them are you. You try to understand me. It's beautiful. You are separate
and you want to be a part.

CLAIRE
I wrote you a song. I heard that's the way to go.

M
Yes.

CLAIRE
And then you come down, and your feet sizzle in the grass. Is that really how it works? Is
anyone going to be worried if they don't see you up there?

M
Ah, no. Up and down are more... metaphorical directions. This (he gestures to himself) is
more...

CLAIRE
Metaphorical. So, there are no astronomers at Caltech freaking out right now?

M
On this night I am occluded from the Western Hemisphere. It is not entirely a coincidence.
But you are not causing any gravitational disturbances.

CLAIRE
Me? Never in my life.

M
I'm not going to kiss you.

CLAIRE
Then what are you here for?

M
I'd like to invite you to an orrery.

CLAIRE
A what?

M
A movement. You'll be able to move. And you'll be able to see without burning up or
anything.

(CONTINUED)
 29.
CONTINUED: (28)

CLAIRE
Did you just invite me to an orrery? Do you know what an orrery is?

M
It's a metaphor.

CLAIRE
It's an eighteenth century mechanical device showing the motions of heavenly bodies.

M
Ah. I used the wrong word. I would like to invite you to a party.

CLAIRE
A party. Who's going to be at this party?

M
You. Me. Everything.

CLAIRE
You're inviting me to a party with.. everything....

Above them, stars start to twinkle on.

M
It's also a metaphor.
Also you're already invited.
You were invited on the day you were born, at the moment you were conceived, and a long
time before that.
Also you are not just now hearing me say this, you were always hearing me say this, every
time you saw me, from the day you were born, July 3rd, at the center of the observable
universe, in the Virgo Supercluster of the Pisces Cetus Supercluster Complex, in the Orion
Arm of the Milky Way, in the loving orbit of the solar system, in the Western hemisphere
of the planet earth, in a small town outside Madison, Wisconsin in the United States of
America, looking up.
Also you are not just being invited
you are already there.

CLAIRE
I can't see it yet.

M
Well. That's what the kiss is for.

(CONTINUED)
 30.
CONTINUED: (29)

Blackout. End of act.

Act II

The lights are fluorescent-harsh. Claire is lying on the

floor, wrapped in a plastic shower curtain that charts the
milky way.

CLAIRE
Euuuuuuuurgh. Omigod.

She tries to hide under the shower curtain but it’s

translucent.

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
Can somebody please turn off that light?

Blackout. Claire groans.

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
This feels bad. This feels really bad. Where are my pants?

The lights come on again.

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
Yarrrrggh. Ok. Ok. Ok. This is very difficult. I don’t seem to have any pants and my
hair .......
Does anyone else smell coffee?

Indeed, the space is filled with the rich smell of coffee.

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
I guess this is happening. I guess I’m awake. And now that I’m awake, I have a lot of
questions. You know, the normal human questions. How do I find meaning in the
universe, or the nearest Dunkin’ or whatever?

Aristophanes enters. He is wearing a shower curtain

draped toga style and carrying a pot of coffee.

ARISTOPHANES
Oh, hello!

(CONTINUED)
 31.
CONTINUED: (30)

CLAIRE
Hello?

ARISTOPHANES
Were you at the party just now?

CLAIRE
I’m sorry- who are you?

ARISTOPHANES
I’m a poet.

CLAIRE
Really? Me too.

ARISTOPHANES
That must be why you’re wearing the uniform.

CLAIRE
I don’t know where my pants are.

ARISTOPHANES
Pants are barbaric and fundamentally unhealthy. I’m Aristophanes.

CLAIRE
No.

ARISTOPHANES
Yes.

CLAIRE
Like the Greek playwright?

ARISTOPHANES
So you’ve heard of me?

CLAIRE ARISTOPHANES
Oh sure, you’re the father of Western
comedy. I loved Lysistrata./ Needs more Oh, stop.
dick jokes, though. You think?

CLAIRE
Wait, you’re not really trying to tell me…
I’m sorry, I think I'm hungover.

(CONTINUED)
 32.
CONTINUED: (31)

ARISTOPHANES
Coffee?

CLAIRE
Please, god.

He pours her some.

ARISTOPHANES
Rough night?

CLAIRE
What time is it?

ARISTOPHANES
No idea. This thing’s been going on for a week. Or a year. Or since I attained
consciousness. I drink, therefore I am. A lady poet, huh?

CLAIRE
Yes.

ARISTOPHANES
That’s fantastic. They told me this was going to be a very exclusive party, but they didn’t
tell me there’d be lady poets. Isn’t having all this fun exhausting?

CLAIRE
Have you seen….

ARISTOPHANES
Have I seen who?

CLAIRE
I don’t actually know his name.

ARISTOPHANES
Was he maybe the man you were kissing?

CLAIRE
What did he look like?

ARISTOPHANES
Two legs, two feet… two hands. I’m not that interested in boys. Just so you know.

CLAIRE
Ok?

(CONTINUED)
 33.
CONTINUED: (32)

ARISTOPHANES
He wasn’t the one I was looking at.

CLAIRE
I really wish I knew where my pants were.

ARISTOPHANES
People tend to assume certain things about you when you write plays, and hang out with
intellectuals, but we’re not all /like that, FYI-

CLAIRE
I’m not really on the market /right now, sorry-

ARISTOPHANES
Who said anything /about markets, I’m not-

CLAIRE
It’s just this guy was/ kind of a big deal for me, life wise

ARISTOPHANES
Looking to buy anything or-

CLAIRE
And/ there’s the pants issue.

ARISTOPHANES
Just making conversation. Yes, the pants thing. Well neither of us have pants.

CLAIRE
No.

ARISTOPHANES
So that’s uncomfortable. Would you erm- like me to help you make a toga out of that?

Someone bangs, loudly, on a door.

ARISTOPHANES (CONT’D)
That can’t be necessary.

KEPLER

(offstage)
Let me in, sir, I insist!

(CONTINUED)
 34.
CONTINUED: (33)

CLAIRE
Go let him in.

ARISTOPHANES
I’m not going to do that. He doesn’t sound like any fun at all.

KEPLER

(offstage)
I know you can hear me!

ARISTOPHANES
Sir, my unborn children can hear you. You’re giving them all tiny little unborn headaches.

Claire, frustrated, gets up and gathers her shower curtain

around her.

ARISTOPHANES (CONT’D)
What I’m saying is you make my balls hurt, sir. You make my balls hurt a great deal.

Claire opens the door. Johanes Kepler is standing there,

in full 17th Century garb. Except he has “revenge of the
nerds” style glasses, held together with duct tape.

He looks Claire up and down.

KEPLER
Oh dear. This was not the right door.

CLAIRE
Excuse me?

KEPLER
I beg your pardon. I don’t wish to interrupt whatever it is you two are doing together, but
I’m looking for the main observation deck? Where the party is?

ARISTOPHANES
The party is everywhere and nowhere. The party is inescapable.

KEPLER
Never mind. I see it’s that door over there. If you’ll excuse me, this is of inexpressible
importance.

(CONTINUED)
 35.
CONTINUED: (34)

ARISTOPHANES
By all means. Just as long as you’re-

Kepler crosses the stage and begins banging on a

different door.

ARISTOPHANES (CONT’D)
…quiet about it.

KEPLER
My lord?

CLAIRE
I want breakfast. I want a salty, fatty breakfast. Do you any of you people have a sausage?

KEPLER
My lord- I know you are in there- It is I, Johanes Kepler, your assistant. My lord? My
looooooooorrrrdd!!!!!

CLAIRE
Did he say his name was Johannes Kepler?
I wrote a whole poem cycle about Johannes Kepler. You know- the 17th century
astronomer?

ARISTOPHANES
I do not.

CLAIRE
Oh, almost no-one does. Galileo gets all the attention. But Kepler figured out a formula for
how the planets orbit the sun. Without a telescope. And scientists still use it.
I liked reading about him because he reminded me of a writer, y'know? Absolutely
ROILING with self hatred.

Kepler continues to bang on the door.

ARISTOPHANES
Writers are just the worst. All we do is sit around, drink wine, and talk about love, and all
we really want to do is sit around, drink wine and have sex.
You laughed at that one so I know you think I'm right.

CLAIRE
Are you going to ask me what my favorite story about love is?

(CONTINUED)
 36.
CONTINUED: (35)

ARISTOPHANES
How about I guess?
Apollo and Daphne?

CLAIRE
No.

ARISTOPHANES
Cupid and Psyche?

CLAIRE
Closer.

ARISTOPHANES
Zeus and Io?

CLAIRE
Dude!
Why can’t you think of any love stories that don’t involve kidnapping?

ARISTOPHANES
Hey, I agree with you. But I’m not responsible for the dominant cultural narrative.
I could tell you my favorite story about love.
I uh- I made it up.
Sometimes that’s what you have to do to find the story that you need.
Long ago, in the iron-forge days of the earth-

CLAIRE
Stop.

A bicycle bell chimes. M enters. The music of the spheres

begins. Claire stands up, goes to M. as if inexorably
pulled.

M
Dance with me, love. Dance with me forever.

They dance in a slow circle. It’s beautiful and romantic

and mysterious.

Aristophanes watches for a moment then flings his hands

up and sits down.

(CONTINUED)
 37.
CONTINUED: (36)

M exits. Claire reaches after him.

CLAIRE
It’s you. You’re real.

ARISTOPHANES
Well there goes that idea.

Kepler squints after M. for a moment, then turns his

attention back to the door.

KEPLER
My lord. My lord!

Despairing, he sinks to the ground.

KEPLER (CONT’D)
Scratching like a spurned little dog at his master’s door. He is a prince with a private
island. You live in a corner of his kitchen, gnawing on scraps. You're disgusting, Kepler!
Look at yourself. You are constitutionally incapable of making yourself liked. You
measly, groveling, whining, piddling, flea-specked dog! Arf! Arf! Aooo! Aoooo!

Pretending to be a dog, he flings himself against the door

again. Aristophanes gets up and interferes.

ARISTOPHANES
Friend. Friend. Come on now, friend. Allow me to shake your hand. You are a truly
magnificent specimen.

KEPLER
A magnificent specimen?

ARISTOPHANES
Only a magnificent specimen could escape a party like that unscathed. And yet, here you
are, screaming and pounding on doors as if migraine headaches were a distant rumor from
the lands of the east.

KEPLER
I don’t drink. It gives me bilious indigestion. That makes you despise me, doesn’t it? In
Denmark if you can’t drink six hours at a stretch they don’t want to see you at dinner

ARISTOPHANES
Denmark sounds fun. Do they take reservations?

(CONTINUED)
 38.
CONTINUED: (37)

KEPLER
But you understand my position.

ARISTOPHANES
I think so. You’re a slave who wants to steal his master’s gold?

KEPLER
What?

ARISTOPHANES
Possibly some sort of long-lost twin? I don’t know. Was a shipwreck involved?

KEPLER
I’m an astronomer. And a mathematician.

ARISTOPHANES
Congratulations! So how do you know Agathon?

KEPLER
What?

ARISTOPHANES
I mean, who invited you to this party?

KEPLER
I’m not here for a party. I came here to work in the observatory.
A party seems to have occurred around me when I wasn’t paying attention.

ARISTOPHANES
Agathon has an observatory?

KEPLER
I don’t know who Agathon is. I don’t want you to tell me. I just want to do my work. I
don’t want to be at this party where everyone is rich and attractive and interesting. I know
they judge me for my lack of social graces, and because I am poor, and ugly, and have a
nasty case of ringworm on my hand. But who are they? The nobility of this earth?

He taps his head.

This pitiable skull holds an intellect that may treat with the nobility of heaven, nay, the very
mind of the god. I have had an epiphany. A gift from god of his divine knowledge. While
these crowds of Danes clash their cups, and play their songs, I dance in the celestial
spheres! And yet Brahe keeps his treasures from me- his logbooks. He’s jealous. Despite
all his money his mind grows old and dull.
(MORE)

(CONTINUED)
 39.
CONTINUED: (38)
KEPLER (CONT'D)
It is too late for him to hear the music of the spheres-Who is this rich man to deny me of
god’s right? Who is he to let his treasure go to waste? Open, I say! Open in the name of
the mind and the will and the wishes of god!

He pounds again. Aristophanes shrugs and returns to

Claire.

ARISTOPHANES
I tried to distract him but he has the mental focus of a comedian. What’s a Dane?

CLAIRE

(to the audience)

Oooh, do any of you people have a Danish?

Henrietta enters. She is a pursed-lip librarian type. She

is carrying a notebook. (Maybe SHE is carrying the
Danish?) She has an absolutely screaming headache.
She squints at Kepler.

KEPLER
Open, by the will of the heavens! Open, by the sanctity of truth!. Open, by the demands
of the people of the light of the knowledge of the world of the presence of the mouth of-

Henrietta taps him on the shoulder. He turns, surprised.

Henrietta fixes him with her eyes and puts her hand on
her lips.

HENRIETTA
SHHHHHHHHHHH!

Kepler is instantly cowed. Henrietta walks over to the

coffeepot, and silently pours herself a cup of coffee.

Claire opens her mouth.

Henrietta puts her finger to her lips in warming.

Claire closes her mouth.

Henrietta drinks her coffee, in silence

(CONTINUED)
 40.
CONTINUED: (39)

After a moment, Kepler comes over to the little group.

KEPLER

(quietly)
I’m sorry. I expect I was making a great deal of noise.

ARISTOPHANES
You were. Do you want some coffee?

KEPLER
What’s coffee?

ARISTOPHANES

(pouring)
I have no idea.

KEPLER

(trying to make peace with Henrietta)

I bothered you, didn’t I? I’m always bothering people. It’s a habit I can’t train myself out
of. I’ve had just the worst night and…

(in reference to the coffee)

I don’t understand this. Perhaps you could fetch me a glass of water?

HENRIETTA
Why would I do that?

KEPLER
I’m sorry, I’m just not sure where the kitchens are.

HENRIETTA
Why would I know where the kitchens are?

KEPLER
So that you can be good at your…job?

HENRIETTA
I am a guest at this party.

KEPLER
Oh.

(CONTINUED)
 41.
CONTINUED: (40)

HENRIETTA
I am not a cook, or a secretary, or a maid, I am a computer. And as lowly as that position
might be, I am still a member of this university, and I was invited to this party as a guest
and I will not be sneered at, nor will I fetch your water.

CLAIRE
I know who you are.

HENRIETTA
That seems unlikely.

CLAIRE
You’re Henrietta Swan Leavvit. I wrote a poem about you too.

Henrietta is creeped out.

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
I wrote a poem about your work. You stared at photographic plates until your eyes gave
out and you… you found a way to measure the distances between galaxies. Our universe
got bigger because of you.

ARISTOPHANES
I don’t know that I would understand your poetry, madam.

CLAIRE
No, actually, you would. Because…It was the turn of the century, and they didn’t let
women be scientists. They called her a computer- because she was supposed to just crunch
numbers so that the men could think. And yet, she saw this truth about the world that no-
one else could see- almost as if she’d been chosen by a god.

HENRIETTA
Nobody chose me. I assure you that all I do is a great deal of very hard work.

CLAIRE
In 1924, someone wanted to nominate you for the Nobel Prize but you were already dead.
This is a…. very exclusive party.

KEPLER
So who invited you?

A bicycle bell chimes. M enters.

(CONTINUED)
 42.
CONTINUED: (41)

M
Dance with me, love. Dance with me forever

Another dance with Claire. Slow, mysterious. As before.

CLAIRE
Kiss me.
Kiss me.

As M. exits-

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
Wait…. wait!

KEPLER

(referring to the dance)

Is that going to be happening a lot?

ARISTOPHANES
Apparently.
He’s not very talkative is he?

HENRIETTA
What a rare and wonderful trait in a man.

KEPLER
Did he invite you to this party?

CLAIRE
He said he was inviting me to an orrery. Or a metaphor.

ARISTOPHANES
That doesn’t make much sense.

HENRIETTA
An orrery is a metaphor. They are mechanical models of the solar system. Woefully
inaccurate of course, but then everything is. Scope remains a problem for the human mind.
When faced with the universe we have always responded with a cavalcade of imperfect
metaphors.

KEPLER
God has created all this so that we might know his work, and thereby know him. But we
are cracked vessels.

(CONTINUED)
 43.
CONTINUED: (42)

ARISTOPHANES
My friend has a whole thing about a cave, and shadows on the wall, and reality. Slays at
parties. See-the universe wants to be understood, but it can’t be.
It’s just like a person.

CLAIRE
When he kissed me, I did. I did understand.

KEPLER
Understand what?

CLAIRE
Everything.
And then…

(she makes a gesture indicating that she lost

it)
Where am I?

ARISTOPHANES/KEPLER
Agathon’s place/ Tycho Brahe’s island castle.
What?

HENRIETTA
Theories. When you have a theory, you can look and look, and see only what you expect to
see. As a computer. I observe, I record. Only then do I think. A theorist thinks first.
Never think first.
You. Strange girl who wrote a poem about me.
Forget everything you know, and just look.

ALL OF THE BELOW IS SPOKEN SIMULTANEOUSLY

AND AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE BY ALL FOUR
PEOPLE. Assign lines as you will. It should be loud and
overwhelming, and only take a moment.

ALL
A scar of light in a long blackness...
A palace with infinite rooms…
A great organ made of glass. Faraway friends waving, each holding a lantern and standing
alone on a rock in the wine-dark sea-
A great bureaucracy, with departments for every conceivable need, apply here--the Star of
Pleasure decides on betrothals, the Bonepiercing Star produces rheumatism; -the Balustrade
Star promotes lawsuits; the Three-corpse Star controls suicide, the Peach-blossom Star
lunacy, the Orphan Star enables a woman to become a man….
(MORE)

(CONTINUED)
 44.
CONTINUED: (43)
ALL (CONT'D)
As the wind passes through the organ it shivers and sings and the sound is like light
Nobody jump! Nobody jump!
Like the light you see when you close your eyes- A three-legged rabbit, the eye of a coyote
So many tiny boats. An infinity of boats sail away from the palace with the infinite rooms-
Every magpie in the world.

All three stumble backward and cover their eyes.

ARISTOPHANES
Oh gods, what- what?

Kepler sinks to his knees and begins to pray.

Henrietta takes off her glasses, polishes them, and

replaces them.

HENRIETTA
Just as I suspected. We are at no ordinary party. There is a library with every conceivable
book. There is a workshop with every conceivable machine. There is a dinner table with
every conceivable guest.

CLAIRE
We’re in heaven?

HENRIETTA
We're in a metaphor.

CLAIRE
I’ve done nothing in my life. I didn’t make anything beautiful and enduring. I didn’t
discover any earth shaking truths. I’m not… great. Why am I here?

The music of the spheres begins. M. enters.

M
Dance with me, my love. Dance with me forever.

As before.

CLAIRE
Are you going to kiss me again?
Are you going to say anything?

M. starts to exit.

(CONTINUED)
 45.
CONTINUED: (44)

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
Ok, fuck this.

She grabs M., spins him around.

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
We need to talk.

M
I wish you wouldn’t do that.
It’s difficult.

CLAIRE
What's difficult?

M
To be comprehensible. To step out of my sphere.

CLAIRE
You look just the same as you did last night.

M
Like him?

CLAIRE
Like the image of him that never existed.

M
Good.
You are beautiful.
I want to hold you in my heart

CLAIRE
You talk just the same, too.
So, about last night.
This is awkward.

M
Last night?

CLAIRE
It was…uh….

(CONTINUED)
 46.
CONTINUED: (45)

M
Memorable.

CLAIRE
The opposite. It obliterated me.
I think that you kissed me.
And I think that I saw, felt and comprehended every atom of the universe.
So I’m thinking, hey…wow
Brunch, maybe?
Do we go get brunch?
Do we go to a restaurant with every conceivable kind of eggs?

Awkward pause.

M
I want to hold you in my heart forever.

CLAIRE
I think that you kissed me.
Did you kiss me?

M
I kissed you.

CLAIRE
Since I don’t remember, maybe we can do it again?

M
No. I only do this once.

CLAIRE
Listen, Devon-

M
Yes. Call me that.

CLAIRE
Or whatever your name is. Are you telling me that you kiss me one time and then it's over?

DEVON
It is not over.
Dance with me, my love. Dance with me-

(CONTINUED)
 47.
CONTINUED: (46)

CLAIRE
No. Wait. I feel like we've been dancing kind of a lot. Do you feel like we've been dancing
kind of a lot?

DEVON
We have been dancing for four and a half billion years.
It does not particularly feel to me like "a lot."

CLAIRE
Four and a half billion years?

DEVON
You are displeased. Is my dancing not beautiful?

CLAIRE
Everything about you is beautiful but-four and a half billion years?

DEVON
Your mother and father are not dead, if that is what you are worried about.

CLAIRE
Oh....

DEVON
Your friend Erin is not dead, and neither is your elementary school teacher or the coffee
shop girl who is so unusually friendly. It is merely that they will not be alive for many
thousands of years and therefore you will never see them.
It is a bit more as if you are dead to them.
They might see you though. Your dead light. If they look up.

CLAIRE
What?

DEVON
You are with me now. You have been placed among the heavens. It is a long way for light
to travel back, and there is nothing faster.

CLAIRE
No. No- I had a life on earth-

M
Did you?

(CONTINUED)
 48.
CONTINUED: (47)

CLAIRE
I wrote poems. I walked barefoot in grass. I worked shitty day jobs-

M
You remembered a boy who was dead. You looked up. You saw me.

CLAIRE
You can’t do this to a woman, to a human woman, and then never do it to her again. You
have to understand that no matter what I at least need to be touched.

M
Not anymore. You are not anymore.

CLAIRE
Not anymore what?

M
Human.

CLAIRE
Why did you do this to me? What do you want?

M
I want to hold you in my heart forever.
But you know, I can’t.

He is gone. The others are back..

CLAIRE
Oh my god. What have I done...

KEPLER
She's falling over. Will somebody tip her the other way?

CLAIRE
I've been so stupid.

ARISTOPHANES
There now, there. It's not that bad.

CLAIRE
I've never been in love.
Never ever. I've never stood on the surface of a white dwarf.
(MORE)

(CONTINUED)
 49.
CONTINUED: (48)
CLAIRE (CONT'D)
I've never blown through the galactic winds. I've never had a child. I've never been a crack
of lightning. I have never nucleosynthesized a chain of elements in my own fiery broken
heart. I've never been kissed like that in my life.

ARISTOPHANES
The gods can be assholes sometimes.

HENRIETTA
Here.

Henrietta hands her a cup of coffee. She drinks.

She spits the coffee back out.

ARISTOPHANES
It tastes bad?

CLAIRE
It doesn't taste.

KEPLER
Why am I holding this?

She notices that Kepler is holding a cheese Danish on a

plate.

HENRIETTA
A Danish?

ARISTOPHANES
Careful! If you eat the food of the afterparty, you can never go back.

CLAIRE
Give me that.

She takes a bite of the Danish.

Then spits it out as sand.

She gets up, grabs Aristophanes by the collar, and kisses

him fiercely.

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
Nothing. Nothing.

(CONTINUED)
 50.
CONTINUED: (49)

ARISTOPHANES
Ok, well, thanks…

CLAIRE
I want to go home. I have to go home. You have to help me.

ARISTOPHANES
Of course we'll help you!

KEPLER
Why would we help her?

ARISTOPHANES
Are you blind? She's got the love interest, the flowy dress. The cry face. She's clearly the
heroine of this narrative! We'll never get anywhere if we don't help her.

Kepler looks doubtful.

HENRIETTA
Kepler. We should help her because she is engaged in a search for truth.

KEPLER
Her?

HENRIETTA
Fine. You should help her because god would want you to. Now- what is your name,
strange girl who wrote a poem about me-

CLAIRE
Claire.

HENRIETTA
If you wish to reverse a process, begin by rehearsing. How did you get here?

CLAIRE
I wrote a poem. To get his attention

KEPLER
You wrote a poem to get a star’s attention?

ARISTOPHANES
You wrote a poem to get anyone’s attention?

(CONTINUED)
 51.
CONTINUED: (50)

HENRIETTA
And what was the cause of this poem? I mean- what gave you the idea that it would work?

CLAIRE
There was a story?

HENRIETTA
And where did the story come from?

CLAIRE
A book.

HENRIETTA
And where did the book come from?

CLAIRE
A boy. He wrote me a note in the inside front cover, and he signed it “with love.” And I
used to stare at those words, “with love,” until they acquired the most intense possible
meaning. But looking back… I think… they were just a formality.

KEPLER

(pointing at Aristophanes)
Now HE's holding something that he wasn't holding before.

Aristophanes is holding “Stories of the Night Sky.”

Henrietta comes and snatches the book from him.

HENRIETTA
“Stories of the Night Sky: The Myths, Madmen and Scientists/ that Helped us Understand
Our Stars.”

Reacting to the word “scientists” Kepler comes and

snatches the book from Henrietta. He looks at the index
and goes immediately from anxious to happy.

KEPLER
I’m in this book! I’m in this book! My contributions to the glory of science are herein
recorded.

He flips through the book a bit more.

(CONTINUED)
 52.
CONTINUED: (51)

KEPLER (CONT’D)
Quite a lot of pagan blasphemy in here as well.

ARISTOPHANES
Oooh- there’s a Greek section? Let’s take a look- hey!

Henrietta snatches the book back.

ARISTOPHANES (CONT’D)
I wanted to read about my friends.

She takes it away, plops it down firmly, and runs her

fingers down the index.

Her finger stops.

She smiles for a moment. Then-

HENRIETTA
That’s enough nonsense. Miss Claire- I believe this belongs to you.

She hands Claire the book.

CLAIRE
I lost this years ago. When my mom sold the house. I was pretty upset- it was the only
thing I had to remember him by.

HENRIETTA
Maybe it has a story-

ARISTOPHANES

(cutting her off, very quickly, having just

gotten the idea)
MAYBE IT HAS A STORY ABOUT HOW TO GO BACK!

CLAIRE
Right. I think I remember.....
It has to be in here somewhere.

She finds a story. Shadow puppets rise up behind her.

(CONTINUED)
 53.
CONTINUED: (52)

HENRIETTA
The constellation of Gemini is seen by the Celts not as twins but as two men battling over
the love of a woman. They are Gwyn and Gwyrthur, the sons of Greidawl….

CLAIRE
No. no.

KEPLER
When Surya married Sanjna, his wife could not bear the intense light and heat. Therefore,
she fled into a forest where she transformed herself into a mare -

CLAIRE
No-

ARISTOPHANES
There are two dogs who guard the Milky path to the land of souls. If you give food to the
first dog he will let you pass, but if you fail to save some food for the second dog you will
be trapped between them forever.

CLAIRE
Alpha and Beta Canis Majori.
I think I forgot to bring enough food.

She turns the page.

Henrietta and Kepler sidle on, dressed as the two weasel

women.

Claire turns the page.

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
The girls who married stars.

KEPLER

(awkwardly, like a poorly trained and

reluctant participant in a children's show)
Oh sister, will you come and help me lift up the flat white stone that is outside our lodge?

HENRIETTA
Why would you lift up that stone? We are not supposed to lift up that stone. Our husbands,
who are stars, told us never to lift up that stone. If we lift it up they will be angry.

KEPLER
But sister, I have been so cold and lonely since we became married to stars.

(CONTINUED)
 54.
CONTINUED: (53)

HENRIETTA
That is your own fault, sister. Many moons ago, when we sat in the green grass outside
our lodge, you told me that you wanted the red star for your husband. I told you to shut
your foolish mouth, but instead you made me tell you which star I wanted for my husband.
Like a fool, I picked the white star, and then we went to bed and woke up the next day
besides our new husbands and we have not been able to leave. Everything you ask for
causes trouble!

KEPLER
At least your husband is handsome. Mine is withered and old. Is that why you won't help
me? Do you WANT to see me miserable?

HENRIETTA
I really hate you.

CLAIRE
Every day, their new husbands, the stars, went out to hunt.

ARISTOPHANES
Pound the grain and tend the garden.

CLAIRE
The red-eyed man said-

ARISTOPHANES
But do not lift the white flat stone beneath the tree. It will only cause heartache.

CLAIRE
Then one day, as soon as the husbands had gone-

KEPLER
I'm going to look beneath the stone!

HENRIETTA
Noooooooo!

Kepler and Henrietta mime in slow motion.

CLAIRE
Ignoring Big Sister’s protests, Little Sister ran and lifted up the white stone. She looked
through and saw- oh so far below her!- their own lodge and their own garden, and the
green hillside where they had once laid on their backs and stared up at the sky. She called
her sister over and they stared down at their home.
And Big Sister saw something on Little Sister’s face that terrified her.
A look of perfect happiness.

(CONTINUED)
 55.
CONTINUED: (54)

HENRIETTA
Please-

CLAIRE
Said big sister.

HENRIETTA
The fall will kill you.

CLAIRE
But it was too late. Little Sister had already jumped into the hole. And so she fell and was
falling, and so she is falling to this day.

ARISTOPHANES
How is that going to help? What is she supposed to do, find a-

Claire realizes that she is sitting on a flat pale stone. (NB-

the other way to do this is for her to say “what’s that”
and notice it. Whatever works better for staging.)

Claire gets up and moves the stone aside. All flinch away
from a blinding light .

HENRIETTA
Wait. Be careful.

KEPLER
It could be dangerous.

CLAIRE
But it could be home.

Claire jumps into the hole.

She falls, and falls and falls and falls.

She falls past interesting phenomena, and spiraling

galaxies. She falls past dying planets. She falls through
an asteroid belt. She falls past Cassiopeia, tortured on
her throne. She falls past the constellation Unicorn, and
the constellation Pegasus, the Scorpion and the Sea
Monster. The Pleiades dance around her in a ring.

(CONTINUED)
 56.
CONTINUED: (55)

She falls behind a star that creates a gravitational lens,

and she is momentarily visible as two mirror images of
herself. She falls into the curve of gravity like a child
falling down a slide.

…. And then she lands.

She is on a green hillside by a stone wall.

Her bicycle, balanced on its two wheels, falls to the

ground.

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
Devon!

DEVON
Claire!

They run to each other, embrace.

DEVON (CONT’D)
You’re here. You came.

CLAIRE
Of course I came. I came as soon as I saw you.

DEVON
You’re all grown up.

CLAIRE
You’re all grown up.

DEVON
No.
You know that thing where… when you loved someone as a small child, and you grow up,
and you still love them, but for whatever reason, you can’t see them anymore.. that thing
where you imagine a version of them that never existed?
Well, I don’t.

CLAIRE
But you’re alive.

DEVON
The grass is alive. The worms are alive. The birds that eat the worms and the grass are
alive, so…. I made a new cipher for you. Do you think you can read it?

(CONTINUED)
 57.
CONTINUED: (56)

CLAIRE
Probably not.

She takes the paper and sits down next to him on the hill.

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
You know, I don’t think I ever got over you.

DEVON
I died when you were twelve, Claire. Move on.

CLAIRE
I’m trying. You never even kissed me.
Maybe you didn’t really like me.

DEVON
Claire, are you kidding?

CLAIRE
Well then what was with the frickin’ backwards around-the-world kiss?

DEVON
There’s something to be said for the fine art of anticipation.

CLAIRE
Not that much.

DEVON
Yeah well, in retrospect I might have mishandled that.

CLAIRE
Did you… did you ever kiss anyone else?

DEVON
No. Well…

CLAIRE
You what?

DEVON
It doesn’t really count. She was 16.

CLAIRE
What? You kissed some perv? Some child molester?

(CONTINUED)
 58.
CONTINUED: (57)

DEVON
She was a candy striper… she had a little red pigtail. I mean, you know how I was with
older women.
I told her I’d never been kissed. She felt sorry for me. You don’t understand how it is.
When you’re weak you have to make people like you. You have to charm them. You
were different.

CLAIRE
I was special?

DEVON
I never wanted to be pitied. I only wanted to be loved.
When I saw you- on the first day of class- I thought… this is not a girl who pities. This is
a girl who loves. This is a girl who sees, and who remembers.

CLAIRE
And I thought you thought I was pretty.

DEVON
Oh. Yeah. But really that’s just a coincidence. The only thing about you being pretty is
that it made you never be mean.

CLAIRE
You sure know a lot about me.

DEVON
I’ve been watching.
I’ve been watching a very long time.
But some things are worth waiting for.

He leans closer. She leans closer. Nothing happens.

She opens her eyes.

CLAIRE
It’s you, isn’t it?

And suddenly Devon is M again. He sits back.

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
It’s been you all along.

(CONTINUED)
 59.
CONTINUED: (58)

M
I’m sorry.
I tried.
What gave me away?

CLAIRE
Nothing. You’re completely perfect. You’re everything I imagined. Should have been my
first clue.

M
I didn’t want you to be afraid.

CLAIRE
I’m not afraid. I’m just sad. They’re different.
I’m not really home, am I? This is all a show? A metaphor, like the party?

M
A memory. Yours.

CLAIRE
The grass feels so wet.
Do you pity me?

M
Pity you?

M (CONT’D)
Pity you? How could I? None of us pity you.

CLAIRE
We’re weak, and small, and we die…

M
You have skin. You have mouths, and eyes, and assholes. You have genitals. You have
toes. You have skin. You have skin of inestimable delicacy, and the veins beneath it. You
have pumping hearts. You have firing brains. Pity you. Pity you?

CLAIRE
We die so quickly

M
We die so slowly, and you are our afterlife. You are our blink of paradise.
We envy you.

(CONTINUED)
 60.
CONTINUED: (59)

CLAIRE
He’s really gone, isn’t he? He’s gone forever. No-one can bring him back.

M
I could have given you a ruby throne in a palace made of other, smaller palaces. I could
have given you any fantasy, any dinner party with any array of dead geniuses.
I could never mean to you what he meant to you.

CLAIRE
You kissed me and I saw and comprehended for one moment the entirety of creation.

M
Well, that passes.

CLAIRE
You didn’t have to be so mean.

M
You broke my heart.

CLAIRE
I broke your heart?

M
I used the wrong word. I meant- you are about to break.

Slipping back into Devon for a moment.

DEVON
Hey, you finished with that cypher yet?

Claire looks down at the scrap of paper.

CLAIRE
My…darling…..Claire. Read…. Page…eighty-seven.
With….. love.

DEVON
Oh yeah. You dropped your present.

He hands her the book.

CLAIRE
Is this a memory too?

(CONTINUED)
 61.
CONTINUED: (60)

DEVON
Oh definitely. If you hadn’t lost the real book, you woulda known that there wasn’t ever
any song in that Weaver Girl Cowboy story. You made all that up! And then you
remembered it like it had always been there.
No. If you wanna leave me you gotta make up your own story.

Slipping back into M.

M
If you want to leave me.
Well.
Read.

Claire flips to page 87 and begins to read.

CLAIRE
The Poet on the Hill

HENRIETTA
Once there was a girl who fell in love with a star. She would stand on a green hill outside
her house, and imagine how fine it would be to live among the heavens. She knew that
stars only notice exceptional mortals, so she resolved to become exceptional.

KEPLER
She tried to be the most graceful dancer, but she tripped and fell.

ARISTOPHANES
She tried to be the most beautiful, but there were other beauties far more beautiful than she.

HENRIETTA
She tried to be the wisest and the most acute, but mathematics escaped her, and lead stayed
lead in her hands and never turned gold.

ARISTOPHANES
So she eventually gave up, and wrote songs of longing to the star that she loved. And these
songs were of so rare a passion that she became a famous poet. And the star she praised
became the most famous in the sky, more famous than the Morningstar, more famous than
the evening star, the dog star, or the eye of justice.

KEPLER
And one day, the star stepped down from his sphere, and swept her up into his arms, and
made her a star like him. She drank celestial liquor, and she stayed at the right hand of the
thing she loved, and she looked down upon the earth.

(CONTINUED)
 62.
CONTINUED: (61)

ARISTOPHANES
But she was not happy. For below her was the green grass that she no longer felt beneath
her feet, and below her was the young man whose presents of pressed wildflowers she
could no longer smell, and below her was the little store that sold the expensive cheeses she
could no longer taste.

HENRIETTA
And when she wept to her new husband, he said “Do not weep. For grass and wildflowers
and expensive cheeses all cooked up inside the heart of such as we. In our fiery bellies
there is every ingredient for these cold and fragile delicacies, these multitude of things that
run on the surface of that tiny rock… they are our children. We love them, as they came
from us. But if you are to return there….

M/DEVON
You must die.

Claire closes the book, frightened.

M/DEVON (CONT’D)
You could forget, if you tried. You could be fooled.
We could stay here forever. Two children on a green hill, by an old stone wall, looking up
at the sky.

CLAIRE
It wouldn’t really be forever.

M
It would be close.

CLAIRE
Would it be enough if I pretended?

M
You have to believe.

CLAIRE
I just thought of something. There’s no heaven. I thought I knew that but now I know it.
Before no matter what I told myself I believed that somewhere, somewhere up there you
could go to a table and sit with all the scientists and poets and relatives that you cared to put
on a guest list. But it’s not true.

M
A long time ago, we were all together. A long time from now, we’ll be together again.

(CONTINUED)
 63.
CONTINUED: (62)

CLAIRE
I don’t want to just be hydrogen.

M
Then we’d better enjoy this while it lasts.

CLAIRE
I lied. I’m afraid.

M
I wish I could help you.

CLAIRE
Say you were him… what would you say to me?

M
I don’t understand.

CLAIRE
Maybe we can pretend? Just for a little while?
Because I’m afraid?

He nods.

CLAIRE (CONT’D)
I’m cold.

M/DEVON
Here. Here. Take my hoody.

He wraps it around her shoulders. She leans into him.

M/DEVON (CONT’D)
You’ve got nothing to be afraid of.

CLAIRE
Is it really hard, to die?

M/DEVON
It’s a little hard. But being dead is easy.
You’re smart, and brave and pretty and you won’t be forgotten. I’ll be there waiting for
you when the hard part is over. Always.

He hands her the book. As she reads he slowly exits.

(CONTINUED)
 64.
CONTINUED: (63)

HENRIETTA
And so the poet knew she could never return to her green hill, unless she died.

ARISTOPHANES
But one night every year, when the sky slung her close to the earth, she could walk through
the mirrors and windows of the cities of men. Her face dazzled their eyes. Her feet sizzled
in the grass. But she was as close as she could ever get to human, and she laughed, and
drank their cheap beer, and ate their fried and fatty food.

KEPLER
And every year, she would find one human, and bestow on him or her the greatest gift
from her star. A single kiss that would enable them to glimpse, for one infinite second, the
universe as it truly was.

HENRIETTA
And the years passed, and the centuries passed, and she kissed as many humans as she
could. But it was never, ever, ever enough.
And inside her broken heart hydrogen turned to helium turned to carbon turned to iron.

CLAIRE

M-2669-

A star lights up, and is circled

and M-2669 B

another star is circled.

A former binary system over 400 light-years away, barely visible in the dark of look-back
time. They orbited each other. One burned bright and passionate, the other steady and
strong. M-2669-B. drained by her lover and partner, went supernova in time to dazzle the
young mind of Tycho Brahe in 1572 Anno Domini. Her light fell to earth, and the young
Danish nobleman knew Aristotle was wrong- that beyond the flawed sphere of the earth
and the moon the immaterium was not unchanging. That the heavens could alter. Soon we
would learn that the immaterium does not exist, and the stars are made of the same frail
stuff as ourselves.
M-2669-B’s heart exploded into space, her carefully constructed load of elements spinning
off to unknown destinations, to the solar winds, to the whims of gravity, to planets, to
nothingness, and if she is very, very, very lucky indeed….
To life.

She stands.

She kisses her hand.

(CONTINUED)
 65.
CONTINUED:

She makes a fist.

She draws back her arm to throw.

Blackout.

End of play.