An angel over Manchester and a devil in Seville
A short play by Gary Rostock
Published by Gary Rostock
at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 Gary Rostock
Characters:|
Angel 1
Angel 2
Robert (early 20s)
Running time 15 mins.
Scene opens with a young man playing incredibly fast flamenco in his bedroom. Sat close by and listening intently are two well dressed men in their mid 40s. Then Robert stops playing, turns and looks around him…
Robert: I know you’re here. Why do you never say anything? Who are you? Is it you dad? I can feel you. Please don’t mess me around. I won’t be scared if you show yourself, I’d love to see you. I can play for you, I know it, but I’ll never know if you like what I’m doing or not. Do you? Please show yourself, I can’t take this anymore, it’s starting, it’s starting to kill me. Ple…
FX: sound of slight movement
Angel 1: Do I like what Robert?
Robert: Christ! W…hat, what is this?
Angel 1: Are you so surprised? You thought I was your father? Well in a way I am. So just take a deep breath and sit back.
Robert: What, who, what are you?
Angel 1: I’ve been listening to you for many years. I’ve heard your heart and soul as they’ve found a way into your guitar. We’ve all been listening to you. What a gift we gave you. Yes what a gift. Yet here we sit in the middle of your beautiful hometown with its scent of decay and dislike of the new, and you, you are the new, aren’t you? You’ve felt it for a long time, the difference? Not just the choice of an instrument that is more suited to the Sierra Nevada than the precinct of tardy shops, that hall of lost hope and fears that lie nearby. Just you, you feel there is a, a difference.
Robert: Wh..o who..o are you? What are you? I felt you. Why are you here? What do you want from me? Don’t tell me you’re, you’re not here, shut my eyes, shut my eyes, count, count count, harder, shut my eyes, harder, tighter, open and you won’t be there.
Angel 1: I’m still here Robert, don’t be afraid, it’s very tiresome and you always knew someone was close by you.
Robert: So you are…?
Angel 1: I suppose to make life easier for you you could say I`m an angel, I suppose you were expecting the wings? Well I`m sorry to disappoint you but that is just a myth, some propaganda by the other side.
Robert: The other side?
Angel 1: Well the idea of two sides is not a myth, you can consider me your angel, your guardian angel.
FX: slight movement from the other side of the room
Angel 2: No Robert he’s not your guardian, that would be me.
Robert: Oh Jesus! Jesus! What, what the…?
Angel 2: Please Robert don’t be afraid, try not to swear unnecessarily, it isn’t your way. As you’ve felt it, I’ve been with you a long time. When you closed your eyes at night and felt my wings envelop you, yes although he doesn’t have them I do, you’re your true guardian. When you saw me you felt it was just sleep, but you did see me, I was there, as I’m here.
Angel 1: Oh I’m quite surprised you did that. I thought the way these days was a non-reveal? When did that change?
Angel 2: The boy is important as you know. We felt too important for you to fool him as you’ve fooled so many in your days.
Angel 1: So finally, he knows we’re here. What now?
Angel 2: Well, I was surprised when you made your reveal so I felt that rather than let you have it all your way, we’d let him see why we spend our time here in his little bedroom and don’t feel the need to cast each other out to where each belongs.
Angel 1: I love the archaic language; you could have been made for this job you know.
Angel 2: Very well, now enough. Robert, as you can see you have two angels sat in your bedroom.
Robert: Mam!! Mam!! Jesus! Mam!
Angel 2: Please don’t shout Robert and try not to use Jesus in such a way. No one can hear you. We, that is, the two of us, have chosen to reveal ourselves to you and this moment is now locked. You are with us, we are not with you.
Angel 1: Good isn’t it Robert?
Robert: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10….oh no, no! You’re still here.
Angel 2: Yes Robert and we will continue to be so.
Angel 1: Perhaps I should begin. Here we sit, as I said before, in the middle of the land of Lowry, a land of no hope and only regrets, and yet here you are playing the music of the soul, the music of Andalusia fills you. Why do you think that is?
Robert: Oh Christ! Alright, I’ll talk and then maybe you’ll just float away. I wish you would float away.
Angel 1: Don’t be like that Robert, we’ve been here for a long time. Sat staring at each other, listening to you has kept us from our usual process of up, down, down, up…cast me out, no keep me in, and so on and so on.
Robert: I ask, father in heaven please help me.
Angel 2: But Robert we are helping you. We are right here to help you.
Angel 1: As am I. As am I.
Robert: Help me with what?
Angel 1: Your choice.
Robert: My choice? Of what?
Angel 2: The light or the dark?
Angel 1: Always so dramatic. What he means is the choice of success or years of the same, an eternity of the same.
Robert: I hope I’m not being thick, or going mad talking to two, two I don’t know what’s, but what, what the hell are both of you talking about?
Angel 2: Perhaps we should both give you an outline of why we’ve sat here by your side for so many years. Each time you’ve picked up your guitar both of us have been here. We cannot afford for you to fall to him and he also cannot afford for you not to fall to him.
Robert: What do you mean to fall?
Angel 2: To fall into despair, into loss, into pain, into hopelessness, to leave all love behind you.
Angel 1: What he means is to have the life you’ve always dreamt of, to play as you’ve never played before. We heard you before you even played, we knew what you would be, your music is our music, we are your people, we want you for eternity to play for us. You could consider me an agent, only I’m not only offering success in this world: money, women, all that you want; that is nothing compared to what we can offer you; and that is all these things forever. You must only consent to always direct your playing, your soul to us and to him and never to them.
Angel 2: Robert. I hope you heard the word `him`. You do know who he means don’t you?
Robert: But you’re both angels, right?
Angel 1: Yes but without getting too wearisome about it, I represent the true one and he represents the lie.
Angel 2: By that he means I represent God, and he represents the fallen one: Lucifer.
Robert: I’m going to wake up, I’m going to wake up. Chriiiiist. Wake me up. Angels from heaven and Hell, no, no, no, please go away!
Angel 1: Your eyes are open Robert, can’t you see we’re both right here. Much as I’d prefer it if he were not, we are, and will be, here. We have both revealed to you and that means a conclusion must be made. I cannot leave without some form of contract; that all that you are will be ours. No more busking to people who just think you’re some asylum seeker grafting for a few coppers, while the drizzle works its way into your clothes. The soul. When we heard Sabicas we knew he would be ours, this is our music Robert. Do you think he could even come close to what we feel? Despair, not joy is the engine of your soul. The gypsies who danced away their lives, no looking back, only looking to tomorrow they knew it. We’d been waiting for you for such a long time, the purity of worthlessness, the loss of hope. We, he heard it in your mother’s womb. And then we knew we had to have you.
Angel 2: But what he forgot to tell you Robert is that Sabicas chose us.
Angel 1: Not true. But I suppose you’ll have to decide. All the insipid, dull, monotonous wailing that he has provided us with, do you think the soul of flamenco could come from him? No. I thought not.
Robert: I can be the best? The very best?
Angel 2: I can’t offer you that Robert. Your heart is that of an Andalusian but even you were not born there but born here, you’ve never lived close to El Torcal and seen the hawks circling above you. You are most interesting, it must be admitted to both of us, but the heart of it all is the worship of my master. It is a question of who you will choose to worship with your gift.
Angel 1: Robert, take a look into your soul. Where does this music come from? From the darkness within you? You were born in this, in this nothingness and yet you decided to play, of all instruments, the flamenco guitar. Why? Do you remember why?
Angel 2: You do remember Robert. I know you do. Tell us.
Robert: My dad…
Angel 2: Your father, yes your father, what did your father do?
Robert: He and mam took me to Spain when I was a little boy. Malaga. It was so, just so different, I could feel the life, I was nine but I could feel the hairs rise on my neck just to be there. I loved it and my dad loved it too.
Angel 2: Do you remember why your dad loved it?
Robert: We never spoke about it, but I could see he had this rotten life here of never ending misery, rotten jobs, just nothing, except mam and me. For some reason he always wanted to go to Spain, he didn’t really know why? Maybe, a postcard from a friend with the sun and the sangria, the taste of a forbidden life of enjoyment, not trudging to Trafford Park for two weeks, the otherness of it.
Angel 1:Yes Robert, but we were waiting for you too. We wanted you to find the right way, it was in you. Do you remember the day when you saw him? He was playing on the street and you’d never heard anything like it before. Your dad, your poor weary dad who’d had to listen to the music of the jokers for so long couldn’t take it in, he loved it didn’t he? But he couldn’t take it in. But you, you could feel the longing, the need to feel the despair. That player was mine Robert, he was there to entice you, and it worked, it worked so well. When you looked at him tell me that you couldn’t see inside him, his fear and pain and that fear and pain made him play for us, and he still plays for us, but somewhere else these days.
Angel 2: Yes, we know that your first contact was with them but we were late, we had another who we wanted you to hear, one more turn, one more street, but this time they were quicker. Do you think because your music has soul, it is the gift of him? Do you think that the dark is not also the gift of my Lord?
Robert: My head’s swimming with all this. You’re both telling me that you knew I’d fall for this music and that you were there? How could you possibly know that I’d love Paco de Lucia and not the usual soccer chant music that boys should like?
Angel 2: In the world there always those who we, and they, know will
be exceptional. Each of us wants this exceptional person to do our
work. If you were for him it means that forever you will be lost to
us and we want you to know that we do not want this, never, ever,
never.
Angel 1: So ask him Robert what he can offer you. I know
what’ll he’ll say because I once would have said it too. He will
offer you redemption. Redemption? From what? From this life of what?
Tell me what exactly what do you have? Your father is dead and always
will be dead, you can live at our side. You can be our piper, you can
sing our siren’s song. We have and always have had a place for you.
Forget the idea that you have of Hell, of Brimstone and a thousand
flailing bodies. This will not be for you, you will be a chosen one.
Your music will soothe the great one at any time. And we’ll put you
here many times. The music you have chosen will be played for a
thousand years, and we will allow you to play it. Can he offer you
that?
Angel 2: Yes. I will offer you firstly redemption and a place at our high table. Here we cannot offer you the pleasures of the flesh, of drink and debauchery. Is that really what you want? I’ve listened to you here a thousand times and I want to hear you one thousand times more. We love you Robert and we offer you our love and immortality at the right time.
Robert: How can it be a that a young man from Manchester has an angel and devil here and they are not in Seville where they should be.
Angel 1: When you saw the glint in that player’s eyes all those years ago, it touched you even then even at the age of nine. Your father couldn’t speak do you remember? He’d remembered just why he never wanted to be who he was and he saw the possibility too. When he sat with your mother later that night in a small bodega that no English tourist would normally visit he realized something that you feel inside: he was born in the wrong time, in the wrong place and he never wanted you to have that. He felt at home there, with their strange food and their friendly ways. He wanted it, he wanted to try it all but it was already too late but not for you. So do you know what your father did Robert? He called on me to protect you and hold you tight and to let you play as much as all your heart could play on an instrument that he could only dream of. For this he gave me his very essence, so that you might live a real life. He had no interest for himself, even then he knew he would die breathing hard and with the smell of vomit close by.
Angel 2: This is not true Robert, don’t let him lie to you. Your father prayed to us and asked and pleaded for a better life for you. But we already knew that you would have your gift inside. We told your father this, don’t you remember the look in his eyes when you played him you first lines? He knew all that he had would not be all that you have and for him that was the culmination of his life. Yes, he suffered but he was happy inside that though he would die you would live and your music would live for all time.
Robert: Can I ask?
Angel 2: Anything Robert.
Robert: Does my dad hear me play? You said you’ve heard me a thousand times and that the two of you have sat by my side a thousand times, but what about my dad? Did he hear me?
Angel 2: Do you remember the music school and the test? We were there, he sat right by your side, don’t you remember how the smell of him, cigarettes and iron filings seemed to drift by? He sat by you and smiled. His love for you and for what you’re doing was all that I needed to see to tell me that you must follow our path. Take heed, if you choose the other path you will be lost to your father and lost to me.
Robert: So my dad is where?
Angel 2: He’s with us, and that you will find more about this another time.
Angel 1: But of course he would say that wouldn’t he? Your father led a most miserable life. Do you really think that he would turn down the opportunity for all the times we can give you? He wasn’t a religious man you know this. For him it meant nothing where he shall spend his other time. He used to look at the musicians the artists on TV and you know he always wanted to be them. Of course he had no talent and could never do so. But you, you are our chosen gypsy boy. You look surprised. Your father probably didn’t even know but you are a Gitano, you are a child of Iberia. You are the sun’s child.
Angel 2: He is telling the truth this time. You are a Gitano and now you can see why all the flamenco wells up in you, comes from you, here is just home, it is not who you are, who you want to be. So my question is this: will you stand by our side? Will you accompany us, inspire us with the music that you’ve made your life? You know that a Gitano is who you are, but it’s raveled deep, very deep inside.
Robert: How…how can I be a Gitano? My family are from here, born and bred within four or five miles of this spot. A gypsy? It can never be.
Angel 2: But Robert, we are talking about 200 years ago, nothing to me but so very much to you, this I’m sure you see? We were waiting for you for you to arrive, because of course you come from a great bloodline. Now you must decide if you’ll walk in the dark or in the light.
Angel 1: He knows which road he’ll need, the one of pleasure, of lust, desire, but of also pain, of hate and jealousy and anger and regrets and of betrayal. Which road Robert? We all need to leave and the decision must be witnessed by all who are party to the deed.
Robert: So you come here, in the blink of an eye, you tell me I was chosen before my time, you tell me I’m evil and you tell me I’m good, my father sold his soul or prayed like a lost man to above. So now I’m a gypsy, a Gitano, a seller of dreams. So like the gypsy I am I’ll bargain this time, I’m a musician and will spend time at both your sides. Perhaps my lust will be good for the light and perhaps my joy will be good for the dark. So there it is: I’ll spend my time with an angel over Manchester and a devil in Seville.
The End
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