Tag Archives: theatre

STAGED

STAGED

we are the actors
who never got a gig

Hamlet
was not there that day
so we got turned away
(nothing we could do
that even
   Charlton Heston
   might save)

Ben Hur
El Cid
    himself

we are the ones who got barely
a line
     told ourselves “next time”
“next time”
convinced ourselves the world
would come around
forgive us for

missing our cue, falling
flat on our face

for when you
hit that
        fourth wall

know it is all just a game
all
     being staged

LIGHTS!

LIGHTS!

lights!, lights!,

we are
   immersed in darkness
cannot find our
our way about
the stage

see if we are
    in a tragedy or
a history play

in a love scene
or a whole act
of battle

though we appear to
be falling down everywhere
slipping in what
feels like
      smells like
blood

prudence
tells us it could well
be the latter

or it’s all just
comic, absurd, existential, meta

whole world as stage
       and we imprisoned
in a
brutal metaphor

lights!

          lights!

WITH EURIPIDES

WITH EURIPIDES it’s a strange theatre we are watching one where the actors leap off the stage slaughter the audience kill every single one of us I am sure neither the Elizabethans nor the Greek tragedians foresaw this development this total identification of player with character in this strange new brand of history play