I Love That BirdAn excerpt from my one woman play "GAIA" A parable for Earth Day
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(GAIA performs some rather graceful acrobatics on the silks, ending with the silks around her ankles and legs as she sits upright above and before the audience)
GAIA
Once, I had this bird
(A small satchel of birdseed is lowered to GAIA who takes some in her palm and holds it out, the holds the finger of her other hand extended as a perch. A dove is released from the back of the auditorium and flies to GAIA. The image on the backdrop fades to nothing, leaving GAIA and the bird the only thing lit.)
GAIA
It came to me and I loved that bird. It felt like a part of me. And, when I let it go it came back.
(blow gently at the dove)
That bird was so beautiful, It had feathers.
(GAIA plucks a feather that she has hidden in the top hem of her body suit almost as she might have taken it from the dove. She holds it out for study.)
GAIA
(continuing)
Have you ever looked at a feather. Phenomenal thing, a feather is. (beat) How such a thing as dainty as lace can lift the wearer skyward is amazing. Course, the wearer needs enough of these inconsequential things to make flight possible. Isn’t that the way it always goes, put together enough of the inconsequential and you have something of great power.
(GAIA lets her feather float down to the audience. She pulls out another feather from her body suit.)
GAIA
One day the bird left a feather with me. I looked at it and the thought came to put in my hair, to wear it the same as a bird.
(GAIA laces the feather into her hair.)
GAIA
It looked beautiful. It added something, to me. I felt a twinge of freedom; the same kind of freedom I thought I might know if I could fly.
(GAIA releases the dove to fly back to its roost)
GAIA
The bird came again and again and one day, again, it left me another feather.
(GAIA takes another feather from her body suit)
GAIA
It felt so nice -- that bird giving me its feathers. It seemed to fill an emptiness that I did not understand.
(GAIA uses the feather to trace the image of the open cavity in her chest where there should be a heart. As she speaks she puts the feather in her hair.)
GAIA
The bird continued to come. One day I plucked another feather from the bird. The bird didn’t seem to mind and had already given me two feathers.
(GAIA plucks another feather and drops it.)
GAIA
Whenever the bird came to me, I would take a feather. Surely, it wanted me to have some. After all, it had given me two and it had so many
(GAIA plucks and drops two more feathers, makes a graceful acrobatic move on the silks representing a bird flying, stops and plucks two more feathers from her suit and drops this. She repeats this graceful movement, dropping of feathers two more times, then allows herself a quick and sudden drop to the bottom of the silks)
GAIA
One day the bird didn’t fly away. It stayed.
(The silks are moved and lowered so GAIA can stop off them onto the stage. Spot light off on GAIA as a single shaft of light points at a spot on the stage. As she speaks, GAIA takes single feather and sets it in the spot of light.)
GAIA
The bird never flew again. I don’t know why; at least I think I don’t. The bird would walk, sometimes it would try to follow me. So I would bring it food.
(GAIA picks up a small satchel of seeds and sprinkles some around the feather in the light.)
GAIA
The bird never seemed concerned with its inability to fly, so maybe it had chosen not to fly. I certainly didn’t take enough of its feathers to stop it.
(GAIA moves to another part of the stage which lights up. From behind some foliage, she takes a netting of feathers and places it over her head so it looks as though she has dozens of feather laced her hair. She moves back to the shaft of light where the single feather and bird seed lay.)
GAIA
One day I came to feed the bird and found nothing but feathers.
(Pulling feathers from her hair net of feathers, GAIA holds them in the shaft of light and lets them drop onto the seed and single feather.)
(GAIA)
Perhaps it couldn’t run as well as it needed to. I don’t know why it chose not to fly again.
(GAIA removes the whole hair net of feather from her hair and sets on the others in the shaft of light. Then, making sure she is out of the light and only lit by the shaft’s reflection off the floor, she kneels as if mourning the loss of the bird. The sound of a distant dog barks.
After several long moments of silence, GAIA speaks)
GAIA
I so loved that bird.
(GAIA rises and moves downstage. The shaft of light on the pile of feathers extinguishes and a spot comes on GAIA who surveys the audience as she moves to a flat oval panel laying on the stage.)
GAIA
What? I truly loved and cared for that bird. What are you looking at? What do you see when you look at me.
(As GAIA lifts the panel revealing it is a mirror, the spot on her extinguishes and house lights come up. GAIA holds the mirror so it reflects several audience members back at themselves,)
GAIA
What do you see?
GAIA points the mirror at other people.)
GAIA
What do you see?
(GAIA turns the mirror again)
GAIA
Do you see me?
(GAIA points the mirror a couple more directions, then….
BLACKOUT sound of dog barking in the distance.)