Act 1 of Counting Down The Days, by Antony Sammeroff and Finn Townsley

This is the kind of thing that Finn and I do when we're up till 9am drinking rum.

Aritist: (Excited) Oh so you’ve read Adorno’s On the Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening.

Lush: Yes, indeed, I found it most enlightening, but I have to say Tea-adores reliance on outmoded views expressed in the last instalment of Marxes Das Capital somewhat retrograde. (Coughs) But speaking of cultural theory, did you not find Sartre’s Nausea expressed a most simplistic view of human angst.

Arist: I no longer remember anything of, nor can I comment on Angst. It seems so far away, distant, ever since I met the woman.

Lush: A Woman? Singular? Surely the plural would be far more worthy. Why, Would Byron set his heart on one? Was Alexander to be tamed? Would Huxley settle for that ragtag Laura alone? But of course not! A man of letters exists to be loved: if by one, well it is, if by more than one, why even more so. For imagine if a man should conclude to write only, arbitrarily, with the letter D. Such a stunt upon his vocabulary would that bring. And likewise, why should the language of love be so limited, if only for a woman.

Artist: But were she a letter she would express all the syllables and more so besides. Had you had seen her eyes, like the sun and moon burning bright within that face of which the cosmos is merely an effigy, then you would surely only begin to fathom the depths of affection that well within my breast. Then you would know, that there could be no other sun and moon that could possibly illuminate, nor capture, the heart of the man that I may hope to one day call the earth that these heavenly bodies humble in their orbit.

Lush: I have gazed upon those celestial bodies that you declare all too fare, as those common features of her face, and I feel you are too much romanced my friend and all too soon, by those baubles that sparkle, not with the light of the sun but only in the sunlight. I fear you will taste these forbidden fruits, much to your folly, and from the gates of Eden I will have to bid you a sad farewell.

Artist: If Eden is the price to pay for bliss, then for what? When Eden holds no longer bliss, for that which we dare call Eden pales in comparison to those temptations held without, then of what is this fair paradise Eden reduced to but mere shadows upon the walls opposing the platonic form of Love. But we are excommunicated from Eden only to return to it, perhaps not in body corporeal, but in our ethereal heart of hearts, where we find that very true bliss of union with the god incarnate in man, is in the womb of that fair rose we call the woman.

Lush: Why deny the possibilities of the infinite joys that could exist outwith, for those finite joys that must exist only it the confines of that paltry warmth that is her one. As a great man once said, “Marriage is the tomb of love.” Yes, indeed sex is a battle and love is a war, but would Sun Tzu commit himself to strike on only one front in neglect of all the other affairs of state? “The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,” and you, my friend, will forget her. 

Artist: “This soul should fly from me, and I be chang'd
Into some brutish beast! All beasts are happy,”

Lush: “For, when they die,
Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements;”

Enter Victoria.

Victoria: Fare artist do you await my call? Charming Lush are you yet here past the sunset? With tongue so eloquent yet step’d in vicious poison. Away! Lest thy carriage reveal thy true nature, for it is but a pumpkin dressed in grandeur awaiting the stroke of dawn.

Lush: Save thy words sweet scented succubus. Do you not see how you have reduced this once great man, in swaddling bands, to worship in the shadow of thy visage. Will you leave him weeping at the gates of hades as you dance back into Pluto’s arms?

Victoria: Oh how your words wound me like the sharpest bolts of slings and crossbows. Should you feel that the appeal of thy wits are of more allure than eves of mine tender bosom, then let the kind artist decide how better he should spend out those last dwindling hours of twilight.

Artist: Let me not decide!

Lush: ….Dare thee use thy womanhood to seduce? For what do you think you are but Helen come again?! Do not tempt Agamemnon to send his ships for I will besiege the gates of Troy if it means to lose Achillies a thousand times over in the pursuit. Yet till the morrow, have your wicked way, for Odin held trust enough in Loki’s better nature to let him roam free and to fall (to artist, without pause) by his own errors.

Victoria: (mockingly) Then let our paths not cross once more till Ragnarok ensue. Come now gentle artist, turn thy sweet fingers again through these fragile threads and sing of me once more my praises.

Artist: Yes, a thousand times! A thousand times and yet a thousand more should it please the swooning heart which beats within thy tender breast.


Click here for awesome annotated version!