The
action begins with the quiet sound of surf. This sound is present
as the audience enters,
its delicate slow rhythmic insistence remains throughout the performance,
except where silence
or subtle changes of mood have been called for. The sound is of
pure surf – it contains no gulls
or extraneous noises. There is one stone on an otherwise bare
stage.
Two
people, one of whom we shall call the ‘Voyager’ and
one whom we shall call the ‘Philosopher’
(this actor also doubles Clown/Death later on) are seated on the
front row of the auditorium
on either side of a main entrance D/S. They begin to talk to one
another (at first inaudibly) –
the Philosopher has obviously been pondering the one object in
view – the stone, and eventually
rises and walks over to it, making various observations and comments
until he manages to draw
the Voyager on. He moves down and joins the Voyager about centre.
A long improvised
conversation develops on the quality of sand and shore (Voyager)
and the quality of sky and sea
(Philosopher). This conversation is very relaxed, and moves naturally
from the immediate and
physical through the poetic, imaginative and philosophical becoming
more and more rarefied and
abstract.
They
are eventually joined by three younger persons (two women and
one man) who are not
together and enter at different times as people who are just awake
and taking a walk in unknown
but accepted surroundings. These join the conversation, their
interest being awakened, and they
provide a quite different impulse to the conversation –
one of freshness of enquiry rather than
one of predisposition so far established by the Voyager and Philosopher.
During
the moment of maximum absorption, when they are a central group
– silently from behind
them – and as yet unnoticed – a character enters whom
we shall call the ‘Pierette’. It is a very
delicate, shy and beautiful creature carrying an open parasol
with which she tends to hide her
face which is often lowered, as if listening.
She
has great stillness, delicacy and presence. She moves round to
the front of the group and
silently sits on the ground with her back towards them, - the
conversation ceasing with the
power of her stillness.
From
their point of view, it is as if she has appeared from nowhere,
and for a moment the three
men are looking up at the sky above her and the two women are
looking at her.
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