Excerpt from "Caliban on the Sea" a new TYA play by Diana Burbano

Scene 2

Lights come up on a tropical Island, strewn with debris from last night's storm, but sunny, calm and beautiful. Perhaps the Bahamas. VI, a young girl of about 12, is asleep in the sand a blanket of seaweed on her, her clothes in tatters. CAL, a creature of myth, horned, with intelligent eyes and the ability to walk upright is singing to himself while rifling through a trunk.

Cal: (song) Full Fathom Five Thy brother lies
His bonny head is now a stone
The happy thoughts that in him lay
Are now lost, and to you gone
He does suffer a sea-change
Into something wild and strange
Sea-cows urge him to rebel
Hark! I hear them, Ding Dong Bell.

Full fathom five thy sister lay
Her fate entwined with me and mine
The rags she wears you did mislay,
And now she weeps in the moonshine
She makes unto her own sea-change
Into something passing strange
She alone must ring her knell
Hark, Do you hear her? Ding Dong Bell

(muttering)

Too small, too big, too odd...(Throws objects pell-mell onto the sand. Stopping to pocket a flute and to put a pair of spectacles on his head.)

VI : (Dreaming of something frightening. Trying to wake up.) Lost, blue, heavy water, stop winking at me whale!...nothing...BAST! (looking around wildly) Bast... oh.... (sees Cal) Get away from that! (tries to wrench trunk away, gets into a fierce game of tug of war until she she gets a good look at Cal.) Oh. (Drops trunk. Her hand goes to her belt where a sword should be.)

CAL: Hain't nuthin' gonna fit me nohow. Tough to pull petticoats on over the horns.

VI: Take off those spectacles, they belong to my brother

CAL: B'longed. B'longs t' me now. Found it. Founds you too.... Mebbe you b'longs to me now.

VI: You can't own another human... (considers Cal's odd appearance) creature, talking creature.

CAL: (puzzled) Course you can. Don't fret Missy, don't want you tho', eats too much probly, and cries, all girly like.

VI: I don't cry! I haven't cried since I was a baby...(Starts to sniffle. Looks out over the water) What.... what end met the ship? I lost my head when I lost hold of... (sniffs) Bast's hand. The Waves were so wild, they were almost ALIVE. I thought we were riding the backs of dolphins, because I never sank and I don't think I was breathing the sea... but... I don't remember! I saw a monster... oh... it was YOU!

CAL: That's rich. Do I look scaly to you? (scratches his head) Never mind, praps I do...(Shakes himself like a dog, scattering water droplets. Starts to walk off)

VI: Where are you going?

CAL: Dreamed of a kidlet, mirror image of ye... gonna see if he's a breather yet.

VI: Bast! Have you seen him? Did the dolphins save him? Did you? Boy...sir...you?!

(Cal leaps away fast as a cat. A few seconds later the spectacles are tossed back. Vi gently polishes them and puts them in her pocket.)

Photo: Caliban Stratford 2010