OPENING
I have been working for years on this 105,000 words long thing called THE GIANT: A Once Upon A Time Story Of California And Nevada.
It starts like this:
A little man with a flowing white beard wears a dunce cap.
The dunce cap is red.
The little man sits on a stool in the corner of an otherwise empty room.
The room is a wooden cube.
It has no windows.
It has no apparent exit.
The little man is a gnome.
What is this?
A novel?
No.
What then?
I don’t know. I just work here.
Words rush about in the little man’s head.
They gather to cling in groups for protection.
It starts.
THE JESTER’S TALE
Arthur and the Giant
By Arthur Peckham
The Concept
A pair of monologues and one page of definitions. That’s all. The first monologue is 45000 words long, the second a less horrific 4000. If you find yourself able to vault the formidable casting hurdle, with which I will try to provide assistance for you in the following notes, then you must decide whether to push through the entire piece in one grueling marathon performance or to split it into a two night production. I recommend the latter, in concern for the health, mental and physical, of your lead actor. One night is a joke. It would be a day and well into a night. Only an audience of ultra-marathoners and tri-athletes could sit through it. But I wrote it anyway. I had to. Who am I kidding? It will never be performed. It can’t be performed. It’s impossible. Nevertheless.
