"Listening" 
            By, Dave Ulrich

                                        Lights up to a spotlight center.

                                        NICHOLAS is sitting hunched over a table with his
                                        fingers woven. His head stays down.

                                   NICHOLAS
            God is the only true artist. All great works are the strokes
            of His hand flowing through the bodies of mere mortals.

                                        EMILY's voice comes offstage through a
                                        microphone.

                                   EMILY
            You believe this act was in the name of God?

                                   NICHOLAS
            You make it sound so simple. God's great work is ever
            present, it is we who fail in allowing Him to move us.

                                   EMILY
            Then you believe God is violent?

                                   NICHOLAS
            No!

                                        A pause.

                                   EMILY
            Nicholas?

                                        A beat.

                                   EMILY (CONT'D)
            Nicholas. If God was guiding your hand, and God is not
            violent, then why was your hand violent?

                                   NICHOLAS
                          (rising)
            No! You don't listen! God did not guide me. This was not art.

                                   EMILY
            I don't understand.

                                   NICHOLAS
            Because you don't listen.

                                        He sits.

                                   EMILY
            Would you please explain? I would like to understand.

                                   NICHOLAS
            What she did was the greatest sin. What she did was stop the
            hand of God. You stop the hand of God, you destroy a small
            piece of the world. I am God's vengeance. I served Him. I
            freed His hand -- with my violence.

                                   EMILY
            Will you tell me about the girl?

                                        A beat.

                                   NICHOLAS
            God loves her. God loves to use her.

                                   EMILY
            Do you love her?

                                   NICHOLAS
            What is wrong with you? This isn't about some little girl.
            This is His work. Have you ever even seen perfection?
                          (a beat)
            There is nothing more beautiful than a person living,
            existing, in a moment -- doing something perfectly. Maybe you
            can't understand. Maybe you never see, either. The faithless
            always have their eye focused on pain, suffering and defeat.
            To someone like you, Jennifer was just a distracted and
            disinterested child. But if you would hand her the violin...

                                        MUSIC plays softly under. It is dissonant, haunting,
                                        and distant strings.

                                   NICHOLAS
                          (a bit louder over the music)
            Mind you, the violin is a very remarkable instrument. The
            beginner can produce the most offensive sounds
                                                          in all of the
            music world, while the master can produce beauty unmatched by
            any wind, percussion, brass, or even fellow string. At seven
            years old, Jennifer should have hurt me. Should have rattled
            my ears and made me plead for mercy. I knew she wouldn't...
            Hurt me. I had heard about her. It's why she was sent to me.
            The magic produced by this seven year old -- the sounds that
            came from this disinterested child... the voice I heard, the
            passion -- was not hers. It was God singing. You don't
            compete with God. You don't argue with Him, you don't stop
            Him. You embrace His song, encourage it, and do everything in
            your power to let God speak to us all. That is how we hear
            Him. In the perfect curve of a painter's line, the perfectly
            pitched voice of a mezzo soprano, in the perfect hand gesture
            of a possessed actor, the perfect arrangement of words by a
            poet and the perfect strokes of the bow by a seven year old
            girl in braids.
                          (a beat)
            Silence these things and you have taken God from all of us.
            Silence these things and reasons to spend our lives on this
            Earth become fewer. It all becomes pathetic. We need God's
            voice. We need to see His art.
            And when some bitch comes along and says it isn't healthy for
            a girl to think only of the violin, she is stopping the hand
            of God. Who did she think she was? God is the Father, His
            word vetoes the power of a child's faithless mother. Each
            time I stabbed that cunt I heard the notes of God's song sing
            louder. Just as they would soon sing again through the child
            I was saving. Soon sing out to all us... again. All of us who
            listen. Who believe. Who have a future.

                                        A beat.

                                   EMILY
            Nicholas. You realize, your only future now is death.

                                   NICHOLAS
            There is no death. My future is forever. Yours, too. But I
            wouldn't like to go where you'll be going.

                                   EMILY
            Where's that Nicholas?

                                        As the LIGHTS SLOWLY FADE TO BLACK.

                                   NICHOLAS
            God will tell you...

                                        The MUSIC stops suddenly.

                                   NICHOLAS (CONT'D)
            ... but you won't hear.

                                        BLACKOUT.
            THE END

"Listening" debuted at No Shame Theater (Los Angeles) April 25, 2003,

NICHOLAS - Chris Clarke
EMILY - Tory Seiter

[Back to Library]