The play is set in an artist’s studio. There is an enormous painting—a rough, wild, unfinished one—stapled to one wall. A small wooden chair sits facing it—about fifteen feet from the work-in-progress.
This is a one character play, a monologue by the painter.
He enters the formerly dark studio, switches on the lights, lowers himself heavily into the chair, takes a vigorous pull of the drink he has brought with him and settles down to gaze upon the painting.
Painter: My god it’s as big as the sea! It’s bigger when you sit down and look at it than it is when you‘re up close to it with a brush.
It rears up at me…like a wild horse
It’s like an ocean liner bearing down hard upon a fishing boat in its path
Can I get out of its way, I wonder?
Only by finishing it, I suppose
That’s me [he laughs raucously] The fishing boat. Poor fishing boat, trying to get a fish on the line.
A big fish. A whale. Moby Dick.
Call me Ahab, goddammit, not Ishmael!
[silence]
I wish Lucinda could see it. No, actually I don’t. Screw it. She’d have useful things to say about it. Procedural things, well-considered…
[he takes another gulp of his drink]
And I don’t want that. For me, the thing is like a Forest Fire. I don’t wish to discuss its bloody deportment!
[There is a long silence]
Christ It’s cold
And quiet. I could put some music on
But then I couldn’t hear the painting.
I couldn’t hear its clamour. All those angel voices woven together
It makes a noise
like ripping cloth
(curtain)
