The play is set on the stage of the Brief Candles Theatre, and, simultaneously, in the mind and, in particular, in the scratchy, threadbare realms of memory.
Bertolt Brecht: I thought something would happen.
Elizabeth Hauptmann: Why would you think that?
Brecht: Theatre used to make something happen
Hauptmann: Oh I don’t think so.
\
Hooded photographer: Hold still.
Brecht: Why?
Photographer: This is to be a memorial photograph.
Wolf (shouting from offstage): Of what? I never got to devour Little Red Riding Hood!
Red Riding Hood (from offstage): And I am still uneaten!
Salome (offstage): I shall never get this dance to come right. I need more time. So far, my stepfather, Herod, is only titillated, but not ravenous….
Woman at Laptop (without looking up): I am both titillated and ravenous.
Doctor Behind Desk: I am everyone’s doctor. And I can see that nobody is getting any better. So I have begun writing a novel…
Colin (to Clifford): Do you think there’s
any point in writing a novel anymore?
Clifford (to Colin): Not really.
Colin: I think I’ll write one.
Clifford: What about?
Colin: About us, I expect.
Conch Shell (to nobody in particular): I still can’t hear the sea.
Doctor (overhearing the conch shell’s thoughts): What can you hear?
Conch Shell: The rustle of my own calcification.
(final curtain)
