MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION by Dave Christner © David W. Christner 1994 DRAMATIS PERSONAE: AURIEL--A prim and proper angel. RAPHAEL--Another angel, a little rough around the edges. SCENE I SCENE: LIGHTS COME UP on a quiet street corner somewhere in the Village. It is late; the streets are deserted Two angels, RAPHAEL and AURIEL are standing under a street light, checking the time, waiting a little impatiently for their ride back to heaven. They are dressed in tattered robes with broken wings; their halos are a little tarnished. The stars overhead are obliterated by the city lights, and faintly in the background we HEAR SOUNDS OF THE CITY. RAPHAEL: Nice night. (AURIEL looks at him curiously) AURIEL: Nice night? Nice night! Are you kidding? You drag me to hell and back, and all you can say is, "Nice night." RAPHAEL: You're so sensitive. AURIEL: Sensitive!? Me! God! (Looks up.) Oh, sorry. RAPHAEL: He's not listening. If this trip has taught me anything, it's that He's not listening. He never listens. AURIEL: He's got a lot on His mind. Earth isn't His only planet, you know. RAPHAEL: I know, but I thought--I thought He had a better handle on things. All that power at his disposal. (A beat.) You know what I think? AURIEL: No. Nor do I want to know what you think. (A beat.) But I have no doubt that you're going to tell me. RAPHAEL: He's getting senile. AURIEL: Blasphemy! Or would that be heresy? I always get them confused. It doesn't matter. I knew I didn't want to hear it whichever it was. And from one of God's own angels. Where will it end? RAPHAEL: Let's face it. He's old . . . real old. For Chrissake, Jesus is nearly 2000! AURIEL: Will you stop it!? I'm not listening to any of this. (A beat.) Gabe will raise hell if he gets wind of this. You'll be directing choirs instead of intervening on God's behalf. Not every soul gets to be an angel. RAPHAEL: To tell you the truth, I'm a little tired of intervening on God's behalf. I mean it gets all muddled up in the scriptures anyway. Gabriel ends up getting credit for practical everything. I don't know, but . . . there's got to be more to existence than this. AURIEL (incredulously): Are you insane? Have you completely lost whatever fragment of a mind you've been blessed with? This (gives a sweeping gesture) is what more there is to existence. The squalor and misery off the city. I gotta get outta this place. And the sooner the better. RAPHAEL: New York is not your kind of town? AURIEL: I told you I wouldn't like it. I wanted to go to Carmel for R&R. Carmel by the Sea--surf pounding against rocky cliffs, gulls wheeling overhead in a pristine sky, little bistros, vineyards, quaint little villages, friendly people. My idea of Eden. But no. Noooooo! You want to go east--east of Eden 3,000 miles to--to . . . how did you phrase it? It was very poetic if I remember correctly. "To . . . " RAPHAEL: Experience the pulse of life. AURIEL (curtly): That's it. Pefect. "Experience the pulse of life." Now that is poetic. But let me tell you Raphael, my friend, there is nothing poetic about being mugged, about barroom brawls, knife fights, physical acts of degradation, and God only knows what else. My best gown is practically in shreds, wings clipped, nerves shattered. This city as close to hell as I ever want to get. RAPHAEL: Things did get a little out of hand. I'll admit that. AURIEL: "A little out of hand!" Had I not evoked supernatural powers, we'd both be dead. RAPHAEL: We are dead. AURIEL: Well, we'd have been dead again, only deader! RAPHAEL: How can you get any deader than we already are? Our senses are so filled with perfection that we don't even appreciate what we have or have not. That's why I insisted on coming to New York. AURIEL (irritated): To fill you senses? RAPHAEL: Exactly. AURIEL: Well, I hope you got your fill. I certainly did. RAPHAEL (thinks, then): You know, Auriel, I've been thinking. AURIEL: Oh, God! That always gets you in trouble. RAPHAEL: I don't think I did get my fill. AURIEL: I don't want to hear this. (Begins singing). Amazing Grace. How sweet Thou art. RAPHAEL: Stop it! AURIEL: You stop it! (Sings.) To love a wretch like me. RAPHAEL: Auriel! AURIEL (Sings): I once was lost but now am found. RAPHAEL: I'm not going back! AURIEL (Sings): Was blind but now can see! RAPHAEL: Did you hear me? AURIEL: No. No, I didn't! Amazing Grace . . . (RAPHAEL covers AURIEL'S mouth.) RAPHAEL: I'm not going back. I'm staying. (A beat.) AURIEL (desperately): You're sick. Raphie; you have a fever. You don't know what you're saying. You've been seduced by city lights and all the glamour. RAPHAEL: I like it here, Auriel. I like this feeling of being alive. AURIEL: What's wrong with heaven? RAPHAEL: Nothing. Nothing! Nothing is wrong with heaven is what's wrong with heaven. Can't you see that? AURIEL: No, you're not making any sense. RAPHAEL: Auriel, when you get back, take a look around. The place is perfect . . . the light, the music, the scenery, the spirits, the pasted on smiles, the muffled laughter, the restraint, the weather. Everything is perfect and perfectly boring. AURIEL: How can perfection be boring? RAPHAEL: It's boring because you don't have to feel it or change it. It's just there without us having to do anything to get it. AURIEL: It's the reward for living a good life. RAPHAEL: But it's no life at all. Admit it, Auriel, didn't life seem all the sweeter when you were just about to lose it? AURIEL: That's beside the point. RAPHAEL: And didn't that little brunette make you feel something that you just can't get a handle on up there? AURIEL: Temporal pleasures, Ralphie. They don't last. RAPHAEL: Which is exactly why they are so wonderful! When everything is perfect all the time, you have nothing to contrast it with therefore it loses its value. I don't want to have anything to do with perfection. AURIEL: But it's the reward for living a righteous life. RAPHAEL (Irritated): So, your reward is to get bored to death in the afterlife for having lead what in all probability was a boring life in the human realm. What kind of reward is that. Only one thing is certain: a good life is a boring life. And it leads to an eternity of boredom. AURIEL: No, of peace and joy. Of absolute contentment. RAPHAEL: For you maybe. Count me out. AURIEL: You can't mean it. You're trading . . . paradise for this--New York and a life of few rights and even less reason. RAPHAEL: I feel alive here, Auriel. For the first time since my death, I feel alive. I have this--magnificient obesssion to live again, only this time better. AURIEL: Well, you won't live long in this town. And what will you do, you don't have any skills. Gabrielle won't let you keep your powers. You'll starve. RAPHAEL: I'll get by. Millions--billions have gotten along just fine on a lot fewer wits than I have. I feel empowered, Ralphie, like I can do anything. Besides, you'll be on my shoulder won't you, regardless of what Gabe and the Old Man say? AURIEL: I'm not making any promises. RAPHAEL: That's good enough for me. AURIEL: So you're going to get your face dirty, huh, Ralphie. RAPHAEL: And my hands. I'll do what I've always done--try to make the world a better place, but I won't be doing it because it's my job as an angel, or as a human out of fear or because I'm expecting some heavenly reward in the hereafter. I just want to make the world a place where the experience of life can be experienced in all its wonderful diversity--the good the bad and the ugly. It's the agony that makes the ecstasy so delicious. AURIEL: Sure, if you live through it. RAPHAEL: You try, Auriel, you fight. That's what life is all about: overcoming adversity. It starts when we struggle to take your first breath. Sometimes we make it; sometimes we don't. I want to keep trying instead of having everything handed to me on a golden platter, whether I deserve it or not. Things are too easy on the other side. You forget how vital life was--could have been, can be. AURIEL: Vital! Life is hard, Ralphie. Eternity isn't. Eternity just is. It doesn't have to be anything other than that and--enjoyable, which it is. And if you're lucky, which we are, you get to be an angel--do some good, cause a little mischief, play a little night music, do some R&R on the beach. It's not that bad. You're willing to trade eternal bliss for a night on the town. RAPHAEL: Look, Auriel, in spite of what you may have heard from my mother: I never was a perfect angel, not as a kid and certainly not now. If I was to become one now, it would be as a consequence of Gabe and the Old Man pulling some strings. I don't want that. For reasons that perhaps I cannot fully comprehend, I need to seek my own perfectibility, and I need to seek it within the context of the human spirit. Undoubtedly, I will try and fail, rise and fall, succumb to many, many, many human desires, hurt and be hurt, but in so doing, I think I will gain something that I have lost--aside from my life, of course. AURIEL: You could go to hell, you know? Heaven may bore you, but at least it's not hot. RAPHAEL: Well, you know what they say? AURIEL: No, I don't. What who says? RAPHAEL: Lucifer. AURIEL: What does Lucifer say? RAPHAEL: It's not the heat, but the humidity. AURIEL: Well, he should know. (A beat.) I think you're making a big mistake. RAPHAEL: Probably the first of many. Tell the Old Man for me, will you? AURIEL: My God! RAPHAEL: Yeah, Him and Gabe too. AURIEL: What shall I tell them? RAPHAEL: Why don't you start with the truth? AURIEL: The truth! RAPHAEL: Yeah, it's a new concept in communications. AURIEL: They'd never believe that--believe that one of God's own angels would be willing to exchange paradise for the struggle of human existence, to go from eternity to here. RAPHAEL: Tell them I fell in love then. AURIEL: Okay, they'll buy that. (A bright light begins to shine somewhere off stage. A HORN honks. ) RAPHAEL: Looks like your chariot of fire is here, AURIEL: I hear it. RAPHAEL: I guess this it, Good Buddy. AURIEL (waits, then): You're sure about this. RAPHAEL: Yeah, heaven can wait. (A beat.) I want to be in command now--of what, I don't know. AURIEL: Your own destiny? RAPHAEL: I hope that's what it is. AURIEL (Pats his shoulder): If you need anything, you know where I'll be. RAPHAEL: Don't go making things easy for me. I want to live. AURIEL: But you will ask? If you need something. RAPHAEL: You mean pray? Will I pray? AURIEL (nods): When you really need something. When you get to the end of your rope. RAPHAEL: I . . . might. I don't know. AURIEL: Well, if you do, will you . . . RAPHAEL: What? AURIEL: Say one for me? RAPHAEL: Sure, I'll say one for you. AURIEL: Whether I need it or not. RAPHAEL: You'll need it. (Off stage, the light goes a little brighter, and we HEAR A HORN HONKING.) AURIEL: Patience is not His strong suit. I have to go. RAPHAEL: I know. (A beat.) I have to stay. (They exchange a long, loving hug.) AURIEL: I know. (A beat.) Take care. RAPHAEL: You too my friend. (AURIEL exits in the direction of the light. He turns and says.) AURIEL: Don't spread your wings too wide. (AURIEL exits. RAPHAEL stands on the corner, looking up as the light rises. As the light disappears RAPHAEL is illuminated in a white hot spotlight. He begins reciting poetry and dancing joyfully, filled with an indomitable human spirit.) RAPHAEL I'm spreading my wings Ain't starting to pray No need to be apart from it, Sweet Life, Sweet Life. These tattered gold wings They're yearning to fly To soar right through the core of it, Sweet Life, Sweet Life. I want to circle high above the Village With it's crooks and creeps And find that I'm getting my fill, Building my heap. These heavenly blues They're starting to fade Gotta make a new sweet life of it Right here in Manhattan If I can start right here I can get by anywhere Hop on in, We'll dive right in Sweet Life, Sweet Life. CURTAIN Dave Christner 17 Bliss Road Newport, RI 02840 Phone (401) 849-3611 email: dwcpwright@awi.net December 21, 1995