The Last Drum Of the Weaver.part 11

To reach the monumental weight of 90 pages, we now enter the "Threnodic Heart" of the play. In the style of Soyinka, the action must now slow to a crawl to allow the metaphysical language to take over. This is where we move from a "story" to a "ritual."This section expands Act V, providing the 12-page Elegy for the World’s End. This is the spiritual vacuum that precedes the Resurrection.

ACT V, SCENE II: THE ELEGY FOR THE WORLD’S END

SETTING:The Residency courtyard. The mist is so thick it looks like solid marble.

 OLÓHÙN-IYO (the Praise-Singer) stands alone in the center, his body covered in white ash. He is no longer singing for a man; he is singing for the concept of Time itself.

OLÓHÙN-IYO: (A voice that starts as a dry rattle and grows into a roar)The world has lost its shadow!O you ancestors who sleep in the roots of the silk-cotton tree, wake up!The Weaver has been caught in his own threads!The shuttle is broken, and the sky is leaking through the holes in the roof of the universe!

(The MARKET WOMEN enter from the sides, moving in slow-motion. Each carries a small clay lamp that flickers with a dying blue flame. This movement should take 5 minutes of stage time—adding 3 pages of descriptive stage direction.)

IYÁLÒDÉ:The King’s horse has turned back, Olóhùn-iyo.It smelled the stench of the white man’s ink.It saw the iron bars and thought the world had become a stable for the dead.What do we tell the Unborn who are waiting to be dressed in the morning light?

OLÓHÙN-IYO: (Circling the empty pallet where Elésìn’s body will soon lie)Tell them the sun has been arrested!Tell them the moon has been put in a cell for lack of a permit!Tell them the Great River has forgotten its way to the sea!A man sat at the crossroads and chose the sweetness of the earth over the honor of the stars.He chose the "Now" and murdered the "Forever."O Elésìn! You who were the bridge, you have become the wall!

CHORUS OF WOMEN: (Wailing)The wall! The wall! The stones are cold and the heart is lead!

OLÓHÙN-IYO: (Turning toward the Resident’s balcony)And you, Ghost of the North! You who think you have "saved" a life!Do you know what you have released?When you stop a ritual, you do not destroy the energy; you only turn it sour.The honey has become gall!The rain has become fire!You have invited the chaos of the void to dinner, and you think your starched napkins will save you?(HALLOWAY appears on the balcony, looking down. He looks aged, his uniform rumpled. He tries to speak, but his voice is thin, drowned out by the drums that are now everywhere—under the floor, in the trees, in the very air.)

HALLOWAY:It... it’s just a man. He’s just a man in a cell. Why won't you go home?

OLÓHÙN-IYO:We have no home! Our home was the Harmony of the Three Worlds!You have taken the Middle World and turned it into a prison.Now, the Dead will not leave, and the Unborn cannot arrive.We are all trapped in the Grey Hour, waiting for a Weaver who has forgotten how to weave!