5.15.2007: Undiscovered Country (The Narcissus Play)

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time.” - T.S. Eliot

Narcissus, the mythological figure who fell in love with his own reflection, sits on the stage floor, gazing at himself in a mirror. (Throughout the play, his gaze will never leave his reflection.)

The Guy appears.

THE GUY
What are you doing?

NARCISSUS
Exploring.

A silence.

THE GUY
You’re staring at yourself in a mirror.

NARCISSUS
You’re correct.

THE GUY
Narcissist.

NARCISSUS
Yes, actually. The original one. Narcissus. From which all other like me descend. Pleasure to meet you.

THE GUY
Same.

A silence again.

THE GUY (cont.)
What are you exploring?

NARCISSUS
The last great explorable terrain! The only distance over which great epic journeys can be made! The remaining undiscovered country! The SELF!

Myself, specifically. Not yourself. Because yourself is really of no interest to me.

THE GUY
Well, thanks.

NARCISSUS
Don’t be offended. It has nothing to do with you, really. I just find myself endlessly fascinating.

And if I were you, I’d be the last one to pass judgment on a narcissist. Look where I find myself. In this play of your making which is entirely about you.

THE GUY
This is an experiment in theatrical autobiography.

NARCISSUS
You can call it whatever you want, my friend, but a mirror is a mirror no matter what form it takes. (I love the way my mouth moves when I speak when I speak when I speak…)

For a second, Narcissus is absorbed in watching himself speak “when I speak” and enjoys it immensely. Then he stops and comes back to the moment.

NARCISSUS (cont.)
I’m sorry, what was I saying?

THE GUY
A mirror is a mirror…

NARCISSUS
Oh yes. Your play! The little mirror you hold up so you can gaze at yourself.

THE GUY
That’s not why I do this.

NARCISSUS
Uh huh.

THE GUY
It isn’t…

NARCISSUS
Look, buddy, come on, you don’t have to sell me on this. I’m not judging you. I’m with you all the way! Solidarity, brother!

The myths have it all wrong, you know.
This wasn’t a punishment.
That’s what they wrote, that I was being punished
by falling in love with my reflection.

But it wasn’t.

I looked at myself.
Really looked at myself
(because people don’t do that much anymore, don’t you find?,
really look at themselves,
turn their razor-sharp gaze inward to see what lies beneath)

and I fell in love.
And not the self-absorbed love,
not the preening, cloying, revolting kind
that turned my myth into an insult, into a degradation,

but the kind of love that’s grateful fascination.

We are endlessly miraculous creatures, aren’t we?

So I’m an explorer. Not a narcissist.
I am mapping a world that changes by the second.
Each day I will find something never known before
and I will look at this inhabited body and mind
with fresh eyes.

And every time, I see a New World.

Who couldn’t gaze at that forever?

Narcissus gazes at himself. The lights fade.