Beatus and the Dragon

• Hi there, my name is Beatus. By chance I have the same name as the Saint Beatus.

  I am responsible for the lighting of the company. The director said, "You should introduce the play!" So I do what my boss told me what has to be done.

  Beatus, consecrated and sent out by the apostle Peter, retires as a hermit to a cave on a lake in Switzerland, he defeats the dangerous dragon that dwells there and harasses the people.

  First figure, Beatus, second figure, the dangerous dragon.

  This is the infinitive sequences (as taken from the notation of May 9th) for their interplay on the respective date:

  Infinitive sequence of the left half of the stage:
  drop, pour, defeat, said, waited, held, sensed.

  I am Beatus, standing in front of you on the left half of the stage, right at the edge of the stage, which drop steeply into the orchestra pit.

  I am the saint, the lover, the underdog. Though I fought to the last drop of my blood, I could not beat the dragon. I pour boiling molten silver over his eyes, which are as big as wagon wheels, but the beast continues to stare at me unblinkingly. It is impossible to kill the inner beast, to defeat the horror that comes from your broken heart, as long as the outer voices still speak to you, the ones that have said and will never stop murmuring, “Just wait until the one you have waited for comes! You held on once, so hold on! Stay active! Discover your potentials! Be the one you could be!”

  But the silver shining eyes stare at me! On their surface the outer voices are endlessly multiplied.

  You, my most beloved dragon, my heartbeat, my sole, I have never sensed your closeness so vividly as now.

  Infinitive sequence of the right half of the stage:

  dream, chosen, would have, add, carry, flutter, behave.

  Oh yes, my most beloved Beatus, I am the dragon with the silver shining eyes, big as a wagon wheel, much bigger in fact! To you they seem to stare at you like the sun by day and the moon by night. No, I'm not just a spawn in a dream, or, to make it clearer, in one of those terrible nightmares that overtake you in the hour of the saints. Yes, I know you haven't chosen to be a saint. I know better than anyone that you would have chosen to live in a cave, alone with me, with your sweetest dream. I know who I am: your sweetest dream! And I know that you would like to add another dream to this one: that the dream in which you carry the golden robe of the sweet physical appearance will come true. That the little birds flutter around your head, enraptured with love, and that we both, you and I, behave like one and the same.

  The Actors

  Hello, I am Timothy, the sound engineer. In my dream I was chosen to play the role of St. Paul. In my dream, I beat out 56 other candidates. You would have cried too! First I declaim a short passage from Shakespeare's Hamlet, then I add a poem by Whitman. This convinced the jury. They applauded and shouted: Carry on! Carry on! In my dream I shake my head, then I have to flutter away. They smile and whisper: Oh yes, what a strange way to behave. He will be a great star!

  Sure, I look a bit like Bruce Willis, but that is not an advantage at all. On the contrary! I would have loved to play the role of Beatus. But the director said that an actor like Bruce Willis would be absolutely unsuitable for such a psychologically complex role.

Notation 2022-05-09

Play on Stage

Auditions and Rehearsals