Everybody gets to play a role, but each of us is dissatisfied with the role we are playing. The play writer, in his confused state of mental aptitude, sketches the character. But, the character wishes to have more, he struggles to pin down accurately his feelings and fantasies of the person he would like to play. The more he plays himself, the more he fantasizes, and eventually the point of breakdown occurs, wherefrom he no longer realizes the inconsistency in his role play. He looks down upon himself, depressed, always in anticipation of something wonderful, something fanciful. He, the character loses himself, as the play writer watches in a seamless isolation, for he is the play writer and the character; for he is the narrator and the audience; for he is all there is to it; for it is his story that he is living and playing, constantly as if in a movie that never ends, as a book with perpetual addition of leaves.
With every step he takes, every action he performs, he is constantly vigilant as is he is being watched constantly, from close by, so close that he can feel it, palpable. Perhaps, it is true, for he is anticipatory; he is reading his own life story, as if he is reading about a person who is presently dead. He doesn’t feel well; he doesn’t feel controlled, as if by the sheer intensity of life dragging him, he dolefully lets himself go by.
The play is about him, a person close to him but not him, not truly, for he is as anxious to know the outcome as much as every other individual in the audience. Life goes on, his play goes on, he plays on, mutely watches, silently admires. The melancholy of the play inherently approves of his character’s emotional turmoil; he wonders if he is playing the character well? He wonders if, in his state of repressed fantasies, the expression is spoilt; wonders if the correctness of play if justified by what is going to be played on the stage as he watches horrifically seated immobile on a chair, distant and sad.
How does anybody for that matter know what he is supposed to play? The play is all known by heart to the character, but the play usually reveals itself at the moment of play and not before that. The pages in the book are all sealed, in the time one takes to tear off the plaster and peruse through the contents of the following page; the concurrent events unfold with the character playing his role on stage of life.
But, the play has to end sometime or another, it has to end. The book has to end, story concluded, for the player retires, for the player runs out of his creative faculties. How can one know his play and perform well? Can the character, play writer and the audience sit together and arrive at a consensus? If there is a consensus, would the character have access to the material? Would the audience approve of it? Would the play writer reveal his work-in-progress?
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