Play

by James Comins

Ha no Ha San

  Act III, Scene Three

  Now it is a half hour later. The Understudy's dance is over. The drumming still continues, but only as a low patter.

  The Arhat finally leads the Green Lion up on stage.

  "You've come back from your visit to the torii,"

  the Understudy says to her.

  "Where the ordinary meets the sacred.

  You don't look too happy.

  Did the arches burn up, the way you thought they would?"

  The Arhat smiles hard and does not reply. Punch looks ready to run away again, but El Daishou and Pierrot speed up the drumming, and Punch snarls and dances faster. He looks tired.

  Pulling firmly on the leash, the Arhat advances. Punch's scurrying goblin dance takes him to the boundary of stage left, the place where a small Noh chorus might sit. The jester presses against the solid wall, casting black shadows, deeper than night. The Green Lion's terrible light floods across the stage as it approaches. The beast's footsteps make no sound, no sound, no sound.

  Then:

  "You think a two-bit alchemist can destroy me?

  Am I a lie? Am I a belief?

  Try to stop believing in me. I'll stab you!

  Pretending you haven't got any demons

  Only makes them stronger!"

  Quinn switches off the red floodlights, and the stage takes on the hollow, empty glow of the Lion's light. The stylized sun-face is expressionless. The Arhat snarls with glee. She seems consumed with hate for Punch and for all demons. The drumming continues, casting its dancing spell over Punch. His feet move to the rhythm uncontrollably, even as he whimpers and cowers. The light closes in on the demon. You almost feel sorry for him.

  You hold your breath. The Understudy is beside you. Punch speaks.

  "The stage is my home.

  It's where I can be myself.

  Audiences ahead and privacy behind.

  If you're going to hunt me

  I want to be hunted here.

  The stage is my home."

  Behind you, the brush painting of the tree catches fire—not the wood, not even the paint, but inside the painting. Red and orange and yellow brush strokes dance across the green tree in time with the drumming. By the time the Green Lion's light moves on, the painting of the tree is only a painting of ashes.

  White and blue painted wind rolls across the backdrop, and the tree is gone completely.

  You feel anger. The Arhat tromps anywhere she wants to, and behind her, wreckage follows. The stage is empty of art or costumes, and soon Punch will be gone, too.

  Sandalled footsteps press on.

  The gruesome sunlight touches Punch.

  You expect screams. You expect him to curl up, to shrivel, to boil, to burn. None of these things happens.

  Instead, a thousand Punches stretch behind Punch, burning a Punch-shaped hole through the wall like an old cartoon. Shadows of cackling demons become whole and scatter across the lawn. Dozens, then hundreds, splattering out where Punch blocks the light. Shadows growing realer even as they hide and cringe away from the glare. The light of truth, the light that reveals a demon's true nature—well, it's revealing something. From Punch's shadow, a thousand more of him leap into the night and scamper away. Setting her teeth, the Arhat pulls the Green Lion closer, but this only makes a denser shadow. More and more dark demons spring from it.

  "I am real,"

  Punch whispers.

  "Look as hard as you like.

  You want to reveal my true nature? This is it.

  I am wicked, I am myself, and I am inside you."

  Punch leaps, his long zucchini nose wobbling. He pushes himself through the harsh light, strobing and flashing until he is nose-to-nose with the Arhat.

  A hooked claw points to her heart.

  The Arhat shivers and shakes. Her body squeezes and twists inside her orange robes. She coughs.

  A snap of light, so bright that it outshines the Green Lion's blazing sun.

  Instead of orange robes, the Arhat wears an orange jester's outfit. Her nose stretches and her fingers grow and her skin turns as orange as her robe used to be. The outfit fades to black and white.

  Gone. The Arhat is gone, and now there is another Punchinoni.

  "When we ignore what hides in our hearts,"

  this new Punch recites,

  "We are at risk of turning into it.

  Hide your monsters and become a monster.

  Pretend you have no demons, and you become one."

  All the remaining Punches, including the original one and this new one, scamper out through the hole in the wall and into the night. The Green Lion remains, looking ambivalent, like a farmyard goat.

  "That's one of our villains down!"

  calls out Quinn from her control booth.

  "Next we need to get rid of the Lion.

  I've got an idea of how to do it.

  First we'll need that paper doll version of me."

  The prop isn't far from here. El Daishou tossed it off the hashigakari onto the grass when he got scared—

  "Nope,"

  a familiar voice interrupts.

  "First we need the big bell from the play, 'Dōjōji.'

  It's called the tsukuri-mono. We need it.

  I've got a plan of my own."

  Columbia is back. She's not wearing her flowery hat. Instead, her hair covers one eye, as if she's halfway hiding from the world. As she steps onto the stage, the Green Lion's light hits her flower garden dress and the colors burn away to black. Just like Pierrot, beneath all her makeup and colors she seems sad and lonely. It was just another disguise.

  "Director speaking. Go get them both.

  We need the rope from the murder doll

  To lift up the bell. Then we need the bell.

  Then we can show the Green Lion who's boss.

  P.S. I am,"

  says Quinn over the intercom.

  Columbia sniffs. She doesn't seem to like being told what to do. Rolling her eyes, she grabs El Daishou and Pierrot and the Understudy to help her carry the bell, and snaps her fingers at you and points at the murder doll.

  Funny. You don't like it when Columbia tells you what to do. Even though you wanted to be her friend so, so, so much.

  Go get the paper doll.

  Go.

  Now.

  Do it.

  How does it feel to be told what to do?

  The handrail of the hashigakari is only a few feet off the ground. Jump over it. Land on the grass, where the footlights cast a long, bridge-shaped shadow. Here is the flowery paper, the mop handle, the bucket, the long, strong rope, wrapped into a doll. Lift it. It doesn't weigh as much as it looks, although the rope trails behind you and drags along the ground. Return to the stage. It's not too high off the ground.

  Do it.

  That's what the director told you to do. It's what Columbia told you to do.

  The Green Lion on its thin legs seems content to stand in the middle of the stage, turning its head from time to time. Without the Arhat, the creature doesn't have anywhere to go. When the paper doll reaches the Lion's light, the paper, the mop handle, the bucket, and the rope all fly apart like a broken spring-powered mechanical whatsit.

  A doll is just another lie. But rope, paper, bucket, mop handle? Those things are perfectly real.

  The intercom buzzes.

  "Good job. They need help carrying the bell now.

  Oh, and you're not playing Shanne anymore.

  Your new character is the temple priest.

  Unless you want to give the Understudy a chance to be the lead . . . ?"

  Well, you've been the main character once already. It would be selfish to play it again, even if Quinn did choose you for the part. Are you willing to step aside and let someone else play the most important part? Or will you hog it all for yourself?

  Are you selfish?

  Well, are you?

  "Go ahead and cast the Understudy in the main part.

  I think he's go
od enough. I'll play the temple assistant."

  And you hurry off into the night.

  Around the side of the stage, in the culvert where you and Columbia first found the musical instruments, Columbia struggles with something inside the open cabinet. Pierrot in his saggy white pajamas and mustacheless El Daishou in his black t-shirt brace their feet against the hillside and heave. A green-bronze Japanese bell shaped like a torpedo slides halfway out of the drawer.

  Go and help.

  Lift the bell. Stand next to Columbia, place your feet firmly on the slick gravely grass, and pull. Feel the old, old metal, the turtleshell-texture, how cold it is. It's cold enough to freeze your hand, at first, but as you brace your feet and pull and push and lean and shift it up and over the cabinet's rim, it warms up.

  The girl in the long black dress skids on the gravel. She slides into you as the bell finally rolls out of the drawer. Depositing the heavy weight on the ground a little too fast, you catch Columbia as she re-finds her feet.

  "This was my idea,"

  she mumbles.

  "I don't need a boss or a director to tell me what to do.

  I'm smarter than Quinn. I've got plans of my own.

  We need to perform 'Dōjōji' to repel the Green Lion.

  My idea."

  It might be better for her to say those things to Quinn in person, instead of behind Quinn's back. Communicating is a good thing to do, especially when you have to work together. But Quinn's up in the control room, and you're down here, and Columbia is steaming mad. It wouldn't be gossiping just to tell her that Quinn is your friend and that she doesn't mean any harm, would it?

  "I'm sure she'd like to be friends with you,"

  you say.

  "She's just trying to fix everything.

  I know she respects you and your plans.

  I'm glad you and Quinn both have good ideas."

  In the darkness beyond the stage lights and Fresnel lamps, all you can really see are the reflections of Columbia's eyes. She is angry, full of hurt. She says nothing.

  Pierrot catches your eye and shakes his head. You can almost imagine what he's thinking: Ah, the difference between what we expect of people and how they actually are, my ami.

  Ask not for whom the bell rolls. It rolls for you. With five people behind it, it climbs the low hill easily, although you figure pushing it up onto the stage might be tough. The Understudy takes charge of the rolling, and Columbia throws her hands in the air grumpily and lets him. Instead she walks back to the drawer and roots around in it. She returns with a block-and-tackle pulley.

  The bell is safely rolling without you. Go and stand beside Columbia, so she doesn't feel so alone.

  The field is thick with Punchinonis. You can feel it. They gambol and plot and play terrible tricks. But somehow Punchinoni doesn't seem so dangerous when Columbia's around. You want to take her hand, but you don't. The moon's presence returns, now that the Lion's nasty light is mostly blocked out by the stage's arches. Overcoming, the moon gives off a faint white reminder that it still shines. Along the rim of the stage, the scamper of clawed feet.

  In the moonlight, you see that the green surface of the tsukuri-mono bell is decorated with kanji characters and three embossed pictures: A temple, a woman in a kimono, and a dragon. You see the three pictures repeating as it rolls: Temple, woman, dragon.

  A sustained push, all together, and the bell is onstage.

  One of the Punches is here. Weary. Probably the original. Leaning against a bashira column, he looks tired of the clinical, alchemical light that fills the stage. Punch thrives on lies and mystery.

  The weird viridian animal snuffs and paws at the ground. Exactly how will a performance of an old play destroy the Green Lion? There must be a reason why both Quinn and Columbia had it in mind—

  "The part of the temple priest

  Will be played by the Understudy

  In tonight's performance. Columbia

  Will play the dancing girl. Everyone else is

  Attendants or drums. Punch will introduce and narrate,"

  says Quinn.

  "Let's show the Lion what truth really looks like!"

  Tired Punch takes the rope and the pulleys in his teeth and uses his claws to climb up the bashira columns to the central arch. Threading a frayed rope-tip through the block-and-tackle, he bombs down to the floor, pulling the rope after him. Columbia helps him tie it to the bell.

  The bell is on the ground. The pulley is in the air.

  Time for the show.

  There are no masks this time—they've all burned away. You'll have to break one of the prime rules of Noh: always play the character represented by your mask. You can't, not now. You're not really the temple priest's attendant. You're you.

  Luckily, you've studied under El Daishou. You know how to lie.

  Now the plan starts to make sense. You're going to tell lies to the Green Lion. Maybe that'll make him explode—or maybe it'll make YOU explode instead. Guess you'll find out.

  Columbia grabs the beast's dangling leash and pulls it. It takes two reluctant giraffe-steps to stage left. It refuses to go farther, but it's enough room to perform the play.

  Again El Daishou and Pierrot content themselves with drums. Rhythmic, syncopated clunk clunk clunks begin to ring out.

  You take your place at the back of the stage, where the painted tree used to be. Columbia dashes across the hashigakari and vanishes backstage. She can be glimpsed through the window where Punch cut out a square of paper screen. Punch and the Understudy step forward. They share a harsh, narrowed-eye glance. Like you, they are professionals. Even the orange-skinned demon knows he has a role to play. And they danced together once.