The Monster May Actually Be Real

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 20 August 2014.

Maybe a "staged" Concert for Iceland is an attempt by Arthur's therapists to overcome his psychic break. I don't know, maybe a post-ECT Arthur has become uncooperative, incorrigible. Although never violent, he becomes a danger to himself and others.

Maybe it's his stylite phase, climbing up on things.

Fr. Bernard comes on at the beginning of the show, explaining the whole concept: "Thanks for coming tonight, and thank you for your support for Arthur and his ongoing recovery and healing..." Fr. Bernard explains that the Concert for Iceland was a sham hatched by the charlatan cult leader, Carlton Farthington, and that Arthur was swept up in the story. At the recommendation of his therapists, they are trying to give Arthur an experience of closure: preparing for the Concert and performing it. The idea being that, once that is all done, he will have peace.

St. Alpius the Stylite

Finally, after the long explanatory intro, Arthur is wheeled out on stage by his nurse. Seems like everything is going according to plan. Nothing would need to be huge or amazingly produced because we're just trying to trick this borderline-catatonic guy that the Concert is happening.

But then we can have some weird stuff happen that makes us wonder whose reality is real.

Maybe he's a stylite and he's encouraging the other patients to do the same through his example. Maybe even some of the orderlies are being converted. Could he be wheeled in in a straitjacket and just do the singing? Could the entire band be made up of people from the sanitarium: therapists, orderlies, etc. (also Will and Fr. Bernard, of course)? Could we field questions from the crowd between songs (maybe even members of the media)?

And maybe he somehow gets away again in the end.

The crowd follows him through the streets. Could we fake a death with him falling from a pillar (there is a row of nonfunctional pillars on campus). Or could he just wade across the river and disappear into the darkness? That'd be some awesome footage, people tweeting it as they follow.

I think Will would be pissed and do it begrudgingly. But probably he also does it because there was nothing else doing at that point. Maybe this is the penance Fr. Bernard gave him for doing this to Arthur in the first place. There could be heated conversations between him and Fr. Bernard. Maybe Arthur has to go to the bathroom at some point so they wheel him off and Will and Fr. Bernard come downstage and have a conversation while he's gone. It'd be cool for them to be having that conversation the way they way people plot against each other in Shakespeare plays--not acknowledging the audience. But then have one of the media break down the wall by asking them questions, giving Will and Fr. Bernard a chance to field some uncomfortable questions, providing some more character development in the process.

I'm thinking we could get a large percentage of the story--including the apocalyptic ending with the sea monster--through diegesis, just telling it. A lot of what we've imagined would be very hard to show and I think it'd be better to start from the rationalistic perspective that these are just the dreams of a madman. Maybe we can get some scary scrawled drawings on a slideshow as part of the intro. Perhaps the head therapist comes in at this point and takes over the telling of the story.

As the show goes on, however, we should cast some doubt on these rationalistic narratives; the monster may actually be real.