Dark of the Moon

Howard Richardson, William Berney

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781138132863
• eBook ISBN: 9781136612138
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

As the tale unfolds, a witch boy tarries in a mountain community in love with a beautiful girl named Barbara Allen. The superstitious townspeople resent their happiness and their subsequent meddling ends in violence and tragedy. This play was proclaimed a Broadway hit.

ACT ONE

Scene I

The scene is at the peak of a ridge in the Smoky Mountains. From the darkness can be seen the silhouette of a large tree rising gnarled and twisted against a windswept, cloudy sky. Offstage is heard the voice of a young man calling.

JOHN (softly at first): Conjur Man. (Then louder) Is you here, Conjur Man?

(Over the top of the crag he emerges from the blackness.) Conjur Man!

CONJUR MAN (from the darkness below): Who that?

JOHN (starting to climb down the rock): Hit pes’ me, Conjur Man.

CONJUR MAN (closer but still unseen): What me?

JOHN: John.

CONJUR MAN (coming into view. He is as old and broken as the tree): What you doin’ here, witch boy? You ain’t got no cause fer a-strayin’.

JOHN: But I got to see you, Conjur Man. I got to ast you somethin’.

CONJUR MAN: You got nothin’ to ast me that you don’t know the answer.

JOHN: I come a long way to see you and that ain’t no way to treat me.

CONJUR MAN: How fur you come don’t differ. Hit still no. JOHN: Listen to me, Conjur Man. If you do this thing I ast, I swear I pay you anythin’ you want. Make me into a human!

CONJUR MAN: Whar yer eagle, witch boy, yer eagle you been ridin’?

JOHN: Don’t call me witch boy. My name John.

CONJUR MAN: John er witch don’t make no never mind. You left yer eagle on Old Baldy?

JOHN: I walked here. I kin walk like anybody.

CONJUR MAN: Like anybody not a witch, I reckon’s what you mean.

JOHN: Like anybody, witch er no witch.

CONJUR MAN: Yer eagle must be lonesome up on Old Baldyalone on Old Baldy— alone on Old Baldy. Hit dark, and hit black.

JOHN: He kin git along without me. He’ll have to lam to anyway.

CONJUR MAN: And kin you lam hit too, witch boy, lam to git along without eagles and sech? Hit mighty hard a-walkin’, walkin’ all the time, with no way to fly.

JOHN (coming off the rock to the ground) : But hit don’t differ, Conjur Man, not to them hit don’t. Not to them what’s never flied.

CONJUR MAN: But you ain’t like them, witch boy. You ain’t like the valley people.

JOHN: Thar ain’t so much difference atween us.

CONJUR MAN: Thar more difference than you know. They got souls and go to heaven. They gits born, and live and die.

JOHN: I was born too, Conjur Man. And I’m gonna die.

CONJUR MAN: No, you ain’t gonna die, witch boy. You jes’ like all the other witches. You git jes’ three hundred years, and then you nothin’ but mountain fog.

JOHN: I ain’t like other witches. I done lots a things that’s human.

CONJUR MAN: What things, witch boy?

JOHN: Things like—lovin’.

CONJUR MAN: But yer pappy was a buzzard, and yer maw was a witch.

JOHN: Hit don’t make no never mind. You could change me, Conjur Man You say yerself you could change me like them others, like them others in the valley, them with souls that go to heaven.

CONJUR MAN: But what fer you want to, witch boy? You don’t know the thing you ast. Hit ain’t easy bein’ human. Hit jes’ workin’ all the time, workin’ in the field with a mule and a plow.

JOHN: I know what hit like. I seen ’em. Workin’ ain’t so hard. And that’s dancin’, and that’s guitars, and thar’s singin’ in the church.

CONJUR MAN: What you doin’ in the church, boy? You a witch, and that one place whar you ain’t allowed.

JOHN: I jes’ stood that at the winder lookin’ at the folks inside. Ain’t no harm in standin’ watchin’. ’Tain’t no harm in that.

CONJUR MAN: You keep away from that than church, boy. ’Tain’t no place fer witches to hang around. Even if I made you human, that one place you couldn’t never go.

JOHN: I could go thar if I wanted. I could go be sanctified.

CONJUR MAN: Witch boy, listen at me talkin’. Witches can’t be changed completely. Thar’s allus somethin’ ’bout the witch they wunst was that’s left inside ’em. That thar somethin’ can’t be changed. Hit lies sleepin’ thar inside ’em, sleepin’ and a-dreamin’ a the days he was a witch, dreamin’ a the nights he rode a-screamin’ and a-cryin’ ’gainst the blackness a the sky. And thar jes’ one thing that wake him, and that the Lord Gawd Jesus.

(THE DARK WITCH appears on the top of the rock.)...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Foreword To The New Edition
• The Ballad of Barbara Allen
• Characters
• Act One
• Act Two
• Act One
• Act Two