Landscape with Skiproads/Book Burning

Two Plays

Pieter DeBuysser

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781783191758
• eBook ISBN: 9781783196746
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Landscape with Skiproads On stage, a collection of objects that have played a unique role in our history. Without exception these are the objects that were present at key moments in history. They were there when we became who we are today. When once more a stretch of our path was laid down for us, they were present in silence. With these, Pieter De Buysser, a boy and his horse are on a search for a lost future. A joyful and epic journey is taking off. Book Burning History is clogged. There are no more revolutions. What else can we add? In Book Burning, Pieter De Buysser tells the story of Sebastian, a man he met at an Occupy demonstration, whose life has become embroiled in a WikiLeaks scandal. He follows the man's search to discover the root of a genetic illness that took the life of his wife and now threatens his daughter, Tilda. She just wants to forget it all. This is a play about forgetting and forgiving, knowledge and riddles, secrets and the lack of stories. It is a captivating fable, told by a charming storyteller in the guise of Schrödinger'scat, about personal histories, globalisation and the beginnings of a new world. Book Burning testifies to the possibilities of language and the magical power of a radical imagination.

BOOK BURNING

1

This is how all theatre begins: in a dark place people come together, they take a seat and start to look for some light. At the centre of the still unlit stage stands a black trunk. Light falls like upcoming rain over the black box. Announced by light and music, the narrator appears from behind the trunk.

2

So, then you thought: finally, we can begin,

and then I appear to become a cat.

How has that come about?

I don’t understand it either.

Have you ever met a cat that knows why she is a cat?

Let’s stay reasonable.

Luckily I’m the most reasonable, even objective, scientific cat that has ever existed.

I am Schrödinger’s cat.

First I make every effort in the world to free us from obscurity, and now I appear to be standing in front of a theatre of half-lit beings.

Do not be dismayed, I also used to be a street cat, and look where I am now.

Everyone can climb into the light.

Nothing that the light cannot see.

Schrödinger was my first boss.

Leading scientist, friend of Einstein. He did the following experiment.

I was locked-up in a trunk.

In the trunk was a mechanism, about which we cannot know, whether it has released the deadly hydrocyanic acid or not.

As long as I am in the trunk,

and as long as the hydrocyanic acid and I cannot be measured or observed,

the only scientifically correct statement about me is

that I am both dead and alive, at the same time.

According to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics

that is the only correct, objective, scientific conclusion.

In the trunk, with the mechanism, unobserved,

I am dead and alive at the same time.

Outside of the trunk, in the light, being observed,

I am one of the two: alive or dead.

So here in the light, among us, the uncertainty principle is no longer in play.

We are free of it.

Here I am dead, or alive.

Dead.

He pulls his cat’s tail moustache off.

Or alive.

Puts his moustache back on.

You see: here, among us, nothing has to remain uncertain. now I am alive,

Pulls moustache off again.

and now I am dead.

Sticks moustache back on.

Now that I am here with you,

I am going to begin, dead.

Out of solidarity with life here outside,

that lays simmering so tamely and sourly in its own history,

that it is no life.

I begin, dead:

here I am.

The narrator accidentally steps into that freshly laid poo, wipes off his shoe with his fingertips, wipes off his hands on his trousers, wipes off his trousers on his sleeve, his sleeve on his other sleeve, that sleeve on his other leg, his hand on his other hand, runs his hands through his hair in despair, realises what he just did and in desperation puts his face in his hands.

So. Now I can begin.

But how do I do that: begin?

For that do I first have to forget the shit I just stood in?

Or should I just take it from there?

3

I first came across Sebastian

at the indignados and Occupy demonstration in Brussels.

I thought: a quiet Sunday afternoon stroll,

I expected some thirty participants.

There were three thousand of us.

Shift happens.

I don’t know if others noticed it,

it immediately caught my eye:

around a man in his fifties, a dozen moths fluttered.

He did not, however, look scruffy, let alone unkempt.

As he quietly joined in the march, the moths flew around his head.

They settled themselves on his collar,

tried to find a way into his jacket,

hung on his ear,

trampled across his chin.

He appeared not to be bothered at all.

I walked next to him. Silently.

Once in a while I looked sidelong at the moths with fascination,

how they scattered miniscule dark shadows across his face.

‘May I ask you something?’ I asked.

He looked at me, and immediately understood what he would be held accountable for.

‘I know,’ he said, ‘They bother you?’

‘Me? No, but you?’

At that moment I saw how a moth went to sit on his lip.

He swatted it away. ‘I get used to it,’ he said.

‘Why do they come to you, and not to me, or anyone else?’

‘They’ve followed me for years,’ he said.

I didn’t want to be indiscreet, and dared not ask anything further.

We continued walking, in silence, side by side.

All of a sudden, he asked generously:

‘And don’t you want to know?’

I laughed. ‘Yes, of course,’ I said, ‘but I respect your privacy.’

‘I don’t have any secrets,’ he said, beaming. ‘Do you feel like a coffee?’

I was naturally curious,

and happy that he wanted to take me into his trust.

We took a seat in the café.

He opened his jacket.

Hundreds of moths fluttered upwards.

And then I saw through his shirt that his torso emitted light.

From below his navel to his neck:

a bright, soft light,

an undeniable power, like that from a nightlight in a children’s room.

The buttons on his shirt stood a little open,

his chest shone.

Some thirty moths clung fast to his collar,

some of them were rocking on tufts of chest hair,

others shamelessly wormed their way inside.

‘You emit light,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said.

I was silent.

He saw me looking quizzically.

He laughed extremely amiably and said:

‘I would also like to know why that is’.

‘You don’t even know why…’

‘I have ideas about it,’ he said.

‘Have y...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• The Specific Weight of Things
• Landscape with skiproads
• Book Burning