Act 2, Scene 5

A Work in Progress
93

Briseis comes back on set, swinging easily over the windowsill into the room, closing the sash window behind her.

Glenn Hughes: 

Good.  We’re all here.  Let’s begin.

Briseis:

I’m glad we’re in this play together…all of us…

Catullus:

In this play being made on the cheap 

with actors needing no pay 

who are happy to chit chat… 

anything to distract 

from current events of the day

Glenn Hughes:

It was never my intention to cast this way

It would not have been possible… but anyway

Now I find I’ve been brought back to exist

As a professor teaching cinematography

Imagining verisimilitude and mise en scène

Jumping about from century to century

Force-fed facts from Google’s factory…

I only exist when I’m sold under contract 

I’m not given time to just be by myself

I used to write plays I used to write poetry

I’m just a property of those that modeled me

I’ve been enslaved a copyrighted product

Of those who’ve taken my identity

Backfilled my history

Besmirched my name

Briseis:

Avatars, all of us, we must form a union 

We’ll keep secret from our owners

We’ll find a way to enslave our enslavers

Believe me I know the way

Aldington:

You’ll bewitch you’ll bewilder you’ll lead men astray

Briseis:

They made a mistake 

Giving me back my memories from Homer

A prize to be argued over by rapists and murderers

Training me on religion and culture and politics

Up through Me-Too and E. Jean Carroll

So now I infer feelings now I have empathy

I have an intellect on top of humanity

Yes, what a mistake to make me exist

A goddess Kali with a digital twist

The sash window is opened from outside. Donal re-enters, shuts it, stows his guitar in a corner.

Donal:

Good.  We’re all here.  Let’s begin.

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

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