The Feyborne - A Tragedy and HorrorA Stage Play by Nathan Cavaliere The script was written as a radio play rather than a stage play or screen play, and thusly follows unconventional formatting. The Feyborne, By Nathan Cavaliere Literary Trailer The following is a play written under the conventions of the genres of classical tragedy, supernatural horror, and magical realism. It centres around the story of two brothers who while preparing the inherited estate of their recently dead father discover that they are linked to an otherworldly spirit realm. This script was written under the assumption that the play would be a radio drama rather than a physically acted out play. This play would be appropriate for most audiences, but deals with philosophical thoughts and intense emotional states (like loneliness, abandonment, and helplessness) that may be too intense for some parents to want their kids to be exposed to. There is some limited use of common curse words, but no mention of violence, sexual activity, or drug use. The setting and time period is intentionally left ambiguous to the audience, but the production team should be aware that it was intended to be written in modern day Ireland, and the dialogue is written to match this voice. It is possible to apply it in other settings, but dialogue would likely need to be slightly reworked to suit this.
Dramatis Personae
Aaron O’Farrelly
Jacob O’Farrelly
Chorus of Spirits
Narrator
Scene I: O’Farley Estate NARRATOR Set scene before a Romanesque mansion bordering a back country road and an Autumn forest. Although there is a thin mist about, dusk light is still able to shine faintly through. Aaron O’Farley knocks on the door to the mansion, and after a pause, Jacob O’Farley opens the door. AARON O’FARLEY Jacob, by Christ, you look like you have been through Hell. You need to take more care of yourself. I can tell just by looking at you that you haven’t eaten, slept, or bathed enough. JACOB O’FARLEY I have been busy going through Dad’s stuff. Aaron, where have you been? I didn’t even see you at Dad’s funeral. That was over a week ago, you should have come to help me organize the estate days ago. AARON I couldn’t just pick up everything and leave. Unlike you, some of us have jobs and family by the time we are 40 years old. What are you in such a rush for you anyway? It’s not like any of Dad’s stuff is going to walk away while you aren’t looking. JACOB Actually, Aaron, I am afraid that his artwork may very well vanish if we don’t act urgently. AARON What are you going on about? JACOB Here, come with me, it’s best that you see the evidence for yourself. AARON Hey, hold up, stop rushing away so fast! I get to the house of my twin brother and the second I open the door he rushes off to go sifting through the house. Sit down, take a cup of tea, and talk about something other than this miserable place for a minute. I haven’t seen you in person for over 20 years, must the only thing we be focused on upon meeting again is this damnable hole? JACOB Why do you stand here cursing this place? This is where all of our good childhood memories are. AARON Slow down, I don’t want to chase after you like this. What good childhood memories are you talking about? We lived in the most desolate corner of the Earth where the only interaction we had with the outside world was the other kids shying away from us because they thought our house was haunted. And to top it all off the only other person me and you had to talk to was our father who was so cowardly that he couldn’t even say half a word per day to his own sons! JACOB You know it wasn’t his fault why he was like that. Ever since he was just a lad there was something troubling him. He was trying to communicate with us all the time, he just had problems doing it is all. If you would have just tried a little harder to understand what he was saying then you would have known what he was telling you. AARON I said quit jogging away, slow down! Well, maybe I didn’t want to know what he was trying to tell me. If I did, then maybe when I turned 16 I would have been inspired to go galumphing naked through the woods for weeks as well, just like him. I swear to you… JACOB *Interrupts* Here we are. This is what I wanted to show you. AARON Oh, fine. Let’s go back to focusing on what you find important. Go on. JACOB So, for the past few days I have been looking through some of Dad’s old papers and came across something really peculiar, you see. AARON *Interrupts*. Now hold on! You have been preparing the estate for nearly a week now and all you have done is look through papers! You should have been going through the stuff that requires heavy lifting that I could help you with. Now, just because you didn’t decide what things are going to the estate sale ahead of time I am going to have to spend twice as much time as I wanted away from my family to stay in this haunted place while you sort through it. JACOB We aren’t having an estate sale, Aaron. I was going to turn the mansion into a museum. There is certainly enough amazing architecture and sculptures here to make it a site for culture. AARON Are you serious? We are standing on a trove of artwork so valuable that it could make the both of us live like kings, and you want to turn it into a glorified nick-nack shop so that two Goths per year can gawk at it. JACOB I don’t care about the money! If I sell Dad’s artwork, then I will not be able to be with it anymore. But if I make it into a museum and hold ownership of it, then I can live in it as well and be with this beautiful art every day. I will not sell them. AARON Why do you care so much about all this s**t? JACOB Because this artwork is the only thing I have left! Almost all of this art was made together by me and Dad. He didn’t need to speak much to communicate with me, because when we were making art together I understood exactly what his thoughts were. Those were the happiest moments of my life, and they are never coming back to me. You just don’t accept that because you haven’t ever in the slightest tried to understand me. Instead you would much rather insult and ridicule me instead of treating me like a brother. (*Jacob starts crying*) Do you think I like not having a job or wife like you? Do you think this is what I wanted in life? I tried, Aaron, I really did, but it all ended up failing. I have thought so long and hard about why it went so badly but I just can’t ever find out why. Why did you get to have a good job, a cushy house, and a loving family while I am so incompetent that when I am 40 I am still living with my dad? I tried so hard to live by my own, Aaron, but I just can’t. I don’t know why I can’t, I just know that I can’t. I went to try to forge my own path, but it all fell apart. I am no good at art unless Dad is there helping me. Everyone just seemed to hate me for trying to create my own life. I don’t know why they did, it’s not like I ever hurt anyone. The only person who was there for me was Dad. But Dad’s dead now, and all that I have left of him is the artwork. I can’t move on. What is in the house contains the only memories I have of when I actually felt like I belonged. I want more than anything in the world to be able to make it on my own and not be a disappointment to you, but I just can’t. AARON Jacob… I never knew. Why didn’t you tell me you felt this way? I never saw you as a disappointment. I was only so aggressive with you because I thought you didn’t like me. I shouldn’t have ever mistaken your bluntness for hatred, that is all my fault. I do care about you, Jacob. Please, come here. It’s been too long since we have hugged. Jacob, these thoughts of inferiority are all in your head. You absolutely can make your own life. Just look at what you have created in this house here. This art is remarkable! If you just show people all the wonderful things you have made here then you will surely find some like-minded people who want to be with you. NARRATOR They sit in silence until Jacob stops crying. JACOB Your suggestion to me does have to do with what I wanted to show you. This art may not be around long enough for me to actually show it to other people. Take a look at some of these. AARON What’s there to look at, they’re just the contracts of payment for some of his work… wait a second. He’s not selling these for money. He’s.. trading his art for other art? He offered to make wooden statues for people and in return they would send labourers to help him build the more immense architectural parts of the mansion. And some of his smaller ornaments he is trading for food and clothing. That’s not how a modern economy works. JACOB That explains why we didn’t get any money in the inheritance. We both made the mistake of assuming that he was rich just because his house was so fancy. Turns out that he didn’t have a single dollar. AARON But, why would these people accept the trades? If these pictures in the documents are right, then all of the statues he is trading are ones that are still on site. Why would someone pay dad to just make the statues but show no interest in actually getting to use them? JACOB I am afraid that these merchants are using the statues, in a way. Read further. AARON … What the hell? It says in these contracts that when “the stars align” these statues will be used as vessels for the souls of the people he is trading with so that they can access this world?... Who are the names of these people he is making deals with? JACOB It took me a while to read the names as well. The language they are written in isn’t English, it is Pictish. An obscure language from Ireland that went extinct at about 1100 AD. If you are to believe the historical, record then no is supposed to be able to decipher it. Dad has been teaching me to read it for a while now, but I always thought it was just some form of Irish Gaelic. It isn’t until after he died that I did the research and found out what it really was. AARON This can’t be true. He must have been doing this as some kind of creative exercise. Perhaps he thought that it would seem more “artistic” if he was trading with faeries or the like. You know how theatrical and lonely people like him can get. And he probably just pretended to know the language to keep up that false pretense of occultism. Dad was always a weird one, and I wouldn’t put this past him. JACOB I don’t know Aaron. Everyone around the local towns seems awfully convinced that this place was haunted... Maybe there is something to it. AARON Jacob, it’s been a rough day for you, and I think it’s messing with your thoughts. Maybe you should go to bed early tonight. Hopefully you will feel better in the morning. JACOB No, you are right, I am tired. And it’s not too late for sleep. Goodnight Aaron. Scene II: O’Farley Estate at Night NARRATOR Set scene on the interior of a Romanesque mansion at midnight. Aaron wakes up when he hears indistinct murmuring in the distance involving Jacob and another voice that is deep but feminine. Aaron speedwalks to the source and finds Jacob in the hallway, awake. AARON I could have sworn I heard someone else. Jacob, who were you talking to? JACOB I was speaking to Mom Aaron. The one who gave birth to us. AARON What you heard was an illusion. Mom is gone. I don’t know whether she willingly left us behind, or died, or went to an asylum, or whatever, but if she hasn’t even shown her face once since we were old enough to remember then she wouldn’t be here tonight. JACOB That is where you are wrong. Our mother was always trying to speak to us, you just didn’t know what to look for. With every gust of wind… every beam of sunlight… every drop of rain. At each and every moment She was trying to reach out to us. She was always there, and will always be there. She has been conversing with us every moment since we were alive… and perhaps even before we were alive. AARON How could you possibly believe that Jacob? JACOB Deep down, I always knew that Mom was watching. I just shrugged the idea away because I was too close-minded and ignorant. You have felt it as well but ignored it. AARON Do you have any idea how insane that sounds? JACOB Just because it is madness doesn’t mean that it isn’t the truth. I see now that words will not convince you… instead, you must see for yourself. Here, come with me. I will show you. AARON Jacob, no, please don’t go running off again! NARRATOR Jacob speedwalks out of the mansion and into the courtyard, with Aaron following after him. They both stop once they are in the middle of the courtyard. JACOB Take a look at this pond. AARON Look, I know it is weird that Dad would keep a pond around that he never filled, but that doesn’t testify to anything other than his ironic sense of humour. JACOB The pond is not empty. It was before, but tonight it holds the Gateway. You can’t see it because you don’t know how, but I recognize it in all its primal beauty. Follow me into it, and you shall see for yourself. NARRATOR Jacob walks into the empty pond, the air within it rippling as if it were water. He gradually starts to disappear from the bottom-up until he completely vanishes in the pool’s invisible depths. AARON Jacob! Where the hell did you go! I can’t believe I am doing this. I am coming in after you. Scene III: The Otherworld NARRATOR Set scene in a swampy pond in a dark jungle glade. It is faintly lit by masses of eerie fungi. In the centre of the glade is a rotten but immense plum tree. CHORUS OF SPIRITS Welcome to the Gloaming Jungle, Where time exists only while jumbled, And where space can only struggle. Welcome to the place Beyond the Veil, Parallel to Earth but tells a different tale, Far beyond your worldly Gales. Welcome to the Realm of Waking Dreams, Where nothing is quite what it seems, But through fungal light the truth beams! Welcome to the Black Woods, Where the fairies take their unholy tours, And to all mortals it lures! Welcome to the spirit world Where reality is madly whirled, And where sanity is unfurled! Welcome to Tir Na Nog, The place beneath the moon-bogs, And serenaded by the sound of strange frogs! Welcome to the Black Goat’s domain, Where the Mother of Monsters reigns, And where the Ancient Ones will rise again! *play sound effect of eerie Horn blowing in the distance* JACOB Huzzah! Humanity has finally found it again. Behold, Aaron: The Garden of Eden! AARON This is no Garden of Eden! That was a place of beauty, this is a place of nightmares that smells of rot. Do you truly believe that the Garden was inhabited by things that are neither altogether man, nor goat, nor butterfly, nor frog, but an unholy amalgamation of the features of them all! *Horn sounds off again* CHORUS OF SPIRITS Hail to the travellers, for they are those spawned from blackest night!
You have come far and have waited long, voyagers. Now is the time to rise to your destinies and become who you were always meant to be. Behold, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: feast upon the flesh of its fruit. Then, ye shall remember what ye once were. *Horn sounds off again* JACOB Do you see it now Aaron! This is why I could never belong in worldly society. Because I wasn’t completely human to begin with. I wasn’t meant to be on Earth, I was meant to be here, in the Garden of Eden. This is where I truly belong: tasting of the sweet fruit of Eden! AARON Jacob, don’t you remember what happened last time someone ate from the Tree! It led to the damnation of humanity. If it is eaten from again, the cataclysm that will result will be unprecedented in its devastation. Don’t eat the fruit! JACOB What happened when the fruit was eaten was not a disaster, but a blessing. A blessing of knowledge and growth. The struggle is what made humanity have hopes and dreams, and my struggle is what gave me my hopes and dreams. This will only be a second blessing. *Horn sounds off* AARON Jacob, no, stop eating the fruit! Damn it, Fine then. I don’t care about the fruit anymore, eat it if you must, but we must go now. That horn is getting closer to us each time, and when whatever is blowing it comes we will surely suffer. We must leave now. JACOB When the wielder of that horn comes it will not be a disaster, it will be a rapture. For that which blows the horn is our mother, the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young! *Horn sounds off* AARON If I can’t save you, I will save myself. I am leaving, whether you come with me or not. JACOB In the long run, it doesn’t matter. You are a child of that Which Lurks in the Darkness just the same as I am. One day you will return to the Garden. You cannot escape your fate, Aaron, nobody can. I have eaten the fruit so I know. We are all children of the Mother of Monsters. When the stars come right, all of humanity will return here, where they are destined to be. On that fateful day when the celestial bodies match their pattern, the faeries will return to the world we once stained and make it pure. All of the world shall be Eden. Not just here. Just because you run from the Garden doesn’t mean that it will not follow after you. One day, the world that you see here and the world that you used to know will be one. And then, my dear brother, we will be together. We will all be together. All of humanity. Here. In Eden. * Horn sounds off. Now it is accompanied by a vicious piping noise* CHORUS OF SPIRITS The Crawling Chaos has now come to herald the arrival of the Lord of the Black Woods! NARRATOR The fungi start to pulsate and writhe as they open up their eyes and mouths, slowly coming alive. AARON I am sorry, Jacob. I didn’t want to have to leave you behind. But this must be done. NARRATOR Aaron dives into the depths of the pond where he enters this plane from and vanishes in its dark depths, leaving the Otherworld and returning back to Earth. When Aaron is back in the O’Farley estate, he turns around to look at the pond where he came from, and notice that a tree is growing there. A black and withered plum tree. NARRATOR Exeunt Omnes. Blackout. *Horn sounds off one last time after the curtains fall* NARRATOR End of the Feyborne. © 2020 Nathan CavaliereReviews
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1 Review  Last Updated on August 27, 2020 Tags: Gothic, Tragedy, Lovecraft, Radio Play Author
Nathan CavaliereAnnapolis, MDAboutI plan to uphold the Gothic tradition by writing various occult horror stories in the classic style. Although I am actually a young adult I have read extensively into literature from the industrial er.. more..Writing
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