DEATH & ECSTASY Dav i D Sparenberg DEATH & ECSTASY DEATH & ECSTASY A Noir-Drama written for performance in the tradition of German Expressionist Theatre and Cabaret Voltaire David Sparenberg An Ovi Magazine Books Publication 2026 Ovi Project Publication - All material is copyright of the Ovi magazine & the writer C Ovi books are available in Ovi magazine pages and they are for free. If somebody tries to sell you an Ovi book please contact us immediately. For details, contact: ovimagazine@yahoo.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, printed or digital, altered or selectively extracted by any means (electronic, mechanical, print, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author or the publisher of this book. DEATH & ECSTASY David Sparenberg DEATH & ECSTASY A Noir-Drama written for performance in the tradition of German Expressionist Theatre and Cabaret Voltaire David Sparenberg An Ovi Magazine Books Publication 2026 Ovi Project Publication - All material is copyright of the Ovi magazine & the writer C DEATH & ECSTASY PLAYERS Herr Direktor – an intellectual and Bohemian romantic The Illustrious Mr. Mountebank-Certified , Predator of the Doomsday Clock, Commander-in- Chief of Tic Tok – a cabaret Impresario and carnival barker with narcissistic delusions of grandeur; frequently uses the Royal We in place of I. The Heretic – a Heroic Woman of Color, an Earth Warrior, Visionary of Noble Causes. The Citizen - Somnambulant (a Sleepwalker), the Everyman of Contemporary Consumer Society. The Fool – made up to resemble Stan Laurel (from the Laurel & Hardy comedy team). The Catatonic – a mime in black trousers with naked torso, head, face whitened with flour like a Butoh dancer. In Episode 7 the Catatonic plays an Invalid- Mime. David Sparenberg Death – a dancer with a voice, her face painted in patriotic colors, eyes with a hypnotic gaze.. Death has good legs, which she displays when she dances. She wears a long sleeve black turtleneck, a short black ruffle skirt and white fishnet stockings. The Minor Chorus , called also the Ecstatic Trio – 3 Uber-Marionettes, named Lula Figtree, Moe the Turnip, Curley Carrott Top. The Major Chorus – when players are not in an episodically assigned speaking part, they participate in the Major Chorus. Thematic phrases (Keys) and short, truncated lines and outbursts belong to the Major Chorus, often to be spoken individually at various tempos and levels of emotional vibrancy. Periodically Chorus members speak in unison as a genuine chorus. DEATH & ECSTASY Dialogues: Dialogues are seldomly dialogic, as in traditional theatre. They are not often player-to- player but regularly spoken directly to or focused out beyond the audience. There are, however, dialogue exception. Abstract speech makes a disassociate and disconcerting impact. Three dots appear frequently suggesting potential pauses, long pauses with intervals of silence amid seemingly random, broken lines. This employment of punctuation (allowing for silence as no-action, gesture or posing—a flash snapshot to make what is hidden and invisible momentarily visibly revealed) was a standard practice used by Expressionist dramatists.. The technique adds a performance tension. * * * * * Note to cast: As you know, timing is essential to drama and comedy alike. Be precise with sudden stops, repetitions, suspended silences. Feel the energy of retention, withdrawing from outward flow. David Sparenberg An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer David Sparenberg C DEATH & ECSTASY STAGE SET Atmosphere and Props The upstage backdrop consist of three hanging banners. The one in the center is largest, painted with an oversized black clockface encircled by a thick red rim with scattered bloodlike splatters. The clockface is solid black showing only the 12 at the top in bold white numbers. There is a single clock hand set at 1 minute before midnight. The single hand also is white. To the left of the central banner hangs another not as large. On the stage left banner is pained the billowing black mushroom cloud of the Atomic bomb exploded over Nagasaki. Above the cloud are written the words from Dante’s Inferno: Abandon All Hope You Who Enter Here. Stage right of the central banner hangs a third, the same size as the banner to the left. On the stage right banner is painted a series of industrial towers, pumping billowing black clouds of polluting David Sparenberg smoke. Above the smoke in bold square letters are the words (motto of the Lie of Civilization): Work Makes You Free. These are the same words which were cast in iron over the gate at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. A line of 6 black wooden chairs are placed before the banners. Chairs 1, 3, 5 are raised on boxes or platforms, elevated a foot or higher than chairs 2, 4, 6. Chair 6 remains unoccupied until the end of Episode 5. Behind the unraised black chairs of the first row are three white chairs on boxes or platforms. The white chairs of the second row are directly behind the even numbered chairs before them – chairs 2, 4, and 6. In the front row, chair 1 is to be occupied by The Citizen, chair 2 by Death, chair 3 comes to be occupied by the Illustrious Mr. Mountebank, in chair 4 sits the Heretic, in chair 5 is seated The Fool. The raised white chairs in the back row are for the Ecstatic Trio, also identified as the Minor Chorus of Uber-marionettes. In the first back row chair sits Moe the Turnip. In the second back row chair is Lula Figtree. The third white chair is for Curley (until her Episode 5 seat switch ). DEATH & ECSTASY Note to Cast: Spontaneously, at intervals, cast members may use their chairs as places of concealment. Drawing into themselves, as if in a tight spot, a crevice or hole to hide in. There are three other chairs in a small circle facing inward. There are at an upstage remove.. Three musicians occupy these interfacing chairs. On the stage around the chairs are placed a variety of musical instruments. Instruments can include a saxophone, a clarinet, a trumpet and snare drum with both sticks and brushes, Bodhran or other handheld Celtic/shamanic type drum, a wooden flute, tambourine, cymbals, bells, and whistles, plus an old time (pre-battery powered) megaphone. The overall appearance of the stage is austere and angular, displaying patterns of black and white. Note to Cast: There are frequent and extensive stage directions throughout. Spoken parts are interwoven with various types of nonverbal performance which include pauses and long silences of different intensities, gestures and gesture cycles, pantomime, music, dance and tableaux. Tableaux are designated as either Tableaux Grotesque or Tableaux Sublime. David Sparenberg Musicians are the first to enter the performance space. They seat themselves and begin tuning up and sounding various instruments. DEATH & ECSTASY Scene One Episode One: A Teach-in with Herr Direktor The Herr Direktor (a nervous, intellectual and Bohemian Romantic type in a retro suit, sneakers, and wire rimmed glasses, enters to downstage center) : German Expressionist Theatre developed during a time of crisis, of intensifying extremity. A time of pandemic, of war, economic instability, political chaos and ideological conflict, periodically resulting in street violence and death. The movement was nurtured by small groups of artists who thought of themselves as revolutionaries. both of culture and society. The goal of their work was to introduce a condition which they called The New Man – a human type freed from the limitations of lifeless, death administering traditions, political betrayals and increasing insecurity of public dysfunction and despair. . David Sparenberg So much has happened in the theatre since the heyday of German Expressionism—there has been Artaud and Brecht, Samuel Beckett and Grotowski, the Living Theatre—and in history: the rise of Fascism, Communistic Totalitarianism, a traumatic Second World War, and now on the brink of World War Three and catastrophic climate change: Earth Crisis is evident as Human Crisis. The pressure is felt. To keep tonight’s offering vital and current, we have replaced the Expressionist concept of the New Man with the urgent contemporary challenge articulated by eco-theologian, Thomas Berry. In The Great Work, Father Berry wrote... Wait The Direktor takes a piece of folded paper from his jacket pocket, ceremoniously unfolds and reads from it the quotation : “We might describe the challenge before us by the following sentence. The historical mission of our times is to reinvent the human—at the species level, with critical reflections, within the community of life- systems, in time developmental context, by means of story and shared dream experience.” After a lengthy silence The Herr Direktor ceremoniously refolds the paper, places it back into his pocket, adjusts his glasses and resumes his discourse. DEATH & ECSTASY Herr Director: In its heyday Expressionist Theatre had three major acting styles: Schrie, meaning steep and ecstatic, Giest, focused on the spirit of the time and the world, the Anima Mundi and collective unconscious, and Ich, the I or ego of a powerful will applied to transcending boundary taboos and awakening the revolutionary soul from somnambulance, surmounting the tragic flaw of fallen humanity. Theirs was a theatre of intentional message. We have retained purposefulness concordant with the playwright’s intention and also drawn from each of the early styles to create a Neo-Expressionist fusion, admixed with touches of Cabaret Voltaire, a counterculture entertainment imported from Zurich and popular on the left in the early years of the Nazi subversion. By the way, for what it is worth politically, the Nazis detested Expressionism as a deviant Bolshevik invention. Expressionist drama tended to be episodic, drawing inspiration from both Greek theater and the liturgical plays of Medieval Europe. Eventually delving into Shakespeare, for the playing out of oppositional energies through paradoxical articulations of sublime language. David Sparenberg Scenes are episodes and episodes are self-contained and loosely conjoined through concept-themes, symbolism, language repetition and antithetical tensions. Episodes may be antithetically sequenced, creating contrasting moods and atmospheres. Long silences are commonly shared, as are the use of tableaux for their imagistic, emotional conveyance. Texts were characteristically made up of both prose and poetry, frequently in abrupt transitions. Then too, socio-political cabaret entertainment provided elements of dance, burlesque or nonsensical comedy, along with live music. These latter features we have retained and you will encounter them in this evening’s offering. But enough said. Let us see now how the experiment has turned out. Put aside your social masks. Undue your seatbelts, remove psyche armor. Immerse yourselves in a perilous adventure conscious of this dangerous time we are all together thrown and initiated into. Ceremoniously bows and goes to sit among the audience in a front row chair marked “Reserved for The Herr Direktor.” Stage lights down to momentary darkness, then slowly back up. End of Scene One, Episode One DEATH & ECSTASY Scene Two Episode Two: First Series of Thematic Keys, Major Chorus, Mountebank & the Parable of the Puzzle, Nobodaddy & the Irrational Temperament of an Egg Man The cast, except for Mountebank and The Catatonic, enter slowly , with stylistic, surreal, and sometimes mechanical movements. There are starts and stops to the entrance process, faces turning with clocklike, expressionless unison toward the audience before proceeding further. Slow, solemn mood music of flute and drum accompany the entrance. First Round of Thematic Keys: Major Chorus (individually or in unison each standing before their assigned chair) : Four and a half billion years of Earth evolution. The Doomsday Clock is the crucible of suffering. We live precariously... We live precariously on the cusp of midnight... Four and a half billion years of Earth evolution. Up against the Event Horizon. Up against the catastrophic wall... Hypnotically entranced by the Death Wish.... DEATH WISH! Civilization of Our Lie Against Creation. (a harsh, hissing whisper) Death Wish....A nano blip in the hiccup of oblivion.... Four... Four and a half billion ... David Sparenberg Mood swing and atmosphere change. Minor Chorus/Ecstatic Trio rotating individually, at various frequences; attentive to timing: Where is he? Is he coming tonight or not?... He is. He always slows up.... An opportunist! He always shows up late.... He brings us tidings. He gives us bricks from the Tower of Babel. He keeps us entertained. We laugh.... He distracts us. He lowers the cost of antidepressants. Saves us from one another, from ourselves. Our populous shepherd. The Illustrious Mr. Mountebank, Predator of the Clock... Commander-in-Chief of tic tok, tic tok...Certified. A carney blowhole. A worm eaten windbag. A Narcissist A blowhard. He keeps us entertained. Bombs us with the truth- turds of alternative facts.. We cower ‘neath his power. Find safety in the shadow of his chaos... We laugh. We laugh. We do. (unison) WE LAUGH!... (forced laughter, verging on hysterical nausea) Look. I see him. He is enroute. About to be seen. Almost here. DEATH & ECSTASY Cast members entranced in intensities of surreal ecstasy. Clown horn honks twice off stage. Musicians play a drum roll, followed by a blaring Mariachi trumpet. Long silent pause of heightened anticipation. Enter the Illustrious Mr. Mountebank-Certified. He is pretentious, dressed in a worn out, too small, black tux with a gaudy checkered vest and a clown’s enormous red bowtie. Around Mountebank’s neck is a large faced alarm clock hanging from a heavy golden chain. The unmoving hands of the clock are set at one minute before midnight. Along with the clock on the chain is an oversized golden key, which will periodically be fondled either religiously or erotically. Around his waist the Impresario has a clown horn which he uses to express self-important, personal excitation, agitation and wrath. Mountebank comes on scowling, turns his head and self- consciously grins toward the audience as he alternately pumps his fist and points as if AT one person then another. Mountebank : We are here. Ecstatic: You are late. Mountebank: (pouts then scowls threateningly at the Minor Chorus) David Sparenberg Ingratitude! Ungrateful and rude. (viciously scoldin g) You are not an alpha race. Why are you allowed to be here? Major Chorus : Do you have a Truth update for us, sir? Mountebank: I have a beautiful prose of poetry for my loyal fans. Chorus: What are the good tiding you bring tonight, sir? Mountebank: Here’s the deal. We call this narrative, which I expound for the first time anywhere, The Parable of the Puzzle, by yours truly Mountebank- Certified, Predator, Impresario, Commander-in-Chief of Tic Tok. Chorus: What! That compost mystification again? Why not call it the Debacle of Democracy? Mountebank: (angrily) Ingratitude!. Rude ingratitude! Grins once more at the audience pumping his fist before emphatically honking his horn and lip syncing the title The PARABLE of the PUZZLE.