The Great Thief

The Great Thief by Kenneth Lapointe (registered copyright)

A one-act dramatic play by Kenneth Lapointe

Storyline

A metaphorical play based on the shared experience common to all human beings regarding the 'entity' known as Time.

The main character is a woman, middle-aged, (Note: could be a man, makes no difference), representing any Human Being, who delivers a continuous monologue throughout the entire play consisting of her thoughts, ideas, feelings, emotions about various events, effects, worries, problems, interplay, etc. regarding Time throughout her life, which would be common to most of Humanity.

Ending: The apparently all-powerful Time entity is eventually subordinated at the end of the play by the fact that human beings CAN hold and keep some things inviolate from Time, so that we do triumph to some degree in the end.

Cast of Characters

The Woman- an unnamed woman, at least middle-aged

The Time Caller: an anonymous person who plays the metaphorical part of 'the Time Caller', who simply walks out occasionally from the back of the stage during the play, per script cue, and stands directly in front of the audience, and in front of the Woman (thus between the Woman and the audience, standing in the way, blocking her view and their view as ignorantly as possible) to yell out a single random time (metaphorically representing the endless passage of Time throughout any person's life). The Time Caller intrudes into the Woman's monologue.

Random people: About 10 random extras, including stagehands, who enter and exit the stage per script

Location: Simply a set consisting of any generic room with many generic objects in it, such as table, chairs, and any other random objects of any kind whatsoever, even non-relatable to a generic room (ex. a pair of skates, boxes, trophy, any object)

A woman stands in center forefront of the stage.

Per script cue the person designated as 'the Time Caller', will come out periodically onto the stage, and will stand directly in front of the Woman, between her and the audience, facing the audience, ignoring the Woman, and announce very loudly to the audience a random time, and then exits.

The curtain opens to the woman standing on the stage in front of the audience, in a set described above...

Act 1, Scene 1

The Time Caller now enters the stage, stands directly in front of the Woman, facing the audience and yells:

Time Caller..."The time is now 9:17 am!"

The woman looks at him quizzically---but simply ignores him and shrugs.

The Time Caller exits.

The Woman now begins her monologue....

Woman..."Are you serious???... (looking at her phone), it's that time already? I'm going to be late! Jeez! Late! How could this happen?"

Pauses.

"Oh wait a minute, no...actually I've got lots of time. Who cares anyway. It can wait".

Pauses.

"I can wait."

Pauses.

"I remember when I had to wait 13 hrs. in the emergency room one time. Idiots. Can you believe it. Too bad about Bob passing away. We were together for quite a while. But what are you gonna do? That's life. The world goes on. What do you want me to do about it. Cry? That doesn't bring him back. I can go to bed and sleep for a month, and when I wake up he's still gone. Doesn't matter where I go, or what I do, he's never there. Never. Ever. It's like a nightmare you can never wake up from."