QLC presents a Discussion play inspired by William Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, "Let Me not to the Marriage of True Minds." The Sonnet celebrates the ideal nature of true love. But what does love mean to Us-the Google generation who simply "click" and "touch" their way through life.
Is it really possible to love someone without "altering" one's affection?
Isn't Love all about uncertainty and confusion?
What is self-Love?
This little play talks about it all.
Hope you like it!
ACT I Scene I
Juveria, Srinidhi and Hari priya, students of R.B.V.R.R Women's college just completed their English Class. They walk towards the canteen and begin to discuss over Love and other ideas
J: What is love?
H: Looks like the lesson got to you.
S: Well, she’s not alone. But, J, I thought Shakespeare
answered that question for us well enough..
Dramatically, reading from her
book.
“Love-
A marriage of true minds,
Which alters not when it alteration
finds.”
J: So, love doesn’t change? Ever?
H:
(slightly sarcastically, referring her
book)
“O
no, it is an ever fixed mark”
S:
(with a deep sigh) Eternal,
unchanging, perfect.
J:
Seems impertinent to disagree with the Bard;
But, love is not an ever fixed mark!
Out of pride or ignorance, I do not know,
You say you are impervious to the final
blow!
S:
But, haven’t you felt it?
The unshakeable power of true love
whose purity transcends time!
J:
Love itself is transitory!
People change, and so do emotions
But
change doesn’t dilute
The
power of love.
H:True
it is, J,
That people change
And so, why depend on people
And their fickle feelings,
When true love resides
Deep inside of you-for you?
S:
Well, the Bard did say,
“ The course of true love…
S,
J, H:
“Never ran smooth.”
Beat.
S:
Is it true love we are looking for, then?
J:
Yes.
True
love that learns us,
To
smile, and be mirthful in its full bloom.
H:
That teaches us to clearly see
The
flaws that reside inside of us.
And
yet, love, still, accepting, allowing…
S:
Love that lives beyond the grave.
That
doth every hurdle brave
Whose
power does you enrich
Old
power each soul once cherished.
I
swear upon my maker’s word
Such
old love does still exist.
Beat.
H:
(Insistently) Inside of us.
For us.
J:
(Shaking her head) In the moment.
S:
(Reading from her book)
“……It is an ever fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken
It is the star to every wandering bark.”
J:
Love is not a lighthouse!
Love is the tempest itself!
A tempest where you lose yourself
But
love will always find you.
Love
is always looking out for you
If
only you are looking out for love.
H:
Look for love within yourself.
J:
Stay with love in this moment.
S:
Look for love in this moment;
Stay with it forever.
Beat.
S:
(Going back to her book)
“It is the star to every wandering bark
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be
taken.”
H:
Love your own company,
Unconditionally.
You’ll
know your own true worth
Content
with yourself, content with the world.
S:
(Reading)
“Love is not time’s fool, though rosy lips and
cheeks
With his bending sickle’s compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and
weeks
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.”
(dreamily) True love endures, though
death may loom.
J:
Nothing is forever.
Your
love will die with you
And
with time,
Because
time cannot encase
The
flow of love
Within
a stagnant pond
Love,
is a waterfall
It
may run dry,
Doesn’t
mean it wasn’t real,
Or
magnificent.
H:
Or so said the Bard:
“Love
looks not with eyes
But
with the mind,
And
therefore, is wing’d cupid
Painted
blind”
If
only we could turn
The
eyes of the mind
Upon
ourselves.
And
learn to love, however flawed,
Our
own precious selves.
S:
It would get so lonesome.
H:
Not if your love your own company.
(S and H look at J)
(J doesn’t have an opinion on this, so she shrugs.)
J: Don’t go through
life
With a mind so blind.
Trust your beloved,
But not your love.
It is a feeling; it’s
not divine.
Because we are mere
mortals
With our helpless flaws
Edged deep into our
bones,
We’ll one day feel a
little less love
Which will never revise
the fact
That is was once, true love.
H: Said Charlie
Chaplin:
“As I began to love
myself
I refused to go on
Living in the past
And worrying about the
future.
Now, I only live for
the moment.
Where everything is
happening.
Today, I live each day,
Day by day,
And I call it
Fulfillment.
S: Speak low if you speak love
Love goes by haps,
Some cupid kills with arrows,
Some with traps.
Love is like a child
That longs for everything it can
come by
Love sought is good, but given
unsought is better
When in eternal lines to LOVE thou
grow’st
So long as men can breathe or eyes
can see
So long lives this, and this gives
life to thee.
Beat.
(playback sound): “If
this be error and upon me proved…”
(S, J, H shaking their heads, fingers raised)
I will not be sworn, but may love
transform me into an oyster
~THE
END~
Written by Juveria, Srinidhi and Hari Priya
Core Idea: Jhilam Chattaraj
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