Speechless

A wordless play about shame, hobbies, and digging your own hole deeper.

Three actors and a bird play for an indeterminate amount of time. 

Speechless
Written by Sean Dance Fannin

Start with a dark room and three lights

Someone is digging a hole. It takes a long time.

Someone else is holding a living bird. Its wings are clipped. They try to teach the bird to fly by setting it on the ground and taking its wings. They try to show it how to fly.

The person digging the hole finds something and panics. They realize they were wrong. They relax. They keep digging.

A new person enters hiding their face. Their fingertips are bleeding.

The person trying to teach the bird gets angry. They smack the floor with their hands.

The person hiding their face turns away.

The person digging the hole gets frustrated. They stop. They breathe deep. They begin again.

The person with the bird cries. If the bird walks away they follow the bird wherever it goes. If the bird stays, they stay.

The person hiding their face rubs their blood on the ground.

The person digging the hole lays on their stomach and sticks their head in the hole.

The person teaching the bird and person hiding their face notice the person with their head in the hole. They watch, waiting.

A long tense stillness filled with a question.

The person with their head in the hole pulls their head out, dusted with soil.

The person with the bird sighs.

The person hiding their face cries.

The person with the dirt on their face starts digging the hole again. Breathing deeper this time.

The person hiding their face notices their blood has dried, they're no longer bleeding.

The person with the bird picks up the bird, if the bird lets them. If not, the person with the bird apologizes physically until the bird allows them to pick it up. When they do, they sit and look at the bird and run through a gambit of emotions.

The person digging the hole climbs into the hole. It is more than waist deep.

The person hiding their face bites their fingertips.

The person holding the bird gets confused about how they feel.

The person digging the hole takes a break. They pick up a clump of dirt and eat it.

The person hiding their face gets their fingertips to bleed again. They rub the blood on their hidden face.

The person with the bird falls asleep.

The person hiding their face lays down.

The person digging the hole falls asleep.

The person hiding their face falls asleep.

They all sleep for a long moment.

The bird tweets.

They all wake up and scream.

The person digs the hole again. The person hiding their face stands and goes back to hiding their face. The person teaching the bird starts again.

The person digging the hole is almost completely hidden by their hole. Their head can be seen just above the hole.

The person teaching the bird gives up.

The person hiding their face notices.

The person teaching the bird sits by the hole, and watches.

The person hiding their face continues hiding their face, and also sits by the hole.

The person formerly teaching the bird looks at the person hiding their face.

The person hiding their face pretends not to notice.

The person formerly teaching the bird smiles. They begin to watch the person digging the hole.

The person digging the hole is so deep, they can't be seen at all. Some dirt occasionally flies out of the hole.

The person digging the hole finishes the hole.

The person formerly teaching the bird claps.

The person hiding their face and the person formerly teaching the bird stand. They help the person digging the hole out of the hole.

The three of them stand and admire the hole.

Whoever appreciates the hole the most sits at the edge. The person hiding their face is always hiding their face. Whoever appreciates the hole the least changes physically. The other stays the same.

They stare at the hole. They do so until the bird exits.

End of play.