Sound of a beer hall band in the distance. Distorted.
A match is struck, a face revealed. KARL (the cripple) is leaning on crutches, a candle in one hand. Stares out toward the audience.
KARL … once upon a time there was a poor little boy who had no mother or father. Everyone was dead and there was no one left in the whole world.
Lights up to reveal a nineteenth century operating theater. Row after row of seats towering off into the dark. At various intervals, faces of people staring out—our players, up to the rafters, waiting for their moment on stage.
(All action will take place in the rounded space between this onstage “audience” and the auditorium audience.)
Single light up slowly to reveal WOYZECK. He sits alone on an upturned bedpan. Eating rapidly from a large bowl of peas.
WOYZECK reaches into his jacket and retrieves a little bundle. He looks about, then removes a tattered book and spectacles from the cloth.
KARL Everything was quite dead. The boy was now completely alone, and he sat down and cried. He’s sitting there … still.
KARL smiles and crosses to WOYZECK—holds the light over WOYZECK as he begins to write haltingly. Reads aloud.
WOYZECK “… if … anything can help in our time, then it is violence. Indeed, are we not … already in a constant state of violence?”
A sound in the dark. WOYZECK looks nervously back over his shoulder. Nothing. He continues.
WOYZECK “Because we were born and brought up in a prison … we no longer … notice that we are stuck in a … hole, chained by our hands and feet, with a gag in our mouths.”
VOICES cry out from the onstage spectators. WOYZECK looks up, startled.
VOICES Woyzeck … Woyzeck … WOYZECK!!
WOYZECK “We do not have too much pain in this life, we have too little … Because through pain we arrive at God. We are death, dust, ashes … how should we complain?”
VOICES WOYZECK … WOYZECK … WOYZECK!!!
WOYZECK hides his book and glasses away, taking up the bowl of peas again and eating feverishly.
KARL smiles and blows out the candle. Disappears. The sound of the band builds to a deafening roar.
Blackout.