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    Pilate Under Pressure
    Pilate Under Pressure
    Pilate Under Pressure
    Ebook94 pages49 minutes

    Pilate Under Pressure

    By Sean Walsh

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    About this ebook

    The events of the first Good Friday from a Roman perspective. Not an angel or a saint in sight!.. A dramatisation of the facts as recorded in the Passion Narrative of Matthew. Enacted at the Praetorium, the fortress in Jerusalem that was the centre and symbol of Roman occupation. How will the Governor of Judaea react when a prisoner is brought before him for trial, one Jesus of Galilee?..

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSean Walsh
    Release dateJun 25, 2011
    ISBN9781466061088
    Pilate Under Pressure
    Author

    Sean Walsh

    I've worked and lived in communications all my life: journalist, subeditor, editor, actor, director, producer - here in Ireland and abroad.I fell in love with Hiberno-English a long time ago - English as it is spoken and written in my country - and have been in love with it ever since.I love the challenge of pen and blank paper: creating characters, storylines, drama.If I may share with you some of the gems that have influenced me down the years; I've tried to abide by them but didn't always succeed!"You make your way by taking it..."It does not just happen, you have to make it happen..."Sometimes in stooping down to pick up two pennies one can lose a fortune..."InterestsFriendship - when it is not possessive, controlling...Quiet. Silence - a positive value completely overlooked by many today...Reading - carefully judged. If I'm not hooked by the first sequence - the first paragraph - I won't read any further...Trying, day in day out, not to spill any more milk... and to stop crying over milk already spilt.Not suffering fools gladly...Analysing Casablanca, frame for frame, line by line...(TBC...)PublicationsMy scripts have been broadcast on RTE, Radio One, BBC 4 and, in translation, on European networks; televised on RTE One, BBC One and Channel 4; staged at the Peacock by the Abbey National Theatre, at the Project, the Eblana, the Liverpool Playhouse and on the London Fringe...Credits include The Night of the Rouser. Earwig. The Dreamers. Fugitive. Veil. Penny for Your Travels. Far Side of the Moon. Three for Calvary. Jenny One, Two, Three... The Circus. Centre Circle. Where Do We Go from Here, My Lovely? At The Praetorium. Conclave. Assault on a Citadel.Has conducted many workshops on Creative/Script Writing in Dublin and at various centres around Ireland.Favourite authorsA D Sertillanges. John Henry Newman. Waugh. Greene. Hemingway. Hans Kung.LikesGood conversation. The company of my fellow searchers... Con pane... meaning, with bread... hence company...DislikesArrogant, self-opinionated prigs... Controlling, bullying clerics...Favourite Quote"I passionately hate the idea of being with it. I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time." (Orson Welles (1915 - 1985))

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      Book preview

      Pilate Under Pressure - Sean Walsh

      Good Friday Revisited?

      Yes, indeed. I set myself the task of telling it from the prisoners’ point of view… and as the Colonizer might have viewed it… No Jesus, no disciples, no saints or angels, no Pharisees…

      ‘Can be performed on a conventional stage or in the Round, in modern dress or as costume drama…

      The Praetorium. The Roman garrison in Jerusalem. Centre and

      seat of colonial power. As such, hated and despised by the local population. Feared by the oppressed.

      At. Above. Beneath… Behind the scenes. Off stage. Conjecture. Dramatic license. Irony. A storyline that could never be dismissed as incredible… ‘never far from the authenticity of the official records. What might have happened, could well have been the case…

      The piece is based, for the most part, on the Passion narrative according to Matthew. The Evangelist does not name Pilate’s wife so I resisted giving her a fictitious one; I simply refer to her as the Woman. (Her name was unimportant; her dream - in terms of the ancient world - was of no small significance.)

      Re the thieves who were crucified with Jesus:

      Tradition has named the repentant, Dismas and the unrepentant, Gestas but this is not scriptural. In Mark’s Gospel (14: 32) and in Matthew’s Gospel (27: 44) both are reported as berating Jesus. John’s Gospel (19: 18) mentions their presence without stating that they berated Jesus.

      Only in Luke's Gospel, 23: 39-43, is there reference to a repentant thief; but neither is actually named.

      SCENARIO

      The eve of a great feast - and a great Event...

      Jerusalem, the Holy City of a Chosen People, lies sleeping...

      The full moon of the Passover, high in a cloudless sky, brings into cold and sharp relief the Temple... casts light and shadow on the narrow streets of the inner city....

      Through these streets the elders of the Sanhedrin are hurrying to the house of Caiaphas, the High Priest...

      While in the upper room of a private house the prophet from Nazareth sits down to break bread with his disciples...

      In the upper city the cry of the watch rings out from the turrets of the Praetorium, the Roman fortress, symbol and sign of conquest...

      Beneath the Praetorium, in the dungeons, three men lie in chains, awaiting execution:

      Dismas, a thief, perhaps the greatest thief in all history - who stole Paradise even as he suffered the death penalty.

      Gestas, a man who may die as he has lived.

      And Jesus bar Abbas, held for murder and sedition, of whom so little is known, so much surmised in literature and drama - even to the present day…

      CAST

      BARABBAS, a prisoner

      DISMAS, another

      GESTAS, a third…

      LUCIUS, a Roman officer.

      PONTIUS PILATE.

      HIS WIFE.

      ZARA, her servant.

      JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA.

      PRISON GUARDS. . . 2/3.

      SCENE ONE:

      LIGHT THE SET TO REVEAL A DUNGEON/ PRISON CELL… GESTAS AND DISMAS LIE FRONT-STAGE… ON STRAW, IN CHAINS… BARABBAS LIES UPSTAGE, ASLEEP…

      GESTAS: Dismas?.. (PAUSE) ‘You... you awake, Dismas?.. (PAUSE)

      D-D-ismas?..

      DISMAS: Yes...

      GESTAS: Oh. Oh, good... I... I s-s-slept a while... I - I’m cold... y’know... You sleep a while, D-Dismas?

      DISMAS: Yes…

      GESTAS: Eh-hh… What… what t-t-time you think it is, Dismas?..

      DISMAS: Time? There is no time. Not any more. Not here. Not in this, this...

      GESTAS: I know what you mean. (PAUSE) I - I had a, y’know, d-d-dream.

      DISMAS: Nightmare.

      GESTAS: Yeah, yes I h-h-had. You won’t believe this, Dismas, but I, I -

      DISMAS: Nightmare of rats and chains and stench -

      GESTAS: ‘Dreamt the G-G-Governor gave us a, y’know, p-p-pardon -

      DISMAS: ‘Not knowing the day nor the hour, season of the year...

      GESTAS: What you think, D-D-Dismas? What you think of that one, huh?..

      DISMAS: The winds that blow, the ships that come to our shores…

      GESTAS: Pretty good, eh? Pretty good, D-D-Dismas? (PAUSE) Dismas?

      DISMAS: Better to be dead.

      GESTAS: Oh...

      DISMAS: Yes... Yes, that was a pretty good dream…

      GESTAS: Yes? You think so? ‘You really –

      DISMAS: Pretty... ‘Ever dream about women?

      GESTAS: Wh-what?

      DISMAS: You know… women.

      GESTAS: Oh-hh.

      DISMAS: Long black hair in your face. Flashing eyes, olive skin. Her lips against yours, your heart

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