[div class="playbill"]PLAYBILL[/div]
[div class="credits"][div class="credits-subheadline"]SYNOPSIS[/div]
[div class="credits-synopsis"]For his entire life, Spiral has been accompanied by an inner voice he calls the Entity, a separate consciousness that resides in the dark recesses of his mind. Together, Spiral and this disembodied passenger have found themselves lost in limbo. The Entity can help him escape, but it has a few conditions to discuss first.[/div][/div]
[div class="credits"][div class="credits-subheadline"]CAST OF CHARACTERS[/div]
MADS MIKKELSEN as SPIRAL (THE NARRATOR)
ANYA TAYLOR-JOY as MADDI (THE ENTITY)[/div]
[div class="credits"][div class="credits-subheadline"]MUSIC CREDITS[/div]
WOULDN'T IT BE NICE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZBKFoeDKJo)
WRITTEN by BRIAN WILSON and MIKE LOVE
PERFORMED by THE BEACH BOYS
FROGGY WENT A'COURTIN' (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFJLbMVgS-E)
WRITTEN by TRADITIONAL
PERFORMED by SPIRAL
FEELING GOOD (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff-0pHwyQ1g)
WRITTEN by L. BRICUSSE and A. NEWLEY
PERFORMED by NINA SIMONE[/div]
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[div class="spiral-headline"]III[/div]
[div class="spiral-subheadline"]BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL[/div]
[div class="spiral-quote"]Under conditions of peace
the warlike man attacks himself.[/div]
[span class="spiral-quote-author"]— Friedrich Nietzsche[/span], [span class="spiral-quote-source"]Beyond Good and Evil[/span]
[div class="spiral-indent"]FOR SOME TIME, THERE IS only darkness. A nothingness everywhere and nowhere, all at once and not at all. There is no movement. There is no feeling. It is a moment that stretches in all directions indefinitely. It is a shadowland without definition, a gloom without purpose, a void without beginning or end. This bleak, bottomless nonexistence will not be bargained with. It will not be reasoned with. It simply endures, and somewhere in this nowhere land, I am floating through obscurity, locked in an invisible coffin. No matter how loud I scream, how hard my fists beat on the lid, I cannot escape this prison.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]And yet, there is something, a feeling of another consciousness from a further place trying to break through the veil. I call out, "Who's there?" My body twists, turning this way and that in my box to scan the void, but there is nothing to be seen out there in the murk, only felt. And so I go quiet, let my eyes slip shut, and listen.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]At first it is a distant thing, nearly indistinguishable from the nihility, but bit by bit, its presence grows larger and more powerful. This invading force buckles, bends, and distorts the darkness, around and outward, exerting the full weight of its will upon the plane of nonexistence. And lo there comes a great and terrible voice bellowing across oblivion. Its malice seeps throughout the emptiness, til only the Entity remains. Hark![/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"][span class="spiral-smallcaps-reg"]You screwed up, pal.[/span][/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]It is my Dark Self. It has come back to me.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]"I thought I was alone," I call back.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"][span class="spiral-smallcaps-reg"]I go where you go. We're a package deal.[/span][/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]"Then how do we get out of there?"[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"][span class="spiral-smallcaps-reg"]Slow up, kiddo. First we need to have a little chat.[/span][/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]My head goes back and forth. "No no no," I say with a punch to the lid of the box. "We can talk after we get out of this place."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"][span class="spiral-smallcaps-reg"]Oh, cupcake. You may be in charge up top, but down here I run things.[/span][/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]A loud thunk hammers the lid from above—not a blunt smack, but a chop, like an axe cleaving through wood. Another follows, this one louder and meaner. Dirt falls from the lid into my eyes and mouth. My hands are wiping my face when a third hack takes a chunk out of the lid, spilling light into the coffin. I get enough grit out of my eyes to look through the breach. Far above, a white ceiling is lined with rows of humming fluorescent tube lights.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]THUNK! A long jagged crack slices down the middle of the lid and the two halfs pull apart, squealing and groaning, until finally it explodes in a shower of splinters and grit. Air howls into the coffin like a hurricane and roars around me, surrounding me in the gust. Far off, the Entity booms, [span class="spiral-smallcaps-reg"]Buckle up, buckaroo.[/span][/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]The darkness blows apart in tattered tenebrous strands and I plunge downward, whipping through an empty, blank, white space with my stomach five seconds behind me. I fall over myself and tumble, faster with each breath, and disappear into a swallowing light. All my senses abandon me, and, for a time, I am left only a feeling of weightlessness inside some other place, until—[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]I wake up in a lime-green chair, one of eight arranged in a large circle with nothing but space in the middle. There are people in those chairs, too, and all of us are dressed in starched cotton hospital clothes, except for the man at twelve o'clock. He is wearing a shirt and tie under a doctor's coat, with a name badge that says [span class="spiral-smallcaps-reg"]M. Renaud, m.d.,[/span] and underneath, [span class="spiral-smallcaps-reg"]Ascension Asylum.[/span][/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]Wouldn't It Be Nice is playing over the tin-can intercom and the woman at 3 o'clock is talking through tears and snot. The others in the group are locked in on her sad story, but not me. I defiantly turn away and look around at all the patients mingling in the day room. Look at them, shambling around like zombies, drugged out of their minds in those tacky getups under terry-cloth robes. Most are content to just wander aimlessly, or drool all over themselves in their wheelchairs, but some are with-it enough to interact and hold conversations. They gather around tables, giggling and cackling over nonsense, or indulge in good natured battles of Checkers or cards.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]Is this the real life? How am I back at Ascension? It is certainly possible that I was never released from the hospital and the events of the last three months are just some elaborate dream. A lesser mind might go down that rabbit hole, but there is a problem with this scenario: There are two of me here.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]I'm watching him, the Other Me, strolling through the arts and crafts area, whistling Froggy Went A'Courting or something like that. As he passes a nurse, he tips his head to her and wishes her a good day, then continues whistling along his path. Of course, the Other Me isn't actually me, rather a memory, and what I am seeing is a replay of my first day in the hospital.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]The Other Me grabs a chair and drags it, screeching deafeningly, over the white tile floor. Everyone looks up, even the crazies high on klonopin, and winces with puckered, angry faces at the horrible sound blaring like a dying elephant. It whines behind him, kicking up in pitch every time the legs run over the lines of grout, all the way to the puzzle table at the far end of the room. The chair gives one final squawk when he lifts it off the floor, whips it around, and plops it down next to the man they call Risotto Guy.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]The middle-aged black man with graying hair and stubble is focused on a Starry Night jigsaw. He is a big guy, but gentle. The never-hurt-a-fly type. Think Lenny from Of Mice and Men. No one knows his name because all he ever talks about is Risotto. How to make Risotto. How not to make Risotto. The best place to get Risotto in every major US city. Ask him a question, and he will respond with a recipe or some little-known-fact about it.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]The Other Me begins whispering into Risotto Guy's ear. At first, his face is unflinching and his eyes are locked on the puzzle, but not long later, he lifts his head, shaking all over, and stares past me to the nurses station.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]All at once, he shoots up out of his chair, knocking it over and spilling puzzle pieces on the floor. He stomps through the day room, weaving around the islands of couches and chairs, and right through group therapy. All the patients are watching with me as he blows past us, all the way to the station where Orderly Wetmore and Nurse Carrie are engaged in conversation. Risotto Guy takes the pen from the nurse's pocket and jabs the ballpoint deep into Wetmore's neck. The nurse screams as blood spits all over her face. Wetmore ties to fight back, but Risotto Guy is bigger and stronger. He wrestles the orderly to the ground and continues to stab him in the neck, face, and chest, over and over, screaming Risotto before yanking the pen out and flinging ribbons of blood in the air.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]The code red alarm begins to wail over the intercom. A great swell of laughter comes over me as hacks and whoops that are matched only by the Other Me back at the puzzle table. Both of us are hoarse and breathless, slapping our knees and rocking in our chairs. It takes six orderlies and two shots of Haldol to peel Risotto Guy off Wetmore. Dr. Renaud is working on CPR as nurses put pressure on the worst of the wounds, but it's too late. Wetmore is a gonner.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]I am still laughing when time slows to a halt, grinding like old machinery succumbing to rust and age. Every person in the day room, from the patients to the staff, are locked in awkward moments and gravity-defying stances. Even the Other Me is frozen in place, body bent backward, face contorted and mouth-agape, with his chair reared up on its hind legs.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]I turn forward in my chair. After a few seconds, I begin to drum my fingers impatiently. I call out to the Entity, "I know this is you, so can we get on with it? I have things to do, people to kill." With each annoying second that passes, my fingers roll on the armrest faster, building to a singular moment when a long, growling sigh comes out of me and I smack both hands down out of frustration.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]I run my fingers through my hair and grab handfuls of it. For a minute, nothing is happening, and then I hear a sound, like a low whisper. My eyes shoot up and search all around, panning from one side of the room to the other, then behind me. All the wackos are still locked in suspended animation with their dumb petrified faces, as are the gestapo orderlies and half-wit medical staff.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]My head turns forward and the world slows down, way down. A young woman has taken the good Doctor Renaud's seat, but not just a woman—a beautiful creature, with big, wild eyes, and a mop of curly dark hair. I am almost unable to contain myself when she gives me a very Spiral-like smile.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]It is my twin sister. My dead twin sister.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]"Maddi," I say, squinting at her, as if at the sun.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]"Hey, kid," she says while twiddling her fingers at me. "This is quite the pickle." She is looking around the day room with raised brows. There is a strangeness in her movements that remind me of, well, me. My sister, my real sister, never exhibited such behavior. She was a saint, a perfect being, a—[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]"Is that why you killed me?" she asks with her eyes point blank on me.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]Was I speaking? She looks at me and shakes her head no. Suddenly all this makes sense. The limbo world, this flashback to my own personal hell—all of it was created by the Entity, but why? My Dark Self has always manifested as a voice that only I can hear. It nurtured me from birth, guided me to grow beyond the limitations of the human form, and become the Great Beast.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]Now it sits there as alive as can be, wearing a Maddi suit.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]She says, "Tell them about killing me. It's so romantic."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]I stop, confused, and then look around. "Tell who?"[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]"Them," she says, motioning to the stock-still patients sitting with us in the circle. "Who else could I mean?"[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]Before I can say no, the words are already coming out of my mouth. "Okay. Well, my sister and I were twins." My eyes move around the marble-eyed, slack-jaw characters as I talk. "From birth, we were inseparable. Where there was one, the other was not far behind. We did everything together—the same hobbies, the same afterschool programs—we even decided to go to NYU together after graduation."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]Maddi looks at me in a very doctor-like way. "Tell me, Mr. Gram, When did you first recognize these aberrant feeling for your sister? When did you begin to covet her?"[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]"We were always close, but as we grew older, a darker connection surfaced... I remember our bedroom. Our parents always offered us to split up, but we never wanted to. My sister liked me being in there because I made her feel safe. I enjoyed that feeling, that need she had for me."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]"You wanted her to want you."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]"Yes... Every night I watched her sleep with unnatural curiosity and entertained terrible thoughts. My mind was always bent on my sister, but I never acted on my desires. I was afraid to tell her how I felt because of what I would do if she said no. So I assumed the part of the loving, protective brother, and I played it well. I crawled inside her mind and implanted ideas that festered, until she was convinced the boys our age only wanted to hurt her."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]"Niels," Maddi says, "tell the group about New York."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]I take a long breath. "We had just started at NYU. It was October and we were eating at a restaurant. She was so happy when she broke the horrible news. I'm seeing someone, she said. A graduate student she met in the city. I wasn't ready and I panicked. I had many years of practice at being normal, but the stress made my human visage crack and for a moment, she saw my true self. It unsettled her and drove her to leave the restaurant. As I watched her disappear out of the door, I knew what had to be done."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]I look longingly to Maddi. "You were there for me. You whispered in my ear."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]"If we can't have her"—she says with a very Spiral-like leer—"then no one will."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]"My sister was dead," I tell the group, "the moment she confessed her whorish ways, but I had to be patient. I had to wait and plan. So for three months I contained my murderous lust. I pretended to be a loving brother. I became friends with her pathetic boyfriend, David. By hook or by crook, I crept into their lives and infiltrated every aspect of their relationship."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]The Maddi-Entity cackles. "Tell them how we did it."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]"Why?" I am staring at her. "You know how. You watched me strangle that whore in his bed after he went for work. You watched me dispose of the evidence. David of course pleaded his innocence, but he had no reason to suspect me because I had played my part so well with your help. The police never even asked me where I was that morning. I was the grieving brother. No one suspected my darker side."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]Images flash in my head. My sister is staring up at me with pinpoint pupils and terror. My hands are around her slender neck, squeezing. She can't scream because my thumbs have clamped off her trachea. My human disguise slips away and she sees the true evil in me for the first and last time. She is a weak, pathetic thing beneath me. In ten seconds she is unconscious, but still alive. My hands stay locked around her neck. After three minutes, she opens her eyes. Her pupils are giant black mirrors that reflect my inhuman face. I climb off her. She is beautiful. She is my goddess. I want to touch her. I want to be close to her, but I can't.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]I feel a hand on mine. I open my eyes. Maddi, the Entity, she is climbing on top of me, straddling me. Her hands touch my face and run through my hair. She is grinding against me. Pulling me into her. I am losing my mind. She says she forgives me and presses her lips to mine. It is a kiss for the ages. Is this what love feels like? A blast of music erupts from the intercom. No longer tin-cans, but high definition surround sound courtesy of BOSE. Jazz horns tumble down a blues scale and Nina Simone sings about Feeling Good. Fireworks explode around us. I stand with her legs around my waist and carry her to the floor. She grinds against me causing friction, heat, and mania. I rip her shirt open and bury my head in her breasts, then lick up her neck. Her teeth find my ear and says, "I love you, brother."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]It all stops—the music, the lights, everything. I am staring down at her. "Why are you doing this?" She just starts laughing like a mad person. It's a very Spiral-like laugh. I get up and fall back into the chair. My hair is over my face and wet with sweat.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]She stands, still laughing, saying, "I am doing this because you're acting like a pussy, bucko. We're here because I wanted to remind you of what happens when you don't listen to me. You need me, kid, just as much as I need you. We are nothing apart." She has her hands around my face, holding my head still. "Without me, You are just some weird little boy from Denmark. Without you, I am lost to the ether, man, floating out in space with the monkeys."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]She pushes my head away and kneels at my feet. She starts kneading my legs and looks straight into my eyes. "But together, we are more. Together, we are Spiral. We are beyond human definition. We are a new species. We are the Next Becoming."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]I shake my head and say, "You think I forgot? I know the Plan. I know the Code."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]"Oh yeah, killer?" She rises to her feet and steps back three paces, then throws her hand out. From the ceiling, a white movie screen unrolls and the lights go dark. Video begins playing of a cage fight. I am one of the fighters. The other is a woman. What is her name...Lara Chambers. She has me in a choke hold. I am fighting to get free, trying to rip her arm from my neck, but my body is going limp.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]The video pauses.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]"This," Maddi says, pointing at me on the screen. "This is you right now in the real world, getting your head twisted off by a little girl. And why did this happen?"[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]"Jackson." My memory is coming back to me. "He went for one of my eyes. I fought Lara half-blind. It is his fault."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]"Wrong. You let it happen because you didn't take care of him. I told you we needed to kill him the moment we got out of this joint. That should have been the first priority, but you fucked up, bro. This MMA shit isn't the Plan. It is a side business at best, and at worst, it's a distraction."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]"You're right." I bring a hand to my face and breath out. "I spent every moment preparing for that fucking tournament. I wanted to win. I was obsessed with it. I convinced myself that winning was crucial to achieving our goals."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]"Hardly. Convenient? Yes. Crucial? Never. We do not need trinkets to becoming the Great Beast. All we need are witnesses to bear our message to the civilization. That is all we have ever needed, my sweet. This fight game can be useful in that regard, but hardly necessary. Make no mistake, it is they who need us."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]"I agree." I stand from my chair prepared. "I am ready to go back."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]"One thing first," she says with a coy look. "I'm tired of riding in the backseat. I want shotgun."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]"I don't know what you mean by that."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]I watch her eyes roll. She says, "I am over the whole 'disembodied voice' routine. It's a stale act, kid. We need to up our game. Besides—" She fondles her breasts through her ripped shirt. "—I can be a much, much better sister to you than she ever was."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]I am breathless watching her touch herself and at the way her eyes run over me. I cannot deny how it makes me feel to be near her again, to lose myself in her being. There is no debate to have. I want her. I need her. She is everything my sister should have been.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]I say to her, "I agree. Now let's get back to work."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]She gives me a very Spiral-like grin. "Fasten your seatbelt, chief. It's about to get bumpy."[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]It all goes dark and that feeling of weightless overtakes me again. Sound rushes into my ears. Applause. Screams. Music. Feeling returns to my body. It is heavy and worn out. I force open my eyes search around. I am back in the cage, and standing over me is that fucking physician that kept pausing the fight. I look for the badge hanging from his neck. A. Fedorov, MD.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]Past his shoulder, Maddi leans over him and inspects him like a piece of meat at the butcher. She looks down at me and gives her approval.[/div]
[div class="spiral-indent"]"I love what you're thinking. We're gonna go far, kid."[/div]
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