Fly (excerpt)

Synopsis:

Once it emerges as a fully formed creature, the common housefly lives for an average of three weeks.

Into this three weeks is crowded the entire panoply of the life cycle of a living creature – a cyle as rich (or as poor) as that of any other living creature.

Through this unique, beguiling and, ultimately, strangely moving work in three acts, we follow the fortunes of three generations of houseflies.

To the setting of a soundscape of Fado – the Portuguese musical form that speaks of love, fate and death – life is stripped back to its barest essentials and we see it, perhaps for the first time, for what it really is.

In the words of Thomas Hobbes:  “.. and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short..”

At one level, this is as true now as it was a thousand or even ten thousand years ago.

To a degree, the rest is bread and circuses.

Character Breakdown:

A cast of six – 3 females and 3 males – playing 10 houseflies at different ages.
MAGGIE  Act One – Female, 1 day old* / Act Two – Female, 11 days old / Act Three – Female, 21 days old
PUPIE  Act One – Male, 1 day old / Act Two – Male, 11 days old / Act Three – Male, 21 days old
FANNY Act One – Female, 11 days old / Act Two – Female, 21 days old / TILLY Act Three – Female, 1 day old – one actor.
CHIT Act One – Male, 11 days old / Act Two – Male, 21 days old / TARSUS  Act Three – Male, 1 day old – one actor.
DOMESTICA  Act One – Female, 21 days old / DIPTERA Act Two – Female, 1 day old / Act Three – Female, 11 days old – one actor.
LINNAEUS  Act One – Male, 21 days old / STOMOX Act Two – Male, 1 day old / Act Three – Male, 11 days old – one actor.

*In order to reach 1 day old, the fully-formed housefly must have already spent 10 days passing through the egg, larval and pupal phases.

 Setting
A dung heap.

The salient features that differentiate the flies are their cellophane-like wings and their large, reddish, compound eyes.  The females are slightly larger, with eyes much further apart.

All the flies habitually rub their hands, wrists and forearms together almost continuously, intermittently rubbing down their faces and heads as well.

Running-time: 95 minutes.

Excerpt available for download for free.