HEREO
OPUS 24
by Geo Jeffrey
© 2005
MUSIC: "HEREO"
Prologue
HEREO: Is there no hope that we can show?
Red coal cinders burning, dying so slow.
Knowing only the ashes will remain,
until they be one with wind and rain...
Now do I decide here to rest my bones.
I've been with myself, but never so much so alone.
People are people; are we not the same?
Bones in the fire get brittle to the flame.
Water, Fire, Earth and Air
without each other nothing's there.
Water, Fire, Earth and Sky
I here Prometheus' mountain cry.
Civilizations are made for man.
These men had forgotten from where it began.
Taken by evil, cherishing what is wrong,
they dwelt in the darkness that fear makes them strong.
Before the world; I proclaim my cause, seeing the
symbol that says we have lost.
In the midst of disaster, the holocaustic fire;
the dream we capture is our desire.
The pain of my memory having been through the war,
seeing those who did not know what this was for,
Peace was just shattered by 3 billion lives;
but still somehow, someway, some survive.
I feel as if, all life has been turned to dust.
But now we can try and do what we must.
Those who have perished were married to the flame.
While those who have risen, are of a different name.
Water, Fire, Earth and Air
without each other nothing's there.
Water, Fire, Earth and Sky
I here Prometheus' mountain cry.
HEREO 2
Act I, Scene 1
A man stands up, apart from the crowd and speaks to Hereo.
ZORDA: All the people wait for a decision. Someone
must choose to know the way and new religion.
For now we have no order. Now we have no law.
HEREO: Good men need no law. They live in natural
order. The old man's generation gave a creed
to breed the slaughter.
ZORDA: What would you know of old men, for you are
still a child, instead of where we could have
been, our race and world grows wild. If you
think that is good, then I must have been
wrong to think that you could lead us back to
where we belong...
HEREO: For me there is no history, as time has been
destroyed. Just as tomorrow is a sunset, so
the moon will change the tide.
ZORDA: There are solutions.
HEREO: So you are just like them, hoping to
build towers of rocks again.
ZORDA: No, they were lost to their needs. They thought
of power and greed. We need a place to call our
home. We're not meant to wander around unknown.
HEREO: Is the nomadic tribe so foreign to you?
Do you not see that this is what to do...
ZORDA: I see a fool - look at you, so simple in
thought. I should have known you could not rule...
Then they shall follow me around and I will
wear the crown.
Zorda exits. BLACK OUT
MUSIC/ENTRACT
Act I, Scene 2
Six shrouded persons having very marked voice qualities.
CHORUS: The Jurors decide the verdict; the people
make their claim. We have no law but reason, but
still we are both mute and lame. Great men make
the order and in time we'll abide. The year's
last seen destruction has shown us how they lied;
they left us doomed to die...
Great men are the givers; we must bear their
fame. (aside) Though the lawmen are the winners,
and justice is their game.
HEREO 3
Act I, Scene 2 Cont.
CHORUS: Let the people make decisions.
Let the people be the law. Then no one else
is victim to some power-hungry fraud.
If one man makes a system, then some will
break his rule; and who is to incision the
threat that's caused by fools?
We must all be believers and know right from wrong,
without there being slaves of poor, and being
sold on what we're worth. But as for who shall
lead us, we'd like to lead ourselves. So then,
no one can deceive us. We could be free...
living in autonomy!
Water, Fire, Earth and Air.
Without each other, nothing's fair.
(Hereo enters with Wise One)
HEREO: I know you... You trust me.
Is it not true that I obey everyone of you?
How I receive my wisdom to move you?
This is magic... Purely a mystery.
You honestly listen to me.
This respect, I sometimes reject 'cause
it makes me not like you, the same.
I understand, in the higher plan, what it means
and what to do. I do not want to trouble us;
I only lack my own trust,
to be thrust into the front...
WISE ONE: You are our guardian into the gate
of the garden.
HEREO: Wise One, you are just as gifted in the way.
Why are you not proud to say?
WISE ONE: For you call me wise, and this be why;
I watch you try.
HEREO: So that when I fail, you will begin?
WISE ONE: No, no... A wise man can never win.
He doesn't play against the odds.
There's little worth when one knows god.
HEREO: What makes us speak in this discourse.
The Voices.
The voices compel me to face the source.
HEREO 4
Act I, Scene 2 Cont.
WISE ONE: Go on, for you are to lead us past the hell
we saw.
HEREO: They need no law... They only need each other's
love. They only need to see themselves.
WISE ONE: And you can teach them what this means.
By where you're at, and where you've been.
The Chorus and Wise One move off stage, half going right, half going left, leaving Hereo alone in the center.
HEREO: Lead on, lead us on to where?
To idolatry and despair?
...I am so alone, king upon a thrown...damn.
VOICES: (off stage) Great men, great men are free...
HEREO: What... Who's there?
VOICES: Great men can lead their people.
HEREO: Who's there? Whose people?
VOICES: Great man, you are their leader.
Lead your people to the new world order.
HEREO: What world, what order?
VOICES: Do not worry... You will find it, find it,
find it!
LIGHTS FADE OUT