Sleepwalking in the Insanitorium

I have a bad habit of posting incomplete rough drafts for the world to see. I find it helpful as a second opinion from the void. This is one of those - one scene from a play based on a letter to a fan by Antonin Artaud. I'm still not sure how I feel about historical fiction.
[scene opens on a prison cell with ANTONIN ARTAUD sitting on a bed in a corner writing a letter]
ARTAUD [reading aloud as he writes]:
To Génica Athansiou
November 24, 1940
My very dear Génica,
You must find heroin at all costs and you must risk death to get it to me here.  This is where matters stand.  The Initiates have real instruments of torture, as I have already told you, and they use them from a distance to mutilate me while I sleep, each night a little more.  If it is difficult to procure heroin or opium, it is solely because of me and because they know that it is the one thing that would restore my strength and make me fit to struggle against Evil.  But the most serious aspect of the affair is that all my friends, including you, have rebelled, have taken up arms in Paris, have used force to get heroin for me, and that they extracted it from all of you by magic, and that they then caused you to lose consciousness of your rebellion and that they have weighed down your shoulders your heads and the backs of your necks with leaden spells in order to enslave you, for it is thus that the common people are avenged and it is the common people who are now in power and who feed on my suffering here.  Search your memory and you will see that some part of the use you have made of your time eludes you.   Génica, we must leave this world, but first the Kingdom of the Other World must come, and we need armed troops in great numbers.  So that the Bohemians can enter this world in number as one disembarks from a ship I must have heroin so that I can open all the hidden doors and destroy the spells of Satan which are keeping them out and keeping me prisoner here.
    I count on you and I embrace you.
    Antonin Artaud
 
[ARTAUD folds up the letter and places it in an envelope]
 
ARTAUD [yelling]: Guard! [pause].  Guard! Guard, get over here you sniveling capitalist mongrel.  
 
[GUARD appears on opposite side]
 
GUARD: What is it?
 
ARTAUD: Now listen up you filthy inhuman piece of intransigent swine.  You must take this letter immediately to the postal services and have them deliver it to Paris.  There is no time to lose.   The death hour is at hand.  
 
GUARD:  The death hour?
 
ARTAUD: Oh what am I saying, of course your meager ranking, pathetic, mangy dog status would not be informed of these extremely crucial situations that surround us, but you must believe me when I say this - we are standing on the precipice of time itself and if you do not act, if WE do not act, then the results will be catastrophic. 
 
[GUARD turns away slowly and begins to walk]
 
ARTAUD [screaming and spitting]: Where the fuck are you going you insignificant speck? Come back here and hear out my demands you shit-eating bourgeois swine!
 
[ARTAUD throws the letter at the GUARD and rests for a second]
 
ARTAUD [begins pacing]: I see what they are trying to do.  They think they're in my mind and can walk around as if I do not exist, but they will soon realize that I am in their mind.  I'm walking around their thoughts and I see their filthy intentions.  They think they are teaching me a lesson, but I will be teaching them the lesson.  A lesson to remind them of who they are.  I will reveal the mirror on their visage and then watch as they recoil in horror at their tainted beauty.  They will vomit and retch at what they have become, and it is then that they will slowly realize that everything I have said to them is true.  This culture of sadism and power that corrupts modern Paris is a virus eating away at the face of this vile whore.  As soon as her countenance can no longer stand the stench of her rotting flesh, they will abandon her and take up arms in our new socialist utopia.  Now where is that fucking guard??
 
[ARTAUD goes back to the bars]
 
ARTAUD: Where is your sense of decency you homely shit-ridden Parisian whore??
 
[GUARD returns]
 
GUARD: What is it this time Artaud?
 
ARTAUD [calmly]: Ah, there you are. Oh, I was just wondering if I could talk to the nurse about a sort of jarring pain I have been feeling down my right side since the last electroshocks were administered.  It's been quite a bother for some time, and it may be causing the fits of panic that you saw before.  
 
GUARD: I will see what I can do.
 
[GUARD picks up the letter outside the bars as he walks away]
 
[ARTAUD breaths deeply and sighs and walks into a corner to lay down in a vegetative state.  Lighting change to focus away from the bars]
 
ARTAUD: Ach, I wouldn't be in this mess if it wasn't for that fool, Desnos.  
 
[DESNOS appears in the spotlight]
 
DESNOS: Antonin, you really need help.  You can't go on living like this.
 
ARTAUD [waking up]: Like what?  I am looking at the soul of humanity and revealing it to the world.  
 
DESNOS:  You are in a vegetative state most of your days and can barely feed yourself.  If you are looking at the soul of humanity, then it is destroying your life.  
 
ARTAUD: If that is what it takes to look into the eyes of god without blinking then maybe this is a sacrifice we all must make.  
 
DESNOS [frustrated]: Yes, of course, this is very important, and I would usually encourage this voyage of discovery but the Nazis are now in power.  They are not going to look kindly upon us as degenerate artists.  
 
ARTAUD: Don't tell me your are afraid of these jack-booted fascists.
 
DESNOS: Yes, I am.  
 
ARTAUD: Oh Desnos, I am saddened to see your weakness of character crumble so easily in front of the simplest of obstacles.
 
DESNOS: Simplest?  They have taken control of Paris and most of Western Europe.  What do you expect to do?...Look, Antonin, I know of this doctor who specializes in mental illness and electroshock therapy, and he will take you in and you will be treated well.  
 
ARTAUD: Electroshock therapy?  You mean that sadistic violence upon the mind to manufacture consent to the will of the state?
 
DESNOS: It will be a location of safe harbor.  He knows of your work and thinks of you in high regard.  You would be treated well.  Better than the other patients that I hear are slowly starving to death in the other prisons and mental hospitals these days.  Which is where you would end up if you don't go.  

ARTAUD [pausing and pacing]: No, I will go.  I will go to look this fascist doctor right square in the eye and say to him, "your weapons of corruption to the soul will do nothing on me, and I will expose you as the fraud that you are".
 
DESNOS: You are saying he is a fraud or a fascist?
 
ARTAUD: He is both!
 
DESNOS [confused]: Of course.
 
[light fades off of DESNOS and he exits]
 
ARTAUD: And of course this right hand tool of the state labels me as insane and prescribes his little experiment on my mind for which I am still trying to escape.
 
[DOCTOR wheels in gurney from offstage]
 
DOCTOR: Okay Antonin, here we are again.
 
ARTAUD: Yes, much to my delight.
 
DOCTOR: I would like to believe we could just stop this charade at any moment as I don't believe that your delusion runs this deep.    
 
ARTAUD: You are calling me deluded?  You who are about to torture Saint Hippolytus into confession just before he identifies the antichrist.  I only wish you had the horses to rip me limb from limb and hasten your mental trial.
 
DOCTOR: Please Antonin, we have no interest in killing or martyring anybody in this hospital.  
 
ARTAUD: Oh, you want to belittle me as some self-indulgent martyr eh?  You think my cynicism runs that deep? Let's not waste any more time.  Get on with it then.  Strap me down and send all of the might of the gods' lightning through my veins and see if it will do any good for you.
 
DOCTOR: Sure, why not. 

[DOCTOR proceeds to strap ARTAUD down to the gurney and administers shocks. ARTAUD screams in frightened agony.]
 
ARTAUD: agggggggggggggggggghhhhhhh!!
 
[DOCTOR stops the shocks]
 
DOCTOR: Are you okay?
 
ARTAUD [in frightened tone]: Of course, why wouldn't I be?  You think I would tremble before the might of this tinkering pathetic existence?  Continue please, I yearn for more.
 
[DOCTOR proceeds with electric shocks]

ARTAUD [writhing even more]: aieeeeeaghhghghg!
 
[DOCTOR stops the shocks]
 
DOCTOR: Are you sure you're ready for this.
 
ARTAUD [mumbling, incoherent, drooling]: ugh,grbble...uk, [shudders, straining to speak].  

DOCTOR: No, I think this is enough.  I would like to reserve this for only those suffering from violent seizures and are a danger to themselves.  You are not in that state.
 
ARTAUD: NO! [twitches] No, I am violent to the status quo around us, and very much deserved that.  [twitches again]
 
DOCTOR:One more?
 
ARTAUD: Please!  I mean it would be my pleasure to endure more of your so-called treatment, but come back another time when you are truly ready.
 
[DOCTOR looks confused, shakes his head, and wheels out the gurney]
 
[ARTAUD walks over to lay down in his bed twitching every so often]
 
ARTAUD: The fools think they have something that can subvert the will of the citizenry, but I am here still living as a shining example that it can not crush the human will. 

[ARTAUD suddenly twitches violently]
 
ARTAUD: aghhhhhhhhhhhhhh
 
[ARTAUD makes his way to his bed unsettled and twitching the whole way through]
 
ARTAUD: Cowards, afraid to confront me, and what I say [twitch].
 
[END SCENE]
—November 13th, 2009
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Sleepwalking in the Insanitorium

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