Net of Dreams

Tomorrow is All Hallow's Eve, which reminds me of a number of shows I've written, but right now I'm thinking of one near and dear to my heart--Net of Dreams.

I was inspired by reading Beroul's 12th-century poem (though not in the original Breton) The Romance of Tristan in Jim Hala's Arthurian Literature class at Drew University.

When I went to Carnegie Mellon University to pursue my Master's degree in Dramatic Writing, the piece I was working on that reimagined the story became my thesis play, advised by none other than Lanie Robertson, a great writer and an amazing mentor.

The play was performed at CMU under the title Iseult. Yes, the story is the same as that in the folk play by Thomas Hardy, The Famous Tragedy of the Queen of Cornwall. I was not familiar with Hardy's play at the time, but I did know the opera Tristan und Isolde by Richard Wagner.

Beroul's poem is only fragmentary, so it leaves out the famous game of chess Tristan and Iseult are playing on the ship to Cornwall, where they inadvertently drink a magic potion that makes them fall in love... but only for a few years. By the time the potion wears off, though, a truer, deeper love has already taken root.

One of the things that interested me about the story was that after deciding to part ways (Iseult, after all, is legally married to Tristan's uncle), Tristan married another woman. This is Iseult of the Fair Hands, an incredibly sympathetic character who none-the-less is responsible for the deaths of the two lovers.

Iseult of the Fair Hands lies to Tristan, telling him that the ship sent to return with the woman he loves--the only person in the world who can heal him of his wound--is sailing with a black sail, indicating that she has rejected him. Her bitter speech was one of the most memorable parts of the production as CMU:

Black, Tristan. Look up? Do you not see it in the distance? Black. Black as jet, black as raven, black as night, black as death. Look upon it and despair. Despair and die. Your life, your struggle, your pain, meant nothing. She hates you, Tristan. She loathes you. Everything you believed in is gone. Now come. Lie in my arms. Rest your head upon my bosom and die. Give up the pain. Give up the sorrow. They're of no use to you any more. Let them go, and be at peace. Return to oblivion, Tristan. No more suffering. No more anguish. No more regrets. Just one.... That perhaps it would have been better... to have not been born.

If you're looking for a fanciful but emotional play to produce, you might want to check out Net of Dreams. I'd love to see it staged again. If you're interested in the script, contact me.