The December People’s Choice Award goes to…

The people have spoken… The December People’s Choice Award goes to Jacob Marx Rice for his short play, The Prophets, presented as a staged reading live online on December 25th. Congratulations, Jacob!

Courtesy of Jacob, we’re pleased to share the first few pages from the award-winning script. Enjoy!

The Prophets
by Jacob Marx Rice

Characters

ITZHAK: Male. A bit of a dummy but with a good heart and a lot of enthusiasm. He has an arrow sticking out of his chest from the recent wars, but he’s not about to let that get him down.

RIVKA: Female. Itzhak’s sister, but smarter and more sarcastic. She is annoyed by most things, and by her brother most of all, but she loves him more than she’d ever admit in public.

GOD: Yeah, that guy. Specifically, this is the Jewish God, though he’s lost a step or two since the fire and brimstone days of the Torah. He’s only a voice in this play.

Setting

The Temple in Jerusalem in the 2nd Century BCE (though everybody speaks in modern parlancebecause my 2nd century Hebrew isn’t very good and besides, they were the cutting edge of modernity as far as they were concerned). This holy site has been desecrated by the Greek Sele ucid empire. Ripped fabric and trash are everywhere. But at the center of the stage sits a massive lamp, burning brightly.

A large lamp burns center stage, the one beautiful
thing amidst the mess. Itzhak enters and sees the
lamp. He does a double take.

ITZHAK
Holy shit! Rivka!

RIVKA (O.S.)
I’m sleeping.

ITZHAK
You gotta see this. It’s a miracle!

RIVKA (O.S.)
What???

ITZHAK
Come on.
(Rivka shuffles on. Her leg is bloody and mangled. Itzhak gestures to the lamp.)
It’s still going!

RIVKA
Seriously?

ITZHAK
Yeah, I just walked in and there it was, shining like a fiery… fire thing.

RIVKA
So?

ITZHAK
What do you mean so? It’s a miracle.

RIVKA
It’s not a miracle. It’s a lamp.

ITZHAK
That’s still burning even though we only put in enough oil for yesterday. Boom, miracle.

RIVKA
Or maybe you just put in more oil than you thought.

ITZHAK
You saw how much we put in. Enough for one night. That’s it.

RIVKA
Fine. Maybe it’s a different kind of oil.

ITZHAK
A different…?

RIVKA
Yeah, like a more energy dense oil type that can burn longer. I’ve heard great things about safflower oil.

ITZHAK
What’s a safflower?

RIVKA
It’s like… I don’t know. It’s a kind of oil.

ITZHAK
Wait, the flower is made of oil?

RIVKA
No, the flower grows and then they press the seeds like they do for other kinds of oil and then—

ITZHAK
Oil comes from seeds???

RIVKA
Some does. Where did you think it comes from?

ITZHAK
I dunno. Like, temples and stuff.

RIVKA
And how do they get it?

Itzhak thinks for a moment.

ITZHAK
God?

RIVKA
It’s from plants. And animals sometimes. But never pigs.
(They both spit in disgust.)
And they, like, press it in these big vats and then the temples buy it and use it to light the bimah.

ITZHAK
And God makes it last an extra day.

RIVKA
Why would God care about the light?

ITZHAK
To help us. It’s nice being able to see.

RIVKA
Nice? We just got done with a war, Itzhak. You got shot in the chest. My leg is wrecked. Half the Maccabees are dead and God decided to finally give his chosen people the miracle we’ve been praying for for months in the form of unusually persistent oil????

Join us for our next Monday Night Playground on January 22, live at The Producers Club and simulcast! For more info, click here!