MEEK MEOW: The Physics of Broken Prayers Returning as Light
A Play in Two Acts
By [ B. Otto Will ]
Premiere Production:
[Brrd Roots]
[Date]
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Characters
JON - 30s-40s, botanist/physicist. Measures grief like data. Wears a lab coat that gradually transforms throughout the play.
TSEGE - 30s-40s, former emergency room nurse. Transforms witnessing into action. Carries invisible weight.
KEMET - Ageless, exists in multiple times simultaneously. A philosopher of temporal fragments. Their gender is fluid.
SUSUMU - 20s-60s (age shifts), prophet of incomplete thoughts. Sometimes child, sometimes ancient.
ENSEMBLE - 3-5 performers who embody: The Pigeon Uncle, Grammy, The Boy, Helicopter Children, Cave Echoes
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Setting
A liminal space suggesting multiple realities. The stage contains:
- Sand/dirt floor sections that actors manipulate
- Multiple playing levels connected by ladders/ramps
- Projection surfaces (scrims, cyclorama)
- Mobile hanging elements (cards, molecular structures, text fragments)
- A cave mouth (upstage center)
- Laboratory table with specimens (stage left)
- Grammy's rocking chair filled with yarn (stage right)
Time: All times. No time. The moment between heartbeats.
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Production Notes
Lighting: Designed to fragment and unite throughout. UV reveals hidden text on costumes/set. "Broken prayers" literally become light beams in Act II.
Sound: Layered whispers of "meek meow" as sonic foundation. Cave acoustics. Static/divine interference. Live vocal processing.
Costumes: Begin naturalistic, gradually abstract. Jon's lab coat accumulates stains/writing. Tsege's nurse scrubs transform to flowing fabric. Kemet wears all seasons. Susumu's clothes age/youth with them.
Movement: Shifts between scientific precision and spiritual flow. Repetitive gestures accumulate meaning. Final image: all creating one breathing organism.
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ACT ONE
Scene 1: The Question Forms
Pre-show: Ensemble scattered in audience, whispering fragments of text. As lights fade, they move to stage.
Lights up on JON at lab table, examining pressed flowers under microscope. TSEGE sits with invisible patient. KEMET stands in multiple positions simultaneously (lighting effect). SUSUMU draws in sand.
JON
(To audience, not looking up)
Love makes kindness, so kindness has to make something else—maybe molecules doing the cha-cha between heartbeats?
(Looks up suddenly)
Yesterday I gave my sandwich to a pigeon who looked like my dead uncle.
ENSEMBLE MEMBER becomes the Pigeon Uncle, pecking at invisible crumbs
PIGEON UNCLE
(In pigeon coos that somehow form words)
Photosynthesis... continues... cooo... after... cooo... death...
JON
(Disturbed, returns to microscope)
But we get lost trying to math our feelings, solving for X when X keeps morphing into why the hell.
TSEGE
(To invisible patient)
Days slide by like botched experiments. Shhh. I know. Each morning we test if honor and trust can be our anthem.
KEMET
(From three positions, voices overlapping)
Past-Kemet: Our cells hummed offkey—
Present-Kemet: Our cells hum offkey beneath everything—
Future-Kemet: Our cells will hum offkey until—
SUSUMU
(Drawing spirals in sand)
The scientific method says: stay put equals data collection. Like catching invisible butterflies with torn nets. But the butterflies are thoughts. But the thoughts are prayers. But the prayers are broken.
ALL
(Sudden unison)
Run from grief equals contaminated results. Footprints everywhere.
They begin moving in patterns, leaving actual footprints in sand
JON
But here's the flip—some unmeasurable future awakening is coming BECAUSE we can't time it.
TSEGE
Can't cage it in calendars.
KEMET
Can't trap it in clocks.
SUSUMU
Can't can't can't—
(Stops, tastes the word)
Can't tastes like aluminum. Like disappointment. Like—
ALL
Hope.
Scene 2: Cards Fall Backwards
Hanging mobile of cards begins rotating. Each card shows a different image: roses, hammocks, molecular structures, prayer hands.
JON
(Back to cards)
My back's to the cards. Those paper fortune-tellers lined up like tiny soldiers. Not reading futures that already happened yesterday.
KEMET
In another kitchen—watch—
Lighting shift. We see shadow-versions of all four characters facing the cards, reading them hungrily
SHADOW-JON
The cards say my mother returns as photosynthesis.
SHADOW-TSEGE
The cards say every patient I lost is teaching flowers to bloom.
SHADOW-KEMET
The cards say time is a spiral staircase and we're walking up and down simultaneously.
SHADOW-SUSUMU
The cards say meow meow meow meow meow meow.
Shadows vanish. Original positions restore.
JON
When we finally drop our boxing gloves—
All four raise fists, then slowly lower them. As they lower, their hands transform into flower shapes
JON (CONT'D)
These stupid fists, these flowers that forgot blooming—something clicks.
TSEGE
(Demonstrating with whole body now)
Giving up resistance makes us stronger than holding tight. Watch—
She becomes water, flowing around invisible obstacles, the ensemble creating rocks in her path
TSEGE (CONT'D)
Like water that goes around every rock but still carves the Grand Canyon. Still cuts through time itself.
KEMET
Time itself—yes. I've seen the Grand Canyon before it existed. Will see it after it's gone. The water remembers forward.
SUSUMU
(Reading from invisible book)
"Be calm in Soul and Mind," the books say all serious.
(Throws invisible book)
Then the universe butts in—
Scene 3: The Teaching of Meek Meow
Stage transforms. Ensemble creates a circle. SUSUMU enters the center.
SUSUMU
First there was the word. But before the word was the sound. But before the sound was the—
SUSUMU & ENSEMBLE
(Whispered)
Meek meow...
SUSUMU
A cat spoke this to me in a dream. No. A cat spoke this to me while I was awake but dreaming. No. I am the cat.
SUSUMU transforms movement into cat-like meditation
SUSUMU (CONT'D)
Meek meow...
TSEGE joins the center
TSEGE
My grandmother's cat. Lived twenty-three years. Outlived Grammy. At the funeral, it said—
SUSUMU & TSEGE
Meek meow...
KEMET joins, moving through multiple time positions
KEMET
Every cat that ever lived is saying it now. Egyptian temple cats. Bodega cats. The first cat to purr at fire. All saying—
SUSUMU, TSEGE & KEMET
Meek meow...
JON resists, stays at his table
JON
This is ridiculous. Sound waves don't carry meaning without linguistic structure—
ALL OTHERS
Meek meow... meek meow... meek meow...
The repetition builds. Ensemble joins. It becomes rhythmic, hypnotic, almost unbearable
JON
(Breaking, joining)
MEEK MEOW!
Sudden silence
JON (CONT'D)
Makes zero sense till it makes ALL the sense.
KEMET
Cat buddha teaching us submission has its own power trip.
TSEGE
(Tasting the air, synesthesia visible)
The meows taste purple in my mouth. Purple like bruises healing. Purple like royalty earned through suffering. Purple like—
ENSEMBLE
(Overlapping whispers)
Eggplant enlightenment / Violet violence / Indigo insight / Lavender longing
SUSUMU
Space rockets go up by pushing down—Newton getting freaky with metaphysics.
Ensemble creates rocket shape, pushes against floor, begins to rise
Scene 4: Before Sight Comes Seeing
Lights shift to golden. Ensemble becomes OWL BABIES, eyes closed, huddled together
KEMET
Sun Shots stab our eyes like golden needles—
Sharp light beams pierce the space
KEMET (CONT'D)
Blinding us into seeing. Those light fuzzy owl babies keeping eyes shut see more than grown owls with 20/20.
OWL BABIES
(Eyes closed, speaking as one)
We see: Tomorrow's rainfall. Yesterday's sorrow. The color of kindness (it's periwinkel). The weight of photosynthesis (seven pounds, three ounces). The distance between heartbeats (infinite) (intimate) (infinitimate).
JON
Before we can see it—
ALL
God of Goodness creates it.
TSEGE
My grandmother knew this. Knitted blankets for graves before anyone died. "Preparation," she said, "is prayer."
ENSEMBLE MEMBER becomes GRAMMY, knitting in the rocking chair
GRAMMY
(Knitting furiously)
One stitch for the stranger who'll die Tuesday. Purl two for the child not yet born who'll need warmth in winter 2047. Cable knit for the complicated grief coming. Drop stitch for the words we'll drop when sorrow makes us stutter.
KEMET
Creation first, perception second. Textbooks got their chronology backwards.
KEMET moves to cave mouth
KEMET (CONT'D)
Listen—I'll prove it.
(Cups hands around mouth)
HOLLER FROM A CAVE AMONGST MYSTERIOUS SHADOWS!
The holler echoes—but returns as LIGHT, not sound. Beams shoot from the cave mouth
ENSEMBLE
(Awestruck whispers)
The echo bounces back as light / Sound becoming brightness / In the cave's weird chemistry / Alchemy / All-chemistry
JON
(Scientist breaking)
Physics calls bullshit but physics never figured in—
TSEGE and SUSUMU find each other, hold hands. The space between their palms glows
TSEGE
That chance inflation of an elder hand holding another elder hand.
SUSUMU
(To TSEGE)
Your hand remembers forward. Mine remembers backward. Together we remember now.
KEMET
Touch making atoms spread out. Love fattening up the universe. The Big Bang was just God holding hands with Themselves.
Scene 5: Urgency Lullaby
Ensemble becomes THE BOY, limp in TSEGE's arms
TSEGE
(Urgent, cradling THE BOY)
Fill that boy up with just arrived food so that he doesn't die while we are holding him.
THE BOY
(Weakly)
The food tastes like tomorrow. Like survival. Like my mother's hands before she—
JON
Biology screams: calories in, death out. Brutal survival math.
TSEGE
(Feeding invisible food)
But each spoonful is also prayer. Also rebellion against entropy. Also—
KEMET
The way they do political leadership makes us want to go away to—
ALL
(Building to primal scream)
Ahh— Ahhh— AHHHH— EEEEEEEEE—
The scream transforms into musical note
SUSUMU
Where words just break. Crack like bones that heal wrong. But wrong healing is still healing. Crooked miracles.
THE BOY suddenly sits up, strong
THE BOY
I dreamed I was a pigeon. I dreamed I was your uncle. I dreamed I was a sandwich being given.
TSEGE
Yesterday I gave my sandwich to a pigeon who looked like my dead uncle.
PIGEON UNCLE
(Returning)
Coooo. The sandwich tasted like recognition. Like being seen. Like—coooo—love with mustard.
Pause. Everyone processes this impossible exchange
TSEGE
The pigeon knew. The pigeon remembered.
JON
That's not how memory works—
KEMET
That's EXACTLY how memory works. Ask Grammy.
Scene 6: The Grammy/Grime Equation
Lights shift. The rocking chair becomes central. GRAMMY still knitting but now covered in dirt
ALL
Police say the hammock is covered with Grammy—
GRAMMY
(Still knitting)
And grimy. Yes. I am grime now. So?
TSEGE
Grammy IS grime? Grandma IS dirt?
GRAMMY
Honey, I been dirt since 1987. Just took dying to make it official.
KEMET
Oh wait we all become dirt anyway.
TSEGE
(To GRAMMY)
She knitted blankets for strangers' graves.
GRAMMY
Still do. Death didn't stop these hands. Look—
Her knitting needles move impossibly fast, blankets flowing out, covering the stage
GRAMMY (CONT'D)
One for the tsunami victims. One for the children in cages. One for the species going extinct tomorrow at 3:47 PM. One for your broken heart, Jon.
JON
My heart's not—
GRAMMY
Will be. When you finally let it.
SUSUMU
That's it. That's it. That's t—
Cannot finish. The sentence self-amputates. SUSUMU's mouth moves but no sound
KEMET
The sentence amputates itself because completion would lie. Truth lives in the gap. In the gasp. In the—
ALL
T—
They hold the unfinished sound. It becomes musical. Becomes holy
Scene 7: The Boring Middle Eye
Everyone turns to look at center stage. Nothing there but intense focus
JON
Middle-eye is boring.
TSEGE
Centered vision only sees straight when everything spirals.
KEMET
I am boring when I forget—
SUSUMU
They are irresistible.
ENSEMBLE
(Becoming THEY—beautiful, strange, magnetizing)
We are: The unnameable. The uncontainable. The uncle-pigeons. The grammy-grime. The photosynthesis after death. The meow before meaning.
ALL
Be that go.
Movement sequence: everyone attempts to "be that go"—abstract, failed, funny, profound
ALL (CONT'D)
Anyway.
They wave white flags made of neural tissue (fabric that looks like brain matter)
JON
Logic surrenders.
TSEGE
Finally.
End Act One
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ACT TWO
Scene 1: The Partnership Ends
Stage scattered with dead plants. JON examining them with increasing desperation
JON
We took one look beside your Asking Why—
Giant question mark appears (projection or physical)
JON (CONT'D)
That wrecking ball punctuation—and that was the end of my partnership with photosynthesis.
ENSEMBLE
(As plants, dying dramatically)
The questions killed us / Your need to know / Your measuring / Your microscope eyes / We prefer mystery / We choose darkness / We divorce you, Jon
SUSUMU
Plants show us questions murder connection.
TSEGE
Sometimes knowing kills the real knowing.
KEMET
But things need to die for other things to live so—
The dead plants suddenly transform into letters: U U U U U
ALL
The beginning of U changed my life.
JON
(Tracing the letter in air)
U—the letter is a vessel. A cup. A—
TSEGE
Uterus. Universe. Understanding. You.
SUSUMU
You contains Universe.
KEMET
Understanding starts with standing under mystery's weight.
They all stand under the giant U, letting it press down on them
Scene 2: Pictures of Heaven
Ensemble creates tableau of "moving pictures"—Instagram-style frozen moments of perfection
SUSUMU
Human cruelty now is never more obvious than when we're touching moving pictures of heaven.
MOVING PICTURES
(Frozen, smiling)
Blessed #Living #MyBestLife #NoFilter #HeavenOnEarth
JON
(Swiping through air)
Swiping through paradise while actual paradise rots outside.
The Moving Pictures begin to decay while still smiling
TSEGE
We crave for more—junkies in nice clothes.
KEMET
Every swipe a prayer to the wrong god. The god of More. The god of Not Enough. The god of Everyone Else's Better Heaven.
ENSEMBLE
(Breaking from pictures, becoming desperate addicts)
More meow! More light! More Uncle Pigeons! More Grammy Grime! More! More! M—
ALL
(Cutting them off)
They look at our wonders and that was the end of today's continuum.
Clock sounds. Everyone freezes mid-gesture
SUSUMU
Time clocks out, beat.
Scene 3: Braille Will Be Never Ore
Darkness. Only touch and sound
SUSUMU
(In darkness)
Braille Will be never ore—
JON
Future blindness makes metal not sight.
Single light on TSEGE
TSEGE
And then you called me with a quiet and fragile voice.
VOICE
(From everywhere)
Help. (Beat) Please. (Beat) I'm strong but—
TSEGE
Your words smelled like rain on hot sidewalks. Like promises about to break. Like—
JON
That was the afternoon that Everybody thought I was so strong.
Lights reveal everyone wearing "STRONG" signs, but trembling
EVERYBODY
(Forced smiles)
Jon's so strong! Never cries! Never breaks! Made of steel! Made of numbers! Made of—
JON
(Breaking)
Tissue paper. Spider web. Breath.
TSEGE
After their other side broke down the doors—
Ensemble becomes doors, breaking
KEMET
Which side is OTHER when all sides are other?
SUSUMU
When we're all foreigners in our own houses?
ALL
Coming back to your sucking arms home place where—
ENSEMBLE
(Trying to lift invisible weights)
No one / Can lift / A damn thing / Any more / It seems
TSEGE
Gravity increases proportionally to need.
JON
Einstein's theory of emotional relativity.
Scene 4: Gray Wedding
Wedding march plays in minor key. Everyone in gray
KEMET
Gray wedding.
ALL
The color of joy mixed with sad till you can't separate them.
SUSUMU becomes minister
SUSUMU
Do you, Happiness, take Sorrow to be your lawfully wedded—
HAPPINESS & SORROW
(Ensemble members, identical)
I do I do I do I don't I do
TSEGE
It ought to bring us Your Will.
KEMET
Breathing it on to us.
Sound of breathing fills space. Becomes wind. Becomes song
VOICE FROM CELL
(Ensemble creates prison bars with bodies)
Song sung from a cell of a hot and sunny desert ruin prison—
GRAMMY
(From within the cell)
Even here, I knit. Even here, the blankets grow. Imprisonment makes the yarn more precious. Makes each stitch a revolution.
JON
Heirs to kings and queens give instructions—
Ensemble becomes royal court with charts and graphs
ROYAL HEIRS
Full of charts! (showing pie chart of sorrow)
Facts! (bar graph of kindness)
And figurative pictures! (scatter plot of prayers)
Dividing blank pages in a Book of Love!
TSEGE
Data visualizes what cannot be quantified.
SUSUMU
Desperate, lay your head down.
Everyone lays down. Constellation formation
Scene 5: Mother Logic
TSEGE
Your mother's smile has more sense than many living for dynasty.
ENSEMBLE
(As dynasty-seekers)
Our shorts are long! (showing long shorts)
His see-through pants is scary! (transparent costume)
Fashion is dynasty! Dynasty is fashion! Transparent scary fashion dynasty!
KEMET
You can bet that words will disappoint you.
ALL
Yet we keep betting.
JON
Gambling addicts at the conversation casino.
Sound of helicopter approaching
Scene 6: The Helicopter Children
Ensemble becomes children. Massive wind effect. Dust everywhere
KEMET
When the children run towards the helicopter lowering and blowing blinding dust in all directions—
CHILDREN
(Running in slow motion)
Rescue! Danger! Rescue! Danger! Which one? Both one! Run toward! Run away! Run! Run!
SUSUMU
Innocence rushing toward danger bringing rescue bringing danger.
TSEGE
Snake eating its tail eating its tale eating its—
JON
Complete heat lurks in your iris.
Everyone's eyes begin glowing with heat
ALL
Fever in the seeing-ball.
KEMET
Resolutions of all the fruitless subjects—
ENSEMBLE
(As subjects)
Math without numbers! Science without facts! Love without object! Prayer without words! Fruit without seeds!
ALL
Stay unresolved.
SUSUMU
That's the only real resolution.
Scene 7: Final Fragmentation/Unity
The stage begins to physically fragment. Platforms separate. Lights fracture
SUSUMU
Fragments gonna fragment.
KEMET
Like light hitting a prism—
They become the prism. Light shoots through them, creating rainbow fragments
KEMET (CONT'D)
Each piece has all colors.
TSEGE
Logic breaks—
Sound of breaking glass/breaking hearts/breaking atoms
TSEGE (CONT'D)
And breaking shows what it really was.
JON
The spiritual floats upside-down—
SUSUMU inverts, floating
SUSUMU
Astronaut in a flooded church where—
ALL
MEEK MEOW ECHOES THROUGH SPACE ROCKETS!
The meek meow builds again, but different—triumphant, transformative
ENSEMBLE & ALL
(Building cacophony of meows, until—)
Sudden silence
TSEGE
(Softly)
Sound travels in vacuum when vacuum's stuffed with love—
KEMET
With kindness—
SUSUMU
And our gorgeous need—
JON
To stay lost.
Pause. They breathe together
ALL
(To audience)
Meek.
Beat
ALL (CONT'D)
Meow.
Lights fragment into countless broken prayers. Each fragment rises, becomes a star, a point of light. The stage fills with ascending light until—
Total illumination. Then—
BLACKOUT
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Curtain Call Instructions
As lights return, each actor gives audience members small cards with fragments of text. Audience reads them aloud together, creating final cacophony of broken prayers returning as sound, returning as light.
END OF PLAY
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Technical Specifications
Running Time: Approximately 100 minutes without intermission
Minimum Cast: 4 principals + 3 ensemble (doubling possible)
Orchestra: Optional live musicians for underscoring
Special Requirements:
- Flying rig for floating sequences
- UV light system
- Projection mapping capability
- Haze for light beams
- Sand/dirt floor sections
Note to Directors: Embrace the impossibility. Where logic breaks, theatre begins.
