The following is a play written by Annika Murrell ’15.

Scene opens on Meta and Shawn sitting on the couch. Meta is playing a game on her phone, and Shawn is watching TV. Also Dirk is there, sprawled out on the floor writing in a notebook. Shawn reaches his arm out and pauses the television with the remote.

Shawn: You know, I’m thinking about breaking the fourth wall more often.

Meta: Excuse me?

Shawn turns towards the audience.

Shawn: These guys, huh?

Meta: Who are you talking to?

Shawn: The fourth wall.

Meta: Come again?

Shawn: These lovely people out here.

He gestures to the audience.

Meta: Where?

Shawn: Guys, it’s not a big deal. They’re just watching us.

Meta: Who?

Shawn: The people behind the fourth wall!

Meta: That wall right there? Like, with the paintings hung on it?

Shawn: Meta, you’ve never heard of the fourth wall?

Meta: No.

Shawn: Seriously? Dirk?

Dirk (without looking up from his notebook): He’s just screwing with you, Meta. You just haven’t hung around us long enough to be able to tell.

Shawn: No, you guys, the fourth wall is a real thing!

Dirk: Sure.

Shawn: All right, all right. Let me break this down for you. There is no physical fourth wall. HOWEVER, from a metaphysical standpoint, the fourth wall is this invisible barrier between the edge of a stage and the front row of an audience. Or between a movie screen and your face.

Meta: So right now, I’m…like four feet away from the fourth wall? Like, the TV screen?

Shawn: Give or take a foot, sure.

Meta leaps off the couch and begins taking intervals of steps towards the TV, with her face stuck out.

Meta: And now I’m three feet away…two feet away…one foot—

Shawn: If you don’t mind, I’m busy trying to watch this.

Dirk: Nah, man, that’s actually an interesting point she’s making. The fact that the fourth wall is a fluid space.

Meta: But then how do we tell when it’s broken?

Shawn: When we see people.

Meta leaps on the couch.

Meta: Do YOU see people?

Shawn: Meta, it doesn’t really matter if I do or not, because whether I see them or not, they’re there.

Dirk: In other words, he doesn’t see them.

Shawn: Man, you don’t know that!

Dirk puts his notebook down and sits up.

Dirk: Prove to me that there are people there.

Shawn: Dirk, when a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Dirk: Are you serious right now?

Shawn: Answer the question.

Meta gets up and begins walking towards the edge of the stage.

Dirk: Scientifically we can prove that the tree makes a sound, because we can record that the tree makes a sound for the first, like, seventy billion times the tree has fallen, and the next seventy billion times it falls.

Shawn: But by recording it you have to be present to hear it. Who knows what it does when we’re not looking?

Meta suddenly seems to have bumped into something, and is feeling an invisible wall on the edge of the stage.

Dirk: What’s your point?

Shawn: My point is that maybe, even if I haven’t seen people the first seventy billion times I look over there, that the next time I turn around, there will be people!

Meta (after Shawn finishes “my point”): Guys!…Guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys!!

Dirk and Shawn: WHAT?

Meta looks at them and knocks on the wall. It makes a hollow knocking sound.

Dirk: What the—

Shawn(simultaneously): Wait, what the heck?

The boys come over to feel the wall where Meta is. They feel carefully at first, and then become more and more flustered and start walking the length of the stage to feel the fourth wall.

Dirk: Is this…the fourth wall?

Shawn: Told you.

Dirk: Shut up, dude! Did you put this here?

Shawn: What could I have possibly put here that’s entirely invisible and has the structure and feel of a real wall?

Meta: But actually though—

Shawn: No, actually though, I did not do this.

Beat.

Dirk: But then that means—

Meta: Shoot!

Dirk: There are really people out there?

Meta: Oh my god!

Dirk: How long has this been here!?

Meta: Oh my god!

Dirk: HAVE THEY BEEN WATCHING US THIS WHOLE TIME?

Meta: OH MY GOD!

Dirk: I’VE DONE THINGS IN THIS ROOM THAT ARE PRIVATE!

Shawn: What?!?

Dirk: Well, yeah!

Shawn: Dirk, this is my living room! What have you done in here?

Dirk looks guiltily at the potted plant in the corner, that looks very dead.

Dirk: …

Shawn: OH, DUDE! YOU KILLED MY MOM’S PLANT!

Meta: Guys!

Dirk: You were already in the bathroom!

Meta: Guys, wall!! What are we gonna do about it?

Shawn (as if this is obvious): We gotta tear it down.

Dirk: Are you serious?

Shawn: Why not?

Dirk: Are you kidding me? I don’t want to know what’s out there!

Shawn: Why not?

Dirk: All those weird people staring at us?!

Shawn: Dirk, you’re not thinking this through. It could be anyone out there. It could be Victoria Secret’s Angels out there!

Dirk: Why would Victoria Secret’s Angels be watching us?

Shawn: I don’t know, but it would be AWESOME, and I don’t think we can rule it out!

Meta: Shawn, you’re disgusting.

Shawn: I’m not disgusting, I’m just thinking about this logically. We don’t have any evidence to go off of. We don’t know anything about the space, climate, or effect of gravity behind this wall. Therefore, it would be wrong to rule out Victoria Secret’s Angels over anything else.

Meta: There could be nothing behind the wall.

Dirk: That’s actually really reassuring.

Shawn: Is it more reassuring than believing that Victoria Secret’s Angels are out there?

Dirk: Yes! I took a whizz in your mom’s plant in front of Victoria Secret’s Angels! Think about that!

Meta: THEY AREN’T BEHIND THAT WALL!

Dirk: Just don’t break it, Shawn. I don’t wanna know.

Shawn: Oh, like this isn’t killing you! You’re the single most curious person I know, Dirk! This is going to EAT YOU ALIVE!

Dirk: No, knowing will eat me alive! Don’t break it!

Shawn: How?

Dirk: Okay, well you said that the fourth wall is between a stage and the front row of the audience, right?

Shawn: Yeah.

Dirk: Doesn’t that imply that we’re in a play or something right now?

Shawn:…Oh dang, I had not thought of that.

Meta: Wait, so…we’re like actors in the play?

Dirk: I guess so.

Meta: But wouldn’t we know?

Dirk: Wouldn’t we what?

Meta: Actors know they’re acting. Buuuuut the characters that the actors are portraying don’t know that they aren’t real.

Shawn: So you’re implying that we’re characters, as opposed to actors, in this play?

Meta: Exactly! And therefore, if we’re characters, we’re not even real!

Dirk: I can’t!

Meta: We probably don’t even have any free will! Everything we’re doing isn’t really our own choice! It’s coming from somewhere—or someone—else!

Dirk: I can’t! think like this!

Shawn: Can’t you? Or does some outside influence doesn’t want to let you?

Dirk: CUT IT OUT!

Shawn: Fine, fine guys. Let’s just find out, all right?

Shawn reaches under his couch and pulls out a sledgehammer.

Dirk: You keep a sledgehammer under your couch?

Shawn: If it’ll move the plot forward faster, then I can keep my tools wherever I want.

Dirk: WHAT PLOT? THERE IS NO PLOT!

Meta: Not provable yet!

Shawn swings the hammer into the fourth wall. Eventually, he puts it down and begins pawing at the hole he has made.

Shawn: CRAP!

Meta: What, what?

Shawn: I see PEOPLE out there!

Meta: Lemme see!

She shoves Shawn out of the way as Dirk sits down on the couch, looking sick.

Meta: Hi guys! Am I in a play right now?

Dirk: Are they at least Victoria Secret’s Angels?

Meta: Did you guys see Dirk pee in that plant over there?

Dirk: DON’T TELL THEM THAT!

Meta: Calm down, Dirk. There aren’t any models out there.

To audience

Meta: No offense, though.

Shawn shoves Meta out of the way.

Shawn: Also, we’ve used deductive reasoning to decide that we’re not actors, because actors are aware that they’re acting. We had no idea until about five minutes ago that we’re in a play, so therefore we must be the characters. So, who are you really seeing onstage? Me, Shawn, or the actor, like, I dunno, [Insert Actor’s name here].

Meta: Wow! It might not even be me right now! I might have a totally different name in real life! Like…like…[Insert Actor’s name here].

Dirk (from couch): I hope my character’s named something awesome, like [Insert Actor’s name here].

Shawn (without turning around from wall): That’s a dumb name.

Dirk: Shut up!

Meta (also without turning around): No, sorry, it is. It’s really weird.

Dirk: Meta!

Meta: Sorry!

Dirk: No, Meta, help me!

Meta and Shawn turn around to find that stage Ninjas have entered and are carrying the couch, with Dirk still on it, offstage. Meta grabs Dirk’s hand and pulls him off.

Shawn: Hey! Come back here with my couch!

Dirk: Who are you?

Shawn: My mom’s gonna kill me if she comes home and her couch is gone!

Meta: Stage hands.

Dirk: What?

Meta: They’ve gotta be stage hands. Like in between scenes in a play when people dressed in black come in and move the furniture around. That’s them.

Shawn: They couldn’t have taken something else, like the coffee table?

He gestures to nothing.

Meta: But Shawn, that coffee table probably isn’t really there.

Shawn: You’ve gotta be kidding me.

Meta: No, look!

She swipes her hand through the space the coffee table is believed to be.

Meta: We’ve just been miming it the whole time, because we can see it, but it’s not there!

Shawn bends down to see for himself.

Dirk: That also explains why we aren’t upstaging one another and why we’re cheating out!

Meta: And why there’s spike tape on the ground!

Dirk: Of course! I’ve been wondering about that spike tape for weeks! Shawn, are you okay?

Shawn is still swiping his hand through the space he believes the coffee table to be.

Shawn: But…but….

Meta: It’s really weird how this is his one philosophic weakness.

Shawn: But the coffee table is proved to exist by the atoms making it up!

Dirk: They’re just air atoms, dude. The table is in your mind.

Shawn: Dirk, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have broken the wall. It’s not awesome. It’s kind of the biggest identity crisis of my life.

Dirk: Why the hell did you break it?

Shawn: …Someone made me.

Dirk: What?

Shawn: Man, if we’re not real—

Meta: We’re characters. Not necessarily fake, jut not real.

Shawn: Then someone else is controlling what we do. Someone, somewhere, is deciding at this very moment what is happening to us.

Dirk: oh. OH!

Shawn: Right!

Dirk: What kind of twisted mind would do that?

Shawn: I dunno!

Dirk: So it was’t really my fault that I peed in your mom’s plant?!

Shawn: What?

Dirk: It wasn’t my choice that I peed in the plant. I had too, see, because some third party was making me.

Shawn: So you didn’t really kill my mom’s plant! You know what—

Shawn gets up.

Shawn: I gotta bone to pick with this guy.

Dirk: Or girl. I don’t think we should assume that the writer is automatically a boy because I am a feminist and therefore OH MY GOD THIS IS DEFINATELY A GIRL WRITING THIS.

Meta’s next line is shouted to the heavens, as if trying to contact the all powerful playwright.

Meta: Hey! All powerful creator, or whatever you are! Why’d you stick me with two guys and no female companionship! I mean, are you even listening to what you’re making them say? They’re disgusting!

Dirk: She’s probably out past that wall. She’s probably sitting and laughing at us right now.

Shawn: I am so done right now!

He begins to reproach the stage with the sledgehammer.

Meta: Wait, Shawn!

Shawn: What now Meta?!?

Meta: You can’t go out there!

Shawn: Screw you.

Meta: No!

Meta points to the audience, then the stage, then the audience, then the stage, then Shawn himself.

Meta: Real. Fiction. Real. Fiction. We’re fiction. What happens when we cross the fourth wall to reality? Can we even SURVIVE the outside world, or will we, like, melt or something?

Shawn: Melt? What is this, the Wizard of Oz?

Meta (excitedly): Yeah, like the real world is our bucket of water, our kryptonite. We need to be in fantasy. And we need to keep them out. They’re not the same as us!

Shawn: You are making an extremely similar argument to that of segregation.

Meta: Shawn, let it drop. Let’s cover up the hole, forget about it. We don’t need them.

Dirk: What if they need us?

Shawn and Meta: Huh?

Dirk: See, here’s the thing. Yeah, we are the ones who could possibly die if we step into reality, but does that really mean we need fantasy more? Cause we spent all night talking about what our fiction means for us, but we never talked about what it means for them. They’re the ones who agreed to see this show. They’re sitting through it right now, listening and empathizing and hopefully laughing and crying. Cause us? We’re fiction, and we crave reality. But they people out there, they’re real, and all they want is to incorporate some fiction into their world. Like watching a play, or movie, or reading a book, or even just doodling. It’s like an escape from out there, whatever it may be. I mean, look a them. They’ve probably got more mundane lives and personalities and problems than we do. It might suck finding out that you’re not real, but hey, at least it’s original. So I dunno, but I kind of like being in fiction.

Beat.

Shawn: That was actually really, really reflective, dude.

Meta: It must have been the closing monologue! What do you think happens after the lights go down? Do we stop existing?

Dirk: I don’t know, but I hope they get to keep some of our world, even if we can’t keep theirs.

Blackout.