The Unseen

The Unseen by Craig Wright

Characters:
3 males: Wallace, Valdez, Smash (Smeija)

Drama.

This play tells the story of two men, Wallace and Valdez, who have been trapped in a prison for many years and tortured violently for reasons unknown to them. The two men have never seen each other, living in separate cells with a cell in between them. They have only each other for company, and discuss the possibilities of what might exist outside of their cells and outside of the prison altogether. Through their discussion, we discover Wallace to be an intellectual, far more educated than the dreamer, Valdez. Wallace constantly tinkers with a clock, timing his motions to the sound of the buzzers, a constant presence throughout the piece. Suddenly, Wallace has a realization, and divulges his plot of escape to Valdez, the first step being to convince one of the torturing guards, Smash, to let them out. When Smash enters, they try to reason with him to act as his friends, listening to the man's woes. Smash, however, will not tolerate their conversation today, as he has been reprimanded for talking to the prisoners, who he can't help but feel sorry for because of the pain he causes them. He explains how he wants to rip out their eyes and cut out their tongues, but even so, he would still know the pain he's causing them. Smash leaves, and Wallace's hopes are dashed. The first scene ends with a tapping sound coming from the cell in between the two prisoners that they had previously thought to be empty. In the second scene, Wallace wallows and tries to starve himself to death, while Valdez explains the plans of the woman (he assumes she is a woman) in the cell between them, which she communicates to him through a tapping language they have developed over the past 10 days between scenes. Valdez says that today things will change and a revolution will begin where they will be let free. Wallace points out that Valdez has no idea who this person is and that all of this language he is hearing is completely assumed from tapping. Finally, Smash comes in and opens the doors of the two prisoners, letting them go free. He explains that, while torturing another prisoner that day, he couldn't take it and ripped the man's eyes out. When the man screamed, he ripped out his tongue. Still the man made noise so he smashed his vocal box, and when he couldn't take the knowing of this man's suffering, he lit him on fire. With this collapse of the system, Smash was letting them free to leave the prison, only after admitting it had been he who had been tapping on Valdez's wall in order to get him back for getting him in trouble. After some time, Wallace and Valdez leave their cells together.