[Act I: The Wood-cutter's Cottage]

. . .

(A knock at the door.)

LITTLE BROTHER (suddenly quieted and frightened)
What's that?

BIG BROTHER (elated)
It's Daddy!

(As they hesitate before opening the door, the big latch is seen to rise of itself, with a grating noise; the door half opens to admit an old man dressed in yellow and black. He is lame and his crown is crooked. It is obvious that he is wearing a disguise, for he is not their real father.)

FALSE FATHER
Have you the grass here that sings or the bird that is blue?

LITTLE BROTHER
We have some grass, but it can't sing.

BIG BROTHER
Little Brother has a bird.

LITTLE BROTHER
But I can't give it away.

FALSE FATHER
Why not?

LITTLE BROTHER
Because it's mine.

FALSE FATHER
That's a reason, no doubt. Where is the bird?

LITTLE BROTHER (pointing to the cage)
In the cage . . .

FALSE FATHER (putting on painted glasses to examine the bird)
I don't want it; it's not blue enough. You will have to go and find me the one I want.

LITTLE BROTHER
But I don't know where it is.

FALSE FATHER
No more do I. That's why you must look for it. I can do without the grass that sings, at a pinch; but I must absolutely have the blue bird. It's for my new little girl, who is very ill.

LITTLE BROTHER
What's the matter with her?

. . .

Maurice Maeterlinck's L'Oiseau Bleu premiered in Moscow in 1908, and has since become part of the collective substrate via the memetic transference of the bird of its title into a symbolic representation of the freedom which returns with innocent purity (c.f. William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience). The "Blue Bird of Happiness" is a common panacean quest object that manifests in dreams that follow the typical Rank-Beminfalz Proto-Industrial Folklore Logic. An improvisational oneiric version, a brief excerpt of which is quoted above, recently premiered on the Ebbinghaus Proscenium. It will, undoubtedly, mutate further before it is witnessed again. The audience of this version (hereafter referred to as the "False Father" edition) is unknown . . .

(How is it being reported? If no one knows who was there, then how does a transcript of the play exist? It is clearly a personality expression rising up through childhood memories and the Metaxu subtext. It is nothing more than mental detritus of a mind working through a synaptic compression, and is meant to be transitory. We invent all manner of one-act plays and elaborate stage shows. These are the manner in which various elements of our personalities and identities try out what-if scenarios and proleptic extrapolations. This is not uncommon. What concerns me, beyond the obvious schizophrenic issue of identifying the source of the academic commentary, is that, while I have no memory of this play, I know the next line.)

. . .

FALSE FATHER
We don't quite know; she wants to be happy . . .