RESONATING SOUND Important Info: Everyone in the world has a bar (like a battery, this could be a piece of colored velco that is attached to your chest over your heart.) on their chest that reveals their mental state (high/green = happy; yellow/orange = Upset/meh; Red = depressed; Black = no returning point). If the bar reaches black, that person has no way of reaching back up to the green, they will forever be black. Furthermore, people who have a black bar, usually commit suicide and can ask police officers and ‘relievers’ (people with the career to help black-bars peacefully pass away) to aid them; aka ‘relieve’ them of the pain. CHARACTERS: Randy Highschool junior. Red bar, nearly black. Tall, quiet, and reserved. Luke Highschool Junior. Green bar. Outgoing, friendly, happy, and always positive. People would often stop him in the halls to say hello/good morning/goodbye. Football player. Reliever Very sweet, high pitched voice. She usually wears pink, but you can portray this character however you see fit. Madeline Highschool senior. Green bar. Kind, protective, but can be seen as narcissistic and rude at times. SCENE 1: ​ SETTING: Highschool Hallway. Painted lockers/bags on the ground. RANDY Starting from stage left, he will slowly make his way to stage right as he talks. His ‘speech’ is a soliloquy, so no other characters will hear him. The bar on his chest is BLACK, so wear a light-colored shirt. I used to have a green bar. I used to be full of light, hope, ​ excitement...Now I’m just numb to it all. My bar’s color began going down in 8th grade when I was first confused. That’s when I lost myself because it felt like every time I looked into the mirror, I was looking at a stranger. Sometimes, when I think about it, this whole system of showing everyone’s bar color off to the world is counter-productive. I mean, shouldn’t our mental health be something we can keep quiet about? Randy stops ​ walking to check out his book. LUKE Enters from stage left, behind Randy, pulls his backpack off of his back, and looks in it like he’s looking for a textbook. 1 MADELINE Enters from stage right. When she sees Randy standing there, she steers away from him as if he has a disease. Her face distorted in disgust. When she sees Luke, she rushes over to him, glancing over at Randy. Luke? Luke! Hello? Snap out of it! ​ LUKE He was in a daydream. Huh? Oh, sorry, hey, Madeline. What’s up? He sees Madeline glancing ​ ​ over at Randy, he looks at him and looks sorry for him. Damn, his bar’s black… ​ MADELINE Yeah… Oh, anyway, I got you that homework you missed while you were out sick last week. It’s not much, so don’t worry about it. She pulls out a small stack of crumpled up paper from ​ her bag. LUKE Takes the papers from her and looks very pleased. Urgh! Thank you! You are such a lifesaver, ​ Mads. I don’t know what I’d do without you. MADELINE Glances back over at Randy, again. Yeah, no problem. Hey, do me a favor, don’t talk to that ​ black-bar kid. I know you have a soft spot for the depressed ones, but there’s no point in trying to help him. He’s had a black-bar since last year, sophomore year. I mean, I’m ​ ​ surprised he hasn’t gone to a reliever yet, but he might have a chance today during lunch. LUKE He was staring at Randy but quickly looked at Madeline as if she said something important. Wh-what do you mean? What do you mean he might have a chance today? Why? MADELINE Oh, you didn’t know? There’s a reliever coming here during lunch to make themselves more accessible to the black-bars. I hear that the black-bar kid ‘Susan’ is going, and she’s only had a black-bar for a week. She’s talking as if it is funny, so add a couple of scoffs or ​ whatever you believe to be a good addition. RANDY Has been listening to their conversation and is now putting his book back into his bag. LUKE He’s not diseased, Mads, he’s just… Broken. But he’s not unrepairable! MADELINE Luke, he’s been ‘broken’ for more than a year. Why can’t you just drop it and be like the rest of us and just ignore it? Ignore them. I mean, think about it, they’re just depressed teenagers, let them go to the relievers and die. It’s more peaceful than doing it yourself. 2 LUKE He is quiet for a bit when the bell rings for class, he is angry. I’ve lost my appetite for today. I ​ can’t eat when I know kids my age are going over to a reliever. Luke storms off stage ​ ​ ​ right. MADELINE She groans. Luke, why are you so obsessed with them? I will never understand. She exits stage ​ ​ left. SCENE 2: SETTING: Cafeteria. Tables set up with trays on them. RANDY Holding a small tray (no need for actual food on it, just a tray will do fine). The reliever is standing in the middle of the room in a pink dress. Randy puts his tray down on the table and begins to SLOWLY walk over to her. LUKE Is walking with Madeline, looking upset, holding his own tray. He and Madeline walk over to a table but he doesn’t sit down when he sees Randy. Hey. Hey. Hey! No, no, no, no! Dude, ​ wait! MADELINE She had sat down, but she grabbed onto Luke’s arm. Luke! What the hell are you doing? Let him ​ go! He’s practically just a waste of space anyway. LUKE Rips his arm out of her grasp. What the hell are you talking about? No one is a waste of space! ​ ​ ​ He’s a living, breathing, human being who deserves a chance! You can’t just throw someone away like a piece of trash. Storms over to Randy. Come with me. ​ ​ RANDY What? No, who are you? You know what, never mind, just leave me alone. I don’t need another person to tell me to do it, alright? I’m going, so you can leave me be. LUKE Huh? What? NO! Oh, God, no, that’s not why I’m here or talking to you. Chuckles. I’m actually ​ ​ here to stop you. I don’t want you to get ‘relieved’. Deep sigh. Actually, no, you know ​ ​ what, I’m gonna say it how it is. I’m not going to let a fellow student go and kill himself just because a stupid bar tells you how happy you are! Takes his hand and smiles. You’re ​ ​ coming with me whether you like it or not. He drags Randy off stage left. ​ 3 SCENE 3: SETTING: Music room. Instruments are all over the room, multiple chairs are lined up in a crescent shape. RANDY Gets dragged on stage (through stage right) by Luke. What the hell are we doing here? And why ​ do you care so much? It’s obvious that your friend doesn’t care what I do, so why would you? LUKE Luke laughs a bit as he sits down on one of the chairs. Woow~. Already onto the serious and ​ personal questions, sheesh. Anyway, we’re here so you can get your black-bar back up to a green-bar. RANDY Scoffs loudly and looks a bit angry. I knew it! You’re just here to make fun of me for having a ​ black-bar! Everyone knows that once you have a black-bar, you can’t ever get back up to ​ ​ any other color. I’m stuck like this...Forever. LUKE Groans loudly and grabs something from his bag. Urgh… Seriously?! Who cares about these ​ stupid ‘mental-bars’ or whatever? RANDY Awkward silence for a couple of moments. ...Everyone. Everyone cares about these ​ ‘mental-bars’. LUKE Yeah, whatever. But, just because everyone else cares about it, why does that mean you have to care too? Why can’t you choose whether or not you ignore it? Or are you too caught up in the societies ‘perfect image’ that you can’t even see that there’s so much more to life than worrying about a stupid bar. RANDY Yeah, says a green-bar. I mean, do you realize how lucky you are to have a green-bar? It’s become rare to even see green-bars anymore, everyone’s usually a light-yellow or below. I mean, you’d probably pass hundreds of black-bars before you even see a green-bar. LUKE You wanna know why my bar’s green? Because I don’t care about it? Everyone’s bars are so low because it’s all they think about. It’s always about keeping your bar as high as possible and never letting it get bad. I mean, they bottle up everything that’s inside of them, they don’t even let themselves cry because they’re so scared of this stupid bar. 4 RANDY Yeah, I could never do that, even if I didn’t have a black-bar. Large sigh, Randy sits down in one ​ of the chairs and a puff of dust flies up into his face making him cough/sneeze. I still ​ don’t get why we’re in a crusty-dusty music room that no one ever uses.