The Tongue
A Play
Cast
- The Technician
- The First Student
- The Other Students
- Tomás de Torquemada
- The Instructor
- Napoleon
(A low room. Shelves filled with boxes and files. No windows. A steady light. The students sit at a long table. At the far end, the Instructor. Near the wall, a Technician stands by a set of instruments. Torquemada takes a file from the shelf. Napoleon nods.)
(The Technician picks up one of the instruments and holds it up for a moment.)
What do you think this is?
(He holds up the instrument.)
Pliers.
(He pauses.)
For extraction.
Extraction of what?
Answers.
Truth.
I’m not so sure of that.
Do you know who I am?
Yes. I know you. And your type.
Gentlemen, please.
I would like to know what he means by that.
I have worked for many who think as you do. It is always the same. You design for truth, produce answers, and do not recognize the difference.
That is blasphemy.
(The Instructor straightens a stack of files.)
We want to see more instruments.
(The Technician sets the pliers down and picks up a rope.)
Bondage!
Bondage of the soul. Through the body, the soul is compelled to speak.
The body gives answers.
The tongue does, but it is the soul that speaks and reveals the truth.
The truth.
The tongue merely replies.
The tongue can be removed.
(The Technician sets the rope aside and picks up a small pair of tongs.)
Precisely.
How can you hear the truth when the tongue is gone?
Silence speaks the truth.
The truth.
I knew he would say that.
Hand me the tongs.
Gentlemen, please.
Can we see the rack?
(The Technician holds up a hood.)
Kinky!
Silence!
(The students continue to murmur.)
Or I will turn off the Wi-Fi tonight.
(The students fall silent.)
Simple and modern.
To remove sight so that the soul may speak truthfully.
(He crosses himself.)
It is simply there to induce fear of suffocation.
Suffocation!