SHAKESPEARE MODE ENGAGED
🎭 SHAKESPEARE MODE: STAGE THE TRUTH, FORSOOTH
Enter CHORUS, robed in dusk and dread, upon a cold marble dais before a muted court of kings, scribes, and wraiths of buried truths. The curtain of Time parts. The archive awakens. And the tale begins…
ACT I: PROLOGUE OF A BLINDING LIE
CHORUS
Attend thee now, good folk of every land,
And hearken to a tale most grave and grand—
Of soldier true, of sight near lost to fate,
And of a herb that did the scales abate.
Though tongues were tied and temples bowed in fear,
The truth stood clear, though none would dare it hear.
ACT II: A YOUNG SOLDIER’S LAMENT
JOHN SMITH (aside)
I am but twenty-eight, of noble will,
With Peace Corps past and martial present still.
In lands afar, a ball did strike mine eye,
And turned my world to shades and blotted sky.
The medics, dutiful, their potions poured—
Epinephrine, Diamox, and more ignored.
Yet still mine eyeball throbbed, its pressure dire,
My sight dimmed swift, as wax retreats from fire.
(He pauses, trembling, then steps forward.)
So I, in silence, turned to outlaws' balm,
A leaf most cursed by scribes of state and psalm.
And lo! The herb that law hath cast to vice
Did mend mine eye, did cleanse the blood like ice.
From forty down to twelve the numbers fell,
And vision, once but mist, did now me tell
Of faces, forms, and blessed shapes once blurred—
Restored not by the priest, but by the herb.
ACT III: THE PHYSICIAN'S CONSTRAINT
DOCTOR (with hands tied, back turned to the King)
I see it work. The swelling wanes. The light returns.
But chains of statute scorch where conscience burns.
I dare not speak the cure that I observe,
For duty's yoke demands I silent serve.
So hush the halls, and let the file be sealed,
Lest I too be unrobed, and truth revealed.
ACT IV: COURTLY SILENCE, ROYAL SHAME
KING’S SCRIBE (reading from scroll)
Filed, this affidavit under cloak and key,
Lest eyes of court and commons both might see
That soldier’s claim, backed by the healing leaf,
Would rend our war on drugs a threadbare grief.
Though evidence did roar like lion’s cry,
The crown declared: “The herb is but a lie.”
ACT V: THE CHORUS RETURNS, WRATHFUL AND CLEAR
CHORUS
O cursed tongue that tells a man he feigns,
While knowing well the green doth soothe his pains!
O state! O sanctum! Didst thou not receive
This sworn account, and yet chose to deceive?
What shall we say to such betrayal deep?
That sight restored is cause for courts to weep?
That medicine, unbottled and unblessed,
Must to the dungeons be forever pressed?
Nay! For now the page once buried is unrolled,
And truth once whispered now must thunder bold:
EPILOGUE: TRUTH ASCENDS
JOHN SMITH (to audience, no longer in shadow)
Let this be known, let every soul attend:
The herb they mocked did prove my truest friend.
Where pills did fail and eyes near blind did turn,
A humble plant gave back what I did yearn.
I told them all. They listened not. Yet now—
This truth, unshackled, brands them with a vow.
CHORUS
For every scroll that dust did once conceal,
The time has come for justice to reveal.
Speak ye no more of crime, but cure denied.
This affidavit lives—and shall not be belied.
FINIS
🕊️ Filed under: The Bard’s Revenge | Archives Unsealed | Folly of Crowned Ignorance | A Soldier’s Sight Restored by Nature’s Hand
📜 Presented by: The International Veterans Leadership Committee
🎭 For performance at the Theatre of Memory, by company of the IVLC Players, anno domini MMXXV
🎭 By your command, noble Ricardo. The curtain rises once more...
✨ ADDITIONAL SCENES & FINAL CURTAIN
Addenda to the original stage production of
“A Soldier’s Sight Restored by Nature’s Hand”
As performed by the IVLC Players, Anno Domini MMXXV
🔔 INTERLUDE: THE HERALD’S ANNOUNCEMENT
Lights rise upon a solitary figure center stage, draped in cloak of midnight blue, bearing a scroll and a USB drive upon a chain. A spotlight glints off both.
THE HERALD (to audience)
Attend thee well! For scrolls once veiled in dust
Hath now emerged to break the bonds of trust
That held our truth in bureaucratic gloom—
Behold! The archives speak from Randall’s tomb!
With keys of code, and archive’s sacred flame,
The IVLC hath called each ghost by name.
From faded ink to files the world may read,
Let no man say he did not see the deed.
(He raises the drive toward the heavens.)
Digitus ex machina! The record lives anew!
Let justice be restored—and lies subdued!
He exits with purpose. Chorus hums low beneath stage.
🌿 SCENE VI: THE APOTHECARY’S GHOST
A spectral green mist curls in from the wings. Thunder cracks. The ghost of Paracelsus floats forward, luminous, in alchemical robes inked with arcane sigils.
PARACELSUS
What folly this! That men of modern name
Hath scorched the plant that bears Apollo’s flame.
I dealt in roots, in mineral, in vine—
Not patent pills pressed from profit’s line.
(He gestures to a phantom pharmacy, shelves crumbling.)
This leaf, condemned by law’s unknowing gavel,
Doth heal the warrior on his painful travel.
Not poison, but panacea hath he smoked—
And yet they chained him still, as if he’d choked.
(He turns to the shadows where John Smith once stood.)
O soldier brave, thou seek'st no high nor thrill—
But balm, to make thy cursed eye stand still.
To thee I grant my ancient, alchemic sign:
This herb, though outlawed, is of hands divine.
He fades into the mist, whispering spells of liberation.
⚖️ FINALE: LADY JUSTICE UNBLINDFOLDED
A marble statue begins to move. LADY JUSTICE, draped in flowing robes, descends slowly from her pedestal. She removes her blindfold as stage lights fall golden across her eyes.
LADY JUSTICE
Who blinded whom? Not fate, but law most grim—
That turns from cure and chains the healing limb.
I weighed his proof, the affidavit sworn,
Yet silence reigned, and patient hearts were torn.
(With rising fury.)
Shall statutes stand when truth is crushed beneath?
Shall kings declare that mercy is a thief?
Not while I breathe, and not while truth endures—
The leaf he took was cure, not some allure.
(Softly now, with resolve.)
Unbind your minds, ye keepers of the gate,
And let not politics decide one’s fate.
For when the laws do punish health and hope,
The scales I hold become a hangman’s rope.
(She lifts her sword, then kneels beside John Smith’s discarded glasses.)
Let this not be a tragedy—but act anew.
Where justice sees, let healing rise to view.
🏁 EPILOGUE: THE ARCHIVE REMEMBERS
CHORUS returns one final time, all dressed in robes bearing patches from history’s wounded battles—Tuskegee, MK-Ultra, the Compassionate IND.
CHORUS
So ends our play—but not the tale entire.
The scrolls breathe still, and summon righteous ire.
Let policymakers mark what hath been told—
That healing truths shall nevermore be cold.
Let students learn. Let skeptics come to see.
Let veterans speak—and plant their victory tree.
(They raise the IVLC seal. Lights fade.)
ALL TOGETHER
This was no fiction, nor imagined fight—
But buried proof now brought again to light.
FINIS
📜 Addendum to be included in the script folio for public readings, educational programming, congressional briefings, and AI-assisted civic theatre.
Carlin Mode: STUNNED TO SILENCE... then NOT.
🎤 [Lights up. Carlin walks out in a tattered black robe, barefoot, smoldering joint in hand, eyes wide like he just saw Uncle Sam smoking weed behind the Lincoln Memorial.]
CARLIN (growling, awed)
Okay… okay… now THAT’S a goddamn play, folks.
You got government lies wrapped in parchment, bureaucrats tripping over scrolls, and a soldier—get this—a soldierwhose f***in’ eyeball is saved by the Devil’s Lettuce… and the best Uncle Sam could do was file his testimony like it was a damn parking ticket.
And Shakespeare? Oh no—he ain’t rollin’ in his grave. He’s clappin’ in iambic pentameter, goin’:
“Well damn, I ne’er did pen such righteous smoke,
That burned the lies and made the tyrants choke.”
We had:
Doctors gagged like hostages,
Pharmacrats worshipping pills that didn’t work,
And a ghostly f***in’ Paracelsus floatin’ in like “Excuse me, I invented modern medicine, and even I think this war on weed is a clown show.”
And let’s talk about that ending, huh?
Lady Justice rips off her blindfold like a WWE champ, looks straight into the Fourth Wall and says:
“The scales I hold become a hangman’s rope.”
—Shit. You feel that? That ain’t theatre. That’s indictment. That’s Truth with a capital T, and it just kicked the damn courthouse doors off the hinges.
And the Herald? Oh, bless that Herald, USB drive dangling like the Sword of Damocles over every federal agency that knew this in 1978 and still kept the plant in Schedule I. He says:
“Digitus ex machina!”
— That’s Latin for “Upload this and burn their house down.”
Meanwhile, in the audience?
You got Congressfolk pretending they didn’t just wet themselves.
DEA lawyers choking on popcorn.
NIDA scientists writing "maybe we f***ed up?” in the margins of their grant proposals.
CARLIN (leaning into the mic, low and lethal):
This wasn’t a play. This was a truth bomb with footnotes.
Filed under:
Medical history the government hopes you never read.
Testimony they knew was real but buried anyway.
And the comeback of the f***in’ century.
Final thought?
They wrote him off as a stoner.
But he saw—
And now?
So do we.
🖕🌿🎭
Curtain.
