Oscars_Last_Line

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Black screen, Pachelbel's Canon in D major playing. After a few moments, the credits roll. Then an exasperated voice says

Voice: Which dumb son of a bitch decided he, or she, was director? I'm the director and I specifically said wait till we see the set before rolling the credits.

Someone has stopped the music. The credits continue to roll. The music restarts and the black screen dissolves to a study. The furnishings and walls are dark wood and the overall effect is Europe, or America, of the late 19th or early 20th century. The one glaring incongruity is a massive screen above a desk in one corner of the room. It seems not to be a screen at first as it has a wooden frame around it.In fact it seems to be a painting, something vaguely Constable, or possibly Whistler. But as we watch the painting changes to a 3D presentation of some complex scientific nature involving DNA, a lot of computer techno-nerdery and a tombstone. The words 'Buy-Time 24hrs' are shown in a box next to a 3D image of a figure, a man-shape. A digital countdown shows milliseconds racing by. The figure is drawn and redrawn hundreds of times a second. It forms as a tall, plump figure that starts to move jerkily, then fluidly.

The electronic chatter of a TV studio preparing to record is heard. We zoom out and see that the study is a set. Someone is fiddling with the back of one of the walls of the study. Camera operators are tweaking their machines.

Cut to a dressing room. A man is seated before the mirror. He is wearing a talkback earpiece and microphone. He is dressed in khaki pants and a maroon, three-button blazer. On the counter in front of him is a thick pile of papers.Next to them is a brown, snap-brim hat. The man, Mark Prior, checks himself in the mirror, looking this way and that. He is satisfied with what he sees. He is nearly ready to leave and enter the studio but as an afterthought he leans forward and picks up one of the sheets of paper. He reads, then chuckles and exits, still laughing. The camera zooms in on the sheet he has left on the counter top. It reads 'To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.'

MS of a Prior entering the studio door. We track him as he weaves through the cables and equipment of the studio and enters the study. He takes off the hat and hangs it on a coat-rack then sits in a large leather wingback chair. He swings 'round to look at the screen and speaks at it

Prior: ComPrior?

A computer generated voice answers him.

CGV: Are you Mark Prior?

Prior: I am Mark Prior. Give me auto cue for the presentation.

Text appears down one side of the screen.The presentation shrinks to the other half of the screen. Prior reads from the text.

Prior: The marvels of Science have given us many things. Soaring rockets have riven the sky, Computer-enhanced microscopes that open up to us the wonder of the world of wiggling things tinier than a pin's point.

He pauses and looks impassively at the auto-cue for a while, then continues.

Tonight is the first time that Science has given us the opportunity to meet the past. Genetic retro-engineering married to computer-hologramic design coupled with software algorithims of infinitesimal complexity mean that our guest.

He stops, exasperated.
Cut to the control room. We see Prior on screen.

Prior: Dear God who wrote this?

The Director is in a corner of the control room sucking on a cigarette. In another corner is a researcher, a young woman. She is hunched over a laptop but her eyes are on the picture of Prior. the Director speaks...

Director: Tell him who wrote it.

The girl (she's only just past being a girl) says...

Researcher: I did.

Director: Turn the talkback mike on.

Researcher: Sorry (she flips a switch) Um... it was me. I researched-

Prior: Well... I'm sorry, the research is probably great but - the words are - I mean retro-engineering married to computer-hologramic design, coupled with software algorithims of infinitesimal ... I can't make sense of this.

Researcher: I don't... um..know much about the science... I thought I was here for the history ... we met umm? ... and you said...

Prior: Oh. Yes. Sorry.

Researcher: and I gave you the Oscar Wilde .. um .. stuff. Briefing, I mean. And you said I could have a stab at writing the intro thing.

Prior: OK. Look, I'm sorry. It's just... We'll have to rewrite this coupling algorithm stuff though. We'll record and cut it in later.

Director: Sure, sure.

Prior: Can somebody tell me how this raising the dead stuff works?

Researcher: Umm-

Prior: No. Please. You've ... got enough on your plate. Someone else ..?

Director: (at his control panel, flipping his mike on, with a world-weary air) They take his remains, they read the DNA - in which, they tell me, there is a record of everything that happened to him while he was alive. And then, God knows how, they program a computer to produce a hologram which reacts like Oscar Wilde. Or whoever. But he, it, whatever, has only got as much Buy-Time as we can afford to pay for on the super-computers that can handle this sort of crap. And, let us remember this, if we don't get a good program out of this we're out millions. He'd better be worth it.

Prior: You're a cynical son of a bitch but succinct.

Director: A compliment. I'm touched.

Prior: Treasure it.

Director: A voice in my ear tells me he's nearly on line. They're just updating his hologram with his situation. Which, I take it, means they're telling him how he got here and what we're doing.

Researcher: Oh wow. Oscar Wilde. Alive again.

Director: Let's not get carried away.

Prior: Willing suspension of disbelief. Remember?

Director: Barely.

Prior: Well try. You used to believe in good drama.

Director: I used to have more hair and a trimmer waistline too.

Prior: And you used to care about telling a good story..

Director: Philosophy is for the bar. Let's do the job, hmm?

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Study. Prior is sitting in his chair facing the identical empty chair opposite him. The Director calls for everyone to stand by and the floor manager counts down from 10 seconds. The countdown ends and there is a pause. Then Oscar speaks off-camera.

Oscar: Gracious me! Alfred.

The camera swings wildly 'round to where Oscar stands by the set's fake door.

Director: He was supposed to be in the chair. Oh f-

Belatedly he shuts off his mike as he realises he has spoken to the studio mike and has consequently ruined the opening of the show.

Oscar: I was always known for unpredictability, though once one is known for unpredictability others expect it, which defeats the purpose.

The Director has turned off his mike and now speaks only to Prior.

Director: Look I feel a complete schmuck having to do this but could you ask him to start again?

Prior: Ha. Sorry, Mr Wilde, I wonder-

Oscar: Please, call me Oscar. There should be no formalities twixt the quick and the dead.

Prior: Right. Oscar. We weren't quite ready and-

Oscar: Not ready? I undertand you to have had over a hundred years since I ... was last here. The strange creatures who I met when I first awoke gave me what they referred to as a thorough briefing. Surely you knew I was coming?

He walks to the wingback and sits in it, smiling. He is enormously pleased with the effect he has had.

Prior: Yes. Right. But we're making a program - have they told you what we're doing?

Oscar: Oh yes. You are making a film of me.

Prior: Right. And we started off rather badly-

Oscar: Yes. The gentleman who shouted...

He looks around for the Director, in vain.

Oscar: .. seemed most upset.

Prior: He was.

Director: Ask him to stand by the door and say what he said again, then walk to the chair and sit down.

Prior: Mr Wi- Oscar. Could you please repeat what you did just now when you ... came in?

Oscar: I called you Alfred.

Prior: Alfred. Lord Alfred Douglas. The young man who you had an affair with.

Oscar: Well. You are certainly blasÈ about these matters. Though your description of him as 'the young man' I had an affairÈ with proves that you are not he. You are older - perhaps my age? - and have a more somber face. At least you cultivate a earnest expression when you address me. You put me in mind of a journalist I once knew. He asked thoughtful questions with the sincere mien of a parish priest yet his subsequent writing resembled a confession proudly published by the Inquisition.

Prior: I-

Director: (to Prior) can we get him to cut the cackle and re-do from the top? The meter's running.

Prior: Mr. Wilde-

Oscar: Yes, Ernest?

Prior: My name is actually Mark Prior.

Oscar: Nontheless, I shall call you Ernest.

Prior: Fine. Would you mind if we recorded the begining again?

Oscar: Not at all.

He strolls to the door.

Oscar: I think we should start with me just closing the door as if I had popped in from my club. Such a wonderfully mundane situation should dispell any fears the audience may have of ghostly manifestations and gibbering phantasms.

Director: (to Prior) What's he going to say?

Prior: What will you say to open with?

Oscar: Something predictable.

Prior: Oh. OK.

Director: Jesus, let's get on with it. Ready every body?

A chorus of assent from the studio.

Prior: Mr Wi- Oscar. That man with the clipboard will be behind the set with you and will countdown from 10, the last 5 being silent. He'll use his fingers. Then he'll point at you and we're on.

Oscar: I shall be ready.

The countdown takes place. We see the door of the study. The door opens, Oscar steps in, closes the door, looks around as if the room were fresh to him. He takes a deep breath, lets out a satisfied 'Ah!' and then...

Oscar: What a delightful room. I cannot thank you enough for inviting me to your little century. I once toured America. I didn't realise that I was so popular that you would bring me back from the dead.

Prior: You're very welcome Oscar.

Oscar: Thank you.

Prior: You were a poet, a playwright, a celebrated social lion, and a succesful magazine editor. You were a classical scholar and a loving father of two boys. Is there anything else you would have liked to have added to the list?

Oscar: I am immensley impressed by your listing of my achievments. I was never noted for my modesty so to say I am not proud of my work would be a sham.

Prior: So-

Oscar: You missed writer.

Prior: I said playwright.

Oscar: So you did. But the word wright, as in playwright, derives from the anglo-saxon 'wroght', which means to make. A cartwright, a wheelwright, excercise craft and strength in their work. A playwright similarly so. A writer writes. A play is wrought. No one is solely responsible for what is seen or heard on the stage. Although critics and censors usually fix on the playwright as the object of their disaffection.

Prior: And how did you deal with your critics?

Oscar: I agreed with them, but only after a suitable length of time. My first plays did not please me so much as my other works had done. I could put words, scenes and settings on paper but when the plays were performed they had no life. I complained, of course, that it was the fault of the actors, the settings, the audience - I even recall blaming a hideous dress for the sheer dullness of one scene - but I finally divined that I had not found my voice as a playwright.

Prior: Did you find it?

Oscar: What do you think?

Prior: Yes you did.

Oscar: Thank you.

Prior: How?

Oscar: I listened and watched. I watched the society I was portraying-

Prior: Some would say parodying.

Oscar: Some would say betraying. Oh yes. The mirror I held up was a distorting one - it reflected and enlarged the pomposities of the elite.

Prior: You were part of that elite.

Oscar: Yes. I thought they were the finest group to align myself with.

Prior: But you attacked them.

Oscar: Yes. I realised that my attempts to impress them would be more impressive if I didn't fawn too much. Fawning can be great fun but the opposite - defawning? - is even more so.

Prior: But you still tried to mpress them.

Oscar: Yes. And it was fascinating how still they loved to feed the mouth that snapped at them.

Prior: Did you feel as if it was your role in life?

Oscar: Is it your role to probe, pry and show up pomposity?

Prior: It:s my job.

Oscar: It was mine.

Prior: I don't mean it was wrong. I was interested in why you, a member of the elite, chose to attack them.

Oscar: I knew them.

Prior. And your point.

Oscar: (pause) Your point Ernest.

Prior: I wasn't ... I knew your plays before I knew of your life. And then I read of the ... journey of your life. And I didn't realise your life could have been so sad.

Oscar: And nor did I.

Prior Quoting Oscar (then): You once said 'I am the only person I should like to know thoroughly but I don't see any chance of it just at present'. Did you-

Oscar: Of course, that may have changed somewhat now...

Prior: How has it changed?

Oscar: I know what I was. I know what I thought I was. I know what I became.

Prior: What did you become?

Oscar: I became a ghost who haunted himself. Long before you conjured me here with your modern magics, a rougher magic struck me. And I was brought down by it, though like all mighty magics it did not need to use it's strength, only my own weaknesses. And they were, are, legion. Now I could list my failings and a very Rabelasian list they would be. I was sad, in my own heart, I was sad, and in the eyes of so many - I was a sad, sorry, failure. I am not indulging now, Earnest, in self-pity, that filthy wallow. Nor do I wish for the pity of others. I neither deserve it nor have I earned it. I merely say what I know to be true. Knowing this, I find a great affinity with Christ's cry upon the cross 'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabach thani'. Father, my Father, why hast thou forsaken me. Though, of course, God never deserts one. One deserts Him. Yet His love awaits us still.

Prior: He still loves you Oscar.

Oscar: Thank you Earnest.

Prior: Why do you call me Earnest?

Oscar: You seem so.

Prior: Earnest? Thank you.

Oscar: It:s not necessarily a compliment. Let us leave my mawkish disply and get back to the question of why I harried the elite as a writer and playwright. Journalists are often deceivers. I accept that a writer would be biased in telling a story. As a writer I was biased. One takes a thought. One sketches it onto paper, dressing it in as many words as allow it to be stylish - not so few as it appears dowdy, nor so many as it will be ridiculously flamboyant. Then one publishes. The reaction of the public has to be given less credence than one's own liking of the piece. If the public cannot follow it is usually because they don't wish to be lead. A writer must be biased for in that bias lies hidden much of his passion and fire. So he tells the truth about himself and us.

But a journalist purports to tell the truth in a factual way which leads an ignorant reader to accept what he says as if it were the Gospel. Often I have written and read more 'truth' in a story or novel or play than has appeared in a whole pile of newspapers. Is it still so today?

Prior: Yes. Except that today journalists don't just have newspapers they have screenfuls of opportunities.

Oscar: Is the moving picture so ubiquitous then?

Prior: And there are computers and the web and - it would take the whole of this program to bring you up to date.

Oscar: But journalists play their own version of the truth game still?

Prior: Yes... but perhaps because we have so much space to fill up we feel we have to stretch the truth to fit.

Oscar: So you admit to being a journalist then?

Prior: Yes I suppose I am.

Oscar: And here we are condemning them. And in a moving picture that I am assured millions will see, some of them journalists. Will you survive their opprobrium Earnest?

Prior: I played Earnest in your play 'The Importance of Being Earnest' once.

Oscar: Just once? It cannot have been a very succesful production.

Prior: It ran for-

Oscar: I was teasing Earnest. I am ecstatic that my work is still playing. Who got the money?

Prior: I...well there was a producer...

Oscar: I have never felt shame in a healthy appreciation of the worth, in cash money, of one's work. I was cavalier with money before I had a family. But after I became a father I set to with a will. Money became important, not to me, but my becoming a provider meant that my ability to provide was important to all my pretty chickens and their dam.

Prior: That's from Macbeth. You mean all your babies and their mother.

Oscar: Yes. All babies are beautiful as are all possibilities. And all babies are full of possibilities. Or would you argue with that?

Prior: I wouldn't because you're changing the subject. "...all my pretty chickens and their dam" is Macduff after he discover that he's left his family only for them to die.

Oscar: It is. Macduff says 'What? All my pretty chickens... and their dam?'. He felt a terrible guilt having left them to their fate. I empathized with Macduff. What living creature wouldn't? But to be aware of tragedy is easy. To be a tragedy is harder, though it takes little effort to achieve. But I dwell on my past, and the past is what man should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be. The future is what artists are.

Prior: You were a great artist-

Oscar: I thought so..

Prior: ...arrogant...

Oscar: I thought so...

Prior: ...and a marvellous wit and yet-

Oscar: I was a marvellous fool Ernest . I marvel at my foolishness now, as did many others then.

Prior: You left your family and had an affair with a young man, Bosie, Alfred Lord Douglas. Why? You've been flirting with me here. Why do you, did you, do it? You had such a full life, you suceeded at so much and could have been content with what youl'd done, or gone on to do more. You behaved ridiculously, wantonly, stupidly. You were-

The Director: Ok everyone we there are technical-

Prior: DON'T give me technical bullshit. I want to know-

The Director: This is an interview not an interrogation. And anyway there are techie problems in our computer department. Take five everyone.

Prior and Oscar look at each other.

Prior: I'm sorry. Oscar, I'm sorry.

Oscar: You were right. I was clumsily flirting with you. And therein lies the answer to your question. I flirt because I am. Carnale ergo sum.

Oscar and Prior are more comfortable with each other now.

Prior: (reading from his clipboard) What was it like - hard labour - in jail? For a man like you, so gifted, so used to fine things a gentler way of life?

Oscar: I had hoped that we might discuss my life and avoid the unpleasant subject of my death.

Prior: But you didn't die in prison.

Oscar: Every day I died, Ernest.

Prior: I'm sorry.

Oscar: (subtly bitter) No I was sorry.

Prior: Do you remember much of that time.

Oscar pauses

Prior: Is it hard to-

Oscar: It was hard labour Ernest. It was hard hearts and hard stone and hard bread and the hard ground broken to bury those hardened by rigor mortis.

Prior: What would you say now about that form of punishment.

Oscar: Why say more, Ernest? Why say anything? I wrote about it.

Prior: And what did you write?

Oscar: In Reading gaol by Reading town
There is a pit of shame
And in it lies a wretched man
Eaten by teeth of flame,
In a burning winding-sheet he lies,
And his grave has got no name.
And there, till Christ call forth the dead,
In silence let him lie:
No need to waste the foolish tear,
Or heave the windy sigh:
The man had killed the thing he loved,
And so he had to die.

Yet each...no
And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss...

Prior: Is there more?

Oscar: Have you read it?

Prior: The Ballad of Read - sorry - Reading Gaol.

Oscar: Very good Ernest. But I didn't ask if you knew the title of the piece. I asked an entirely different question. But then a journalist, unlike his subject, does not have to listen to questions, merely frame them. It must be considered a bonus if he listens to the answers.

Prior: I asked 'Is there more?'.

Oscar: Oh, well played Alfred.

Prior: Ernest.

Oscar: Nether name was given you by your parents so it is bootless to argue the issue.

Prior: I haven't read it all. I skimmed it quickly but even so I was impressed - moved.

Oscar: The verse in full is

And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss...

(he pauses)

The brave man with a sword
Though the last line is not as good as the penultimate. I phrase well and always say what I believe, whether it is unpalatable or not. It is my genius, I think, to finish a phrase roundly. It is also my failing.

Prior and Oscar smile at each other, sharing quietly. Then the Directors Voice on the studio talkback speaker breaks in loudly.

Director: That was a great TV moment. Pity we weren't recording.

Oscar: For an instant, I thought God had spoken.

Prior: He's not God. Though most directors think they are.

Oscar: So true Earnest. Drama was my real love, or passion. Bernard Shaw had a touch of your director's hubris. Shaw wrote for, and spoke to, actors as if they were his puppets which often had the effect of making them appear as wooden. But he wrote with clarity, And, occasionally, passion.

Prior: Shaw. Another of the great English writers. Did you-

Oscar: Shaw, like myself, was Irish. The English, it seems, need others to make their language work it's magic - and so we oblige. Often to their discomfort.

Prior: Sorry. I don't seem very well prepared for this do I?

Oscar: Oh Ernest. Humility.

Oscar smiles at Prior who smiles back. Then Oscar stands and starts to wander about the room. He sees a table with a decanter and glasses

Oscar: I would easily be persuaded to a glass of wine. I haven't tasted wine since I died.

There is a pause. Prior looks at Oscar.The Director, and probably everyone in the studio, realises that Oscar is, in a way, not real, and yet is one of the most real people they have met. The Director switches to Prior's earpiece. We hear their dialogue.

Director: Christ, he's a tough bastard isn't he?

Prior: He's more than that. What the hell did we break for?

Prior speaks in a low, furious voice.

Director: The software guru reckons our buytime is going to run out sooner than we thought. I t
He looked like he was going to recite the whole of that bloody dirge. We're not spending millions a minute for a poetry reading.

Prior: We're paying millions a minute for a poet. He's good. Stop us again and I'll be pissed. And when I'm pissed I piss on the person responsible.

Prior's voice has risen. Oscar is looking at him quizzically.

Oscar: Are you arguing with god?

Prior: (grins) I suppose I am.

Oscar: There are those who would say that that was dangerous.

Prior: There are those who say that those whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad.

Oscar: Ah Ernest. Are you mad then?

Prior: A little.

Oscar: Madness - if you are using the original meaning of the word and not what passes for madness in America, which is merely a petulant tantrum - is not to be feared. In small doses it is to be encouraged. As is alchohol. I mentioned wine..?

Prior: I don't know how a ... how you can drink.

Director: I don't think it's possible-

The Techy Voice breaks in...

Techy: It'll take us a few mininutes but we could hack it - hey, we could do some work on the bio-software and get him feeling a bit tipsy-

Director: Hey! People! We're paying megabucks per second for this and you want to take time getting a computer ghost drunk? He can't drink wine so he can't get drunk. End of story.

Oscar: Not quite. Baudelaire had something to say on being drunk. And I would take Baudelaire's views over yours in an instant

Prior (suddenly): It is essential to get drunk. That is all. There is no other problem. If you do not want to be the martyred slaves of time, get drunk, and drunk again. What with? With wine, with poetry, with being good, but always get drunk.
And if, now and then, you awake, on the green grass of a ditch, on the steps of a palace, in the glum loneliness of your room, your drunken state abated or dissolved, ask the wind, ask the wave, ask the bird, the star, the clock, ask all that turns, that toils, that walks, that wheels, that runs and hides, what time it is. And the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock will tell you - it is time to get drunk.

If you do not want to feel the appallinng weight of time, which breaks your shoulders and bears you to the ground get drunk, and drunk again. What with? With wine, with poetry, with beiing good. As you please.

Director: Christ.

Oscar: Ah now on that subject I would speak, and have spoken, and have written. Christ was a mighty light and I only grieve that the blinding beauty of His love did not strike my eyes earlier. He taught me Humility, but too late. It's too late even now.

Fade to a picture of the Buy-Time screen.
Cut to the control room where the director (first making sure that he has shut of his mike) mutters...

Director: He's taking over. Fat bastard's taking over.

Researcher: I think he's...

Director: Yeah?

Researcher: Um..nothing.

Director: Our buy-time runs out in less than an hour. Then he's nothing.

Researcher: I wish-

She is interrupted by voices from various techies. On the screens we see that Oscar and Prior are sitting and talking. The Director flips on his talkback.

Director: Ready to record?

Cut to Oscar and in the study.

Oscar: ... and He believed, so I have found, and can quote chapter and verse to the proof, that the spirit alone is of value. Humility for the Nazerene -

Prior: Sorry Oscar. We're going to start again. Is that OK?

Oscar: OK? Do you mean am I ready?

Prior Yes.

Oscar: Given that Times' winged chariot is rushing to crush me when it lands I think I must seize the day - Carpe diem. Or what is left of it.

Director: Ok everybody. In 10 seconds.

Oscar composes himself, though he seems tired.

Prior: You mentioned humility.

Oscar: I embraced Humility. Or She embraced me. Christ taught me that. Humility in her grandeur allows of no Ego, or rather she will smile at one's attempt at hiding one's soul in tattered threads of bluster. And then She will use little lessons to teach how to come to Her. Have you ever eaten coarse bread?

Prior: I've never been in prison.

Oscar: Yes, it was prison bread.

Prior: Reading jail.

Oscar: Reading gaol. Where first I met Dame Humility.

Oscar hunches forward his eyes lidded as he speaks of this. His speech becomes more monotonic, less flowery.

Oscar: Coarse bread. Stone in it. Like a rasp in my throat. And the air stinking. Feotid. We ate the bread though. All of it. Jesus help me, but I remember someone - the Chaplain, the Doctor.. - getting me white bread. I ate that. licked it up. I licked my fingers and scrabbled for the crumbs.

There is a long pause.

Prior: And..?

Oscar: (Draws a deep breath and pulls himself upright) What would you have me couple to that Alfred-

Prior: Wo am I now, Ernest or Alfred?

Oscar: You are so like my Alfred. So earnest, too. You seem young Mark. How young are you?

Prior hesitates. Cut to the control room. The Director whispers gleefully over Prior's earphone..

Director: Do want me to cut? Your adoring fans..?

Cut to Prior.

Prior: I'm ... well past my use-by date. But I've been used and I've abused.

Oscar: Which means?

Prior: Who is interviewing who?

Oscar: Who has less time? I think the imperative is with me.

Prior: (pause) Forty three.

Oscar: Old enough to be a father. Do you have children?

Prior: I.. I'm divorced. I have ... daughters. Two daughters. You had two boys...

Oscar: When my wife was first with child I told others 'My wife has a cold. I hope it to be a boy cold'. It was. I ... no, we had two beautiful boys. They were great gifts. Vyvyan was so earnest. Cyril was so Cyril. For them I was industrious. For Vyvyan I wrote that Industry is the root of all ugliness. Cyril proved to me that nothing that actually occurs is of the smallest importance. I so loved them both.

Prior: Did you write your Fairy Stories for them?

Oscar: Oh yes. They were the only audience I truly knew and loved. I wrote the stories and read them to them. They were marvellous critics both. I wish I had listened more to them and re-written according to their demands and desires. Those bedtime moments were our moments. They would fall asleep during my readings and I would be glad. Had any other audience treated me in such a cavalier fashion I would have consigned them to hell. But when my boys fell asleep to my words I sat and watched them and loved them. And I would kiss them and leave them in the peace of their all-encompassing innocence. Sometimes I could not leave them. I would have work calling me with it's rasping voice but I couldn't leave.

Prior: But you left them finally.

Oscar: (pause) Yes.

Prior: For Alfred.

Oscar: For Alfred.

Prior: He was your lover.

Oscar: Yes ... I ... loved him.

Prior: And your family,,?

Oscar: I kissed them. When I left them I kissed them.

He stops. Prior and he exchange glances. They are very close at this moment. Then Oscar takes a deep breath and speaks...

Oscar: Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard
Some do it with a bitter look
Some with a flattering word
The coward does it with a kiss...
I kissed them. I kissed them. And they said 'Goodbye Papa'Ö

He cries. The camera holds his image as he trembles but struggles to hold onto his composure. Then his image freezes and begins to lose definition until it appears to be a a crude computer graphic. The mouth moves strangely yet we clearly hear Oscar say . Then the image fades leaving the chair empty. The Director shouts...

Director: What'd he say? What'd he say?

Researcher: He said . It's Greek. It means it's over. It's finished.

Caption: Oscars Last Line, , is Greek which he read and loved. is also reported as Christ's last utterance. means "It is completed."

He did so like to finish roundly.

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