PROLOGUE

A space. Empty.

A fall of white ash which covers all surfaces, enveloping in a fine whiteness. 

A party of futuristic explorers trudge through the frozen steppes. They are in the colours of artificial, twenty-first century Antarctic wear - bright red, yellows oranges. they come across a figure, buried in the whiteness, near to death, frozen. It is a girl, dressed in nineteenth century clothes – sepias, browns, deep greens. They warm her, wrap her in insulative blankets. She begins to stammer out her story, a fantastic tale....

I

THE MAP

The past. Before modernity, but after the Renaissance.

We start in media res. Three figures poring over a large ancient document. A Cartographer tells how he found it an Ottoman archive.  

(‘The Mappa Mundi’)

He has invited a Theologian and a Natural Philosopher to share the discovery, and discuss its meaning. The cartographer draws their attention to a vast coastline at the far southern reaches of the planet. It is la terre Australe, the unknown southern land, and in the empty continent is inscribed faintly, ilk yatalik (the Original Animal).  

(Prima Creatura)

He proposes they journey to find this undiscovered land. Each is enthralled by the prospect, but for different reasons; the Natural Philosopher is intrigued by the inscription, perhaps the original creature will likewise be a clue to creation, to the starting point of nature.

(The Dream of the Rediscovered Eden)

The Natural Philosopher is true Curiosity, full of love for the riches of Nature.

The Theologian is enchanted by the idea that the southern land is empty of everything; of the clatter of industry, of any detraction form the spiritual path; she hopes to find oneness with God in a tabula rasa. The Theologian is tired with humanity, and yearns only for the spiritual; representing the ascetic, the life-denying aspect of human beings.

(The Dream of the Empty Land)

But the Cartographer wants completion, a definitive map, to finish the line, so the new land can be owned, settled, colonised, utilised. The Cartographer represents human pride, and the arrogance of the Enlightenment, a belief that there can be a theory of everything, that the great truths will be opened to humanity once the map of the world is completed.

Each rhapsodises over the land as the epitome of their heart’s desire.

(The Dream of the Finished Map)

II

THE JOURNEY  

A ship.

A sea captain, assisted by his young daughter, is taking the three Enlightenment figures on the journey into the south. The ship sings as her timbers groan and creak against the waves. The captain is suspicious of the journey, sees it as hubris, but when his daughter asks why he has agreed to take the three passengers, he simply says “We must eat”. Gradually the travellers are lulled into sleep by the sound of the ocean, the wind playing on the ships timbers.

(The Song of the Ship)

The Natural Philosopher is awoken by a Visitor, a woman, who can walk on the sea, can descend to the ocean’s bed, can sit on the ship’s rigging. The Visitor asks not What do you seek? but Why do you seek it?. The Natural Philosopher sings of childhood, of a door in the house in which she grew up, which was always locked, until one day she was able to fashion a replica key from wood, and open the door…

(The Philosopher’s Dream)

…as she sings of the door opening moment the stage moves into a different mode, and a list of the Latin names of the creatures of the southern seas is sung, which stretches into eternity, until the Visitor fades.

(The List of Latin Names)

Lights up on the Cartographer, waking, to find the Visitor sitting on his cabin bed. The Visitor asks not What do you seek? but Why do you seek it?. The Cartographer sings of childhood, of a door in the house in which he grew up, which was always locked, until one day in frustration he kicked it down, and ventured within…

(The Cartographer’s Dream)

…as he sings of the door being kicked in the stage moves into a different mode, and a song of the earth’s crust is sung, of the movement of tectonic plates, of the heaving up and laying down of the floor of the sea, of the creation of Antarctica, of time, which stretches into eternity, until the Visitor fades.

(The Creation of the Continent)

Lights up on the Theologian, praying, to find the Visitor nearby, as if hearing confession. The Visitor asks not What do you seek? but Why do you seek it?. The Theologian sings of childhood, of a door in the house in which he grew up, which was always locked, until one day she discovered it left wide open, and she ventured within…

(The Theologian’s Dream)

…as she sings of entering, the stage moves into a different mode, and a vision of the heavenly city emerges, of a place where all pride and selfhood vanishes, which stretches into eternity, until the Visitor fades.

(The Eternal City)

III

ICE

The ship is surrounded by floating ice. The ice rubs against the timbers, which whine as they are stretched and pressed.

(The Ship’s Lament) 

The girl sits alone, listening to the sea. She hears the billions of creatures surge like a galaxy beneath her.

(The Salp and the Krill)

The ice thickens. The Captain, frightened, asks the Cartographer why the map did not contain the ice floes; shamefacedly, the Cartographer admits there never was a map, he fabricated it and the whole story, in his quest for glory. Furious, the Captain tries to turn the ship around to go home. (There Never Was a Southern Land)

The Cartographer wrestles with him to keep going. The ship starts to break up under the pressure of the ice.

(The Splintering)

The Natural Philosopher and the Theologian take the little girl onto the ice as the two men fight for control; their vessel is splintered and pulverised, a mass of abstract timber, then disappears under the ice, taking the Captain and the Cartographer to their doom, still fighting for supremacy.

(Into the Dark)

The three remaining travellers wonder which way to walk, but decide to walk arbitrarily, since they are in a new space, whose radius is everywhere and circumference nowhere. The ghosts of the dead father and cartographer follow them under the ice

(Everywhere, Nowhere)

They sing as they journey into the whiteness, of life, of Heaven, and of the Door between the two. The Natural Philosopher stops, tells the others to keep going. The theologian stops, saying she has gone as far as she can. The ghosts slide deeper and deeper, until their voices vanish.

(The Underwaterfall)

The little girl continues the line, walking unafraid, until she sees in the distance a strange figure, standing. It is the Visitor, the Prima Creatura. She runs towards it.

EPILOGUE

A contemporary symposium, or a press conference. The girl is under lights, cameras, microphones. She tries to describe what she has seen. But the people can’t understand her, turn away, leave. She is alone, trying to speak of what she saw, but no-one understands her/believes her.

(The Turning Away)