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GenePool Theater
Deus Ex Quanta has
received more productions than any other script listed here. It
premiered in June, 1996 with Stolen Fire in Grover Beach,
CA. It subsequently received a staged reading in February, 1997,
at the Newnan Community Theater in Newnan, GA, and full productions
from the Sock 'N Buskin Theater in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada in
March, 1998; The Blak Yak Performers in East Perth, Western Australia
in July, 1998; and Thistledew Theatre in Sacramento, CA in August
1998. It is scheduled for another full production in April, 2000,
in Sydney, Australia. In December, 1999, a taped version of the
Thistledew Theatre production appeared on free access cable in
Sacramento, CA.
Deus Ex Quanta has only three characters:
Detective White- White is a pragmatist, a very sarcastic, urbane sort. He has little time for the philosophical ramblings of his partner or the scientific ruminations of Dr. Doe.
Detective Chapel- Chapel is religious, thoughtful, pensive. He carries himself with a degree of assurance that comes across as arrogance, which only drives his partner crazy.
Doctor John Doe- Doe is a university professor who teaches quantum physics. He has the energy of a teacher who thoroughly enjoys what he teaches, and even takes time to explain some of it to the two "laymen" detectives.
(Note: practically speaking, these characters could be played by men or women, although I wrote them all as males.)
The plot revolves around a single problem. Doe is dead, and White and Chapel are there to solve his murder. Or, they are the ones who killed him. They don't recall doing this, but the door to the empty room they share with the corpse is locked, and all the available evidence suggests that they did it. To compound matters, Doe shows up alive later on in the play and his body disappears, and for a portion of the play he shares the stage with his own dead body.
White and Chapel go through a series of possible explanations, from accusing each other of the crime, to accusing Doe of suicide. Doe also forwards some theories from quantum mechanics that may explain it. Chapel proposes the possibility of divine intervention. There is the possibility that it's all a dream, or a practical joke.
Deus reaches its climax when Doe realizes there is an audience and concludes, accurately, that they are only characters in a play. He convinces White, with the help of a copy of the script, but Chapel remains unswayed. In the end, Doe is shot by Chapel when he tries to walk off the stage and into the audience.
The scenes in Deus are
not played in order; they have been chopped up and re-ordered,
leaving only the first and last scenes in their original positions,
so that scene one is followed by scene nine, and then scene five,
and so on. While jarring at first, this proved to be very engaging
for the audience.
"As the play progresses, a new theory of who done it is explored in each scene. Murder. Suicide. An act of God. An illusion. A grand experiment. A practical joke. Interspersed among the scenes are articulate discussions on faith, chaos theory, fact, philosophy, and science. And it managed to be funny.
"In the end, it is proven that experiments prove that experiments often prove the point they were designed to prove...
"...The real star of the evening is the playwright. Mr. Doucette's passion for exploring new ideas drives the play to a hilarious and totally unexpected conclusion. His intelligence and quirky sense of humor are pervasive..."
--Billy Houck
Deus Ex Quanta, being a two act script, is a tad long to reproduce in its entirety here. The links below lead to two sample scenes from the script. If you are associated with a theater and are interested in seeing the entire script, email Gene Doucette. He's very prompt.
© 2000, Gene Doucette
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