THE KINGDOM

Read Act I

Read Act II

Time of year: Autumn

BRIAN has magic powers. He hates them. He uses them impulsively to manipulate situations in his difficult love life and makes bad things happen to good people. His best friend + teacher, ROSE, lives on top of Maple Mountain in the northernmost corner of Vermont. Brian goes to see her and ask for help. He is willing to give up magic if he can make love work. She tries to help him use his powers to benefit others, to grow up. She gives him a MAGIC HARMONICA inscribed ‘For The Pure Of Heart’. (He can only play it when his heart is virtuous.) When he does his listeners return to childhood and recall their past. When he plays for REBECCA (love at first sight) to investigate her blindness – the results are disastrous.

Rebecca’s father, JUDGE FLINT has moved THE KINGDOM (his Kingdom) – a religious cult where kids are punished for having fun and are encouraged to spy on one another, where rejected marginals of society have found a Jim Jones-type home - to the foot of Maple Mountain. He has purchased a maple sugaring refinery and tree farm from MR. TUBBS. Tubbs has made friends with one of the children (ISAAC) and learns a) that Flint has been having sex with Rebecca and b) blew up a building utilizing cult members as ‘sacrifices’. Flint’s plans are uncovered layer by layer as Brian observes Rebecca under the spell of the harmonica and as Tubbs investigates his nemesis.

Brian, Tubbs, Isaac (and soon Rebecca) work to unseat Flint and release the constricted members of The Kingdom.

Everything, at first, backfires. Flint takes a jealous dislike to Brian. Brian + Rose ‘freeze’ the maple trees and cause them to spill blood instead of sap. Flint burns Rose’s cabin to the ground nearly kills Isaac and ultimately intends to incinerate Brian, Tubbs, Isaac and Rebecca in one convulsive explosion.

Rose dies, transferring her magic to Isaac who inherits the harmonica.

Happy ending:

Flint is destroyed, Brian’s powers ‘adjust’, Rebecca regains her sight and the Kingdom get a second chance at life.