[White. Minimalist].
[Two characters; one wanders; back-stage left towards front stage-right. Speech is generally unhinged; out of lucid disorientation rather than malice though.
Other stands at front-stage right. Dressed unusually, but perfectly [social] normal; intently gazing at something inconsequential; 'furrowed brow'].
X: 'Hi'
Y:'[delight] Hello'
X:'-- How are you'.
Y:'Very good'
X: 'Cool. Where are we'
Y: 'Have you seen this? Have a look at it'
[prop handed over]. It doesn't belong here'.
X: [interest] ...Where is here?
Y: Where is it not?
X: It doesn't have a name?
Y: I'm afraid I don't understand.
X: Here. What's this place called.
Y: To whom?
X [stumped] - Generally.
Y: I'm not sure what that means...
X: Ok. [Y begins getting out a cloth; makes to put in on the floor].
X: [four seconds] Then who are you?
Y: [amused at question; happy] Who am I not?
X: Do you have a name?
Y: -Not particularly one that matters.
X: What matters then?
Y: -I'm not sure.
X: -- So you don't know.
Y: [quick] -Haven't the faintest idea.
X: Ok. [subject change] I don't know where I am.
Y: Does anyone?
X: [pensive pause; four seconds] You're called the hatter.
Y: I am.
X: And why is that?
Y: Why what?
X: [patient] Why are you called the hatter.
Y: 'The Hatter'? 'The hatter'? Profitless chatter.
X: -Profit to whom though.
Y: [pleased] Exactly!
X: So. We are nowhere.
Y: Yes.
X: And you are no one?
Y: [gaily; at the irony] I am no one!
X: [remembering, but analytical] ..I thought you were always called the Mad hatter.
Y: [pregnant]; Ah.
X: Yet you say that you are just 'the hatter'.
Y: [following lines of thought] Yes..
X: Perhaps it would be polite to give your full name.
Y: [teaching] Ah, yes but then everyone would not understand it would they!
X: 'What is mad'?
Y: Precisely.
X: ....well what is mad then.
Y: Existence.
X: 'Existence'?
Y: Subjective perception.
X: Is this play mad.
Y: Probably. Though its more a dialogue than a play.
X: Maybe its mad based on the assumption that it isn't? In the first place?
Y: Maybe. Though people are more mad generally.
X: How?
Y: [assesses X; is satisfied] The world cannot exist without you who is there to see it.
X: Ok...
Y: If one world is perceived one way, then that is the way of that world. If another does so different, it is matter of different worlds.
X: Different worlds..
Y: Yes. Different as opposed to deviant. So it becomes more about each's simultaneous totality. And how each fundamental in itself.
X: 'Deviant'. So the idea of 'norm' is unstable?
Y: Incredibly.
X: What makes it unstable.
Y: Normal is a judgement; people make judgements; people are raised differently; ideas of normal follow differently. One cannot view the world without superimposing one's own existential paradigm on it.
X: Existential paradigm.
Y: Yes.
X: Bit of a mouthful.
Y: Yes it is.
X:..... are you going to clarify?
Y: Do you wish me to?
X: Well yes!
Y: Well; you live. You have your world; I live, I have mine. Our fundamental personalities are shaped by our individual experiences. This set unique experiences, I suppose, becomes your own paradigm, based on subjective experience, which you filter the world through; eventually.
X: But what is the world? Just perceptual?
Y: I think so. Essentially, you are quite awful.
X: [amused] I am?
Y: Yes. Because you put your own paradigm on everything. It's so self-important.
X: Ok. So what do you do then?
Y: I? I occupy no conceptual space.
X: [probing] Why.
Y: Because I do not know what conceptual space is.
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