Gordon 1 Ethan Gordon Modern Theater Ms.

Cain 21 February 2013 The Nine Billion Names of God Based on the Novel by Arthur C. Clarke Cast: Dr. Wagner Stern, aging CEO of American Cybernetics Corporation (ACC). He dresses in formal attire and wears large, thick glasses on his face. Tibetan Monk Balding, middle-aged man wearing a red robe that stretches all the way to the ground George Hanley Young field engineer for the ACC Chuck Friend of George and similar in age and demeanor. Computer scientist for the ACC.

Scene 1 Setting: A large wooden desk sits in the center of an office high above the streets of Manhattan, facing stage left. While the desk is fairly empty save a small open notebook, the room is filled with computational gadgetry of various shapes and sizes. Dr. Wagner sits in a leather chair stage right of the desk, staring intently at the calm Tibetan Monk who stands across from him.

Dr. Wagner: This is a slightly... unusual request. As far as I know, it's the first time anyone's been asked to supply a Tibetan monastery with an Automatic Sequence computer. I don't wish to be inquisitive, but I should hardly have thought that your ah establishment had much use for such a machine. Could you explain just what you intend to do with it? Tibetan Monk: Gladly. Your Mark 5 Computer can carry out any routine mathematical operation

Gordon 2 involving up to ten digits. However, for our work we are interested in letters, not numbers. As we wish you to modify the output circuitry, the machine will be printing words, not figures. W: I don't quite understand... TM: This is a project on which we have been working for the last three centuries since the lamasery was founded, in fact. It is somewhat alien to your way of thought, so I hope you will listen with an open mind while I explain it. W: Naturally. TM: It is really quite simple. We have been compiling a list which shall contain all the possible names of God. W: (sits back in chair) I beg your pardon? TM: We have reason to believe that all such names can be written with not more than nine letters in an alphabet we have devised. W: And you have been doing this for three centuries? TM: Yes. We expected it would take us about fifteen thousand years to complete the task. W: Oh... now I see why you wanted to hire one of our machines. But exactly what is the purpose of this project? (TM hesitates, beat) TM: Call it ritual, if you like, but it's a fundamental part of our belief. All the many names of the Supreme Being God, Jehova, Allah, and so on they are only man-made labels. There is a philosophical problem of some difficulty there, which I do not propose to discuss, but somewhere among all the possible combinations of letters that can occur are what one may call the real names of God. By systematic permutation of letters, we have been trying to list them all. W: I see. You've been starting at all A's and working up to all Z's. TM: Exactly though we use a special alphabet of our own. Modifying the typewriters to deal with

Gordon 3 this is, of course, trivial. A rather more interesting problem is that of devising suitable circuits to eliminate ridiculous combinations. For example, no letter must occur more than three times in succession. W: Three? Surely you mean two. TM: Three is correct: I am afraid it would take too long to explain why, even if you understood our language. W: (hastily) I'm sure it would. Go on... TM: Luckily, it will be a simple matter to adapt your Automatic Sequence Computer for this work, (beaming) since once it has been programmed properly it will permute each letter in turn and print the result. What would have taken us fifteen thousand years to do will be complete in a hundred days! (W stand up) W: Well, the customer is always right (shakes TM's hand) I'm just worried now about installation and maintenance. Getting out to Tibet, in these days, is not going to be easy. TM: We can arrange that. The components are small enough to travel by air that is one reason why we chose your machine. If you can get them to India, we will provide transport from there. W: And you want to hire two of our engineers? TM: Yes, for the three months that the project should occupy. W: I've no doubt that Personnel can manage that. (scribbles a note in the notebook) There are just two other points... (TM quickly grabs a piece of paper out of his robe and slams it on the table) TM: This is my certified credit balance at the Asiatic Bank. W: Thank you. It appears to be... adequate. The second matter is so trivial that I hesitate to mention it, but it's surprising how often the obvious gets overlooked. What source of electrical energy have you? TM: (quickly) A diesel generator providing fifty kilowatts at a hundred and ten volts. It was installed

Gordon 4 about five years ago and is quite reliable. It's made life at the lamasery much more comfortable, but of course it was really installed to provide power for the motors driving the prayer wheels. W: (surprised) Of course... I should have thought of that.

Beat. End Scene

Scene 2 Setting:A decorated stone parapet lines the front of the stage with a beautiful view of the Himalayan Mountains in the background. It is about high noon. George Hanley is standing against the parapet, center stage, with a phone to his ear.

George: Yes Dr. W, Project Shangri-La is still going without a hitch. I've been keeping the machine going steady. Sam Jaffe wants to over-clock it, but... oh, Sam? We can't pronounce the high lama's name, so we just use a substitute. He doesn't mind. Yes, we should be done within the next week, don't let any computers break while I'm gone! (places phone in pocket, then leans against the parapet, staring out into the audience) (Chuck jogs in from stage right, he runs up next to George and leans on the parapet, breathing heavily) George: Geez Chuck, sometimes I think that you need to relax more and enjoy the scenery. Chuck: Listen, George, I've learned something that means trouble! George: What's wrong? Isn't the machine behaving? Chuck: No, it's nothing like that. I've just found what all this is about. George: What d'ya mean? I thought we knew. Chuck: Sure, we know what the monks are trying to do, but we didn't know why. It's the craziest thing...

Gordon 5 G: (growling) Tell me something new. C: (continuing unfazed) but old Sam's just come clean with me. You know the way he drops in every afternoon to watch the name sheets roll out? Well, this time he seemed rather excited, or at least as near as he'll ever get to it. When I told him that we were on the last cycle he asked me, in that cute English accent of his, if I'd ever wondered what they were trying to do. I said, 'Sure', and he told me. G: Go on, I'll buy it. C: Well, they believe that when they have listed all His names and they reckon that there are about nine billion of them God's purpose will be achieved. The human race will have finished what it was created to do, and there won't be any point in carrying on. Indeed, the very idea is like blasphemy. G: What do they expect us to do? Commit suicide? C: There's no need for that. When the list's completed, God steps in and simply winds things up bingo! (flails hands mimicking a large explosion) G: Oh, I get it. When we finish our job, it will end the world. (Chuck chuckles nervously) C: That's what I said to Sam. And do you know what happened? He looked at me in a very queer way, like I'd been stupid in class, and said, 'It's nothing as trivial as that.' (George ponders for a moment) G: That's what I call taking the Wide View. So, what d'you supose we should do about it? I don't see that it makes the slightest difference to us. After all, we already knew that they were crazy. C: Yes, but don't you see what may happen?! When the list's complete and the Last Trump doesn't blow, we may get the blame! It's our machine they've been using. I don't like the situation one bit. G: (slowly) I see, you've got a point there. But this sort of thing's happened before, you know. When I was a kid down in Louisiana we had a crackpot preacher who once said the world was going to end next Sunday. Hundreds o( people believed him even sold their homes. Yet when nothing happened,

Gordon 6 they didn't tum nasty, as you'd expect. They just decided that he'd made a mistake in his calculations and went right on believing. I guess some of them still do. C: Well, this isn't Louisiana, in case you haven't noticed. (places hand on George's shoulder firmly) There are two of us and hundreds of these monks. I like them, and I'll be sorry for old Sam when his lifework backfires on him. But all the same, I wish I was somewhere else. G: I've been wishing that for weeks, but there's nothing we can do until the contract is finished and the transport arrives to get us out. C: (removes hands form G's shoulder, thoughtfully) Of course, we could always try a bit of sabotage. G: Like hell we could! That would make things worse! C: Not the way I meant. Look at it like this. The machine will finish its run four days from now, on the present twenty-hours-a-day basis. The transport calls in a week. O.K. then all we need to do is to find something that needs replacing during one of the overhaul periods something that will hold up the works for a couple days. We'll fix it, of course, but not too quickly. If we time matters properly, we can be down at the airfield when the last name pops out of the register. They won't be able to catch us then. G: I don't like it. It will be the first time I ever walked out on a job. Besides, it would make them suspicious. No, I'll sit tight and take what comes.

Both exit stage right. Scene Ends

Scene 3 Setting: Same background as scene two, but now it is late evening.. A couple green spotlights, status lights for the Mark V, can be seen in between the two mountains. Small, twinkling stars dot the sky, far more than can be seen from Manhattan. George and Chuck enter from stage right carrying their bags as the curtain rises. They are heading for the airfield.

Gordon 7

G: I still don't like it. (stops and sets bags down) And don't you think I'm running away because I'm afraid! I'm just sorry for those poor old guys up there, and I don't want to be around when they find what suckers they've been. Wonder how Sam will take it? C: It's funny, but when I said goodbye I got the idea that he knew we were walking out on him and that he didn't care because he knew the machine was running smoothly and that the job would soon be finished. After that, well, of course, for him there just isn't any After That... (C trails off and stairs out towards stage left) C: Well, there she is, our transport. Ain't she beautiful! (Gaze continues to rise until C is looking straight up. One at a time, the stars begin to wink out. He stares in amazement. G is oblivious, checking his watch) G: Yeah, that trip was shorter than I expected. We should be there in about an hour. Wonder if the computer's finished its run. It was due about now. (Begins walking stage left, stops, and turns back to see C still gazing wide-eyed at the sky) Chuck, what's wrong? C: (pointing at the sky) Look! G: (looks up) My God, the stars!

The last star winks out and the stage lights dim.

End of Act

Gordon 8 Analysis For the most part, this short story was not difficult to adapt into a play. Most of the plot was told through dialogue, which easily transferred to a script, and the scenery descriptions could be mimicked with a combination of setting devices and props. I only had to add lines when important plot elements were introduced to the reader outside of dialogue. For example, the reference to Sam Jaffe as the high lama was part of a description that did not appear in dialogue, so I added it by having George share it with Dr. Wagner over the phone. Also, in the short story, George and Chuck end up completely speechless when the stars begin to wink out. In order to more effectively communicate the end of the world to the audience as well as the surprise felt by both George and Chuck, I added the ending exclamations. By far the most tedious items to transfer from a short story written in limited third-person to a play are the internal thoughts of the characters. It is easy to simply describe how a character is reacting to a particular situation, but it is far different to make those reactions appear in nothing but voice and body. Adding directorial statements, even those as simple as (growling), can make a huge difference, but sometimes it is just up to the actor to finish the job. Detailed descriptions of scenery can be replicated to a point on stage, but the richness of a character is definitely lost to some degree if the descriptions in the short story were good. On the other hand, adapting a story to a play can add more depth to the characters. Beyond words and descriptions, the audience gets to see faces and mannerisms. Dr. Wagner is given no physical description or job description in The Nine Billion Names of God, and in fact he ends up a very flat character. Through only setting, costume, and voice, I tried to depict Dr. Wagner as a stern CEO in tune with his machine corporation, something which is impossible to tell from the story. The added visual and audible cues allow the play to have a far greater impact on the audience than the short story.

Gordon 9 Works Cited Clarke, Arthur C. The Nine Billion Names of God. The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, vol. 1. Ed. Robert Silverberg. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, 1970. pp. 426-432. Text.