This original play dramatizing works by Mark Twain about the inhabitants of the Garden of Eden features “diary” entries written by Earth’s first human couple as they explore their relationships with each other and with the brand new planet in which they find themselves immersed. The script is available for full production or as a readers theatre production. Three actors (2 men, 1 woman).
ACCOUNTANT: The approval has come through.
MARK TWAIN: What, so fast? But I haven’t said I want to go.
ACCOUNTANT: I’ve given you an easy route—through one of your own archives.
EVE: SATURDAY.— I am almost a whole day old, now. I arrived yesterday.
MARK TWAIN: My diaries of Adam and Eve?
EVE: It will be best not to let the record get confused, for some instinct tells me that these details are going to be important to the historian some day.
ACCOUNTANT: And thus you go with a sure and steady guide.
EVE: For I feel like an experiment, just an experiment, and nothing more.
MARK TWAIN: Those were trifles, written when I needed money.
EVE: Everything looks better today than it did yesterday. In the rush of finishing up yesterday, the mountains were left in a ragged condition, and some of the plains were so cluttered with rubbish and remnants that the aspects were quite distressing.
MARK TWAIN: And anyway, I’m not dressed for travel.
EVE: Noble and beautiful works of art should not be subjected to haste; and this majestic new world is indeed a most noble and beautiful work. And certainly marvelously near to being perfect, notwithstanding the shortness of the time.
ACCOUNTANT: Fare well, Samuel. We will be here upon your return.
EVE: There are too many stars in some places and not enough in others, but that can be remedied presently, no doubt.
ADAM: MONDAY—This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way.
EVE: I followed the other Experiment around, yesterday afternoon, at a distance, to see what it might be for, if I could. But I was not able to make out. I think it is a man.
ADAM: It is always hanging around and following me about.
EVE: I had never seen a man, but it looked like one. I feel more curiosity about it than about any of the other reptiles—if it is a reptile, and I suppose it is; for it has frowzy hair and blue eyes, and looks like a reptile. It has no hips; it tapers like a carrot; when it stands, it spreads itself apart like a derrick; so I think it is a reptile, though it may be architecture. I was afraid of it at first, and started to run every time it turned around, for I thought it was going to chase me; but by and by I found it was only trying to get away, so after that I was not timid any more, but tracked it along, which made it nervous and unhappy.
ADAM: I don’t like this; I am not used to company.
EVE: At last it climbed a tree. I waited a good while, then gave it up and went home. Today the same thing over. I’ve got it up the tree again.
ADAM: I wish it would stay with the other animals….
EVE: SUNDAY.—It is up there yet. It looks to me like a creature more interested in resting than anything else. It would tire me to rest so much. I do wonder what it is for; I never see it do anything.