Gold

GOLD
PLAYS BY EUGENE G. O’NEILL ———— THE MOON OF THE CARIBBEES and Six Other Plays of the Sea BEYOND THE HORIZON THE STRAW GOLD
A PLAY IN FOUR ACTS BY EUGENE G. O’NEILL
BONI AND LIVERIGHT PUBLISHERS NEW YORK Gold Copyright, 1920, by Boni & Liveright, Inc. Printed in the United States of America
Time of the play—About the year 1900

Scene— A small, barren coral island on the southern fringe of the Malay Archipelago. The coral sand, blazing white under the full glare of the sun, lifts in the right foreground to a long hummuck a few feet above sea-level. A stunted coco palm rises from the center of this elevation, its bunch of scraggly leaves drooping motionlessly, casting a small circular patch of shadow directly beneath on the ground about the trunk. About a hundred yards in the distance the lagoon is seen, its vivid blue contrasting with the white coral beach which borders its circular outline. The far horizon to seaward is marked by a broad band of purplish haze which separates the bright blue of the water from the metallic grey-blue of the sky. The island bakes. The intensity of the sun’s rays is flung back skyward in a quivering mist of heat-waves which distorts the outlines of things, giving the visible world an intangible eerie quality, as if it were floating submerged in some colorless molten fluid.
As the curtain rises , Abel is discovered ly ing asleep, curled up in the patch of shade beneath the coco palm. He is a runty, under-sized boy of fifteen, with a shrivelled old face, tanned to parchment by the sum. He has on a suit of dirty dungarees, man’s size, much too large for him, which hang in loose folds from his puny frame. A thatch of brown hair straggles in limp wisps from under the peaked canvas cap he wears. He looks terribly exhausted. His dreams are evidently fraught with terror, for he twitches convulsively and moans with fright. Butler enters hurriedly, panting, from the right, rear. He is a tall man of over middle age, dressed in the faded remainder of what was once a brown suit. The coat, the buttons of which have been torn off, hangs open, revealing his nakedness beneath. A cloth cap covers his bald head, with its halo of dirty thin grey hair. His body is emaciated. His face, with its round, blue eyes, is weathered and cracked by the sun’s rays. The wreck of a pair of heavy shoes flop about his bare feet. He looks back cautiously, as if he were afraid of being followed; then satisfied that he is not, he approaches the sleeping boy, and bending down, puts his hand on Abel’s forehead . Abel groans and opens his eyes. He stares about furtively, as if seeking someone whose presence he dreads to find.