THE GAZING GLOBE[F]
SCENE: A soft cream-colored room, bare walled and unfurnished except for dull-blue grass mats on the floor and brilliant cushions. In the centre of rear wall is a great circular window with a dais before it, so that it may be used as a doorway. A gathered shade of soft blue silk covers the opening of the window.
PLACE: An island in a southern sea.
TIME: Not so long ago.
[The curtain rises on an empty stage. Zama, an old servant woman dressed in dull purples and grays, hurries in from the right. She stops at centre stage and glances about searchingly, then calls in a weazen voice.
ZAMA. Ohano—Ohano! Where do you be, child?
[Listens, looks about, sees drawn shade at the rear, and sighs as she goes to it and starts to raise it.
[As the shade rolls out of sight we see through the open window a bit of quaint cliff garden that overlooks a sea of green. The rocks are higher on the left, near the window, where a purple-pink vine in full blossom has started to climb. At the right the rocks slope down to the sea. At centre, stone steps lead up to a slender stone pedestal that holds a gazing globe, now a brilliant gold in the late afternoon sunlight. Ohano, with hands clasped round the globe, is gazing at it. She is a woman of the early twenties, beautiful and gowned in a flowing kimono-like robe of green with embroideries of white and blue.
ZAMA. [In a chiding, motherly way.] Ohano, my child, you must not be so much at that evil ball! How many times be I not telling you it is an enchanted ball?
OHANO. Yes, Zama, I hope it is enchanted. I've tried every other means to gain the way to my heart's desire—and they've all failed me. The story these islanders have woven round this gazing globe may be but a myth—but if it shows me the way to my freedom, I shall not have looked at it in vain.