JOYCE FONTANA

In the Matter of Manifest Destiny

CHARACTERS

JUDGE: age over 50, any gender

CLERK: age over 30, any gender

MANIFEST DESTINY: age over 50, prefererably female

DOMENICO: any gender, young adult

THOMAS/THOMASINA: any gender, young adult

GHOST DANCER: any gender, young adult

NOTE: These last three characters are representatives of the indigenous or people of color: a Latino, an African American, a Native American. The characters were given names to facilitate the dialogue of the script, but at the discretion of the director or to avoid cultural appropriation, these characters can be nameless with no costume or prop identification; their presence and voices are sufficient to deliver the message of the play. In the performance itslef, no names are used except Manifest Destiny.

PLACE: The Universal Court of Historical Perpetuity

TIME: Somewhere on the space time continuum

(At curtain CLERK enters.)

CLERK: All rise.

(JUDGE enters and takes place behind bench.)

CLERK: Hear ye! Hear ye! The Universal Court of Historical Perpetuity is now in session. Remain standing for the reading.

(CLERK seeks approval from Judge who nods. CLERK retrieves and unravels a scroll.)

CLERK:
From the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

JUDGE: Be seated. (Gavel.) Court is now in session. State our task at this juncture of the ages.

CLERK: To review and evaluate events, philosophies, persons, laws, or those otherwise manifestations of human civilization, acknowledged as significant and noteworthy, having withstood the test of time, for determination of placement on the Arc of History, and thus to be judged as on the Wrong Side of History or the Right Side of History, and, therefore, go forward with that designation through infinity, Your Honor.

JUDGE: The era and civilization?

CLERK: We have propositions from the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries, current era, Western Civilization, country, the United States of America, Your Honor.

JUDGE: Set forth the proposals.

CLERK: In no particular order...let's see, from the twentiethth century, Roe versus Wade.

JUDGE: Table.

(Mumbling and objections heard in the courtroom.)

JUDGE: It is the Court's opinion that the matter of Roe versus Wade has not stood the vantage of time to determine what side of history it will endure throughout time immemorial. The evolving human moral and cultural underpinnings of this issue are vast and consequential, fraught with overtones of religion and justice for the individual. The decision is postponed to a future session.

CLERK: Let the court record reflect postponement of Roe versus Wade.

JUDGE: Next.

CLERK: Also from the twentieth century, current era, lobotomy of the medically and criminally insane, a procedure which won the Nobel Prize for Medicine for its inventors--

JUDGE: Wrong side of history. Next.

CLERK: Twentieth century, ah...this is the fourth time this event has been presented to the Court. The dropping of the atomic bombs at the end of World War Two.

JUDGE: Are there plaintiffs to speak to this event?

CLERK: No, Your Honor.

JUDGE: And has peace reigned over the involved civilizations since this event?

CLERK: No, Your Honor. There have been wars, many conflicts, millions of lives lost, and there remains the threat of nuclear annihilation.

JUDGE: But, if I recall, the use of these weapons effectively ended the Second World War on the planet earth.

CLERK: Correct, Your Honor, saving untold numbers of lives.

JUDGE: Yet at the cost of innocent civilians...Table. Next.

CLERK: From the twenty-first century, current era. The legalization of gay marriage.

JUDGE: Right side of history. Next.

CLERK: From the nineteenth century, current era, the United States of America. Manifest Destiny.

JUDGE: Has this matter been brought before the Court before?

CLERK: No, Your Honor.

JUDGE: And are there plaintiffs for the judgment here today?

CLERK: Yes, several, Your Honor.

JUDGE: Bring forward the first.

(MANIFEST DESTINY sweeps into the courtroom, robes flaring.)

JUDGE: What is this? (Gavel.) Order! Order! Court Clerk has yet to formally invite--

(MANIFEST DESTINY takes in all of courtroom with outstretched arms.)

MANIFEST DESTINY: Your Honor and the venerable Universal Court of Perpetuity,
I have waited multi-millennia for the opportunity--

JUDGE: Silence. Await your formal introduction. Court Clerk, proceed with the proposition, presentation of witnesses, plaintiffs, defenders, appealers, promoters, or protestors.

CLERK: In the matter of Manifest Destiny, it is the task of the Universal Court of Perpetuity to determine and proclaim a designation of its position on the Right or Wrong Side of History.

JUDGE: Proceed to the first witness or other representative.

CLERK: The Court calls forth Manifest Destiny, who will, um, represent it...uh, that is...herself?

(The JUDGE turns to MANIFEST DESTINY.)

JUDGE: You may proceed.

MANIFEST DESTINY:
Humbly I stand before the judgement of infinity
My placement in history, my fate yet a mystery
I am, I was, and I always will be
A spirit, a dream, a timeless philosophy.
Conceived in the Age of Reason;
When Enlightenment was in season;
Progressive minds the cohesion
Binding liberty, justice, and truth.
Winds of change blew me across the sea
To a continent whose destiny
Was to create a new citizenry
A noble and elegant sanctuary
For those seeking eternal liberty
A model for all of mankind.

(CLERK becomes increasingly  concerned.)

MANIFEST DESTINY:
Twas early nineteenth century,
In a restless era I came to be
The news editor O’Sullivan bestowed upon me
The crown of Manifest Destiny.
Thus throughout time I have been known to be
The spirit that informed the philosophy
For a nation to experiment with liberty
A government, a republican democracy.

(CLERK heads to side stage and begins to file in one by one DOMENICO, THOMAS, and GHOST DANCER, who enter timidly and reluctantly, but CLERK prods them forward to stand before the Bench opposite MANIFEST DESTINY. )

MANIFEST DESTINY (Distracted, but continues.):
Westward expansion was the national mission
Blessed by divine Providential permission
To acquire the land from sea to sea
The continent a nation forever to be
The future of America was the vision
Of James K. Polk whose executive decision
"Fifty four-forty or fight."
Claimed the Northwest with money and might.
His eyes next on the prize that was Mexico's claim
Annexation of Texas was the ultimate aim--

DOMENICO: James K. Polk was a joke.

MANIFEST DESTINY: Excuse me?

THOMAS: Just a plot to expand slavery.

JUDGE: (Gavel.) Order!

MANIFEST DESTINY:
A call for exploration of a land
Rich and fertile, a treasure so grand
A righteous mandate to claim and expand.
Frontiersmen, immigrants, and pioneers
By the sweat of their brows, their heartaches and tears.
Land rushes, gold rushes, Westward migration
Prairie schooners, and Iron Horses settled this nation.

DOMENICO: Murderers, plunderers, thieves, ethnocentrists!

THOMAS: Slave owners, racists, white male supremacists!

GHOST DANCER: Confiscation, colonization, arrogant assimilation.

(MANIFEST DESTINY stares in consternation and confusion. Then continues.)

MANIFEST DESTINY:
As the evolving nation grew,
The cause of liberty did too
Millions came across the sea
In search of an opportunity
A chance to know prosperity
In the home of the brave;
The land of the free.
With power and might and ideology
The nation became eventually
Even into the next century
A nation whose pledge forever would be
To "make the world safe for democracy"
And would this all have come to be
If not for Manifest Destiny?
And thus should I not forever honored to be
Engraved on the Right Side of history?

DOMENICO:
In the name of righteous superiority,
With sheer ambition and authority 
You convinced the national majority
That expansion was the priority.
To achieve your goal, who paid the price?
Who made the ultimate sacrifice?

GHOST DANCER:
Identities and cultures, stolen and displaced.
Sacred lands and traditions, abolished and defaced.

DOMENICO:
Through occupation and crass brutality
With no recourse to justice or legality
You spread misery, injury and fatality
And lost all sense of your morality.

THOMAS: And what was the cost...of the lives lost?

(Beat.)

THOMAS:
The means to an end? Your end, indeed.
Was the end of their means because of your greed.

MANIFEST DESTINY:
Greed and dominance were not my vocation.
The spread of freedom was my obligation.
A union of states, the predestination.
Of a continent blessed by divine designation.

DOMENICO: Invasion. Damnation. Military confrontation.

THOMAS: Defamation. Humiliation. Cultural appropriation.

GHOST DANCER: Infestation. Starvation. Religious Indoctrination.

THOMAS: Segregation. Separation. Rape...and whippings....and strangulation.

MANIFEST DESTINY (Condescendingly.):
Let's recall with celebration
The Emancipation Proclamation.

DOMENICO:
Did not grant you indemnity
Not forgiveness, grace, nor clemency
Not enough for Manifest Destiny
To sit on the Right Side of History.

MANIFEST DESTINY:
Yet, I implore you, where would you be
If not for Manifest Destiny?
Would you be safe and forever free?
Enjoying the fruits of this great country?

JUDGE (Mops brow, sighs.): Court Clerk, is Lady Justice available?

CLERK: No, Your Honor. She has another engagement.

JUDGE: If only Lady Justice were here, her blindfold intact, sword at her side, the scales of righteousness outstretched before us. Would the weight of one side of this issue surpass the other? Or would the scale reflect a balance in terms of historical perpetuity? America. That shining city on a hill. A beacon for all of mankind. Yet its light at times has flickered and sputtered. This fact cannot be denied. America. We all see its wounds, its scabs, and its scars. But does its ugliness blunt its timeless brilliance? Manifest Destiny presents her case to be on the Right Side of History, and a strong case has been made. But was her noble endeavor the impetus for greed and evil by many who heeded her call? I fear I am at a loss to decide.

CLERK: And so must we table this proposition?

(Beat.)

JUDGE: I am compelled not to defer yet another historical designation. Perhaps the determination of justice in this matter should best be assisted by...the Wisdom of the Crowd.

CLERK: How so, Your Honor?

JUDGE: Court Clerk, on this day and forward for an indeterminate measure of time, the Court shall invite the input of representatives of all of humankind. Via hashtag Side of History, all are encouraged to submit a simple opinion: Manifest Destiny Right or Manifest Destiny Wrong. These assessments shall be stored in the enduring human data cloud, and at some unspecified future date the court will take an accounting of the responses. At that point in time, be it centuries or millennia from now, this matter shall be decided.

MANIFEST DESTINY:
My fate in the hands of digital mail?
Nonetheless, I shall prevail.
For righteousness, I will persist
I will not fail or be dismissed.

(DOMENICO, THOMAS, GHOST DANCER raise their fists in solidarity.)

DOMENICO:
To those who suffered, to those who cried,
To those who paid, to those who died.

THOMAS:
Your memory will triumph the test of time.
The truth will reveal the white man's crime.

GHOST DANCER:
And when judgment grants Manifest Destiny
A place within universal infinity
Know that your placement, invisible, may it be
Will share a part of that history.

JUDGE: Let the record reflect these concluding statements. The Court of Universal Perpetuity is adjourned. (Gavel.)

END

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