THE TEMPLE

Characters

The writer: A scatterbrained artist suffering writer’s block and seeking a solution.
The writer’s characters:
The damsel: A beautiful woman in distress, with a slightly feminist streak.
The hero: A handsome paragon of heroicness, who ends up being vain.
The villain: An evil villain with a nice side.
The villain’s inner demons
Ocho: Representative of greed. A cynical, immature creature with explosive emotions and an obsession for gold.
Mirra: Representative of angst. A mysterious, sullen creature that is withdrawn, pensive, and pretty mean.
Wrin: Representative of pretense. A very charming, sly creature that is very pretty and as a result somewhat vain.
Di: Representative of power. An angry, dark creature that generally bullies his opinion onto other people.
Vawn: Representative of insanity. A completely outrageous creature unable to focus his abundant energy, not stupid just wild.
Jester/monk: A mischievous creature that tricks the others into working together.

Notes

With the exception of Wrin and Di, all the characters can be played by either sex. For convenience, they are all referred to by male pronouns but gender should not important in casting the play.
Costumes can be as elaborate or as simple as the actor’s desire, but they ought to be out of the ordinary and unusual. Let the actors design their outfits and make-up so that they can use that for characterization. Some suggestions: Ocho, makeup so that he/she appears golden; Mirra, black rob with black face paint beneath a cowl, same thing all in white; Wrin, a close-fitting snakeskin body suit beneath an excessive fur coat; Di, anything ranging from normal macho outfit to outlandishly warrior; Vawn, any thing in your closet that wouldn’t go together; Jester, something appropriately motley but simple enough that the monk’s plain robe will cover it. It’s all right for the monk’s character to have a few inconsistencies because the jester is ‘playing’ that role.
The same actors who play Wrin, Di, Vawn, and the jester should also play the damsel, the hero, the villain, and the writer respectively. For comedic effect, have the damsel played by Di’s actor and the hero played by Wrin’s actress.
The only setting is the curtain cart, which is a structure tall and wide enough to hide all the actors. All the props that come from the temple as well as most costume changes are stored back here. It is the division between the Monk’s garden and the rest of the world.
Vawn has by far the most props, mainly because it’s in his character to have weird objects. He carries a bag with all sort of knick-knack inside. The bag needs to be large enough to go over his head with everything inside dumped out on the floor.
Sound effects may or may not be provided by an extra person on stage, preferably out of the action and in the corner. They may play interesting music, add more noise to the main arguments, and simply supply interesting sounds. If there is no available sound person, the sounds that need to be played can be recorded and played by whatever character is behind the curtain when the sound is made.