• 
  • emilie
  • fire work
    
  • denise²
  • leap
  • parts they call deep
  • background
  • sus manos
  • embody (eye of the beheld)
  • the purple play
  • baby m
  • short history of nearly everything
  • the van gogh cafe
  • short plays
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• Actor's Express
• Suehyla El Attar
• Steve Yockey
• Horizon Theatre
• Alliance Theatre
• Flying Fig Theater
• The Essential Theatre
• JAW West Festival
• Young Playwrights Inc.
• South Coast Repertory Theatre
• Theatre Relief Atlanta
• Dad's Garage Theatre
• Angela Mitchell - web design
• Science & The Arts - CUNY
• Stacey Bode - Photography
• La Bella Vita Arts Workshops
• Virtual Theatre Project
• Lauren's DOOLLEE listing
• Synchronicity Performance Group
• Marin Theatre Science Tour

now titled EMBODY

EMBODY (formerly EYE OF THE BEHELD) is a story that starts at the beginning of a legend. Leonardo Da Vinci the mysterious, brilliant, secretive genius of the Renaissance was almost killed for sodomy when he was a young man of 24. The world could have lost this incredible father of painting and invention to a misrepresented situation and the bigotry of the Florentine state. Even though history tells us that Leonardo survived this episode it still took a psychological toll on his willingness to share his ideas (many of which, if they had been discovered earlier, might have changes the pace of human technological evolution).

This play claims that Leonardo had help overcoming the accusations that could’ve landed him in jail for life or had him burned at the stake. The help comes in the form of a clever and popular young mistress. Catarina uses her powers of persuasion, not to mention her stubborn determination, to convenience the seedy Florentine court that Leonardo was not guilty. Not only does she convince the right judges of his innocence, but she also convinces Leonardo himself to trust again. This leads to Leonardo’s renewed interest in scientific experimentation, and Catarina’s revelation that although she can survive as a mistress to the elite, she has never lived the life she wants. She convinces Leonardo to sleep with her so she may have a child of her own and move back to her home-island of Lissa, Italy. Catarina sees the night as a way out of her unsatisfying life, Leonardo sees it as a lesson in anatomy. Both find new reason to live, work, and process the world; Catarina through a maternal life, Leonardo through another scientific exercise. In the end, Catarina moves far away to raise her child, and Leonardo is freed from any accusations. 25 years later a young woman enters his life requesting a portrait. Is it his daughter, or the most famous face in the world, or both?

EMBODY is an exploration of the mental placement of a scientific and artistic genius, at the very moment when both sides of his brain were threatened to become inaccessible. This compassionate, funny play deals with the dangers of the early Renaissance that came in the form of blind bigotry, religious dictatorship, the suppression of ideas, and limited options. But the combined fortitude in Leonardo’s and Catarina’s friendship overcomes these hardships to prove not only that compassion can win out, but that art, science, and soul are connected by the same muscle.

CHARACHTERS:
Lenoardo DaVinci: 24

Catarina: 25

Bocha Della Vertias: an older man's voice

Setting: Various places in Florence and the surrounding countryside.