[Speaker should sit on a stool at stage right, or off to the right-hand side of the room.]

Good evening, ladies, gentlemen. You have all come to see a play, and so you shall, if you but let yourselves. All that is needed is for you to dust off that archaic artifact, suppressed wholesale by television and the modern system of education, the inner eye that can unfold entire worlds for you.

Ah, but you wanted to see a real play. Very well. But first tell me, what is real? This question has been bounced back and forth on innumerable occasions, and theories abound, but for myself I fail to see any practical differences between a fantasy believed in by nearly everyone and real reality. Distinguishing characteristics? I see none. And now, with this philosophical tangent dealt with and out of the way, On with the show!

I'd like you to see a theater around you, house lights up and an old-style red velvet curtain hanging closed across the stage behind me and to my right. See people being seated around you, the last few to come in before the curtains go up. Smell the expensive perfumes of the ladies around you. Fidget a tiny bit, if you like, in your infrequently worn, theater-going clothes, or look at your program and wonder what a production entitled The Several Souls of a Frog shall have in store for you. As you notice the house-lights dimming, adjust your line of vision so that you can see the stage around that tall gentleman in the next row. Notice the hush rolling through the room as people break off conversations, and feel the sense of expectancy as the lights go to black and the orchestra starts up with a Broadway-ish, bouyant, stagey number.

As the stage lights come up, several shadowy figures can be seen: two are hunched over, but the one at center stage has arms raised overhead and head up. A spotlight hits this last figure, and it's a huge green frog with forelimbs outstretched in salutations. The music peaks out when the spot comes on and then quiets as those around you break into applause. The frog bows in acknowledgement and then speaks.

"Thank you, thank you! You're a lovely audience, and 'tis not often that a mere humble frog such as I enjoys so warm a welcome. Thank you again. I have called you here in relation to a certain matter, which I shall touch upon shortly. But 'ere I do, I've a story for you, one which bears rather closely on the matter to be discussed later, a story from my adolescence. I had but newly sprouted legs, had only just assumed the attributes of true froghood and left my younger tadpole friends behind in the puddle of infancy."

At this point, please take a moment to implant the memory of having seen a song and dance by our hero entitled "The Life of a Frog." There you are. Do you have it? Then let's move on.

Coming out of his song of froggy exuberance and youth, the frog who is still stage center, persues the song's theme of endless and eternal youth, and then rejects the idea of immortality and invulnerability. He frets and paces and at length resolves to put the question to his aged and revered grandfather frog. He crosses to stage left where the first slumped figure is located and, as the lights come up, the figure straightens until a venerable old frog, ensconced comfortably in a rocking chair, becomes clearly visible.

"Grandfather Frog, is it really true that over time even the youngest of us will sicken and grow old?"

"Why yes, youngster. But don't worry if you don't quite believe it now. The young never do. It will come with time."

"Will we die, Grandfather?"

"Indeed. But not for a long time yet, we can hope."

"But Grandfather. What happens after? Those humans talk about souls, so that they can live forever. And they say we frogs don't have them."

At this, Grandfather Frog laughs richly, heartily. Young Frog looks baffled until Grandfather's laughing slows to a chuckle. "What's so funny?" he wants to know.

The blanket across Grandfather's lap wiggles for a minute until at length there emerges a colossally huge, green, flat, webbed foot. He holds it up for the youngster to admire in stunned awe. As he stretches it out, he inquires of the frog lad whether he has ever met a human with more soul than that, gesturing towards the base of his enormous, old, green foot. He begins laughing again, and is laughing still as the lights go to black.

When the lights come up moments later, the Grandfather is once more slumped like the other figure at the back of the stage, and the leading frog is once more in center stage with the spotlight upon him. He speaks.

"Perhaps you wonder why I have related this tale of my younger days to you. Perhaps you think that dear old Grandfather Frog was senile to have misunderstood me, or perhaps that he was making of a serious question a rather cheap and tacky joke, a pun. For so I saw it for some time. But then, alas too late, for Grandfather had by then passed away, I saw the reason to his words."

"What is a soul, I ask you, if not the base, the fundament, on which a person is constructed? Those humans seem to think their souls are located near their hearts, or in their stomachs or livers, perhaps. Some others think of it as an aura that entirely suffuses through and permeates their beings. But thinking logically, what better position is there for such a thing than in the bottoms of one's feet? A countercultural human philosopher seemed on the edge of this realization when he said that money was power and power was uninhibited motion. The money thing is irrelevant, of course, no matter how much the humans stress it, but motion is clearly key. One is less what one eats than where one goes, and for frogs lacking mechanical transport, feet are what get you there.

"Feet have always held much significance. Look at the uproar today over the ancient human practice of foot-binding. And what, if not a foot, won Cinderella-human her handsome human prince? Furthermore. . . "

While the frog speaks, you notice the ominous overtones of the background music produced by the orchestra. As the frog gesticulates while making his points about the importance of feet and the connection between souls and soles, the second crouched figure in the background straightens and is illuminated. The frog's droning grows quieter and his gestures are minimal. He appears to be muttering to himself. The figure at the back of the stage is human, with a canoe around his lower half with legs and feet emerging from under it. The canoe has painted along its side "Freddie's Fried Frog-Legs" and the human, garbed in fishing clothes, carries a large net and wears an expression of sheer malevolence. The frog's spotlight dims somewhat, and a second spotlight catches the human, brightening as he approaches the front of the stage.

He holds a finger to his lips, cautioning you in the audience to keep quiet while he slips up behind the still muttering frog and throws the net over him. You see the frog scream, struggle, and react in horror after reading aloud the "Frog-Legs" sign. "Don't steal my soul! Please! I beg you! Do not do this thing!" But despite his valiant struggles, the frog-catching human manages to bear him off stage. Again, the lights go to black.

The lights come up on a grisly scene, heralded by the drum beats from the orchestra pit. The frog is seated, blindfolded, with his legs thrust through the maw of a guillotine. His mouth is twisted, his color is now a pale sea-green. Obviously he is frightened, yet bravely, in an at first quavering voice which eventually swells into resonance, he sings a reprise of the song heard earlier, "The Life of a Frog." He sings until, midway through the repeat of the final chorus, the guillotine's rope is sundered. The last thing we see before blackout is the blade hurtling down toward our hero's legs. The music and song are cut off equally suddenly.

When at last the lights come up again, our same frog is standing stage center, legs intact, holding something in his left hand. He stands there for several seconds, letting his presence, legs and all, be fully noted by you, the startled audience. Whe he feels the suspense has built sufficiently, he speaks, saying, "The blade got stuck halfway down and before they could fix it, a beautiful princess showed up, pitied me, and purchased my freedom with her father's gold. She then took off, as she had pressing business elsewhere. You needn't look so surprised at my amazing good luck. I knew all along that I'd come out all right. After all, I had my lucky rabbit's foot with me!" He shows the audience the gory artifact, caked with dried crimson blood and with a bit of splintered bone protruding, freezes, and the curtain drops. Curtain call does not include the mutilated rabbit. Then house lights come up. Thank you for having been a splendid audience. Good night!