Starchild and The Cave

is the working title of hte play I am developing for the playwrites studio. It's really good that I got offered this placement, but its also really bad 'cos I feel that it's gonna consume a lot of time. Stephen Lowe told me that a play takes as long as it takes to write and I have a feeling that this one might take longer than any other play I've written.

Mermmaids and Drowing Women didn't take that long. I knew where I was going and the structure was pretty much straight forward (which is odd, 'cos I was totally terrified about writing it!) Starchild and the cave is much more abstract and odd and weird and has very weird characters and is the first time I've tried to write a play with 5 characters.

and the 5 are:

• Starchild - male, part boy-part man. he has the notion that he is fairly new into the world and is quite nieve. He's a bit like a middle class boy that has just come out of private school into the real world. He likes to give off the impression that he needs looking after, but is actually quite manipulative and weirdly, wize beyond his years. he is born from the Sky and his main pourpous is to become a beautiful comic thing up in the sky. He knows this, but seems quite resistant to the idea - although his resistance is futile. Starchild can bestow things onto other characters (apart from the sky) at will.
  
• The Cave- female, her main pourpous is to become a cave. she knows that she needs to harden against the world and against forces like starchild. she is humanoid and feral and lives in the wilderness. She needs to settle in one place to become her fullest potential. she is the only character that needs to eat. she hunts and gathers food and offers it to other characters who dont need it. she (ideally) has no language that can be understood - apart from Starchild bewstows the gift of speach onto her that she despises. she is halfway through her journey of fully becoming the cave, but resists and wants to regress.
  
• The Sky - the sky is Starchilds mother - it is more of a female force than male but is essentailly beyond gender. She is both a benevolent and kind force. She knows that the cycle is that starchild must become a consmic thing in the sky as others have come before him. She is unsupportive of Starchilds fassciantion with the cave, insisting that hte tree and the cave are "other" to her and starchild. she abhores temptation and can be recked with malice. the only person she shows compassion to is Starchild. she listens to the tree, but sometimes will not take it in.
  
• The Tree - is more beyond male/female than the star is. it sympatises with both starchild and the cave and acts as a mediator between them and the sky. it dislikes the serpent and seems to be the only one that sees it. it has a solitary apple that hangs from its highest branch that symbolises love and purity. the serpent is after the apple, continuiously. the tree moves its branches to waylay the serpent and truly beleves that it can hang onto the last apple forever.
  
• the Serpent - is a non speaking part. it is a metaphor for temptation and corrution in all the characters souls. its main pourpous is to get the apple and eventually, as it gives up the apple will fall from the tree and it will have no intrest in it, which is the worst part for the tree.
  

Why has my post gone into italics? I can't seem to switch it off! Damned blogger!

Anyway - i really need to know and understand why I'm doing this and where the damed plot is going. I'm totally unsure about a lot of things. It's obviously a whole metaphor for realtionships and suchlike, but I dunno... might just end up being pretentious wank