The Recollection of Green Rain

     The Recollection of Green Rain, a short play for a man and a woman, is set in the kitchen of a small house by the woods in England in the late twelfth century.  Map, a writer, asks Agnes, a young woman, if she remembers the place she came from.  She speaks of caves and tunnels and of tending herds of animals like sheep, but different.  She says she and her brother, looking for strays, suddenly came up into a bright light and people found them and asked them questions in a language they didn’t understand.  Some people thought they were demons and wanted to burn them but others decided they should be baptized.  She says her brother died because he was different.  Like her, his skin was green.  Map says she isn’t green any more and she explains that at first they only ate a certain kind of raw beans but then learned to eat his food and now the only green left is in her eyes and they are changing color.  She says she remembers green rain and asks Map what he really thinks of her.  He tells her that he thinks she made up the story as a child and now believes it to be true.  He says he writes down the stories that people tell him and her story is fascinating.  She says she made a vow not to tell her secret name and if she breaks it she will be banished from the Green World forever.  She asks Map if he would like to come back with her.  When he asks if her husband would object she says that Sir Richard, who first found them in the Wolf Pit and who thought their language resembled Flemish, married her to a local man before she became pregnant by one of the village boys.  She asks Map if he wants to make love with her but he says he is a prebendary and can’t be running off with anybody’s wife.  She wants him to swear that, if he loves her, he will never write about her.  He swears and she says that for the rest of his life he will regret not running off with her.  She says Sir Richard desired her and she is still in his head.  Map says that around the time she and her brother were found there was a terrible massacre of Flemish immigrants that were taken to a dark place and slaughtered in the rain.  He says when a person is malnourished their skin can turn a sort of grayish color and perhaps hallucinations brought on by starvation and emotional trauma—She interrupts him, shouting that she is from the Green World under the earth and none of this is real.  She tells him not to touch her but says that when he is very old he will dream about her naked in green rain.  As they look at each other the light fades on them and goes out.