Swamiji discusses The Peace Treaty

The Drama called “The Peace Treaty”

I love that play (“The Peace Treaty”), I have to say. I didn’t do it, but I did it. I wrote the first version when I was 15.

I visualized 5 tribes living on an island in the middle of some ocean. The same story, that one tribe invaded the other tribes, was beaten, and the leader of the army that beat them—the united army—proposed to all the others that they create a peace treaty that would prevent war from ever happening again. All the other leaders applauded him and said “this is great, this is wonderful, but with one little proviso: I would like this requirement.” And each one had a selfish requirement that finally completely destroyed the Peace Treaty.

When I rewrote the play many, many years later, I turned (the outcome) into a positive thing and made it much more complex with better lines. I like (this version) to. It has so many levels of reality.

Another thing is, I used to want to be a playwright. Of course, I have written this play as a playwright. That was, at one time, my ambition. The only thing was what I wanted to do was share truth with people.

When I realized I didn’t know truth itself, I thought why impose my ignorance on others and I left that (ambition).

Years later, after I met Yogananda, he told me one of my jobs in this life would be writing. Then, I have taken it (screenwriting) up since then. Recently, in fact, I have also written movie scripts.

I used to theorize about the drama, theorize about dramatic speech. I thought most dramatic speech is so sterile. Why can’t we make the speech itself beautiful? I know the dogma I was given in high school was that English poetic speech is best expressed through iambic pentameter. I have seen plays written in iambic pentameter and they sounded courtly, pompous and not right for modern English.

I though “How can I find language which resonates with the way we speak and yet is poetic?” Poetry is not necessarily artificial. It is what would have like to have said if we had the time to think it through.

So I wrote this play—it is a poetic play, many passages are very poetic—but they sound completely natural, they sound as if you could actually hear people speaking such words. Watching it this time at the Village, I found myself not realizing I was listening to somebody reciting poetry. It sounded as if he was simply speaking.

One thing about that play I have always delighted in is the fact that people who act in it are improved as human beings. This is a worthwhile thing. The Arts should make us better people. I believe that very deeply.