JOURNALS

A Play Based on Michael Ende’s Novel MOMO   (The Grey Gentlemen)

This play was originally written as a class play for an eighth grade at Hawthorne Valley School, a Waldorf school in upstate New York, with Michael Ende’s permission to adapt the material for school use only. With gratitude to Andree Ward who has offered this play by her late husband, William, to the Online Waldorf Library.

From the Introduction by Donald Bufano:
It’s about time. That is the whole story of Momo. But there is much more. Momo herself is a girl who lives outside of physical, clock time —rather she exists in cosmic time. She can take the time needed to really listen to others and help them “hear” themselves in the process. Her temperament and experience protect her from the shadowy gray gentlemen.

These specters rob precious time from the people by promising to give them more of it. "Invest your time with us and realize future gain!” Adults fall first and fast — easy prey. “What a logical concept,” they think. Certain characters - Beppo, a street sweeper; Guido, a story-teller; and Figaro, the Barber among them - resist, but fall hard too.

The children in their naive wisdom struggle to hold out as long as they can. Time along with imagination and naivete in the positive sense of openness are their wealth. The thieves drive them from imaginative play to hide-bound, lifeless, structured days in Children’s Depots. It is up to Momo; Cassiopeia, a turtle living backwards in time; and Professor Hora, a cosmic conjurer of hours, seconds, minutes to set things right.

The setting is fictitious, time-less Italy. It is Italy, where slow food, La Dolce Vita and dolce far niente (the sweet life and sheer joy of doing nothing) are born, seriously nurtured and essential to the culture. There, anything of importance has been around for millennia and things get done when they get done. Family time, long meals, social gatherings and cutting a good figure while strolling through town trump schedules or other ephemeral time demands. What a wonderfully ripe plum for the thieves of time, those pale grey, cigar-smoking, derby-wearing gentlemen.

Momo is Michael Ende’s story of how outer life can rob us of the very time it purports to save. Commercial culture and misapplied technology join forces to alienate us from the true rhythms and pacing of love, life and nature. An appreciation of time with friends, time to think, and time to do nothing reinsert the human being into today’s multitasking, double booking, instant messaging world. William Ward took Ende’s story and skillfully crafted a dramatic treatment filled with humor, current references and real meaning that is accessible to all who read it or see a performance.