The π Play

The world's first (and only) Pilish play


 

The π Play is a two-character, one-act play in which all the words of dialogue spoken by the two characters are in Pilish, with the number of letters in successive words forming the first 770 digits of the number π.

This play was written in 2006 and was first performed at that year's Pi Day festivities at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, with Mike Keith as Guil and Diana Keith as Roz.  The location of its premiere explains the reference to Virginia in Roz's fourth line on the first page.  The play was written during the unfortunate reign of Bush II in the United States, and as a result there are also several references to events of the day, such as the Dick Cheney quail incident.

As in Cadaeic Cadenza, excerpts from existing literary works (translated into Pilish) are embedded in the play.  These are (1) Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene from Macbeth, (2) Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven, and (3) Lucky's speech from Waiting for Godot.

You can read the play in PDF format by clicking here.  The text is annotated in the left column to show the digits of π that correspond to each word of dialogue.