YELLOW AND PINK

The mystery of First Causes—with almost as little overt action, almost as much querying dialogue as a Beckett one-acter. . . until the snap-close. Lying in the sun, on an old newspaper, are two small wooden figures, tubby Pink and lean Yellow. Sitting up, they wonder who they are, how they got there—and begin to argue: Pink insisting "someone must have made us," Yellow maintaining "somehow or other we just happened." Then, to Pink's scoffing, Yellow proceeds to explain how it might have happened—a branch breaking off, tumbling, being struck by lightning, bored by insects, "or by woodpeckers." But, responds Pink, how come "there's two of us?" How come we're "so different?" "How come we're painted the way we are?" And "so neat and symmetrical?" Finally, Yellow gives up: "Some things will have to remain a mystery." At that a man comes "shambling along," pronounces the two "Nice and dry," and carries them off. "Who is this guy?" Yellow whispers. "Pink didn't know." With a yellow- and a pink-tinted figure in a gray-toned landscape, this is no eye-dazzler—but the kind of child to be, curious about who they are and why they're there is just the kind to appreciate the metaphysics and incidental perplexities here.