"End of the World", a three act play by Arthur Kopt, stars Michael Trent, a playwright facing a low point in his career. One day, Trent is approached by Philip Stone, a rich powerful man in his sixties, who offers him a hefty sum of money to write a play for him. Puzzled by the man’s ideas but dazzled by his offered payment, Trent accepts Stone’s offer as a change of pace and a way to jumpstart his career. However, the play that Stone asks him to write has no plot, two characters, and no happy ending. Stone’s scenario deals with the end of the world, but he will not reveal to Trent anything beyond that.
Trent asks Stone why he has chosen him to write his play, but Stone will not answer this question either but gives Trent five thousand dollars as a token of good faith and leaves. Left with all questions, no answers and five thousand dollars, Trent consults his agent Audrey for advice, but to no avail. Audrey calls Stone and asks why he is so anxious to produce this play. Stone replies simply, “I want to produce it because I believe the earth is doomed.”
Even more confused then before, Trent is invited to Stone’s 40th floor apartment and faints after looking out of the window down onto the streets below. When he wakes up, he and Stone discuss why anyone would want to produce a play that is doomed for failure. Trent believes that no one will want to see the play Stone wants him to write, but Stone insists on produces the play. He tells Trent that even though the scenario is implausible, it is based on real world doom. Of course, Stone cannot tell Trent anything beyond this, or even what the impending catastrophe he speaks of is.
Trent attempts to investigate and research the usage of nuclear weapons, the only thing that Stone has hinted at that seems to be even somewhat plausible subject matter for a play. Trent interviews General Wilmer, one of the President’s chief advisors on nuclear policy. General Wilmer reveals a horrible contradiction involving the time to use nuclear weapons. In short, nuclear weapons are needed to prevent the usage of nuclear weapons. Trent is puzzled by the idea that the first strike must be considered defensive, and continues on to talk with a man named Stanley Berent, a Russian scholar.
Berent does little but confuse the matter even more, naming the defensive first strike that Wilmer referred to as anticipatory retaliation. Frustrated, Trent leaves Berent and proceeds to visit Jim and Pete, who are both experts in military scenarios. Jim and Pete explain how difficult it is to actually start a nuclear war, but conclude that if one does begin, it will not happen because of greed, power or money, but because both countries fear the other will perform anticipatory retaliation, and the first to strike is always at an advantage. The only way to get out of this paradox is to find a break in the system. An example, Jim says, is when Sadat left Egypt for Jerusalem when he saw nuclear weapons being the inevitable future for Cairo and Alexandria. By doing what no one anticipated, he created a sort of discontinuity. However, Pete tells Trent that extraterrestrials and the rebirth of Jesus Christ are the only things likely to interrupt the cycle now.
After talking with General Wilmer once again under the guise of The Shadow, Trent learns the illogical conspiracy he thinks he has discovered is actually common knowledge, there is just no way around it. Frustrated once again, Trent retreats to his house in New Haven, Connecticut. His vacation is cut short when Stone shows up at his house claiming that Trent has breached his contract by not telling him everything he had discovered and for not producing evidence of any work on a script. Trent tells Stone that he is sorry for his lie, but he is indeed working on a script which involves the story of a puzzled playwright approached by a man very much like Stone who is faced with the same obstacles and conspiracies as he.
"End of the World" was first performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., on March 28, 1984 and originally starred:
- Michael Trent John Shea
- Philip Stone Barnard Hughes
- Audrey Wood Linda Hunt
- Paul Cowan Richard Seff
- Merv Rosenblatt David O'Brien
- Stella Elain Petricoff
- General Wilmer David O'Brien
- Stanley Berent Jaroslav Stremien
- Pete Peter Zapp
- Jim Nathaniel Ritch
- Ann Elain Petricoff
- Trent's Son Wade Raley