The concept of the world of Fwyre [pronounced, phonetically, “Fire” with a w between the F and r] was conceived in the back seat of a nineteen eighty-six Ford—oops! What am I saying? (Many conceptions have occurred in back seats of cars, not just Fords, but Fwyre was not.)
Fwyre is a world, a planet, somewhere else in this universe.
The idea of portraying an extended period of history popped into my head when I was strolling down an aisle in a library near the end of my college years, randomly reading titles of books on shelves (which remains a habit with me to this day). A title snagged my attention: I plucked the book from the shelf. Customarily, I opened it to a page here, a page there, read parts of them quickly, checked out the table of contents, then replaced it on the shelf.
And in the moment that I closed this book, the concept of Fwyre flashed into my brain, and I recognized it as my life’s work: I would depict life on that planet, Fwyre, for a long period of history, as plays.
The name of the planet, Fwyre, as spelled, F-w-y-r-e, was burned in my brain, and I’d never forget it; but, often, I’ve wondered about its spelling.
“F-w?” I raised my eyebrows with curiosity (internally) at times when I considered the spelling. “Where, in the English language is there a word that has a w following an f?”
Nonetheless, I never considered changing the name of the planet.
So I kept this idea in the back of my mind over the years and wrote numerous novels and novellas, some of which I placed on Amazon a few years ago, and a collection of plays.
When the moment was right, however, I put some thought into Fwyre. The concept remained the same, which was, namely, to portray, on stage, an extended period of the history of this planet. It was to be a realistic depiction of the years on Earth from the Revolution of 1848 to 1945, the end of World War II.
The corresponding Revolution of 1848 on Fwyre took place in 1845, the starting point of Shadows on the Wall.
You’ll recognize these years as, roughly, the Victorian Age and the Modern Age. I chose this period of history because ideas flourished, ideas about which people were passionate. Looking back, “social experiments” were enacted, “social experiments” being communism, socialism, eugenics, democracy, and dictatorships, all of which tried to incorporate the concepts of banking, economics, colonialism, and so on. Here, too, we see, starkly, human nature revealed: we see people’s attempts to solidify and advance societies’ natural impulses of empire through aggression and through advances in war technology. We also witness the death of religion.
I’ll end my work on the history of Fwyre in whatever year corresponds to Earth’s 1945.
The reason for this is that I view evolution for humanity on both plnaets as being over at the end of WWII. Homo Sapiens evolved from myriad manlike creatures: from many to one dominant, extant form. This is the nature of evolution. In the world of ideas, myriad ideas regarding social structures and social organization flourished in the victorian and Modern Ages: one idea remains dominant and extant, the only idea that is the compatible with human nature.
Where this leads himanity remains to be seen.
Also, I’ve written numerous “Bible stories” for Fwyre occasionally over the years, and intend fill out this world with mythology stories.
All this, of course, if God wills it.
