SWEET AND SOUR
A Written Creative Work submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University In partial fulfillment of ^ ^ the requirements for the Degree
EtfG,C.U) Master of Arts
- S 3 5 + In
Creative Writing
by
Daniel Ron Schifrin
San Francisco, California
August 2017 Copyright by Daniel Ron Schifrin 2017 CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL
I certify that I have read SWEET AND SOUR by Daniel Ron Schifrin, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree Master of Arts in Creative Writing at San Francisco State
University.
Michelle Carter, M.A. Professor of Creative Writing
Andrew Jo^on, B. A. Assistant/Professor of Creative Writing SWEET AND SOUR
Daniel Ron Schifrin San Francisco, California 2017
I will be writing a play, “Sweet and Sour,” that explores the themes of science, autobiography and audience response.
I certify that the Abstract is a correct representation of the content of this Written Creative Work
/Z - / -
Chair, Thesis Committee Date ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’d like to thank my professors and classmates at San Francisco State University for their support of this project. Special thanks are due to Professor Michelle Carter, who inspired me to follow my muse in all things dramaturgical.
v TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cast of Characters...... 1
ACT 1...... 2
ACT II...... 31
ACT III...... 78
vi 1
SWEET AND SOUR Cast of Characters
MEL, retired engineer.
LEAH, thirty-something artist, daughter of Mel.
PREE, thirty-something scientist, son of Mel.
RANDI, Mel’s lover, whose gender and age is uncertain or fluid. Randi was originally written to be a hirsute male wearing female clothes, but this could change depending on the actor and the interpretation. Randi is expected to demonstrate a full, even exaggerated, range of emotions. The actor playing Randi will also play several minor characters, some of whom appear only once. Randi will also have a knife on him in every scene.
The entire play takes place in Mel’s home, although there are flashbacks to other locations. 2
ACT I
SCENE 1
LEAH and PREE are sitting in their father’s comfortable, if slightly Spartan, living room.
LEAH Why are we here?
PREE You know why we’re here.
LEAH I know why we’re here, but why are we here?
PREE Every time I see you I think I understand what you’re saying, and then something happens - 1 think it’s that you start talking - and then I have no idea.
LEAH You understand exactly why I’m asking....
PREE Dad doesn’t ask that much of us, and when he says (in father’s voice, arm up to ear, phone-like) come visit on Sunday...don Y worry, nothing’s wrong....
LEAH ...you know something’s wrong...Do you think he’s ok? 3
PREE Of course he’s okay. When has he not been ok? (beat)
LEAH You remember that one time, when we were in Italy - the four of us - and he had those stomach pains...
PREE We thought he pulled a muscle driving that Alfa Romeo around Rome.... (mimicking dad, hands dead-set on steering wheel)
...you think you ’re a crazy driver? Watch this! (turns the wheel sharply)
LEAH If he’s okay, why is he still in the bathroom?
(Flushing sounds. A man comes out hunched over, in a bathrobe and slippers, hair disheveled)
MEL I ate nothing today but a banana! LEAH (relieved and concerned) Oh dad!
MEL Why the long face? I’m on a diet.
(siblings look at each other; they both get up) I’m fine. I just wanted to see you guys before, you know, things got busy. 4
PREE What kind of busy do you mean?
MEL A good question. A scientist’s question. That’s my boy. How’s the practice?
PREE It’s busy. We added two chemists last week....
MEL Busy is good, busy is good....
PREE But I kind of left in a hurry, you know, your message and all. MEL And you, my dear, how is your puppet show? John Cage meets Twyla Tharp meets Sesame Street, if the New York Times can be believed... LEAH You mean “Lady Macbeth’s Kitchen”?
(Leah pretends to put a gun to her head. Pree is not amused.)
MEL My little genius. I always knew you could do it. And what’s the name of your new production company? The kitchen?
LEAH The Lab.
MEL The Lab. I know, I know.... (a slight cough)
Of course, the Lab. 5
(Mel’s cough picks up steam, and is suddenly upon them like a storm blowing through the house. It goes on longer than is polite. He sits down.)
Maybe the banana wasn’t such a good idea.
(He takes a deep breath.)
Well, you want the good news, or...?
(Mel starts coughing again, and he makes a slight performance out of it.)
FREE The good news ore, like the gospel about gold? Or is there a comma in there somewhere? Or is there bad news too? Or is there no good news at all, and only the appearance of good news? Or/
(Mel finishes his performance, then starts talking as if he didn’t hear Pree.)
Okay, the good news first. I’m alive.
PREE A golden opportunity to state the obvious.
LEAH And....?
MEL You two will finally have the chance to live together again, to do projects and tell jokes, just like the old days.
(Pree rolls his eyes, but she leans forward, concerned.)
LEAH Dad? 6
MEL The funny thing is, when you were kids, Leah was the one who was always asking the probing questions, and Pree was always drawing pretty pictures.
PREE Art and science are surprisingly comfortable bed-fellows... (with a sudden, rising pique) Now what’s the big mystery? What’s the or news?
MEL Stage 4, all my organs, like Swiss cheese, the cancer eating me up like a glutton at the buffet. (he gets up, looking ill) Whoo...that banana. Maybe I overdid it.
(Mel starts to hobble off stage. They get up. She grabs her brother’s arm, but he looks much the wobblier.)
PREE Dad?
MEL (he turns around half-way) I’m not asking much. Just stay and cook for me. You know, all the stuff I like. The chicken with the sweet and sour sauce, the cranberry garnish, those muffins with the dry oats floating on top. Just until, you know...it passes.
PREE I don’t understand.
LEAH Yes you do. It’s an experiment. Which of us can come up with the tastiest dishes for our dying father. Like one of those old myths... 7
PREE .. .but also a competition...
LEAH .. .like when we were kids, and we created all these games...
PREE .. .to distract us while mom was....
MEL (coughing) Oh, nothing like that. Nothing like that at all. 8
SCENE 2
Pree and Leah are sitting in the kitchen. It looks like a crime scene, with the carcasses of vegetables and food containers littering the table and counter. They look wearily at each other like two warriors having come to a truce after a night of fighting. Then, they soften.
LEAH Did we start with smoothies and end up with gazpacho, or was it the other way around?
PREE Yup.
LEAH No, really?
PREE (long pause) Did you ever meet Susan?
LEAH Which girlfriend was that?
PREE The alchemist.
LEAH From Taiwan or something? 9
PREE Shanghai. I met her at the metallurgy conference.
LEAH Sexy.
PREE Kind of, but more elegant, I would say, than... LEAH Not her, your conference. It’s like you’re the James Bond of chemistry. PREE (throwing a vegetable at her) Anyway, her father died after years of eating fool’s gold with his food, something to do with Tao Buddhism. He thought he would live forever if he transmuted base metals into a synthetic gold, then ingested it, you know, iron pyrite, FeS2, versus just AU, which is natural, organic gold...
LEAH I told you, James Bond. (she hums the 007 theme song)
PREE (not paying attention) She couldn’t understand why her father did this. He was a man who wouldn’t mix his rice and chicken, so that if something tasted wrong he would know which food it was. He wouldn’t eat a fruit from the orchard behind his house unless he knew which tree it came from, and not just which tree, but which part of the tree, a high branch, a low branch, etc. He was crazy about these things long before people in San Francisco were.
LEAH (she starts to clean up) So why did he eat gold? PREE
Fool’s gold...I asked Susan the same question. But we broke up before I got an answer... 10
(Leah stops cleaning and watches Pree) But of course I have a hypothesis...
LEAH Yes, of course you do.
PREE At the end of his life something happened, he returned to an ancient cultural idea. Alchemy. The possibility that with enough knowledge, with enough skill, with enough patience, one can turn base elements into something precious. And this process is imbued with a spiritual dimension. It was the knowledge that prolonged your life, not what you actually ate. LEAH Since when did you get interested in spiritual stuff?
PREE (Tasting something, then indicates it’s not so bad) I don’t know if I would call this line of questioning spiritual. (beat) I often wondered how we survived with our parents as cooks. (beat) Also, just kind of wondering.. .how long do you think he has?
LEAH I’m hoping eventually he’ll tell us. I don’t want to be surprised, like with mom.
PREE Mom could not cook.
LEAH She didn’t even pretend to cook. But she was still full of opinions about food.
(Mel walks in.)
MEL Who’s full of opinions? 11
LEAH Mom.
MEL Still?
LEAH No, dad. Not anymore.
MEL That’s good. (beat) You know, mom’s been dead now for, oh, about 100 baguettes.
LEAH 100 what?
MEL 100 baguettes. I’m experimenting with new ways of thinking about time. To say my wife passed away 15 months ago seems rather abstract. But to say I’ve eaten 100 baguettes without her - that’s approximately two and a half per week - that means something. I can taste her loss, one bite at a time. (looks into the pots and nods happily) You know, your mother grew up poor.
PREE and LEAH We know!
MEL She and her sisters used to play a game called “rich person.” They would spread a blanket on the floor, have a picnic, and make fun of rich people’s food, which they thought was impossible to describe, so they would make up their own words to describe their disgust.
PREE Oh...that’s why mom had these crazy childish words she threw at restaurant food...cranberrious, or crimesauce.... 12
LEAH ...or applejerk.
MEL (pausing before speaking) You know, when I was in boarding school, I had a classmate named Electron. Can you guess his father’s profession?
PREE Physicist? MEL Wrong. He was a baker, like my father...
PREE Dad, your father was an engineer....
MEL Before that, he was a baker. You didn’t know? (Pree and Leah nod no) Hmmm. Interesting. Well, when he was a young man, and into my early childhood, he made impossibly delicious food for us, croissants made out of nothing but butter, rye bread that literally tasted like Ukrainian dirt. I wanted to be a baker too, but he wanted me to be an engineer. So here I am, a retired chemical engineer, wanting my final years to smell like food, to be cooked for. Is that so wrong?
LEAH Final years, huh?
MEL Years, months, you know....
LEAH Anything else we should know? 13
MEL Sure, Electron had a brother named Proton, and a sister named Quark. She was ugggly. I met her at graduation....
LEAH (interrupting) I mean about you.
MEL Well, your brother might not know why he is named Primo.
PREE (gleeful) I was kid number one!
MEL Nope.
PREE Just kidding. Primo Levi, the chemist and novelist. Your favorite writer.
MEL Yes. But beyond the yes...no. Actually, it was for my father, who loved Italian food. He could make tiramisu that felt like you were eating sugared helium.
(Mel pauses, lost in thought, then grimaces)
LEAH Dad, are you sure...don’t you want to see another doctor...
MEL (interrupting, with determination) When I go, I want to fly out of here on a balloon of tiramisu. 14
SCENE 3
Leah and Pree are preparing food in the theater of their kitchen. Mel is watching them from the table, like an audience member, or a judge. Leah is intense and curious; Pree is distracted and anxious. Generally speaking, Pree is tentative about breaking up or combining the foods; Leah is getting right into it. Each one has a spotlight on them for a few moments, as if they have a solo, operating intensely in their own worlds, while simultaneously being scrutinized, perhaps primarily by Mel, who could very well have a pad and paper in front of him. Leah watches Mel watching them, then wipes her hands.
LEAH So, Pree, you are saying that you would rather eat an egg and a tomato, separately, each secreted quietly on opposite sides of the plate, then mix them together in an omelette?
PREE (Pree places a giant pot of water on to boil; it will move toward boiling during the entire scene.)
There’s nothing wrong with separation. Just because I have to combine things all day long in the lab, doesn’t mean I have to do that on my plate. 15
LEAH Sorry, dad, breakfast is delayed by a conflict about artistic process.
MEL (increasingly prone to sharp digressions) You know, food depreciates once it mixes with other foods. It loses its value. I don’t need the corn and the rice to have intercourse on my plate! I want to know the meaning of each thing on its own.
PREE Exactly. Exactly what I’ve been trying to say.
MEL You tell me how I’m different than this tomato. I mean, deeply different. I know this tomato can’t talk, can’t move, can’t do taxes. But over a billion years, how are we any different?
PREE Correct.
MEL But Pree. I worry you are not patient enough. That you don’t understand what will happen if you just take things exactly as they are. Do you truly understand this tomato? I’m sorry to say, I think sometimes this tomato has more presence than you, has more patience. I dare you to stare at that tomato for 60 seconds without moving. Let’s see what it has to say. ..It’ll be like one of Leah’s plays, where a philosopher comes on stage dressed like a puppet and stares at a boiling pot for an hour.
(Leah sets her watch. Pree watches for the full minute; no one says anything, but over the course of this adventure Pree appears to be overcome with an insight. Then he drops the egg he has been holding in his hand, which breaks onstage. Mel continues, as if the unexpected action is expected.) 16
MEL And when you do, the omelette becomes an egg again. But you can’t get to the eggs, unless you break the omelette.
(Pree sits down exhausted; the focus returns to Leah, who has been staring at her watch. As she talks Pree starts to clean up the egg.)
Leah, something on your mind?
LEAH Not to be too philosophical...
MEL Nobody here but me, waiting to die.
LEAH Right. So did I tell you I had x-ray vision? (Mel signals for her to continue) Well, maybe not x-ray vision exactly...it’s more like...you remember, Pree, when we were in Bali together on that hiking trip, way out in the jungle, and I could somehow hear the direction of the path, but I couldn’t explain it.
PREE (coming back to himself as he cleans up) I said you probably had some kind of synesthesia, like a lot of artists.
LEAH Right. You were right, that’s when I finally had a name for what I was able to do in art, to work with the transposition of senses I had been born with but didn’t understand was a thing. So I could hear the direction of a path, or see the colors of someone’s dancing. And then just now, when I was looking at the watch, grampa’s old-fashioned wristwatch, I could see the gears moving underneath. But not exactly see, more like...smell? 17
MEL
(Mel gets up and bodies over to Leah, then puts his arms in the air.)
So what do you smell here? Inside this timepiece?
LEAH (she smells deeply; Mel waves his hand, as if “I’m waiting”)
Gazpacho, dad. I smell gazpacho.
(Mel laughs. Pree has been watching the pot start to boil, then turns to face his father)
PREE (Stiffly formal but also trembling) Did you know our cells are basically just time-pieces? That each cell has an internal clock? That if you look carefully enough at a cell, deeply enough, patiently enough, you can see the passage of time at an impossibly accurate level?
MEL Sure, Pree. That sounds familiar...
PREE And that you can look at a cell from the outside, for years, without knowing anything about it. Anything truly essential.
MEL Pree....
PREE I am not a pot of water. 18
MEL Pree...
PREE I am not a to-ma-to.
MEL I see you...
PREE (covering his eyes) Yeah? What color are my eyes?
MEL (hesitating) Define... “color.”
PREE Hue, tint, shade, saturation, brightness, chroma....
MEL I mean, I know they are in the brown range. We all have mostly brown eyes in our family.
PREE But brown how?
LEAH Pree, you’re scaring me.
PREE How now brown cow?
MEL Pree, your eyes are brown. I can’t recall if they have hints of gold, or a flash of green somewhere, or/ 19
PREE Or... Leah?
LEAH (hesitantly) I would have to describe your eyes as.. .toasted almond with a hint of caramel. (Pree softens a little, and uncovers his eyes. He goes to her, and she looks more closely.)
... and a ring of gold toward the iris.... (she steps even closer) .. .and a tiny spot of iron in the left eye...
MEL Okay, Pree, okay. I., .maybe I didn’t always see you as.. .clearly as I could have. Life isn’t always easy/
PREE (to Mel) Your eyes are blue, but not the blue of the sky, more like the blue of a neon sign, a blue that buzzes with energy, that never sleeps. A blue.. .like a sea that never ends...
MEL Pree. I see you....
PREE You’ve watched me, but you haven’t seen me. (The pot boils over. They all turn to face it.) 20
SCENE 4
All three sit at the table together. Mel is carefully moving plates and silverware around in front of him.
MEL I’m thinking about getting into OCD. (beat) You know, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. (they look at him) I mean, just recreationally. When I’m not busy dying, I kind of need another hobby.
LEAH Dad, OCD is kind of a serious thing, not something to joke about.
MEL (one of Mel’s digressions) Let’s do peach and pit?
PREE Peach and pit?
MEL You know, peach is what went well today, pit is what was bad.
LEAH Yes, we know what it is. It’s what mom used to ask us every Friday night, getting us to talk about the week. 21
MEL Right. But let’s do it for our whole lives.
LEAH Like what went well and badly over our lives?
MEL Right. Okay, Pree you go first.
PREE I’m not sure I can just summon up...
MEL Sure you can. I know it’s right there floating near the top.
PREE Dad, it’s not so easy.
MEL Give me your peach and pit! I’m not going to be here forever.
PREE Okay. You want to know my pit? It’s when I came home from summer camp, and stayed up that whole night doing the jigsaw puzzle, and the next morning I woke up to see that you had disassembled it and put it back in the box.
MEL You left it on the kitchen table.
PREE I was showing you that I had the perseverance to finish a project no matter what. Like I had been doing with my labs at school. I didn’t leave it on the table, I put it on the table.
MEL That’s only part of the story. 22
LEAH What’s the other part?
MEL That you stayed up the whole next night to do it again. Your mom was so proud of...
PREE You broke me into a thousand pieces!
MEL (calmly) And you put yourself back together.
PREE (composing himself) So what’s the big secret here, dad? Why are we here? Something else is going on.
MEL Still haven’t heard your peach.
(Mel begins to whistle; Pree, exhausted, offers an alternative.)
PREE Let’s hear your peach then.
MEL My peach? You sure you’re ready? Okay. My peach is your pit. When you came home from college, and you did that beautiful jigsaw puzzle of the inside of an atom, and I wanted to see whether or not you really had the fortitude to be out in the world. So I made some coffee and stared at your puzzle, 1200 pieces, the inside of an atom, most of it the color of sunset - or peach, if you will. I saw how beautiful it was, and how you had probably fallen in love with your work. And I decided I would not praise you, or leave you a note like your mom would, full of curliques that looked like garlic fries. Instead I would break your puzzle apart. 23
And lo and behold, you put the whole thing back together. You did it. I was so proud of you. And now look at you!
PREE I’d rather not. Leah, your turn.
(Mel rubs his hands together gleefully.)
LEAH Pit is easy dad. When mom died.
MEL You were 8.
LEAH I was.
MEL And what did you do with that pit?
Leah Do with it? MEL Yes, you were given a pit. It was hard and slimy. What did you do with it?
LEAH You want me to say....
MEL I do....
LEAH That I planted it, and from that peach, that bitter seed, came the fruit of my creative work.
MEL Exactly! 24
LEAH Okay, but you knew that already. Why the questions then?
MEL Because soon I’ll leave you too. Another pit, a boulder of pit, but not to be pitied. What will you do with it? With me?
PREE That’s why you called us here. It’s all about you, your curiosity about what we would do with your legacy.
LEAH I don’t think that’s exactly what he’s saying.
MEL It’s not either/or, Pree. Yes, I’m curious. On the edge of death you become insanely curious about what will happen on the other side. But I also want you to be okay. I want to know you’ll be ok.
PREE Still about you.
LEAH Dad, you do seem sick and all, but...do you have months to live, or weeks? What medicines are you taking? Who is taking care of you? Who is your doctor? I know you like to keep those things private, but....
(The lights start to flicker.)
MEL A storm is coming. The house always knows before I do. 25
SCENE 5
It’s late at night. Pree and Leah are sitting at the table doing a jigsaw puzzle. The wind is howling outside. Mel can be heard coughing in another room, and the kids are adding pieces in a bored and dutiful manner. The wind picks up even more.
LEAH Terrible weather (Pree doesn’t answer) Really. Terrible weather.
PREE If I got your full support on this project, we could probably finish it by midnight.
LEAH And then we’d have a picture of a tomato hanging off a vine in Spain.
PREE Spain is fine, but I’ve always wanted to visit France.
(Mel wanders in.)
MEL That looks more like Umbria.
(Pree, half seriously, protects the puzzle with his arms.) 26
LEAH Italy I’ve seen.
(They all look at one another.)
Dad, I thought you were asleep. (The wind howls something fierce, coughing like an old man. The puzzle box topples over, and Pree props it back up. Mel begins to wander around as Leah and Pree return to their project.)
PREE Did you know that cardboard was invented over a hundred years ago by a Swedish chemist? It’s mostly wood pulp and cornstarch... (The lights go out.)
PREE What did I say?
(After a few moments Mel is seen holding a lantern, which he puts on the table.)
LEAH This is like a bad horror movie, where the family is making bad jokes while the weather gets worse and worse, and then a homicidal maniac bursts into the house and takes the woman hostage.
PREE Sounds like one of your puppet shows.
(There is a knock on the door.)
MEL Leah, go see who it is?
LEAH Me? Didn’t we just talk about the homicidal maniac? 27
MEL So you want me to get my cancer-ridden body off the cushion and go answer the door?
(They both look at Pree. He goes toward the door, with some combination of trepidation and false bravdo. He opens it.)
PREE No one there. Just the wind. (Pree sits back down again) Anyway, you remember when I had that internship at the cardboard factory in St. Louis? I told you I was going because a girl I met in college was there for the summer, but really I wanted to work at the factory. You know how they make cardboard? It’s amazing. The methodology begins on a creasing line, a long arrangement of connected machines around the size of a football field. You have a completed bit of single-divider layered board, a solitary folded layer that is being sandwiched between the two liners.... (he exhales, almost sexually) ...I tell you, when I go, I want to be buried in a cardboard box. Better for the environment too....
(The door bursts open, and a large man with a beard enters, holding a knife. He is dressed in extravagant and flowy clothing, in a kind of exaggerated feminine style. Leah screams; Pree falls off his chair onto the ground. Mel just stares.)
MEL Hi Randi. (Mel walks up to him, and the men embrace for a long time. Randi holds onto the knife as they hug. The kids look at each other.)
Have I not mentioned Randi? (they nod no) 28
Randi, these are my kids. I probably mentioned them. (beat) Okay, how about a game of charades? (Randi gives Mel a thumbs-up) We’ll play together, against you two. I have to warn you, Randi, between the kids they have like six master’s degrees. Okay, we’ll go first.
(Mel quickly signs something to Randi, who nods. The kids are still staring. Randi keeps the knife with him throughout the scene.)
LEAH Dad, is Randi deaf? (no one seems to hear her question)
MEL Okay, ready? (Randi winks and gives another thumbs-up. Then he folds his thumb down, popping his other four fingers up. Pree is distracted and irritated, then sits back at the puzzle, half-watching and half playing. Leah, however, is fascinated.)
LEAH Okay, four words. (Randi puts one finger on his arm.)
LEAH First word, one syllable.
(Randi takes off one of his flowy garments and begins an elaborate pantomime as Mel looks proudly down onto the scene. The pantomime might include elements of a man getting off the ground, looking around in wonder, creating a tepee/A-frame structure over his head, and exclaiming as if saying “Eureka.” 29
It should be rhythmic and compelling, but complex and mystifying.)
LEAH
PREE How on Earth?
(Randi continues, putting three syllables in the crook of his arm.)
LEAH Three syllables.
(Randi takes off one more piece of clothing. He then offers a story about a fierce rain, a vulgar sun, and something emerging out of the ground. He turns red with effort, then collapses into a ball and rolls toward Mel.)
LEAH (as if in a trance, moving closer to Randi) Tomato.
(Randi puts one finger on his arm, then winks.) In. (Randi makes the sign of a v, sensually rubs it on his arm, then puts it to his mouth, enjoying a cigarette.)
Provence. (Mel bursts into rapturous clapping, and Randi gets up and does a dramatic bow. Mel looks at his watch.) 30
MEL Four minutes and thirty-three seconds.
PREE (still still standing at the door, while the other three are clustered together near the table) Dad, how does this creature know what puzzle we are doing?
MEL Randi and I do this puzzle every night, you know, after we practice....
PREE Practice what, dad?
MEL There so much you still don’t understand.
PREE Try me. What don’t I understand about you and Caliban here?
MEL In a few weeks, probably while you guys are out shopping, I’ll ask Randi to come over and kill me. 31
ACT II
SCENE 1
It is moments after Mel’s announcement ending ACT I. Pree is lying on the ground, and Randi is leaning over him, still holding his knife; it should be unclear who is on the ground (Pree or Mel), and in what state of vitality. Randi then takes out what looks like a salt shaker, and puts it under Pree’s nose. Pree comes to. He has fainted.
PREE I had a crazy dream.
(Leah comes to help him up.)
LEAH You had a shock.
PREE I had a shock...Why am I sitting here? (Pree is startled into a memory) Dad, did you say....
MEL I did son, I did. I’m going to die soon. But I want to live. I want to live forever. So Randi will kill me, and then I’ll be composted among his flowers and roots. 32
PREE (to Leah) Has dad gone mad?
LEAH I don’t think so. I’m not sure. I never knew he was interested in performance art before.
MEL (to Randi) I have to keep moving, right? Why be in a box when I can be ingested by Randi, and then taken by him around the world, cooking and traveling and so forth.
(Pree gets up, as if to protest. He is looking a little ashen, so Randi swoops over and gives him some more salts.)
PREE (disgusted) What is IN that?
MEL Don’t ask.
RANDI Urine of sheepdog, fermented. I’ve curated a wide range of smelling salts. They could bring the dead back to life.
LEAH The savage speaks.
RANDI More of a cannibal then a savage, really. Although there is a long line of respectable, law-abiding cannibals. 33
MEL (looking over at kids) Like your mother. (Pree looks a bit wobbly again) Well what do you think communion is? You eat the flesh of Jesus, you drink his blood. Cannibalism. Right? You forgot your mother was Catholic?
(Randi helps Pree, protesting, to a chair.)
RANDI Anyways, I was the chef for the Rolling Stones for a bit. A bit of cooking; mostly smelling salts.
PREE (unbelieving) Uh huh. And when was this?
RANDI ‘68 to ’72.
PREE You mean the glory days. “Beggar’s Banquet,” “Gimme Shelter,” all that?
(Randi smells his own salts, as if he had just uncorked a fine wine.)
That would make you at least sixty.
(Mel and Randi look at each other and laugh loudly.)
RANDI (In British accent) I look better than Mick, don’t I now?
(Mel laughs hysterically, then starts to cough, and the coughing devastates him. He sits down on a chair. Pree, in another chair, faces him and points to Randi.) 34
PREE Perhaps some dog urine, father?
RANDI (Randi lovingly feels Mel’s forehead) When Keith fell out of a tree on vacation a few years back, and got himself a concussion, he asked me to come make some of my remedies before the Stones went on tour again. He had the most beautiful salt and pepper head of hair back then. But I was at a sensitive moment in my self-actualization... (Randi looks meaningfully at Mel) ...we were at a sensitive moment in our self-actualization, and I couldn’t leave just at that moment. (Randi turns melancholy, and Mel pats his hand)
MEL There, there. Tell us a story about the Filipino Brujo you met down in San Francisco.
RANDI Oh, the Mangkukulam!
MEL Yes sir.
PREE How long has all this been going on?
RANDI (ignoring him) Their magic is kind of like the Caribbean Santeria. Chants and potions and that kind of stuff. Brings me way back.
MEL That’s the real deal. 35
RANDI The first time I met one of the Brujos it was outside the International Hotel, downtown, where so many of the elders had lived for decades. One of these priests
MEL (does an air guitar) Judas Priest, like the kids used to listen to.
RANDI ...was leaving the hotel because the city was about to throw them out, making way for more expensive renters. He had said he wouldn’t leave his room until he was ready to die. MEL Amen, brother.
RANDI So here he was walking onto Kearney Street, followed by dozens of friends or patients, talking Spanish or Tagalog, or some combination, presumably preparing for his death. I’m standing there with the other protesters, holding a sign. He looks at me, he looks through me, and says:
MEL “I see you have the gift. But do you want the secret?”
RANDI I nodded yes...and the next thing I know I’m being carried into a nearby building by his followers. His look had knocked me out cold.
MEL (looking at Pree) Pow! (Randi falls to the ground) Imagine that.. .and I was the first person Randi ever told about this. 36
RANDI (getting up) I looked around at what I later learned was their old dancing club.... (Mel pantomimes a little waltz)
.. .with a small stage, and posters of movie stars and ancient confetti on the floor. The priest raised his arm, and his people stopped and set me back on my feet. He opened a side door and I slugged my feet down into the basement, which was more like a greenhouse, full of plants in huge pots. (Mel walks over to Randi) He took a brown leaf off of one of the plants, crushed it in his hand, then fed it to me, like I was a baby deer. (Randi mock feeds Mel) I felt a moment of intense nausea, and then I heard all these colors, all these rock and roll chords, all kind of yellow.
MEL “Here are the secrets of life”
RANDI ...he says to me....
RANDI ...the banaba, guava, garlic, acapulpo. If you wish, we will study here together. You will know the secrets of the Kulam. But first, you have to tell me....
MEL “Didn’t I see you at the Stones concert in Seattle?”
(After a pause, the two men laugh loudly, in uncanny synch.)
MEL Seattle... Unbelievable. 37
RANDI Anyway, for almost 10 weeks we ate and slept in the laboratory, and I tested and puked, tasted and sang, tasted and learned.
MEL And each day you asked for the recipe.
RANDI As if there were a formula for transformation.
MEL As if there were a formula...
RANDI Until one day he refused to get up from his cot. I walked out into the street to find someone to help.... (Randi breaks down) ...but by the time I found somebody, and we returned to the sanctuary, his body was gone. All that’s left was an enormous centipede.
(Leah is entranced; Pree is staring at his shoes, in multiple disbelief.)
PREE So how is Randi going to kill you, dad?
MEL (shaking off their long story) He’s going to crack me like an egg.
PREE What happened to your balloon of tiramisu?
MEL You know what your problem is, Pree? You can’t see a blessing when it’s staring you in the face. 38
SCENE 2
Leah, Mel and Pree are sitting at a table full of dinner dishes. Randi is sucking on a toothpick, while Pree is clearing the table and doing the dishes. Randi may be wearing a red dress.
RANDI How is it that neither of you married?
PREE That’s kind of personal.
LEAH We had our careers.
RANDI Sure, sure. I understand. And Mel, how did you decide which last name your kids would take?
MEL Well, Mary and I decided to hyphenate, rather than merge.
LEAH Leaving us as the Klein-0’Roarks, as opposed to, say, the Kloarks.
MEL Randi, you got a last name? (Randi bats the question away as irrelevant) 39
PREE Dad, why is my room now called the Lab? And why does that worry me?
MEL Well, we need a bed. At least I do, at my age.
RANDI At your age?! (They both laugh. This makes the kids very uncomfortable.)
RANDI Well, if you’re wondering... my orgasms are more, I guess you might say, explosively pollinating. Mel’s are more global, vibratory, you can’t quite put your finger on them, like music, you know.
(The kids look like they just ate bad meat.)
PREE (desperately trying to change the subject) Randi, I realize the idea of a last name is beneath you. As is the silly thing we call “age.” I’m getting the sense that gender is something you also see as irrelevant.
LEAH A patriarchal construct.
PREE Of course. It goes without saying. Still, in my line of work, I need to know certain kinds of things in order to function. If I call something Carbon Dioxide, it’s because it has one carbon atom, and two oxygen atoms. You see? So if I were to ask you if you are, say, American or English, my father’s friend or his lover, his doctor or his executioner, a man or a woman....
RANDI Do you ask if a carrot is a man or a woman? An eggplant? Or how about a poem? Is the voice of a poem male or female? 40
MEL (leaning over to Pree) He’s got you there.
RANDI Anyway, one of my greatest poems is about a lab. Where nothing is actually what it seems.
LEAH You’re a poet?
RANDI More like a poem than a poet, but yes...yes, I am.
(Leah indicates that he may read something.)
RANDI Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly, May gaze thro’ these faint smokes curling whitely, As thou pliest thy trade in this devil’s-smithy— Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?
PREE I had to spoil your fun, but that’s Robert Browning.
RANDI Yes, I am. PREE (speaking to him like he is a child)
“No, you are not Robert Browning. The author of that poem is. I minored in English, you know.... 41
MEL Pree, don’t be so rude. If he says he’s Robert Browning, he’s Robert Browning. Don’t be such a fuss-bucket with your facts. It’s so juvenile.
(Leah shrugs, but Randi is hurt.)
RANDI It’s okay, Pree. I saved your life, and now you’re a little anxious and defensive.
PREE You didn’t save my life! I just fainted, that’s all.
(Mel and Leah are talking amongst themselves, and Randi turns his full attention to Pree. Randi keeps orating, but in a much more authoritative manner; something stirs in Pree)
RANDI That in the mortar—you call it a gum? Ah, the brave tree whence such gold oozings come! And yonder soft phial, the exquisite blue, Sure to taste sweetly,—is that poison too?
PREE (spacily)
In eighth grade... I read this poem for my middle school graduation. It.. .it didn’t go that well.
(The loudspeaker now plays Randi reciting the poem, on low volume, as Randi talks directly to Pree.) RANDI Yes, I know.
PREE How do you know?
RANDI How do you think I know?
PREE I was so nervous I thought I would die...
RANDI You didn’t die.
PREE No.
RANDI But you went through the flames.
PREE Yes.
RANDI And survived.
PREE Yes.
RANDI Your mother did not.
PREE No. 43
RANDI And you became a scientist. A researcher. Food and drugs and health and helping.
PREE Yes.
RANDI But still everyone you know will die.
PREE
(beat)
RANDI Did you waste your life?
PREE Yes.
RANDI Interesting....
(The audience hears the recording of Randi’s voice at higher volume for this last stanza. Randi turns toward Mel, who doesn’t hear it; only Pree does in this liminal soundspace.)
Now, take all my jewels, gorge gold to your fill, You may kiss me, old man, on my mouth if you will! But brush this dust off me, lest horror it brings Ere I know it—next moment I dance at the King’s!
(The scene shifts, and everyone is present again together. Randi continues declaiming a poem to the group, but it appears as if they have been listening, simultaneously, to a silly one.) 44
And I grew, and I grew, and I grew like a weed And I saw all the ancients go slack, go to seed And to all the incredibly stupid critiques of my poetry; you are all grounded for weeks.
And for those of you certain you know the lull score, (my Orgasmatron bellows and hurries and roars) And as soon as you die you will see this device which you call your poor soul merely thirsts for a Christ.
(Mel applauds wildly. Leah is amused. Pree is unsure where to look.) 45
SCENE 3
The group is lounging around the house. Randi is in the kitchen with a Rube Goldberg machine of bubbling pots.
RANDI Well, it’s finally time for me to do some cooking.
LEAH Yes, we see.
RANDI A few more minutes still...
PREE Leah, here’s something I’ve always wanted to know. Why do puppets all seem to have disproportionate limbs?
RANDI Exactly! My legs are way longer than my arms.
PREE You are not a puppet. And, as you should know, everyone has legs longer than their arms.
RANDI (hurt and befuddled)
You seem to know so much about me. So much about my elemental nature. I’m not a puppet, you say. Fine. Then what am I?
(Randi starts to move his limbs around in different ways, seeing what it feels like to stretch or contract 46
different parts of his body, putting himself in various, almost dangerous, positions of imbalance. Mel, at the same time, has been eating something that doesn’t agree with him. Nothing ever does anymore.)
MEL
I’m feeling very bloated. RANDI (Randi starts gyrating his stomach back and forth, in and out, as if trying to find the position of bloat that Mel is feeling)
Sure you’re bloated. You have cancer. Your organs used to be mostly organ with a bit of white cells, and now it’s going the other direction. Hey, it’s like a puppet. The cancer is pulling the strings.
(Pree is about to say something fussy, like “That’s not really very polite...” when some sound or bell goes off; the concoction is ready. Randi pours his elixir into four goblets then brings them to the table.)
Okay, my special homemade wine. Leah, you first...
LEAH (she sniffs it) Smells like dried glue.
RANDI It is! I mean, mixed with some other things. I only know their names in Tagalog. Everybody now! 47
(They all drink. Mel seems to have some relief, and Pree, after a minute, tries yoga for the first time. The lighting shifts to Randi and Leah.)
RANDI Tell me about your childhood.
LEAH (spacey) Not much to tell.
RANDI Did you drink a lot of wine?
LEAH Not really. Why would I?
RANDI It just seems like you would have liked wine as a kid.
LEAH Well, on Friday nights we sometimes had a sip of the Sabbath wine.
RANDI The blood of Christ!
LEAH Well, that wasn’t exactly what my dad was going for.
RANDI You drank wine and ate bread, like Jesus. And Jesus said the bread was his body, and the wine was his blood. (Leah gets dreamier)
RANDI What did it feel like when your mother died? 48
LEAH It was the day of the school play. I opened my lunch to find that instead of a sandwich without the crusts, the way I liked it, she had given me a plastic baggie with only the crusts.
RANDI (talking as he acts out the above scene, as Mary) What happened to the innards?
LEAH When I came home from the play - 1 was Caliban in The Tempest - it was a very progressive school - and I was very hungry. Mom was lying on the floor. Apparently, she had had a small stroke a few days before, but no one seemed to notice. She was always a little off, a half-step off...
(Leah hippie-half-steps it around the stage a bit.)
RANDI So what happened to the innards of the sandwich? Was it tuna? (Leah starts to cry.)
RANDI What did it feel like when your mother died?
RANDI (Leah begins to dance violently, as if controlled by a puppet-master. Randi mimics her moves, a touch cruelly, as Leah is not a good dancer. Leah jumps into Randi, cleaves to him; the line between maternal and sexual is blurred. She separates from Randi and sits down. The lights come back on. Pree is finishing his monologue to Mel.)
PREE ...most advances in food technology happen by accident. Yogurt, for instance. Some enterprising, or perhaps desperate, horseman still three days from home in 49
the Chobani mountains or wherever, he takes a look at his month-old milk in his canteen made of cow gut, and says to himself, ‘Hey, I can either drink this, or die! ’ And not only doesn’t he die, but he discovers the culture of rennet! (Pree turns to see Mel watching Randi) Dad, what do you really know about Randi? Other than he’s some kind of fever dream we all seem to be happening.
MEL I know what I know. We met somewhere. We needed each other. Here we are.
PREE Have you ever asked him what he wants? With you? With us?
MEL What questions do you ask of a stream?
(Beat)
PREE What is your direction? What is your oxygen level? What’s your percentage of nitrates? What’s the likelihood you carry giardia, or other water-born parasites? What is your connection to a natural floodplain?
RANDI (to Pree) My poor, poor child. You have no idea. 50
SCENE 4
Pree is lying on the couch in the living room, an empty bottle of wine cradled in his arm. It’s the middle of the night, and he is dead asleep. Mel wanders in, sweaty and cranky, in the middle of a conversation with himself. He goes to the stove and turns on the kettle. He watches it boil for several long seconds, mugs boredom to the pot, then briefly collects himself into a poor version of a yoga tree pose. He turns and walks to the couch, as if expecting to see Pree there. He starts talking to his son as if he were awake and they are in the middle of a conversation.
MEL ...I would cook my neighbor and feed him to you if I had to. Instead I’ll cook myself... (Mel points to himself) ... and feed him to you. (Mel points to Pree) At least that’s the plan. Because, and here I just need to be honest, you never quite got the courage gene, the animal heart courage gene. You know, for a few years before you were bom, I got into vegetarianism, yoga and meditation.... (Mel puts his hands in the air, as if expecting Pree’s rebuttal) Don’t interrupt. I know you can’t imagine my standing quietly in the tree pose. I’ve never been that... reflective. But you’re missing the point! Which is that I 51
was a vegetarian. I actually loved it. Not the not eating meat part, but my immersion into a new system, an older system. You know this, Pree. That the oldest feeding system on earth is photosynthesis. You have a tree... (Mel gets into an awkward tree pose) .. .and the tree’s leaves absorb the sun, and the leaves make their own energy. It’s magic. I wanted to get closer to that, to some original state. Cut out the middleman of eating the animals that eat the plants. I wanted to get closer to the source. (long pause) Then you were bom. And at that moment - 1 mean the moment I saw the placenta come out, that bloody eggplant connecting you to your mother-source - 1 felt the urge to eat meat again. (putting his hands up once more) I know, I know, eggplants are more intensely purple than most placentas. My point is different. When I saw you come out, you and the placenta, my first urge was...not to take you in my arms, but to eat that bloody thing.
(Mel closes his eyes, then very weakly puts his hands up to protect against Pree’s theoretical response, his hands up as much to himself as to Pree.)
Many cultures eat the placenta, Pree. Many, many cultures. They see it as giving them strength, of connecting to the Process. For all I know it’s tasty too. But that’s not the point! I felt that if I were to be your father, I needed to fortify myself with a different kind of nourishment, something more primal. We are creatures of instinct, Pree. And my instinct was to gobble up that flaming red meat, to feel the juice of the generations running through my veins, and for that juice to drip into you as I raised you...But I failed. Somehow, somewhere, I failed. Maybe it was already in that moment. Maybe I should have eaten the eggplant. Or I should have cut out the middleman and fed it directly to you.
(The teapot whistles; a baby’s cry.)
Oh, and there’s the tea. I didn’t even need to watch it boil. 52
SCENE 5
The four characters are lounging in the dining room.
PREE I keep meaning to ask how you two met.
RANDI Some mysteries are best left unsaid.
LEAH I have a pretty good idea.
RANDI Oh, do you?
LEAH Sure. Dad, you realized you were sicker than you thought, and you wandered around town in a daze. You saw a poster for a meeting - the science of the afterlife or something - and it piqued your interest. So you wandered in.
(Mel shrugs, but acts out what she says, walking into a space newly sculpted by lighting. Mel is surprised to find himself here - the audience might not know if he has actually been transported into a possibly fictional event, or if his seeming disorientation reflects his state of mind at the moment the “meeting” may have occurred. Mel takes a deep breath.)
MEL What am I doing here? 53
(Meanwhile Leah has set up a few folding chairs in a row. Mel checks his pocket, and studies a piece of paper, checking to see if he is in the right place. A spotlight comes up a fair distance from the chairs, and Randi appears, wearing priestly clothing.)
RANDI Dear friends...in the Filipino culture, in the Filipino worldview, we acknowledge the necessity, and the holiness, of the Bayoguin. He is, she is, it is, they is the liminal space between the sexes, the deep navel connecting humans to the divine. The Bayoguin among us manifest the third gender, the third thing, that connects the spirit of the Gods to the spirit of the people.
(Mel looks around, wondering why no one else is there.)
RANDI Are you alone here, sir?
(Mel points to himself, as if to say “Me?”)
Are you alone here, madam? (Mel looks around again, wondering if there is a “madam” in the audience) Are you alone? Are you here? Are you alone here?
MEL It’s just, I’m just, me.
RANDI You are ju st1? Is it just?
MEL I don’t.. .1 don’t know what I am supposed to/ 54
RANDI /No you don’t. No, you most certainly don’t.
PREE So, dad, how close was that?
MEL (shaking off the scene) Well.. .that sure felt real, although that’s not at all how it happened. 55
SCENE 6
Leah and Pree are sitting at an empty table.
PREE Have you seen dad?
LEAH Not recently.
PREE What do you mean by recently?
LEAH I saw him and Randi go for a walk a few hours ago.
PREE Because its dinnertime, and Randi said he would be making food tonight.
LEAH And I’m sure he will.
(Randi comes into the house dragging a huge sack, about the size of a person. The kids watch for a moment, then Pree jumps up.)
PREE Dad!??? 56
(Pree runs over to the bag, but before he gets there Mel walks in from outside.)
MEL I’m right here, Pree.
PREE Then who’s in the bag?
MEL
Beats me. (Mel and Randi laugh) I guess I should stop beating around the bush.
(Mel signals to Randi, who opens the bag and a bunch of beets roll out.)
PREE For the love of borscht...
MEL Randi said he’s been making a kind of Gatorade from beets since about/
PREE I know, like, 1727...
(Randi takes one out and stares at it as if in performance.)
Alas, poor Yorick.
PREE And is our dinner going to consist exclusively of beets?
RANDI Beet. 57
PREE Sorry?
LEAH (getting the theater joke, of beet sounding like “beat”) Beet. (beat)
Wait, can I borrow that sack? RANDI But of course. (Leah runs off, and Randi takes the knife of his belt and tosses it to Pree, who jumps aside.) You can start peeling. 58
SCENE 7
Randi comes downstairs for breakfast. He is wearing a housedress, as well as a blazer and tie. Mel and Pree are already eating, but Leah is absent.
PREE Up a little late, are we?
RANDI Even I need to sleep every once in a while.
PREE And what horrors do you have in store for us today?
RANDI (rooting around in the fridge) Aha! Gruyere! Anyone like a piece?
PREE I can see from here the cheese is rotten.
RANDI You are so cute\ (Randi slips the cheese into his suit pocket, then joins them at the table.)
Anyone know the etymology of Gruyere? 59
PREE Actually, I do. It’s the name of a village in Switzerland. The cheese they make there started to be known more broadly as Gruyere in the late nineteenth century. I had a conference in Lausanne once. It’s not that far by car, and we all went....
MEL (piping up) Did you know that these phones can tell you anything you want to know? It doesn’t matter what. Here’s the WikipeJ/a on Gruyere: (he clears his throat) Gruyeres is a medieval town in the Fribourg canton of Switzerland. It's known for production of the cheese of the same name. The 13th-century Chateau de Gruyeres is a hilltop fortress with a multimedia history show and ornate rooms. Inside the small St. Germain Castle, the H.R. Giger Museum shows artwork relating to the film “Alien.” The Tibet Museum displays Buddhist sculptures and ritual objects of the Himalayas.
PREE .. .but Gruyere, you might be interested to know, is from the Latin Grus, for crane.
RANDI
(Randi gets up dramatically.)
Ah yes. They used to call me “Le Gruyere,” The Crane. Back then my neck was a little slimmer, and when I rolled into town, with my red head and pink legs, crying my hoarse little cry, the townsfolk would say: ’’It’s time to make some cheese.”
MEL ‘Tis the season, and all that.
RANDI Yes.
MEL There’s a link here to a recipe featuring Gruyere. An omelette.... 60
(Leah wanders in. Randi makes a loud crane sound, which all three of them hear. Randi does it one more time; this time the audience will hear a recording of an actual crane. Leah will hear it too, but not Pree and Mel.)
Oh, hi Leah.. .can I make you and everyone else a cheese omelette? LEAH Sure, dad. Thanks. I’m glad you’re cooking. Although.... (Pree looks worried)
PREE Not with the Gruyere, dad. And why, all of a sudden, are you cooking for....
(Randi takes the cheese out of his pocket.)
RANDI Ta-da!! All better.
(The cheese looks brand new. He gives it to Mel, who starts to grate it.)
MEL Okay, this is going to be fun...
(Mel starts cooking, and will be preparing food and mumbling notes from the recipe over the rest of the scene. His dialogue indicates phrases that the audience, and the other characters, will clearly hear. Pree is inside the circle of Mel’s conversation, even if he is not responding audibly.)
Pree Dad, I think I’ll pass on the omelette after all, if we are using the Gruyere. I’ll just eat my earwax. 61
RANDI Not healthy, Pree. Not healthy.
LEAH Although I did read that in some cultures, that kind of auto-cannibalism is tied to certain beliefs in longevity.
RANDI I mean it’s not healthy for Pree.
(Mel is humming and la-la-la-ing; he may turn his spatula into an epee, fencing with the eggs in the pan. He is in a great mood. Meanwhile, Leah gets up from the table, backs up toward the audience, and sits downstage to watch the scene unfold. Mel and Pree are together in the scene, while in a moment Randi and Leah will be on the outside of this scene, looking in and commenting.)
MEL Okay, whoever wrote this recipe is very fussy. “If you are making both oatmeal and eggs, put a timer on. Don’t start preparing the eggs in any way until the water is boiled, and the buzzard goes off.”
RANDI Did you hear that? He said buzzard, not buzzer. (Leah nods, as if in a trance) I once fucked John Cage, before he lived with Merce Cunningham. Before the buzzards got them. (Leah nods) Cage’s idea of entertainment in the morning was watching the water boil, listening for each stage of this process, as if he could feel, in his body, the change in the water from liquid to gas.
MEL Okay, then, let’s mix the eggs with the herbs. We can mingle and mangle everything together.... 62
RANDI Boiling: The oldest, most profound, alchemy of cooking. A god-like achievement, to turn one thing into another, to turn the dross of water into the gold of tea, or soup, or stew. (Leah nods)
MEL Although, to be honest, I would like to have the recipe in its essential form, without all this commentary.
RANDI A recipe is a thousand years of experimentation, an enormous social investigation, in which the final product, like words, has buried inside it every possible alternative. MEL (la la la-ing) ... .as my father used to say... RANDI (finishing Mel’s thought) “Like a noddle pudding that was once all salty, and is now mostly sweet.” MEL ...I know what you mean, Pree. The craziness of penicillin discovered because Fleming had a bunch of moldy spores that happened to repel bacteria because of a cold snap. Do it lucky, and you live. Do it wrong, and you die.
RANDI (looking over to Leah) Did I mention I once dated Lady Macbeth? She. Was. Trouble.
LEAH
(Leah acts out some moves from her earlier “puppet dance” scene with Randi. Then she begins Lady Macbeth’s monologue.) 63
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire bum and caldron bubble. Fillet of a fenny snake, In the caldron boil and bake; Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting, Lizard's leg and howlet's wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire bum and caldron bubble. Cool it with a baboon's blood, Then the charm is firm and good.
MEL
“.. .is firm and good.. Do we really need all this extra verbiage? 64
SCENE 8
Pree and Leah are sitting up late, talking.
LEAH You know what else mom couldn’t do?
PREE Yeah....
LEAH Tell jokes!
PREE Oh God!
LEAH I mean.. .it was weird. Do you remember, for my eighth birthday, she was so nervous about meeting some of my friends and their parents that I had to teach her a joke to help her make small-talk?
PREE She practiced it for days at the dinner table. (beat) Why she should have been so nervous...
LEAH I know, I know. But given what was about to happen.. .1 might have told her another joke. Who knows where I found it anyway.. .Anyways, the classic three- part joke should have been a home-run. Threes are built into our brain, like smelling rotten food or being startled by loud noises. But somehow “two things” was her limit. 65
PREE Plus, she would always focus on the wrong details.
LEAH .. .or explain the structure of the joke as it went along....
(Leah gets up to perform the joke as her mom; she is both intense and befuddled.)
“A plane crashes in the ocean, and a man survives, floating on the waves, holding onto his seat. His arms are getting tired, so he changes position, hugging the seat to his chest. The man is very religious and prays to God to rescue him. But grasping the seat so tightly also makes him anxious, because he doesn’t want God to think he is an idolater, mistaking the seat, an object, for God. Anyway, here’s the first thing: A canoe floats by, paddled by two muscular islanders ready to take him to their island paradise. ‘No, no,’ the man says, ‘God will provide.’” (back to herself) My friends, meanwhile, are perfectly aware of mom’s weird way of talking, her arms flapping around like a big bird. I’m more embarrassed than usual, mostly because Michelle is at my house for the first time, and, you know, both of her parents are psychiatrists. (back into “mom”) “Anyway, here is the ‘second thing’ for the joke. A helicopter comes down, U S of A plastered on the side, and a man scampers down on a rope to give the survivor food and water and pull him to safety.
(The bird motions might merge/morph with helicopter gestures.)
“Why an American soldier, or rescue persona, should bring food down to a man still waiting to be rescued is another story, but one that I don’t know. Anyway, as I said, this is the second thing. And the man says: ‘No, no. God will provide.’”
PREE By now Michelle is staring at mom bug-eyed, like she has just escaped from the looney bin. 66
(Leah indicates that Pree may “finish” the joke, which he does.)
By now mom is so overcome with the man’s state, the made-up man from the joke, the man who is exhausted, and the...the stupendous hold his faith has on him.. .his stupidity.. .that she could barely keep talking...
LEAH And that’s when she turned to me to say...
PREE “What’s the third thing again?” 67
SCENE 9
Mel and Pree are standing together in the kitchen, as much younger versions of themselves. Pree is on his knees, perhaps around eight years old. Mel is holding two closed fists out; they are in the middle of game.
MEL Which hand is it in?
(Pree points to the left hand. Mel opens it to reveal nothing. Pree points to the right one, with the same effect. Pree separates Mel’s fingers, but nothing doing.)
Open your hand, Pree. (opening his hand to discover a pebble. Mel bows to him) It was in your hand all along. (Pree squeals with delight) Let’s do the other game?
MEL The Kung Fu one? From the TV show?
(Pree nods. Mel puts the pebble in one hand, and leaves it outstretched.)
“When you can take the pebble out of my hand, Caine, it will be time for you to leave.”
PREE No, no! You have to call me grasshopper. 68
MEL Yes, of course. “When you can take the pebble out of my hand, Grasshopper, it will be time for you to leave.”
PREE Yes, master.
(Pree grabs at it a few times, but each time his father closes his fist before he can get it.)
MEL Do not worry, my son. It is still time for you to leave... (Pree is confused) To pick up the Chinese food. You said you were old enough to get it on your bike? Monday night? Chinese food?! It’s time to watch “Kung Fu!”
(Pree gets up and runs off, happy.) 69
SCENE 10
Leah is sitting alone in a therapist’s office. She is on her cell phone.
LEAH ... She ’ s never been late before... it’s strange... I know...
(A woman comes into the room. The audience sees it is Randi, but Leah hasn’t met him yet, as this is a flashback. The woman is holding some flowers.)
RANDI Hello? Helllooooo...I’m looking for a therapist.
LEAH Uh... (Randi stares at her expectantly)
LEAH Uh... (Randi eyes the box of tissues)
RANDI Those tissues make me sad. May I have one?
LEAH Uh.. .it’s not my office. Are you sure you...
(Randi takes several tissues ravenously, then stuffs them in her bra.) 70
RANDI Less sad now. (staring at her) Why are you here anyway?
(Leah realizes she is still on the phone.)
LEAH I have to call you back. (puts the phone down) I’m sorry, this is my session. You need to call and make an appointment/
RANDI But with whom? (pointing to the empty chair)
LEAH (getting her moja back) With.The.Therapist. (beat) Who.Is.Not.Here.
RANDI (getting emotional) Not here?
(Randi looks at the flowers, which seem to wilt under his gaze. Then he turns to Leah and begins to quote Ophelia from “Hamlet,” giving her the flowers one by one.)
“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts. There’s fennel for you, and columbines.—There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me. We may call it “herb of grace” o’Sundays.— Oh, you must wear your rue with a difference.—There’s a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died. They say he made a good end.” 71
(Randi hears a noise neither Leah nor the audience can hear, and rushes out. Leah doesn’t know what to do with the flowers. She sits back down in the chair, considers calling her friend back, then sneezes. She looks into the tissue box, but there are none left. The “fancy second therapist door” opens, and her therapist walks in. It’s Randi, but a buttoned-up, professorial version of Randi.)
RANDI I’m so sorry I’m late. There was a.. .problem, in the office, and I was trying to take care of it. (Randi looks at the flowers) Are those the flowers from the front desk?
LEAH I don’t know.
RANDI (looks at her a little strangely) Shall we start? How is your play going?
LEAH (distracted) My play?
RANDI “Ophelia the Puppet.”
LEAH I never told you the title.
RANDI It was in New York magazine this week, as part of the fall theater preview. Leah, are you all right? 72
LEAH Did you know a strange woman came in here while you were gone, and gave me these flowers, and pretended to be Ophelia?
RANDI (curious and slightly concerned) Say more...
LEAH Whichever woman was giving the office a problem up front, she came in here, looking for someone, anyone, I think. But then she quoted Ophelia to me. How would she know to do that?
RANDI Leah, the problem up front was an electrical issue, and the office calendar was off-line. There wasn’t any strange woman...
LEAH There wasn’t any strange woman...
(The sound of thunder is heard several times.)
Sorry, I forgot to turn my phone off. 73
SCENE 11
Leah is in her room by herself. There is a thunderstorm outside, and she has just come in from the rain. She dries off and sits down in front of her laptop to watch a lecture. The screen is perched high on a dresser, and we hear the lecturer through the sound system. We hear the voice of Randi.
RANDI .. .and so we come back, as we often do, to the essential meaning of words. Why Ophelia, then, first and foremost? Ophelia, from the Greek, meaning aid; help; succor. But help for whom? Ophelia certainly receives none.. .But I have a theory about this. I have a theory that her madness at the end is only madness to us, not to her. Our problem, as readers and auditors of her speech, is that we don’t assume what she assumes - that she is talking not to the men on stage, or to the audience, or even to herself. She is talking to her own mother. Whom, you might ask? Is a Mrs. Polonius even referred to in the play? Not explicitly. But the traces of her are everywhere present.
(Randi appears on stage, standing in front of the screen, and continues the lecture in his own voice.)
If I may quote the Shakespearean critic Anne Hathaway, who was a classmate of my mother’s, from an essay in the Spectator from 1933:
“The first thing that we discover about Mrs. Polonius, apart from the fact that she is Polonius' wife and mother to Ophelia and Laertes, is that she was undoubtedly the daughter of Queen Gertrude's French music-mistress. (Leah is riveted, and is staring at Randi as he talks, but without seeing him.) In a speech of Polonius to Ophelia we find this awkward phrase ‘these blazes, daughter, giving,’ the letters of which, re-arranged, give not only her name, 74
‘Elizabeth’ and, happily for our estimation of Polonius, ‘dear,’ but also some interesting and important information. When we have removed ELIZABETH and DEAR, there remain the letters SSIIGIZTEGVING, which in their turn give ‘sight, sung, veg.’ (Leah begins to wander around the apartment. Randi follows her, and continues talking.)
“The whole sentence now obviously means that dear Elizabeth was wont to sing at sight especially when vegetables were present (for veg. is a well-known Elizabethan abbreviation). For Elizabeth Polonius to sing at sight is in accordance with the intensely musical character we have found her to possess, but why should vegetables move her to song any more than meat or pudding?” LEAH Sing, sung, veg. Sing, sung, veg. Sing, sung, veg...
(Leah starts to dance something Elizabethan. Randi takes her by the waist and joins her, then continues talking.)
RANDI “This brings us to the last discovery - that while Mrs. Polonius' mother was without doubt Gertrude's French music-mistress, her father was equally certainly a gardener and botanist (nationality unknown). This accounts for the intense interest in botany, shown by Ophelia and Laertes. Their speeches are full of references to flowers— violet, rose, primrose, rosemary, pansies, fennel, columbine, rue and daisy are but a few of the flowers mentioned by them. Laertes shows technical knowledge of the habits of the violet and the canker, and his “primrose path,” which has puzzled so many commentators may well be a reference to one of the walks in his grandfather's garden. (Randi brings her close) “Polonius' only reference to his wife admirably sums up our final impression of her, a dear, gentle creature, like her daughter Ophelia essentially ‘sweet,’ and like her too finding relief from sorrow in music and vegetables.”
(They stop dancing, as if the music has ended. Randi bows to her.) 75
LEAH Would you care to stay for dinner?
(Randi smiles, bows again, and walks offstage.) 76
SCENE 12
Pree is in his dorm room, talking with a friend, who is played by the actor playing Randi. They are having a typical college “bull” session, possibly aided by herbs.
PREE .. .no, when Caine is ready to leave the monastery, he knows he will have to lift up the burning hot vase-thing.
RANDI Brazier.
PREE Say what? Brassiere?
RANDI No dude, brazier. It’s like an ancient thing, where they put hot coals, and bum insights and do sacrifices and shit.
PREE Bum insights?
RANDI I mean incense.
(They laugh stupidly for a few moments.)
PREE So anyway, Caine knows he will have to lift it, and carry it across the room. He knows he will be branded with the tiger and dragon of the Shaolin priesthood. He has been preparing for this all his life. 77
RANDI I disagree. I think they told him to do it, like, a minute before: “Go into that little room, and carry this thing out. If you drop it, you’ll die.” Those kung fu priests have to be ready to do anything; the whole thing is you can’t plan. They have to be prepared only to be prepared...
PREE (makes the sign like his mind is blown) No, no, wait a minute. They visualize everything that can happen. That’s what they do in meditation and shit, so that whatever comes up, they can dig down into some kind of deep energy awareness wisdom shit.
RANDI You can’t rehearse everything that will happen, dude. You don’t know what’s coming down the road. Do you think Caine knew his master would be killed? That he would have to escape to America? To roam around the west for the rest of his life evading Chinese bounty hunters?
PREE Dude....
(The friend leaves. Pree puts a VHS or DVD into a TV, and the opening credits of the show come on. Pree bites his nails for a minute, then acts out the scene in which Caine carries the brazier across the room. It’s clear that Pree has rehearsed this scene many, many times.) 78
Act III
SCENE 1
Mel and Mary/Randi are in bed together.
RANDI This isn’t working for me.
MEL I know, Mary. (Mel reaches out toward her, but stops halfway) How long have you known?
RANDI I guess I always knew, but never fully understood.
MEL Mary, how do w e...
RANDI I’m not sure we do.
MEL But I’m willing to try....
RANDI I know. (beat) Mel... I had a lover. Last summer. Her name was. 79
(Mel puts up his hand.)
MEL I’m sure you did. Otherwise, how else would you know, right? In any case, let us call her something else. Make her a character in one of your horror stories.
RANDI (beat) She had a dog named Randi.
MEL You met her dog too?
RANDI It was a package deal.
MEL Okay, can we call your.. .lover, Randi?
RANDI We can. It’s the least I can do.
MEL None of this is your fault.
RANDI That’s nice of you to say.
MEL You’ve done so much for us. All these years, I didn’t know. You never made me feel like...
RANDI Stop talking like you are giving a speech, Mel. It’s Mary, your wife. I’m gay, or maybe something more like... it’s complicated. But I’m the same person you 80
married. You don’t need to.. .perform some character for me, to give me the speech you think I deserve. (long silence) But that’s not all.
MEL What’s not all.
RANDI There’s something else...Mel, I’m sick.
MEL What kind of sick?
RANDI Do you remember last year when I cut my finger on the bread knife and it wouldn’t stop?
MEL Kind o f...
RANDI You wouldn’t necessarily remember. I’ve always been a big bleeder. But it turns out that.. .so Randi is a physician, and when I started to bleed once during.. .well, she was concerned. So, I went in for some tests. And it turns out I have a rare disorder called paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria.
MEL (Mel mouths the name of the disease) Something about blood clots...
RANDI It’s terrifying. Suddenly knowing that stress, or a new medication, could bring on a fatal blood clot. 81
MEL So, is there a prognosis?
RANDI I have to take some medicine....
MEL That’s good. Medicine is good/
RANDI But the only cure is stem cell replacement. And I am not a good candidate for that.. .they said.. .Randi said that I should just enjoy my life while I can.
MEL I don’t know which disaster to address first... (beat) Sorry, who is they?
RANDI Randi is a they.
MEL Not he or she? What do you mean “they?”
RANDI That part’s not important.
MEL Randi’s a woman or not?
RANDI It’s not that simple. (beat) She did take me once to a Filipino Mangukulam, or traditional healer.
MEL Mmm hmmm. 82
RANDI We sat in her kitchen, and she cooked me a brew of some kind. The smell of it. It was like.. .it was like the sweet smell of wet dirt when you’re a kid and lying down on the ground after a rainstorm.
MEL Is this the mangle-ulam’s kitchen, or Randi’s kitchen?
RANDI It was Juliana’s kitchen.
MEL Who?
RANDI Her name is Juliana Mendoza.
MEL The lover or the witch doctor/
RANDI Whichever makes it easier for you.
MEL (angry) And while you are here in bed with me, where is... Randi? Is she and they taking care of you?
RANDI We broke up after that.
(Randi begins to weep. Mel puts his hand up to comfort here but doesn’t know how.) 83
SCENE 2
It’s the middle of the night. Leah wanders into the living room and looks to the side, after which Randi comes on stage. She might very well be evoking him, like in a ballet dream sequence. She is talking more to the audience than herself or Randi.
LEAH Everything about my mom was big. She didn’t talk that much, not compared with my father, but what she said was.. .expansive (Leah opens her arms wide. Randi is watching very carefully, and starts to mimic her, not in a mocking way, but like a dancer trying to learn their moves. Over the course of the monologue, Leah acts out the moves less and less, as Randi takes on the role of the mom.)
I remember...I remember...when I was cooking noodles, I was about seven, and I was carrying the boiled water and noodles to the sink, I felt the pot start to slip. I was using the potholders from my grandmother, which were too big and puffy for me, and I was terrified I would spill the boiling water on my feet. My mom ran across the kitchen and put her forearms underneath the pot, steadying it, and allowing me to escape. I remember.. .1 remember never having been so relieved in my life when the pot left my hands and then, before my mom even got it to the sink, I felt in her body the heat moving through her skin and into her bones, and.. .1 watched her, giant and silent, put her arms under the cold rushing stream. I could already see the scars that would form over her white arms. I couldn’t see her face, I couldn’t hear anything she said, if she said anything at all...I just watched her head thrust back as she stared at the ceiling, her red hair flaming down past her waist.. .It was the first time I ever saw her pray. 84
RANDI And then what happened.
LEAH Oh, everything happened.
RANDI Be more specific.
LEAH I finished school, I went off to Oberlin, I moved to New York....
RANDI No, no, no.
LEAH
(She considers for a moment before putting her arms out, mimicking the noodle incident.)
I spent the next ten years doing this...this gesture, this essential gesture, became the foundation of my art. It brought me to art. Her sacrifice was her art, and my art has become her sacrifice.
RANDI Sacrifice, from the Latin “to make holy”....
(Randi and Leah begin trade off lines in a kind of call and response. With each line they get a little bit closer to each other.)
LEAH .. .but it’s not so simple to define it this way.. .to make something “holy” is so.... 85
RANDI .. .plain.. .The word has lost its mystery.. .1 remember.. .1 remember in the old days, in jolly olde England, when we talked of sacrifice we called it ansegdniss.
LEAH That word had some spin. It means giving up one thing for another. We burned our best calf in the bonfire after the hunt, and in return we received a holy blessing.
RANDI We received permission to do what we had already done.
LEAH My mother gave up her body for mine. I want to thank her.
RANDI
LEAH My mother gave up her body for mine. I want to throttle her.
RANDI
(beat)
LEAH I sacrificed my childhood to art.
RANDI Closer. 86
Scene 3
Randi is alone in his room. He looks lovingly at a record, then reads the title out loud.
RANDI “Rare early recordings of famous poems, including the first recorded poem by a major poet, Robert Browning’s “How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix,” from 1889. Includes Alfred Lord Tennyson, from 1890, as well as Siegfried Sassoon, from 1919.”
(Randi puts on the record, and mutters to himself as the needle comes down.)
RANDI The good news. How they brought the good news. Have you heard the good news? Does God save? Does poetry save? Can God save poetry? Can poetry save God?
(Then the record comes on over the speakers. We hear the scratchy but very clear voice of Robert Browning reading his poem https://vimeo.com/73207055')
I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three; ‘Good speed!’ cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew; ‘Speed!’ echoed the wall to us galloping through; Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, And into the midnight we galloped abreast.
(With every stanza, another room in the house becomes visible through lighting. We see - in this order — Mel, then Pree, then Leah turning on an audio/music device, and being surprised by the 87
presence of this poem. During this time Randi is also creating some kind of concoction with vials and tubes. The first room that comes online is the kitchen, where Mel is watching a pot boil.)
Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place; I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right, Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit, Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit. (Pree’s room lights up; he is also working on some kind experiment.)
’Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew near Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear; At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see; At Duffeld, ’twas morning as plain as could be; And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime, So Joris broke silence with ‘Yet there is time!’ (Then Leah, who is blocking out a scene for her opera which dovetails with the action in the poem.)
At Aerschot, up leaped of a sudden the sun, And against him the cattle stood black every one, To stare through the mist at us galloping past, And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, With resolute shoulders, each butting away The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray. (There is some static; the signal is weak, and then we skip to the last verse of the poem. When we reach the phrase “our last measure of wine” Randi will be holding a vial or goblet in his hand.) 88
And all I remember is, friends flocking round As I sat with his head ’twixt my knees on the ground; And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine, As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine, Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent. 89
SCENE 4
Leah, Pree and Randi are sitting around the table. Mel has been cooking and is about to serve a meal.
PREE Dad, it’s making me nervous that you’ve been cooking tonight. MEL Why? I still have all my faculties. I’m not going to put Drano in your wine.
LEAH I think Pree means that.. .you know what he means, dad. Like you’re giving up somehow.
MEL Or the opposite.
RANDI Or the opposite.
PREE I’m not concerned that dad is giving up. I’m more concerned that some crazy new plan is afoot.
RANDI (Randi literally puts his foot down) I resent that.
MEL The only plan afoot is that, one, late last night, I started to be able to smell again, and two, because of that, I just felt like cooking.
RANDI Smell...the oldest sense. 90
MEL And food magically seemed interesting again. Early this morning I tried to taste something, and my tongue was still a pot of gravel. But my sense of smell was eerily sharp. No, not sharp. Deep. I could smell things in the artichoke, and the oranges, and the mushrooms I shouldn’t be able to sense. Like these oranges... (holding one up) Which came from Mrs. Gan’s garden off Chaikin Road. I swear I could smell her perfume on the peel, that jasmine spiked with apple and.. .bergamot. (he picks up some mushrooms) And these! My God...these mushrooms, which usually have only that slight pungent odor, flew right up my nose and told me a story of their very existence. (he stops and looks at Randi) Randi. Just what kind of mushrooms are these?
RANDI Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean someone isn’t chasing you. PREE Come again?
RANDI Just because you’ve all been eating psychedelics the past two days doesn’t mean you’re not dying, or that I’m not a liminal being hovering at the edge of your consciousness.
LEAH (apparently unable to hear Randi) Dad, what’s Randi saying to you?
RANDI Dad, what are you going to say to your kids? When it’s time to go? 91
SCENE 5
Leah is talking from the stage out to an empty theater.
LEAH Then Randi says, “Just because you’ve all been eating psychedelics the past two days doesn’t mean you’re not dying, or that I’m not a liminal being hovering at the edge of your consciousness.” And I respond: “Dad, what’s Randi saying to you?”
(Randi speaks as if a director from the back of a theater.)
RANDI Do it again.
LEAH Dad, what’s Randi saying to you?
RANDI Again.
LEAH Dad, what’s dad, what’s Randi...
RANDI Leah.. .do you even know what a rehearsal is for?
LEAH Yes, of course.
RANDI What? What is a rehearsal for? 92
LEAH It’s to practice, to get it right.
RANDI
LEAH It’s to...get it wrong.
RANDI
LEAH And then to get it right again.
RANDI No. To Rehearse: From Old French, rehercier, to go over again, or literally, to rake over, to turn over; to be dragged along the ground, to rip or tear or wound; from herse, the flat framework for candles laid over a coffin, and then the vehicle for transporting a coffin.
LEAH So...rehearsal is death.
RANDI That’s correct.
LEAH A dragging of something to its grave.
RANDI Very good.
LEAH Rehearsal is bad. 93
RANDI Rehearsal isn’t good or bad. However, you can only really do it once. Now try it again from the top. 94
Scene 6
Pree is in his room. Randi enters unbidden. It is the first time Randi has come into his room. Pree is at first startled, then anxious about what it means.
Randi It’s time, Pree.
PREE Not yet.
Randi. It’s time. Tomorrow I am sending your father out into the hills. He will walk and walk, but he won’t return. Not on his own. I will bring him back to you, but only... after.
(Pree runs to the door to block it.)
RANDI Will you use Kung Fu moves on me? Have you trained enough, grasshopper, to stop what must happen? Come, try to take a pebble from my hand.
(Pree draws a pebble from his pocket and shows it to him.)
PREE No sir. The pebble is here. You will never take it.
RANDI All these years, you’ve held that pebble so close. Do you know your father has a pebble too, just like this? Worn smooth by the pressure from his hands, caressing it and squeezing it every time he has a thought of you? 95
PREE You don’t know/
RANDI I do know. Just as I know there is no magic, no alchemy, to turn a jagged rock into a pebble — except time, and love. Love you have had, although you often resisted it. But this time.. .time is no more, not for this. (walking closer to Pree) Pree, I have wandered the world all these years, searching for two men, each with a pebble, each caressing that stone, that pit, until it grew, without their knowing it, into something once more alive. And now I have found it. You don’t believe me? Come here...
(Pree moves closer. Randi holds out his closed fists.)
Chose a hand. If your pebble is here, you must let things go as they are meant. If your pebble is not here - well, then let’s see what chance will accomplish.
PREE (looking into his hand, astonished to see that the pebble is gone) I give up.
RANDI No! You may accept the situation. But you may not give up.
(Randi rolls up his sleeves to reveal tattoos of a tiger and dragon.)
I have come all this way, only to give this to you. 96
(He opens a hand and tosses Pree the pebble. Pree catches it, but drops it, as it bums him. After a moment he picks it up again and squeezes it tight. He makes the same face that Caine made when lifting the brazier, then walks over to Randi and shakes his hand.) 97
SCENE 7
Randi sits in his room by himself, and sings the folk song “John Barleycorn Must Die,” made popular again in 1970 by the rock group Traffic. After a few verses Leah walks into Randi’s room, unbidden.
LEAH Scholar Kathleen Herbert draws a link between the mythical figure Beowa (a figure stemming from Anglo-Saxon paganism that appears in early Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies whose name means "barley") and the figure of John Barleycorn. Herbert says that Beowa and Barleycorn are one and the same, noting that the folksong details the suffering, death, and resurrection of Barleycorn, yet also celebrates the ‘reviving effects of drinking his blood.’
RANDI I understand.
LEAH For my father to die, you must die too.
RANDI O f course.
LEAH So. It’s time.
RANDI
Yes.
(Leah opens up the bag, and Randi gets in.) 98
SCENE 8
Pree and Leah are walking to their father’s gravesite, dragging a bag. After a moment Randi appears at the grave, waiting to conduct the service. The three of them put the bag in a hole in the ground. Pree places a pebble on the gravestone.
RANDI A rabbi, a priest, and a mangukulam walk into a cemetery. The rabbi says, “there is no death, as God brings the dead back to life.” The priests says, “There is no life, as the world is beyond, with Christ.” And the mangukulam says, “there is neither life nor death, neither man nor woman, but a third thing, above it all, where all creatures dwell.”
(Randi points to the grave, as Pree and Leah huddle together, male and female, like two sides of the same coin.)
God creates us, and we created God. This is the oldest story we have. And stories, in the end, are how we move from here.. .to there....
(Pree and Leah separate, and Pree walks toward Randi, and then away with him, arm and arm, off the stage. Clapping is heard from the same exit, as if at the end of a performance, and Leah bows toward the grave. Curtain.)