Drama – Seventh Wave

Process & Unprocess

The Seventh Wave Admin — Fri, 19 Aug 2016 18:09:38 +0000

I remember completing the initial draft of my first play, Nothing But The Truth, during the summer of 2013; I was convinced I’d created a masterpiece. After all, Paula Vogel had done so with How I Learned to Drive and The Baltimore Waltz, whipping them out in a matter of weeks in perfect form — she reports she never changed a word. (Her 15^th play, Indecent, on the other hand, went through 40 revisions over five years. But hey, maybe the Pulitzer winner was just off her game with that one!)

Fifteen minutes into my first table read, I realized I was horribly wrong and had inadvertently written something akin to a novel. Three hours in, and I was sweating through my shirt, desperate to skip to the end. I look back on that reading as a valuable lesson in script development and have come to learn that it takes a village — my work would not have evolved without input from directors, dramaturges, producers, actors, writers and audiences. Feedback, critique and collaboration have been essential in helping to shape the story beyond my own perspective.

Two years and 20 revisions later, I’ve “trimmed” 13,000 words, added three new scenes and expanded others; however, the structural bones of the script with the punch/counterpunch flow from therapy to deposition scene, have remained the same all along. I started the play as I begin every large project, with a single Word document containing a data dump of ideas: family stories, memories, napkin scribbles, dialogue scraps, funny things experienced on the street, therapeutic insights, quotes from New York Times’ articles and more. When that ballooned to perhaps 25 pages, I printed the file, tore out each idea and organized them into piles labeled by category: mothers, abuse, dating, therapy, favorite teacher, and so on. As the play started to take shape, I’d tape in an idea where I thought it fit and then transform it into dialogue. If it didn’t work, I untaped it and moved the puzzle pieces around.

This is the early stage of discovery, when the material is new and still finding its place. Later, I experience a kind of “quickening,” where I grow to know the story in a visceral way and it’s alive inside me. I can shift dialogue from one scene to another in my mind and see where it snaps together without my patchwork quilt.

That’s my tangible process. But then there’s the unknowable one.

READ SCENE 3

MARILYN

I was reading through your intake questionnaire and I see you’re looking for a therapist with maternal qualities. Can you tell me about that, Rachel?

RACHEL

Well, yes; ones I missed out on.

MARILYN

What kinds of attributes?

RACHEL

Someone who understands me and…notices when I enter the room. A mother figure, I guess.

MARILYN

(placating) So how many mothers did you interview before me?

RACHEL

A few.

MARILYN

They didn’t make the grade?

RACHEL

Well, there was a therapist in Brooklyn who seemed hopeful, but then she said “so, you wannatellmeaboudit.” And there was a doctor on the west side, but I rode my bike there in the rain and she was all worried I’d stain her couch. (prattling) What’s the etiquette of returning a damp pink bath towel to your shrink at the end of a session that’s wet with muddy water from your butt? I would have offered to wash it but since I never wanted to see her again it seemed like too much of a commitment so…

MARILYN

Sounds like maybe there’s no perfect therapist out there? (beat) Tell me three things about your mom. (Rachel is at a loss.) Maybe something you loved doing together as a kid?

RACHEL

We used to play charades for hours on Saturday afternoons. It’s so ironic…

MARILYN

Why is that?

RACHEL

We understood each other best when we weren’t speaking. I think I would have had a happier childhood if we communicated by semaphore (mimics moving the flags).

MARILYN

What’s your earliest memory of your mother?

RACHEL

Hmmm…calling her upstairs to see this huge poop I made in our pink toilet.

MARILYN

How old were you?

RACHEL

Seventeen. (laughter) Maybe four.

MARILYN

Well, Freud did say that a poop in the potty is a child’s first praiseworthy gift.

RACHEL

It’s probably the only one I ever gave her. I remember being so proud and she was so…distant.

MARILYN

How did that make you feel?

RACHEL

Lonely. I remember once, I was maybe five, I picked my nose and it started bleeding. I went to her and she just glared and said, “you did it to yourself.” Instead of hugs she gave us a slap on the back, like a gym teacher.

MARILYN

What was your father like? Was he more affectionate?

RACHEL

(sardonically) You could put it that way.

MARILYN

Can you say more about that? (a weighted silence) Do you have any other fond memories of your mother?

RACHEL

I remember her taking me to the voting booth with her. That made me feel special… once every four years. What I recall most was her cancer.

MARILYN

Tell me about her illness.

RACHEL

We had to keep it a secret. We weren’t allowed to even tell my grandparents. My Jewish mother is wearing a bandana to hide her bald spots, and what do they think, she’s joined the rodeo? You have such beautiful hair.

MARILYN

So how did you feel about taking care of your hair while your mother lost hers?

RACHEL

That’s an interesting question. Actually I didn’t feel anything. I’ve had an ache for a different mother as long as I can remember. Does it…smell like nail polish in here? It reminds me of that antiseptic odor in the cancer ward.

MARILYN

I’m sorry, Rachel, I guess it does. Is it bothering you? I’ll crack the window.

RACHEL

No, I’ll live. But if I start hallucinating, it’s from the fumes, so don’t cart me off to the looney bin.

MARILYN

I don’t think you have to worry about that…do you? So, how would you feel if I was doing my nails in here?

RACHEL

It’s…strange. I mean, a patient’s sitting here sobbing, and then in the ten minutes between sessions you’re doing a manicure. If you’ve got a free hour, do you do a bikini wax?

MARILYN

Sounds like you don’t want to know that I’m a real person. That I paint my nails or shave my legs or deal with cancer like you do.

RACHEL

In a way you’re not. I mean, you’ll learn all of my secrets, and I don’t even know what your profile looks like.

MARILYN

Did you feel like your mother knew you growing up?

RACHEL

Only the parts she didn’t like. She used to berate me: “What’s wrong with you?” I had no friends; I was afraid of people. Actually, I was terrified of just about everything.

MARILYN

Like what?

RACHEL

Play dates, class trips, piano lessons; you name it. She always threatened to drop me off at this counseling center behind the library. I feared I’d end up reading Nancy Drew in a straightjacket in some hidden mental hospital inside the stacks.

MARILYN

During my graduate training I had an eight-year-old who came to a session with her psychotic older sister—she was glassy eyed, probably on Haldol, and the young girl got on her sister’s lap, picked up her arms and wrapped them right around herself. At what point did you give up asking for affection?

RACHEL

I didn’t. I just found a substitute mother instead.

MARILYN

What do you mean?

RACHEL

My math teacher in fifth grade, Jane. I used to stay after school doing my homework just to sit with her while she graded papers.

MARILYN

What was she like?

RACHEL

I remember the dimple in her left cheek and how her skirts were hemmed too tight. I knew where she was every second, passing me at the water fountain or behind my desk, and I felt this charge between us. She’d drive me home and I’d pretend I was her child. I wanted to hit every red light just to have an extra minute with her.

MARILYN

It sounds like she was really important to you.

RACHEL

After I switched schools, I kept my eyes peeled for her station wagon for years and I’d whirl around to see if it was her. My mother would bark at me: “What are you looking at?” What could I say? The woman I wish you were? I still have that same ache for a mother now.

MARILYN

Can you describe it?

RACHEL

It’s a desperation, like hanging off the side of a cliff and clinging to Jane’s pant leg because I needed her to save me.

MARILYN

If we work together, I think you’ll be strong enough to save yourself.

The Unprocess

“When I read a script, I notice when the hair stands up on the back of my arms and my neck and I don’t know how they did it. I have no idea how the person who wrote the script is doing what they’re doing,” Paula Vogel observes in a 2016 interview at the Minneapolis Playwrights’ Center.

I recall sitting in rehearsal for my play’s 2015 festival production at Theater for the New City, and my director said to the cast, “Look at this intricate dialogue Eve gave you: Scene A connects to scene C, which loops back to scene B while building dramatic irony …” and I thought “Wow, I wish I could take credit, but I didn’t intend to do that!”

While we certainly spent substantial time discussing scenes and poring over line edits, a lot of the creative writing just kinda sorta happened in some mystical way. That magic is both imbued with awe and laced with trepidation: After all, if I can’t know it or define it, how can I possibly repeat it?

Vogel encourages me to trust the fairy dust: “I believe we have to be subconscious as we’re writing and not look directly into the sun or we become blind,” she says. “Thinking about what we’re doing is in many ways the enemy of art.”

READ SCENE 6

SHARON

I want you to recount everything you told me—that you rarely leave home; how you haven’t worked or had a date in three years. Fill that record with your damages.

RACHEL

I still keep wondering though whether it was my fault. If I was too needy and desperate, maybe I drove her away.

SHARON

You were supposed to be yourself in her office. Listen to me—you did everything right.

(Stan enters and activates a recorder.)

STAN

Good afternoon ladies; hope you had a pleasant lunch. Rachel, what was your week like after the termination of your therapy?

RACHEL

I cried. I slept. I remember all I ate was a peach and a bagel for three days.

STAN

Were you suicidal?

RACHEL

I thought about shooting myself in front of Marilyn. I wanted my blood on her briefcase.

STAN

When you left her office by ambulance on the last day of your treatment, did you feel you needed emergency psychiatric care?

RACHEL

No. I mean, I broke her mirror because… I felt shattered.

STAN

What was your experience like when you got to Bellevue?

RACHEL

There was a woman handcuffed to a gurney. I was scared. But the worst part was the way Marilyn walked right past me after speaking to the doctors. I stood up and called her name. She turned around and said, (in a degrading tone) “What do you want, Rachel?”

STAN

The way you’re saying it now?

RACHEL

Yeah, like “what the hell do you want.” Then she said goodbye, but it was like “goodbye bitch. Hope you rot in here.”

STAN

How many times did you call Dr. Morganstern after your termination?

RACHEL

Maybe 10 or 20 or something. I thought if she heard my voice, she might soften and speak to me.

STAN

A couple months later you filed a complaint with the American Psychological Association. Can you explain why you’d still want to stay in treatment with Marilyn when you stated that her unethical conduct compromised her ability to render professional and effective care.

RACHEL

Because I was devoted to her; you can hate someone and still long for them.

STAN

Was Dr. Morganstern a good therapist up until the last day?

RACHEL

Yes.

STAN

How did she help you?

RACHEL

I told her everything; I’d never opened up to someone like that.

STAN

Anything else?

RACHEL

We made progress; I began to understand that the abuse wasn’t my fault. And neither was this.

STAN

How did you come to that determination?

RACHEL

Marilyn acted like my internet search was an assault. I figured she must have been stalked before, I triggered her overreaction, and that’s why she filed the restraining order.

STAN

Did you ever say or do anything that would cause her to be afraid of you?

RACHEL

No.

STAN

How about when you started sitting on the stoop across from the doctor’s office; do you think that scared her?

SHARON

Objection, you haven’t established that she was sitting anywhere.

STAN

Did you sit on the steps of a building across from Dr. Morganstern’s office?

RACHEL

Yes, after she rejected me because I was destroyed. I wasn’t watching Marilyn. I wanted her to comfort me.

STAN

How long did this stalking persist?

SHARON

Objection to the form of the question. She admitted to sitting, not stalking.

STAN

Fine, withdrawn; sitting…and watching.

RACHEL

Maybe six months.

STAN

Did you sit there in the rain?

RACHEL

Yes.

STAN

In the snow? (Rachel nods) Please answer for the record.

RACHEL

I did.

STAN

Not unlike your behavior with your ex-boyfriend Martin?

SHARON

Take it outside, Counsel; I want this off the record.

(Sharon and Stan walk to stage left.)

Where are you going with this line of questioning?

STAN

I’m filing a motion to dismiss this case. Your client is the same jilted lover yet again, fixated on revenge.

SHARON

Then it was your client’s job to treat Rachel’s attachment issues instead of kicking her to the curb.

STAN

I want this on the record, Sharon. There’s a pattern here. She’s not depressed, she’s diabolical.

SHARON

She was a lovesick teenager. File your motion, waste your time if you want, but this line of questioning stops now.

(They return to Rachel.)

STAN

Do you still pinch your skin with pliers?

RACHEL

Yes, I−

STAN

Hit yourself with the heel of a shoe?

RACHEL

I couldn’t manage the pain of being discarded. I had problems before, sure, but I went out, I had fun. Now I’m afraid to be around people—if I can’t trust the person I paid for that purpose, how can I possibly trust anyone?

SHARON

Rachel, do you need a break? (Rachel nods)

STAN

When I’m done. Did you fantasize that you were Marilyn’s daughter?

RACHEL

Yes.

STAN

Were you jealous of her family?

RACHEL

Yes.

STAN

How deeply did you care about Marilyn?

RACHEL

I loved her. I still do. And she invited me to love her.

STAN

What do you mean by that?

SHARON

She told me that my writing was special.

STAN

So?

RACHEL

She held my hand, caressed my face.

STAN

Or did you push the boundaries?

RACHEL

She accepted me, something my mother never did. She had this way of gazing at me…so now, am I precious or a pariah? Which truth should I believe?

STAN

So Marilyn kicked you out, had you arrested, filed a restraining order and you call that love?

Mirror, Mirror…

Looking at one’s reflection is known to help tap into the unconscious, and mirrors happen to play a prominent role in my play similar to the “looking-glass shame” that Virginia Woolf speaks of; she was molested when she was six in front of one. “I’m so awful I can’t even look at myself in the mirror,” my character Rachel laments before revealing that was sexually abused as a child. When the relationship with her therapist Marilyn implodes, Rachel smashes a mirror in the doctor’s office because she “felt shattered.”

How I Learned to Drive similarly portrays a girl’s incest. Vogel is cryptic about claiming that experience. On one hand she’s adamant that “everything that comes out of us is autobiographical.” Yet when people ask her for the thousandth time, “Okay, so did you sleep with your uncle?” she caustically laughs it off, saying she wishes she had a dollar each inquiry. Her response is ambiguous, towing the line I hope to create with my character as a woman who shifts from victim to survivor to warrior.

“All great art comes from a sense of outrage,” Glenn Close once said, and the same sentiment drives me to write about childhood traumas that are salacious and shocking — even shameful. The undercurrent of Nothing But the Truth addresses the real-life ramifications and complexities of sexual abuse, and I strive to bring those tragedies to life by depicting the unspeakable —sometimes with subtlety, often with mockery, and always in full color. It’s a netherworld of nullibiety, however, and one that Georgia Lavey wrote about so eloquently in this magazine. Abused women belong to a group that is powerful only in numbers, unified by an emotional state of non-existence and no matter how fiercely depicted, they belong to a group they never would have chosen to join.

The word “trauma” in Japanese combines the two symbols for “outside” and “injury.” Trauma is a visible wound, one that’s increasingly being made public and transforming into an identity as women lug their mattress around campus, write impact statements that go viral and join Lady Gaga onstage at the 2016 Oscars. As Rachel ambivalently realizes: “It’s what makes me special.”

After my June reading at the T. Schreiber Theatre, a woman wrote to me saying that by the time she got to the subway she was sobbing. However, she wanted to thank me because she gained significant insight into her own life through my characters.

“There are people who when they read my first play, said, ‘You’re sick; you’re a sick woman,’” Paula Vogel says with a touch of pride. Her response: “Congratulations, you just pushed someone’s button.” Whether my audience is gasping or guffawing, I want these truths to grab them by the throat.

READ SCENE 7

MARILYN

(A weighted silence) You seem pretty down…what’s going on?

RACHEL

My sister is having another child.

MARILYN

And that feels like…?

RACHEL

Like finding out I have cancer.

MARILYN

Sounds to me like it’s about loss.

RACHEL

What do you mean?

MARILYN

Well, cancer is the loss of your health, the loss of your world as you know it.

RACHEL

At least people with cancer have a disease with a name and a treatment. Where are the pink ribbons for women who think dying is preferable to hugging a child?

MARILYN

Why don’t you try hugging your niece and see how it feels?

RACHEL

Why don’t I try cutting off my arm? (A weighted silence)

MARILYN

There are lots of people who don’t like kids—

RACHEL

God! You don’t get it!! It’s not about not liking kids…

MARILYN

Then what is it? Help me understand.

RACHEL

I met my sister in the park last week. Her daughter was catching snowflakes on her tongue with her head thrown back and mouth open—and suddenly this innocent image twisted into something lewd. (beat) She came toddling over and fell face down, wailing in the snow. I just stood there. I couldn’t pick her up.

MARILYN

Her daughter is your trigger, like a backfiring car to a soldier. You couldn’t run or fight back as a child, so you froze. If you tell, you throw the family into chaos. If you keep quiet, you’ve dug your own grave.

RACHEL

When I was five, my father and I had this game—I was the cowboy and he was the horse. I straddled his lap in the leather chair…riding…(hesitation) him. Once when my mother went shopping, her car stalled on the block so she came back and walked in. I jumped up like a pack wild of Indians had appeared and ran off sobbing.

MARILYN

Kids at that age just want to play and your father took advantage of your trust.

RACHEL

At night he’d come into my room so I made my mom wake me for cookies. I said I wanted a midnight snack. What I really wanted (beat) was to never fall asleep. I sat at my pink ruffled table alone, ate Oreos and prayed—please god, don’t let this happen and I promise I’ll be good. (beat) I remember riding with my mother on the highway and I unlocked my door and flicked the handle like I wanted to fall out. You know what she said? (angrily) “Stop making that noise!”

MARILYN

And now you’re reliving an experience that did make you want to die.

RACHEL

God, I swear if I joined that Ethiopian tribe and came home with a plate in my lower lip, my mom would just heap a pile of pot roast on it. (beat) So how do I make something not real now, not real?

MARILYN

Well, we have to work on separating the fear from the paralysis. Can you identify where you feel trapped?

RACHEL

Between needing to be around people and not wanting people around me.

MARILYN

That’s the hallmark of trauma right there. Ask someone who fought in a war and you’ll hear the same sentiment. When your abuse ended, you lost what little affection you had. You didn’t want it but you also craved it, and that’s the same contradiction you feel around people now. Tell me where else you’re stuck.

RACHEL

Between wishing I could forgive my parents and wanting them to suffer. My mom doesn’t believe my accusations because she says I’ve been contrary all my life. According to her, when she tried to get me to take a bath as a toddler, I’d say no and she’d insist and I’d refuse; then she’d concede, Ok take a shower, and I’d say, (petulant child) fine, I’ll take a bath.

MARILYN

Your mother should have protected you.

RACHEL

And I’m angry, but I also understand because she needs him to survive. My mom doesn’t have her own bank account or email; my father still hands her a twenty on his way to work.

MARILYN

Your mother’s certainly a product of her time.

RACHEL

She reminds me of the wife in that film Capturing the Friedmans—about the father convicted of molesting kids in their basement. He had piles of child porn around the house and she wouldn’t allow herself to notice. Ugh, she sickens me even more than her husband.

MARILYN

Why would you blame that woman?

RACHEL

Because she chose not to see. She probably sent her husband off each morning with his lunch and her perfect Miss America wave…

MARILYN

Her what?!

RACHEL

You know…(mimics the pageant wave) buh-bye dear, have a good day…

MARILYN

But how could she know?

RACHEL

How could she not know? Kiddie porn was arriving in their mail! (beat) Did you know there are pictures of babies sexually abused with their umbilical cord attached!

MARILYN

It is horrific−

RACHEL

And the toddler raped in New Delhi, lured away with a banana. The police offered her parents 2000 rupees to keep quiet. That’s $37 dollars. And you know what I read in the Times? Ten million computers in the US contain child pornography. There are 100 million men, so that means one out of every ten of them looks at kiddie porn. If they were arrested all at once, our economy would collapse. Think of ten male relatives or colleagues; one of them indulges in child porn. (beat) There’s one more place I’m trapped.

MARILYN

Where’s that?

RACHEL

I’m stuck between wanting to live and hoping to die. My father robbed me of what I could have been.

MARILYN

Have you ever considered suicide? (Rachel snorts laughter.) What’s so funny?

RACHEL

It sounds like you’re posing it as an option. Are you gonna suggest the most durable rope?

MARILYN

I didn’t mean that. But I need you to tell me if you have a plan.

RACHEL

Last week I bounced around online from Pottery Barn to suicide with a plastic bag to cupcake recipes. Google can’t tell if I’m shopping, binging or asphyxiating. (pause) My writing is the one place I don’t feel frozen. I started this new piece. (She retrieves a paper from her purse.)

MARILYN

Can I read it? (She unfolds it like a gift.) “My mother’s house is filled with cancer memorabilia. She saved ointments and capsules like baseball cards shelved in shoeboxes, ordered by ailment. (She reads quietly to herself briefly.) Sometimes I sit in her cool, dark closet, putting memories into remission and recalling the simplicity of a scraped knee.”

RACHEL

Will you…(their eyes meet) sit next to me?

Follow the Joy

“I think we have a responsibility to point out when joy is on someone’s face … please follow the joy,” Vogel implores. I’ve found it in writing a play. When I laugh out loud at a line I wrote and chuckle at it again for the fiftieth time; when I’m typing at 2 a.m. on a Saturday night; when working on revisions feels like sitting down to a nourishing meal — that’s where I belong.

Nothing But The Truth was developed with The Barrow Group, Theater for the New City, Dixon Place and Playhouse on Park and named a semifinalist for seven playwriting competitions including Theater Resources Unlimited’s TRU Voices series and Geva Theatre’s Festival of New Theater.

Eve Lederman’s essays have been featured in The New York Times and her memoir Letters From My Sister: On Life, Love and Hair Removal, was released by Skyhorse Publishing. Eve is also a monologist and has performed at The Players Club, The Bryant Park Reading Room and the Museum of Jewish Heritage. She is currently a freelance editor and provides corporate proofreading training with her business Proof Right.

Edited by Joyce Chen.

The featured image is "broken mirror” by Bridget.

Imagine the City

The Seventh Wave Admin — Thu, 21 Apr 2016 23:26:13 +0000

We are thrilled to publish the first act of the three-act sci-fi play, “Imagine the City,” by playwright and writer Darine Hotait. Her work illuminates the thin lines between life and death, construction and destruction, and reality and unreality. Darine skillfully pairs the ordinary with the odd, and allows readers to experience the familiar as it rips at the seams of confusion and disorientation in her works. Enjoy the orbit in Act 1 below, and to leave room for mystery, we have listed the synopsis of the play at the end of the act.

Act 1

SETTING: A video is projected onto a screen in the background as wide as the stage, revealing a panoramic view of Beirut City. The city manifests signs of abandonment. Mountains of garbage rise between and above buildings. A flock of seagulls flies across the screen, their squawks echoing over the city. The camera stops in front of a sign that reads “Beirut City Harbor.”

The main lights fade on. The stage is an extension of the harbor’s platform. The video remains as an active city background.

BEIRUTIS lie on the floor motionless atop their suitcases. Their clothes are ripped and covered in dirt. Visible sores and cuts can be seen where their skin peeks through.

LISA, a small female robot, hovers above the BEIRUTIS. Floating from one to the next, she scans each with her eyes by emitting a red laser light.

LISA

(singing quietly)

Softly, as in a morning sunrise, the light of love comes stealing, into a newborn day.

MONA, a 20-year-old Beiruti, wakes up as LISA hovers above her head.

MONA

(annoyed)

Not you again. Leave me alone — go away!

MONA grasps for something to throw at LISA, but can’t find anything to pick up.

LISA

(singing even louder)

Softly, as in a morning sunrise—

LISA hovers within arm’s reach. MONA tries to hit her out of the air, but LISA flies to the side. Frustrated, MONA sits up, but sees her suitcase isn’t next to her anymore. She nervously looks around for it. She sees it under the legs of one BEIRUTI. She yanks it from under his legs and clutches it close to her chest. LISA whizzes to MONA’s side.

MONA

(upset / to Lisa)

Filthy animal!

MONA stands up and looks behind her towards the city. She looks in front of her towards the sea. Confused, she takes a very small binocular out of her pocket. She again looks towards the sea. LISA flies in front of MONA and blocks her view.

MONA

Move it!

LISA doesn’t move. MONA steps to the right and left, but LISA mirrors her every move, blocking MONA’s line of sight.

MONA

I know you understand me. Move it, I said.

LISA

I can see beyond the horizon. What is it you’re looking for?

MONA

Where are they? Why aren’t they here yet?

LISA

They? They who?

MONA

The Good Samaritans.

LISA flies behind MONA, who keeps scanning left and right with her binoculars.

MONA

It’s too foggy. I can’t see a thing.

LISA hovers in front of MONA and looks towards the horizon. LISA’s eyes flash.

LISA

Nope. No Good Samaritan in sight.

MONA looks around at all the BEIRUTIS who remain motionless by her feet.

MONA

I am sure they will be here any minute.

LISA

For your safety, please put on your mask.

MONA walks around and looks at everyone. She finds a small pocket mirror next to a BEIRUTI woman. She picks it up. She holds it in front of her. She freezes in shock and tosses the mirror, which lands on a suitcase a few feet away from her. Her hand flies to her mouth. After a moment, she takes a few hesitant steps and picks up the mirror again. She squints at her reflection. She touches her face.

MONA

Oh my God! What happened to my face?

MONA falls to her hands and knees.

MONA

I need to take a shower — I need to change!

LISA

Dear girl…

MONA

I am going to jump in the sea and clear this filth off my skin. If they come, let them wait for me — I won’t be late.

MONA grabs her suitcase and walks to the front of the stage. LISA flies in front of MONA, stopping her before the edge of the stage.

LISA

Where are you going?

MONA

To the sea.

LISA

It’s not possible. I can’t allow you to touch this water.

MONA

Who are you to not “allow” me? Move.

LISA

It’s for your own good.

MONA moves LISA with her hand.

LISA

No — don’t. Mona, don’t make me force you.

MONA stops and turns to LISA.

MONA

I need to wash. I need to drink.

LISA

Look. Look at this man here. Look.

LISA directs MONA to look at one of the sleeping BEIRUTIS.

LISA

See his skin. Look — look closely.

MONA steps towards the man. She reaches down and touches his skin, cold and lifeless. She jumps back, tripping over another BEIRUTI lying on the ground.

MONA

Oh my God — is he dead? What do we do? We have to do something. Should we call for help?

LISA

There is no one out there to call. It’s only us now.

MONA

What do you mean it’s only us? Look at this whole city — it isn’t empty! There has to be other humans out there. People with hearts, something you wouldn’t know anything —

LISA interrupts MONA by moving swiftly and hovering at a very close proximity to MONA’s face. LISA looks deeply into MONA’s eyes as though she were scanning her soul.

LISA

Listen! Mona! The water isn’t water anymore. The city isn’t city anymore! The humans aren’t humans anymore!

MONA

(imitating Lisa)

But robots are always robots. You know nothing about humans. Leave me alone.

MONA moves back towards the BEIRUTI man. She tries to wake him up.

MONA

Excuse me. Sir. Can you hear me?

She places her hand on the man’s shoulder and tries to wake him up. The man doesn’t move.

MONA

Sir. Hello, sir? You should wake up. I will call for help.

The BEIRUTI man doesn’t move. She steps closer, but soon backs away, coughing and covering her mouth, repulsed by the smell. Taking a deep breath, she lowers her head closer to his face.

MONA

I can’t hear his breathing.

LISA

Dear girl, this human is not here.

MONA touches the man’s wrist to check his pulse. Nothing. She places her head on his heart. Nothing. She jumps to her feet.

MONA

He’s dead! He’s dead.

LISA moves closer to MONA.

MONA

That must be his wife.

MONA steps towards the BEIRUTI woman lying by the man’s side. She bends down to touch her, but pauses.

LISA

Nothing will change. Just let it be.

MONA bends down and starts shaking the BEIRUTI woman.

LISA

(softly)

Don’t. I am telling you don’t.

MONA

Excuse me, miss. Hello. Excuse me!

The BEIRUTI woman doesn’t move. MONA shakes her again. No reaction. MONA brings herself closer to the woman only to discover that she is also dead. MONA slumps down by the woman’s side, one hand covering her mouth, and the other resting on the woman’s arm. MONA gasps, tears fall down her cheeks.

LISA

I told you there is no one out there. It’s only us now.

MONA looks back at the city. She stands up and takes a few steps towards it. She observes in silence. A few seagulls call in the distance.

A ROBOT on wheels travels from stage right to left. He sucks in the dirt from one spot and tosses it out from another spot. He goes unnoticed.

ROBOT ON WHEELS

(singing)

Softly, as in a morning sunrise, the light of love comes stealing, into a newborn day.

MONA walks back to her suitcase and sits down. Slowly, she opens it up and takes out some cloths. She starts covering the bodies of people. Once done, she sits on her suitcase, watching the sea. The squawks of seagulls are heard as they fly across the screen.

MONA

I will wait for them.

LISA hovers next to MONA.

LISA

Close your eyes.

MONA turns her head towards LISA.

MONA

So you and I are the only ones left in this city?

LISA

Close your eyes.

MONA looks at LISA for a long moment. She closes her eyes and faces the sea. LISA moves in circles around MONA’s head.

LISA

Like the city, abandon your thoughts. Stop thinking.

MONA opens her eyes.

LISA

Just close your eyes and imagine the city. Imagine. Imagine the city like you want it to be.

MONA closes her eyes.

The video of the city starts to change. The mountains of trash slowly disappear. The city’s sounds fade in from afar, until Beirut is once again a city hustling and bustling. Windows open. Curtains fly out of windows. The city is alive.

LISA

(with her voice and over the city sounds)

Imagine the city. Imagine it like you want it to be. Imagine.

The video progresses while the sounds of the city merge in harmony with LISA’s voice, repeating the same line over and over again.

LISA

Imagine the city. Imagine it like you want it to be. Imagine.

An unfamiliar sound is heard from afar. MONA suddenly opens her eyes.

MONA

(looking towards the sea. Then shouts.)

They’re here!

(stands up)

Here! Over here! We’re here! Hello!

The video immediately fades back to the grave city. A flock of gulls travels through. Their squawks fill the air. LISA stops intoning the same line over and over again. MONA waves her hands energetically.

MONA

(to Lisa)

Why can’t they hear us?

LISA

There’s no one out there.

MONA moves closer to the front edge of the stage. She jumps up and down in place and shouts even louder.

MONA

Hello! I am Mona. From Beirut. Do you hear me? I am stuck here. They’re all dead. Do you hear me? Hello? Hello?

LISA

Poor girl.

MONA

Hello! I am Mona. This is Beirut here.

Behind the city in the projected video, a massive wave is seen approaching. It curls over the city slowly and as it approaches MONA, the light on stage starts to fade. MONA’s voice continues repeating the same line over and over. Just before the stage falls into total darkness, LISA flies in swiftly and lifts Mona off the ground.

Classical music fades in, interspersed with rhythmic whistling sounds.

The stage is dark. A spotlight fades in slowly, revealing an unconscious MONA hanging loosely in the air beneath LISA. MONA is now wearing an oxygen mask.

They appear to be traveling through space and slipping past stars and space objects. 3D projections behind them give a sense of space.

LISA

(switching to a robotic voice)

Substance in possession.

VOICE

(OFF STAGE)

Copy.

The light fades out.

Synopsis

“Imagine the City” is a science fiction stage play that feels like an illumination of the darker parts of Beirut’s soul and its decaying society in crisis. From a social commentary point of view, this play is an ironically dystopian take on Beirut’s metaphorical future. Mona, a frustrated Beiruti, waits by the sea port to be evacuated to a better place by the Good Samaritan. But her escapism plan is disrupted by Lisa, the flying robot, who seems to have knowledge of both the past and the future. Through the supernatural connection between Mona and Lisa, we are often confused about whether the city is floating or even existing. “Imagine the City” recollects the cityscape and its memory through collective existentialism.

Mona and Lisa are the inseparable portrait of a decomposed Beirut. Just like in Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, “Mona Lisa,” the characters in the play pose in front of an imaginary landscape. Act 1 of this three-act play feels like a short-lived moment in Mona’s life that ends with an ordeal blown out of rational proportions. The wave at the end of Act 1 is seen again in Act 2, as a signpost within a conscience system wherein Mona’s mind is being uploaded and her memories are being altered by a group of robots identical to Lisa. We discover that they are watching Mona’s memories while downloading and erasing data of their choice.

What will Mona do when she wakes up to find herself trapped in an alternate consciousness? Will she be able to recollect her memory of the city and that of the humans who make it?

Darine Hotait is an American Lebanese writer and film director. Born in Beirut, her family emigrated to the America when she was 11 years old. At that time, Darine discovered her love for writing. She started writing her diaries and poetry at her grandmother’s home in Detroit. Later, Darine relocated to Los Angeles to attend the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, where she completed her MFA in screenwriting and film directing. Darine wrote and directed a number of award-winning short films such as I Say Dust, Beirut Hide and Seek and more. Her films went on to screen at notable film festivals and received prestigious distribution.

Her work mainly focuses on bridging literature and cinema while embodying a scientific approach by giving predominance to the science fiction genre. She is currently working on her debut science fiction feature film, Symphony of a Flood, which was recently selected at the International Scriptwriter’s Pavilion in the Cannes Film Festival and was one of five finalists of the Hearst Screenwriting Competition. Darine is also the founder of Cinephilia Productions, an incubator and frequent contributor to the development of filmmakers from the Middle East and Africa through its various initiatives, occupying the space between ideation and production. She resides in New York City and frequently travels across the Middle East.

Edited by Bretty Rawson.

The featured image is "untitled” by Axel Antas-Bergkvist.