International Men's Day: Unpack

UNPACK (A one-woman show)

(Part of a new volume of bilingual plays)

?, Copyrighted work, 2019

Dramatis persona:

Woman (with blue eyes)

Location:

Everywhere

Time:

At intermission when people take a break from artificiality

Props qua real things:

A telephone

A set of light bulbs

Cookies

A Christmas decoration

A paper with a wide, freakishly weird smile

Notes: In production, bits from the famous night in Seville, the last speech of the dictator, “Cenaclul Flacara” are heard (from the links in Footnotes). Nothing is translated. If possible, there could be a projection at the end (vide the last stage direction). Optional, when we hear Ceausescu and when that transmission is interrupted, those tiny black and white dots could be distorted to morph into anything from monsters to people who are about to be liberated. In terms of stage directions, since this is a liberating piece I would like to read and then act them. For people who are not used to reading plays that could be educational. For the performer, just a test in (in)consistency (i.e., the transfer of the written word from page to its acted version). Finally, some parts in the text are typed in red. Please read their respective footnote.

This piece was written with a desire to return to simple stories. We have clothed theater with so much excess that it barely breathes. They say narratives are not needed in theater. I beg to differ. Theater is a storytelling. Theater is a wanderer.

ACT ONE & FINAL

A woman acting the role of girl, woman, and everything in between. She plays herself. She holds a backpack. She sits down on the floor. Looks through her stuff.

WOMAN: November 19, 2019. I am here, in front of you. This is New York City, right?[1] It’s good to be among strangers because then I act the way I’d like to be. No one here knows me. (Inhales and exhales deeply) That’s relaxing. I am about to unpack.

Woman looks inside her backpack. We hear something in Romanian.[2] A recoding from the famous night when Helmuth Duckadam[3] saved 4 shootouts that led to winning the European cup.[4]

WOMAN: May 7, 1986 was magical. After Steaua won I could not sleep. I was already in “love” with one of the soccer players and ecstatic for the victory. I hugged father. I stayed in his embrace for minutes. No one else in the family watched the game because no one else cared for soccer. My father always said I was his son. I loved that.[5] (Looks in her backpack, pretends to take a soccer ball and kicks it. She gestures the victory sign and/or does something dramatic similar to what soccer players do after scoring a goal)

A pause.

WOMAN: After the game, we heard noises coming from outside. It was May but it felt like Christmas. I guess no one could go to sleep either. Some went in the streets and cheered. It was a kind of joy I had not experienced before. Strangers were hugging strangers. People were praising the goalkeeper and chanting his name. Some were shouting “Ole, ole, ole, Steaua, victorie.” That night we forgot we lived in communism. That night should not have ended.

Woman looks again in her backpack. We hear fragments from Ceausescu’s last speech.[6][7]

WOMAN: December 21st, 1989: Father and I sit quietly in the living room with the TV on. We were about to go out to buy a Christmas tree. (She moves one step to her right/left. Snowflakes fall. She stays there for a few seconds. She moves back to where it does not snow) Something in Ceausescu’s speech kept us seated. At one moment, the live broadcasting transmission was interrupted. We saw the imagine of the dictator transitioning into tiny black and white dots and then nothing. Blackout. Father and I exchanged looks to make sure no one else was in the room. Something was happening. It was not a “technical difficulty.” It was bigger than that. We stood up and went into the kitchen. (She starts to walk but stops suddenly) To be honest, I can’t remember what we heard on the radio. If we heard anything at all. That is lost. (Does a few steps backwards and then stops) Nope, still lost.

Woman twirls to indicate we will step into a different moment.[8]       

WOMAN: Father, stay. Don’t fade away from my memory. Stay. I have time.

Woman looks in her backpack, a little bit agitated. She finds something or pretends she did find something. She keeps her hand(s) in a fist.

WOMAN: Father was a simple man. I have no entry date for this. It happened fast. My growing up. My desire to move. My father and I are alike. He used sarcasm to cope with communism. I use sarcasm to cope with living in exile. He liked to drink to forget. I like to drink to be lifted up from the ground. He left from his village to try his luck at destiny. I left my country of birth to experiment with plurality. When I left, he asked me: “Why are you leaving”? I did not answer him because I do not think I knew why. He knew that I couldn’t be stopped, that I had to leave, that I was too stubborn and independent, that once I committed to something I would not change my mind.

Woman looks back in her backpack. Pulls out a pack of light bulbs and a jar of Royal Dansk Danish Butter Cookies. Starts to eat.

WOMAN: (To the audience) I’m sorry, do you want a cookie? (Pointing at the two things, light bulbs and cookies,) these two are so ordinary, right? It’s late spring, 1989. Father and mother prepare me for my first trip abroad. I won the first prize in a national painting competition. I was excited to pack for a ten-day trip to Denmark. The return was different, though. In Denmark, there was light. In Romania, lights were cut off. In Denmark, there were cookies. In Romania, we waited in line for hours to buy a loaf of bread. (Puts the cookies and the light bulbs down. Gestures a slap) I was slapped at the end of that trip. My first and only slap. A girl decided to escape and I was considered without any proof an accomplice. Interrogated in Copenhagen. Interrogated back home. I was 14. I grew up more than I would have wanted then and there. The second time when they interrogated me father had stepped in. He did not let Securitate traumatize me with their questioning unless he was in the room. They accepted. I was a minor. After the interrogation, I was harassed. I went back to school but was reminded that at any moment I could be kicked out and my parents would lose their job. In communist Romania the question of depression did not exist[9] because it would have been political: one could not possibly have a problem with their health, but a problem with the Party and that would mean worse consequences than depression.

Woman takes a piece of paper out of her pocket. Puts it in front of her face.

WOMAN: So, I smiled like this for others. Back home, I would not cry either. I did not want my parents to lose their jobs.

Woman rips that piece of paper into tiny pieces. Woman chews another cookie.

WOMAN: My father liked to add a lot of salt in his food without even tasting it. He had surgery a year or so after my mother died and could not walk. He was in bed. I entered the room and told him: “Get up”! He shook his head. I said, “No, you can’t die. Just get up.” He said, “I can’t.” I was so furious. Not at him, but at the medical system that left him without care. I put my hand over his shoulder, look him into his eyes, and said: “I will take care of you.” He said, “I can’t walk.” “I will teach you.” I did that. I taught father how to walk. “What about our neighbors?” “Dad, no one cares. Besides, you have me.” He smiled and we took baby steps for two weeks or so.

Woman stands up. Walks very slowly. She stops. Looks in her pockets. But takes nothing out of them.

WOMAN: It’s summer, 1998. I got married. I graduated. I am about to leave for the U.S. My father tells me he could not go to the airport. I knew that. He could not look at me disappearing into that big place, not knowing when I would come back. He hands me a fifty-dollar bill. “Why?” “Take it.” “Thanks. But why?” He says “just in case” and I almost cry but push back my tears. We hugged. A 50-dollar bill. When I came here, I looked at the bill not knowing what was on his mind. Why this amount? What could I have done with it? What was the “just in case” part for? I never asked.

All of a sudden we hear a telephone ringing. Woman picks it up.

WOMAN: (To the audience) It happened the other way around (teasingly,) really. But you have to imagine the call anyway. It’s December, 2005. (She dials now) I called father. He is in bed about to die but I refuse to believe that. He can barely talk. I do not know what to say other than empty words. I want to be there. In that room. To hug him.

Woman looks in her backpack. She finds a Christmas decoration. She sits down.

WOMAN: December 24th, 2005. My father dies. It’s the eve of Christmas. My son is a few months old. He was born on the eve of Easter of the same year. I did not realize then, only in retrospect I thought it was bittersweet. (Clearing her voice) I am on the phone: “Yes, I need a ticket for Romania. Yes, I know it’s last minute. My father died. They are waiting for me to bury him. Thank you. I know. It’s sad. Don’t be sorry, it’s not your fault. How old? Not that old. Yes, I can hold. (Walks and returns to the spot where it magically snows) Hello? Yes, book me on that flight. It’s okay. The layover is shorter. People are waiting for me back home. To bury father. Thank you. Merry Christmas to you, too.”

Woman puts everything back in her backpack. Woman sings in Romanian “Du-ma acasa, mai, tramvai.” It stops snowing.

WOMAN: One of my father’s favorite songs. When my son was born, I started to sing it as lullaby. It came spontaneously out of me. Not in full, but in pieces. The way life is. Hey, listen, I need to catch a train back home. Father always told me, “You wait for the train, and not the other way around. Got that?”

Woman walks and then stops. Projected, instead of The End we read The Waiting Room.

Final Notes:

[1] This is the only thing that will change depending on where the piece is performed.

[2] Images as slideshow from that historic night are presented.

[3] Ideally, to suggest the passing of time + the entering into a different land, everything marked in red should be doubled in performance by a simultaneous projection with whatever the performer does in the moment. Those are for the public only and not for the performer. She knows her story. When she says the name of the goalkeeper, projected, “Is that even a Romanian name? Helmuth. Helmuth?? Who cares? Onomastics would be the last thing to be concerned in communism.”

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlKeAHGuwfg

[5] As she says “I loved that” we read in projection, “By being told I was his son that made me even stronger as a woman. That did not scar me. Au contraire.”

[6] Ibid. 2

[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xntDto5TX10

[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHsgYBL-6Rw

[9] Not even once did I hear the word “depression” growing up. Not surprisingly. When you grow up in totalitarianism, expect to live with lies.