Monday 10 September 2012

Alex Sunday Night / Monday Morning, Week 5/6

A white space. Well lit. The house lights go down. Aurora in her blue jeans, with flip-flops on and a worn out Red Hot Chili Peppers t-shirt on walks on stage, smiling. She gets closer to downstage left. With a single flick of the hip she cues a mariachi band who marches on across the back. She sticks her hand in her pocket and takes out some dirt. She lets it fall on the ground. "Dirt from my grandmother's grave." she says still smiling and starts playfully dancing around it. The band has crossed from stage right to stage left. Aurora finishes her dance. Reaches into her other pocket. "Dirt from my grandfather's grave." The band crosses again, encouraging her playful homage. Once the band has again fully crossed the stage . She stops dancing. From her back pocket she takes out some wheat seeds and throws them over the dirt, running her fingers across the soil. Still smiling. she exits downstage left. Cue music: Will Oldham: I see a darkness. As soon as the music starts, everyone runs onstage with a box full of soil and dumps it on stage, in different places, marking small little personal piles throughout the stage at a very speedy pace. The song keeps going as everyone has finished marking the space and left. The audience ponders this spatial change for the rest of the duration of the song whilst a sprinkler system waters the soil with fine mist from above the lights fade down to 60 percent. Scott comes in with a gas lamp and a notebook full of signs. He does his best to show them to the audience while he tells stories about his mom and her involvment in the equal rights movement in Kansas. He ends holding a sign that says "Hope". He starts laughing which triggers Emily and Leah running on stage and grabbing the sign. "Mine", "No, mine" , " Give it....", "It's mine." they shout playfully as Scott keeps laughing and the lights go back to 100. After a minute or so, Scott exits. The girls keep running until the "Hope" sign is torn to pieces and they are exhausted. They both lie panting on the ground facing the ceiling. House lights go up. An anoucement is made that there will be a 5 minute intermission. The girls stay lying on the ground as the audience shuffles about, some of them exiting to the bar or to smoke a cigarette outside. The girls exit eventually and the stage is cleared of the dirt and cleaned. As the 5 minute intermission ends, the audience are back in their seats. A white space. Well lit. The house lights go down. Aurora in her blue jeans, with flip-flops on and a worn out Red Hot Chili Peppers t-shirt on walks on stage, smiling. She gets closer to downstage left. She gets naked and talks about still having some regrets about not having given birth through her vagina and how she read somewhere the benefits of that for the child as well as for herself. She makes no intention of hiding her tummy or the fact that it still bothers her esthetically. The men walk on stage and sit down to look at her. She is not hiding anymore. Their gaze is neither perverse, nor threatening. They are admiring her, her body, her smile, her courage. This situation takes a long time to disipate. She leaves. The men look at each other and undress. They remain standing looking at each other, each other's bodies, each other's smiles, each other's courage. Their gaze is neither perverse nor threatening. After a while, they walk off leaving their clothes on stage. Benita comes in he middle of the space with a fold out chair. She is wearing a long emerald dress. Very elegant. She sits down on her chair and smiles at the audience. Greig comes back fully clothed and does his solo around her, taking up the whole stage. He is proud and energetic. From time to time, Benita glances at him with certain mischieviousness. He finishes, quickly gathers the men's clothes and exits. She is left on her own and takes the oportunity to unfold a small piece of paper from here bossom and read out loud her favourite Shelley poem. She leaves the piece of paper on the ground and taking her chair, she exits upstage right. The men come back in formation and start doing "the folk dance" in unison. As they do so, the house lights go up and another anouncement is made signaling another 5 minute intermission. The men keep repeating their folk dance as the audience shuffles about, some exiting, some just taking the oportunity to chat with each other. Eventually, the men exit and the space is cleared and cleaned again. As the 5 minute intermission ends, the audience are back in their seats. A white space. Well lit. The house lights go down. Aurora in her blue jeans, with flip-flops on and a worn out Red Hot Chili Peppers t-shirt on walks on stage, smiling. She gets closer to downstage left. She starts showing in very slow motion various ways of falling to the ground. She exagerates her emotions with over the top face mimicry. As she continues, a huge red bedspread is brought on stage by other performers. It is torn almost in half, but still hanging together by a thread. As they leave, Aurora exits. Janusz comes in with a box. Cue music: the rest of the performers enter the stage and hover on the sides, loudly banging of various gongs of various sizes. Janusz starts mending the bedspread. Leah walks on stage with a microphone and starts screaming at the top of her lungs to be able to be heard over the gongs: "It's not about the looks" , "It's about me.", "Free Mumia", "Women's rights" , "I am a person", "god save the queen", "haleluya", " you know i love you, right?", "equality, freedom, justice" ,"it's not all about me", "booooom" etc. After delivering her manifesto, the music stops. All performers playing the gongs exit. Janusz who had made some progress, looks around. He is alone. He rips the hole in the bedspread to its original size and starts mending it again. Enter Rob upstage right eating a banana. He normally eats the banana and then tosses a second fruit across the stage to Janusz. Janusz catches it and eats it. He then packs the bedspread and his needle and thread in his box and exits. The stage is being rain upon with fine mist from above. House lights go on. The audience is being rain upon with fine mist as well. An anouncement is being made for yet another 5 minute intermission. After a minute or so, mist off, both in the audience as well as on stage. As the 5 minute intermission ends, the audience are back in their seats. A white space. Well lit. The house lights go down. Aurora in her blue jeans, with flip-flops on and a worn out Red Hot Chili Peppers t-shirt on walks on stage, smiling. She gets closer to downstage left.  Andrea walks right behind her, wearing the same clothes as Aurora. They both suddenly stop and throwing their arms in the air shout : "I am a tree."

                     (to be continued...)

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