poem set 1+2

My father and the fig tree:

A happy little poem about a child and their father. They (or at least the dad) are worshippers of Allah. The father really likes figs, so much he’d find a way to use figtrees in the bedtime stories he tells his child. They live in many houses through their lives and yet they never plant figtrees, even though they take care of other plants. Okra is also a tropical plant (I looked it up). The mother is mentioned as she comments how her husband starts but doesn’t finish ideas. The last time the father moves, he sings to his child a new song and shows them a planted figtree, with the fig of his dreams, clearly very happy.

Blood:

This family is arabic, and the father talks about “true arabs”, who can catch flies with their hands and believed in the healing properties of watermelon.

Years ago, a girl knocks and “wants to see the Arab” (the narrator’s father?), the narrator turns her away, saying they don’t have any arabs.

Father says his Arabic name is Shihab/shooting star, a name borrowed from the sky.

The narrator asks about the “borrowed” part, “when we die, we give it back?”. Their father says that’s what a true arab would say.

Present day, narrator is angry/surprised about a….possibly orphaned Palestinian child?

References the figs, says the child is a “homeless fig”, a tragedy with terrible roots too big.

They talk about flags, made of stone/seed or blue table mats (not sure about the meaning, very confused)

They call their father and they avoid talking about the news

Narrator drives out to the countryside, farmland (with sheep/cows) and ask themselves/nothing/a higher power? Things that i interpret to mean “who has the right to think themselves civilized? Where can a heart in pain heal? What would a true arab do now?

The words under the words

The narrator’s grandmother is very familiar with grapes, and used them to try and heal them from their fevers

They talk about how their grandmother is occupied with slowly patting round dough and baking break, waiting by the oven watching cars wondering if there are tourists or her lost family come to visit, how she knows when mail comes and the way she treasures and rereads rare letters over and over again

She says that nothing can surprise her anymore, whether it be a shotgun or a crippled baby. The narrator adds that she knows the silent messages people create, and she sends them out to the sky that plant themselves before the people will later die.

Their grandmother says that Allah is everywhere, in life/death/stories of foolishness and intelligence/her first thought/his name itself.

Two countries:

A poem about skin that represents something that knows when it is lonely, how long it has been since it had touched, how to move and react, but is unnoticed. Yet it is hopeful, and always tries to heal.

Love means you breathe in two countries (?? i have nothing)

Skin remembers being alone and is happy to have companionship

Arabic coffee:

“Us” liked their coffee as black and thick as it could get, and loved listening to their father tell them stories over coffee and having luck in their grounds

Their father would make the coffee by letting it boil up twice and calming down, no sugar, no broken dreams, no differences between people, coffee was the center of of talk and the center of the world in the room, a note of faith and “more”

My grandmother in the stars

“We” will not meet again on earth, a thought that causes the narrator’s throat to dry up and think how the sky is the only thing tying the entire universe altogether

The narrator wants to know “your” opinion of the neighbor’s horse, the village’s one cow. They clearly respect “you”, with rugged (old/weary?) feet and moth-eaten scarves (“you” is a woman)

“We” never live in once place, “our” hearts do all the talking we need, memory is the only thing that makes us rich.

staging MLMLoTPG

Personally, I would stage MLML or TPG as a sort of juxtaposed play. While the novel has somewhat of a “modern fairy tale” theme, I feel as if it has an additional feel of just a clashing of settings. For example, the god-given princess who was prettier than all other women and more special than all other peasants, dreaming of her true love...which she’d find in a wrecked car, dying. Or, the magical nature of her wishing upon a butterfly and experiencing her wished-for true love, only to find her hopes shattered and destroyed as he chooses another woman and she’s left to die outside the metaphorical palace. These contradictory elements of the book make me want to stage a play with a similar feel, where it would be magical and dream-like, full of whimsy and general Disney-esque “magic”, but the other half would be instead more down-to-earth, less enchanting and certainly duller.

Although this would definitely be hard to visually represent on stage, I think this could be clearly accentuated via visual motifs, especially color-based ones or some that accompany certain characters. For example, I have an idea where during Desiree and Mama Euralie’s visit to the gods, there would be fog machines that blow light amounts of smoke onstage to help give their presence a dreamlike feel, and heavy fog to accompany Papa Ge’s rare appearances. Aside from the heavy smoke of Papa Ge, the other gods would have lighter smoke so it wouldn’t block the audience’s view of them, but be enough to be noticed by the audience. I would also like to touch back on my color idea for the butterflies and wishing, which I based my practice essay on Monday on. Essentially, it was different shades of blue to accompany the motif of a wish, faint and flickering blue to represent the first wish that the second Ti Moune would fail to make, a base blue to represent the wishes successfully made, and a dark, angry, blue to represent Desiree’s refusal to release the butterflies from the metaphorical cage.

One of the more subtle ideas that I have is based around costuming. Simply put, I would like to have the peasants wear dull clothing, mainly earthen tones. Desiree, however, would wear tones shades lighter, enough to be noticeable but not enough so that she can still blend in as “one of the peasantry”. Then, when she receives the dress and comb and shoes from the woman near the Beauxhomme hotel, I would like the colors of that outfit to be dull but still colored or faded, which would contrast with the bright (almost obnoxiously) colored clothing of the rich folk. Even when she receives the makeover before Daniel’s planned ball, her clothing would still be somewhat darker or saturated, to mark her as different.

Finally, I have a small (although not very fleshed out) idea for Andrea, where she would be accompanied by changes in lighting. While I’m not very sure how it works, I envision that Desiree’s costume-based prominence would contrast with Andrea’s lighting based prominence. Rather than being noted via changes in color saturation among crowds, Andrea would be noted as the lights on the stage would be a few shades dimmer, but she would have a spotlight on her (not much brighter than the rest of the stage, but again, enough to be noticed) to mark her out, a woman who stands out from the crowd.

Duality

Duality between Monsieur Bienconnu and Desiree is very prominent in Chapter Six.

Notably, “Her fate! What nonsense. An orphan out of the storm, what did she have but dreams to sustain her? A future when...Such talk! The ravings of an old man.”

This passage is representative of either one of two things. It reads a little delusionally on the surface, but after thought, I think it is reasonable that this could be chatter among peasants, their silent and unspoken opinions regarding Desiree’s passion and drive to leave and find Daniel, where many believe him to be in the right, and her to be a hopeless dreamer. However, the last sentence suggests another possibility, it could be internal thoughts of Desiree and Mon. Bienconnu. With the latter, the passage reads almost like an unspoken dialogue, an argument between a lovestruck child and the old elder, world-weary and only trying to dissuade her from inevitable pain.

For example:
“Her fate? What nonsense.”
“An orphan out of the storm, what did she have but dreams to sustain her?”
“A future when...such talk!”
“The ravings of an old man.”

This formatting reads both as either internal and separate thoughts of the pair, but also as the suggested possible idle chatter of other nearby villagers. As some have listened in and commented on conversations (namely one between Mama Euralie and Desiree  the same chapter), I think it’s also a realistic possibility showing contrast between both Desiree and the rest of her community, and Desiree and the elder.

Costuming desiree

To costume desiree, I think it would be fitting if she wore traditional and simplistic "lower-class" clothing, with dark, "earthy" tones of brown. This would be similar and in line to the dress of all of the others in her village, to show that she is, regardless of her own dreams of rising above, a peasant by status. However, notably she would have a few features separate from the other villagers. In my mind, I envision her to wear something such as a simple flower or clip in her hair, or tie it up in a braid, to imply and show  her eventual and temporary rise to high-status as well as her own fixiation that she is above the rest of the peasants, and meant to be so. Optionally, she could have a simple necklace, a cheap one so it wouldn't be some object of desire for others, but pretty enough to show that she isn't just a peasant girl in a small farming village.

The most difficult thing about costuming desiree would be to represent her connection to Agwe, which would only be necessary if Agwe were even to be portrayed. She would have something simplistic, again, perhaps a clip in her hair, that Agwe would also wear (or have some object similar to it) to show their connection.

In terms of costuming her post-transformation, when Daniel calls for fashionistas to assist her, I think she would wear something that would seem sort of like a mishmash of objects that don't really harmonize, but still manage to combine together to create a good mesh. I'm not really sure how this would work out, but that's just the base idea.

10-16 notes

ch 10:
desiree makes it to the city by night
"A WHOLE NEW WOOOOOOORLD"
She is comforted by beggar women in the alleys of the city
she follows the masses and makes her way to the hotel
she wonders how she will make it past the gates and inside
she gets told off rudely by the vendors and the guards
she sits at the sea and wonders why she got laughed at for wanting to see daniel
she meets a woman who sympathizes with her which apparently so far seems to be the solution to all of her problems, meeting women who like her cause she's patient/pretty/whatever and this time she gets shoes and a dress and a pretty comb but not food

ch11:
she bathes in the sea and wakes up on the beach in morning feeling prettiful
the shoes are painful oh boy just like the little mermaid having to walk and feeling herself get stabbed with every step
she runs into the beauxhommes speaking french and daniels like oh girl you look familiar and she says in creole yeah cause i saved your life and his dad is like "Ew peasants lets go dont ever speak to me or my son again"
they drive away and she swears to stay until they accept her or something and then she wishes on a butterfly and artisians are like "??" and she just laughs and they laugh too because her laugh is super duper pretty and cool and wow she's the best and i really do not like this mary-sue-ing of our main character
she stays on the hotel grounds eating the fruit from the orchards and hiding it in the guests's trash and bathes and washes in the hotel pools and how has she not gotten caught and thrown out yet?
she is patient and waits
some stranger finds her sleeping cave and its daniel so she sings that song and he's like "hey i know you" and somehow they understand each other???
and then he faints and she holds onto him again and stuff

ch12:
daniel's godmother finds them and she's like girl you should leave
daniel wakes up and argues with her because he got a good night's sleep and says that she should stay
but then daddy beaux shows up and is like "whats going on" and then gets upset with daniel for consorting with peasants and matilda for going back to her disgusting peasant ways of believing in gods
she begs him to give desiree a chance and daddy beaux walks out cause he just cant deal and also she implies daniel is very close to death
they do their little smile thing and shes like "yeah the gods brought me and daniel back together so his dad's wishes dont matter at all"
she works as a servant but also gets to sleep in the same bed as daniel because i dont know
somehow he recovers and she gets weaker and theyre like bound together through pain splitting magic???
theyre in love and desiree is keeping her butterflies captive even though her wishes have been fufilled
matilda lets her know hey daniel is well now but like there's no reason for you to stay
gabriel had left for france so daniels like hey she cant leave make her pretty so even my dad cant tell her to go away
the ladies are like "oooh andrea andrea" and stuff and theyre jealous of her cause she's black and pretty and daniel loves her
lucifus the guard reminds desiree of papa ge and she is scared

ch13:
he plans a ball for when his dad comes back
ok so desiree is now the little mermaid AND cinderella
everyone says she's pretty
matilda gets distressed because desiree is being courted, daniel's dad still isnt back, stuff
also she ditched her magic red comb and still keeps her butterflies captive which is kinda weird cause its like youre dropping one tradition but keeping half of it?
matilda tells her she needs to run away before she is hurt because reasons and desiree gets scared and runs away
she reaches for a butterfly but then runs into IRL papa ge who just looks at her and she gets scared and then the butterfly leaves and she just kinda stands there?

ch14:
Andrea comes back from france, dad beaux says that he and daniel should go to her homecoming
so turns out andrea and daniel and betrothed to each other and he's like wow andrea's so cool and she's like well i love you so i think andrea is cool too and matilda is like "this is not how this is supposed to work"
and then theres a ball for andrea and andrea is blonde and white and pretty and desiree has this growing panic inside of her
and andrea is like "daniel can we keep this pretty black girl" (wat?) and then she gets put out of daniel's room into her own down the hall

ch15:
desiree doesnt eat and matilda is like this is normal i mean like you were basically his concubine and he kinda doesnt need you when his wife is around
her comb is lose and matilda tries to offer to make her pretty so she can marry the ambassadors that want her and shes like no i want daniel but matildas like no theyre getting married dude
she dreams/sees the gods who all speak through papa ge and theyre like "lol" also daniel tells her no andrea and i both love you which is why you need to stay its like they treat her like some pet but not really
papa ge says "heres a knife, THE INFIDELS MUST PAY FOR THEIR BETRAYAL"
"i saved this life and i can take it too" ok calm down girl
and then he turns and smiles in his sleep and she drops it and is like I CANT DO THIS and runs away very conflicted
she gets kicked out by the guards and the vendors listen to her cause theyre cool and theyre like "well uh thats life suck it up"

ch16:
there is an impending storm before the wedding
desiree hasnt eaten/slept in 2 weeks which is actually impossible because the world record is around 11 days with no sleep
apparently there are rich AND poor people at the wedding and desiree's just kinda there watching through the gates and she waves at matilda who's like "oh my god why are you still here"
the pair go to their honeymoon while the crowd watches
many butterflies show up and the crowd's like "this is scary we should probably go" and gabriel beauxhomme comes back to a corpse on the road and he's like "lucifus take out the trash" and then the storm starts and the first drops are on her face like tears the end

ch6-9 notes

Ch 6:

• Things grow back
• She asks where and who the beauxhommes are
• She’s told the ancestor of the beauxhommes had a black peasant concubine called Ti Moune
• She goes to argue with her foster parents about leaving to be with Daniel, they decide to consult the gods

Ch 7

• Mama euralie takes desiree with her to go consult with the gods
• God oueda?
• The gods erzulie/agwe argue over her vows of love?
• Wait people were possessed by the gods?
• She gets breathed on by death and screams and runs away

Ch8

• She walks onwards towards the city to Daniel and gets laughed at
• She is given a lot of food for free on her journey
• Her patience apparently is why she’s getting fed for free

Ch 9

• She meets another orphan and teaches her about wishing cages
• She tells her what she’s learned on her one week journey and also tells the girl to look for mama euralie and tonton julian

Oral reflection

Overall, I think my oral presentation was somewhat solid. I felt that I spoke clearly and at a good pace. However, I think I definitely struggled to find things to say or stumbled over a few words, leading to a lot of pauses and ums in the recording. While my presentation was well ordered and stuck to the list we talked about in class the day prior, I think I was a little disorganized while speaking, and felt I hadn’t prepared enough notes for the actual oral. Near the end of the presentation, I began to run out of things to say and tried to come up with some points to make to fill up the time, which led to the cohesiveness of the overall project to fall apart a little at the end.

Another fallacy of mine was that I definitely did not expand on the synopsis of my adaptive scene enough. While my notes did include a small summary of the scene, I instead spoke much too briefly on the performance, and only realized I had when I started talking about specific actions or purposes of some scenes after the fact. I am unsure why I skipped over this, but I hope the actual recording of the scene will be enough to make up for it.

A big failure on my part was my inadequacy to properly prepare beforehand. I had a draft on Tuesday morning that seriously lacked in all departments, length, direction, detail, and so on. Having a real draft by that time would’ve allowed me to be more confident today and better organized or practiced once it was time for the real presentation. However, listening to the practice orals yesterday in class definitely helped me think of things to say today, and I’d probably be much worse off without it.

oral draft outline

Oral presentation:

• The story depicts Guy’s frustration and anger, inferiority complex, jealousy, sexual frustration, and deteriorating relationship with his wife alongside a main plot involving his failing status as a man and how his son continues to succeed education-wise
• Dramatically, the story had scenes where Guy would internally reflect on his relationship with his wife in an objectively sexual manner, which i thought should be expanded on more, as it briefly mentions how he could “easier imagine his son’s mouth on her nipple instead of his own”. I wanted to explore this more, which had a side effect of a more original script
• Between page-stage, the hardest part about it was trying to get into character, as well as making it seem less monotonous or “same old story” every scene.

final draft reflection

I think I made some really good progress between the first project to creating this script and drafting it to the final piece which we shot yesterday (3/8/17). I think a lot of issues remained, but they’ve mostly been fixed or at least, less obvious and severe. One big point of improvement was definitely in my memorization of the lines, so I could focus more on the acting and how to properly portray my character, which was a persistent issue between Romeo and Juliet to this project. I think a lot of this was helped because we had to develop almost all of the script from scratch, as it was based off an idea which was briefly mentioned in the text and not extensively explored or touched on in the source. Because of this, the originality of the lines and flow of the scene itself was easier to understand and memorize, as the first project mostly had us taking lines from the text and simply rearranging it a little.

The scene itself was based on the brief passages in A Wall of Fire Rising, where Guy looks as his wife as they prepare for bed at night, and reflects on his relationship with her, how it has adapted and heavily transformed over the years. The problem was, while this was a topic or idea I wanted to explore and think about more, there just wasn’t a lot of source material to go off of. This might come with the drawback where our characters might be a little too one-dimensional, with Lili being too overbearing or caring too much for their son, or Guy too aggressive and switching between apologetic or angry and only those emotions.

Some other stuff that could use improvement would be inflection, facial expressions, and projecting my voice. I definitely had a lot of issues with projecting at certain points, and I felt like my facial expressions, and emotional tone in general, was inconsistent/didn’t flow naturally/was too neutral for most of the scene. I think I definitely was doing a lot better and made a lot of progress since the first scene. Somehow, I gained a little confidence between then and now, and having that small boost helped me get through this project, and I’m pretty proud that I didn’t flub to the point where I had to read off my script during the filmed scene like last time.

school of rock review

I saw School of Rock on Saturday, and it was a lot better than I expected. I had originally gone with a negative mindset of, “Oh gosh, I have to take time out of my weekend to go to this dumb play.” Thankfully, I did leave with a much more positive mindset. As I had enjoyed the play, it was definitely not time wasted.

Having not seen the movie in over 10 years, I’m afraid I can’t really compare it to the movie, but I still thoroughly enjoyed the production.

Pros:

The actors seemed to all really enjoy playing their parts, and I didn’t notice any flubs. The songs were catchy and flowed pretty well, there wasn’t a jarring transition from speaking to singing. The plot progressed well and made some sense, save for the odd hiccup of Dewie and Ms. Mollins going to the bar (coffee shop?) together and listening to rock music. The choreography for the songs matched up with what was being sung.

Cons:

The lights fading to black, then rising to blue during transitions was a little frustrating at first, but made sense as there were no curtains. It just felt jarring to sit in total darkness and have it fade to a dim midnight before fading back to black and rising up fully. A large frustration of mine was a lot of the political or modern humor, especially jokes regarding Trump. While I understand they are relevant modern topics, they mostly felt out of place and forced to elicit some laughs from the audience. Another moment of awkwardness was around Dewie and Ms. Mollins’ relationship. While I know the original movie involves a kiss between the two, and I completely understand if both were too uncomfortable with kissing, simply substituting the kiss with a hug instead felt incomplete. The disjoint between the implicit romantic dialogue and the stiff and forced way both actors ended up hugging each other was jarring and a disconcerting to watch, as up to this point the actors had all moved naturally. A minor nitpick was that the actors did not have stellar synchronization while doing the choreography for some of the songs, and it seemed to me that some actors weren’t entirely sure on WHAT the choreography was, especially near the end.

reflection/weekly progress post

This week we worked on finalizing our script and working on some of the blocking. On friday (2/24/17) we did a dry run and read from our scripts and acted a little on an empty stage. Here’s some feedback I got
The argument over the song felt a little trivial
Blocking/setting was realistic and good
Smoother emotional transitions needed, otherwise pretty steady
Talking is slower since the R+J project, but still needs a little less speed to be perfect
Work on body movements to play the part of a man better (personally I think wearing the skirt didn't help)
A few longer pauses between lines
Good chemistry/balance/volume/dynamic between actors/characters
How is time passing? Explain?
A little more physical contact
Arguments need variation instead of being the same stuff yelled over and over
Work on varying tone when speaking, be more affirmative, “im the man” speech felt forced.
Actually get physical when shaking lili, otherwise youre breaking character
Practice with props, empty set made the whole thing feel weirdly hollow
Dont break character
“Do you still love me?” At the end was too quiet to be impactful
Wording of some lines needs work to make more grammatical sense
More confidence when yelling at lili

Overall I think the feedback I got from today was a big improvement over the feedback I got from playing Friar Lawrence in the first half of the year. I still need to personally work on solidifying the character and mannerisms of Guy but I do a good job of contrasting with his wife. I still speak a little too fast and at some times too quietly but it’s a marked improvement compared to the last project of this nature. I think a lot of that stems from working with a more responsive partner as well as the script itself being something more original and collaborative rather than feeling as if I were acting the part of a character using wor someone else had written. I also seem to have potentially gained a little confidence or experience from the last project as some of the feedback received pointed at some of my biggest issues being somewhat resolved (mainly speaking too fast and unconfidently).

script (featuring prop list, costumes, lighting cues, and a few sfx)

Costumes:

Lili: long floral skirt, simple top, scarfs

Guy: oversized dress shirt, ‘peasant’ pants

Props:

• blanket baby
• bed
• box with blankets for baby
• pillows
• radio

Scene 1

Scene begins with Guy and Lili in bed, the stage is in darkness

Lili

(Assertive, not angry)

Please, Guy, not tonight—

Guy

What? What do you mean?

Lili

We can't, I’m not feeling well…

Lights come up just enough to see , but not bright as they don't have electricity.

Guy

Should we call for the neighbors, do you need a doctor?

Lili

No. It's not necessary

Guy

Then why can't I—

Lili

I-I’m with child, I haven't bled. I was sick before you woke this morning, and last week as well, I know it's true.

Guy

Are you sure? What do you mean by “sick”?

Lili

My stomach, I haven’t been able to keep down breakfast in days. And my head, it aches every time I look at the sun. Simply walking pains me.

Guy

Alright, when do you suspect it will come?

Lili

Perhaps during harvest. Thankfully, you’ll be working, and we will have food.

Guy

That's fine.

Awkward silence

Lili

Are you not pleased?

Guy

No, I am, it’s good news.

Guy reaches to embrace her. Lili suddenly pulls away from him in pain.

Lili

I’m sorry, I...feel unwell.

She turns away, trying not to heave. More awkward silence follows.

Lili

(Hesitant) I think I'll be alright, let’s just rest for tonight.

Guy

(Stares at his wife while mostly preoccupied with worry about their finances) Okay.

Lili

Good-night, my love.

Guy

Mm, you too.

Lights fade to black

---

Scene 2

Lili stands over a crib, quietly humming a lullaby with the child in her arms. She places the baby in the crib and walks over to bed where Guy is already lying down, awake.

Lili

Goodnight Little Guy, sleep well. We need to do all we can to give him more than we had.

Guy

What do you mean? He just an infant, what more could need besides what he already has?

Lili

We need to think ahead, education is expensive, we need to put aside money now. Can you talk to Mr. Assad about getting more work?

Guy

I am already asking for more work than all the other men, I can't ask for anything more.

Lili

Guy, it can't hurt to ask.

Guy

No, it's not worth the risk to seem so needy all the time.

Lili

Guy, put aside your pride for once and think about our home, our baby. I am telling you to ask tomorrow.

awkward silence no. 3, Lili gets up in frustration to check on the child

Guy

Did we wake the child? (Heavy sigh) Perhaps you’re right, I will ask Mr. Assad for extra work tomorrow.

Lili

Thank you, it’d be so wonderful to have any extra money.

Guy

However, it's very unlikely. We shouldn't plan for anymore than what we have now.

Lili puts the baby down and returns to bed.

Lili

Well, we will know by tomorrow.

Guy

Don't get your get hopes up, Lili, we can't afford anymore disappointment.

Lili

What do you mean disappointment?

Awkward silence, the two look away from each other, Guy looks back at Lili however she is still turned the other way.

Lili

(Impatient) What do you mea-

Guy

(shouting) Lili, that's enough.

The baby wakes up and starts wailing (sound) Lili stares at Guy, stunned by his aggression, then shakes her head in disbelief. She walks towards the baby and the scene fades to black as Lili cradles the bay and sings to it. Guy stands on the other side of the stage looking away. As the lights fade, Guy stands with a single spotlight on him. His face shows regret and frustration.

---

Scene 3

Scene opens in the bedroom, with the baby box moved offstage before the lights go up. The pair are listening to a radio, arguing between music and sleeping. Lili is humming to the song and Guy is prepared for bed. The song ends just as the lights settle in. The music quietly plays in the background of the scene.

Guy:

Lili, we should sleep now.

Lili

Just one more song, I've a had long day. The music helps me to relax.

Guy

(under his breath) You've had a long day?

Lili hears him, music still plays in the background. Lili slowly turns towards him.

Lili

Yes. I did.

Guy

I meant no offense. I just.. I worked all day. I need to sleep. I can’t sleep when the radio is on.

Lili

I spent my day raising our son, taking care of the home. Just as I do everyday...alone—

Guy

(somewhat cutting her off) I know.

Lili

(Snappy. A little sassy) Do you really?

Guy

(Sighs) Yes. Please, let's just sleep… Please.

Lili

One more song.

Lili turns up the music and closes her eyes. She slowly waltzes by herself. Guy leaves the room, obviously displeased. Lili doesn’t react to his frustration. The lights fade to black. The music stays on during the blackout for a few seconds, then fades.

---

Scene 4

The lights fade up quickly. Lili storms in while Guy trails behind her, clearly peeved by her yelling.

Lili

(On the verge of tears) I can not believe you did that! He bled. That was too far.

Lili runs to the bed and sits down, sobbing into her hands. Guy tries to apologize and touch her shoulder, and she violently pushes him away in her anger.

Lili

(Yelling) DO NOT touch me!!!!

Guy

Lili, he needs to learn. It's what our parents did to us! Why should he be raised any different?

Lili

When we had this child we promised to never be like our parents. We promised to give him more. We wanted to give him the future they couldn’t.

Guy

I just-

Lili

We want to give him a future, not hit him.

Guy

Please sto-

Lili

I mean, what does violence really teach him? What does hitting him tell him about compassion or love.

Guy

Stop-

The tension builds until they are both talking over each other. Finally-

Guy

Grabs Lili by the shoulders and aggressively throttles her, her crying stops.

BE QUIET!

Lili stares at Guy in shock, before sobbing even harder. She turns away from him.

Guy

(With strong regret) Lili...

Lili

No.

Guy

(Stuttering in disbelief) I..I didn't.. I didn't mean it. I don't know. I just got so-

Lili turns back towards him and looks him in the eye.

Lili

How dare you. (Whimpering) You are not the man I married.

Guy

Lili.. I’m.. I’m sorry.

Lili

You are...angry. You're aggressive. You aren't there for your son. You aren't there for me. You don't support the family. We’re hungry, tired. Your son barely knows you. (Moment of silence) I can't… I don't love you anymore.

Guy

(Suddenly angry again)

You're not perfect yourself, so you shouldn’t expect me to be.

Lili

Excuse me? Everything I do is for our son. We both promised a better life for him, just because he has more opportunities than you-

Guy

(Cuts her off)

Don't you dare accuse me of jealousy.

Lili

(Yelling) You know it’s true-

Guy

(Yells over her)

I said, be quiet, Lili!

Lili

(Staring at him) You've probably woken him up again. (Leaves quickly)

Lights fade and a spotlight stays on Guy. The spotlight slowly fades as he stares in Lili’s direction.

End scene

---

Scene 5

Lili and Guy are together in the house. Lili is tidying up the bedroom while Guy

tries to make small talk.

Guy

I bought some flowers from the women down the street. I left them on the table.

Lili doesn't respond, she is clearly ignoring him. She doesn't look his way.

Guy

Tries again

I talked to Mr. Assad about getting a day off next week to spend time with you and Little Guy.

Lili

(Curtly)

You shouldn't, we need the money.

Guy

I just thought it would be good-

Lili

It wouldn't be. You need to work.

Guy

Alright. Would you like me to buy some vegetables after work for dinner tonight?

Lili

No, I will go.

Guy sits in silence, clearly upset. A few moments go by.

Guy

Do you love me anymore?

Lili looks at him, looks into his eyes, then turns away. She leaves the room and stops just before the door. She hesitates to respond but ends up leaving in silence. Guy sits alone.

Guy gets up and tries to tidy the room, but doesn’t really accomplish anything. The lights fade out.