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Sample Ethnographic Play and
Monologues for Performance
An adventure in Ethno-Playography
The Play and Monologues
Classic Mediterranean Woman
Spirited Family Empowerment
By Anne Hart
If you wish to perform this play (at no cost to me), please p class="MsoPlainText"> email me at writeathon-reviews@yahoo.com for permission. See
below my published book on writing plays, skits, and
monologues from life stories and beyond. This is a work of
fiction. All names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in
this play are the products of the author’s imagination or are
used fictitiously. My Web site is at http://annehart.tripod.com.
There also are links at the Web site to articles, blogs, excerpts,
lists, and resources.
The Play for Performances (at no cost to author)
The Play and Monologues
Classic Mediterranean Woman
Spirited Family Empowerment
By Anne Hart
List of Characters in this Play:
Meir Cohen Levi, Father of Hadara and Husband of Tsipke
Hadara Cohen Levi, Baby in first chapter, then 9-year old girl,
first person as narrator.
Benjamin, son of Meir
Tsipke, the mother of Hadara
The Arab Sheik as Hadara’s first husband,
*Ahmed (not his real name)
Eric* (not his real name), Hadara’s second husband
Mrs. Hesk, an older neighbor with a Yiddish accent
Anne Hart
Hadara’s two children as five-year olds:
Fawzi,
Samira
Hadara’s two children as young adults: (17–20 age group)
Fawzi,
Samira
Sales clerk
In-laws:
Samintov
Mazeltov
Darlene, college friend of Hadara
Black Man, in Subway
Goldie, Darlene’s mother
Classmates, 8th and 9th grade, ages 13 and 14
Neighbors
Paramedic
Friends
Act I
Ext. Brooklyn, N.Y., Rainy Day, November 1941
AS CURTAIN RISES, WE SEE THE FRONT OF THE
CONEY ISLAND APARTMENT BUILDING WHERE MEIR
in front of his brick, four-family apartment house tries to
adjust the lens on his box camera. He reacts to the invisible
wind that slashes his face, covering his white hair and beard
with his hands as his breath quickens in anger.
Whippet-wiry MEIR (age 47), a janitor, is dressed in patched
janitor’s coveralls. From inside the house echoes of Bach peal
through the apartment and can be heard outside. OFFSTAGE
WHERE HEAR THE SOUND EFFECTS OF A SUBWAY
elevator line grinding by, drowning out the phonograph music.
TSIPKE (38), his wife, carries in one arm her blanketed two-
week old daughter, HADARA. In her other arm, she tries to
balance a bouquet of American Beauty roses.
The blanket keeps blowing over the baby’s face as TSIPKE
fidgets to straighten the blanket. The baby’s nerve-shattering
cry pierces the wind.
TSIPKE
Hurry and take the picture.
The baby’s turning blue from the cold weather.
TSIPKE shouts at MEIR. And the shouts seem to be coming
from a horde of women, SCREAMING together in fury.
We see the open mouth of TSIPKE. Her voice becomes an
indistinguishable roar of needy demand as loud as the wind.
MEIR tries to focus the camera once more. TSIPKE smiles
and tries to pose as he fidgets with the lens.
TSIPKE yells again and again, like a compelling tattoo.
TSIPKE
The baby’s freezing, you jerk.
MEIR
Shut up! Damn it.
I’m trying to keep the lens from getting dusty.
TSIPKE
Hurry up, neurotic. She can’t breathe. What are you standing
there for, got your thumb up your butt?
MEIR’S temper cracks, and he lets fly with a right hook to her
left chest. The baby slides from the blanket into a puddle of
rain on the sidewalk. MEIR can’t stop punching his wife. The
deep, red American Beauty roses scatter in the rain near the
baby’s head.
Darkened Stage
New Scene
Lights Come on. Spotlight on the Darkened Bedroom.
Int. Nov. 1950, Same Brooklyn Apartment
Night
HADARA lies awake next to her mother in the rutted double
bed in which they both sleep. MEIR, in the next bedroom,
sleeps in twin beds with his 22-year old son, BENJAMIN. It’s
three in the morning. Outside the window WE HEAR THE
SOUND EFFECTS OF the grinding subway train as it passes
on its way from Coney Island. There’s the sound of squealing
metal cars as the train turns on the elevator line track.
TSIPKE
Remember when we played suffering?
I’d rub your belly, and your doll would be delivered like a baby?
TSIPKE laughs and hacks her cigarette cough.
HADARA rolls over, pulling her mass of hair from her eyes.
HADARA
Mom, are you a worrywart?
TSIPKE
No. Do I look that nervous?
TSIPKE pops the muscle up in her biceps to show how strong
her muscles are.
HADARA
I’m tired of hearing about your lack of romance. I’m sick of
your hands all over me playing “having a baby.” It’s always
either how your mom gave you away when you were two, or,
where daddy is off to by himself.
TSIPKE
Your father gave me gonorrhea. Where do you think he got it,
in France during World War One?
HADARA
I’m not interested any more in listening to your complaints
about daddy or your life story and how you ate out of garbage
cans as a kid, or how dad’s job is mopping toilets in the Navy
yard. You just talk, but you don’t change anything.
TSIPKE
You’re nine today. You have to know.
HADARA
No, I don’t. The radiator dried out the air again. Now my nose
and throat’s raw.
MEIR tiptoes out of his bedroom and crawls into bed with
his wife.
MEIR
Move over.
What’s the kid doing up so late?
HADARA
What are you doing here?
MEIR ignores her and takes off his pajamas, climbing into
bed to make love to his wife.
Ethno-Playography
HADARA
Get out of here.
TSIPKE
Leave the kid, alone, MEIR.
MEIR
You kicking me out of bed?
MEIR hesitates for a moment. TSIPKE is silent.
HADARA
I want to go back to sleep.
MEIR
Shut up, you tramp.
HADARA
Don’t call me a tramp on my birthday.
MEIR
(Outraged)
Better you should be crippled.
You should have been born a boy.
TSIPKE
She says she got a high IQ
MEIR
I’ll smash you one, you piece of garbage.
MEIR hurries his pajamas back on and storms out of the
bedroom looking for something to smash. He finds a
hammer in the living room and begins to smash all the keys
on HADARA’s piano. TSIPKE gets up and follows him into
the living room.
TSIPKE
Stop. I saved for months to buy that old piano. My daughter’s
a talented artist.
When MEIR finishes smashing the piano keys, he goes for
HADARA’s violin. MEIR puts his foot through the violin.
HADARA cries.
TSIPKE jumps out of bed.
TSIPKE
All the kid’s birthday presents!
MEIR
I’ll teach you.
MEIR, having smashed the violin, finally storms into the
bathroom where HADARA’s new puppy is sleeping in its
basket and holds the puppy’s belly against the hot radiator
pipe in the bathroom until it stops whimpering.
The more HADARA CRIES, the more TSIPKE backs away
from her. MEIR comes out of the bathroom with his hammer
in hand and begins to chase HADARA around the living
room and into the kitchen, waving the hammer over his head.
MEIR
If I catch you, I’ll cripple you.
Heads will roll before you’ll become a tramp and shame me.
HADARA (sobbing)
I’m sorry. I’m sorry, daddy.
MEIR
Better you should be a cripple then to be born a girl and make
trouble.
TSIPKE follows MEIR into the kitchen and lights a cigarette,
making the motions of heating up water for coffee.
TSIPKE
Leave the kid alone.
MEIR (Raging)
I should have flushed her out into the bay with the condom
before she was conceived. Better such a dog wasn’t born.
TSIPKE
If I have to get up for a second cigarette …
Damn, those cigarettes are choking me.
But you two fighting all the time are driving me to smoke.
MEIR takes a swing at HADARA, but misses. HADARA darts
out the kitchen and dashes through the living room and out
the front door, running down the apartment steps to the
basement. She hurries down the cellar steps with MEIR,
chasing behind, hammer swinging over his head.
In the darkness of the cellar, MEIR chases HADARA. She
squeezes her body into a partially-filled co&1 bin, hiding
behind an old barrel. HADARA covers herself with coal.
MEIR peers around for a moment, wild-eyed. He wipes the
sweat from his upper lip on his pajama sleeve.
MEIR
If I catch you, you die.
HADARA watches him from between the wide slats of the
coal bin as he swings his hammer overhead. MEIR passes a
basement worktable and puts down his hammer only to pick
up an ax. He slaps the ax broadside across his thigh several
times. Then he sighs and puts the ax back on the table.
Finally, exhausted, MEIR plods up the wooden stairs. The
apartment door closes with a bang.
Int. Kitchen Brooklyn Apartment. Same Night
TSIPKE
(staccato voice)
No sooner did I put the baby on your lap then you told me to
take her off because she gave you an erection. Your temper is
only a bad habit. Why is it necessary to transfer your stress to
me? Why isn’t it important that you add to my life span?
MEIR
You keep hounding me just because your step father came
into your room to have sex with you when you went upstate
to visit your mother.
TSIPKE
He’s your richest brother. Besides, I told him to get out. You
didn’t see him grabbing an ax or hammer.
MEIR
Girls only make trouble. You know how many times I asked
the doctor to check to make sure-maybe he made a mistake-
maybe she was a boy.
TSIPKE
Is that why you never held a conversation with your own
daughter? You never smiled.
Not once in your whole life did she ever hear you laugh,
except at her.
MEIR
What about you going into your son’s room to massage his
feet every morning and comb his hair?
TSIPKE
I’m a mother.
MEIR
He’s twenty-two. You’re overbearing.
TSIPKE
And you’re a cold fish. The only passion I ever see is anger.
If that’s the only way you can get power, I’m going back to
bed.
She turns around.
TSIPKE
Where’s the kid?
MEIR
In the coal bins again.
Let her rot in hell down there.
MEIR staggers back to bed. TSIPKE sits on her bed with the
light on, smoking cigarettes and reading old newspapers.
Darken Stage or Curtain.
New Scene:
Int. Basement Morning
HADARA peaks out of the basement window and scratches
off some of the frost. She watches MEIR go off to work,
walking toward the subway station. Then she climbs the
stairs back to the apartment and knocks on the door.
TSIPKE opens the door wearing a stained and disheveled robe.
TSIPKE
Benjamin just had a fight with me over you making too much
noise. And he broke a lamp over my arm. I dared him to do it.
HADARA
Does daddy know?
TSIPKE
I had to tell him.
So now he smashed your brother’s typewriter right before his
term paper is due.
HADARA
I’m too tired to go to school today.
HADARA slowly walks through the foyer, passing and
looking at her dead canary in its small bird cage.
TSIPKE
It caught a cough.
You’ll have to take it down to the garbage cans.
HADARA
Aw, no!
HADARA runs into the bedroom. TSIPKE follows her.
TSIPKE
Listen, you little mouse, want to go shopping?
HADARA
Don’t you have anything better to do?
TSIPKE goes back into the kitchen and begins to fry eggs.
HADARA comes into the kitchen. TSIPKE puts down a heel
of rye bread for HADARA and some hot cocoa and corn
flakes.
Darkened Stage, Curtain
New Scene:
In a department store near a counter with women’s costume
jewelry, lingerie, and cheap cologne …
Int. Department Store, Brooklyn Day
TSIPKE and HADARA walk through the department store.
TSIPKE shoplifts baubles and silken wisps of lingerie, cheap
cologne, and boxes of face powder, rhinestone costume
jewelry and lipsticks. When no one is in the ladies room, she
taker in clothing and stuffs the items into her panties.
HADARA sneers.
TSIPKE
So that’s why I wear incontinence panties. Bet you can’t
pronounce it.
HADARA
I don’t want any of the beads or perfume. You’ve cursed them.
You’ve given them the evil eye. We’ll get bad luck.
Why do you take things in tiny sizes, when you’re shaped like
an apple?
TSIPKE enters the toilet cubicle.
TSIPKE
(banging on the wall)
Your father gives me three dollars a day.
How else can I live like a lady instead of a woman?
HADARA
I won’t wear that crap.
TSIPKE (handing her clothes under the stall)
Here, stuff this into your panties.
HADARA
No! How come women of grandma’s generation never went to
school in the old country?
And how come you dropped out in the fifth grade?
TSIPKE
I was born at the turn of the century.
HADARA
So were a lot of famous women scientists.
TSIPKE drags whining HADARA into the fitting room with
some of the dresses and items tucked inside of three dresses
because the sign says only three garments are allowed in the
dressing room at one time.
In front of the mirror, TSIPKE tries on bras, slips, and
clothing under her own clothes. But all she brings out are the
three dresses she took in with her and hands them to the
clerk. The rest are stashed on her person.
TSIPKE (to sales clerk)
These dresses aren’t the right size.
TSIPKE leads HADARA by the hand into the shoe
department to pick out a pair of school shoes for her. They sit
down to rest in the shoe department. A salesman approaches.
HADARA points to a pair of saddle shoes and the salesman
retrieves the shoes. The SALESMAN tries to lace the saddle
shoe on HADARA’S toot.
SHOE SALESMAN
Well, little girl. Give me that skinny foot, here.
HADARA
Leave me alone, you!
HADARA whispers in his ear and runs out of the shoe
department.
SHOE SALESMAN
That filthy-mouthed kid …
I wonder where she learned that expression.
Embarrassed, TSIPKE gets up and leaves to chase after
HADARA. She catches up with her and slaps her so hard she
gets a bloody nose. TSIPKE buys a towel and makes
HADARA keep it on her nose.
TSIPKE
Don’t make me hit you.
Because if I do, I’ll kill you.
HADARA
He didn’t have to call me skinny.
TSIPKE
Horse-face! Why did you say that word to him in this place?
HADARA
He meant I was ugly.
TSIPKE (Staring at HADARA’S feet)
You wore those old, dirty socks?
HADARA
It’s from the coal bin.
TSIPKE
You’re beginning to stink just like your old man who’s never
taken a bath since World War One.
Darkened Stage or Curtain End of Scene.
***
New Scene:
Back At Home.
Afternoon.
HADARA is reading two comic books, “The Vault of Horror”
and “The Crypt of Terror. Mother and daughter are riding
home, seated on the subway.
HADARA
See my scar? I don’t know where you
Stop and I begin anymore.
TSIPKE
So?
HADARA
Your curse and evil eye made me fall over that fence last
summer.
The year before, I got a fish hook in my leg.
TSIPKE
So it was my curse, was it? Does that explain the eight stitches
they had to take in your chin? Now that you’re a scar face, only
the worse kind of man will want to marry you.
HADARA
That stuff you took. It brings me bad luck.
TSIPKE
Then don’t touch it.
HADARA
I want to enroll myself in Hebrew School on Monday. Nobody
talks to me in class in public school. I don’t have any friends.
And when I told the teacher, she gave me an “F” in personal
relationships.
Fadeout to a Darkened Stage
Curtain Descends: End Of Scene.
***
New Scene
Tsipke’s Apartment—1955—Day
HADARA
I’m damn tired of your analyzing me.
TSIPKE
Maybe I should go back to
buying corporate high-yield bonds?
HADARA
(turns TSIPKE to mirror)
Go ahead, look at yourself stuffing negligees into old ladies
incontinence panties.
TSIPKE
You think I wanted you?
HADARA
You hate kids, don’t you?
TSIPKE
No. Damn you. I’m desperately lonely.
Are you worth the three dollars a day your old man flings at me?
HADARA
Are you?
You’ve never gone back to school after the fifth grade.… never
had a job, you lazy blimp.
TSIPKE
Why did you have to be born just as I was about to divorce
your father?
HADARA
I hate weak mothers.
TSIPKE
A lady has a husband rich enough to support her. A woman
has to work because she can’t get a good enough man.
HADARA
Only failures marry.
TSIPKE
Think I wanted you?
I’m only taking care of you because your father made it my
responsibility.
HADARA
What do you get from stealing … some kind of sexual
excitement?
TSIPKE
What do you mean, sex?
I haven’t had any since you were born.
HADARA
Do I have to know that?
TSIPKE
Horse face!
Your father hasn’t had a bath since the end of World War One.
HADARA
Is that why you’re always saying he’s a disabled veteran?
TSIPKE pauses a beat, looking disgusted. Then she slaps
HADARA across the face. She retracts in horror.
HADARA
How the hell was I ever conceived?
TSIPKE
My father paid us a visit.
HADARA
What has that got to do with it?
TSIPKE
I was so happy to see him,
I gave him my room and went to sleep in your father’s room.
HADARA
Did Benjamin watch the bang?
TSIPKE
(looking down)
He was sleeping, I guess.
HADARA
I wished daddy was proud of me.
TSIPKE
A caring man prefers olive oil instead of butter.
HADARA
See this scar on my face?
TSIPKE
What about the lightning you carved on my face?
HADARA
You called me horse face.
TSIPKE
But you are as ugly as your father.
HADARA
I don’t look ugly.
I look Semitic.
How come it’s okay to be Jewish but not to look Jewish?
TSIPKE
What’s Jewish supposed to look like—the models in the
fashion magazines?
HADARA
(grimacing-squeezing her eyelids to narrow slips, baring her
teeth in a wide grin … jutting her head and shoulders forward)
Like this!
Ethno-Playography
TSIPKE
Ridiculous. Jewish girls look like any other girl living in the
place in which they live. You’ve fallen for cartoon stereotypes.
Don’t waste time hating yourself. You’re still a horse-face like
your old man. But it has nothing to do with what words your
great granny said when praying. Better get yourself an exciting
career because no man worth money will want you.
HADARA
I got that scar because you cursed me.
(shaking her mother)
Take it off. Take off the evil eye, damn it!
TSIPKE
You had no right to throw a protractor in my face.
HADARA
Your evil eye made me fall over that fence in the schoolyard
and split my face open.
TSIPKE
You lost your balance because you were playing with A Syrian
girl. She’s a jinx to you because of some previous life.
HADARA
We were nine years old.
TSIPKE
I told you time and time again that people who are not the
same as us are bad luck when we try to be them. When we
can’t see the boundaries, we don’t know where we end and
where they begin.
HADARA
No, it was your evil-eyed curse.
TSIPKE
She was with you when it happened. I wasn’t anywhere near
there.
HADARA
You linked minds with me when I threw the protractor at you.
Or was it a compass?
TSIPKE
I didn’t throw my mother’s evil eye. It was karma.
HADARA
You’re all crazy makers. All those churches you go to, those
clubs, the gypsies you visit in storefronts to gab.
TSIPKE
I’m lonely. You did something bad to Syrians in a past life.
That’s why they’re bad luck to you now.
HADARA
The girl simply asked me to pretend the janitor was chasing us.
TSIPKE
The little bitch didn’t take your side, did she?
She forced you to climb the fence.
HADARA
I’d do anything for her friendship.
TSIPKE
It was her fantasy, not yours.
Can’t you see? It was her karma cursing you.
HADARA
Stop, already.
We shouldn’t even bring back her name.
She’s a jinx.
Your father’s mother’s eye, those people from Bialystock, the
musicians who played with the Klezmorim, they will put the
curse of the evil on anyone who commits evil.
TSIPKE
How should I know?
Of course she’s a jinx.
Maybe she put a curse on all of us.
Isn’t it odd that her brother-in-law turned out
to be the lawyer for the
city and we lost the case?
HADARA
We make our own choices.
TSIPKE
I had to pay all the
lawyer’s costs.
HADARA
I’ve got to change my name.
TSIPKE
Why do you let strangers torture you?
Isn’t it enough you have this family?
HADARA
Why did you tell me the Japanese
were bombing New York
when I was three?
TSIPKE
Such trouble, such complications
from you, horse face.
HADARA
That’s my first memory.
You enjoyed making me sweat
and tremble.
TSIPKE
I could feel your father
moving inside my body.
HADARA
But it was me in your arms.
TSIPKE
Now your mind has the strength of
ten men.
HADARA
Dad keeps saying he wished he’d
flushed me into the bay.
TSIPKE
I’d be free,
if only I sent your brother
to the drug store for rubbers.
HADARA
Free to do what—make lopsided
ash trays in your ceramics class?
TSIPKE
You think your soul can be
flushed through your dad’s
kidneys?
HADARA
If you knew how much
I hate being female.
TSIPKE
The day I married, I
wrote in my diary
“Today I died.”
HADARA
Then stop saying I’m killing you.
TSIPKE
Your old man read it
back to me with
tears in his eyes.
We were on the honeymoon
train to Miami.
HADARA
He opened your secret diary?
TSIPKE
Girls make trouble.
HADARA
Emotions make trouble.
My only need is to
get rid of them.
TSIPKE
Through the storms of hell,
I curse you to be logical.
You’ll get your wish …
in your husband.
HADARA
Why are you afraid to be Jewish? Polish Jewish, I mean?
TSIPKE
Shut up.
They’ll getcha.
HADARA
You’re a holocaust survivor,
aren’t you, mom. Aren’t you?
Why don’t you ever talk about it?
TSIPKE
The second generation mustn’t know.
HADARA
Would it really have made a difference?
TSIPKE
They said I had the map of
Jerusalem printed on my face.
HADARA
You were beaten by strangers
that didn’t even know your name.
TSIPKE
They were biting my tits off.
And I was screaming that my hair is black because I’m from
Babylon.
HADARA
What did you do with the fear, pass it onto me?
TSIPKE
I bleached my hair, and changed my name.
HADARA
People change with time.
TSIPKE
You think it’s a joke?
HADARA
I’ll tell you where
the holocaust is, mom.
It’s inside this dump.
TSIPKE
Don’t belittle the holocaust.
I take your father’s and brother’s slaps like a soldier.
HADARA
And all you do is nag and laugh at him … and complain.
But nothing changes.
I’m growing up to fear all men.
He says you’re overbearing.
TSIPKE
Your brother is my life.
You’re father is always at his flower shows.
And I’m all alone, except for you.
So would you lighten up?
HADARA
I’ll laugh at my own pain
if I want to, walrus-face,
manatee-hips … guilt complex.
TSIPKE
You have a moustache.
HADARA
Thanks for reminding me.
TSIPKE
Hey, what the hell
did you ever do for me?
Curtain and/or Light Fade Out
***
Act II
New Scene:
Jr. High School Classroom Fall 1955 Day
It is the fall of 1955 at a public junior high school in Brooklyn.
HADARA (age 13) sits in a classroom that is made up of mostly
Syrian Jewish students whose parents are recent immigrants
from either Syria or Syria by way of Latin America.
It is break time in home room, when students are free to chat.
JUSTA, (13) and Seeley (13) are Syrian Pampered princesses
who sit in the surrounding seats near HADARA.
These girls are so wealthy they make uptown Jewish
princesses look like paupers. They all live around Ocean
Parkway, the wealthiest street in Flatbush, in private homes
as big as mansions.
HADARA at 13 is a short, skinny girl with waist-length black
hair in corkscrew curls and pale green eyes hidden behind
coke-bottle thick eyeglasses.
HADARA
Why can’t I join your sorority?
The Megaz looks like a lot of fun.
JUSTA
You have to be Syrian to join.
HADARA
Well what if I said I was a Syrian Jewish Princess who spent all
day shopping and had a big house like you instead of a two-
room apartment?
JUSTA
You ain’t got any Syrian name or Syrian money.
HADARA
That means nothing.
What if I had a Syrian bio father and a Polish Jewish step
father or somethin’?
JUSTA
I haven’t seen you around any Syrian neighborhoods. You
don’t even live near our blocks. I’ve never seen you go to the
Syrian synagogue.
HADARA
How do you know what synagogue I go to?
Besides, my mom is so scared of being Jewish, she drags me to
churches.
She got beat up plenty just for looking like the stereotype.
JUSTA
Your family doesn’t hang around with our crowd at the Nobeh
parties we have on Saturday nights. You’re not even religious.
You wear lipstick. I’ve never seen you around before.
HADARA
Well, what if I hang around the Syrian center?
Suppose I insist I am Syrian and I want to join.
I have a special reason for wanting to join the Megaz.
I want to find a rich husband to cherish me.
What would I have to do to get in?
JUSTA
Pass initiation. You have to take off all your clothes in Seeley’s
closet and let her six-year old brother feel you up.
HADARA
I couldn’t do such a thing.
JUSTA
Did you ever let a boy feel you up?
Justa giggles and starts to chew on her snack.
HADARA
Is that your stupid initiation rites?
JUSTA
You have to take off your sweater and bra in Seeley’s closet and
walk into her living room and stand there while Tynie feels
you up.
HADARA
What about Seeley’s mother?
JUSTA
She’s in Florida for a week.
The maid finishes the ironing at two and leaves to go shopping.
We’re nearly fourteen.
We don’t need the maid to watch us every minute.
HADARA
If I take off my clothes
are you sure I can join the Megaz?
JUSTA
Do you want to join?
HADARA
You’re pretty weird.
Int. Seeley’s House
Seeley, Robrana, Wiley, and dusts, the leaders of the Megaz
sorority of Syrian Jewish junior high girls meets at Seeley’s
house on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn. All the girls are 13 and
go to the same junior high school.
No parent is present in the large, mansion-like private home.
The heavy, black maid is busy ironing clothes and walks out
a few minutes after all the girls arrive and settle down, ladylike
and quiet in the spacious, plush living room.
HADARA
I heard all of your parents come from one city in Syria—Aleppo.
Is it true the Aleppan Jews don’t hang around with the Jews
from Damascus?
Is it like the Litvaks and the Galicianas used to be fifty years
ago in Europe?
HADARA looks around the house, pacing the floor
nervously.
SEELEY
All I know is that we have two social centers.
One in Bensonhurst for the Damascenes.
And there’s one here for the Haleebees from Aleppo.
Our grandparents were born in Aleppo
My mom is from South America.
Seeley looks at JUSTA wide-eyed. The two girls exchange
glances and nudge one another’s elbows, smiling and giggling.
JUSTA
We’re all Syrians.
HADARA
Give me something proud to be a Litvak.
Of what can I be proud?
Of what I do instead of who I am?
Give me something proud to say about being a Litvak?
JUSTA
You can be proud you’re in the same classroom at school with
us and everyone else.
HADARA
Oh, so you do talk to me.
How come you don’t marry
Ashkenazi Jews from Europe?
You think Sephardics or Mizrahim are better or older?
Equal, but different, like men and women?
You think we’re self-styled Jews from Northern Europe?
Maybe you think we’re part Vikings and Asians.
JUSTA
We never saw you around our social center.
HADARA
I stood outside the Syrian synagogue on the holidays.
So, I hear Davie Joseph is practicing for his Bar Mitzvah.
He’s probably right next door.
JUSTA
Hadara, you know what you have to do.
It’s initiation time.
HADARA
Sure. Whereas your closet?
It’s dark in the hallway as HADARA enters Seeley’s huge
closet and takes off her sweater end undershirt.
She stays in there a long while, as the girls pass around plates
of Syrian pizza—cheese and spices melted on top of Pita
bread.
SEELEY
What are you doing in there so long?
HADARA
I’m ready.
After a long moment of torment, HADARA walks out in
nude-colored body suit from the waist up, clutching her
undershirt and sweeter to her undeveloped chest. Justa pulls
her sweater and undershirt out of her grip as HADARA
crosses her arms over her chest to hide her flat breasts.
Justa tosses her clothing high in the air to Seeley, then to
Robrana and to Wiley. The clothes continuously are tossed in
the air from girl to girl as if they were & volley ball.
ELLEY
Monkey in the middle.
The Polish girl plays a fiddle.
HADARA
Give me back my clothes. Please, girls.
HADARA paces around chasing after the girls, trying to form
same eye contest to get their attention and get her clothing
back. She keeps her hands crossed over her chest.
HADARA
Where’s your six-year old brother? You lied to me. He’s not here.
He’d probably tell your parents.
ELLEY
Hey, Seeley. Give her back her clothes.
Go on give it to her.
JUSTA
Oh, gee. All right. Here’s your sweater.
JUSTA tosses the sweater and HADARA reaches up to catch
her clothing in mid-air. The girls giggle loudly.
SEELEY
Look how small her breasts are. She’s as flat as a pancake.
HADARA’s back is toward the camera. The girls stop in their
tracks and all of them stare at HADARA’s naked chest as she
struggles to put her torn undershirt on and then her red
sweater.
JUSTA
We have no initiation rights to join the Megaz We just wanted
to see how crazy you’d act to get into our sorority.
HADARA
You really went and did it.
JUSTA
Why did you lie and keep insisting you were Syrian? I know
where you live, in a roachy apartment next to the subway and
not in the Syrian neighborhood.
HADARA
I’ll have to face you in school tomorrow and for the next three
years.
SEELEY
Crazy HADARA is really nuts enough to get naked to join our
club.
JUSTA
A Crazy HADARA.
You have to be born one of us to join.
JUSTA opens the door and shoves HADARA into the street.
She backs up and the four girls pace toward until HADARA
is standing at the curb. Then the girls toss her into the street
into the path of an oncoming car. The car brakes and comes
to a halt a few inches before hitting HADARA.
HADARA looks up only to see Avy Joseph, the Syrian Jewish
boy’ she has a crush on coming out of the Synagogue after
practicing for his Bar Mitzvah. Their eyes meet, but each
turns and quickly walks in two opposite directions, to
offstage. Avy is dressed in a prayer shawl and skull cap. He
had been practicing for his Bar Mitzvah.
The girls go back into the house, giggling and slam door shut.
HADARA is left standing on the curb in silence as Avy Joseph
approaches as he is on his way home nearby.
HADARA
Hello Avy. How’s school?
AVY
Pretty good.
AVY walks away quickly, not paying any attention to HADARA.
Soon a swarm of teenage girls leave the synagogue end catch
up to AVY as HADARA watches from a short distance away,
unnoticed. The girls crowd around AVY as he stands with
crossed legs, leaning on the fence of one of the areas upscale
homes chatting with them. He’s popular with the girls as they
smile and admire the dimples in his cheeks.
Darken Stage: Curtain.
End of Scene
***
New Scene:
Eight Years Later In Time:
Fade In:
August, 1963
Int.—Dance Hall—YMCA—New York City—Night
An uncrowded dance-hall floor is livened by classical
Flamenco guitar music. “El Judio” is playing—a Middle
Eastern-sounding wild, Flamenco dance.
HADARA swirls onto the dance floor, alone. She’s wearing
white, with long, fringy ear rings.
Her hands clap in the soft, seductive rhythms of southern
Spain, the beat builds in a crescendo with the music. Then
she begins to dance by herself.
The music grows louder, the dancing wilder as a crowd forms
around her. HADARA is now twenty-one years of age.
She’s a petite, slender woman with long black hair and dark,
compelling eyes.
Hadara finishes her dance. Someone puts on American dance
records of the sixties.
One man, MALEK, 28, a Lebanese exchange student walks
toward HADARA.
MALEK
Thanks for editing my technical manual.
HADARA
No sweat.
I doubt if I could write a book in Arabic.
MALEK
Hey, introduce me to that blonde who walked in with you.
MALEK points to HADARA’s girlfriend, ANDREA.
She’s a tall, buxom blonde.
HADARA
Sure. Oh, Andrea!
Meet an old friend—
Malek Edeen. He’s a good,
Druish boy from Beirut.
MALEK
That’s a Druze.
My religion is Druze, from Lebanon.
ANDREA
Hi! Has HADARA been writing your master’s thesis?
MALEK
Technical manuals.
Would you like to dance?
ANDREA
No. I’m supposed to meet this violin-playing Afghan
urologist.
MALEK
You look German.
Is that where you’re from?
ANDREA
I’m a Polish Jew from West First Street, near Coney Island
just as Cleopatra was from Alexandria, near Egypt.
HADARA
Malek, Andrea only dates foreign Jewish doctors from Asia.
ANDREA
The ones born here want wives whose fathers are rich enough
to set them up in business.
HADARA
She’s joking.
MALEK
Say, I have a friend who came from Syria only five days ago.
HADARA
And you want me to teach him English.
MALEK
He doesn’t speak a word.
HADARA
All I know in Arabic is “ya habeeby.”
MALEK
I’ll interpret.
HADARA and MALEK walk out of the dance hall to a quiet
area of the YMCA with lounge chairs and desks.
HADARA
What does he do for a living?
MALEK
He’s a year away from his doctorate in engineering.
HADARA
Hmm … a good provider.
MALEK
The guy speaks German.
He lived in Frankfort for the past six years.
HADARA
A doctor of engineering!
What kind?
MALEK
Mechanical.
Is that a good enough provider?
HADARA
That’s not as good as matching me to a military colonel.
But it’s easier than trying to marry a doctor in New York.
MALEK
Who said anything about marrying the guy?
HADARA
Oh, flesh out.
HADARA
What kind of a visa does he have?
MALEK
A thirty-day one.
HADARA
He’s desperate.
MALEK
How come you stopped dating me?
HADARA
You’re a mechanic.
I told you I’m looking to marry a professional.
MALEK
What would he see in you?
HADARA
Hey, we all go into marriage looking for a package deal.
MALEK
It’s a trade-off.
HADARA
The most successful guys still have to settle.
MALEK
And what are you peddling?
HADARA
I’m a college graduate … worked my way through.
What’s the least stressful job? That’s what I want.
MALEK
That won’t make you rich.
HADARA
Don’t I deserve a prince?
MALEK and HADARA meet up with AHMED HADDAD.
They shake hands.
MALEK
Well, here’s your sheik.
MALEK speaks in Arabic to AHMED, who nods, smiling.
The conversation is conducted entirely through MALEK, the
interpreter.
HADARA
Are you sure you’re an engineer?
MALEK
(in Arabic the translated in English by Malek)
Tell her what you do.
AHMED
(in Arabic, then translated in English by Malek)
I’m a mechanical engineer babysitting for an Arab family on
Long Island in exchange for a room.
MALEK
Tell her about you getting a doctorate in engineering.
AHMED
(in Arabic then translated by Malek in English)
I’ve got a year to go.
MALEK
What do you say we all go to chat in an all-night automat?
AHMED
Let’s shove off.
They head for the subway.
End of Scene: Curtain.
***
EXT. SUBWAY ENTRANCE
INT. SUBWAY
INT. AUTOMAT—NEW YORK—NIGHT
MALEK
Ahmed says he’s on a thirty-day visa and has to find a wife,
fast.
HADARA
Good luck.
AHMED
(in Arabic)
I want lots of children.
MALEK
He’s ready to start a family.
HADARA
Children only make a woman poor.
MALEK
He has no money.
HADARA
I don’t want to be dragged to the level of my husband’s job.
MALEK
Careful, Ahmed’s an aimed bullet.
HADARA
How ironic New York Jews aren’t invited to work in Lebanon.
MALEK
What brought that out?
HADARA
Imagine being arrested for looking convexed-nosed in a
Phoenician world where everybody else looks convexed rather
than perplexed.
MALEK
(looking at his watch)
Yallah! Look at the time.
The last bus leaves for Hoboken at three A.M.
I’ll walk you to the Times Square subway entrance.
They all rise and leave the eatery, walking to the Forty-
Second Street subway entrance. AHMED drapes his arm
around HADARA and she looks into his smiling eyes.
AHMED
(in German)
Do you speak any German?
HADARA
I only speak English.
Say … “I speak some English.”
AHMED
I speak some English.
HADARA
There. I’ll have you talking with a Brooklyn accent in three
months.
A clock in a store window reads 2:30 A.M. They look up at the
clock.
They reach the subway entrance. MALEK pays HADARA’s
subway fare, putting a token in the turnstile.
MALEK
Thanks for the English lesson.
MALEK pauses, looking down, then at his watch. He turns
and walks away. AHMED follows behind.
HADARA
What? Aren’t you two gentleman going to take this lady
home?
MALEK
(shouting back)
I’m talking Ahmed home.
There’s no way I’m missing the last bus.
MALEK storms off, shoving AHMED to hurry.
HADARA kicks the wall in the subway station.
HADARA
(shouting to Malek)
It’s an hour’s ride back to Coney Island.
End of Scene.
New Scene: Inside of Subway Car.
HADARA is wearing a fancy white dress and spike heels.
She takes the D-train to her Brooklyn station, KINGS
HIGHWAY.
Opposite her sits a middle-aged black man with a
frightening, badly-scarred face. He’s dressed in filthy, torn
clothes and wears a cap.
He smiles sardonically and stares at her during the entire
subway trip. HADARA closes her eyes and pretends to sleep
for most of the trip.
When the train stops at KINGS HIGHWAY, the black man
follows her, ducking behind the KINGS HIGHWAY station
sign when she turns around to see whether anyone’s
following her.
He hides. She isn’t aware he’s following her until she starts to
walk the short distance to her four-family apartment house.
The black man catches up to her by an open lot, just a few feet
from her house. He puts his hand on her shoulder and she
spins around to look into his frightening face.
BLACK MAN
Hi! baby.
HADARA gives him a look of terror. She bolts and makes a
run for it. We see her spike heels trying to run. Her tight skirt
hobbles her, and he catches up, grabbing her and throwing
her to the ground.
HADARA
My purse. Take it.
There’s only a dollar.
BLACK MAN
Shut up.
HADARA thrusts her cloth shoulder bag in his face. He grabs
it and tosses it in the lot. He drags her in the high weeds and
begins to strangle her.
HADARA closes her eyelids a splinter and pretends she’s
unconscious. He releases his thumbs from around her throat
as she makes herself limp.
BLACK MAN drags HADARA over the curb, hidden behind
a parked car. He lifts her skirt and shoves his hand into her
panties. He bends over and looks closely at her face to catch
a reaction. HADARA opens her eyes and gives him a fierce
look of disgust.
BLACK MAN
Bitch. Don’t say a word.
Think you can fool me?
Tryin’ to pass for white?
Bitch. Shut up.
Tryin’ to pass for white. Yes.
BLACK MAN spits on the ground next to her. HADARA
screams. He puts his hand over her mouth. She quiets. He
tears off her glasses and stomps them until they shatter. He
loses his cap. He drags HADARA further under the curb,
against the tires of the parked car.
BLACK MAN begins to strangle HADARA more violently.
She closes her eyes. Instantly a window in the apartment
house across the street opens quickly with a very loud creak.
BLACK man is startled as he looks up. In the window is a
very old lady.
MRS. HESK
(in a thick, Yiddish accent)
You pishikas, get
the hell off my stoop.
Why you Hassids foolin’
around so late?
It’s Shabbos. It’s Tish B’Av.
BLACK man is startled and runs away.
HADARA rubs her neck and staggers to her feet.
HADARA
Mrs. Hesk, Please, Mrs. Hesk, Call the police.
I’ve just been strangled and almost raped.
MRS. HESK
Are you all right?
I wish you pishikas wouldn’t make so much noise.
HADARA
I said strangled! Would you call the police, already?
MRS. HESK
I’m calling. I’m calling for you.
HADARA sits down on her stoop and waits for the police car
to arrive. She rests her head in her hands and sobs. The police
car arrives with two officers.
FIRST OFFICER
So you’re the girl whose boyfriend got fresh and to get
revenge, you’re sending us on a wild goose chase?
HADARA
No. Why don’t you believe me?
I was strangled and almost raped by this black guy who
followed me from the subway to my house.
SECOND OFFICER
Were you raped?
HADARA
No. I was almost murdered!
The jerk shoved two fingers into my vagina.
Am I still a virgin?
Could I catch V.D.?
FIRST OFFICER
Look, if your boyfriend got fresh …
HADARA
If I had a boyfriend to protect me, this wouldn’t have happened.
FIRST OFFICER
Okay. I just want to make sure.
SECOND OFFICER
These are whore’s hours. Why were you on the subway so late
alone?
HADARA
(looks annoyed)
I went to a club meeting, met some people, and talked.
They walked me to the subway.
I can’t see without my glasses.
He smashed them.
SECOND OFFICER searches the empty lot.
SECOND OFFICER
There’s a cap. It looks like the kind they usually wear.
HADARA
Can’t you see all the broken glass?
FIRST OFFICER
What do you do?
HADARA
I’m a creative writing major at NYU.
My minor is film and archaeology.
I want to be a visual anthropologist someday.
FIRST OFFICER
Age?
HADARA
Twenty-one.
SECOND OFFICER
Would you like a police ambulance?
HADARA
Of course.
Can’t you see my neck?
And I have a sociology exam on Monday.
The police car leaves. HADARA sits on the stoop and waits
for the ambulance, rubbing her bruised neck.
CUT TO:
Ambulance paramedic walks over.
PARAMEDIC
Are you the one?
HADARA
My horoscope saved me.
Hey, can I catch V.D?
That creep poked his cruddy nails into my vagina.
PARAMEDIC
Not unless he scratched you there.
HADARA
Now how am I supposed to know whether I’m scratched?
I was too busy worrying about getting strangled.
PARAMEDIC
Hop in. You’ll be okay.
HADARA
No I won’t.
You’re going to send me a bill for fifty bucks for this ride.
PARAMEDIC
You should only live so long.
HADARA
(talking to paramedic)
The hospital smacks me for another hundred.
How come I’m attacked and I get to pay for my exam?
End of Scene. Curtain.
***
New Scene
CUT TO—AND/OR CURTAIN RISES:
INT. DARLENE LEVINE’S HOUSE—SEPT. 1963—DAY
DARLENE LEVINE (25) is a judge’s single daughter who
lives in a plush private home in Jamaica Estates, a wealthy
suburb of New York (Queens).
She is HADARA’s best friend and confident at NYU. But
DARLENE has dropped out of school to travel and husband-
hunting, both without success.
HADARA arrives in the afternoon.
ANGLE ON GOLD DOOR KNOCKER and mahogany door.
DARLENE opens the door, greeting HADARA with a smile.
HADARA walks into the house, lavishly covered and plush
with paintings DARLENE and her mother have created.
DARLENE
What’s the big emergency?
HADARA
Don’t I have to confide in somebody?
The two young women take seats opposite each other on the
plush white sofa.
DARLENE
I met the sexiest guy at Grossinger’s.
HADARA
But he’s bald.
DARLENE
And paunchy at twenty-nine.
HADARA
You let a good provider go?
DARLENE
There’s no way he could support me the way my father does.
HADARA
Is he available?
DARLENE
I’ll never leave my parent’s home.
HADARA
If I had a good job,
I’d leave today.
DARLENE
Would you trade all this for a roach-wracked studio in
Greenwich Village?
I guess you’re either born lucky or born rich.
Which are you?
HADARA grabs DARLENE by the shoulders and grins at her.
HADARA
You don’t work.
I’m wearing myself out to finish college at night, slaving in a
typing pool all day.
Yes, it’s better than my granny’s sweat shop job from the
triangle building fire days.
What do you do? Live off your daddy’s trust fund?
Or are you still living at home at age twenty-five?
DARLENE
Shop. Travel. Brunch.
Design and sew my own clothes and live at home waiting to
inherit.
HADARA
You’re an animal.
DARLENE
(sipping tea, eating)
You’re weird, but then all creative writing majors are different
than us secretarial science students.
HADARA
Guess what’s the latest news? My mom’s just been arrested for
shoplifting.
And my brother’s the lawyer who’s defending her.
DARLENE
I’ve got an appointment with my own therapist today.
Now I have something to tell her.
HADARA
I’m so ashamed of being ashamed.
DARLENE
How’d they nab her?
HADARA
With a sexy nightie draped over her arm.
DARLENE
Is she crazy?
HADARA
No, but she’s not a fair-weather friend like I just realized you
are.
Mom weighs two hundred-fifty pounds.
But the nightie was a size six. I wear a size fourteen.
DARLENE retrieves some muffins from a plate and serves
them with tea.
DARLENE
My mom just won a prize for her latest screenplay.
HADARA
And my mom walked out of the store in a daze from her high
blood pressure pills.
The security guard tackled her to the ground, smashing her
head against the pavement.
DARLENE
Poor old dumpling.
Is she okay?
HADARA
Who knows?
DARLENE
We’ve been having awful security problems with our sliding
glass door.
HADARA
I’m getting married on Friday to that Arab.
DARLENE
Sex can be beautiful, if it’s with someone who knows what he’s
doing.
HADARA
He asked for a certificate of my virginity.
DARLENE
I fell in love with an Arab once when I was seventeen.
His Lebanese parents forbid him to see me.
HADARA
Because you’re Jewish?
DARLENE
It wasn’t because I’m Greek.
Hey, I look Greek, don’t I?
HADARA
Didn’t they know Arabs and Jews shared a common ancestor
eight thousand years ago?
DARLENE
Maybe they realized the genes were either too close, or my
blondeness comes from Jewish men marrying German or
Slavic women a thousand years ago when they couldn’t find
enough women coming out of the Middle East to marry in
those Rhineland villages.
HADARA
Am I your best friend?
DARLENE
We’re both Litvaks. So?
HADARA
Maybe it’s better to marry outside our Diaspora.
Besides, I’m too American and too intellectual to think of
myself as some word that sounds foreign.
DARLENE
There’s cake in the fridge.
I’m going to work on my college term papers.
HADARA
Wait, we have to talk about the how the present changes our
own futures based on decisions we make right now.
DARLENE
My advice is not to marry him. Find a nice Jewish boy.
Such a choice will change your grandchildren’s lives for all the
generations.
HADARA
Like your dad?
DARLENE
Go to a Beverly Hills synagogue. Move there.
Give your babies a chance.
HADARA
With what? My college loan?
Do you want to give me a day job?
DARLENE
All you’re going to meet in New York are Puerto Rican
shipping clerks.
Nice Jewish boys won’t marry you.
HADARA
Even with my master’s degree in English?
DARLENE
No, because it’s not a terminal degree.
What are you going to do, read them Shakespeare?
HADARA
Sounds like I’m auditioning for a soul mate.
DARLENE
They’ll ask what your father does for a living.
They want your dad to set them up in business.
Or pay their medical school tuition.
You don’t have big breasts and a small nose.
In fact, your face is scarred horribly.
So you’d better have daddy’s big trust fund.
You have to be practical with men.
HADARA
I’d rather run my own business.
I’m marrying to get away from poverty.
Why do men ask what does your father do for a living instead
of what you plan to do with your life?
DARLENE
Women are judged by what their husbands do.
HADARA
My dad mops toilets in the Navy Yard.
I’m too phobic to learn to drive.
And I don’t feel safe alone with men.
DARLENE
Maybe you’ll like being a bag lady.
You’ll get to ride the stinky bus all your life.
What if I don’t find a husband with a house as big as my dad’s?
HADARA
There’s a shortage of princes.
I’m desperate, Darlene, desperate.
DARLENE
My sister’s already a producer in Beverly Hills.
HADARA
She graduated from an Ivy League drama school. You just
started secretarial college.
DARLENE
Think a man cares what you do for a living? No one ever asked
me what I do.
HADARA
All they ask me is what does your father do?
DARLENE
Your knight in armor wouldn’t want you to neglect his babies.
HADARA
Or clean up after his horse.
DARLENE
What’s your trade-off?
Without a doctorate, you’ll never find a tenured job in academia.
I know because I work as a secretary for a college.
HADARA
I’ve already self-published a novel.
DARLENE
In a woman, that’s like being a cripple because no one values
what you publish yourself.
Like I said, sooner or later, I’ll get this big house.
My sister’s already got this fantastic script-editing job in
Hollywood.
Creative but poor gals like you need to stick with a real job like
mine—clerk-typist.
HADARA
Never … I need the Pulitzer Prize.
The road ahead lies in observing this planet.
We’re news because we’re the media that came after the
downsizing mergers.
DARLENE
And still waiting to be rescued, like the censored media.
So how do I launch you?
HADARA
I’m gifted, damn it. The media is an eternal teenager.
DARLENE
Don’t think you’re somebody special because you work hard.
I work smart.
HADARA
When’s the last time you ever shoveled snow?
DARLENE
Your brother’s a lawyer why didn’t he ever introduce you to
his rich friends?
HADARA
Law is no profession for a poor boy.
DARLENE
My family would never turn their back on me.
But your brother hates you.
HADARA
Ignores. Fears. Withdraws.
DARLENE
You mom’s retarded.
HADARA
She’s a storefront musician, a psychic and a telepathic
clairvoyant, like me.
DARLENE
She’s a kvetch.
HADARA
Quality men freak out when they meet me.
DARLENE
Because you’re bizarre. And I’ve heard that line enough from
you.
HADARA
Your bust is as flat as mine.
So how come you’re rich?
DARLENE
I had a nose job.
End of Scene.
Curtain.
***
Anne Hart
Act III
New Scene: Spot Light/Sound Effects or CUT TO:
Tsipke’s Apartment—Sept. 1963—Night
HADARA is sitting at her desk in her room reading a book on
archaeology. The phone rings. She walks into the living room
to answer it. She’s alone at home.
HADARA
Hello? Oh, hi, Darlene.
DARLENE
(on phone)
My two-hundred dollar purse is missing.
I’m giving you a chance to return it before I phone the
insurance company.
HADARA
You’re crazy. I wouldn’t touch your purse and ruin my reputation.
DARLENE
My mom’s on the extension.
HADARA
Didn’t you just come from your therapist?
DARLENE
Are you going to return my hundred and twenty-five dollar purse?
I’m calling the insurance company—now.
HADARA
I didn’t see any purse.
But I can see from where you grabbed the idea.
On a separate phone line:
GOLDIE, (DARLENE’S MOTHER)
dials up HADARA’s brother, BENJAMIN who’s working
late at his law office.
GOLDIE
Listen to this, you thief.
BENJAMIN
(on phone line)
Law Offices.
Hello? Is anyone on the line?
GOLDIE
Your mother was arrested for shoplifting.
What kind of a forblundget family are you, anyway?
BENJAMIN
What kind of trash?
Human garbage!
Are you trying to get me fired?
BENJAMIN makes angry gestures and hangs up on her.
HADARA
What I told you about my mom was in confidence.
DARLENE
Did you hear what my mom said?
HADARA
Who can I trust with my life?
Surely not my best friend.
DARLENE
There wasn’t anyone else here.
HADARA
My own family scares me to hell.
GOLDIE
Darlene never lies to me.
HADARA
She’s jealous of my Arab fiancé, because her own Arab
boyfriend rejected your Jewish background.
GOLDIE
If you don’t return her purse, I’ll have your brother disbarred.
I’m making a citizen’s arrest.
HADARA
Nothing can scare me any longer.
DARLENE
Well, the next step is to tell the insurance company.
HADARA
You’ve never confided in me the way I’ve opened up to you.
DARLENE
You must have actually thought you were my best friend.
HADARA
I pity your real sister.
DARLENE
Like mother, like daughter.
HADARA
I’m the most honest person you’ll ever meet.
DARLENE
Give him up, for your own sake.
HADARA
I’m marrying that Syrian.
GOLDIE
Don’t waste your time.
Your children will be afraid to tell anyone from their father’s
country that you’re Jewish.
HADARA bangs the receiver with a vengeance.
End of Scene. Curtain.
***
New Scene.
Curtain Rises:
October 25, 1963
Ext. Tsipke’s Apartment House Brooklyn Day
HADARA and AHMED walk up the stairs.
They hold hands.
We see wedding ring on HADARA’S finger.
Couple is smiling. HADARA giggles.
AHMED
You tell your parents first.
HADARA
No, you tell my mom.
HADARA knocks on the door of her parent’s apartment.
TSIPKE opens the door and smiles.
End of Scene. Curtain.
New Scene.
INT. TSIPKE’S APARTMENT BROOKLYN 8 DAY
TSIPKE
Come on in.
I was just soaking my bridges.
HADARA and AHMED walk in and sit down on the sofa.
HADARA
Mom, we were married two hours ago in the County Clerk’s
office.
TSIPKE
You’re kidding?
AHMED
No. We did it.
We had a hard time finding two witnesses to sign the
certificate.
TSIPKE
It’s a good thing you didn’t ask me to come down to city hall.
My angina has gotten so painful, that I can’t walk out of the
house at all these days.
HADARA
We found this couple who were waiting to be married.
They acted as our witnesses.
TSIPKE
MEIR, hey, cockroach back, flat butt, get in here.
MEIR staggers from his bedroom to the living room.
MEIR
Well, hello strangers.
TSIPKE
Those two just got married.
AHMED
(with an Arabic accent)
We’re going to spend the night at the Americana Hotel.
HADARA
Yeah. And I’m paying the sixty dollars a day from my college
loan money.
AHMED
I’m going to look for work if I can borrow three dollars from
you.
HADARA
Now, he tells me, after we were married that he’s not an engineer.
TSIPKE
How much can you hope to make?
AHMED
I’m a machinist. I’m looking for a job. I don’t have a secondary
school diploma.
TSIPKE
Where’s Benjamin.
We need a lawyer.
HADARA
Benjamin doesn’t care.
MEIR
What kind of schooling do you have?
AHMED
I left Syria at seventeen to learn to be a machinist in German
factories.
HADARA
That’s all he does, mom.
He’s just a factory Joe.
TSIPKE
Do you want to stay married?
HADARA
Yes. He told me he wants to have his own business.
TSIPKE
Can’t Benjamin help you?
HADARA
He kind of slithered away.
MEIR
Benjamin is starving.
He won’t work for anybody, and he can’t find clients.
HADARA
Benjamin is dying with diabetes.
Don’t bother him, I warn you.
TSIPKE
Well, before you go to the hotel, I want to give you a present.
TSIPKE scurries into the kitchen and grabs a gift-wrapped
package from the cupboard.
AHMED
Is that a gift for me?
TSIPKE
I knew you two were going to be married soon.
TSIPKE hands the gift-wrapped package to AHMED.
He takes it and smiles as he slowly removes the wrapping paper.
AHMED
Thank you, momma.
A dozen packages of condoms fall out of the package.
AHMED is startled.
HADARA breaks out in laughter.
She can’t stop laughing.
AHMED examines one condom carefully, reading the
package label.
AHMED
(laughing)
I thought you were giving me a wedding present, you know,
like a watch.
HADARA
You knew we were going on our honeymoon tonight.
TSIPKE
My psychic abilities never fail me.
AHMED
Thank you, mommy.
TSIPKE
Don’t let him put the rubber on dry and then ram into you.
That’s how your old man tore me apart.
MEIR
Oh, shut your face.
I didn’t know about women.
TSIPKE
He ripped me open trying to jam a dry condom into a young
virgin.
MEIR
Is that why you made such an ugly, cringing face the first time?
I thought it was because I didn’t take a bath.
TSIPKE
It was all over before you entered me.
Ahmed, he’s a premature ejaculator. Hope you’re not.
HADARA
Ma, don’t embarrass him.
AHMED
We really must go.
TSIPKE
Where you eating dinner?
AHMED
Chinese restaurant.
MEIR
Go, already. It’s six o’clock.
TSIPKE
(winking)
Gee, you made me feel young again.
I feel like it was me going on my honeymoon with a new man.
MEIR
Tsipke is watching our marriage die.
TSIPKE
Well, you’re not pumping anything into it.
Our marriage is still just like I wrote on my honeymoon on
that train to Florida.
MEIR
I remember finding your diary and crying. You wrote “Today
I died.”
TSIPKE
The real ‘me’ did. You only see what my job, my responsibility
is. To take care of all of you, but it’s like an observer from
above looking down on a body going through the motions of
taking care of you while my ‘real’ days of fun and adventure
slip away as if I were invisible. We’re all invisible and so totally
alone.
HADARA
I’ll be at the Americana for two days.
TSIPKE
So, long, honey. Hope you can still walk.
End of Scene.
Curtain.
***
NEW YEAR’S EVE, 1969
FADE IN:
INT. BALLROOM OF PLUSH HOTEL AT NIGHT
A live band is playing. A Hawaiian buffet is set out.
Couples are dancing. There is a Christmas tree.
Music plays “Auld Lang Syne.”
HADARA (28) and AHMED (32) are seated at a table with
untouched plates of food in front of them.
AHMED
You’re too crazy to have a lawyer.
HADARA
Why are you sending my babies to Syria?
AHMED
My mother will raise them just like I was raised.
HADARA
Answer my question.
AHMED
Just tell my lawyer that your health is too bad.
HADARA
But you told me if I signed the house over to you, that the
divorce would be canceled.
Is this supposed to be the perfect marriage? I was always told
that old proverb: that it’s better to be lucky than rich.
AHMED
It costs too much to bring up kids here. Besides, they’d grow
up to be drug addicts or whores … like American kids.
HADARA
You can’t take them.
Please let me have just one.
AHMED
I’m not separating my kids.
They’re my life. You can finally have that career.
Isn’t that what you really want?
HADARA
I want a career for the time when my children will be busy
with their own lives.
Besides, I paid thirty dollars for this romantic dinner.
AHMED
I want to be rid of you.
You’re a stone around my neck. I want to be free.
HADARA
You want to be free?
There’s no man freer than you.
AHMED
It’s midnight.
I’ve got to get back to my restaurant.
At midnight, the music grows louder, all the couples sitting
and on the dance floor hung and kiss.
HADARA
I can’t stand to be alone in that mice-infested house.
AHMED
You want money?
Then go out and earn it.
Get a job like I had to do.
HADARA
I gave up that option when you forced me to have children.
AHMED gives HADARA the “barber’s itch.”
He pinches the hair at the nape of her neck and pulls her hair
upwards to give her a sharp pain.
HADARA screams.
AHMED
Lower your voice, your whore.
Didn’t you hear me? I said lower your voice.
I’ll beat the sassiness out of you.
HADARA
That belly dancer told me you’re the worst lover she ever had.
AHMED grabs HADARA and shakes her.
He throws her to the floor and kicks her as the dancing
couples watch in horror.
AHMED
Are you coming home?
HADARA
How come your whore is old enough to be my mother?
AHMED
You’re going to get it later tonight, you bitch.
End of Scene. Lights Out
***
New Scene at Hadara’s Modest Cottage In San Diego:
Ext. Hadara’s Modest Cottage.
Ahmed Shoves Hadara Up The Driveway And Into The
House.
Int. Living Room Hadara’s Home Night
She flops down on the sofa. AHMED paces the living room
floor circling around her like a beast.
HADARA
I’m a total romantic.
AHMED hurries to the desk drawer and retrieves his
handgun. He puts the gun in HADARA’S head.
AHMED
I want custody of the kids or you’ll be dead in twenty-four
hours.
AHMED shoves her back on the sofa as she tries to rise. He
turns around, waving the gun, and thrusts his buttocks in
HADARA’S face.
AHMED
Why do you think I go with a woman ten years older than
you?
See any tail up there, man-hater?
HADARA
(shoves him away)
Get your butt out of my face.
She probably makes you feel important, and I make you feel
responsible.
AHMED
I’m a man, not a beast.
No? No horns? No tail?
AHMED spins around and puts the gun in her head again.
HADARA
Your favorite pick-me-up is putting me down.
AHMED puts the gun in his belt and lights a cigarette. He
rips off his shirt and lifts his arm, rubbing out the lighted
cigarette in his armpit.
AHMED
See these scars?
What must I do to get rid of the pain?
AHMED rolls up his sleeveless undershirt to reveal shrapnel
scars on his torso.
HADARA
I’ve seen them before.
AHMED
I’m willing to die … to kill to preserve the honor of my babies.
HADARA
And you’re sending my kids back to Syria where twice you
were tortured in jail there?
AHMED
The morals of too many Americans are like pigs.
AHMED spits in HADARA’s face.
HADARA
Why’d you bring your two brothers here to live with us? I’m
like a white slave.
AHMED
I’m running a restaurant, not a whorehouse.
HADARA
I gave up a Jewish doctor for you, just to make peace.
AHMED
Peace? You think you’re too good for me?
You think you’re some pampered princess.
Don’t you know anything about the care of husbands?
Bitch. Why’d you marry me?
HADARA
So I’d have a good subject for a book or a movie.
I wanted to be a visual anthropologist.
I couldn’t afford the tuition.
So I decided to live as the other half lives in the third world.
I wanted to understand what it feels like to be an Arab.
AHMED
I’m not good enough for you, am I?
HADARA
You destroyed me.
AHMED
Look at you … a lawyer for a brother.
Your father’s a janitor … mops toilets at night.
Eight-grade education …
I own my own business.
And I never graduated from secondary school.
HADARA
You need street smarts to compete.
AHMED
I dropped out of school to work as a machinist.
AHMED shakes her.
HADARA
Didn’t I lease that restaurant and get you started in business?
Did I leave you when I found out you lied?
Doctor of mechanical engineering? Bullshine.
AHMED
You’re no good as a mother or as a woman.
HADARA
What kind of a father would dump his kids on his mother?
In another country, yet?
And then go back to his restaurant?
AHMED
Hamed, get your tail in here.
HADARA
How come you always run out of words?
Then your fists fly.
I’m a rich girl without money.
Not a poor girl.
AHMED
I want a divorce.
You’re a rope around my neck.
I want to be free.
HADARA
Then give others freedom.
I’m housebound with panic disorder.
You’re penniless.
What a great time to ask for a divorce.
AHMED
Hamed. Hurry up.
I need you in here.
AHMED calls in his brother, HAMED. He wakes up and treks
into the living room, sleepy. He smiles a broad, weird grin,
and looks at HADARA sadistically.
AHMED presses the sharp edge of the oriental coffee pot on
the living room table against the side of HADARA’S head.
AHMED motions for his brother’s help. HAMED walks over
the HADARA. HAMED laughs wildly. The two men
exchange words in Arabic.
HAMED pulls HADARA to her feet by her wrists. AHMED
and HAMED drag HADARA into the bathroom and
AHMED dips HADARA’S head into the toilet bowl and
flushes.
AHMED
How many times have I told you to scrub the bowl?
HAMED
(laughing weirdly)
She never cleans it after somebody sprays the bowl with
diarrhea.
AHMED drags HADARA’S head out of the flushing water by
her hair.
AHMED
Hand me my razor blade.
HAMED fetches the straight razor from the cabinet and
holds it. AHMED holds HADARA by the hair with one hand
while she cries and screams and takes the razor in his other
hand from HAMED.
HAMED
Shut your trap.
The neighbors will hear.
AHMED holds HADARA’s wrists together in one hand with
his steely strength while he presses the straight razor against
both her wrists. HADARA trembles and sobs.
AHMED
If you try to fight me for custody in this divorce,
I’ll slash your wrists and then tell the police you committed
suicide.
HADARA
Don’t leave me while I’m still agoraphobic.
I’ll give you my parent’s apartment house.
AHMED
Go unlock the door, Hamed.
HAMED drags HADARA across the living room floor by the
wrists.
AHMED helps him. HAMED laughs. AHMED spits in
HADARA’S face again.
He pulls her women’s liberation emblem from the wall and
kicks it along the carpet.
AHMED holds the razor against her throat and looks her in
the eye for one long, silent moment. Then he throws
HADARA out of the door into the night. It is raining.
Spotlight or angle on AHMED on the telephone.
AHMED
Police? I want to report my wife has tried to commit suicide
again.
Hurry over here. My two kids are sleeping, and I don’t want
her back in here to upset them.
Curtain. Lights Out:
End of Scene
***
New Scene
Curtain Rises:
Ext. Hadara’s Home Rainy Night
HADARA bangs on the door. She cries, sobs, screams. But no
one answers. She slithers down the door and sits in a heap on
the doorstep as the rain washes over her.
Ext. Next Door Neighbor’s House Night
HADARA sidles over to the next-door neighbor. She rings
the bell. AVA JOHNSON, a young housewife answers.
AVA
Hey, it’s three o’clock in the morning.
HADARA
He threw me out.
Can I come in?
AVA
Look, I don’t want to get involved.
HADARA
Please …
Int. Ava Johnson’s Living Room Night
AVA
So he tossed you on your ear again.
A woman is nothing without a real man.
HADARA
A woman without a man can go to bed knowing she’ll still be
alive in the morning.
AVA
You killed your own marriage.
Don’t think I didn’t hear it die.
HADARA
He didn’t pump anything into it.
AVA
Woman, you’re addicted to romance.
I bet you read all those romance novels.
HADARA
Read them? I write them.
AVA
So what are you here for?
HADARA
My psychiatrist betrayed me.
He played the recorded tapes of our session to my husband.
He’s Ahmed’s friend.
Ahmed is keeping his rugs for him in his restaurant.
My doctor betrayed me after he promised me what I said
would be confidential.
AVA
What do you expect?
You just said that the doctor is his best friend.
HADARA
I don’t have any friends, and no living relatives.
I feel I’m in the way between your husband and you.
AVA
I’m not your friend.
I’m your neighbor.
HADARA
Ava, help me.
AVA
I can’t help you.
You can probably attract men, but you’ll never keep them.
HADARA
He expects me to go out and find a job.
I don’t want to work. I want a man to support me so
I can fulfill my career dreams.
AVA
Tough luck, cookie.
Fulfill your dreams after sixty-five like I’ll have to do.
HADARA
I’m agoraphobic.
There’s no way I can walk out of that house.
AVA
Love junkie! He’s already kicked you to mediocrity.
Girl, do you have a sense of entitlement to cure?
End of Scene
Curtain
***
New Scene
Curtain Rises:
December 22, 1971
Int. Hadara’s Furnished Room Nearly Dawn
There’s a knock on the door.
HADARA crawls out of her studio sofa bed to answer it.
AHMED stands before her holding her two children, FAWZI,
a boy of four, and SAMIRA, a girl of five. The children are
dressed lavishly.
HADARA
Is it time for them to go already?
HADARA runs to her desk and brings two gifts for the children.
AHMED
Why’d you have to go and buy them such bulky toys to take
on the plane.
FAWZI and SAMIRA squeal and jump for joy, unwrapping
their toys.
HADARA
You’re still not going with them?
AHMED
The airline’s hostess will get them to Syria alone.
HADARA
My kids are only four and five years old.
AHMED
My kids.
HADARA
Really?
Want to see my two episiotomies scars?
AHMED
Fawzi, Samira, kiss your mother goodbye.
HADARA
I want to get a last look at a percentage of my genes.
AHMED
Hurry it up.
HADARA
My daughter, promise me that you’ll marry a rich doctor if
you can’t be one yourself.
AHMED
Don’t make her American.
HADARA
American citizenship was my greatest gift to you.
AHMED
You’re a crazy woman.
HADARA
Is that your excuse for never offering me a dime of community
property?
You’re disappearing with all the money from the sale of your
restaurant.
HADARA looks up at AHMED’s face. He spits on her wall-
hanging, a women’s liberation sign of the new feminist
movement—a female sign—(Venus hieroglyph) with a fist.
The children observe his actions.
AHMED
You still get panic attacks, don’t you?
HADARA
Mr. Hostility, you just created the new poor.
I’ll remember you as the take-away-man.
AHMED
Go ahead. Make yourself rich.
I came to this country with fifty dollars in my wallet.
HADARA
And you’re leaving me in a man’s world with two shiny
quarters.
AHMED shuffles the two children out the door and slams it
behind him. Dawn comes up through the curtains.
HADARA hops back into bed and turns up her small radio to
“CANON in D” classical music.
The phone rings.
HADARA
Yes?
HODA
(on telephone line)
This is your ex-husband’s whore.
HADARA
What the hell do you want from me, Hoda?
HODA
I think you’re the most selfish bitch that ever walked.
How could you give up your children?
Because you’re too lazy to support them?
HADARA
You’re being illogical.
There’s no way you or anyone else can ever make me feel pain
again.
HODA
I’d kill before I’d turn my kids over to my ex.
HADARA
No you wouldn’t.
Do me a favor. Tell me why I keep marrying toxic people?
HADARA bangs the receiver on the holder and sobs
hysterically. HADARA turns up the music louder as the soft
waves of “CANON in D” bring a calmness to the dawn and
the silent, lonely room.
Curtain.
End of Scene.
***
New Scene.
Christmas Eve, 1971
Ext. Synagogue Night
HADARA walks up the stairs for the Friday night Sabbath
service.
Int. Synagogue Social Hall Night
The service is over and the buffet dessert table is laden with
tea and cakes. HADARA takes a plate with cheese cake and a
cup of tea. She looks up to see BRONNA GREEN, 36, smile at her.
BRONNA
Balmy night for Christmas Eve and Hannukah.
HADARA
Hi. I’m Hadara.
Are you alone?
BRONNA
Bronna Green.
Just divorced. You too?
HADARA nods affirmatively.
BRONNA
You look just divorced, homeless, and flat broke.
If we’re not feeling good about ourselves, we’ll marry the man
who’ll reflect our low self esteem of the moment. Everybody
knows we usually marry at the level of our self esteem for the
day.
HADARA
How true.
What did yours do for a living?
BRONNA
I put him through medical school.
HADARA
At least you got to be a doctor’s wife.
I always dreamed of being a doctor’s wife. He told me he had
a doctor’s degree in mechanical engineering when I first met
him. Of course, he lied. The guy dropped out of secondary
school at seventeen to work in foreign factories as a machinist.
Why did I end up penniless?
BRONNA
Yeah, well a lot of ’em don’t want you to have your own career.
And they all want children. You have to kiss their butt. Then
they
Dump you for a younger, healthier woman when you get old
and sick before your time.
HADARA
I found that out after I married him. I could have married a
real doctor. After I busted my wrists typing my way through
college for six years, you’d think I’m entitled to at least a
college graduate husband and a good provider.
BRONNA
That’s your problem. You feel entitled.
HADARA
Of course I’m entitled. After all, I have a Master’s degree in
literature. I even like watching archaeology videos and know a
lot about art history. There’s deep culture in Brooklyn’s
Borough Park. Why should I think that one day some
schlemiel will marry me? Don’t I deserve to be a rich doctor’s
wife?
BRONNA
Hey, I was a rich doctor’s wife. He dumped me for his young
secretary who looked like I looked a decade ago when we first
met.
HADARA
How your mother felt about herself … that determines whom
you’ll marry.
Tell me about yourself. How on earth did a short woman like
with a chest as flat as mine get a real doctor to marry you? Did
you have a rich father or a nose job?
BRONNA
Yes. He’s a well-known builder in San Francisco. And I’m just
finishing my master’s in marriage counseling. But don’t drool.
My alimony dwindled to a pittance. I need to find a high-
paying sales job in interior decoration to put bread on the
table and keep my family together. My motto is commitment
to family and faith. What’s yours?
HADARA
Survival—food, shelter, and work shoes without holes. It
figures. Were you valuable as a kid?
BRONNA
My dad dealt with seductiveness by acting distant.
HADARA
And you found out men are not available. Gee, I love watching
movies where the dad spoils his little girl with expensive gifts
and shows her warmth. I need a dad that acts like Jesus.
BRONNA
Hey, you’re a regular therapist.
HADARA
Yeah … kind of … I write fiction. In fact I have a dozen
unpublished romance novels finished that have been rejected
as unbelievable. But don’t dream of taking away my choices.
Persistence is my brand.
BRONNA
Are you attracted to cold men?
HADARA
Silver-plated robots! I’m a science fiction nut, robots, aliens,
and the works. With an angry, cold dad like mine, I’m afraid
that I’ll marry what’s familiar—angry, cold, impotent men
who want to put a fist through my navel. Oh, yeah, that’s what
my ex threatened the day I went to the hospital to give birth—
because I spent the grocery money on healthier food. How
come gals marry men just like their dads, no matter how far
they travel in space or time?
BRONNA
Ghostly lovers, eh? We marry the familiar—men that mirror
what we lack. And men marry women like their mothers. And
do everything to their wives that they would have liked to do
to their moms but never could. That’s why so many husbands
stop respecting their wives when the wives start to sound or
look like the moms they want to run away from.
HADARA
My ex hated his mother who kept putting him down. He
treated me like he wanted to treat his own mother. He should
have spoke his fears to two empty chairs. Do you actually
make money playing out old conflicts?
BRONNA
No man will ever live up to my kind, smiling, and generous
father. I keep my distance from men. I’m daddy’s spoiled five-
year old forever. No man I’ve met so far can buy me a house
as big as my dad’s house.
HADARA
At least you’re out of a toxic relationship.
BRONNA
And what are you doing to select a certain type of man?
BRONNA and HADARA move along the buffet line,
chatting, while people bend over to listen to their
conversation. They pile their plates high with sweets.
HADARA
Women who hate me for tooting my own horn spread the
word in public that I’m a man hater. They love writing that in
the media. I’m not, though. I’m looking for a daddy to love
me. What do you say we dump the sweets? Want to come to
my place for a vegetable spread and talk practical?
BRONNA pauses to consider, then smiles and nods.
The two women head for HADARA’S furnished room.
EXT. BRONNA gets in her car. HADARA enters car.
HADARA
I never learned to drive.
Give me a lift two miles?
BRONNA
Why can’t you drive?
HADARA
I inherited the fear gene from my dad.
BRONNA motions for her to hop in.
BRONNA
Never mind. Hop in. There’s only one way to choose a husband.
Find out how quickly a man gets angry, before you marry.
HADARA offers BRONNA a firm handshake. She accepts it,
smiling.
HADARA
I put a husband-wanted ad in the daily newspaper.
BRONNA
Any response?
HADARA
Fourteen letters, since yesterday.
Curtain
End of Scene
***
Act Three
Next Scene
Curtain Rises
July 1985
Ext. Hadara’s Low Rent Cottage Dusk
HADARA’S modest stucco cottage stands in a poor, multiracial
neighborhood where swarms of shouting children play
in the gutter.
INT. HADARA’S HOME DUSK
The entire living room and HADARA’s bedroom and den are
covered with photographs and posters of Mr. Spock (of Star
Trek).
Star Trek fan material covers the walls of the den of the tiny
three-bedroom cottage.
In the den, HADARA’s desk is strewn with science fiction
paperbacks and magazines. The bookcase is filled with
paperback Star Trek Novels.
A giant poster of Mr. Spock is plastered in the wall of
HADARA’s den where she sits keyboarding at her personal
computer.
Manuscripts are piled on her desk. We see her finishing the
typing of the last page of a screenplay. Her tape
recorder/stereo is playing the baroque classical music.
Spotlight or angle on HADARA’s face as she looks up at Mr.
Spock’s poster/picture above her computer.
HADARA
Don’t you know you’re the right man for me because you’ll
always be unattainable? So will all my ghost lovers from
previous lives in different countries. So will the richest man in
ancient Rome and Greece.
The phone rings. HADARA picks it up. There’s loud static at
the other end. Silence. She’s about to bang down the receiver
when a voice breaks through from a distance.
HADARA
Hello?
Well, speak up.
FAWZI
Mommy?
HADARA
My son, David Joseph?
Oh that’s right.
He changed your name.
What’s your name now?
FAWZI
This is Fawzi Mohammed.
My father used to be married to you.
This is your son.
HADARA
Where are you?
FAWZI
Syria.
HADARA
This is the first time I’ve heard from you in sixteen years.
FAWZI
I’ve kept your picture since I was four years old.
HADARA
Holy Toledo! Oh, for heaven’s sake.
My kid. Where’s your sister?
FAWZI
At her girl friend’s house.
HADARA
When can I see you?
FAWZI
Mommy, help me.
I need five hundred dollars to come to America.
That’s the only way I can finish my studies in physics.
HADARA
Yes. I’ll help. But I don’t have a cent.
My second husband gives me fifty dollars a week for food.
FAWZI
Can I come to live with you?
HADARA
My house is too small. I don’t know what to do.
FAWZI
I’m coming to see you.
HADARA
Okay. I’ll ask my husband to kick out the tenant from his
rental.
FAWZI
What do you look like?
HADARA
White hair, bags under my eyes, and lots of wrinkles.
FAWZI
I’ll call you when I arrive.
The phone clicks off.
HADARA
Hello? Hello?
Is anybody on the line?
HADARA leaps for joy and plants a kiss on the poster of Mr.
Spock. Then HADARA runs to her second husband’s
bedroom.
(They have always shared separate rooms.)
HADARA pauses, and then knocks on his door.
ERIC
Better make it quick, I’m real busy.
In his room, ERIC AUER is busy soldering circuit boards on the
computer he’s building. It’s his hobby. ERIC’S tape recorder is
playing old time radio comedy. Soft music is wafting.
HADARA
Hey, most distant man in the galaxy, it’s important.
ERIC
Tune me out, kid.
Don’t bug me.
HADARA
I have to talk to you.
Come on and give me a hug.
ERIC
Not this week. I’m beat.
HADARA
My son called from Syria.
ERIC
Oh, give me a break.
HADARA
Not until you give me a connection.
ERIC
Would you stop arguing?
HADARA
This is my normal conversational voice.
ERIC
I bet you’ll be excited to see them.
When are they coming?
HADARA
Soon.
They need a place to live.
ERIC
You must be excited after sixteen years of no correspondence.
HADARA
You have to kick the tenant out.
ERIC
Why can’t you sleep on the sofa?
You’d better give them your bedroom.
HADARA
Oh, no. You’re not going to kick me out of my room for them.
That’s what my brother did when he got married.
He could have rented an apartment.
ERIC
You’re not going to let your kids see this roach-filled dump,
are you?
HADARA
Who cares?
ERIC
I’m too ashamed to let them see what a lousy housekeeper you
are.
What a loser.
Do they know you’re a phobic who failed her driver’s test nine
times?
HADARA
Why do you always take my choices away?
ERIC
All you ever wanted was to be taken care of like Cinderella.
HADARA
There’s a shortage of princes, so I married an angry man.
I married a man who has been impotent only with me for
decades.
Why have I given up love for money that never materializes?
ERIC
You’re the new age Cinderella.
HADARA
The only thing I’ll inherit is my own wisdom.
ERIC
Your kids will never tell you their business.
All you’ll hear is their bad news.
HADARA
They’re more worried that I won’t keep my mouth shut.
ERIC
I’ll have to carry two big mortgages alone.
Who’s going to pay the mortgage on our other house, you?
HADARA
What’ll they think when I tell them I’m Jewish?
ERIC
They’re devout Moslems from Syria.
What do you think?
End of Scene. Curtain
***
Curtain Rises, New Scene:
Summer. The Present
Int. Hadara’s Living Room Night
SAMIRA, HADARA’S daughter, 21, walks into HADARA’S
living room.
The two women embrace.
FAWZI, 20, follows behind and gives his mother a big hug.
He resembles her.
HADARA
Sit down. I’ve laid out a buffet of fruit and veggies.
SAMIRA
What does your husband do?
HADARA
He’s a pool of anger.
Eric repairs equipment, like computers and gadgets.
He’s a blue-collar Joe, and I’ve learned not to cringe when I
say it.
SAMIRA
My father’s a very rich man in Syria.
ERIC
Oh? Then why can’t he pay me rent?
HADARA
You look exactly like my mother.
I guess she reincarnated.
SAMIRA
I’m marrying a doctor next month.
He’s coming here from Syria.
HADARA
Gee, I always wanted to marry a doctor since I was ten.
No such luck in New York finding a doctor to marry, though.
How come you married a doctor? You look just like me.
FAWZI
My father told us you are a doctor.
HADARA
Oh, no. I write science fiction scripts and novels.
But I haven’t ever earned a dime.
ERIC
Does your father have a job?
FAWZI
No. He was arrested as a spy, put in prison in Syria, and was
beaten until he became a mental vegetable. I need to live with
him. I can’t live alone here. You see when he went back to
Syria, the people in the government said he married an
American Jewess. They took away all his money.
ERIC
Do you cook?
SAMIRA
No, the servants chased me out of the kitchen.
FAWZI
She was raised like a princess.
HADARA
Did your father ever visit you?
SAMIRA
Twice. Once for two years.
HADARA
Where’s your father now?
FAWZI
He was thrown in jail and tortured.
The doctor said he had schizophrenia.
ERIC
How awful for you.
HADARA
If only you had answered my letters or acknowledged my gifts,
Eric would have adopted you fifteen years ago.
SAMIRA
Do you work for money?
HADARA
I’m a housewife. Want to make something of it?
ERIC
She’s as much of a failure as I am.
Only she has a master’s degree.
I dropped out of college and have a very short temper.
HADARA
Why don’t you two eat something?
FAWZI and SAMIRA stare at the food but don’t touch it.
They shake their heads “no.”
HADARA
We’re vegan vegetarians.
You won’t find pork or alcohol here.
ERIC
You’re mother is Jewish.
Does that scare you?
FAWZI
Don’t tell my Arab friends.
And don’t tell my wife and children.
ERIC
And I’m English and German American.
SAMIRA
Are you Christian?
ERIC
I’m a spiritualist and medium.
Ever play the Ouija board?
You’d be surprised at the entities that come through.
HADARA
His mom brought him up Lutheran.
But we go to psychic séances.
SAMIRA
If you ever tell my husband or children that you’re Jewish, I’ll
run away.
You’ll never see me again.
HADARA
Take it easy.
May the life force expand to all the trillion universes.
Live long, rich, and healthy.
ERIC
I hate fanatics.
HADARA
You don’t have to be human to eat Levi’s rye bread.
Just dip it in Arabic hummos and tabbouli salad.
Why is it so difficult to enjoy my ambiguity or your diversity?
ERIC
Let’s all join the Federation.
Your mom’s a Trekkie who likes the Federation of Planets.
HADARA holds up a gold chain from which dangles a gold
Star of David.
HADARA
It’s a shame there’s no one to pass my grandmother’s Jewish
star onto for the next generation.
ERIC
You made that choice when you married your children’s father.
FAWZI
I’ll take it.
FAWZI retrieves the necklace and puts it over his own head.
ERIC
See? He wears it under his shirt.
I bet it’ll go into a box, and his Arab wife and kids will never
see it.
SAMIRA
Don’t let my children see it.
My husband knows all about you.
HADARA
So how come you got married and didn’t invite me to the
wedding?
SAMIRA
It was an Islamic ceremony.
All my Arabic real family and friends are going.
ERIC
You’re a robot to them.
You’re a stranger to everyone.
HADARA
Hey, kids, you’re all the family I have.
ERIC
You’re forgetting me.
Today’s our anniversary.
FAWZI
How’d you meet him?
HADARA
He was the last letter to reply to my husband-wanted ad in the
papers in 1974.
SAMIRA
And how’d he turn out?
HADARA
Look at Eric.
Listen to how he talks to me.
ERIC
Hey, show some respect, or I’ll wash your mouth out with
soap.
HADARA
I’m sorry. It’s just that he keeps bellyaching.
ERIC
When are you going to make me rich?
HADARA
When you win the lottery.
The beeping of an automobile horn is heard.
SAMIRA leaps up and looks out the window.
SAMIRA
It’s Abdo, my husband.
CURTAIN OR FADE OUT/LIGHTS OUT.
End of Scene.
***
NEW SCENE
Int. Hadara’s Bedroom, Same Night
ERIC
Well, your kids are grown, married, and have their own
children, grandma.
HADARA
Are you sorry you had a vasectomy ten years before we met?
ERIC
No. I wouldn’t want to pass on my genes for depression.
HADARA
A lot of good my high IQ did for me.
ERIC
You still have a superior mind drenched in inferior brain
chemicals.
HADARA
If only I had those brains in a man’s body, I could find a good
income.
ERIC
If you’re so smart, how come you don’t have the secret of a
happy marriage?
And how come you don’t have any real job?
I see you’re reading the care and feeding of Labrador
Retrievers.
How about husbands?
HADARA
How about wives?
I’m smart enough to play at the work I love.
ERIC
Isn’t it funny?
Nowadays, men want to be heroes and women want money.
Ten years ago men wanted sex, and women wanted love.
HADARA
We’re alone and in deep decline at last in this house.
At last I have a nice backyard to do my Tai Chi Chuan.
ERIC
We’re not alone in the universe.
Everybody’s watching us.
ERIC looks up at the poster/picture of Mr. Spock on the wall
of HADARA’S bedroom.
HADARA
I feel safe in his presence because he never gets angry.
ERIC
Safe?
HADARA
I have a right to verbalize my deepest feelings.
He won’t chase me, shove me, or beat me.
Men never call me a man-hater.
Just women do, and only in print.
ERIC
All I can offer you is my impatience.
HADARA
You’ll never admit you hit me.
Don’t you remember doing it because I didn’t like that old
bookcase?
If you’re my husband and friend, then who’s my enemy?
ERIC
(grinning)
Only you, my love.
HADARA
You’ve put me down and hit me all these years.
It happens only when I state my needs.
If I’m silent all the time and smile, it never happens.
ERIC
If I can’t be a hero to you, why stay for my money?
You will never get any of it.
HADARA
Then why do you want me to live here?
I don’t have any other place to go.
ERIC
I’m not here to hit you.
The always door stays open if you want to leave.
You know we’re not compatible and have nothing in common.
HADARA
Yes. I agree we have nothing in common.
We’re not compatible.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t continue sleeping in my room.
ERIC
You can continue sleeping here in your room.
HADARA
You’ve never kissed me on the lips. Give me a hug.
ERIC
Not now. Ask me in a couple of weeks.
HADARA
I never felt safe with you.
Someday you will murder me, probably strangle me with a
wire.
ERIC
Did you have to tell the kids our marriage never was
consummated?
HADARA
Why not? I want them to know I gave up everything.
ERIC
I’m so embarrassed. That’s like cutting off my manhood.
HADARA
You know when you’ll kill me, Eric?
It will be when I demand respect.
I won’t have to wait until I say I’m leaving.
ERIC
The subject is closed.
Eric walks away. She trails after him.
HADARA
You won’t remember why you’d snapped.
Part of it will be to use anger to get power.
You’re too much of a miser to hire someone like in the movie,
“Midnight Lace.”
ERIC
There’s too much clutter on the kitchen counter.
When are you going to wash the floor?
HADARA
She asked why we have separate bedrooms and separate bank
accounts.
From where’d you learn your knee-jerk hostility?
ERIC
We made a contract, a deal.
HADARA
It’s a fair trade. You pay me food money to stay.
You won’t even let me take care of my houseplants.
My main complaint is that you don’t allow talking very often.
ERIC
Why the hell did an orthodox Jewish woman from Brooklyn
marry a Middle Eastern revolutionary?
HADARA
I thought a drastic change from my dad’s anger was necessary
for happiness.
ERIC
(gruff concern)
Every woman gets the face and the man she deserves. Was it
worth it?
HADARA
Jewish women marry Arab Sheiks when they want to talk with
daddy.
ERIC
Maybe you need some religion. Seems you not only want a
daddy, you want the Lord.
HADARA
Women usually marry men like their daddies or what’s
familiar.
End of Scene.
Curtains.
New Scene Curtain Rises On The Present Day In A Park Or
Beach Setting.
Ext. Beach The Present Day
HADARA and ERIC are walking along the beach, side by
side.
HADARA takes ERIC’S hand for a moment, but then he pulls
away and walks faster so that for awhile he’s walking ahead of
her.
HADARA
Would you slow down?
I can’t keep up with you.
You’re always running ahead.
ERIC slows down and they walk side by side.
This time, ERIC takes HADARA’s hand.
ERIC
My football coach made a pass at me when I was fifteen.
You’re the only person I can tell this to.
HADARA
I’ve already accepted you as you are.
I’d be scared of anyone different.
ERIC
So we’re both abused children who shelved the option for
rearing kids.
HADARA
The biological clock has run out, and we’re alone.
Why didn’t I think of adoption years ago?
I couldn’t replace my biological children.
Someday I always hoped they’d come back to me, like my
runaway cat.
ERIC
Your kids never call you, not even on mother’s day.
HADARA
What do you expect? They moved across the country.
They make the pilgrimage to Mecca each year, but California
is too far for them to visit me.
ERIC stops at an ice cream stand on the beach.
HADARA follows and puts her arm around ERIC.
ERIC
Two snow cones, please.
ERIC fumbles in his wallet.
ERIC
Give me a dollar for yours.
HADARA
Here, miser.
You’ve never pay for me anytime we go out to eat.
But I swore I’d focus on the positive.
ERIC and HADARA walk away, eating their snow cones.
End of Scene Lights Out.
New Scene, Lights On or Brief Curtain.
Curtain Rises or Lights Come On.
Ext. Beach—The Present Summer at Sunset.
A fire is glowing in the beach fire ring.
HADARA and ERIC are toasting kebobs on skewers over the
fire.
They are alone, gazing at the sunset on the beach.
ERIC
We’ve never gone out together to watch the sunset before.
HADARA
You were always building your computers in your bedroom
with the door locked.
ERIC
And you?
HADARA
I created a whole world from my isolation.
People are such a pain in the butt, that solitude is heaven.
ERIC
That’s the wages of selling your isolation to the movies.
Crowds in the media make their living from giving you
recognition.
HADARA
Now that I’m rich, I can look for Mister Right.
Only he’ll be waiting for the bedpan in a nursing home.
ERIC
Will you dump me?
I’m in great shape.
HADARA
No. You’ve danced away decades ago.
And I’m too comfortable in my little house.
Every time change comes, you find an excuse to hit me.
ERIC
Did I ever ask you what you were when I met you?
HADARA
No. You never cared what ethnic group I chose as my core
identity.
See, I don’t inherit a core identity.
I choose it out of fear.
How come I see you watching all those old Nazi marching
films on TV?
And you like blondes!
You like what you look like.
You’re blonde, and I have dark hair. So why is it important to
you?
ERIC
’Cause it’s my core identity, and I did inherit it.
First you married a man who tried to put his fist through your
belly button the day before you gave birth.
Why?
Because you spent six hundred dollars in a month on food.
Boy, what a worthless loser you are.
That’s why people don’t want to be around you.
HADARA
So you blame the victim.
I married a man with a knee-jerk blame-the-victim personality.
My next mistake was telling you the details of my first marriage.
ERIC
How else can I teach you to stop playing the victim?
That’s enough of your arguing.
HADARA
You’ll always be a blue collar Joe. I’ll always love the opera.
I want to kosher my kitchen and listen to music.
It will distract me from my real problems—your abuse and
my declining body.
ERIC
Stop using your grandparent’s religion as an excuse. What do
you really want?
HADARA
I’d like a dream house with central heat and a subscription to
Architectural Digest.
Home and Garden’s passed me by.
ERIC
Will you leave me when you make more money than I do?
HADARA
No. We made a fair trade.
ERIC
Do you still dream of Mister Right—your soul mate?
HADARA
It has been always your house—never our house.
How safe could my house be?
ERIC
What you really needed was to put two empty chairs down.
Then have a long talk with your dad’s spirit.
In the next world, the angry are tame.
HADARA
I can’t take care of myself.
The man I married can’t take care of a wife.
ERIC
You’re describing your dad and your first husband again.
What was it like posing as an Arab housewife for seven years
in the middle of a Brooklyn Jewish ghetto—and knowing
you’re really Jewish?
HADARA
It was more exciting than being nine years old and having my
father chase me through the cellar with an ax in one hand and
a hammer in the other.
HADARA and ERIC eat the food as they watch the sun set
below the horizon.
ERIC
Was it worth it?
HADARA
The men in my life were all stick figures, cave drawings.
ERIC
How could you stand to be discriminated against as an Arab
in New York and beaten for looking Jewish in New Jersey?
HADARA
I finally found a core identity that nobody discriminates
against—Early New England settler.
ERIC
That’s my family background.… here in America since the
sixteen hundreds.
HADARA
We’re married. So what’s yours is now mine.
ERIC
The whole third world discriminates against my core identity.
HADARA
Well name one core identity that I can choose that everybody
loves.
ERIC
You can’t please everyone. Just be yourself.
HADARA
Why can’t everybody love me with my core identity?
ERIC
Try giving of yourself.
It’s time to be happy
HADARA
I am happy.
What’s left after happiness?
Escape or an extreme make-over?
ERIC
Why did you marry me? Didn’t you like yourself enough?
HADARA
I put an ad in the papers for a man slow to anger.
Then I married you.
Oh, boy.
I should have dated you years longer.
ERIC
Well, I played you my astrologer’s tape on our second date.
You saw my horoscope.
She said I was very quick to anger.
HADARA
And I let that statement slip by me.
ERIC
Why did you agree to marry me?
HADARA
You asked me to move into your apartment.
I was homeless and knew you only six weeks.
ERIC
Wasn’t there chemistry? Were you that desperate?
HADARA
I was homeless and penniless when my ex tossed me out the
door.
ERIC
You could have worked a few years after your divorce.
HADARA
I guess I forgot to ask your mother, relatives, or friends.
There were warning signals.
You didn’t visit your mother often.
Your military father put you down.
And you banked your anger into a pool
Then you spent your stress on me.
ERIC
Neither of us have any friends.
That’s all we have in common.
HADARA
I’m tired of absorbing your frustration like a sponge.
ERIC
Everyone liked me at work for all those years.
HADARA
Your co-worker’s only saw your public mask.
It was the same charm my first husband used on his
customers.
ERIC
Really, why did you marry me?
HADARA
I thought Anglo-Saxon husbands never raised their voices at
home.
The phone rings. HADARA rushes to pick it up.
HADARA
Yes. This is she.
Oh, hello.
Well, thank you.
I’m eternally grateful.
Sure. I’ll wait for the contract in the mail.
HADARA hangs up lightly. She leaps into the air screaming
and laughing with joy.
ERIC
What happened?
HADARA
I’ve made you rich, you ingrate.
That producer just bought my movie and novel in a package
deal.
ERIC
Oh, my God. I’m so proud of you.
ERIC rushes over and gives her a hug.
HADARA
I’ve waited for this moment for years.
ERIC
I suspected you could do it, against all odds of age
discrimination.
HADARA
I can buy my dream house now, and get rid of this Salvation
Army furniture.
ERIC
Maybe I’ll take you to eat at the soup and salad place.
HADARA
You’ve never allowed me to have feelings.
Neither did my ex or my dad.
ERIC
You’re too much like me.
Go boot up your computer.
And I’ll boot up mine.
We’ll write to each other from opposite ends of the house.
HADARA
Remember on our wedding night?
You watched the football game on TV all evening.
Then you fell asleep without even a hug. And snored so loud.
ERIC
Well at least on our first three dates we had fun.
HADARA
That’s what happens when you shack up for a year before the
wedding.
Familiarity breeds disinterest.
ERIC
The door’s open. You’re free to leave anytime if you don’t like
it here.
HADARA
Where would I go? My income is only as good as my last book
or movie.
ERIC
Get a real job like I did.
HADARA
I’ll open my own business.
Nobody will ever fire me.
ERIC
Customers don’t take old unknowns seriously.
Work the business side of life like an extrovert works a room.
HADARA
I never have trouble taking advice lately.
Why couldn’t I listen when I was young?
ERIC
What did you really want to tell me?
HADARA
I forgive you and everyone else who needs forgiving, including
me.
Now I can move up to take care of myself.
I was always afraid of being like my mom.
She couldn’t take care of herself.
So she married a man who couldn’t take care of a wife.
ERIC
The door is open.
Are you staying or moving on?
This is my house.
I paid the mortgage.
HADARA
That’s why community property laws are a joke.
ERIC
You were homeless when we met.
I offered you a room and bath with kitchen privileges.
That’s when I’m not eating in the kitchen.
HADARA
No job is that secure.
We are legally married.
I’ll stay by choice.
FADE OUT/CURTAIN
END OF PLAY
***
