not on a suicide trip.
Dave: (Coming with tray) My point exactly.
Damon: And when we overcome our self-hate, it's a giant stride. But if you overcome yours...
Beth: I lose, because the oppressor is me.
Dave: Will you stuff the philosophy, and think a minute!
Damon: My enemy is clearly another color. That’s simple. While you...
Beth: ...have to hate my own father. Whom I also love.
Dave: (Sighing) How does Anne take her coffee?
Damon: I can believe my father's sold his manhood, but...
Beth: But you don't have to defy him. What you do will help him. (To Dave) Light.
Dave: Light. Perfect. (He runs up the stairs)
Beth: If I follow through, I'll blow up everything my father has built.
Damon: We ain't...on the same block.
Dave: (Stands, above) Anne’s not up here. Did she come down...?
Beth: (Listening to Dave, stands) No. (Quietly) The door...?
Dave: (Moving back to door level) Still bolted from the inside. She hasn’t broken lock-down, shut down, whatever the hell you call it. (Runs on up stairs)
Beth: Check the bathroom. I’ll try the garden. (Moves around behind stairs)
Dave: (Calling down) Not here.
Damon: (Still sitting) The cellar. (Moves down to cellar)
Jack: (On stairs) What the fuck's...?
Dave: Anne. Have you seen her?
Jack: No. She'll be somewhere. It's her house.
Damon: (In cellar) Anne. You down here, babe?
(Noise of tools falling. Anne appears from back, dragging something)
Damon: There you are. What you up to?
(Anne is dragging a hose. Beth coming down to cellar)
Damon: Gardening?
Beth: (Steps in front of crates of dynamite) What are you doing with the hose, Anne?
Anne: (Calmly) Get out of my way.
Dave: Has she got the water running?
Beth: (Focusing on Anne) Of course she has.
Dave: (On cellar stairs) My god, she'll ruin the dyna –
Beth: Be quiet.
Dave: She wants to destroy the evidence.
Beth: Hell she does. She wants King to forgive her.
Jack: (Calling from upstairs) Find her?
Beth: (Quietly) Tell Jack it's all right. (Beat) Take it back, Anne.
Anne: Will you move?
Beth: No.
(Dave scoots up to kitchen level, calls quietly to Jack, then will move carefully back downstairs)
Anne: I don't want to get you wet.
Beth: You just want to sink the ship. That's sabotage. You don't have the right.
Anne: I made the wrong decision.
Beth: We made. If there was a wrong decision it’s we who’ll change it.
Anne: But I led you. I said the war had to come home. I picked up the gun. (Emotion shakes her) But when the violence, when the best people...are splattered...?
Beth: Then fuck the revolution? You're taking the whole thing too goddamn personally. You think you’re responsible for what happened to Fred Hampton, and Martin Luther King.
Anne: Not for King.
Beth: Right. King is your vendetta. But there's nothing personal about revolution. Not if you're going to win. The only time we were innocents was J.F.K. When Bobby's turn came we expected it. What the massacre of Fred Hampton proves is the pigs have declared war. They've stopped pretending this is democracy. So. You've screeched "revolution" a long time. Now it's here, are you in it or not?
Anne: (Pause) You're right. I can't decide for anyone else. But this action is over.
Beth: I can’t accept that.
Anne: You know we’re finished. (Lets the hose hang loosely; Beth takes it from her)
Dave: (Quietly) Come on, Anne. I've got us some breakfast made. Let's have it in the garden. (Putting his arm round her) Hedges are high enough?
(Anne looks at Damon, begins to climb stairs. Beth stares after her)
Dave: (Follows Anne , chattering) There's crocuses, spring sun. It'll be overhead by noon. Everyone'll watch it. Maybe that's the moment to run?
Beth: (Desperate) Anne.
Anne: (Stops, turns, says lovingly to Beth) I’m so sorry the bird can’t fly.
Beth: It will. I promise you. All we’ve done is not for nothing. It will fly…beautifully.
(Anne smiles. Dave picks up tray and film. Jack joins them in garden. Beth watches them go)
Dave: Two thicknesses of exposed film; you look through it until the instant before totality. Then for that one instant you can look with your eyes, and not be blinded. It's an incredible sight, the last flash before darkness, the colors, the shooting fire.
Damon: (When they’ve disappeared) Glad to see you standing solid, Miz Beth, cause I need you to go to work. (Answers Beth’s look) Teach me to use it. The dynamite.
Beth: That's why you stayed.
Damon: Yeeup.
Beth: I can't.
Damon: Then what you gonna do with it? Look where you’re sitting, girl. What’s the chance you get free to use this stuff? Far more likely the pig’s gonna find you with it, and put you all away. Then where’s your revolution. So you telling me you can’t teach me? Or you won't.
Beth: Glad you know the consequences. Once we use this, we’ve lost any chance to effect society lawfully. We’ll be admitting defeat – that we have no hope of stopping this war, or of changing anything. But you're the real revolutionary, Damon – you’ve a program, a constituency, a chance of winning. You can't throw that away.
Damon: And you?
Beth: You said it: we’re just spoiled, ineffectual children. Because we don't know how, because no one believes us, because we're our own enemies.
Damon: Then why’d you stop Anne from hosing it down?
Beth: We have to use it! They've got to believe we mean it. They've got to be afraid. Nobody doubts you. All you have to do is step out firmly in a group of three to raise terror in 90% of whites. You’ve got everything to gain.
Damon: I'm not thinking gains; this is survival. And I don't mean self-defense. I mean self! You whimper how no one believes you don't mean to be rich. How do you think we're going to convince ourselves, let alone anyone else, that we do mean to be human. A great leader...who guided us mildly, in love, to better ourselves, was brutally invaded, in his sleep, and butchered – by the law. (Beat) What will it do to our children, to say “We have no recourse." (Picking up stick of dynamite) So let's just say, we need it – for the soul.
Beth: (Tears flowing) They'll wipe you out, Damon! Don't you see that? If this...that happened can happen, then there's nothing to stop them. They didn't even try to hide it. If you give the pigs an excuse, they'll incinerate you, and say you fired first. Please...let us do it, let us create the explosion. It doesn't matter what they do to us. We can serve.
Damon: And bear the white man's burden?! God forbid, the Indian get the rifle. They should have stayed peaceful. They should have been robbed and shot, ejected from their land, raped of their civilization...in peace?!
(Seeing his rage, Beth’s eyes brighten and clear; she knows what to do, and moves to dynamite)
Beth: All right. Come here.
Damon: (Not quite believing her) You sure? You're solid?
Beth: (Rips open crate, takes eight sticks, sets them) Why not? Am I a Nazi playing Beethoven? No. If this is going to be, then I'm going to do it. I'm not going to say somebody else pulled the trigger. (Setting out hardware) It's got to be pure. It's a tool. You tape eight sticks together to make a bundle. Handle it carefully. (Expertly wrapping sticks) You pick up the gun; you respect it's efficiency; you value your skill; you kill the person who would kill you. If you're brave you pick it up. Only the coward refuses. (Finishes wrapping) And m
e? I've seen enough misery, enough injustice, enough people who starve…and I know who pulled the trigger on them: it’s in the glazed eyes of my comfortable parents. Now. (Tearing pieces of tape, laying them out) You lay the tape out, sticky side up, to add armor – nails, that shoot out like shrapnel, when it explodes. (Spreading nails on tape) I've gathered enough rage. It's eaten my guts out. I hate in abundance: I hate the greed of this country, the self-serving politicians, the rock-faced military...and me. I hate me. (Finished laying nails, tapes them onto bundle, but her movements are unsteady) So there's no reason I shouldn't be able to make this bomb. I just have to be sure I intend each thing I do. Like the GI who shoots the subversive baby. The only reason he goes crazy is he didn't believe enough in his hate. And I'm very sure I believe in…uhh… (Clings to bundle, nauseous)
Damon: You all right, Beth?
Beth: I keep thinking I'm in the Nam jungle, scared. I see a helmet move; I toss a grenade; it lands on the edge of a pit. The lid rises. I'm afraid the guy in it will toss it back at me. The lid rises…but it's Maya. She's pulling her dead father out of the pit… (Gasps, runs, vomits)
Damon: My dear Saint Joan, it’s a sign of hope.
Beth: (Returning) I'm sorry.
Damon: Let me get you something. Water?
Beth: Would you? Mint tea. From the deli on the corner.
Damon: (Surprised) You know, Saint Joan cried over the wounded, but it never stopped her.
Beth: (Shakes her head weakly) Big difference.
Damon: Is there? …alarmed her family, outraged the community….
Beth: No one thought she could win, but…she loved her country.
Damon: Why so do you.
Beth: Oh my god, who can understand that.
Damon: You. And me. (Long pause, holding her hands) Mint tea.
Beth: I'd really like some. Here’s my key.
Damon: (Takes it, hesitates) Uhh…
Beth: Go the front way. Won’t hurt.
Damon: Be back in a second.
Beth: Damon?
Damon: Yeah, babe.
Beth: Don't rush. The neighbors might wonder.
Damon: Yeah, right. You okay?
Beth: Fine now. I’ll take care of everything. Just get outta here.
(Damon leaves, humming “Jesus Loves The Little Children”. Beth alone, begins attaching blasting cap to the bundle, then the battery to the blasting cap)
(Giant EXPLOSION. Newscast of eclipse in background. Then BLACK. Eclipse broadcast segues into music: “When The Ship Comes In”)
END OF PLAY
NATIVE LAND
NATIVE LAND
Rejuvenating America...
SETTING: An American city, not long ago. Needs only large projections, and:
Act I: a staircase, easy chair, couch, coffee table, doorways, belonging to a large old house
Act II: a hospital bed, simulation of an electronic hook-up, monitoring control panel and chairs
CHARACTERS:
JEN college sophomore, political science. Bright, attractive, eager to follow her infamous parents if she can find out who they “really” were.
ALAN Jen’s father, newspaper editor a mountain of a man – the kind you build a city around – stubbornly himself, eloquent, reformer, fighting his way back.
KATE Jen’s mother, MD, brain researcher. Brilliant – was enchanting fiery, intuitive, but has smothered her passion in a civilized life.
MIKE old college friend, attorney elegant charmer – witty. poetic, sensual, open-hearted – has crashed, is determined to rekindle the past.
JAMY Jen’s brother, rebellious 13, an enigma – self-absorbed, driven, searching, uncommunicative, and uncontrollable – a kid, who makes perfect sense to himself.
GAIA apparently ancient bag lady, eccentric, profane, inarticulate, but certain of her mission, and at ease with natural powers.
NATIVE LAND
Scrims, front and back. In between, skeletal indications of a grand old house. Upstage door leads to kitchen and back door. A staircase to upper level. Downstage, partial frame of front door.
At the beginning, all is dark. Then front scrim gradually lights with colors of stormy autumn. Sound of wind, thunder. High up, boy sitting, hands on his knees.
Jamy: Let me try, Gaia. I think I can see now.
(On scrim – cavernous