Characters

Orlean - young woman / late teens / granddaughter of a hurricane survivor.

Musician - improvisation to & with the action.

The action of Act One shares the simple historical facts of a 20th Century woman who migrated to America, grew up alone and constantly resettled.

Act One Presence: At the edge of the Levee

A projected title: "Act One: "At the edge of the Levee."

Scene One: Her Song

A singing bowl sings in the early dawn of day. A waterfall of soft cascading pastel colors drops down from the sky and ORLEAN carrying a wooden chair enters from behind a scrim of falling white and blue to cross a threshold as the singing bowl crescendos. She walks slowly, carefully and softly noting three "ancestral" streams of light and form: Dark Ancestral form parallel to the threshold, Two-fold ancestral form mid-space and Light ancestral form down-space. Gently she places the chair to the earth and quietly sits her feet slightly risen as if afraid to dip into the water before her. Water drips from the sky.

ORLEAN (Sings. At first a hum, stopping, listening, humming, stopping, listening, watching … washes hands, arms, legs and feet. Eventually the song is sung in a soft open fully supported voice.)

Scene Two: Honeymoon

A voice heard from the deep inner past & ORLEAN transforms into a shrivelled figure struggling to emerge from memory into physicality entering actuality. Words struggle to be voiced. Syllable by syllable in tortured repetition pronunciation transmutes into a clearly remembered time of ... B ... b ... bo ... Body ... Body ... dy ... rocky ... Body rocky ... (Text continues in this manner building into a coherent structured narrative with specific parts addressed to the “forms”)

ORLEAN Body rocky like a mountain,

climb up just to rest alongside you –

your hard edges poking into my curves.

Skin like scented tissue paper,

so easy to rip through...

no wonder you needed those strong edges.

I once said to you “we are some sleeping constellation’s dream”.

I no longer remember what I meant (why I said it).

But what’s funny is that I do remember those nights of hard, anxious sleep,

trying to curl up against endless edges.

We never melted together – though we tried hard enough to forge a connection.

Why did it seem so necessary? So inevitable? So fated?

Our stars crossed

but I did not sleep

maybe I slept, but not easy,

in our museum love:

touch nothing

look everything.

In the small, toy house

we practised our catalogue of love-making,

shopping off each other’s lists,

snacking on treats,

indulging, over-indulging,

vacationing.

But it was your real life, mine too.

And at night the sheets were too slippery,

the blankets too hard,

the unfamiliar mattress struggled to accept my shape

(too many people have lain here)

And I think I see someone else’s long-forgotten coat hanging in the closet.

Our stars crossed

but I did not sleep

maybe I slept, but not easy,

in our museum love:

touch nothing

look everything.

Scene Three: Tornado

ORLEAN suddenly breaks into a chaotic run. Stopping at each “ancestral form” to sense … what? A hand extends like a dousing rod (a type of divination to locate ground water, metals, oil or gravesites) while the other hand is pulled towards the chair. Dark form attracts (possible Czech text faintly recited). Two-fold form requests touch. Light form repels almost wishing to speak which ORLEAN shushes … ORLEAN succumbs to the pull of the chair only the force takes her to the Two-fold form. She tentatively passes through pulling back and forth as if in a wild backward swim launching into Tornado …

ORLEAN (full voice calling out as warning) Tornado, Tornado, Tor…nado, Tornado, Tor, Tor, Tor, Tornado, Tornado, Tor … nado, Tornado, Tornado, Tor … nado, Tornado, Tornado, Tornado, Tornado, Tornado, Tornado (crashes into chair which falls) …

(Pause)

(Silence)

(Stillness)

(Pause)

(Floating on waves on the surface of a flood, being carried by a force of immensely gently proportions. At times a holding of breath as if dipping beneath the surface … speaking the text as bubbles … consonants bursting into the air.)

Oh W oman W ho F alls F rom the S ky. Wh ere are Y ou? Wh y are Y ou S till N oT F alling? D id Y ou F all in a D ifferent P Lace and W e J ust C an’t F ind y ou? Or M aybe Y ou’re F a lLing R ight N ow an D it’s J ust T aking a L O T L onger. I S I T May Be w e G ot l ost or T he W ind B lew Y ou S omeW here else? Are Y ou F loating on thi S B ig S ea W aiting F or us? Ar e Y ou S wimming un D er the S ea? C an Y ou B rea the Wa Ter? L iK e f ish? Is this the R igh T S ea? A re we T oo L ate? T oo e aR Ly? A n D Wh ere are the F ish? It S eem S … Th ere are Th ing S in Th iS S ea TH aT I D on’t TH in K belong here. Wh at Sh ould we Do W oman? SH ould W e S T ar T W iTH ou T You? SH oul D M us Kr a t aN D T oad Swi M to the B o TT om o F TH e S ea an D F in D S ome earth an D B ring I t B ac K u P? Sh ould W e J ust ge T S T arte d? W ithou T Y ou? W oul D T ha T D e FE at TH e P urpoS e? Sh oul D I D ive D own and H old the w W orld up? N o w? W ould Y ou B e angry? Oh W oman, P lease l L et thi S B e the B eginning and N ot the E nd. B ecause if it’s T he E nd T hen how D id we S c R ew u P so B adly? I am J ust a lowly animal. A n d I A P o L o Gi Z e.

(Pause)

(Notes fallen chair. Reacts. Notes Light form and sees, for the first time, something hanging within the form. Goes to form and reaches. Beyond reach. Gets chair. Stands on chair and reaches. Pulls and watches feathers fall to the ground.)

(Pause)

Scene Four: Custody

ORLEAN takes chair to Two-fold form, stands on chair, examines form and begins to sew the threads of time.

ORLEAN (Sings) In this little city we see just grass

(Sews along the edge of the form moving down from the chair to the ground. The Drum beats gently and she places hand on the pulse or heartbeat of the earth. Cautiously returns to sewing and singing moving across the form pausing to sense the heartbeat and comes to silence. Pauses and slowly reveals a bone. Grabs the bone. Guided vigorously by the pull of the bone she is forced to her knees at a site. She scrapes away the surface of the earth as if it were a skin.)

(Insert Czech text)

(Clutches her eyes as if exposed to a bright light or blinding memory. The bone drags her across the space to another site. Her hand is guided to follow an inscription carved into the ground. She digs)

(Insert Czech text)

(Lifted a few feet by the bone she is plunged to the ground as if into a hole and digs deeper and deeper until she is buried. With extreme animalistic force she frees herself emerging.)

Smoke Smoke Smoke Smoke

Fire! Fire! Fire!

Ahhhhh...

Sit Sit Sit

Lean

Smoke Smoke

Lean

So still, so clean

(She rises in silence)

(Pause)

So still, so clean

(Hurriedly returns the bone to place she found it. Takes chair.

Places it at a more central spot. Fear. Anger. Breathes a

controlled, heavy exhalation. Lifts chair. Rushes at predator,

releases a war cry and then retreats in fear. Repeats attack

and retreat three times. Stands behind chair. Looks to sky

and screams.)

Why?

(Now begins a sequence where ORLEAN protects a child from an outside threat. She consoles, plays and chides the child alternating between reasoning, arguing and pleading with the predator. The entire sequence is spoken in an invented language. Much like Gibberish.)

(When the threat leaves ORLEAN transforms into the child reaching up into her mothers arms. Relief.)

(Sings a Hymn of Praise moving backwards)

(Stops abruptly)

Scene Five: Walk

ORLEAN Walk Walk WalK Walk WalK Walk Walk Walk Walk

No end No beginning

Walk Walk WalK Walk WalK Walk Wal k Walk Walk WalK

Wal k Walk Walk WalK Walk WalK

Walk Walk WalK Walk WalK Walk

All directions

Walk Walk WalK Walk WalK Walk

Wal k Walk Walk WalK Walk Wal

Cry Cry Cry

Water drops

drops

s

s

rivers

ssssssss

spread

ea

ea

w in d

w in d

Seeds

grew

gathered

animals

blood

made

woman

(Silent mouth action to the following words: The woman put her hand over man’s mouth to stop crying But the wind did not stop There’s a tornado warning nearly every night. We hardly pay attention to them anymore. It’s not like we live in the tornado.

And what about death?

Nothing. I’m too young to die.

As I was walking, the river looked bigger – swollen, I think they call it.

The water moving so fast and thick it was like filmy bath water pushing toward the open drain and I imagined nature’s plug being pulled 100 miles away. That’s a sort of death – a phrase for one, anyway...

But the water being gone, that’s a death, too.

Right now as I walk on the path by the river, the water line seems to float above my head. How is this possible? How does the water not spread out and overtake me? It just rolls forward. Runs forward, really, it moves faster than I can walk. Heavy, thick, fast. This river doesn’t flow or gush. It pushes with all its weight.

And still the water is far from gone and I am far from dead.

Really. It’s true. So I don’t think about death. I don’t think about death like it will actually happen. I picture it instead. Being caught in the undertow of the weir, falling through the ice and suffocating (or freezing) just below the broken surface, falling off the bridge...into shallow waters and breaking my neck, being stabbed by some pathetic youth as I cross under the bridge...So I picture it, but it will never happen.

But its fullness (boundlessness) reminds me of its end. Do my short skirts make old men think of a cold casket?

So on my walk, I see this river. This river, like a ghost, stalking me from the other side of the trees. And I’m too young to die.

Long ago river return perhaps get up

fish big move they say

arrive here in silence they say

river big grandmother mother gave birth (pushing)

water turtle big (emphatic) old female animal big good

Yes (no translation) to utter yes Men very many our people finished

Scene Six: Her Call

Orlean is sitting on chair. It is as the beginning though all has changed. Pulls hair back and sees. Sings song.