Trying to Find Chinatown: The Selected Plays of David Henry Hwang
Page 19
To rekindle the faith of a man
(Isabella is surrounded by a radiant holy light.)
Remember one, a child, a virgin
Who felt in her belly a stirring?
And held fast to the faith this was God?
COLUMBUS:And do you promise me, oh blessed one,
Riches and governance,
And most of all,
That I further the kingdom of God?
(Isabella steps downstage, toward Columbus, with every step becoming more clearly a mortal woman.)
ISABELLA:Yes, I so swear
Now, you must as well
Will you hold to the faith
That Joseph took into the stable?
COLUMBUS:You look to me
Like Dona Beatriz
Whose love I had sought in Gomera
Can it be? You come now as a woman
With flesh warmer than my own?
SCIENTIST/FIRST MATE AND SECOND MATE:Salve Regina Mater
Misericordiae
Vita, Dulcedo et spes nostra salve
Ad Te clamamus exsules Filii Evae
[Hail, Holy Queen
Mother of Mercy,
Our life, our sweetness and our hope!
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve]
ISABELLA:I take many forms
I wear many faces
But all for the one righteous end
That the voyage you take
Is made in my name
And discoveries claimed for my honor
I am your Queen
I am your love
I am your one true God
Trust
Follow
Believe
SCIENTIST/FIRST MATE AND SECOND MATE:Ad Te suspiramus Gementes et flentes
In hac lacrimarum valle eja ergo
Advocata nostra, illos tuos
Misericordes oculos ad nos converte
Et Jesum Benedictum fructum ventris tui
Nobis post hoc exilium ostende
O clemens, O pia
O Dulcis Virgo Maria
[To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping
In this valley of tears. Turn then,
Most gracious advocate,
Thine eyes of mercy towards us;
And after this our exile
Show us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Oh clement, oh loving,
Oh sweet Virgin Mary.]
(The Scientist/First Mate and Second Mate embrace. Offstage, a bird sings, indicating land is near.)
SCIENTIST/FIRST MATE:¡Lumbre! ¡Tierra!
¡Adelante! ¡Adelante!
¡Tierra! ¡Tierra!
[Light my way! Land!]
Onward! Onward!
Land! Land!]
ACT III
Scene One
Space Twins 1 and 2, Earth Twins 1 and 2.
2092. The stage is split into two parts. One is a space station in our solar system, commanded by Space Twins 1 and 2. Behind them, a screen scans various sectors of the universe. The other half is a research laboratory on earth, where Earth Twins 1 and 2, both archeologists, meet carrying two of the glowing crystals we saw in Act I. Each of the crystals emits a particular sound frequency.
SPACE TWIN 1:All space exists
In random disorder
SPACE TWIN 2:Be that as it may
Our task is clear
To order disorder
By vectors and quadrants
By infrared catalogs
In the hope that one day
A pattern will lead us
To life
SPACE TWIN 1:Life?
Sometimes I fear
It is ghosts we seek
In a black hole’s pulsars
Or a dwarf star’s shadows
Could there somewhere
Really be beings
Who stare into space
And echo our foolish cry
“Yes, I will order disorder”
EARTH TWIN 1:I was hiking in the Andes
EARTH TWIN 2:I was digging near the Ganges
EARTH TWIN 1:When I heard the most
Amazing sound
A tone high-pitched
EARTH TWIN 2:Mine low
EARTH TWIN 1:Unearthly
EARTH TWINS 1 AND 2:As if the very rocks were
Lifting their voices
To heaven
How utterly coincidental
EARTH TWIN 1:That the same event
EARTH TWIN 2:Should befall us both
EARTH TWINS 1 AND 2:On the very same day
(The Earth Twins bring their crystals together. As they do, the original pulsating chord is recreated. In the space station, the map onscreen rushes quickly through the universe until it indicates, as in Act I, the spot in the cosmos from whence came the original travelers.)
SPACE TWIN 1:Sector 15, Vector 320,
Quadrant 1479
SPACE TWIN 2:Sound the alarms
Radio the Chancellor
Quick—alert the media!
Six years in orbit
Brought to its fruition
I want a cold beer
SPACE TWIN 1:I want the Nobel Prize
They’ll give us six
Three for you, three for me
Quadrant 1479
So far away
SPACE TWINS 1 AND 2:It will take us many, many years
To reach such a destination
EARTH TWINS 1 AND 2:What a strange tone
EARTH TWIN 1:No radioactivity
EARTH TWIN 2:No stray particles
EARTH TWIN 1:Perhaps it is simply decorative
EARTH TWINS 1 AND 2:We’ll run it through the standard battery
EARTH TWIN 1:But till then—
EARTH TWIN 2:It is—
EARTH TWINS 1 AND 2:Quite pleasantly hypnotical
It will take us many, many years
To reach our final conclusion
Scene Two
Commander, Space Twins, Scientist/First Mate.
A spaceport. Several years later. An expedition is about to depart for the recently discovered planet, the source of life.
COMMANDER:Through the ages
All we have sought to know
What once had been believed unknowable
Continuing this tradition
We depart on our expedition
Which will not reach its end
Till the time of our children’s children
We cast off the earth
And hereby ascend to heaven
(A group of dignitaries and world rulers gathers to see off the explorers.)
DIGNITARIES AND WORLD RULERS:Secretary General of the United Nations
Prime Minister of the EEC
President of North America
Chancellor of the United States of Africa
Chairman of IT&T
Controller of the South American Monetary Fund
Executive Vice President of Coca-Cola
Executive Director, World Environmental Council
Emperor of China
(The team of explorers heads into their spaceship. The door closes behind them as the acclaim of the chorus fades quickly away, replaced by the music of machines.)
Scene Three
Inside the spaceship, each member of the expedition is alone in his or her solitude; each wears a telephone headset through which they say their good-byes.
SCIENTIST/FIRST MATE:If you one day remarry
Make sure that he loves children
COMMANDER:Be careful, my darling
Your eyesight is poor at night
SPACE TWIN 2:Father, don’t call me
An undutiful child
SPACE TWIN 1:I loved the parade
But now that it’s over . . .
SCIENTIST/FIRST MATE:I always imagined
A prom for my daughter
SPACE TWIN 2:I always imagined
That you would be proud
COMMANDER:I always imagined
&
nbsp; This day might arise
SPACE TWIN 1:I always imagined
A prize on my mantle
But these obligations
These stiff mock-heroics
I never imagined
COMMANDER:I never imagined
That love would flow
Deeper than work
SPACE TWIN 2:Then, hang up now
Good-bye
SCIENTIST/FIRST MATE:I never imagined
The phone lines would end
SPACE TWIN 1:Then life
Leads at last
To this solitude
SPACE TWIN 1:The quest would devour
The very limits of my life
SCIENTIST/FIRST MATE:Then love
Comes in three-minute increments
COMMANDER:Then my heart
Had been braver than I had ever hoped
SCIENTIST/FIRST MATE:Good-bye
To talks about nothing
SPACE TWIN 1:To paper lanterns
SPACE TWIN 2:Then, hang up now
Good-bye
Good-bye
So now it is clear
As earthbound illusions
And family myths
Fall like scales
From the eyes of St. Paul
That always
And ever
As I walked on my journey
I walked
As a child
With tiny feet
Walking alone
SPACE TWIN 1:Good-bye
To prizes and politics
COMMANDER:Good-bye
To the warm part of my heart
COMMANDER, SCIENTIST/FIRST MATE AND SPACE TWIN 1:Good-bye
To the gem of my future
Good-bye
Good-bye
Hello
Hello
Epilogue
The space travelers fade away, revealing Columbus, lying on his deathbed. Dominican monks chant a requiem mass. The year is 1506. Isabella appears before Columbus.
COLUMBUS:They chant for me
Am I to assume that I no longer live?
ISABELLA:Cristóbal Colón
Cristóbal Colón
COLUMBUS:And now the song
Of she who led me to sea
But neglected even to call
On her deathbed
You promised me one-tenth of all I discovered
ISABELLA:Well, monarchs may change their minds
COLUMBUS:You promised me glory and honor
ISABELLA:I regret that you were brought back in chains
COLUMBUS:You promised that I would find Asia
But cruelest of all
You swore to me
That I would magnify the kingdom of God
ISABELLA:I gave you next-best
The Spanish Inquisition
Didn’t you know my true face?
Didn’t you see that your arrogant faith
Your blasted assurance
Was the child not of God
But of pride
The angel of vanity
Called by men, “Lucifer”?
And so, in His name,
You slaughtered the New World
And packed them away as slaves
In the hulls of your ships
Girls hung themselves
Bending their knees
As there was no room to stand
So, Cristóbal, come
Embrace me!
With this, your final breath
Come to my bed
Unzip me, defile me
Judge yourself, and enter my world
COLUMBUS:Is it foolish to seek the mind of God
If there may be no God?
Is it futile to reach for order
In a universe built upon chaos?
Is it vanity to hope one day
To know the design of all things?
Even the sad expanses of regretful human souls?
From the first amoeba
Who fought to break free of itself
To Ulysses, to Ibn Battuta, to Marco Polo
To Einstein, and beyond
All that we seek to know
Is to know ourselves
To reduce the darkness
By some small degree
To light a candle, jump a stream
That the sum of human ignorance
Might dwindle just a bit
And the deeds done in darkness
May wither one day perhaps even
Expire
And if our human voyages
Are riddled sometimes with horrors
With pride, with vanity
With the mother’s milk of cruelty
Yet finally human evil
Does not deny the good
Of knowledge
Of light
Of revelation
Of the hope that lo one day
Exploration will make obsolete
Even the sins of the explorer
ISABELLA:Good-bye
Don Cristóbal
I see you resist my song
COLUMBUS:I’m sorry I am unable to tarry here longer
But the journey that awaits
Is far more seductive than
All your last temptations
Finally
We take the voyage
When the voyage
Takes us
ISABELLA:Good-bye
Don Cristóbal
Good-bye
COLUMBUS:Finally
We take the voyage
When the voyage
Takes us
(Columbus’s bed is transported to the stars.)
END OF OPERA
BONDAGE
(1992)
Production History
Bondage received its premiere at the Actors Theatre of Louisville (Jon Jory, Producing Director), as part of the 16th Annual Humana Festival of New American Plays, in Louisville, Kentucky, on March 1, 1992. It was directed by Oskar Eustis; the set design was by Paul Owen; the costume design was by Laura A. Patterson; the lighting design was by Mary Louise Geiger; the dramaturg was Deborah Frockt; and the stage manager was Debra Acquavella. The cast was as follows:
MARK B. D. Wong
TERRI Kathryn Layng
Characters
MARK
TERRI
Place
1990s.
An S&M parlor in the San Fernando Valley, California.
A room in a bondage parlor. Terri, a dominatrix, paces with her whip in hand in front of Mark, who is chained to the wall. They both wear full face masks and hoods to disguise their identities.
MARK: What am I today?
TERRI: Today—you’re a man. A Chinese man. But don’t bother with that accent crap. I find it demeaning.
MARK: A Chinese man. All right. And who are you? T
ERRI: Me? I’m—I’m a blond woman. Can you remember that?
MARK: I feel . . . very vulnerable.
TERRI: You should. I pick these roles for a reason, you know. (She unchains him) We’ll call you Wong. Mark Wong. And me—I’m Tiffany Walker. (Pause) I’ve seen you looking at me. From behind the windows of your—engineering laboratory. Behind your—horn-rimmed glasses. Why don’t you come right out and try to pick me up? Whisper something offensive into my ear. Or aren’t you man enough?
MARK: I’ve been trying to approach you. In my own fashion.
TERRI: How do you expect to get anywhere at that rate? Don’t you see the jocks, the football stars, the cowboys who come ’round every day with their tongues hanging out? This is America, you know. If you don’t assert yourself, you’ll end up at sixty-five worshipping a Polaroid you happened to snap of me at a high school picnic.
MARK: But—you’re a blonde. I’m—Chinese. It’s not so easy to know whether it’s OK for me to love you.
TERRI: C’mon, this is the 1990s! I’m no figment of the past. For a Chinese man to love a white woman—what could be wrong about that?
MARK: That’s . . . great! You really fe
el that way? Then, let me just declare it to your face. I—
TERRI: Of course—
MARK:—love—
TERRI: It’s not real likely I’m gonna love you.
(Pause.)
MARK: But . . . you said—