THE HOPEFULNESS OR LA ESPERANZA (off Broadway Reading with Rising Circle Theatre Company at Theatre Row) (Writer/performer for Teatro Iati reading) (Danisarte Company, 4 Caminos Festival Workshop Performance). Translated into Italian through Tre Roma University in Rome.
A fire. Money for souls. The streets of Sosua. Sister prostitutes Anna and Jacqueline attempt to leave behind their dark past by stowing away at the bottom of a cargo ship traveling from the Dominican Republic to France. The price of passage is spelled out in desperate, clown-like games–rituals that bring to imaginary life their parents, former clients, and lovers–in a struggle for identity that parallels the immigrant struggle to conquer the ghosts of the Old World.
ANNA – (difficulty speaking) – Aren’t you tired of it all? I am. Tired of arguing with my grunts in bars, dumps, alleys, corners, hovels, darkness, with the scum of life. Walking down those same streets in Sosua. Having those bottom feeding shrimp circle our abode for the stench of female fish flesh —I want to be illuminated with words. With words I do not know yet. Fancy words that make me strain to understand myself.
We won’t be able to read the signs in French.
JACQUELINE – Don’t worry we’ll dream in numbers, I counted the distance between me and the stars. Infinite numbers that added up faster than I could recognize them. Twenty seven steps from Mama’s bed to the kitchen. Thirty two steps from the front door to the kitchen sink where I would steal slices of mango from Mama as she cut away. Seventy eight steps between our front door and the world.
ANNA – One step from here to there. Are we almost there?
—
ANNA- This is the end.
JACQUELINE – This can not be the end as I never…
ANNA – Sipped tea with the Queen of England.
JACQUELINE – Stood naked beneath a waterfall.
ANNA – Ridden in a hot air balloon.
JACQUELINE – Went to the moon.
ANNA- Overtipped a waiter.
JACQUELINE- Said good bye to my mother.
ANNA – I never won at dominoes!!!
JACQUELINE- I never had my baby!!!
ANNA- To be buried in Paris is all we ask.
2 actors
1 to 4 musicians- optional
