Tara Rebele is the author of And I’m Not Jenny, forthcoming this spring from Slope Editions. The following performance piece is from that collection.





In Penumbral Flats


Characters:

Lucia: live performer

Mother: video projection

Mental Health Professional (MHP): cardboard cutout with audio feed


Note
: Lucia begins in the light in order to look back at her shadows. The initial Summer section of the piece chronologically follows the final Spring section. This should be indicated in production.

The movement sequence between seasons is indicated in {} and should occur in a circular, perhaps spiral, pattern. The movement sequence at the end of the initial Summer section should break from the pattern. Percussion rhythms may accompany the movement sequences, paced according to the speed of the movement; if percussion is not used, some noise would be appropriate.


**

 

Summer


Lucia:

It isn’t unpleasant as one

might expect

sitting up late

on the sofa

with the ghosts

preferable even

to years spent

refusing

to be

haunted.

One could blame

the wind

were there any

to be had.


Mother:

Lucia. Turn off the lights. It’s late.


Lucia:

Late but not


MHP:

Medication compliance.


Lucia:

every second

again

every

the heaviest of


Mother:

Lucia. The lights. We’ll have a fire. I’ve read about those lamps ...


MHP:

Breakthrough episodes.


Lucia:

Every second.

So when you stand

in the light

your shadow

lurks.


Lest you forget

yesterday

you were

Yet when darkness

 

there’s no shadow

of the shadow

no trace

to long

and long

it lasts

if one

lasts

long

enough


point A erased


again

This is the better


MHP:

Maintenance is crucial. Regular patterns. Monitor moods.
Continue treatment. As directed.


Mother:

You haven’t taken your pills. Here.

Aren’t you warm with all that?


Lucia:

Yes.

And lucid.

And most.

 

I think I’ll be going.

 

{Lucia moves — fast to faster}


**

Fall


Lucia:

Can you see it? Can you see it? The light at the. The light that. The light. No. Again, but not before, yet before. It’s like déjà vu. My body knows this dark. Knows what to do. Remember? No.


Mother:

When Lucia was a child she was just wild about halogen …


MHP:

As a primary light source?


Lucia:

Skin still warm. Hasn’t been long. Yet. And I know. I know. I know something in the forecast calls for wanting. And forgetting. And night for months without dreams, sleep without stir, night without night without


Mother:

Regular old bulbs just wouldn’t do for that child. And she kept the lamps on round the clock, even when she slept.


MHP:

Don’t blame yourself. There was nothing you could have done.


Lucia:

Open my eyes and see nothing. Open my eyes and see nothing. Open my eyes and see nothing. Open my eyes and see nothing. Open. See. Nothing. Was something ever?


Mother:

Well, I don’t believe that. She was so bright. So intense.


Lucia:

Circadian rhythm shifts. Sheep to squirrel. Drowse to sleep. Deep. [Yawn]


MHP:

Classic case. We’ll go the usual route. In a few months she should be as good as …


Mother:

Lucia did everything with such dramatic flair. Do you know she wanted to be an actress? From the time she was three. Her name in lights.


Lucia:

Fallen.

 

Post-traumatic stress? Something repressed from childhood? Inability to cope with life pressures? Negative thinking? A self-destructive bent? Situational depression stemming from the devastating break-up of my unhappy relationship with the wrong X? Or could it just be PMS? What’s the diagnosis this time?

 

As if

a binary situation.

The lamp is on.

It is off.

I am on. I am off.

Light. No light.

And I glide between currents paying the middle no mind.

Now I am only now.

Not then nor when.

No matter if my eyes are open.

Or closed.

Or looking.

Or not.

Most forgetting occurs in the first few moments.

And it has been long since.

 

[yawn]

 

{Lucia moves—brisk to trudge}

 

[gets into a bed or curls up, fetal position, on ground facing audience]


**
 

Winter


[Lucia is lying still, eyes open, staring blankly outward.]


Mother:

Daddy and I went to the Riverside for lunch yesterday. We saw your old friend. From high school … oh what’s her name … she was in all the same activities as you … ummm, Amy? Annie? Angie. That’s it. Angie. Don’t know what her last name is now that she’s married. She’s got a little one — almost three. They built in that big new development on the West side. Cute little girl. Tow head. Looks just like him.


MHP:

Inadequate response to first line treatment.


Mother:

You always had so many nice young men calling on you.


MHP:

We’ll increase to the maximum dose.


Mother:

Did I tell you Uncle Roger’s retiring? He and Aunt Mimi are moving. To Arizona. The air there is better for her allergies. They just put their house up. They’re looking at an adult community. Right on a golf course. Uncle Roger says he’ll be able to just walk off his back deck and tee off. Daddy says they’d better get some of those special polycarbonate windows.


MHP:

If that doesn’t work, we’ll try an alternate first line.


Mother:

Oh snap out of it!


MHP:

And/or augment.


Mother:

Billy and Susan are coming for the weekend. Billy’s going to help Daddy replace that back porch door and Susan and I are going over to the outlet stores to shop.


Lucia:

[sits up, snapping fingers, staring out, breaks and begins to speak]

 

Approximately fifteen human neurons have firepower equal to                                
one D battery.

Beta waves — high frequency, low amp — are associated with                             
arousal.

I am drawn to small portable electronic devices.

And flashlights.

It usually ends disastrously.

The therapists always said it was my self-destructive tendency.

The psychiatrist says my transmissions fail.

I just fire fire fire away.

But am not received.

Says I’ve been mistreated.

For years.

It’s not uncommon, really.

To be not ground.

And undetected.

 

[snaps]

 

Angie was such a snobbish little bitch.

 

[snaps]

 

Tell Billy and Susan I say.

 

[snaps fingers again and lies back down]

 

{Stillness}


MHP:

The blood tests showed toxicity. I suppose you really weren’t feeling well. We’ll try something else.

**

Spring


Lucia:

Once I was incandescent. 

 

{Lucia moves — upright to forward}


**


Late Spring

 

MHP:

Do NOT miss a dose.


Mother:

Lucia’s never been good at following directions. Her report cards. She always got check pluses in every other category. But “Cooperates and follows directions”? Check minus.


Lucia:

[sigh] Fluorescents.


Mother:

Spirited little thing she was. Always said she’d give us a run for our money. Had no idea.


MHP:

Do NOT stop taking your meds.


Mother:

Your hair’s growing. Always liked the way it curls at the ends when it grows out. Frames that pretty face. You really ought to keep it a little longer, it’s so boyish short.


MHP:

You’ll need to be seen weekly.


Mother:

Evelyn told me a handsome young man moved in to Fraser’s old place. She thinks he’s single …


Lucia:

So you told him your lovely daughter will be outta psych soon

and is just crazy to meet him?

 

[louder] Fluorescents.

Mother:

Well if you’d just try …

 

I’m telling everyone you’re in Europe.


MHP:

Lucia’s condition …


Mother:

We’ve had enough of your shenanigans.


MHP:

She needs time. She’s ill.


Lucia:

I need light.

Flight.

Clip the wings

to save the girl.

Gray is better.

Dull is well.

Stuff a pill in me.

I am a

socket

now.

Grounded.

Empty.

Waiting

for a prong

that doesn’t

come to

surge.


Mother:

Well it’s not like she’s got cancer. Or diabetes.


Lucia:

Beta beta beta beta beta beta

baby come back

what I wouldn’t give for

a good

transistor

 

pen light

 

when I was a girl

fading

I used to poke holes in the bottom of

glow sticks

hold the string and

spin spin spin

til the dark was

interrupted

my

handspun aurora

burn me

to dawn

and if the liquid faded first

well


Mother:

I mean, she’s always been moody. You don’t have to call it a disorder. Now she has an excuse.


MHP:

She’s stable now. No moods.

 

[Lucia appears on video monitor]


Lucia (video):

Don’t ever go to Europe! The food here in Europe is lousy! They make you take anti-psychotic drugs and if you refuse they’ll never let you leave Europe! The other tourists here in Europe are fucking insane! At dinner today an elderly European woman tried to stab me with a spoon. She thought I was after her European pudding. They’re just crazy about their diabetic butterscotch pudding here in Europe!

 

[quieter] This fucking European getaway was really overpriced.


Mother:

Well, good then.

 

Daddy was telling me that he saw an article in Sunday’s paper about Feline Leukemia, it listed the symptoms and he’s afraid Mitts might be sick. We’re getting her tested next


Lucia (live performer):

Excuse me

but I seem to be

eclipsed.

 

 

[Lucia moves — fast to faster]