Stained

Characters

MIA, a woman in her early thirties

BLUE, a lean, graceful man in his late twenties

STORYWOMAN, a woman over thirty; also does the voices of ABUELITA
and SISTER CARRIE. At times STORYWOMAN joins the Chorus.

CITY FOLK (the CHORUS):
               CITY MAN ONE
               CITY MAN TWO
               CITY WOMAN
               
(Even when the CITY FOLK are not the focus of the action, their
movements and gestures work to extenuate the mood of the scene.)

Movement I: Summer

("Summer in the City" music underscore begins in darkness. The entire CAST walks on stage, as the lights rise, one at a time, begining with CITY WOMAN, then MAN ONE, followed by MAN TWO. The chorus of voices blends together as each enters. They circle the stage, lonely city travelers, not seeming to notice each other, each off to a separate destination.) CITY WOMAN: (speaks in rhythm) SUMMER IN THE CITY... CITY MAN ONE: SUMMER IN THE CITY... CITY MAN TWO: SUMMER IN THE CITY... CITY FOLK: SUMMER IN THE CITY... (As STORYWOMAN speaks, BLUE exits, the CITY FOLK move away from center stage.) STORYWOMAN: It was a summer full of dogs. Skinny dogs. Dogs without homes. Dogs on the run. Humping dogs. Dogs hovered over bones.Howling dogs. Limping dogs. Dogs with fleas. The city was a dog with a hanging red tongue. Panting. The heat. The heat pressed us. CITY FOLK: THE BLUES IN HEAT, SUMMER IN THE CITY STORYWOMAN: That summer the heat pressed us to the ground. (Light isolates MIA center stage.) MIA: I was a dog without a bone that summer. CITY FOLK: SUMMER IN THE CITY (whispered)... STORYWOMAN: Hitting the pavement, day in, day out. CITY FOLK: DAY IN, DAY OUT (in unison with STORYWOMAN) DAY IN, DAY OUT (whisper)... STORYWOMAN: And the nights. The nights overstayed their welcome. Long nights, too long. Every night was forty years too long. (MUSIC ENDS.) MIA: I didn't sleep all summer, just laid in bed with my eyes closed...listening. CITY FOLK and STORYWOMAN: (clinking tongue -- like drops of water -- and exhale...) MIA: The drum in my chest. The hum between my legs. (The STORYWOMAN and CITY FOLK walk towards MIA, they abruptly turn back. MUSIC ends.) STORYWOMAN: And the days would come again, with a vengeance. The glare. Musty bodies. Rotting fruit. Air more scarce than water. A heat that wouldn't surrender, that wouldn't give up or let up. Day in, day out. Hot. CITY FOLK: DAY IN, DAY OUT. HOT (1x in unison with STORYWOMAN). STORYWOMAN: Burning hot. MIA: And all I could think about was this bone that I didn't have. STORYWOMAN: Not any old bone. But one that would last. Winter, spring, summer and fall, and winter, spring, summer, and fall again. MIA: But a bone was nowhere to be found. CITY FOLK: DAY IN, DAY OUT (whisper variations, rising and falling)... STORYWOMAN: And she looked. Looked hard. Rooftops, fire escapes, other people's back yards. (MIA follows STORYWOMAN as she searches the stage.) MIA: On dry land, on wet land. STORYWOMAN: On land fill, under hub cabs, in river beds, oil wells, shanty towns, basements, ballrooms, caves. Underground. No where. No bone to be found. (MUSIC ENDS.) MIA: Hitting the pavement. STORYWOMAN: Day in, day out. CITY FOLK: DAY IN, DAY OUT (1x, in unison) STORYWOMAN: She was strapped tight for a bone. And it showed on her face. MIA: On my face. CITY FOLK: UM HUMM ALL OVER HER FACE (MIA slows down, limping.) STORYWOMAN: It made her walk with a limp. Her shoulders curled in. A hump grew on her back. And the hump turned into a monkey. CITY FOLK: MONKEY (extended whine) (MIA's desire cripples her.) STORYWOMAN: Day in, day out. CITY FOLK: DAY IN, DAY OUT (1X in unison with STORYWOMAN) STORYWOMAN: The monkey rode her back, swinging his tail of snakes and breathing fire in her ear. MIA: But I wanted that bone so bad. STORYWOMAN: So she kept walking, day in, day out. CITY FOLK: DAY IN, DAY OUT (1x in unison with STORYWOMAN) (CITY FOLK turn to regard MIA, glaring over their shoulders.) STORYWOMAN: What a sight they made, Mia and the monkey, circling the city, eating what the vultures wouldn't touch. Passing the abuelitas on their stoops. (CITY FOLK, become abuelitas. They lean on their window sills and shake their heads.) ABUELITA: Girl, better get that monkey off you 'fore it eats through your skin. Go see Sister Carrie. She'll straighten you out. Sister Carrie. On the hill. CITY FOLK: "HILL OF NAILS" (Lights change: darker, mysterious. CITY FOLK form a semicircle behind MIA. They slowly turn around, backs to MIA. She ventures up the hill.) STORYWOMAN: The hill wasn't a green hill, but a hill of nails and chipped china. And Sister Carrie sat on top. On a throne of crowbars, a graveyard of rusty Cadillacs at her feet. Her face full of tragedy and disease. (MUSIC ENDS. CITY WOMAN ONE, drapes a scarf on her head. She turns around, becoming SISTER CARRIE. STORYWOMAN watches from afar.) SISTER CARRIE: What you need, girl? MIA: A bone. STORYWOMAN: Sister Carrie stared straight ahead. Her eyes turned to stone and her mouth opened like a trap door, filling the air with her swamp-water breath. SISTER CARRIE: (she hisses) SISTER CARRIE: (her voice amplified and hollow) Wear a silk dress the same color as your skin. Wait a fortnight. Stand in your doorway at dusk. Your bone will come. (CITY FOLK exit. Lights dim. MIA is isolated in spot. Lights fade.)

Movement II:

Fall (Music undercore: "I'M FALLING" comes up in darkness. Lights up on MIA in the same position, now in the dress, the color of her skin. She swings to the music, her body moving to the pleasure of her memories. She stops and begins to retell story.) CITY WOMAN: I'M FALLING (4X) AND I CAN'T GET UP CITY MAN ONE: MMMMNNN... CITY MAN TWO: HUMMNNN... MIA: I waited a fortnight (MIA runs her hands down her body, closes her eyes. Lights dim slowly.) STORYWOMAN: Then at dusk, in a dress the color of her skin, Mia stood in her doorway, eyes closed. When the sun left the sky and fell below water. (BLUE appears on stage, downstage from MIA.) STORYWOMAN: She opened her eyes, and found, not a bone, but a man. (MUSIC ENDS. Mia sees BLUE for the first time. They prance around other. Finally he breaks the impasse with a slow, sexy smile. MIA inches toward him cautiously, as if he's a mirage. Finally she smiles back.) STORYWOMAN: A man with a smile that changed everything. MIA: Everything. CITY FOLK: EVERYTHING STORYWOMAN: A man called Blue. (CITY MAN ONE leads music underscore: "BLUE'S BLUES." CITY FOLK join in. Opposite them, BLUE and MIA engage in a passion "dance," moving close, then apart, circling each other, turning to avoid each other's eyes. They enact the STORYWOMAN's words: "falling" slowly, deliciously together, touching first with just a finger, then more and more...) STORYWOMAN: Just as in fall, leaves turn colors -- red, orange, yellow-- and fall, Mia's skin changed from pale green to scarlet and she fell. CITY WOMAN: SHE FELL (whispered 1x in unison) MIA: I fell. STORYWOMAN: Into the arms of Blue, so suddenly, so completely, it was if she had always been there. (MUSIC ENDS. BLUE and MIA are now entangled together, one body. The couple holds for a beat, then they unravel, stand apart, and regard each other with wonder. Their bodies meet again; this time they do a nasty slow drag. Moody light.) MIA: We slow-danced at midnight. CITY FOLK: ON A DEAD-END STREET STORYWOMAN: And Blue sang his blues, which was the blues of a traveling man, with a traveling heart, and traveling hands. Mia didn't listen to the words, she just danced. MIA: It had been so long. STORYWOMAN: Her cheek against his chest. MIA: I smelled his skin. (BLUE breaks away from MIA, he moves downstage alone. CITY FOLK do music underscore: "INDIGO TRAVEL THEME.") STORYWOMAN: Which was indigo, and smelled of all the places he had been. Cities, where people spoke in clicking tongues. Forests, where he knelt on moss to kiss the naked bellies of mermaids. Blue had been places. And he had been those places alone. Be sure, he wasn't taking anyone with him. (MUSIC ENDS. Spot on BLUE. He focuses on the horizon.) MIA: I could tell by his eyes. (MUSIC ENDS.) STORYWOMAN: Which were always out at sea. (Lights dim on BLUE standing alone. CITY FOLK do music underscore: "LITTLE BLUE'S BLUES." Lights change. MIA lures BLUE back. They slow drag again, him holding her from behind.) STORYWOMAN: It didn't matter. Just as long as Blue sang his blues, those late nights he came to slow dance. (MUSIC ENDS.) MIA: Cheek to chest. (BLUE breaks from MIA, his back to her. She regards him from afar. He turns to look at her, taunting her with the distance.) STORYWOMAN: Blue's Blues wasn't all in a song, but the way he wrapped certain words around his tongue, like her name. MIA: Mia, Mia, he used to say, Mia means mine. (Blue's body in high relief, his gestures causal, but very sexual) STORYWOMAN: Or scratched his head with one finger, or wore a red hat. MIA: His blues undressed me. STORYWOMAN: Fell down on her like a hail storm, leaving her tossing and turning. CITY FOLK: TOSSING AND TURNING... STORYWOMAN: In a bed of kisses. (BLUE returns, kisses MIA, then abruptly leaves. MUSIC ENDS.) MIA: But left me all alone. (MIA stares out towards the audience, as if into a mirror.) STORYWOMAN: When he was gone, she would look in the mirror at herself to see the beauty he left there. (MIA is now isolated in a spot center stage. She touches her neck.) MIA: Purple tattoos. STORYWOMAN: How his blues stained her skin. Stained her skin. CITY FOLK: STAINED HER SKIN. (MIA's hands travel to just above her breasts. The spotlight closes in on her hands.) STORYWOMAN: Stained her.

Movement III: Winter

(Music underscore: "COLD AS ICE." Lights up on the CAST, minus Blue, huddled together center stage. They hug their bodies and walk off towards the wings, cold and alone, leaving MIA isolated downstage left.) CITY FOLK: (CITY WOMAN leads round) COLD AS ICE NOW IN FEBRUARY IT'S COLD AS ICE THAT'S HOW HE LEFT HER COLD AS... (MUSIC ENDS.) STORYWOMAN: The night Blue didn't come to slow-dance, a storm coated the city in ice. And with it, Mia's heart froze. MIA: I knew STORYWOMAN: That the sea, and the mermaids, and the faraway cities called Blue back. But knowing who called him, didn't make it better. MIA: I wanted his blues. STORYWOMAN: More than anyone else could ever want it. The night before the storm, they danced. (BLUE appears, they do a tango of gesture and movement. Finally they fall together.) MIA: For hours, and hours, and hours. STORYWOMAN: Till their legs collapsed and they fell on each other, a heap of damp flesh. (BLUE and MIA on the floor, resting against each other in a heap) STORYWOMAN: Blue said right then... BLUE: Mia the witch, Mia the cello, Mia the child, Mia the rose, Mia the river. Mia. All these Mia's are mine. (CITY MAN ONE does "BLUE's BLUES RIFF" over the following scene: MIA falls asleep as BLUE speaks. He unravels himself and exits, leaving her alone on stage. MUSIC ENDS.) STORYWOMAN: How could someone know her so, and leave her, still. (CITY FOLK enter slowly and do music underscore: "MYSTERY, MYSTERY, MYSTERY." MIA wakes up. Reaches for Blue. He's gone.) STORYWOMAN: To know her so, and leave her still. (MIA rises slowly, distraught.) STORYWOMAN: What called Blue to the sea must be bigger than him, bigger than her, bigger than the city. Whatever it was, whereever it was, it was where he found his blues. And he needed it bad. (MUSIC ENDS. MIA searches the stage for BLUE. She stops center stage. The spot falls on MIA as she engages in her ritual.) STORYWOMAN: For a fortnight, Mia stood every night at dusk in her doorway, in the silk dress, same color as her skin. And waited, eyes closed, for the sun to leave the sky and drop below water. Hoping, when she opened her eyes, Blue would be standing there. (BLUE appears. MIA's eyes remain closed.) MIA: Ready to dance. (Blue leaves. MIA opens her eyes.) STORYWOMAN: But he never was. (CITY FOLK do music underscore: "MYSTERY, MYSTERY, MYSTERY.") STORYWOMAN: All Blue left was his blues. Which once had left her beautiful and full, now left her grey and empty. Left her all alone. (MUSIC ENDS. CITY FOLK turn away. CITY MAN ONE does "BLUE'S HOLLOW BLUES RIFF." MIA backs away from center stage to lean against a wall, stage left. Lights favor CITY FOLK who assemble behind an old-fashioned radio mike.) STORYWOMAN: No matter what time of day, Blue's blues was always on the radio. (CITY FOLK do music underscore: "BLUE'S RADIO BLUES." MIA braces herself as the music trails in.) STORYWOMAN: (amplified) It's nine past the hour, and the hour is eight. You're tuned to the club of hearts, WWHT, Memphis, and I'm the Count. The Count of Spades, giving you your music, when you want it, where you want it, and just the way you want it. We're going back now, I mean way back, way way back, back back back, & back again some, to the blues. Yes, yes, y'all, when I said the blues, I meant the Blues. (MIA turns off her radio. CITY FOLK pull back. MIA peers out a window. She "hears" music from the window, backs away. MUSIC ENDS.) STORYWOMAN: Everywhere she looked, Blue's blues stared back at her, with eyes that didn't know her. From her mirror, from her kitchen sink. (MIA walks away from another window, from her vanity mirror, from her sink. The music stalks her.) STORYWOMAN: It got so Mia couldn't hear Blue's Blues without wanting to rip her chest open. (MIA and the blues engage in combat. She hurls herself about, trying to expell the blues. The blues wins. MIA clutches her chest for air.) STORYWOMAN: Blue wasn't there to blame, so she blamed her heart. And one day, she cut it out. (MIA sits down slowly, paralyzed with anger.) STORYWOMAN: Buried it underground. Still... MIA: Still. STORYWOMAN: She could not get from under Blue's Blues, as much as she tried. (CITY FOLK do music underscore: "BLUE'S BLUES WHISTLE." MIA tries to edge downstage on her haunches, but is trapped in place. Lights dim.) STORYWOMAN: It followed her. Unrelenting as ever. (MUSIC ENDS. CITY FOLK go about their city business. MIA weaves through the group lost and confused.) CITY FOLK: BLUE (variations)... (CITY FOLK clear away from MIA.) STORYWOMAN: Mia circled the city, speaking in tongues, asking questions no one could answer. (MUSIC ENDS. CITY WOMAN becomes the ABUELITA, leaning on her window and shaking her head.) ABUELITA: Better get that blues off of your chest. See Sister Carrie. She'll straighten you out. Sister Carrie. She on the hill. (CITY FOLK do "HILL OF NAILS REPRISE." They form semicircle behind MIA, then turn their backs to her. They hold lighters or flashlights. CITY WOMAN pulls scarf over her head becoming SISTER CARRIE.) STORYWOMAN: Mia climbed, once again, the hill of nails and chipped china. (MUSIC ENDS.) SISTER CARRIE: What you need, girl? MIA: A bone. STORYWOMAN: Sister Carrie threw back her hood, and there was not Sister Carrie at all, but the monkey. (CITY FOLK point their lighters at MIA.) CITY FOLK: MONKEY! (CITY FOLK do music underscore: "FEAR BREATHING." MIA's movements denote travel.) STORYWOMAN: Mia ran home, covered herself with everything, sheets, blankets, rugs, pots and pans. But Blue's Blues still seeped under her skin. (MUSIC FADES.) STORYWOMAN: She took off all her clothes and stood naked under scalding hot water but, as burning water has never drowned the blues, the music filled her pores like glue, til her legs and arms were stuck together, her knees pressed to her chest, her head bent over her knees. A ball of hard wax. The ball got smaller and smaller and smaller until it was the size of a walnut. And it rolled across the room and ended up in the dust behind the stove. Where it stayed till Spring. (Lights dim on MIA, curled tight as a ball. STORYWOMAN drapes a "shawl" on MIA. Half dark.)

Movement IV: Spring

(Lights up on CITY FOLK rising. CITY FOLK do music underscore: "BEAUTIFUL SKY." They reveal MIA, in a clean new dress.) CITY FOLK: A BEAUTIFUL SKY...(fading out) (MUSIC ENDS.) STORYWOMAN: To dream of candy means you have a false sweetheart. To eat it denotes shame, To give it away, happiness. MIA: I dreamt of licorce, salt-water taffy, watermelon sticks, sugar daddies, sugar babies, Charleston Chews. STORYWOMAN: When Mia woke up, it was Spring. The glue that had bound her together, turned to sugar. (MIA begins music underscore: "MIA's BLUES.") STORYWOMAN: She licked herself clean, and went to find her heart, buried twenty feet underground. Then she rocked. Back and forth, back and forth. She rocked to a blues she made up herself. (MUSIC segues to:) MIA: MIA's LITTLE SONG (MIA walks downstage. She stares off into the audience, as if it's a mirror.) STORYWOMAN: In the mirror sometimes, Mia catches herself. MIA: My eyes CITY FOLK: Have changed. STORYWOMAN: Her eyes are often CITY FOLK: Out at sea STORYWOMAN: The eyes of someone who listens to a sound that comes from very far away, those are Mia's eyes. She stares ahead and listens. And sometimes she hears what she listens for, at odd times, in odd places. The market. Cabbage, califlower, turnips, eggplant... MIA: Eggplant... (CITY FOLK do music underscore: "BLUE'S LAST BLUES." MIA's eyes fill with tears.) STORYWOMAN: She reaches for an eggplant. Strokes the purple skin. Cool and dark as the deepest sea. The color stains her skin, stains her skin. Just as he did, with his indigo, with his blues. (MUSIC ENDS.) STORYWOMAN: Stained. MIA: Forever. STORYWOMAN: (whisper) Stained. (CITY FOLK come in with: "BLUE'S VERY LAST BLUES.") (Lights down slow on MIA. Her hands travel to just above her breasts. The spot closes on her hands. Darkness.)

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