Water by the Spoonful Read online

  W A T E R by the

  S P O O N F U L

  BOOKS BY QUIARA ALEGRÍA HUDES

  PUBLISHED BY TCG

  Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue

  Water by the Spoonful

  The Happiest Song Plays Last

  (forthcoming)

  W A T E R by the

  S P O O N F U L

  Quiara Alegría Hudes

  THEATRE COMMUNICATIONS GROUP

  NEW YORK

  2012

  Water by the Spoonful is copyright © 2012 by Quiara Alegría Hudes

  Water by the Spoonful is published by Theatre Communications Group, Inc., 520 Eighth Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10018-4156

  All Rights Reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that this material, being fully protected under the Copyright Laws of the United States of America and all other countries of the Berne and Universal Copyright Conventions, is subject to a royalty.

  All rights, including but not limited to, professional, amateur, recording, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of translation into foreign languages are expressly reserved. Particular emphasis is placed on the question of readings and all uses of this book by educational institutions, permission for which must be secured from the author’s representative: John Buzzetti, William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, 1325 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019, (212) 903-1166.

  “A-Tisket A-Tasket,” Words and Music by Ella Fitzgerald and Van Alexander, copyright © 1938 (renewed) EMI Robbins Catalog Inc. Exclusive print rights controlled and administered by Alfred Music Publishing Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

  The publication of Water by the Spoonful by Quiara Alegría Hudes, through TCG’s Book Program, is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

  TCG books are exclusively distributed to the book trade by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Hudes, Quiara Alegría.

  Water by the spoonful / by Quiara Alegría Hudes.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  eISBN 978-1-55936-725-7

  I. Title.

  PS3608.U3234W38 2012

  812’.6—dc23 2012026157

  Book design and composition by Lisa Govan

  Cover design by Rodrigo Corral and Joan Wong

  First Edition, August 2012

  For Ray Beauchamp

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Production History

  Characters

  Scene One

  Scene Two

  Scene Three

  Scene Four

  Scene Five

  Scene Six

  Scene Seven

  Scene Eight

  Scene Nine

  Scene Ten

  Scene Eleven

  Scene Twelve

  Scene Thirteen

  Scene Fourteen

  Scene Fifteen

  Acknowledgments

  This play, its story, and its characters are works of fiction. However, I owe a debt of gratitude to Othet Sauris and Elliot Ruiz, whom I interviewed before writing. Without their generosity of story and spirit, my imagination would not have landed at this play.

  More seeds of inspiration came from interviews with Jeremy Cohen, Sandy Moehle, Rik Albani and Alan Leshner. Roger Zepernick, my dear friend, contributed to Scene Ten by sending me a transcript of a speech he gave in Philadelphia along with his permission to adapt it.

  Gratitude to all my family, with a special beam of light shining on my mother, Virginia Sanchez. Linda Hudes, Eugenia Burgos and Liz Morales provide ongoing support and inspiration. My siblings keep me young at heart: Gabriela Sanchez, Ariel Hudes and Forrest Hudes. My stepfather, Mercedes Sanchez, told me a tale of his first cold drink. My father, Henry Hudes, sanded the curly maple of my writing desk.

  Gratitude to my collaborators. John Buzzetti, your joy is infectious. Michael Wilson, what a champion you are. Davis McCallum, Armando Riesco and Zabryna Guevara—what shall we call our theater company? Hana Sharif and Darko Tresnjak, for steel-beam support at Hartford Stage. Catherine Rush, for drawing the starting line; and Kent Gash, for grabbing the baton along the way. New Dramatists, for seven lovely years.

  Gratitude, ongoing, to Paula Vogel.

  Gratitude, endless, to Ray.

  W A T E R by the

  S P O O N F U L

  PRODUCTION HISTORY

  Water by the Spoonful benefited from two developmental readings at New Dramatists. Water by the Spoonful received its world premiere at Hartford Stage Company (Darko Tresnjak, Artistic Director; Michael Stotts, Managing Director) in Hartford, Connecticut, on October 20, 2011. It was directed by Davis McCallum; set and projection design were by Neil Patel, costume design was by Chloe Chapin, lighting design was by Russell H. Champa, sound design was by Bray Poor, music was composed by J. Michael Friedman; the dramaturg was Christopher Baker and the production stage manager was Megan Schwarz Dickert. The cast was:

  ELLIOT ORTIZ

  Armando Riesco

  YAZMIN ORTIZ

  Zabryna Guevara

  HAIKUMOM, AKA ODESSA ORTIZ

  Liza Colon-Zayás

  FOUNTAINHEAD, AKA JOHN

  Matthew Boston

  CHUTES&LADDERS

  Ray Anthony Thomas

  ORANGUTAN

  Teresa Avia Lim

  A GHOST/PROFESSOR AMAN/POLICEMAN

  Demosthenes Chrysan

  CHARACTERS

  ELLIOT ORTIZ, an Iraq vet with a slight limp, works at Subway sandwich shop, scores an occasional job as a model or actor, Yazmin’s cousin, Odessa’s birth son, Puerto Rican, twenty-four.

  YAZMIN ORTIZ, in her first year as an adjunct professor of music, Odessa’s niece and Elliot’s cousin, Puerto Rican, twenty-nine.

  HAIKUMOM, aka Odessa Ortiz, founder of www.recovertogether.com, works odd janitorial jobs, lives one notch above squalor, Puerto Rican, thirty-nine.

  FOUNTAINHEAD, aka John, a computer programmer and entrepreneur, lives on Philadelphia’s Main Line, white, forty-one.

  CHUTES&LADDERS, lives in San Diego, has worked a low-level job at the IRS since the Reagan years, his real name is Clayton “Buddy” Wilkie, African American, fifty-six.

  ORANGUTAN, a recent community college graduate, her real name is Madeleine Mays and before that Yoshiko Sakai, Japanese by birth, thirty-one.

  A GHOST, also plays Professor Aman, an Arabic professor at Swarthmore; also plays a Policeman in Japan.

  SETTING

  2009. Six years after Elliot left for Iraq. Philadelphia, San Diego, Japan and Puerto Rico.

  The stage has two worlds. The “real world” is populated with chairs. The chairs are from many locations—living rooms, an office, a seminar room, a church, a diner, internet cafés, etc. They all have the worn-in feel of life. A duct-taped La-Z-Boy. Salvaged trash chairs. A busted-up metal folding chair from a rec center. An Aero chair. An Eames chair. A chair/desk from a college classroom. Diner chairs. A chair from an internet café in Japan. Living room chairs. Library chairs. A church pew. Facing in all different directions.

  The “online world” is an empty space. A space that connects the chairs.

  MUSIC

  Jazz. John Coltrane. The sublime stuff (A Love Supreme). And the noise (
Ascension).

  NOTE

  Unless specifically noted, when characters are online, don’t have actors typing on a keyboard. Treat it like regular conversation rather than the act of writing or typing. They can be doing things people do in the comfort of their home, like eating potato chips, walking around in jammies, cooking, doing dishes, clipping nails, etc.

  Scene One

  Swarthmore College. Elliot and Yaz eat breakfast. Elliot wears a Subway sandwich shop polo shirt.

  ELLIOT: This guy ain’t coming. How do you know him?

  YAZ: We’re on a committee together.

  ELLIOT: My shift starts in fifteen.

  YAZ: All right, we’ll go.

  ELLIOT: Five more minutes. Tonight on the way home, we gotta stop by Whole Foods.

  YAZ: Sure, I need toothpaste.

  ELLIOT: You gotta help me with my mom, Yaz.

  YAZ: You said she had a good morning.

  ELLIOT: She cooked breakfast.

  YAZ: Progress.

  ELLIOT: No. The docs said she can’t be eating all that junk, it’ll mess with her chemo, so she crawls out of bed for the first time in days and cooks eggs for breakfast. In two inches of pork-chop fat. I’m like, Mom, recycle glass and plastic, not grease. She thinks putting the egg on top of a paper towel after you cook it makes it healthy. I told her, Mom, you gotta cook egg whites. In Pam spray. But it has to be her way. Like, “That’s how we ate them in Puerto Rico and we turned out fine.” You gotta talk to her. I’m trying to teach her about quinoa. Broccoli rabe. Healthy shit. So I get home the other day, she had made quinoa with bacon. She was like, “It’s healthy!”

  YAZ: That’s Ginny. The more stubborn she’s being, the better she’s feeling.

  ELLIOT: I gave those eggs to the dogs when she went to the bathroom.

  YAZ (Pulls some papers from her purse): You wanna be my witness?

  ELLIOT: To what?

  (Yaz signs the papers.)

  YAZ: My now-legal failure. I’m divorced.

  ELLIOT: Yaz. I don’t want to hear that.

  YAZ: You’ve been saying that for months and I’ve been keeping my mouth closed. I just need a John Hancock.

  ELLIOT: What happened to “trial separation”?

  YAZ: There was a verdict. William fell out of love with me.

  ELLIOT: I’ve never seen you two argue.

  YAZ: We did, we just had smiles on our faces.

  ELLIOT: That’s bullshit. You don’t divorce someone before you even have a fight with them. I’m calling him.

  YAZ: Go ahead.

  ELLIOT: He was just texting me about going to the Phillies game on Sunday.

  YAZ: So, go. He didn’t fall out of love with the family, just me.

  ELLIOT: I’m going to ask him who he’s been screwing behind your back.

  YAZ: No one, Elliot.

  ELLIOT: You were tappin’ some extra on the side?

  YAZ: He woke up one day and I was the same as any other person passing by on the street, and life is short, and you can only live in mediocrity so long.

  ELLIOT: You two are the dog and the owner that look like each other. Ya’ll are the Cosby Show. Conundrum, Yaz and William make a funny, end-of episode. You show all us cousins, maybe we can’t ever do it ourselves, but it is possible.

  YAZ: Did I ever say, “It’s possible”?

  ELLIOT: By example.

  YAZ: Did I ever say those words?

  (Professor Aman enters.)

  AMAN: Yazmin, forgive me. You must be . . .

  ELLIOT: Elliot Ortiz. Nice to meet you, I appreciate it.

  AMAN: Professor Aman. (They shake) We’ll have to make this short and sweet, my lecture begins . . . began . . . well, talk fast.

  ELLIOT: Yaz, give us a second?

  YAZ: I’ll be in the car. (Exits)

  ELLIOT: I’m late, too, so . . .

  AMAN: You need something translated.

  ELLIOT: Just a phrase. Thanks, man.

  AMAN: Eh, your sister’s cute.

  ELLIOT: Cousin. I wrote it phonetically. You grow up speaking Arabic?

  AMAN: English. What’s your native tongue?

  ELLIOT: Spanglish. (Hands Aman a piece of paper)

  AMAN: Mom-ken men fad-luck ted-dini ga-waz saf-far-i. Momken men-fadluck ted-dini gawaz saffari. Am I saying that right?

  ELLIOT (Spooked): Spot on.

  AMAN: You must have some familiarity with Arabic to remember it so clearly.

  ELLIOT: Maybe I heard it on TV or something.

  AMAN: An odd phrase.

  ELLIOT: It’s like a song I can’t get out of my head.

  AMAN: Yazmin didn’t tell me what this is for.

  ELLIOT: It’s not for anything.

  AMAN: Do you mind me asking, what’s around your neck?

  ELLIOT: Something my girl gave me.

  AMAN: Can I see? (Elliot pulls dog tags from under his shirt) Romantic gift. You were in the army.

  ELLIOT: Marines.

  AMAN: Iraq?

  ELLIOT: For a minute.

  AMAN: Were you reluctant to tell me that?

  ELLIOT: No.

  AMAN: Still in the service?

  ELLIOT: Honorable discharge. Leg injury.

  AMAN: When?

  ELLIOT: A few years ago.

  AMAN: This is a long time to have a phrase stuck in your head.

  ELLIOT: What is this, man?

  AMAN: You tell me.

  ELLIOT: It’s just a phrase. If you don’t want to translate, just say so.

  AMAN: A college buddy is making a film about Marines in Iraq. Gritty, documentary-style. He’s looking for some veterans to interview. Get an authentic point of view. Maybe I could pass your number onto him.

  ELLIOT: Nope. No interviews for this guy.

  AMAN: You’re asking me for a favor. (Pause) Yazmin told me you’re an actor. Every actor needs a break, right?

  ELLIOT: I did enough Q&As about the service. People manipulate you with the questions.

  AMAN: It’s not just to interview. He needs a right-hand man, an expert to help him. How do Marines hold a gun? How do they kick in civilian doors, this sort of thing. How do they say “Ooh-rah” in a patriotic manner?

  ELLIOT: Are you his headhunter or something?

  AMAN: I’m helping with the translations, I have a small stake and I want the movie to be accurate. And you seem not unintelligent. For a maker of sandwiches. (Hands him a business card) He’s in L.A. In case you want a career change. I give you a cup of sugar, you give me a cup of sugar.

  ELLIOT: If I have a minute, I’ll dial the digits. (Takes the business card) So what’s it mean?

  AMAN: Momken men-fadluck ted-dini gawaz saffari. Rough translation, “Can I please have my passport back?”

  Scene Two

  Odessa’s living room and kitchen. She makes coffee. She goes over to her computer, clicks a button. On a screen we see:

  HAIKUMOM, SITEADMIN

  STATUS: ONLINE

  HAIKUMOM: Rise and shine, kiddos, the rooster’s a-crowin’, it’s a beautiful day to be sober. (No response) Your Thursday morning haiku:

  if you get restless

  buy a hydrangea or rose

  water it, wait, bloom

  (Odessa continues making coffee. A computer dings and on another screen we see:)

  ORANGUTAN

  STATUS: ONLINE

  ORANGUTAN: Ninety-one days. Smiley face.

  HAIKUMOM (Relieved): Orangutan! Jesus, I thought my primate friend had disappeared back to the jungle.

  ORANGUTAN: Disappeared? Yes. Jungle? Happily, no.

  HAIKUMOM: I’m trying to put a high-five emoticon, but my computer is being a capital B. So, high-five!

  (They high-five in the air. Another computer screen lights up:)

  CHUTES&LADDERS

  STATUS: ONLINE

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Orangutan? I was about to send a search party after your rear end. Kid, log on. No news is bad news.

  ORANGUTAN: Chutes&Ladders,
giving me a hard time as usual. I’d expect nothing less.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Your last post says: “Day One. Packing bags, gotta run,” and then you don’t log on for three months?

  ORANGUTAN: I was going to Japan, I had to figure out what shoes to bring.

  HAIKUMOM: The country?

  CHUTES&LADDERS: What happened to Maine?

  ORANGUTAN: And I quote, “Get a hobby, find a new job, an exciting city, go teach English in a foreign country.” Did you guys think I wouldn’t take your seasoned advice? I was batting 0 for ten, and for the first time, guys, I feel fucking free.

  HAIKUMOM (Nonjudgmental): Censored.

  ORANGUTAN: I wake up and I think, What’s the world got up its sleeve today? And I look forward to the answer. So, thank you.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: We told you so.

  ORANGUTAN (Playful): Shut up.

  HAIKUMOM: You’re welcome.

  ORANGUTAN: I gave my parents the URL. My username, my password. They logged on and read every post I’ve ever put on here and for once they said they understood. They had completely cut me off, but after reading this site they bought me the plane ticket. One way. I teach English in the mornings. I have a class of children, a class of teens, and a class of adults, most of whom are older than me. I am free in the afternoons. I have a paycheck which I use for legal things like ice cream, noodles and socks. I walk around feeling like maybe I am normal. Maybe, just possibly, I’m not that different. Or maybe it’s just homeland delusions.

  CHUTES&LADDERS AND HAIKUMOM: Homeland?

  HAIKUMOM: You’re Japanese?

  ORANGUTAN: I was, for the first eight days of my life. Yoshiko Sakai. Then on day nine I was adopted and moved to Cape Lewiston, Maine, where I became Ma—M.M., and where in all my days I have witnessed one other Asian. In the Superfresh. Deli counter.