At the Table, After the Parade

A play in verse in three acts

***

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Scott Negro – American; representing the black community; hair flecked with grey, sharply dressed in a pinstripe suit

Margaret Iron – British; representing the women’s community; short curly hair, wearing an elegant purple dress with a white knitted sweater over her shoulders

Drag Queen – undefined nationality; representing the LGBTQIA+ community; in a pink wig, tight green sequin dress, and red high heels

Juggler

Scythe

Poet

Chorus

***

THE SCENE

The table is set somewhere between cultures, where the mention of a place will not make any difference and will not cause antagonism and unpleasantness. The second act takes place in a cinema room in the same building.

The month of the gathering is July, specifically chosen for its independence from Women’s History Month (March 1 – 31), Pride Month (June 1 – 30), and Black History Month (October 1 – 31); there are few allusions to the past. Outside the window, a rainbow flag flutters in the wind.

The characters sit at the table after the Pride Parade. A morose mood mixed with a dash of hope for a better future.

***

ACT ONE

SCENE I

Servants bring a variety of plates with fruit, vegetables, pot soups, roasted meats on larger plates, nuts and edible oils. The table is decorated with bay leaves, all the cutlery is copper, no tablecloth, just bare wood on the table top. There are bread baskets to the side. Kerosene lamps gently illuminate the interior plunged in twilight.

Chorus

We all set our fruits, vegetables and edible oils

To please the eyes and stomachs of the public

To satiate ourselves

In a multicultural feast of feasible forces

SCENE II

Enter Juggler.

He tries to interest the guests with his tricks; juggles balls of multiple colours. He looks at the guests and smiles. His face is painted white, eyes highlighted with black mascara, pink clown lips. Seeing no reaction to his tricks, he picks up the tenpins and starts tossing them higher and higher, all the way to a very high ceiling. He sees a stir in the audience, but not enough to continue. Out of the corner of his eye he craves plates and knives which he would also like to play with. However, he gives up. He sits in a chair to the side of the stage, watching and listening to the conversations. He looks greatly concerned and confused.

SCENE III

Margaret Iron

I have to raise an important issue

Crying out to heaven for vengeance

Our rights have been ignored for so many centuries

Unsung, unnoticed, underestimated by men

*

Who put themselves above God himself

Demanding power, our possessions, privileges

Never accepting our role –

Often merely a backdrop for the main scene

*

From Jane Austen’s sense of pride

Without sensible prejudice

Through gender equality in the classroom

To promote courage, command and coalition

*

To Emmeline Pankhurst’s hunger strikes

Chaining to railings, smashing windows, committing arson

We often fought until we ran out of breath

To give our daughters the best future they deserve

Scott Negro

When Black History isn’t taught

In American schools, then what’s left for us?

Just a Black History Month to celebrate

Edible oil for too many incompetents

*

He takes the vinegar in a green carafe.

*

Chaff instead of wheat

Holy Sponge to prolong our suffering during the crucifixion

Perhaps they can all eat it, we can’t

Too many misfortunes have befallen our race, and it could have been worse

*

We just need to turn the bad tide

And think about the consequences

Of placing members of our community

On a par with the devil

*

Without a doubt, our skin is black

This is our legacy, we cannot change it

We cannot bleach ourselves

To fit into the core of the white world

Margaret Iron

Now look here, sir, we have rights too

For our grandmothers, mothers, daughters and granddaughters

Why do you compare yourself

To Christ on the cross?

Scott Negro

My intention was merely a reminder

About importance and recognition

Because any community deserves proper understanding

Of basic black bearing

*

Our need for justice is above all else

Since we are the ones facing draconian racism

From the cops, prison wardens and our own pastor

As a last resort, we were forced to form gangs

Drag Queen

Stop that! It’s a flight to nowhere

With no peanuts on board

Although we have them here, but

This should not be a point for our discussion

*

Suddenly, she flips a jar of peanuts on the table, laughing and lighting a cigarette.

*

What are you up to, mister in a pinstripe suit?

Playing dumb, blind, deaf? It’s a rain on our parade!

This is not what we fought for

To dull our minds with your tautology

*

In a fight that is not worth the effort

Over the last long bloody years

To show the world our self-acceptance

Because self-acceptance is the key, my friend

*

A larger community requires all voices

To be heard, to be sought, to be given

Because our sisters did not suffer in vain

Fleeing harassment and racism themselves

Scott Negro

We are not questioning your right to freedom

As all the greatest black men

They never opposed it, quite the contrary

Our blood is soaked with oppression, so we offer you our help

Drag Queen

We need a promise that our homophile preferences

Will not be persecuted

That fundamental civil rights will be preserved

For our brave and bald friends

*

That social stigma, guilt and shame

It won’t put us close to mental illness

Like the rest of the homophobic society, they want to see us

On some remote paradise island

*

We are not ancient birds

We are not extinct

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual and everything in-between is just as good

As any other sexual orientation

Scott Negro

This admonition is out of place

What if the only good here is God?

We are not the ones who aid and abet

The forces you mention

To cool the discussion, drinks are served. The scene fades to black.

***

ACT TWO

Opening of the scene: a set of three films will be shown in a movie theatre one after the other: Robert Benton’s “Kramer vs. Kramer”, Pedro Almodóvar’s “Bad Education” and Peter Farrelly’s “Green Book”, according to the topics discussed.

There is no conversation during the screenings or after them, only when the main protagonist of “Green Book” experiences severe racism in the deep south, Scott Negro, disgruntled, goes to the bathroom. When he returns, Drag Queen decides to speak.

Drag Queen

The nature of our world should be UNIFIED

So that all communities can thrive

To find a space to meet our needs

Without infringing on someone else’s

All the main characters sit in silence, staring at each other menacingly. They are supposed to be UNIFIED, but neither of them wants to accept it as it would mean that each community is not valued as much as togetherness that should be fought for. Margaret Iron, with pursed lips and tepid thoughts, looks into the void and her companions in this misery. She would like to change the course of events, but realises that she can only operate effectively within her community.

***

ACT THREE

It takes place in the same setting at the table, although in the meantime the food has already been taken and in the scanty light of the kerosene lamps, we can see a large number of bookcases.

SCENE I

Chorus

The scene was lit by the vision of a juggler

Presenting the world with contagious laughter

Because he believed that every soul could function best

With a little tension relief

Suddenly the juggler, out of a desperate act of pride, takes the scarves off the necks of all the guests. The characters wore them as a gesture of uniting opposing forces. With them gone, there is no chance of reunification. As if only the declarations of words mattered, not the actions themselves.

SCENE II

Chorus

After the dinner has been consumed in its entirety

What is left from this point of view?

Our plates still empty, anticipating blank slates

Of the minds of all people greatly involved

*

All bones need grafting

All blood needs transfusion

All scar tissue – proper repair

Taking into account our basic principles

Enter Poet.

He looks at the scene with great discontentment. All this time he was hidden behind the scenes. He does not identify with any of the forces, although he objectively read the literature of each party involved and he listened to them with politeness painting his face in the colours of the rainbow. Focused on professional ethics, he refrains from judging anyone. He made voices from all corners of the world to be heard in the name of freedom of speech, fairness and against all discrimination, respecting the diversity of the world in which we live in.

Chorus

And the Poet imagined the beds of all his former lovers

Are they lonely or satisfied fulsomely?

Have their schemes found fertile ground

For the life they wanted to live?

Poet

Are they living their lives to the full?

Without a single glance at me

Engaged in words of pride, women’s and black rights

Creating my own little world in my head

*

Does my dismayed and dismantled family

Have enough excitement over echoing

Of my words spoken to no avail

Arising from sins committed in my humble abode?

*

Lonesome now, completely free are

My bones, my head, my thoughts, my fears and dreams

Whatever they do now, it won’t turn the wheel of fortune

All is doomed and duped, I’m a fool as always was

*

Not wanting to suffer deeply

I went to the nearest community

They rowed, they ravaged, they ripped ripe fruit

To satisfy their whims

*

I let them talk, let them blow a fuse

To throw out what troubled their minds, they’re clean now

By shouting out the natural law of neutral power

About free democratic discussion in an egalitarian society

Enter Scythe.

With the intention of changing the scene, he watches the Poet with great attention. When the Poet leaves the stage shaking his head in disbelief, he too leaves the surroundings, dragging the scythe.

SCENE III

Chorus

All of a sudden, the thickest book fell off the shelf

“The Complete Works of Shakespeare”

Without a doubt, the greatest are in cahoots

To change the vicinity for a better world

*

And our Poet only sighed deeply, disconcerted

Concerned about all the possibilities

Available in our lives

Until the next ecstatic parade

*

Filled with all shades of the rainbow

Black, Women’s, LGBTQIA+ life matters on their lips

When time waits for no man

In the hostility of the hospitality of our multicultural environment

– THE END –

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Thank you for reading!