Script excerpt for Rehearse
from Désire
Rehearse
wood, speakers, audio equipment, approx. 15 minute audio piece. 2008.
technical: Two large speakers emit a two-person play with narrator approximately 15 minutes long on a loop. The script is loosely based on Marguerite Duras' Hiroshima Mon Amour – of the impossibility of speaking of war - of war as discussed through the discourse of love.
IN A STUDIO AT THE CITÉ INTERNATIONALE DES ARTS BEHIND A DOOR THAT READS HAUT-COMMISSARIAT DES NATIONS UNIES POUR LES RÉFUGIÉS, A COUPLE LIES TOGETHER, LIMBS ENTWINED. BEHIND THE COUPLE IS A VIEW TO THE RIVER SEINE. THEY FACE EACH OTHER, YET EACH ONE LOOKS BEYOND THE OTHER, THEIR GAZE FALLS OVER ONE ANOTHER’S SHOULDER. FOCUSED ON NOTHING, JUST LOOKING INTO THE AIR THEY ARE ENRAPTURED WITH ONE ANOTHER, YET SO DISTANCED FROM ONE ANOTHER. SHE IS AN AMERICAN WOMAN LIVING IN FRANCE. HE IS IRAQI, TRAVELING WITH A LEBANESE LAISSEZ-PASSER.
SHE:
I know about it. I know about war. Like you, I know about you. I love you. I know what you say to me with your eyes. I know what you desire. I know you.
HE:
You know nothing of it. You cannot know me just as I cannot truly know you. We cannot know. We can only be deceived. We don’t know anything of our desires or of what they represent.
SHE:
I know about it. I have seen the reports. I have read the papers. I saw the photographs – the beautiful dry landscape, the yellow light, the blurry images of civilians with their draping fabric billowing in the wind. I know about it. … And I know you.
HE:
You know nothing of it. You do not know war. You do not know these places, like you cannot know me. … You can’t know me.
SHE:
But I do. I know things. I saw the despicable photographs too. I saw the dogs, the boxes, the hoods, and the piles of limbs. I know about it. And I know you.
HE:
You know nothing of it. You do not know war. You do not know these places, like you cannot know me. … You do not know me.
SHE:
Yes.
I do.
THE COUPLE CONTINUE TO WRAP THEIR BODIES TOGETHER IN DIFFERENT WAYS, CONTINUALLY IN CADENCE WITH THEIR WORDS LIKE A DANCE.
HE:
Then tell me. Tell me more of how you know. Tell me more of what you know.
SHE: ...
