Marisol and Other Plays

MARISOL

PRODUCTION HISTORY

Marisol was originally commissioned and developed by INTAR Hispanic Arts Center (Max Ferra, Artistic Director) through a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.

The play received its world premiere at the 1992 Annual Humana Festival of New American Plays at the Actors Theatre of Louisville (Jon Jory, Producing Director), in Louisville, Kentucky, on March 13, 1992. It was directed by Marcus Stern; the set design was by Paul Owen; the costume design was by Laura A. Patterson; the lighting design was by Mary Louise Geiger; the sound design was by Darron West; and the stage manager was James Mountcastle. The cast was as follows:

ANGEL

Esther Scott

MARISOL

Karina Arroyave

MAN WITH GOLF CLUB,

MAN WITH ICE CREAM,

LENNY,

MAN WITH SCAR TISSUE

V Craig Heidenreich

JUNE

Susan Knight

HOMELESS PERSON

Carlos Ramos

Marisol was produced by the New York Shakespeare Festival (George C. Wolfe, Producer), in association with the Hartford Stage Company (Mark Lamos, Artistic Director), in New York City in May 1993. It was directed by Michael Greif; the set design was by Debra Booth; the costume design was by Angela Wendt; the lighting design was by Kenneth Posner; the sound design was by David Budries; the violence director was David Leong; the original music was by Jill Jaffe; and the production stage manager was Lori M. Doyle. The cast was as follows:

CHARACTERS

ANGEL

MARISOL

JUNE

WOMAN WITH FURS

RADIO ANNOUNCER

HOMELESS PEOPLE

PLACE

New York City.

TIME

The present.

ACT ONE

Scene One

New York City. The present.

Lights up on an upstage brick wall running the width of the stage and going as high as the theatre will allow. The windows in the wall are shielded by iron security gates. The highest windows are boarded up.

Spray-painted on the wall is this graffiti-poem:

The moon carries the souls of dead people to heaven.

The new moon is dark and empty.

It fills up every month

with new glowing souls

then it carries its silent burden to God. WAKE UP.

The WAKE UP looks like it was added to the poem by someone else.

Downstage of the wall is a tall ladder coming down at an angle. Sitting on the ladder is Marisol’s Guardian Angel.

The Angel is a young black woman in ripped jeans, sneakers, and black T-shirt. Crude silver wings hang limply from the back of the Angel’s diamond-studded black leather jacket. Though she radiates tremendous heat and light, there’s something tired and lonely about the Angel: she looks like an urban warrior, a suffering burnt-out soldier of some lost cause. She watches the scene below with intense concern.

Floating in the sky is a small gold crown inside a clear glass box.

Lights up on the subway car: a filth-covered bench.

It’s late night. Late winter.

Marisol Perez, an attractive Puerto Rican woman of twenty-six, sits in the subway car. Marisol has dark hair and deep, smart, dark eyes. She is a young urban professional: smartly dressed, reading the New York Times, returning to her Bronx apartment after a long day at her Manhattan job. She wears heavy winter clothing. She has no idea she’s being watched by an angel.

SUBWAY ANNOUNCER: . . . and a pleasant evening to all the ladies. 180th Street will be the next and last stop. Step lively, guard your valuables, trust no one.

(The Man With Golf Club enters the subway car. He’s a young white man, twenties, in a filthy black T-shirt and ripped jeans; his long matted hair hangs over blazing eyes. His shoes are rags and his mind is shot. The man looks at Marisol and shoots the club like an Uzi.

Marisol has taught herself not to show fear or curiosity on the subway. She digs deeper into her paper. The Man talks to Marisol.)

GOLF CLUB: It was the shock that got me. I was so shocked all I could see was pain all around me: little spinning starlights of pain ’cause of the shocking thing the angel just told me.

(He waits for a reaction. Marisol refuses to look at him.)

You see, she was always there for me. I could count on her. She was my very own god-blessed little angel! My own gift from God!

(No response. He makes a move toward Marisol. She looks at him, quickly sizing him up . . . )

MARISOL: God help you, you get in my face.

GOLF CLUB: But last night she crawled into the box I occupy on 180th Street in the Bronx. I was sleeping: nothing special walking through my thoughts ’cept the usual panic over my empty stomach, and the windchill factor, and how, oh how, was I ever gonna replace my lost Citibank MasterCard?

MARISOL: I have no money.

(Marisol tries to slide away from the Man, trying to show no fear. He follows.)

GOLF CLUB: She folded her hot silver angelwings under her leather jacket and creeped into my box last night, reordering the air, waking me up with the shock, the bad news that she was gonna leave me forever . . .

MARISOL (Getting freaked): Man, why don’t you just get a job?!

GOLF CLUB: Don’t you see? She once stopped Nazi skinheads from setting me on fire in Van Cortlandt Park! Do you get it now, lady?! I live on the street! I am dead meat without my guardian angel! I’m gonna be food . . . a fucking appetizer for all the Hitler youth and their cans of gasoline . . .

(The Man lunges at Marisol and rips the newspaper from her. She’s on her feet, ready for a fight.)

MARISOL (To God): Okay, God! Kill him now! Take him out!

GOLF CLUB (Truly worried): That means you don’t have any protection either. Your guardian angel is gonna leave you too. That means, in the next four or five seconds, I could change the entire course of your life . . .

MARISOL (To God): Blast him into little bits! Turn him into salt!

GOLF CLUB (Calm, almost pitying): I could turn you into one of me. I could fix it so every time you look in the mirror . . . every time you dream . . . or close your eyes in some hope less logic that closed eyes are a shield against nightmares . . . you’re gonna think you turned into me . . .

(The Man makes a move toward Marisol. The Angel reacts. There’s an earsplitting scream as the subway stops. Marisol and the Man are thrown violently across the subway car. The Man falls. Marisol seizes her chance, pushes the disoriented Man away, and runs out of the subway car into the street. Lights to black on the subway. The Man exits in the dark.)

Scene Two

Lights up on the street: a small empty space with a battered city trash can. It’s snowing lightly. The shivering Marisol stops to look up at the sky. She crosses herself.

MARISOL: Thank you.

(No response from the Angel. It stops snowing as Marisol leaves the street and enters:)

Scene Three

Lights up on Marisol’s apartment: bed, table, lamp, clock, offstage bathroom, and large romanticized picture of a traditional Catholic guardian angel on the wall.

Marisol quickly runs in, slamming and locking the door behind her. She runs to the window to make sure the security gates are locked.

She tries to catch her breath. She takes off her coat. She notices an army of cockroaches on the floor. She stomps them angrily until every last one is dead. This seems to make her feel a little better.

She collapses into bed. She pounds her pillow angrily. Exhausted, she checks a knife she keeps under her pillow. She puts it back and lies on her bed, trying to calm herself and just breathe.

As she changes her clothes she fixes herself a drink and downs it.

She checks the crucifix, horseshoe, rabbit’s foot, prayer cards, milagros, medicine bundles, statuettes of Buddha and other good-luck charms kept under the bed. She crosses herself and closes her eyes.

MARISOL:

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Bless the bed that I lie on.

Four corners to my bed.

Four angels ’round my head.

One to watch and one to pray.

And two to bear my soul away.

(Marisol crosses herself, opens her eyes and lies down. Then the noises begin. They come at Marisol from apartments all around her. Doors are slammed, bottles smashed, radiator pipes pounded, stereos played loud. Then the voices join in.)

VOICE #1 (Female): Ave Maria purisima, donde esta el heat?

(Marisol sits up. She can’t believe this bullshit is starting again . . . )

VOICE #2 (Female, a high-decibel shriek): Matthew? It’s Sandy! I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE. STOP HIDING FROM ME, YOU MALIGNANT FUCK!

(Marisol starts rubbing her pounding head.)

VOICE #3 (Male): Ah yeah yeah man you gotta help me man they broke my fuckin’ head open . . .

(Marisol runs to her window, shakes the iron gates.)

MARISOL: Mira, people are trying to sleep!

VOICE #2: YOU’RE PISSING ME OFF, MATTHEW, OPEN THE DOOR!

VOICE #1: Donde esta el heat?? NO TENGO HEAT, coño!

VOICE #2: MATTHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEW!

(Marisol dives back into bed, covering her head, trying not to hear. The noises increase and the voices come faster, louder, overlapping . . . )

VOICE #3: . . . I was jus’ tryin’ to sell ’em some dope man . . .

VOICE #2: MATTHEW, GODDAMMIT, IT’S SANDY! SANDY! YOUR GIRLFRIEND, YOU WITLESS COCK!

VOICE #1: Me vas a matar without el fucking heat!!

VOICE #2: MATTHEEEEEEEEWWWWWWW! OPEN THIS DOOOOOOOOOOOOR!

VOICE #3: . . . so they hadda go bust my fuckin’ head open oh look haha there go my busted brains floppin’ ’round the floor I’m gonna step right on ’em I’m not careful man I shouldda got their fuckin’ badge numbers . . .

(Marisol bangs on the floor with a shoe.)

MARISOL: Some people work in the morning!!

VOICE #3: . . . think I’ll pick up my brains right now man get a shovel ’n’ scoop up my soakin’ brainbag off this messy linoleum floor man sponge up my absentee motherfuckin’ mind . . .

VOICE #2: THAT’S IT, MATTHEW! YOU’RE DEAD. I’M COMING BACK WITH A GUN AND I’M GONNA KILL YOU AND THEN I’M GONNA KILL EVERYONE IN THIS APARTMENT BUILDING INCLUDING THE CHILDREN!

(The voices stop. Marisol waits. Thinking it’s over, Marisol gets into bed and tries to sleep. Beat. Marisol starts to nod off. There’s suddenly furious knocking at Marisol’s door.)

VOICE #2: MATTHEW! I’M BACK! I’VE GOT MY DADDY’S GUN! AND YOU’RE GONNA DIE RIGHT NOW!

(Marisol runs to the door.)

MARISOL: Matthew doesn’t live here! You have the wrong apartment!

VOICE #2: Matthew, who’s that???

MARISOL: Matthew lives next door!!

VOICE #2: IS THAT YOUR NEW GIRLFRIEND, MATTHEW???! OH YOU’RE DEAD. YOU’RE REALLY DEAD NOW!!

(A gun is cocked. Marisol dives for cover. The Angel reacts. Suddenly, the stage is blasted with white light.

There’s complete silence: the rattling, banging, screaming all stop. We hear crickets.

Marisol, amazed by the instant calm, goes to the door, looks through the peephole. She cautiously opens the door.

There’s a small pile of salt on the floor. At first, Marisol just looks at it, too amazed to move. Then she bends down to touch the salt, letting it run through her fingers.)

MARISOL: Salt?

(Frightened, not sure she knows what this means, Marisol quickly closes and locks the door. She gets into bed and turns out the light. Lights down everywhere except on the Angel.)

Scene Four

Lights shift in Marisol’s apartment as the Angel climbs down the ladder to Marisol’s bed.

Marisol feels the tremendous heat given off by the Angel. The Angel backs away from Marisol so as not to burn her. The Angel goes to the window and looks out. Her voice is slightly amplified. She speaks directly to Marisol, who sleeps.

Throughout the scene, the light coming in through Marisol’s window goes up slowly, until, by the end, it’s the next morning.

ANGEL: A man is worshiping a fire hydrant on Taylor Avenue, Marisol. He’s draping rosaries on it, genuflecting hard. An old woman’s selling charmed chicken blood in see-through Ziplock bags for a buck. They’re setting another homeless man on fire in Van Cortlandt Park.

(The Angel rattles the metal gate.)

Cut that shit out you fucking Nazis!

(The Angel goes to Marisol’s door and checks the lock. She stomps cockroaches. She straightens up a little.)

I swear, best thing that could happen to this city is immediate evacuation followed by fire on a massive scale. Melt it all down. Consume the ruins. Then put the ashes of those evaporated dreams into a big urn and sit the urn on the desks of a few thousand oily politicians. Let them smell the disaster like we do.

(The Angel goes to Marisol’s bed and looks at her. Marisol’s heart beats faster and she starts to hyperventilate.)

So what do you believe in, Marisol? You believe in me? Or do you believe your senses? If so, what’s that taste in your mouth?

(The Angel clicks her fingers. Although Marisol responds, she remains sleeping throughout the following scene.)

MARISOL (Tasting): Oh my God, arroz con gandules! Yum!

ANGEL: What’s your favorite smell, Marisol?

(Click!)

MARISOL (Sniffing): The ocean! I smell the ocean!

ANGEL: Do you like sex, Marisol?

(Click! Marisol is seized by powerful sexual spasms that wrack her body and nearly throw her off the bed. When they end, Marisol stretches out luxuriously: exhausted but happy.)

MARISOL (Laughing): I’ve got this wild energy running through my body!

(The Angel gets closer to her.)

ANGEL: Here’s your big chance, baby. What would you like to ask the Angel of the Lord?

MARISOL (Energized): Are you real? Are you true? Are you gonna make the Bronx safe for me? Are you gonna