Long Ago in Coney Island: A Multi-cultural Play

Sample Ethnographic Play and Monologues for Performance. If you want to read the entire three-act play, one iteration of it is published in my paperback book, Ethno-Playography. See the book, Ethno-Playography - iUniverse.

This excerpt below is not the entire three-act play.

An adventure in Ethno-Playography

The Play and Monologues

Long Ago in Coney Island

Spirited Family Empowerment

(c) By Anne Hart

If you wish to perform this play (at no cost to me), please email me at veganraw@live.com for permission. See below my published book on writing plays, skits, and monologues from life stories and beyond. This is a work of fiction. All names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this play or in other stories and novels are the products of the author's imagination and are fiction. Also see my website.

The Play for Performances (at no cost to author)

The Play and Monologues

Long Ago in Coney Island

Spirited Family Empowerment

(c) 1987, 2011, By Anne Hart

List of Characters in this Play:

Meir Cohen Levi, Father of Hadara and Husband of Tsipke

Hadara Cohen Levi, Baby in first chapter, then 9-year old girl,

first person as narrator.

Benjamin, son of Meir

Tsipke, the mother of Hadara

The Arab Sheik as Hadara's first husband,

*Ahmed (not his real name)

Eric* (not his real name), Hadara's second husband

Mrs. Hesk, an older neighbor with a Yiddish accent

Anne Hart

Hadara's two children as five-year olds:

Fawzi,

Samira

Hadara's two children as young adults: (17'"20 age group)

Fawzi,

Samira

Sales clerk

In-laws:

Samintov

Mazeltov

Darlene, college friend of Hadara

Black Man, in Subway

Goldie, Darlene's mother

Classmates, 8th and 9th grade, ages 13 and 14

Neighbors

Paramedic

Friends

Act I

Ext. Brooklyn, N.Y., Rainy Day, November 1941

AS CURTAIN RISES, WE SEE THE FRONT OF THE

CONEY ISLAND APARTMENT BUILDING WHERE MEIR

in front of his brick, four-family apartment house tries to

adjust the lens on his box camera. He reacts to the invisible

wind that slashes his face, covering his white hair and beard

with his hands as his breath quickens in anger.

Whippet-wiry MEIR (age 47), a janitor, is dressed in patched

janitor's coveralls. From inside the house echoes of Bach peal

through the apartment and can be heard outside. OFFSTAGE

WHERE HEAR THE SOUND EFFECTS OF A SUBWAY

elevator line grinding by, drowning out the phonograph music.

TSIPKE (38), his wife, carries in one arm her blanketed two-

week old daughter, HADARA. In her other arm, she tries to

balance a bouquet of American Beauty roses.

The blanket keeps blowing over the baby's face as TSIPKE

fidgets to straighten the blanket. The baby's nerve-shattering

cry pierces the wind.

TSIPKE

Hurry and take the picture.

The baby's turning blue from the cold weather.

TSIPKE shouts at MEIR. And the shouts seem to be coming

from a horde of women, SCREAMING together in fury.

We see the open mouth of TSIPKE. Her voice becomes an

indistinguishable roar of needy demand as loud as the wind.

MEIR tries to focus the camera once more. TSIPKE smiles

and tries to pose as he fidgets with the lens.

TSIPKE yells again and again, like a compelling tattoo.

TSIPKE

The baby's freezing, you jerk.

MEIR

Shut up! Damn it.

I'm trying to keep the lens from getting dusty.

TSIPKE

Hurry up, neurotic. She can't breathe. What are you standing

there for, got your thumb up your butt?

MEIR'S temper cracks, and he lets fly with a right hook to her

left chest. The baby slides from the blanket into a puddle of

rain on the sidewalk. MEIR can't stop punching his wife. The

deep, red American Beauty roses scatter in the rain near the

baby's head.

Darkened Stage

New Scene

Lights Come on. Spotlight on the Darkened Bedroom.

Int. Nov. 1950, Same Brooklyn Apartment

Night

HADARA lies awake next to her mother in the rutted double

bed in which they both sleep. MEIR, in the next bedroom,

sleeps in twin beds with his 22-year old son, BENJAMIN. It's

three in the morning. Outside the window WE HEAR THE

SOUND EFFECTS OF the grinding subway train as it passes

on its way from Coney Island. There's the sound of squealing

metal cars as the train turns on the elevator line track.

TSIPKE

Remember when we played suffering?

I'd rub your belly, and your doll would be delivered like a baby?

TSIPKE laughs and hacks her cigarette cough.

HADARA rolls over, pulling her mass of hair from her eyes.

HADARA

Mom, are you a worrywart?

TSIPKE

No. Do I look that nervous?

TSIPKE pops the muscle up in her biceps to show how strong

her muscles are.

HADARA

I'm tired of hearing about your lack of romance. I'm sick of

your hands all over me playing "having a baby." It's always

either how your mom gave you away when you were two, or,

where daddy is off to by himself.

TSIPKE

Your father gave me gonorrhea. Where do you think he got it,

in France during World War One?

HADARA

I'm not interested any more in listening to your complaints

about daddy or your life story and how you ate out of garbage

cans as a kid, or how dad's job is mopping toilets in the Navy

yard. You just talk, but you don't change anything.

TSIPKE

You're nine today. You have to know.

HADARA

No, I don't. The radiator dried out the air again. Now my nose

and throat's raw.

MEIR tiptoes out of his bedroom and crawls into bed with

his wife.

MEIR

Move over.

What's the kid doing up so late?

HADARA

What are you doing here?

MEIR ignores her and takes off his pajamas, climbing into

bed to make love to his wife.

Ethno-Playography

HADARA

Get out of here.

TSIPKE

Leave the kid, alone, MEIR.

MEIR

You kicking me out of bed?

MEIR hesitates for a moment. TSIPKE is silent.

HADARA

I want to go back to sleep.

MEIR

Shut up, you tramp.

HADARA

Don't call me a tramp on my birthday.

MEIR

(Outraged)

Better you should be crippled.

You should have been born a boy.

TSIPKE

She says she got a high IQ

MEIR

I'll smash you one, you piece of garbage.

MEIR hurries his pajamas back on and storms out of the

bedroom looking for something to smash. He finds a

hammer in the living room and begins to smash all the keys

on HADARA's piano. TSIPKE gets up and follows him into

the living room.

TSIPKE

Stop. I saved for months to buy that old piano. My daughter's

a talented artist.

When MEIR finishes smashing the piano keys, he goes for

HADARA's violin. MEIR puts his foot through the violin.

HADARA cries.

TSIPKE jumps out of bed.

TSIPKE

All the kid's birthday presents!

MEIR

I'll teach you.

MEIR, having smashed the violin, finally storms into the

bathroom where HADARA's new puppy is sleeping in its

basket and holds the puppy's belly against the hot radiator

pipe in the bathroom until it stops whimpering.

The more HADARA CRIES, the more TSIPKE backs away

from her. MEIR comes out of the bathroom with his hammer

in hand and begins to chase HADARA around the living

room and into the kitchen, waving the hammer over his head.

MEIR

If I catch you, I'll cripple you.

Heads will roll before you'll become a tramp and shame me.

HADARA (sobbing)

I'm sorry. I'm sorry, daddy.

MEIR

Better you should be a cripple then to be born a girl and make

trouble.

TSIPKE follows MEIR into the kitchen and lights a cigarette,

making the motions of heating up water for coffee.

TSIPKE

Leave the kid alone.

MEIR (Raging)

I should have flushed her out into the bay with the condom

before she was conceived. Better such a dog wasn't born.

TSIPKE

If I have to get up for a second cigarette --

Damn, those cigarettes are choking me.

But you two fighting all the time are driving me to smoke.

MEIR takes a swing at HADARA, but misses. HADARA darts

out the kitchen and dashes through the living room and out

the front door, running down the apartment steps to the

basement. She hurries down the cellar steps with MEIR,

chasing behind, hammer swinging over his head.

In the darkness of the cellar, MEIR chases HADARA. She

squeezes her body into a partially-filled co&1 bin, hiding

behind an old barrel. HADARA covers herself with coal.

MEIR peers around for a moment, wild-eyed. He wipes the

sweat from his upper lip on his pajama sleeve.

MEIR

If I catch you, you die.

HADARA watches him from between the wide slats of the

coal bin as he swings his hammer overhead. MEIR passes a

basement worktable and puts down his hammer only to pick

up an ax. He slaps the ax broadside across his thigh several

times. Then he sighs and puts the ax back on the table.

Finally, exhausted, MEIR plods up the wooden stairs. The

apartment door closes with a bang.

Int. Kitchen Brooklyn Apartment. Same Night

TSIPKE

(staccato voice)

No sooner did I put the baby on your lap then you told me to

take her off because she gave you an erection. Your temper is

only a bad habit. Why is it necessary to transfer your stress to

me? Why isn't it important that you add to my life span?

MEIR

You keep hounding me just because your step father came

into your room to have sex with you when you went upstate

to visit your mother.

TSIPKE

He's your richest brother. Besides, I told him to get out. You

didn't see him grabbing an ax or hammer.

MEIR

Girls only make trouble. You know how many times I asked

the doctor to check to make sure-maybe he made a mistake-

maybe she was a boy.

TSIPKE

Is that why you never held a conversation with your own

daughter? You never smiled.

Not once in your whole life did she ever hear you laugh,

except at her.

MEIR

What about you going into your son's room to massage his

feet every morning and comb his hair?

TSIPKE

I'm a mother.

MEIR

He's twenty-two. You're overbearing.

TSIPKE

And you're a cold fish. The only passion I ever see is anger.

If that's the only way you can get power, I'm going back to

bed.

She turns around.

TSIPKE

Where's the kid?

MEIR

In the coal bins again.

Let her rot in hell down there.

MEIR staggers back to bed. TSIPKE sits on her bed with the

light on, smoking cigarettes and reading old newspapers.

Darken Stage or Curtain.

New Scene:

Int. Basement Morning

HADARA peaks out of the basement window and scratches

off some of the frost. She watches MEIR go off to work,

walking toward the subway station. Then she climbs the

stairs back to the apartment and knocks on the door.

TSIPKE opens the door wearing a stained and disheveled robe.

TSIPKE

Benjamin just had a fight with me over you making too much

noise. And he broke a lamp over my arm. I dared him to do it.

HADARA

Does daddy know?

TSIPKE

I had to tell him.

So now he smashed your brother's typewriter right before his

term paper is due.

HADARA

I'm too tired to go to school today.

HADARA slowly walks through the foyer, passing and

looking at her dead canary in its small bird cage.

TSIPKE

It caught a cough.

You'll have to take it down to the garbage cans.

HADARA

Aw, no!

HADARA runs into the bedroom. TSIPKE follows her.

TSIPKE

Listen, you little mouse, want to go shopping?

HADARA

Don't you have anything better to do?

TSIPKE goes back into the kitchen and begins to fry eggs.

HADARA comes into the kitchen. TSIPKE puts down a heel

of rye bread for HADARA and some hot cocoa and corn

flakes.

Darkened Stage, Curtain

New Scene:

In a department store near a counter with women's costume

jewelry, lingerie, and cheap cologne --

Int. Department Store, Brooklyn Day

TSIPKE and HADARA walk through the department store.

TSIPKE shoplifts baubles and silken wisps of lingerie, cheap

cologne, and boxes of face powder, rhinestone costume

jewelry and lipsticks. When no one is in the ladies room, she

taker in clothing and stuffs the items into her panties.

HADARA sneers.

TSIPKE

So that's why I wear incontinence panties. Bet you can't

pronounce it.

HADARA

I don't want any of the beads or perfume. You've cursed them.

You've given them the evil eye. We'll get bad luck.

Why do you take things in tiny sizes, when you're shaped like

an apple?

TSIPKE enters the toilet cubicle.

TSIPKE

(banging on the wall)

Your father gives me three dollars a day.

How else can I live like a lady instead of a woman?

HADARA

I won't wear that crap.

TSIPKE (handing her clothes under the stall)

Here, stuff this into your panties.

HADARA

No! How come women of grandma's generation never went to

school in the old country?

And how come you dropped out in the fifth grade?

TSIPKE

I was born at the turn of the century.

HADARA

So were a lot of famous women scientists.

TSIPKE drags whining HADARA into the fitting room with

some of the dresses and items tucked inside of three dresses

because the sign says only three garments are allowed in the

dressing room at one time.

In front of the mirror, TSIPKE tries on bras, slips, and

clothing under her own clothes. But all she brings out are the

three dresses she took in with her and hands them to the

clerk. The rest are stashed on her person.

TSIPKE (to sales clerk)

These dresses aren't the right size.

TSIPKE leads HADARA by the hand into the shoe

department to pick out a pair of school shoes for her. They sit

down to rest in the shoe department. A salesman approaches.

HADARA points to a pair of saddle shoes and the salesman

retrieves the shoes. The SALESMAN tries to lace the saddle

shoe on HADARA'S toot.

SHOE SALESMAN

Well, little girl. Give me that skinny foot, here.

HADARA

Leave me alone, you!

HADARA whispers in his ear and runs out of the shoe

department.

SHOE SALESMAN

That filthy-mouthed kid --

I wonder where she learned that expression.

Embarrassed, TSIPKE gets up and leaves to chase after

HADARA. She catches up with her and slaps her so hard she

gets a bloody nose. TSIPKE buys a towel and makes

HADARA keep it on her nose.

TSIPKE

Don't make me hit you.

Because if I do, I'll kill you.

HADARA

He didn't have to call me skinny.

TSIPKE

Horse-face! Why did you say that word to him in this place?

HADARA

He meant I was ugly.

TSIPKE (Staring at HADARA'S feet)

You wore those old, dirty socks?

HADARA

It's from the coal bin.

TSIPKE

You're beginning to stink just like your old man who's never

taken a bath since World War One.

Darkened Stage or Curtain End of Scene.

***

New Scene:

Back At Home.

Afternoon.

HADARA is reading two comic books, "The Vault of Horror"

and "The Crypt of Terror. Mother and daughter are riding

home, seated on the subway.

HADARA

See my scar? I don't know where you

Stop and I begin anymore.

TSIPKE

So?

HADARA

Your curse and evil eye made me fall over that fence last

summer.

The year before, I got a fish hook in my leg.

TSIPKE

So it was my curse, was it? Does that explain the eight stitches

they had to take in your chin? Now that you're a scar face, only

the worse kind of man will want to marry you.

HADARA

That stuff you took. It brings me bad luck.

TSIPKE

Then don't touch it.

HADARA

I want to enroll myself in Hebrew School on Monday. Nobody

talks to me in class in public school. I don't have any friends.

And when I told the teacher, she gave me an "F" in personal

relationships.

Fadeout to a Darkened Stage

Curtain Descends: End Of Scene.

***