Johnson, one of your comments that I didn't have time or space to deal with properly, especially since it's hard to develop round characters in so short a space was about the binary nature of the two girls, heaven and hell. In the end, I rather liked that Salome ended up playing the part of the good "Christian" girl who thinks that if you only just focus on "truth" all your problems will sort themselves out and has a romanticized view of suffering for a noble cause. It's nice, but doing the right thing isn't always the most fun choice and is almost never cute. But I should step back and let my work speak for itself.
Edit: Both this one and the other play I wrote have been selected for the festival! Thank you all so much for your helpful comments. You helped me turn an angsty play about teenage melodrama into something a lot more interesting.
Shalom
By
George Byron
The
Cast
Mom: Dina-Beth Mara
neé Saloman
Father: Gideon Mara
Oldest Daughter:
Jerusha called Judy
Youngest
Daughter: Salome called Sally
Scene:
an attic. An old steamer trunk to the right of center stage with an
old lamp, magazines, various attic junk on top and around it. A sign
reading HOME SWEET HOME hangs on the back wall. A table and trash-can
on stage left.
JERUSHA
walks
on stage and begins to move attic junk away from the trunk.
SALOME
walks
on stage flipping through a stack of mail.
SALOME:
Mail’s here.
JERUSHA:
Anything for me?
SALOME:
Just something from UPenn. It came a few days ago.
JERUSHA:
Great. Put them over there and come help me move this stuff.
SALOME
I can’t believe you are still going to keep the date so soon after
everything!
JERUSHA:
It’s what she would have wanted.
SALOME:
Do you think we can really celebrate at a time like this?
JERUSHA:
I can’t wait any more than we have I don’t want to deal with that
kind of trouble.
SALOME:
What kind of trouble?
JERUSHA:
I can’t tell you.
SALOME:
I’m your sister. You can tell me anything.
JERUSHA:
I’m not sure I can.
SALOME:
What did you do?
JERUSHA:
You have to promise me you will never tell Dad.
SALOME:
Oh, ok. I promise.
JERUSHA:
I’m pregnant.
SALOME:
What?!
JERUSHA:
Pregnant. With child. Expecting. Bun in the oven. Eating for two. Do
I need to go on?
SALOME:
How could you?
JERUSHA:
I guess, when mom died he was the only one there for me.
SALOME:
That’s not true!
JERUSHA:
That’s how it felt. Can we just keep looking?
SALOME:
I thought Mark was better than that.
JERUSHA:
It wasn’t just him. It was us. He’s a better man than you think
and we all make mistakes. Please, let’s not talk about this
anymore, ok? Dad said her things were in the trunk.
SALOME:
Here. (Moves
stuff off of the steamer trunk. JERUSHA moves to help pull the trunk
out but SALOME refuses any help. She opens the lid.)
So that’s why you’re getting married?
JERUSHA:
Look! It's the doll I used to carry everywhere when I was a kid!
SALOME:
You didn’t answer my question.
(A
beat.)
SALOME:
What else is going on?
JERUSHA:
I’m not going to keep it.
SALOME:
Jerusha!
JERUSHA:
You don’t know what it’s like. I need to finish school first.
Then we will start a family.
SALOME:
It’s not just your life we are talking about anymore. You are
talking about an actual human being. Haven’t you learned anything?
JERUSHA:
Salome, this is not up for discussion.
SALOME:
Yes, yes it is! Why would you do it?
JERUSHA:
It’s not the right time yet. I need finish school first.
SALOME:
Why do you have to, I mean, can’t you take the year off and then go
back?
JERUSHA:
I can’t. If I take a year off I lose my scholarship and I can’t
afford that.
SALOME:
Maybe there’s another way.
JERUSHA:
It’s not like we are never going to have kids.
SALOME:
This isn’t about some future family you plan on having. You’ve
started now.
JERUSHA:
Mark and I talked about it and we have made our peace with the
decision. Please?
SALOME:
What’s this?
JERUSHA:
What?
SALOME:
It has your name on it. (Holds
up a small journal bursting with notes)
JERUSHA:
Here is one with yours. (Holds
up a similar journal)
(They
trade journals and read.)
SALOME:
This is from my first haircut.
JERUSHA:
Here is mine!
SALOME:
I never knew that’s what my name meant.
JERUSHA:
What?
SALOME:
It means Peace. Look, she wrote it down. What does yours mean?
JERUSHA:
Banished.
SALOME:
What? I thought you were named after Aunt Jerusha.
JERUSHA:
I hope so.
(Jerusha
flips through the notebook)
JERUSHA:
Everything is here! From the haircut to that time that I fell at the
ocean and had to go to the hospital, and my grades and my Bat Mitzvah
and pictures from my 4-H competitions. Here’s the first picture of
Mark and me together when he asked me to junior prom. (Shows
picture to SALOME)
SALOME:
She kept a record of our childhood. Look, here’s a collage of me
reading in weird places. Oh look, remember those science fairs she
made us do? You flourished in those!
JERUSHA:
That was where I learned to love Chemistry. You hated doing it
though. She taught me so much.
(A
beat)
SALOME:
Let’s keep searching. If we stop I’ll start crying again and I
hate crying.
JERUSHA:
Here's the dress anyway. (Pulls
out a hideous 80’s wedding gown, complete with puffed sleeves and
too much lace.)
I had forgotten how terrible 80’s wedding dresses were.
SALOME:
Here is the tiara you were looking for.
What’s
this?
JERUSHA:
What’s what?
SALOME:
This stack of letters. It isn’t mom and dad’s correspondence, is
it?
JERUSHA:
Don’t you mean love-letters?
SALOME:
(Holds
up a bundle of betters tied with a blue ribbon)
Not unless her boyfriend was named Columbia.
JERUSHA:
Those are all from Columbia University?
SALOME:
Yeah. (Opens
the top one)
This is her acceptance letter.
JERUSHA:
(Opens
the second one)
This is another acceptance letter.
SALOME:
She got accepted twice? (Shows
her the letter)
JERUSHA:
Oh, but this is for a Ph.D. program. And they gave her a full
scholarship. And a fellowship.
SALOME:
I thought that Columbia was her dream school but she couldn’t
afford it.
JERUSHA:
She should have. This would have covered more than everything.
SALOME:
So why didn’t she go?
JERUSHA:
I don’t know.
SALOME:
But wait, this one is addressed to Dina-Beth
Saloman,
her maiden name. What year is that?
JERUSHA:
Oh. This is ‘88, the year she married dad and moved to Chicago. I
was born a year later.
SALOME:
She even kept some school brochures. (Fishes
out a tri-fold pamphlet.)
JERUSHA:
That’s not for Columbia, it’s, it’s an abortion clinic. Here’s
an appointment card.
(A
beat)
SALOME:
Let me see. When was it?
JERUSHA:
18th of July, 1988.
(Beat)
SALOME:
And you were born in February of ‘89?
JERUSHA:
Oh.
(A
Beat)
JERUSHA:
Mom chose me over Columbia.
SALOME:
She chose us every day.
JERUSHA:
What do you mean?
SALOME:
She could have gone back to school or taught science full time. But
she stayed every day to make sure the house was in order and to cook
and all of those things that I had no idea she did until she wasn’t
there to do them. And...I think she was happy.
JERUSHA:
How could she have been happy? She must have spent her entire life
dreaming after a school and then spent the rest of her short life
just running this house.
(Salome
has been sorting through the papers)
SALOME:
And she was good at both. Look: here’s a paper she published when
she was at Vanderbilt. I wonder if I could find this on JSTOR. I
never thought to look. Here’s another one. I’ve heard of publish
or perish, but she wasn’t about to perish any time soon.
JERUSHA:
Oh my gosh, here is an interview she did with Richard Feynman!!! How
did I not know about this? (Begins
to read.)
SALOME:
Sorry, who?
JERUSHA:
You don’t know who Feynman is?
SALOME:
I study Romantic literature. Not science.
JERUSHA:
He’s the coolest theoretical physicist. Seriously. He took up bongo
drums and painting just because he could. When he wasn’t doing that
he was outsmarting professors in his undergrad. Heck, he joined the
Manhattan Project when he was only 24 and had just finished his Ph.D.
He also solved the problem of the Challenger disaster. Well, sort of.
He claims he got the idea from the scientists down in the lab and
only just presented the problem at the panel. But really. And this
interview was just before he died, too.
SALOME:
Here’s a letter from Stephen Hawking.
JERUSHA:
How did we never know that she was so involved with physics? She was
good at it. Really good.
SALOME:
She put all of it away. You notice that there is nothing in the house
to suggest that she was part of that sphere except her diplomas and
the journals that always end up in the bathroom.
JERUSHA:
Why would she hide it?
SALOME:
I don’t think she hid it. It seems like she set it aside. Like that
was her world before she married and then she was just a wife and
mother.
JERUSHA:
But she was better than that. She could have gone back and gotten
that degree and then taught somewhere or worked. We could have
managed without her.
SALOME:
But that’s just it. She didn’t want us to grow up without her.
Remember how she and Dad used to fight about him not spending enough
time with us? “One day you will wake up and they will be grown up
and gone” she’d say.
JERUSHA:
Do you really think that she chose raising us over pursuing her
passions?
SALOME:
But she was happy here.
JERUSHA:
But she could have done so much more. Anyone could cook and clean and
pay the bills. Only mom could have done the work she was primed to do
in her field.
SALOME:
But she wouldn’t have been here for us.
JERUSHA:
But we were never around. We were always at school or summer camps or
something.
SALOME:
Do you really think that she could have been truly satisfied?
JERUSHA:
I don’t know.
SALOME:
Is that why you won’t keep your child?
JERUSHA:
If I do, won’t I just be doing all this over again?
SALOME:
What do you mean?
JERUSHA:
What if I put away my own dreams to raise my child? You know I have
never liked housework and well, children. What if this is all I
become? What if this is all I want to become?
SALOME:
Isn’t motherhood a good thing to aim for anyway?
JERUSHA:
Yes, I guess so, but you know I have never felt gifted in that but I
am good at what I do. I never told you this, but my O-Chem professor
said that my research project was good enough to send to a journal
for consideration.
SALOME:
That’s fantastic!
JERUSHA:
Even if it does get accepted I won’t have the resources anymore to
make any edits I’ll need and I don’t think I’ll even have time.
SALOME:
Maybe you can make it work.
JERUSHA:
You don’t understand. I have only ever aspired to the life of a
scientist but I could be forced into the role of a mother. I don’t
know how compatible those are and clearly mom didn’t make it.
Worse, she didn’t even try! She let her ambitions go to raise a
family. She was more than intelligent enough to succeed at anything
she put her hand to but she chose to do something just any woman can
do. I just think she sold herself short somehow.
SALOME:
I feel like we would have known if she wanted something more.
JERUSHA:
You said she set it aside. If she really was as gifted in this as it
seems wouldn’t it be hard for her to just set it aside?
SALOME:
I think she replaced it with us. She turned her passion for physics
to building a home.
JERUSHA:
I just don’t see that they are comparable.
SALOME:
It’s not like childrearing is any less of an honorable pursuit than
a career. In fact, isn’t it more? Physics can be done by anyone,
but only she was our mother.
JERUSHA:
But Mom was passionate about this field and I don’t see that you
can just turn off that part of you and create another one.
SALOME:
I don’t think she was sorry to have you. I really do think she
found a way to close that chapter in her life. Maybe this is me
applying my literary skills to life a bit too far, but you notice
that she left her school things under her wedding dress? It’s like
her wedding overshadowed her academic life.
JERUSHA:
That’s what I’m afraid of.
SALOME:
What?
JERUSHA:
I’m afraid that I’ll get so caught up in raising a family that I
will forget who I am.
SALOME:
Of course that won’t happen.
JERUSHA:
Didn’t it happen to mom? You saw, her life as a physicist was
integral to who she was. How much of her was left when she gave it
up?
SALOME:
People change. It’s how we work.
JERUSHA:
I just don’t see how someone can alter so much and still be happy.
You are right, she was happy here, but she had to become a different
person in order to do that.
(SALOME
walks
over to where she left the letters and picks up one she set aside.
JERUSHA follows and picks up the one from UPENN.)
SALOME:
Are you and Mark still going to keep your appointment?
JERUSHA:
I don’t know. I’ll talk with him again. Maybe I’m just being
selfish. (Contents
of letter seem to upset her)
SALOME:
What does it say?
JERUSHA:
It’s the confirmation letter for my scholarship. I have to answer
by midnight tonight whether I keep or reject it.
SALOME:
What time is it?
JERUSHA:
8:37.
SALOME:
Jerusha, remember that mom kept you and was happy here at home.
JERUSHA:
You’re right. Maybe I’ll call Mark and we can cancel the
appointment in the morning.
SALOME:
Mom would be proud I think.
JERUSHA:
Life is going to be so different.
SALOME:
You are going to be a wonderful mother.
JERUSHA:
Thanks. You can finally start making me that baby quilt.
(SALOME
starts flipping through her letters and tearing and throwing the
junk-mail out.)
SALOME:
As soon as you know whether it’s a boy or a girl let me know. I
want to know what theme to make it.
JERUSHA:
Maybe it will be one of each.
SALOME:
Don’t look so down about it. Sure, it won’t be easy, but no one
ever said it would be.
(JERUSHA
puts on a huge, fake grin.)
JERUSHA:
That better?
SALOME:
Perfect. Here, let me have that. (Reaches
for the UPenn letter.)
JERUSHA:
No, wait, what are you going to do with it?
SALOME:
Put it with the others. (Gestures
toward trash can)
JERUSHA:
No.
SALOME:
Sorry?
JERUSHA:
You can’t have it.
SALOME:
I just wanted to clean up.
JERUSHA:
My life is not something you can just clean up.
SALOME:
I just....
JERUSHA:
I am not going to let someone else define who I am or what I’m
going to do. I’m going back to college. I’m going to finish my
degree. I’m not letting anything stop me. (Turns
to leave room.)
SALOME:
Not even a life? (Goes
to catch arm.)
JERUSHA:
I have my own life to live. (Throws
Salome off of her)
It involves test tubes and pipettes not babies and diapers.
SALOME:
Jerusha!
JERUSHA:
Save it.
Exit.
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