Out of the Wings

Emma (2008), Maxi Rodríguez

Emma : SCENE TWO , SCENE FIVE , SCENE EIGHT , SCENE THIRTEEN

Emma, translated by Gwynneth Dowling

SCENE TWO

Context:

Years after her father’s suicide, Emma still remembers her feelings of despair and confusion when he died. The scene shifts between past and present, conveying to the audience both her grief at the time and its lingering after-effects.

Sample text

The light moves over a gramophone and then, little by little, illuminates the floor. A circular space, like a gramophone disc. Between the laughter, the applause and the general hubbub, the floor and time itself start to spin. We hear the symphony of memory, perhaps some tango – dream-like – in the style of the ‘Gotan Project’.
OFF:: Five, four, three, two, one … Happy 1950!; The laughter and the music die away, drowned out by the clamorous sound of a siren. Emma, young once more and clothed in a dressmaker’s apron, enters the factory. Sequence of monotonous and repetitive movements, punctuated by the droning noise of the mechanical loom.
EMMA: (Off.): There was no one better than my father. I loved him, really loved him. He was out of the country. We weren’t together, but up until that day there was no distance between us. Because distance isn’t about separation. It’s about when someone doesn’t come back.; The MAN throws the letter to the ground. The light changes and the disc begins to spin once more. Emma arrives home from work. Slowly. Sound of a steady drip-drop of water. She goes towards the letter. Picks it up. Takes off her apron. Opens the letter. Reads it. Falls, devastated, on to a chair. Crushed, she closes her eyes.
EMMA:: What happened, Dad? I can’t stop thinking about it, imagining it over and over. My mind won’t rest, I can’t stop …; The MAN starts to walk around her, following the beat of the dripping water.
EMMA:: I can see you. I can see your face, your eyes. But I don’t know … I’m not sure, I can’t … What happened, Dad? How do you surrender to death … to its final embrace … with no way back.; The MAN’s footsteps gradually become dance steps, a dance that comes out of EMMA’s words which make him fall to the ground, ‘dying artfully’ time after time, always in a different way.
EMMA:: Was it a deliberate death? Did you kill yourself, Dad? Did someone help you? Was there someone else there? Or did you do it yourself? Did you decide in prison? Or did they decide for you? Was it a mistake, Dad? What’s it like, the death rattle of the dying man? Did you think of me, Dad? In our little house? In the little garden? What happens at the end, Dad? Talk to me! What’s that last breath like? Tell me. Is the survival instinct so strong that you keep on breathing, right up until the end? Dad! Tell me! Do you feel calm in the face of it? Were you happy at that moment? Did you forgive yourself? Smile? What went through your head? Daddy, tell me! Daddy!; A smothered cry. EMMA breaks down. The MAN is a vague shadow who continues to dance until, inevitably, the darkness swallows him up.

Copyright

The above sample taken from the translation Emma by Gwynneth Dowling is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

SCENE FIVE

Context:

The Man is becoming more and more interested in Emma’s story. Emma’s father had been convicted of embezzlement. Only Emma knows who is the real culprit of this crime, and here recalls her desire for revenge.

Sample text

MAN:: He wasn’t guilty?
EMMA:: No. Of course not.
MAN:: But then who … ?
EMMA:: Secrets, secrets! Shhh … (Enigmatically.) I know, and nobody knows I know. What power that is! It’s a real connection to my Dad. Eternal. A connection beyond the grave.; By this point, the MAN is clearly moved by EMMA’s story. He stares silently at her for a long time.
MAN:: Why are you telling me this?
EMMA:: Because, I don’t want that power anymore. I felt like sharing it with you, like getting it off my chest.
MAN:: I don’t understand.
EMMA: (Ironically.): Well, you know what to do. Note down everything you’re not sure about in your notebook, and then when we go over it …
MAN:: I don’t understand you, Emma. How can you talk about your life like that, as if you were a character in a story? (Naively.) What do you want me to do, a textual commentary? Sorry.
EMMA:: No, I just want you to listen and learn the lesson.
MAN:: What lesson?
EMMA:: Revenge! Today’s topic is revenge. Like in the books we’ve read before. Like the dispute between Pasamonte and Cervantes, or like in Shakespeare, Lope de Vega or Calderón. Today it’s about revenge, but I’m the text. We’re reading me.
MAN:: Revenge?
EMMA:: Yes. That selfish desire to dish out justice. Revenge: forcing he who has done wrong to suffer the same pain he inflicted on others.
MAN:: Why did you say that before – that when you folded the letter you were already what you would become?
EMMA:: Because in that very instant, I knew that I had to put everything that was dark about me into action … all those dark and sordid things that I knew I was already capable of, even as a young virgin just turning 19. I had a secret. I had a plan.

Copyright

The above sample taken from the translation Emma by Gwynneth Dowling is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

SCENE EIGHT

Context:

Emma embarks on her plan to take revenge for her father’s tragedy. This involves making it look like she has been sexually assaulted by Aaron Loewenthal, the real culprit in the embezzlement case. And so, before she goes to see Mr Loewenthal, she engineers a brutal sexual encounter with a stranger, depicted here as a tango dance.

Sample text

Emma enters, timidly. She sits down and takes her father’s shoes from her bag. She puts them on, extremely nervous, looking all round her, feeling watched. A man spots her from afar, gives her a slight nod. She accepts, embarrassed, and goes towards the dance floor. The man heads towards her. He looks her up and down and when he notices her men’s shoes he bursts out laughing. He motions to her as if to say, ‘Are you mad? You’re dancing Milonga [1] in those?” She looks at him, lost in thought. His words are insistent but Emma understands nothing. The man is a foreigner, he speaks – it seems to her – a very strange language. He is also quite drunk. And she, while trying to control her terrible fear of men, forces a smile and stands, not moving. But her mind is racing.
EMMA:: A foreigner. Yes, a foreigner is better. More removed, fewer problems. A foreigner, of course, there are so many …; Looking down at her shoes, as if she were talking to them.
EMMA:: Yes I know, Dad, you were right. Tango may be Argentinean, but it’s danced by foreigners.; Now she talks to the foreigner.
EMMA:: It’s been a while since it went overseas. Tango, I mean. Just like our lands, our businesses, our meat … But what am I talking about? What am I doing?; She notices that the foreigner does not understand her. She stops talking and looks at him in silence. Her mind will not stop racing, about to explode:
EMMA:: And him? What’s he doing? What? What’s he saying? He’s going to touch me, he’s touching me. He’s going to take me somewhere. Drunk. Get away from me you. No, come here. An embrace … a kiss. Is … is this it? Is this what Elsa gets up to with her boyfriend? What the youngest of the Konfuss girls does? How … disgusting. Get away, no, come here. I need you. Tongue, I felt his tongue. What a smell. Is that your aftershave? Is it alcohol? What are you doing? What am I doing? What am I supposed to do? How handsome, how ugly … I don’t know! You’re drunk, dammit. I can’t understand you. What are you saying? What, what?; After a few flirtatious attempts, the man roughly grabs EMMA and forces her to dance, while she fights her own fears. She is a goddess in tango clothing; a little girl in her father’s shoes.
EMMA:: Wait, Dad. Grab hold of my feet. Grab hold, Dad, he’s in control. Man leads with his arms, woman seduces with her charms.; Gaining confidence, she winks at him. Pleased, he responds with an inebriated grin.
EMMA:: Like this, Elsa? Am I doing it right? Alright, wait, you’re breathing so hard you’re tickling my ear. Woman. Yes, I’m all woman, at 19, all woma….; Their tango is peculiar. Half strange acrobatics, half pure struggle.
EMMA:: Where are you going? I don’t know that move, don’t spin me round, don’t make me turn … Damned accordion. OK, OK. I’ll let myself go. Let’s go, Dad. Take me, you disgusting, foreign, vile Don Juan. Yes, I’m a puppet in your hands. You’re in control. A puppet, yes. Although you can’t see my strings. Revenge. It moves me, leading us both. What are you doing? Don’t make me spin round, no, revenge, spinning, no, spinning, no …; And they spin round and round in this surreal dance. Their steps and their movements are different from those of a conventional tango. As a couple, they dance (perhaps the floor moves). Spinning round and round until the stage goes dark.

[1] Milonga is a type of dance, very similar to tango.

Copyright

The above sample taken from the translation Emma by Gwynneth Dowling is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

SCENE THIRTEEN

Context:

This is the end of the play. Emma has just revealed that she shot Aaron Loewenthal. We now learn that the Man is Loewenthal’s son, and that Emma wants him to kill her, to absolve her guilt for the crime she committed all those years ago.

Sample text

MAN:

Revenge.

EMMA:

Yes. The need to avenge my father, the need to punish what was done to him.

MAN: (Distractedly.)

Your virginity …

EMMA:

There was no question of not killing him, after suffering that particular deflowering.

The MAN slowly gathers together his books and his notes.

EMMA:

This is the story they didn’t tell you, or perhaps they told it wrong? Is that it?

The MAN makes to leave.

EMMA:

What are you doing? You’re not a child anymore. Children don’t know anything, especially when they don’t want to know. As soon as I knew you existed I became obsessed with finding you.

The MAN glares at her.

EMMA:

I had to find that newborn. I had to know what became of him. I didn’t stop until I saw you sitting here, with that same smirk on your face, the same as Aaron Loewenthal …

About to leave, the MAN slams his books down on the table, enraged.

MAN:

I don’t need to take lessons from you.

EMMA:

It’s not the lesson itself that saves us, it’s knowing what to do with it. (She takes out a gun.) Here.

Stunned, the MAN reluctantly holds the gun.

MAN:

What do expect me to do?

EMMA:

Now, you’re me.

Pale, disconcerted, the MAN stares at her. EMMA takes a step towards him.

EMMA; You’re face-to-face with your father’s murderer.

MAN:

You’re insane!

The MAN drops the gun, tries to escape. But EMMA is walking round and round him, just as the MAN walked round her in scene 2.

EMMA:

We go round and round in circles. Each one smaller, more closed than the last. With less and less colour.

Perhaps the record has started to spin. She and he, directly opposite one another, circling, with the gun in the middle between them.

EMMA:

Come on. You’re a good student. (Pointing to the weapon.) Take advantage of this lesson.

MAN:

You want to ruin my life, just like you did with … ?

EMMA:

He’s the only one who’s guilty.

MAN:

The only one?

EMMA:

He was first. He taught me to hate, to want revenge. (Pause.) Now I’m teaching you. (Pointing to the weapon.) Go on.

MAN:

You’re still haunted by it. Full of regrets. Look at yourself.

EMMA:

Now you know the truth. The real story.

MAN:

You want me to become someone like you … years and years of carrying this damned guilt?

EMMA:

Justice must be done. That’s the lesson.

MAN:

No, Emma. The past isn’t important now. I’m leaving. (Pause.) Forever.

The MAN goes to leave. Suddenly, EMMA grabs the gun.

EMMA:

Don’t move. (Pause.) You think forgiving me will make you feel superior, is that it?

The MAN continues walking, unaware of the gun pointing at him.

MAN:

No, Emma. I’ve nothing to forgive you for.

EMMA:

Don’t move!

MAN:

Forgive yourself.

A shot stops the MAN in his tracks. He stands frozen on the spot. Slowly, he turns his head. EMMA lies motionless on the ground, she has shot herself in the head.

MAN:

Emma! Emma!

The MAN kneels down next to her. Dazed, he hesitates for a moment. Then, he picks up the phone and talks in a voice similar – very similar – to that used by Emma Zunz in scene 11.

MAN: