I feel guilty, I do. In a way she is right: I am a coward and I could not tell him. I just could not!

JULIA: My poor little girl, do not listen to Martha: you know how she likes to break up other people’s life, just because her own looks so miserable and hopelessly lonely. With all her church stuff, her family values and illusions about marriage… AH! Just let her try, she will see what it means to be married. She is living in her own little rosy world.

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But how about you, why feel guilty? You knew all along what you were doing, right? You made your choices. I respect that.

SHE: What could I have done differently? I know my husband is not a bad person. I feel very shitty about that. But this is not the same as having to love him!

JULIA: There is no obligation to Love, I guess. You can only give and hope to receive. The question is: did you give?

SHE: We married too quickly. I wanted to leave my parents. He was there…. And he was handsome and caring in the beginning: everything looked like it could work. Our love, I do not know, I think it faded very quickly. After one year, that’s all it took to actually realize…

JULIA: To realize what?

SHE: That my life with him was going to be absolutely not interesting!

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You know there are rare moments in life when you are confronted with a clear choice. You can SEE the choices and their consequences. You can see them like fluorescent paths laid out in front of your feet. I am not talking about pondering, weighing the odds, calculating risks, contemplating the possible future, musing the “what-ifs”. I am talking about a starry night clear vision of what your life will be if you choose this way, and what it will be if you go this other way.

JULIA: And? When was that?

SHE: That was about two years after my marriage. One year to see him, as he really was, not the image I had of him, the image that I was projecting unto him. Not the hopes and the expectations.

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And one year to try to make it work: accommodate to him, to what I thought he wanted from me; to what I thought he wanted me to be.

JULIA: Was it so bad?

SHE: No! I guess many women, like Martha, would have been perfectly happy to fulfill such a role. But that’s exactly it! It would have been a role. It would not have been me. It wasn’t me.

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I tried, for about a year: and it worked, at least for him. He was very happy, and satisfied! But what about me? This was not me! It was a part I was playing, it was not me.

JULIA: (smiling) Ah! I see Martha would have a different point of view on this one!

SHE: Yes of course: but who is cheating most actually, can you tell me? Is it to cheat any less to pretend to be something you are not, to feel things you don’t?

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And I quickly realized it was going to be useless: I could not continue pretending to be someone I was not, and my husband was not going to change. He did not SEE, and still does not see any need to change whatsoever. He does not see where there is a problem. He does not even see ME: who I am, what I need, what makes me happy. He has a stereotyped vision of the role of the woman in a family, and of his role as a man in the couple.

JULIA: Bring money home. Make love every second week. Raise children. Go to the Parents once a month.

SHE: Exactly!

JULIA: But that isn’t so bad, is it? Many people are happy this way.

SHE: I guess not, it isn’t so bad: for Martha, maybe for you.

JULIA: So, how did it happen? How did you know this wasn’t for you?

SHE: Something was stirring in me. I could not name it, or even describe it. I was barely conscious of a fundamental uneasiness filling up my inside. I only felt I was soon going to drown into it. I needed a change, something to rescue me before it was too late.

JULIA: And then?

SHE: And then, I met HIM.

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Julia: I love him, so much! I can die without him. It’s a fusional love I cannot explain.

JULIA: But try to explain, please: you never talked much about him. He was always a bit of a secret to us.

SHE: Ah! What to say? He is my father, my lover, my friend, my child, my Pygmalion, my inspiration, my motivation. He means so much to me! JULIA: What exactly? SHE: Everything! Compassion, caring, humor; and the cuddliness... Julia, you have no idea how good it is to feel his hands on my skin, his beautiful strong hands, and to cuddle against him as we fall asleep, and even better, to find him next to me when I wake up in the middle of the night... (smiling) And to feel his erection in the morning... He is so homely... So safe.... And when he hugs me, I do not know, it's like the universe stopped expanding, nothing can hurt me, and everything is fine, so absolutely fine, for a few seconds. I could die happily in his embrace: nothing would matter.

JULIA: Come’ on: you can get a hug and a cuddle from anyone! How different can a hug be?

SHE: Ah! You have no idea! The perfect cuddle is meaningful, embracing, reassuring, warm, exciting, and at the same time, open to possibilities, infinite in time and purpose. It’s a tide that develops in extreme slow motion: powerful, purposeful, unstoppable. It will never crush you, or hurt you but it will give you its strength and shelter.

JULIA: (laughing) Wow! I never had such a cuddle! But I had ones where I would loose myself into… be swept away…

SHE: That’s a different one. In my hug it’s about ME existing: I AM. I do not have to go anywhere. It’s in ME.

JULIA: I do not understand.

SHE: It’s the difference between being in a room and wanting to go out the door to find what you are looking for, not knowing what is out there; it’s the difference between that and being in a room and knowing your world is IN the room. There are things outside, but what is essential is in the room.

JULIA: He certainly seems to be very special. (mockingly) Do you mind lending him to me for a while?

SHE: (relaxing) I learned so much with him, you have no idea: all the books, the paintings, and the music Julia ... The music! I discovered things I had no clue about!

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(introspective) I was wondering through life as blind person: he opened my eyes and then I could see. Nothing in this life seems worthwhile without him. Un tempo (becoming dark, all of a sudden) I am afraid.

JULIA: Of what?

SHE: Afraid that he leaves me, that he falls out of love with me, that he leaves to someone else. What will I do then?

JULIA: You know, what you describe is not love: it's a sickness, a dependency, an addiction. Not healthy for you. SHE: An addiction, yes! What to do, oh! Julia! I am dying!

JULIA: Stop it! You must come to your senses! Be yourself! Do you talk about these things with him? What does he say?

SHE: (smiling wearily) He says I am his Antigone

JULIA: What does it mean?

SHE: (dreamy) I do not know. I am not sure. Un tempo

Maybe that I should free myself from him. He says that all the time. Fly with my own wings. He encourages me to paint, to read; he always asks me to give my opinion on a topic, on a passage in a book, on a play, on a modern painting….

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(smiling) And he always asks me to tell him my sexual fantasies... But I never tell him... It drives him mad!

JULIA: Why don't you tell him?

SHE: Because! ... I do not have fantasies.

JULIA: Cannot be! Either you are lying to yourself or your conscious is burying them deep in your unconscious: there is guilt there, or you are afraid of disappointing him? Of being judged? Exposed and vulnerable?

SHE: I do not know. Can be… JULIA: I think he wants you to be You. The independent You who can think, and make choices. Who can chooses freely her course in life, including to stay with him. Not the dependent you who lives FOR him, through him, who cannot live without him.

Un tempo

Maybe you should put some distance from him. Re-gain some independence. You have to rediscover the You. The You that was there before him and which has grown , a lot yes, grown considerably, with him. There is still this You, which is independent from him. Find it again!

Un tempo

Yes, I think I can understand his reference to Antigone: the fight of free will, the rising against authority. He wants you to refuse to accept Fate and decide your own course. He does not want you to be subdued to him. He wants you free!

He wants to know you are able to continue to be You, even without him.

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Do not worship him! Break free!

SHE: But I do not want to break free! I do not want to loose him!

JULIA: You do not have to loose him! You must become free in order to keep him!

(Julia stands up and takes her by the arm)

Enough talking, let’s have some fun! Here, have a drink! It will loosen your spirits.

They have several drinks. Loud music covers the conversation. SHE loosens up. Starts smiling, then laughing. Everyone executes, at random some dancing steps. There is a party atmosphere. Good mood, relaxed and joyful. Several boys come and go: stop next to them, talk to them, drink with them then leave. Lots of laughing.

SHE: (happy, almost shouting to cover the music) I think I am getting drunk!

JULIA: (also shouting to cover the music) So what? Who cares! Oh! Listen to this song! Let’s dance!

They dance, gaily. Three boys have joined them. Excitement, energy and joyfulness exude from the scene. The characters occupy all the space on the stage.

At some point, SHE changes her dress (either by a trick of her dress, or by disappearing shortly behind the curtain) into an ample, vaporous, sheer dress - maybe made of a very large organza fabric piece - possibly oriental in style. She dances while playing the Hollywood Star seductress (Cleopatra?), emphatically, theatrically. She teases, seduces, mesmerizes (but always in a playful, unpretentious way of having fun). She moves from boy to boy and to Julia. Each one, in turn, puts a chain or two unto her: waist, neck, ankle and wrist. The group cheers, applauds and laughs.

The music fades into a slow. SHE drunkenly grabs the nearest boy and starts dancing with him. The man now has his face masked: possibly with a Francis Bacon character’s mask. Several chains dangle from her body, long enough to drag on the floor. The chains do not get loose; they remain attached to her flesh. The sound of metal chains sweeping the floor and clinking can be heard, mixed with the soft music. Julia and the other two boys leave through the curtain.

The man is now acting very passively. He stares ahead of him and just dangles from his left foot to the right, following the rhythm of the slow music. It is SHE that dances to him. She performs a “naughty” dance, by curling up to him, rubbing against him, interweaving her legs with his, and caressing his body all over, including explicitly. At one point she turns her back to him bends over, reaching her ankles with her hands and then holding her balance by resting her elbows on a chair rail or a table (legs kept straight at all times). She thrusts her hips backwards towards the man's crotch, mimicking penetration. At all times SHE is in control: she directs the changes in rhythm, searches for he own pleasure, dominates. The man never uses his arms or hands: he dangles from left to right, rhythmically, like an automat. At the end (after a subtle orgasm) SHE sends the man away, rudely, pushing him out of the room, the way you dispose of a toy you got fed up with. It is in this process that most of the chains will have been detached from her flesh, falling off noisily: the point here is to make this clearly noticeable to the audience.

(Darkness)

SCENE 3: Each Person is a Refuge

Martha sits by herself drinking from a glass. A guy enters, looks carefully around looking for something, or for someone. Martha follows him with mild interest

DAVID: Excuse me: have you seen Giovanni?

MARTHA: Giovanni? No. Who is Giovanni?

DAVID: Well.... That depends.

MARTHA: Depends? How can it depend?

DAVID: It depends! What do you think? That we can actually know?

MARTHA: (puzzled)

DAVID: For example: who are you?

MARTHA: I am Martha.

DAVID: That is not enough! There are millions of Marthas in the world, how do I know which Martha you are?

MARTHA: I am the Martha sipping from a glass and sitting in front of you, right now, right here.

DAVID: Ah! We have improved a little, but only infinitesimally little. Now I know where you are and what you are doing, but still I do not know WHO you are!

(he keeps searching around, talks without looking at her) What makes you your Martha versus any other Martha? What motivates this Martha here? What does she expect from life? What compromises is she ready to make to get what she wants? Does she only know why she wants what she wants?

(he is suddenly very close to her, he pauses and looks her straight in her eyes. Slowly, very intensly and purposeful) What is she afraid of?

Martha looks surprised, taken aback, almost afraid.

She then starts talking to David, more and more animatedly, with passion. She talks like she has never talked in her life, a dam that breaks up, powerful, unstoppable, meaningful, and true.

During her talking the music has become louder and we hear nothing of what she says. At the end of her talking the music subdues until a relative silence reigns and the disco music in the background resumes.

MARTHA: So, this is who I am.

DAVID: I see. Now I know which Martha you are.

MARTHA: (mollified, she has exposed her true self to this stranger) If you had to tell a friend, what would you say who this Martha is?

DAVID: I would say you are the bigot Martha who is looking for reassurance and shelter in predictability, codes and rules. You are the Martha who externalizes the love to the idea you make yourself of a husband, of a family. You externalize the responsibility to social institutions, doctors, society circles, and the church. You are the Martha who will never find love because you do not understand that the answer is within you, not outside of you.

Un tempo.

MARTHA: (very softly, peacefully) Nobody ever speaks this way to me.

Un tempo