Oldest Boy: A Play in Three Ceremonies - Softcover

Ruhl, Sarah

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0374535876 ISBN 13: 9780374535872

Verlag: FSG Adult, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

In this moving exploration of parenthood, an American mother and a Tibetan father have a three-year-old son believed to be the reincarnation of a Buddhist lama.

When a Tibetan lama and a monk come to their home unexpectedly, asking to take their child away for a life of spiritual training in India, the parents must make a life-altering choice that will test their strength, their marriage, and their hearts.

The Oldest Boy is a richly emotional journey filled with music, dance, puppetry, ritual, and laughter—Sarah Ruhl at her imaginative best. A meditation on attachment and unconditional love, the play asks us to believe in a world in which sometimes the youngest children are also the oldest and wisest teachers.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Sarah Ruhl's plays include In the Next Room, or the vibrator play (Pulitzer Prize finalist, Tony Award nominee); The Clean House (Pulitzer Prize finalist, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize); Passion Play, a cycle (PEN American Award); Dead Man's Cell Phone (Helen Hayes Award); and Stage Kiss and Dear Elizabeth. She has been the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, the Helen Merrill Emerging Playwrights Award, the Whiting Writers' Award, the PEN Center Award for a midcareer playwright, the Feminist Press's Forty Under Forty Award, and the 2010 Lilly Award. She is currently on the faculty at Yale School of Drama and lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her family.

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The Oldest Boy

A Play in Three Ceremonies

By Sarah Ruhl

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Copyright © 2016 Sarah Ruhl
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-374-53587-2

CHAPTER 1

Act One

ONE

A tasteful house decorated with rich Tibetan colors. Half Western furniture, half Eastern furniture and rugs. A few large statues of the Buddha.

A woman, the mother, sits on the stage. She places a candle on the floor, faces the audience, and tries to meditate. She closes her eyes. She opens her eyes. She sees the audience.

She stops meditating. She takes her cushion and candle and turns around and faces the back wall. She meditates. On a baby monitor, a baby cries.

The mother stops meditating. She goes to the monitor. She listens. The baby stops crying. She goes and gets a bag of potato chips and starts eating from it. She pages through a book about child-rearing: something like Dr. Sears's Attachment Parenting Book.

The doorbell rings. She jumps. It is unexpected. She puts down the potato chips. She goes to the door. Two Tibetan monks are at the door. One is a Rinpoche (a high lama or teacher), the other is a simple monk.

MOTHER Hello?

LAMA Hello.

MONK Hello.

An awkward pause.

MOTHER Hi.

MONK Excuse me — sorry to disturb you — you are the babysitter?

MOTHER The babysitter? No.

LAMA You are a friend of the house?

MOTHER Um — this is my house.

MONK But — you are the mother of the house?

MOTHER Yes — I am the mother of the house.

MONK Oh, I see.

LAMA Perhaps we have the wrong house?

MOTHER I don't know — sorry — I wasn't expecting you.

LAMA Nor we you!

They laugh.

MOTHER Perhaps you are looking for my husband?

LAMA Your husband owns a restaurant in town?

MOTHER Oh, yes.

LAMA Then it is he we have come to visit.

MOTHER Oh!

MONK Rinpoche is visiting from India.

MOTHER Oh, I see! Welcome! Rinpoche.

He bows his head. She bows awkwardly.

MOTHER Would you like to come in?

MONK And LAMA Yes, yes, thank you.

LAMA I have been to your husband's restaurant once, long time ago. Very delicious.

MOTHER Of course I think so, but I'm biased. Would you like some tea?

MONKLAMA Oh yes yes, we would love some tea, thank you. Thank you, yes.

MOTHER I'm so sorry — if I'd known you were coming, I would have — cleaned and — cooked — and —

MONK And LAMA No, no.

MOTHER I can at least make you tea.

She exits to put the teakettle on to boil. The boy cries a little on the baby monitor. The monks listen attentively, with joy.

LAMA A baby!

The mother pokes her head back in.

MOTHER I'm just going to get my son. Are you all right for a moment?

MONK And LAMA Oh, yes yes.

MOTHER You must excuse me — my husband won't be back from work for another hour. Would you like to come back then?

LAMA Oh, that is fine, we can wait. You can bring the baby here, if you like. How old is the baby?

MOTHER Almost three!

MONK That's good!

MOTHER Good? Yes —

LAMA A nice age, yes?

MOTHER Yes.

A pause in which the baby is quiet.

MOTHER It sounds as if he's gone back to sleep.

MONK Yes, he's sleeping now. We can wait.

MOTHER For my husband?

LAMA Yes, thank you for your hospitality.

MOTHER Please — make yourself at home.

MONK And LAMA Thank you, thank you.

MOTHER You are from India?

LAMA Yes Dharamsala.

MOTHER Oh! How wonderful.

MONK Yes, it is good to be so close to His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

MOTHER Yes, of course.

Were you born in Tibet?

LAMA Yes.

MOTHER Oh! And you too?

MONK Not me. I have never seen my country.

MOTHER Oh, I'm sorry — I mean —

MONK (making a gesture of "don't be sorry") I was born in Nepal.

MOTHER My husband lived in Nepal. After leaving Tibet.

MONK Oh, yes yes.

MOTHER You know my husband?

LAMA We know of your husband.

MOTHER But you haven't met?

LAMA No.

A pause.

MOTHER My husband isn't famous. He's a good cook, but he's not famous.

Is he?

MONK We have heard of his restaurant! I have dreamed of it, in fact.

MOTHER You have?

They nod.

LAMA I will tell you a little story.

There was once a man who had four wives.

MOTHER Are you trying to tell me something?

LAMA Yes. So. This man has four wives. His first wife loved him very much, but he paid no attention to her. The second wife was younger and prettier, and he was always chasing after her, fearful that she would find another man. He tried to keep her. The third wife was a very practical woman, always gave the husband good advice, he relied on her. The fourth wife was the youngest, and oh how he loved to pamper her (laughs) oh like this with the youngest wife (gestures of pampering), and he gives her everything she wants, but she is a silly woman. When the man is on his deathbed, he says, "Okay wives, which of you will come with me to death?"

MOTHER Oh!

LAMA He asks his fourth wife, "Will you follow me to death?" She says, "No, I will not, I will go find another man after you die."

The monk laughs.

Then the mother laughs.

LAMA So he asks the third wife, the practical one, "Will you go with me?" She says, "No. No one can go with you to death."

MOTHER She has a point.

LAMA Mmm. So he asks his second wife, the pretty one, "Will you go to death with me?" And she laughs at him and says she is too busy, find someone else. So finally he asks his first wife, who was always loyal to him, and she says, "I will go with you."

MOTHER Wow, so she killed herself?

LAMA Not really it is just a story.

MOTHER Oh.

LAMA You see, the man is just a man.

MOTHER Uh-huh.

LAMA His wives are — fourth wife, his body — third wife, his family — second wife, his possessions — but his first wife — his first wife is what you might call his soul. Only his soul can come with him after death.

MOTHER Oh I like that! I was worried you were going to tell me my husband has another wife in India!

They laugh.

LAMA Oh no nothing like that!

It is a story about how your consciousness comes with you when you die, it is the only thing of value, the rest is left behind.

MOTHER I like that. Thank you.

Oh, your tea, excuse me!

MONK And LAMA Thank you.

They incline their heads politely. She exits.

LAMA(to the monk, in Tibetan) Khong bhot pa-shig dang changsa gyab yo-rey sam jung?

(But I thought he married a Tibetan woman?)

MONK (in Tibetan) Derang sam jung.

(Yes, I thought so.)

LAMA I did not expect an American...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: FSG Adult
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0374535876
• ISBN 13: 9780374535872
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 160
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland