The Storm Has Not Yet Come

ZIZZI, wearing a yellow dress and a plastic sunflower in her headband, hands out food to the audience saying:

ZIZZI
[smiling and adlibbing as she passes through the audience]

Here. This is for you. Would you like some? This is for you. Have some. Go on. Here, eat this – I’d like some... Have some food.

[when people ask why, or what the food is for…]

This is the food I’d like to be eating. or This is what I won’t be eating. or It looked so good, but I won’t be eating it.

STREGA swathed in layers of fabric and wearing high heels – perhaps with her lower legs exposed, walks in and gets up on a table in front of some people, making sure to interact with people so as to destroy any sense of a fourth wall.


STREGA
[loudly]

Why don’t you carry this for me for a while.

[addressing a man]

That is not a question, Mark.

[***reading from mary daly***]

Why don’t you carry this for me for a while.
I want to perform ON you.

[looking everyone in the eyes]

This is our mourner. Zizzi.

[***reading from mary daly***]


ZIZZI
[sitting, eating carrots]

What would people do if I went off on them?

[STREGA – A voice in the background: The Rhetoric]

It would be really good for me. It would look good on me.

[STREGA – A voice in the background sitting on the table with legs crossed. Casually: Shocking behavior is always fun a first]

Would it really ‘look good’ on me? I think people wouldn’t know what to do

[ZIZZI spits carrot on an audience member and holds their gaze]

I think people wouldn’t know what to do.

[STREGA takes off her mask and turns to ZIZZI as a friend for their argument]

Like, what would people do if I just went off on them?

STREGA
[yelling]

Zizzi! Omygod, I hate you! If you don’t stop being a good friend, I’m going to hate you! I hate you! You fucking take care of me, I hate you! IF YOU DON”T STOP I’M GOING TO VOMIT ON YOUR GYM BAG!

ZIZZI

What would they do?

STREGA
[yelling]

I HATE you! Zizzi!

ZIZZI
[laughing lightly]

I don’t think they’d like it.
STREGA screams and stomps feet and shakes table, causing a ruckus. When she’s finished, she replaces her mask and resumes a detached manner.

My ‘going off’ would look like a ninja. Killing people with a judo chop to the heart.

STREGA

If your your anger were a natural disaster, what would it look like?
Like a volcano?

[ZIZZI chops someone in the audience with a ki-ay]

Like a tornado?

[ZIZZI chops someone in the audience with a ki-ay]

Like an earth quake?

[ZIZZI chops two someone’s in the audience with a ki-ay]

ZIZZI!
[ZIZZI freezes, about to chop someone and turns sheepishly]

ZIZZI

33 degrees but with a wind chill that feels like 7 / so it can still be raining…

STREGA

/No.

Zizzi

Alright Summer weather – wet air, high winds –

STREGA

No storm.




ZIZZI
[in an amused and disbelieving tone]

The Storm hasn’t come yet!

[silence in which ZIZZI sits down and gets out vegetables and ketchup. - Squirting ketchup into a container of vegetables:]

I would like it to rain ketchup on/

STREGA

Zizzi!

ZIZZI

Thank you, Life. For sending us another stand in. Another blonde! /

STREGA

ZIZZI!

ZIZZI

/And this one’s Happy!

[quelling look from the STREGA that ZIZZI doesn’t notice]

Thank you.

STREGA
[w/o mask; as though an attorney interrogating an audience member:]

If you were going to meet your discontent on the street – what gender would it be, and what would it be wearing?/

ZIZZI
[in the background, as opposing council]

/Move to strike!/

STREGA
/That’s too pointed, let me refrase:
ZIZZI
[STREGA turning back to ZIZZI]

The Titanic Song.

[STREGA puts her mask back on and hits play on a boom box and starts dancing interpretively to My Heart Will Go On]

- If my discontent were a childhood song – it would be The Titanic Song.

STREGA
[still dancing]

That’s not a childhood song, but okay…

ZIZZI
[throws a carrot at the STREGA who stops. They stare at each other in disbelief, until, after a pause:]

NO.

[STREGA presses stop on the boom box and sits down to listen to ZIZZI]

Not my heart will go on.

[another pause where they look at each other until ZIZZI gets up on a table, singing:]

It was sad when the great ship went down… hmmmm hmmm hmmm… Uncles and cousins, little children lost their buttons…

[starts to cry]

Imagine how horrified you’d be if you were a mother and you thought some other kid was cutting your child’s clothing.

[ZIZZI and STREGA sit forlornly for a moment]

STREGA

What shape is the hole in your heart?


ZIZZI

That is THE question, isn’t it?

[after a long pause]

I think it’s circular.

STREGA
[gets up and starts to braid ZIZZI’s hair]

I’m picturing you in pearls.

- But if you’d rather have a mask…

…No, I think the pearls.

ZIZZI
No – it’s punch shaped!

STREGA

Hmm?

ZIZZI

The hole in my heart – it’s PUNCH shaped!

[STREGA isn’t listening. They start to hum “What’ll I Do?”]