 It's academic and it's theater and it's the place where they both meet. We have the audience and the process of it for each other. This makes your practices a start of the practice. Come home, everybody please. Samples of the limit. Sharing. What is that you do? Sharing how you do that. There's no way you can ignore that. You don't know it anymore. We're going all in on it. You can come and see the talk about it. This starts out all the way in the right way. Left, blue, completely open. Theater for everybody. Yes, everybody. That's just what's really done. And indeed my understanding of life, relationships, that have already changed. Survival of theater has a platform that depends on that. So welcome everybody to the Martin E. Siegel Theater Center here at the Graduate Center. CUNY and thank you for watching our propaganda video. But it's good to know, you know, what also what we do here. It's a very big day for us. It's the opening actually of the Pen World Voices Festival, a great festival. Perhaps the most significant festival of literature in the Americas. Definitely North America. And it was founded by Paul Auster and Salman Rushdie during the first Bush government where they felt there was not enough listening to voices from around the world. There was a tunnel vision. 95% of all books published are in English language from American or British writers. The other half, the other 5% are German or French. And so only two books maybe are, you know, often writers from the 180 or 200 nations around the world and musicians listen to world music. It's very important for their local practice to think globally. And I think in theater we have to do the same. So this is our small contribution for over 10 years. We are the partner of Pen. And it is really right at the center. It's very, very important to us. And thank you for taking time out of your life to come at four o'clock. And finally, some sun is out. It really means a lot to us. We need good theater, but we also need good audiences, audience who are interested. So it really means a lot to us. Thank you very much for coming. My name is Frank Henschka. I am the director of the Siegel Center. We bridge academia and professional theater, international and American theater here. So this is right at the heart of what we do. And also the opening of this has, we've worked for almost a year on this. We have eight of the 10 writers coming. It's a big thing for us, a big investment also. We fundraise for it. We don't take, you know, any admission fees. So we are really honored and that the writers are coming and that we are able to pay them and that we are part of that important course. Also check out Penbold Voices Festival right now. It's going on this week. Brilliant programs. Fantastic programs. What a chip put together the new curator. It's really an amazing array and it makes New York City what New York City is. The beginning and the end of the play, as one must say, is a big moment. In between people forgive you what you do. So again, this is the beginning then of our festival. So this is also important. And we have with us here Magalie Mugel who came from France with us to be with us. She flew in on Saturday or Sunday. She's going to fly back tomorrow. So we will join us for a discussion afterwards. The reading will be about 55 minutes and please fill out our little audience forms because we always want to know where you come from. You can keep the pencil. It's our gift to you. And if that is anything worthy enough for you to do. So please, if you have a cell phone, please do take it out. I'll do the same. Here it is. And it should be ringer off. Okay. And your eye watches. I think so. Thank you very much. And you can leave the forms outside to give them when you go out. But again, thank you all for coming. And now it's the beginning of our festival. And again, thanks for you, Chen, for producing it. Michael, Bella and everybody up there. Selma who is stage managing. Elida, Brooke who joined us. So this is a big moment for us. Thank you for coming. And here is the beginning of the first 3Z, Susie Stork. Thank you. It starts here. It happens here, right there. The exact geography of where it happens doesn't matter. It happens in the house of Susie Stork and Hans Vassili Cruz. 17th of June, 1037 at night. The sun still hasn't set. In the kitchen, wine bottles on Susie Stork's table. Three, more or less empty. Susie Stork is by the window, waiting. Waiting for Hans Vassili Cruz to come home. And it all comes back to her. Like a body from the earth. Like a story you pick up. Her unfortunate failure to adequately express her desire to refuse to fulfill certain obligations of a personal, physical and indeed economic character. Her desire to refuse to fulfill her conjugal duty by not having any children. It happens here, right here. 17th of June, 8.54 p.m. We hear the sound of a car in the distance. A car is starting, moving off. Susie Stork is there with her face stuck to the window. Now moving, waiting, heavy heat, just before the storm. And evening when the setting sun never actually sets. Susie feels the need for another drink. In the distance, upstairs, we hear the sound of children's voices. We hear the sound of tiny hands jiggling something metal in the walk. A knock on the glass front door. Stork Susie, Susie, do you hear me? Open this wretched door! Madam Stork goes to the door. And up goes Susie Stork's hand. And Susie Stork's hand rests on the door handle. And Susie Stork's hand opens up the door. Madam Stork comes in, sits down, face to face. Either side of the same table. They look at each other. For a long time, they look. There's plenty they can say, but they don't. Madam Stork slaps Susie once, twice. How is it possible that a woman like me could end up with a daughter like you? I tore myself to pieces. I did everything. I mean, I never said a word. I always held my tongue. I've been a good mother. I'm certainly not the worst. I've spared you everything. And you, I'm ashamed of you. Disarray. The disarray of my life, that's you. I look back at how I got here, and you, that we got here. Complete disarray. I don't know what to say. Quantify the things I've done and those I can't. I know nothing for sure. I'm basing you here, Mother, and I can't quantify anything anymore. I don't know if there was ever a time when I could. I can't quantify any of it. All I did was try to hold something together. A dead chick in the shell. I don't want anything back. I'd like to keep quiet, but I don't want to take anything back. I'm scared for a reply to my ceiling piece back. Asking me for an explanation. I don't know what will happen when you get home. You think he'll give you a kiss? I don't think there'll be flowers. I best till strangle you, and at worst till sapphire to your hair. You didn't like that. How would you like me to look at you? You think I should say, well done. I should drag you to the sink by the scrap and drown you. That's what you deserve. Please don't look at me. You hear me? You hear what I'm saying? It's a look or a beating to death. Which would actually be doing you a favor. What are you doing? I'm going for a little walk. Walk off this urge to kill you. You should probably start praying. Praying. Praying Hans Vassili doesn't come home. Praying? Praying hard. It happens here. Right here. The geography of exactly where it happens doesn't matter. The 17th of June, 9.14 p.m. The sun's still up. Madam Stark hit Susie one last time before disappearing through the frosted glass front door. Susie alone. And it all comes back to her like a body from the earth. Like a story you dig up. I hear the children panicking upstairs. And of course you know they're not panicking simply because of the fierce heat of this sun that won't stop shining of this sun that won't stop not going down. The children are panicking. I locked the bedroom door. I don't have the strength to climb the stairs. The sound of the swallow still swirls around the roof tiles of the house. This will be the last time I ever hear it. I wish my heart were like a beast going out to slaughter a hen having its neck rung over a stone basin. I try to feel something. I try to feel the pain. I know I should be feeling, but there is no tension in my shoulders. My neck loosens. Curves collapse. A release that I don't know how to describe. The kids in their bedroom they'll soon wear themselves out trying to open the door I locked. There's really no limit to how long my patience can stand the noise of a paper clip jiggling in a narrow lock. My patience can still stand that noise. I can't remember whether the shutters and the children's were closed. I can't remember whether the shutters were closed. I don't know. I'm unaware of the temperature in front of it. How could I explain to those children that Hans and Celie Cruz may not be coming back. That I may never again be able to open the door and meet their childish eyes. I'm not as planned adequately that I may have committed an act of thoughtlessness. I try to tell myself that what's just happened is surely not the sort of thing likely to alter the normal course of my life as I'd envisaged it. Hans and Celie Cruz left the room. His face was limited. He left the room and did not look toward it. He left his room and his livid face like crumbling, chalky rock. Fray the edges of his cheeks and it was ravaged. I saw it. I heard the scream explode from deep within his gaping throat and I heard the screams of my children. First, Lawrence, then his brothers, but still screaming in my head. He screamed like a sheep at the slaughter. The sound of a disemboweled sound echoed across the valley. But no one hung him upside down in the tree. And I remember looking in the mirror above the kitchen sink, looking in every corner of the yard and I remember, up goes my arm and hang out the washing. Up goes my arm to slap one of my three children. Up goes my arm to pop the baby's dummy back in its mouth. Up goes my arm to hang the empty laundry basket on the wall. Up goes my arm to endow it in my trouser pocket for a cigarette. Up goes my arm to slap that bloody dog that's shot from the garage door again. Now I remember the talk shit. And I think about the flies buzzing around. What keeps a legend sun in the air? It's 9.22 p.m. The radio buzzes in the kitchen of homes of a seedy cruise in Susie Storkhouse. The sound of a dead sheep in the period. A decomposing corpse seizing with life. I think about the flies. I think about the meadows where my parents sheathed the trees. I think about the apples we used to throw at them. Rotting apples that fermented in their guts and made them drunk. And I think about the ones that got slaughtered. Hanging from the branch of an apple tree by a rope around their hind legs. The blood flowing from the slit in the throat with the stink of wool you can't get off your fingers. The smell of animal flesh that isn't quite dead yet. Then the smell of fat when you start skinning the corpse. That smell of fat. A nose worm gets up in there and sticks. I think about it all. Skinless skipping thoughts. While the children wear themselves out jiggling away upstairs at a tiny little rock. My heart is a clock and I throw its doors open to let in the wind and take away the screams of my world. Thought. This in which Susie Stork tries to find some clarity. Everything mounts up. Everything gathers speed. The last few days all jumbled together. The last few months become confused. The last few years melt and dissolve into each other. Her heart is a clock and she'd like to snap the pendulum. Susie Stork doesn't want him to come home. Han to the Sealy Cruise. Susie Stork doesn't want him to come back. Han to the Sealy Cruise. She has no desire that he come home. She has no desire to see him cross the threshold of this house. No desire, whatever. She remembers the effect of Han to the Sealy Cruise's voice. She remembers what it's like. She remembers his voice and the effect of that sound it makes. It's voice. She remembers and time runs backwards. A few days ago, in the middle of the heat, the swallow's flooding about the roof. I'd like to shut those fucking birds up. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night and those fucking birds never fucking shut up. Where's my shotgun? I'll take a look and show them how you deal with birds. Are you going already? I don't have a question of going. I'm making the most of a moment. Is that a problem? Just a quarter of an hour or so. Free time with my kid. Fuck me. You've got them all day. All day they're with you. You get an eternity leave and everything. All I get is the joy of working like a stupid fucker in a shitty supermarket. Check the fridge temperatures. Check there's no breach in the cold chain. Check the end aisle displays are in end aisle display condition. Checking the block from morning till night. I'm not leaving. It's not a question of that. I'm making the most of it. I'm taking a moment. Where's the shotgun? I'm on my own all day. We could have had a moment together. Are you on your own? Lord, get the catapults if you can't find the shotgun. I get up in the morning not because I've had enough sleep, not because my eyes sprangle, but not because I suddenly feel like getting up. I get up in the morning and I do what needs to be done to keep everything working so everyone knows where they are. I wake you, I wake the children. One second, the baby cries and I breastfeed him. Up goes my arm and switches on the coffee machine. Up goes my arm and switches on the toaster. Up goes my arm and picks out socks and clean pants not dirty for Loic. Picks out the t-shirt he massed for from the pile of washing and I smile at everyone and I watch you all leave the house and I'm left on my own with that baby that people get up in the morning. That's what people do. They get up in the morning and do what they have to do. It's what we do. I get up for my own benefit. Who does? Who? When I get up to take the kids to school, when I get up to check that they both have everything they're supposed to take to school, when I get up so I won't be late and get there before the first beer delivery of the spring, is that me getting up for my own sake? What I think of what I am doesn't matter. What I'd like to think of me doesn't matter. What I want from the world doesn't matter. What I once wanted from you doesn't matter. What I once wanted for us doesn't matter. So what do you want? You should have a shit on the other evening. You can't. Not in the morning either. I can't. We all have our process to bear. I've got mine. You've got yours. That's how it works. What are you doing? Baby's crying and you're not lifting a finger. Her heart is a clock. She feels the second head speeding up on the circuit. She feels something give. I have a job. She worked in chicken, Orient poultry. That's where I worked. She took a job there because Orient poultry can just as easily have worked somewhere else. Sporting goods, baby's nappies. It was a toss up between poultry, sportswear, and nappies. It's not that she preferred poultry. It's that a child's potential is very quickly obvious. Are they more suited to poultry, sportswear, or nappies? It's quickly obvious whether you'll be a secretary, a chief production manager, a human resources director in poultry, sportswear, or nappies. I took pleasure in working there. She took pleasure working there in chicken. I could have done something else. She could have done something else. Cutting and selling. She could have been a seamstress. But that's not much of a qualification, so better take a health and social care course or childcare than a technical qualification or conversion course. I could have been a nurse. She could have been a seamstress. She could have been an employer. She worked in chicken. I took pleasure in it. Him too. Ponds with silly crews also worked in chicken. They worked with an elastic band. Ponds with silly crews packaged and prepared the crates of cartons of chickens. Supervised distribution. They worked in the same place. Orient poultry. My place of work. I did it because you have to do something. Ponds with silly did it because you have to do something. I weighed and labeled on special days I tied the chickens feet together with an elastic band. Ponds with silly crews packaged and prepared crates of cartons of chicken and supervised distribution. We had our breaks at the same time. We'd bumped into each other. Occasionally. One day they spoke. Chickens on the way out apparently. Bird flu. We'll go into rabbit. They're closing down. There are rumors they're closing down soon. We'll live. Just go somewhere else? I'm going to buy a spar. Idiot. I better get back. Me too. That evening he waited for us. She didn't have to make her own way home on that particular evening. He said. I just want to kiss you Suzy store. Feel your tongue sliding my mouth. Feel the heat of your saliva flowing in my mouth. Feel the effect of that in my lower portions. Your tongue in my mouth, my tongue caressing your tongue. I just want to kiss you just like this. We can't do that just like that. Close your eyes Suzy store. I put my lips on yours. You close your eyes and my tongue goes into your mouth. We don't have to be in love. It's just a kiss. So we kissed. He moved in together. Me and Hans and Silly cruise. Orient poultry shut down. We didn't go into rabbit. Suzy store took things as they came. We went into a spa. They carried on flipping together. She took up sewing. He banished a spa. Me sewing at home. For myself. For others. I took up sewing. Pitting and cutting. Sowing. Dresses. Curtains. Tablecloths. We've fallen into a routine. Routine. No drama. Kiss me. You act like nothing's happened. Kiss me Hans and Silly. Make me feel. Feel your tongue. Feel the heat of your saliva flowing in my mouth. I just want to kiss you Suzy store. Just like that. I just feel like it's only me slogging my guts out. I'm back from work. I work like a dog. You're doing nothing. I come home and there's nothing. I don't know. I come in from work. You're there with your stuff. You're there with your things. Sowing away. Always sewing. Well I'm slogging my guts out. There's no room for anything else. These scraps are materials Suzy. There's no room for me. No room for anything else. I don't know what you say I'm. I don't really know what you say I'm to you. I don't know. You and me Suzy. We could have some common interests. I mean we don't have to do everything together all the time. But we could share some things. So kiss me. I'm fed up with all this sewing while I'm busting my balls. You're still sewing now while I'm talking. I'm listening. That's not work. Sowing like that. This can't go on. Suzy Stork on Easy Street. You have to get a job. I looked at job ads. I asked my mom to help. I called my mom. I said, hey I'm looking for a job. She didn't do it the conventional way. She looked for a job by calling her mother. That's how they do things around here. Madam Stork takes out her phone. Madam Stork calls a friend of hers. She's a recruiting sales staff. And tells her that her daughter Suzy Stork is looking for a job. Madam Stork said to Suzy, you have an appointment at my friend's mother and baby boutique. She's looking for a salesperson. Don't. Show me up now, Suzy. Good morning, Miss Stork. Please. Good, please. We're just going to spend a few moments together so that we can start to get to know a little bit about you so we can get to know you a little bit. And to make you feel entirely at ease, I'm going to let you speak first. Perhaps you'd like to tell us a little bit about yourself. Would you? Tell us about your business story. Suzy Stork was not aware that this is often the first question asked by a prospective employer in a job interview. Because it's the top way they've come up with to get to know the candidate. Because it's the top way they've invented to try and analyze the candidate's communication skills. Because it's the top way they've thought of to make a candidate relax. Because it's good to let the candidate speak. I don't feel very relaxed. I'm not used to being asked what I think. Suzy Stork was not aware that this is often the first question asked by a prospective employer in a job interview. Because it's one of the top techniques that enables a prospective employer to judge the candidate's perception of him or herself. While also getting to know his or her personality in a little more depth. Could you tell us about an experience that you're particularly proud of? Something you found particularly motivating. I had a job before. I worked in chicken. Orient poultry, that's where I worked. I worked there because Orient poultry had vacancies. I could have done sportswear or an appies. I chose poultry. Chicken. My mom said, you're more manual anyway. You're not intellectual. So I went for chicken. I took pleasure in the work. I could have done something else, cutting and sewing. I could have been a seamstress. I could have been a nurse. But no. I was in chicken. I weighed and labeled. I can tell you the weight of a bird just by picking it up and weighing it in my hand. Just like that. On special days I tie the feet together elastic bands. And during this working experience did you have to overcome any problems or obstacles? You want to know if I'm scared of obstacles and if I know how to get around them and if I can stand on my own two feet without stumbling over the first little hurdle? Yes. You want to know whether I thrive on a challenge? Yes. Do you really think that if I was scared of obstacles and if I stumbled over the first little hurdle and if I didn't thrive on challenges that I have lasted long weighing and labeling chickens at Orient poultry? What made you leave Orient poultry? Orient poultry shut down. It's hard to retrain from rabbit when you've been in chicken. Working in a team. What do you want me to say? Just answer with a simple yes or no. Yes. Do you know how to say no? Do you want me to say yes or no? You seem tense. Do you live alone? Do you have children? Do you want to eat? Aren't you interested in children? No. Well, I need no more than chickens. And yet you wanted to work in our mother and baby, Bertie. We sell children's records. I know. Look, I'm here because my mother told you to see me. It so happens, I need a job. So let's not beat about the shrubs. I don't care what I have to do, whatever it is, I'll do it. I don't need to keep up this dialogue, this discussion with you, Madeline. We could come up with an easier way for you to establish and evaluate my skills and suitability to join your mother and baby sales team. We could evaluate my skills, but let's just not. I know that what you're looking for above all is and let's not be afraid to say it the absolute best for your customers. Because your customers aren't just any old customers, so you need sales staff. You aren't just any old sales staff. The way you attract your customers, the way you target them, the way you earn their loyalty, you have a very particular approach in these matters. We know, of course, that the customer community is subdivided into individual units and it will be my duty, should you offer me the job, to make each of them think, feel, sense that each and every one of them is unique. I'm the best in my field. I'm the exact thing this is after. The world of mother and baby products needs women like me. You understand? I don't want children, which means I'm someone you can depend on. It could happen, though. I mean, you might get pregnant. Madam, my heart is a clock and regulates the rhythm of my entire physical being. It regulates my every organic and hormonal flux. It carries a deep knowledge of the usually unknowable. I don't really want children. Susie Stokes' heart starts beating at speed at the pulses. The blood surges around the rockin' channels of her arteries where the first time in her life Susie Stokes completely lets herself go, commits to the big note, does what it takes to get the job. I promised my mom not to show her up. I want my husband, Hans Vassili Cruz, to be proud of me. Do you have a very particular way of preventing yourself? I want this job. Excuse me. Sir? Sorry, did you just say you don't want to have children to get a job? How can anyone be sure? I mean, Susie, physiologically, your system wants children. Everyone wants children sooner. You're not going to give her the job just because she says she doesn't want children. You can't take a woman on in a mother and baby store if she doesn't want children. Do you really not want children? Fuck, Susie. I'm thinking about flies buzzing in the radio. I can smell the flesh decomposing I can smell the rocks and hear the wind stuffing in the thorny shrubs clinging to the flanks of the periodies. You can't say something like that to say that just to land a job. You don't take a job at just any price. To quantify the things I've done and those I can't... I can't quantify any of it. I don't give a shit when you can quantify or not. You don't do that. Credibility. You just don't have any credibility in a mother and baby context if you don't know your way around the benefits of a breast pump to a customer. You just can't. He has a point. What? He has a point. Your husband partnered. He has a point. Do you have to have given birth to be a midwife? Do you have to have given birth to sell dummies? What if I'm a lesbian? You're a lesbian? I don't see why my lack of maternal cravings means I can't sell dummies. It's not just dummies. I mean, we have a whole range of products that you'll have to recommend to our customers. On the face of it, your sales technique on the face of it. Your familiarity with the world of sales seems adequate. But how will you be able to show empathy? Because commerce works through empathy, does it? Do you really not want children? I don't know what you're getting at. I don't know why you're doing this. Hansa Sealy Cruz came home one day. Hansa Sealy Cruz said, I'm just sewing. This can't go on. Suzy Stork on Easy Street. Suzy Stork must get a job. I looked at the ads. I called. I asked my mom for help. I said, I want a job. My mom got me this interview. She said, don't show me up, Suzy. I don't want to show her off. I want you to be proud of me, Hansa Sealy. I've given myself the best possible chance showing that I can be a dependable employee. Fuck me. I don't know what goes on your head. I don't get it, Suzy. Everything's all mixed up. What's going on? I thought we were going to build a life together. We are. We're building thin air. We're building an abstraction. We're building silence and emptiness. I said, I don't want children. And that's what I'm saying. It's against nature. It's nature. He has a point. You can't say that you don't want children just to get a job. You can't say that. You can't say things like that turning around to a prospective employer and saying, all cool and calm, take me and not her because I'm totally dependable. And I won't leave you in the lurch by having children. You should be ashamed of not relying just on your skill set to get the job. This is really bad. I'm... Yes. Disappointed in you? Take a look at yourself. Saying, I don't want children. It's not a bed of roses. Having children, I admit you weren't a bed of roses. But just because it wasn't a bed of roses for me doesn't mean you're not going to give me a grandson. I really want this job. You mean you're right that staying at home just sewing is no kind of life while Hans Vassili Cruz is slogging his life away at work. I want to have children with you. I want to build something real. Something true, something beautiful. Something that will bind us together. Something that looks like the two of us. I want your children. I just want to kiss you as soon as you start. Start with the kiss. Slide my tongue into your mouth. Feel your tongue in my mouth. Feel your saliva flowing in my mouth. Feel the effect of that in my lower portions. Slide inside you and gently come inside you. That's all I want. We did what you wanted, Hans Vassili Cruz. I gave up this job and... Hans Vassili Cruz and Susie Storpe were lying side by side. Hans Vassili Cruz sits up and takes off his clothes. Hans Vassili Cruz places his lips on Susie's mouth. He kisses Susie Storpe. He places his naked body on top of Susie Storpe's still-clothed body. With one hand the left, he lifts Susie Storpe's garment. With one hand the left, he squeezes the right breast of Susie Storpe hard. And with one hand the right, he does what he has to do. While something crawls away itself inside me here, I try to tell myself that what's just about to happen will in no way alter or interfere with the arrangements I've made for how my life will play out. I try to tell myself as I'm crushed beneath Hans Vassili Cruz because whenever it happens it always happens with me, crushed beneath the weight of his body. I try to tell myself that this won't make any great difference. Here it comes. For Hans Vassili Cruz, here it comes. What? Struggle. I know it well, the struggle. I know how it organizes itself inside me. I know the way it forces, how it forces inside me. I know how long it lasts. I know how it splits. I know its rhythm and how it works. I know the sound. I know the smell. I know the yell that Hans Vassili Cruz muffles in my neck. I know it all his way of coming out of Hans Vassili Cruz and always will shoot out. It's no good just closing your eyes. Eyes shut doesn't stop it, doesn't stop you. What I can quantify is how it's organized, the way that the nature of my environment is organized. The incomprehensible weight of the thing that's coming in spite of me, even though I'm there and taking part. Oh, go Susie Stortznik. Not me lifting it at all. Hans Vassili Cruz holds Susie Stortznik down. By the left arm, with one hand, the right. And he comes and it stops. And I sit up and I push him away. It's just at the tip of the hand. The sheath of nature. The skin's damp. There's that smell. I close my eyes to shut it all out. Nothing in the radio. Susie Stortz thinks about flies. What do the swallows eat? Flesh or flies? Silence or corpses? I can feel my flesh decomposing inside. I can smell the wooly smell of the sheath caught in the fields. The smell of fear and piss splashing over its hind feet. The smell of shit from the body when it's torn open like a satchel. A smell that clings and gets under your nails and still hangs about later when I bite into an apple. We had three children from the night time sports of Hans Vassili Cruz. They're beautiful. They look just like you, Hans Vassili. Especially Lois. Especially Lois. Mummy, they're noisy. They're children. It's great how they run around everywhere. A little bit of life about the place. I'm exhausted. It's only natural. You're tired. It's natural to be tired. Once baby starts to sleep through, you won't be so tired. I'm going to stop breastfeeding. You're tired. One pregnancy straight after another. It's tiring. You've had one pregnancy straight after another. You're tired. A spot of post-natal depression. And to think you didn't want children. The older two are so funny and such a good sign. Always running about and having fun so joyful, so full of life. Oh goodness me. They're beautiful boys. Especially Lois. He's so funny. Always playing soldiers. And Hans Vassili's little shotgun almost too big for his hands. The baby's crying. Aren't you going to go? This isn't my job, Susie Stork. I can't feed him. Not my job. I'm going to stop breastfeeding. You're just saying that because you're tired. You can't just cut a child off like that. Little Lois gets so funny when he's playing hunting with the dog. Fuck me. Are you just going to leave him to cry? Do you want to starve him to death? I love coming here. I love this house. Everything's so the children running about, the little dog running about with the children and you. A lovely couple with their lovely children. Such a happy home this house is. He's hungry. My breasts hurt. That's not his problem. You're just tired. That's all. Get some of those silicone nipple covers. Massage your breasts. Like this. Take some responsibility. It's so breastfeeding. If you think it's all just a bed of roses having children, you're never happy. You don't appreciate what you've got. You've got it all. Everything. And still you're complaining. Think about those poor women who can't have children. You can. So be grateful. Fucking hell. The baby's screaming its head off like a big fat cow. Shut up. Maybe you should go. I don't know how you can leave that baby to cry. I never left you to cry. Always there beside you. Ready to leap into action. You were a very low-prior. Such a high-pitched voice. Really piercing. I'm not sure it's a good plan to leave him crying like that. Hans Vassili is right. You should go. Of course it's none of my business. And to think you wanted a job. Lucky you don't have one. You can see now you can't do 35 things at the same time. But it doesn't matter. You can't do 35 things at the same time. Just do what you have to do and do it well. Do it properly. Go and feed that fucking baby. Get up in the morning. Not because I've had enough sleep. Not because my eyes spring up and not because my body longs to stretch out. Not because I feel like it. I get up in the morning and it needs to be done to keep everything working so everyone knows where they are. I wake you. I wake the children. First Loic. The second one. Second. The baby's crying. I give him my breast. The one that hurts less. The one where the cracks and the skin aren't so deep. The one that's less in agony. And up goes my arm and switches on the coffee machine. Up goes my arm and switches on the toaster. Up goes my arm and picks out the socks and clean pants. Not dirty for Loic. And picks out the t-shirt you've asked for from the pile of washing. And I smile at everyone while the cracks get deeper and the sores bead the tips of my breasts as if my nipples have been sliced. I watch you leave the house and I'm left alone with this child and I'd like to cut my breasts off. People get up in the morning. That's what people do. Make it up in the morning. That's what they have to do. It's what we do. I don't get up for my own benefit but who does? Who? I'm worn out. My heart pendulum is slowing down. I want to lay waste the battlefield that is my home. Throw the doors wide and let the wind blow through. Set fire to my jail. When you wash up you put the glasses away in the cupboard still damp. You're putting glasses away in the cupboard and they're still really damp. Why don't you dry them? You don't know? I put the glasses away. I put them away so they don't get broken. You put the glasses away in the cupboard still damp. You shouldn't put them away damp. I have to say, I'm repeating myself. I'm always saying this. But it's almost as if you don't care as if you weren't listening to me. And you leave that baby to cry, you leave him. Do I have to go myself? Do I have to do everything myself in this bloody house? I want to go back to work. I want to get another job. There's no kiwi fruit left. The basket's empty. Why didn't you get more? And the silence that now descends is not, in fact, linked to the lack of kiwi fruit. What Susie quantifies but can't is how it's organized. The way the nature of her environment is organized, the incomprehensible weight of the thing that's coming in spite of her, even though she's there and taking part in it. To quantify the things I've done and those I can't, the way your eyes rest on me haunts the ceiling, your gaze is so heavy it weighs me down and I can't bear it anymore. The way the weight of your gaze takes me to a place I don't want to go. Contradiction. Confrontation. Confrontation. That troubled space between what I am, think I am and what I could never admit I want to be. I'm sorry about the kiwi fruit. Could you not just, for fuck's sake, put that fucking light out and go to sleep like a normal person? On and on and on. Put it out. I have to get up in a minute. I'm sick of this and I'm tired to death. Don't put it out. Put it out. I don't know what you're thinking, Susie. There's stuff goes on in your head, Susie. I just don't get. This could all be so simple. If you took things as they came, really? Susie Stork, this could all be so simple. Now, put that light out. Switch the switch and turn it out. Oh Jesus, what are you doing now? I can't sleep. It's nearly one in the morning. It's late. You need to feed him in an hour and then you'll be tired tomorrow. What's wrong in that head of yours, Susie Stork? I shouldn't have turned that top down. You're nuts. You're out of your mind. You're completely out of your mind. Aren't you happy here? Why the hell are you bringing that up? That was more than six years ago. I don't understand what I'm doing here. I need to sleep. Hansa Thiele, I think I don't love them. The children, I think I don't love them. I just don't. Their voices, their bodies, moving about, their bodies all over the place, all over me all day. I can't stand it anymore. They have to touch everything. They keep touching me with their disgusting little hands. They look like you and that makes me sick. They're either yelling and sometimes I think about getting the shotgun down and lining them up against a wall and shooting them, shooting them. So I don't have to hear them yelling anymore. I think that you put them inside me to make me rot away. That's what I sometimes think. I want them to be gone. I don't want them to be here. All this breeding makes me sick. Women should be sewn up unsealed shut. Susie! Really sick. How is it possible that stuff like this can pour out of your mouth? How is that possible? You disgust me. How on earth could I have made myself sleep with you? Come in, you. You squirted. We have three children. It's just completely incomprehensible to hear you talk like that. It's totally, utterly incomprehensible. Don't touch me. You disgust me. It's not women who need sewing up. It's your mouth once varying under six feet of earth completely so you disappear. Where are you going? I know I'm not perfect and I may have made mistakes but I don't know, I try to be attentive and make sure that you and me and the kids can hold together as a unit. I know I'm not perfect and I'm all clumsy and I say things clumsily sometimes but I thought I wanted you and me to be yes, something solid. Not something to be splattered like a fly on a window pane. Setting fire to my jail may not be such a good idea. Don't touch me, Susie. What happened to our contract? I'm not a washing machine. Somewhere you'd expect to find only a bunch of stupid peasants. As a proportion of the surrounding population you'd imagine such people would predominate and that these people's concerns dull and uncultivated as they are could be no business of ours. They have their problems, of course but they're old problems. What goes on in their houses can't surely be terribly important however problematic. The domestic problems they may experience are surely beneath our serious notice and smell of cold coffee, cement, dogs, and wet linden. 17th of June. 8.27 p.m. Susie Stork sits at the table. Susie Stork sips her drink because it's been a hot day. She drinks whatever's to hand. That morning, Hans the silly cruise had said, I'll be leaving the shop early tonight but don't expect me. Don't expect me to come straight home. I need to clear my head. How to think to work out where I am with this, work out where we are if we can still trust each other. A fly stuck in the window upstairs the children are thundering about loud enough to burst Susie Stork's eardrums. The sound of Hans the silly cruise is car pulling up. Sound of the car door opening and they're expecting his Hans the silly cruise. You're earlier than I expected. I thought you'd be late or not so soon. I didn't know you'd be back so soon. You should have taken your time. You're eating off. I did enjoy it. Are they asleep? Not yet. It's late. They'll be tired tomorrow. The sun's still up. It's hard to get to sleep. It's hard to explain to the child that they have to go to bed and put on something half naked. It's just that t-shirt on. Nothing underneath like that. It's too hot. I see you've been drinking. Drinking alone now, aren't we? I opened these. Someone gave us. No one gave us them. I bought them. Me. I thought they were the ones someone gave us. My mistake. Maybe. My mistake. I got them mixed up confused anyway. I thought a bottle's there to be drunk. It's there to be drunk, isn't it? Do you often open up a bottle on your own? Just this one time? I mean, look, it's not the end of the world! I don't know what's going on in your head at the moment, Susie Stork. Did you change the bait? Fuck you! What's this shit on the radio? You listen to the radio now? I didn't think you'd be back so soon. Am I disturbing you? Do you have a thing? I'm going to go see what the kids are up to. I'm going to tell them to tidy up. It's late. They'll be worn out. It's time for bed. They won't sleep. I'll see. Don't you want a drink? Susie Stork remembers. Up goes her arm to hang up the washing. Up goes her arm to slap one of the three of them. Up goes her arm to pop the dummy back in the baby's mouth. Up goes her arm to hang the empty laundry basket on the wall. Up goes her arm and down into her trouser pocket for a cigarette. Up goes her arm to slap that bloody dog that's shot in front of the garage door again. Susie Stork remembers the dog shit. Susie Stork thinks again about the flies buzzing around him. Then Han goes to the ceiling. Susie Stork remembers the dog shit. Susie Stork thinks again about the flies buzzing around him. Then Han goes to the ceiling. Susie crashes into the kitchen. Han goes to the ceiling. Susie slaps Susie. Like smashing a fly against a window pane. Where's the baby? In his cot. If I ask you where the baby is, that means that he's not in his cot. He must be in his cot. And it's at this time of night. And I'm telling you that he's not! Don't just shout at me. You're telling me the baby's in his cot. I'm telling you that he's not. Maybe the boys took him out to play with. He's not up there. Maybe he's run away. What? What do you mean run away? He's a baby. You're supposed to be looking after him. You must know where he is. A child can't just disappear. A baby can't run away for fuck's sake. Put that glass down. I don't know. What do you mean you don't know? I can't remember what I did. How can I trust you? You're his mother. I should be able to trust you. He was with me all day. When I went to fetch the boys from school he was with me in his cram. When I came home with the boys, he was with me. They had their tea and I gave him a drink. I gave him a drink, the breast. He was with me. We went outside and he was with me. He was crying and he was with me. And I remember, up goes my arm to hang out the washing. Up goes my arm. And I can see the flies. You hit me. He's not a dog for you to tie up on a leash and forget. Where is he? Stop yelling at me all the time and just stop it, stop it. I can't stand it. Telling me off all the time, accusing me as if I can't stand it. Stop yelling. How can I ever trust you again when you lost the baby? Stop it. I can't stand it. I can't stand it anymore. If those kids, three of them, I can't stand it. I've had enough. I'm on my own all day long. I forgot the washing. What? I knocked. You didn't care me so I guess because I I was just closing the shutters in the bedroom, the bedroom of my house, the bedroom shutters on the window at the back of my house that looks at onto your house where you hang out your washing. I know Susie forgot to fetch it in. That's, yes, the washing but I mean, I wanted to tell you Hans Visily that the pram, that little pram is still out there with the sun and Hans Visily it's been so fierce all day today and this evening and Hans Visily cruise stands. He leaves the room without a glance at Susie's stroke. Madame stroke turns her back on Susie. They leave the house their faces ribbon like crumbling chalky rock frayed at the edges of their cheeks and into their eye sockets and a scream then a second from deep in their gayly throats and the children come running down the stairs and Loic with his catacomb in one hand and his little brother's hand in the other comes running into the kitchen. Why are daddy and grandma screaming in the garden? Because that's what people do when they realize that someone has had a tiny lapse in concentration. That's yes, I think I had a moment where I lost my concentration. Something to my mind a moment of lost concentration that could happen to anyone and I think everyone can fuck off for a silly mistake but you're not screaming. Time for bed now Loic. Susie's stroke takes her two children by the hand. Takes them up to their room and locks them in. Then she goes back to the kitchen. Hans Visily cruise is there. In the arms he holds the baby. That's been left outside in its little pram all day in the heat of the sun. Give me the car keys. I think it would be better if he didn't wake up, you know. That would be good. That would be best because I've just had enough. I'm so tired of the reality. Susie's stroke watches Hans Visily cruise take the baby away. She locks the glass door behind her. We hear the sound of Hans Visily cruise's car in a distance. The car starts. Moves off. Susie's stroke by the window. Heavy heat just before the storm. An evening when the setting sun never actually sets. Susie keeps her eyes fixed on the window. In the distance upstairs we hear the sound of children's voices. We hear the sound of tiny hands jiggling something mellow in a lock. A knock on the glass front door. Open this door Susie. Open this direction door. Susie's stroke goes to the door and up goes Susie's stroke's hands. Susie's stroke's hand rests on the door handle and Susie's stroke's hand opens the door. And they're face to face. Madame's stroke slaps Susie once twice. Total silence. Maybe the bloody sun can finally go down now. Madame's stroke disappears. Upstairs the children surely have to shut up now. Susie's stroke prays deep down that they'll kill each other. Just to get it over. Get it all over with like the cries of the swallows that once the moon comes up. The radio's still on. It gives out one last buzz like the flies on the carcass of a lost sheep in the vast emptiness of the pyramids before Susie switches it off. At 10.54 p.m. My heart is a clock. I get it right out of my chest but I don't really have any special reason to do that anymore or any real need to do that because in fact I'm watching myself and it all comes back to me like a body from the earth like a story you dig up. My sad failure adequately to express my desire to refuse certain obligations on a personal, physical and indeed economic character I wish I had the courage to refuse to fulfill my conjugal duty and not have any children. I'm going to tell myself that what's just happened is not in any way the sort of thing likely to alter the normal course of my life as I'd envisaged it, but I know nothing for sure. The organization the way the nature of the things around me is organized the incomprehensible weight of the thing that's coming in spite of me even though I'm there, I'm still there and taking part. All that escapes me. I turn the radio off I unplug the cable I cut it with the first knife that comes to hand there's a lot I could do with the cable so many ideas throbbing through my hands and in my head I raise my hands to my neck holding the cable and the smell of my hand stops me there's a stubborn smell clinging to my palms a smell and oh I've smelled the smell of wool the smell of urine I hear a shot from upstairs the children have finally killed each other I think then they hurdle down the stairs and down the hall I drop the cable Loic looks at me and in one hand he has his little brother's hand and in the other the shotgun Mr. Campbell is literary manager and I also a translator and reading assistant was Katie Pedro and for example Isaac Houston Meredith Jones, Stark Berglund and Hayley Palmer there's Nicole German who does fantastic what is the French cultural services we have probably said this time we did it on our own but they have fantastic collaborators and we have done many many things together Nicole is one of the people who really puts artists together from two countries to continents and bridges so Nicole will be here and Sarah and Magali so so Magali Mujel Sarah Rademaker is that correct? yeah okay so I have first one one question for Magali when did you write the play and was the play based on the real event? no okay I'm sorry no good good good sorry I read that you have been written several plays about women is this one part of this series the series is called Guerrière Ordinaire I mean we would translate Guerrière Ordinaire into English like I'm not sure you can translate this word Guerrière because it's a neologisme it's Guerrière Rose but in French for the women so Guerrière I'm not Guerrière the war the war woman or the war woman so yeah in English we don't have the she were yours could you speak a little bit about this series it's a long work I'm writing about this subject actually actually so with Guerrière I put this question what does it mean to say no in a life when we are women so what is a no against society or normal norm norm rules and laws to invent an emancipation so emancipation emancipation of the life so in Guerrière we are free free women the first is a poem about a real fact so the story of Madame Courgeau I don't know if you know this story in French is the terrible story of Les bébés congelés the frozen baby so it's a story of a woman who was a two baby in Korea but she's a French woman and I wanted to understand why we can throw some baby so it's a long poem and I want to I wanted to I don't know in English I'm sorry my English is not really good in a reparation symbolique a sim yeah thank you and the second part is a story about yes in a big big firm and she can at the street of the city because she's too fat so it's not just too fat for real and the first part is the story of no it's not a story it's it's a love story but an awful love story because all I I write is dark I think so but I love jokes so I put the question of homosexuality for the women the play was staged in London for 2017 in translation by Chris Campbell how did the audience react to the play I mean were you there it was at the gate theater I think it's I don't know to say that I mean the audience was very moved by what they listened and heard there were several reviews that highlight the impact of the text among the the community of women feminist well it worked very well in London I mean any comment about the the violence any comment did you have any comments on the violence I think it's not the more important I don't know and maybe Sarah how did you approach the text with the actors how did I approach it with the actors well we got together and we read it first just together and then I mean I had read the play before we got into the rehearsal room and I had ideas about what really struck me first was the way that it's written and you guys don't get to see it on the page but it's very poetic and there are line breaks constantly it's like a very long poem and so I wondered what that did with the rhythm and the syncopation and it felt very much like there was a specific style which I think you could see kind of in the reading with just a certain kind of punctuation and so when we got in the room we just talked to the actors about how the characters were there we looked at the characters and what they were doing and what they were going through but it was definitely a different process than I would take with a play without a chorus yeah I was going to ask about the chorus and and the role of the chorus for you how did you did you come to the idea of having the chorus for this specific play I mean there was for this play there were a lot of preference to Medea and this play like a contemporary version of Medea Medea in English so do you want to speak of the chorus? in fact I never wanted to ask the question of Medea in fact she was never thinking about Medea as a reference ok it's recorded what interested me was to find a form that is not a form that puts someone at a distance who would never have come to the theatre she was looking for the structure that would not put not put the character at a distance and this character being someone who would not normally be in a piece of theatre and what interested me was to find how we finally renew with a theatre and also a theatre that tells stories and transmits experiences renew to return to a theatre she's looking for a way to come back towards a theatre that that tells stories and tells people's experiences a few years ago in French theatre it still seemed a kind of radical to make a theatre that actually told people's stories and she feels like a radical writer could you speak a little bit more about this what your reference why do you say that from a historical point of view yeah since the 90's in French theatre there's been a movement that's been going on since the 90's in French theatre there's been a movement to write like fragmented theatre like fragmented yeah so writers weren't at that point really looking at developing story and I notice that if you want to convey an experience then you have to tell stories and she feels that in order to transmit an experience that you must tell a story and she feels militantly about this and sometimes what interests me is how women can make a story how a woman can tell her own story and what is particularly interesting to her is how a woman can tell her own story which is why her characters are often very conscious of their own social condition and it's something that conscience of their social condition was something that was difficult for the actors in the production at the gate theatre and wonders if it was the same for you guys yeah the actors do you have anything to share about this sorry I've been just writing down notes I didn't quite catch the end there she wants the actress that the characters know about their social position which is unusual that they kind of and it wasn't a complication for the gate theatre in London how would it feel for you as an American actor definitely we had such a swift process with this I mean there's so much to explore in this piece I think that this was one of several sort of fun things to figure out but it's definitely that element of it feels like the fuel that drives this we were talking in rehearsal about how well and Han says at one point this could all be so easy if you could just go with this machine it's the tension of her wanting to go against it like the pendulum wanting and being aware of that that maddens her that seems to be what this is about and we only had a couple days we only scratched the surface but it's so exciting to explore I would agree with that I think it's a little bit of a difficulty because we did talk about a lot what their condition is and how aware they are of the machine that they're in and I think that was a discovery at some point that she is aware of what she's fighting against I don't know if that's true for you but it seemed like it was a discovery that she's aware of what she's fighting against but we had a discussion about that and I think it was a little hard at first to figure out what that thing she's pushing against is and how aware she was of it I don't know, is that accurate for you? Yeah, or even if she can't put a word to it she feels the sensation of it seems to be like what we were trying to find Yeah, the conversation that we had at the very beginning I think it was like the first thing that came up organically was just kind of something that we have to address in almost every room that I'm in which is privilege just every room that I'm in and leading a rehearsal process it just kind of has to be something that I'm aware of constantly and we're seeing the question of whether or not the characters in this are aware of their social status and their lack of privilege or recognizing this greater systemization of women in culture or in the world and kind of where we as actors and directors and people in the theater are also in that and storytellers like what our own role in that means so yeah, we got pretty deep pretty quickly and then had to kind of back it up again did you guys want to say something about just that I remember us talking about why doesn't she say out loud I don't want to have any children or something and I think we sort of talked about correct me if I'm wrong but that almost that the idea isn't a possibility or that I'm not aware that there are other options or lacking the resources I think you said a one point star in the education the ability to be able to put words to or formalize a thought like that and to feel that you want something different but be unable to actualize it did you have something more you wanted to say just a second along those lines I think I did say that she lacked the resources or maybe the words for her feelings of wanting to push up against it or a lack of knowledge that there's something more but we also talked about oh man, my thoughts are jumbled we talked about the fact that she didn't have words to put to it but also instead of knowing what she wanted she only knew what she didn't want but nobody wanted anything no one knew what they really wanted so they were fighting against something but not sure what they were fighting for what's the goal what's the ambition what's the thing they actually want because they state a lot what they don't want but never what they do and Susie says nobody's ever asked me in the interview I'm not used to being asked what I think I'm not used to being asked what I think maybe is there any question from the audience I sort of got the feeling that they're in this machine there's whirlwind and they're caught and they can't get out but what bothered me is she never as you said she never takes a positive step she doesn't say no she doesn't resist I don't think she was conscious that she was getting in it in some way and I think she had a small consciousness of anything I think she was like a leaf blowing in the wind her whole life I think because you didn't really find a lot of resistance anywhere I mean go here do this do that do this and there's very little where she makes any and where she shows any resistance she says many times that she's exhausted exhausted isn't resistance she doesn't have strengths anymore you'll find an excuse for it I'm saying something else I'm not saying she wasn't tired or anything I don't think she was aware of resistance I think that's a great point I think that part of what comes out of that and what we were playing with also in this process was the idea that she's stuck in something that she can't get out of and that maybe the play is actually highlighting that there may not be options that you're aware of you don't know that you can say no to something that is systematically set up for you to just fall into and then at a point at which maybe she wants a job or recognizes that this is something that maybe she has two choices and one is not greater than the other you know there really are no options it's kind of a system that we're stuck in and I think part of the privilege conversation is we are all very privileged to be sitting in this room right now and not everybody has that kind of opportunity and may not even be able to recognize that there are things that you can do other than go to work and come home and raise children and that's just what your parents have done and their parents have done and it's a long way to get to town you know what I mean? I think that's something that struck us anyway, is that fair? I just have a really more of a comment, I really liked the play very much but I liked especially where I'm just hearing these comments and discussing the play that it felt like she was stuck in some sort of like cultural matrix where you know she either the option was to be the mother to have the kids or to work in a mother baby store so she couldn't even break out of that so there really was this idea of emancipation really struck me in the play that you know, does it really exist? It felt like the answer was no, even if she was aware of it, she didn't have any of those options and I just thought that was a really I liked how you highlighted that so it's really a comment I wanted to pick up on the discussion that you were having but first I also wanted to congratulate the writer I wanted to say in particular I thought the language was very, very beautiful even without seeing it on the page I didn't need to see it on the page it's clearly a very poetic intelligence that's behind this play and I also thought your direction, the actors it was really, really very powerful so I wanted to say that first to pick up on this question if I remember correctly our main character says at the end near the very end, I didn't have the courage I thought she said that yes you said that that then tells so this would be my question what's in the mind of our writer if she didn't have the courage to say no, I don't want to do this that would imply she did have an awareness and could have said no but she's faulting herself for not doing it as opposed to she actually was just mechanically going through the motions and it wasn't even a question of having the courage to say no so that would be my question yes it was the difference because she said at the end I didn't have the courage was she really aware that she had other options or was she unconscious that she had other options we turn around to this question since a little moment in what was said by Madame because Sarah said this is a question that we've been kind of circling around a lot in this conversation I don't know if she knows that she had other options I can't answer because it's the moment where the character is sometimes smarter than the one who writes she's not sure whether she was aware of it or not because this is a case in which the character is smarter than the person who created her but to give her an answer sometimes we're not happy in her job so just to respond sometimes we're not happy in our job and we should leave and so we stay Magalie, I just wanted to ask a little bit about your process I'm just interested in your writing process does it take you a really long time to write a play and with the poetic structure do you read your words out loud so that you can hear the rhythm of them or do they live in your head and is it really important to you like how the words sit on the page if you understand about my writing process in any case it's a piece that I put quite a long time to write I started in 2011 and it was finished in 2013 and there are other versions and it's existed in multiple versions short ones that were three monologues shorter ones this is the known version because she thinks this is the most interesting version what is primarily interesting to her is the question of rhythm and the question of breath and how can we create an image for the person who is listening without scenery or background or other sensation of heat or smell and she thinks that Chris Campbell's work in translating it was wonderful I was going to ask you about the translation it's the right moment do you feel between what you wrote in French and with the English translation did it by American actors do you feel this rhythm, the breath the voice of this woman is there a difference between the French your writing and the English words this is going to make you laugh but there is no French version because this text was never performed in French because in France they don't really want to hear about this text I didn't know the theater that refused to produce it in French is actually going to produce it in English next year French people can watch this play subtitled in French in France