Mariana

characters:

LILA: Female, early thirties, Jewish American, a mother

SOLI: Female, early thirties, Venezuelan immigrant, her nanny

An additional actress in her twenties or thirties is needed for a brief nonspeaking role.

casting note:

It may be interesting to position Lila and Soli as looking very ethnically similar.

setting:

Now or soon. A living room and dining room in a small city in the US. There are half-burned Shabbos candles on a counter, and colorful Hebrew alphabet magnets on the fridge.

notes:

An ellipsis ( . . . ) indicates trailing off or briefly pausing.

An em dash at the end of a line (—) indicates an end-of-line interruption. A slash (/) indicates a mid-line interruption.

All rights reserved. Please note that anyone seeking further publication or performance of this play needs to contact the playwright, rights holder.

Mariana was one of the winners of the On One Foot! Playwriting Contest and received additional development by the Jewish Plays Project and Plays2Gather at the Berkshire Theatre Group.

(Two women, LILA and SOLI. SOLI sits on a couch eating a sandwich out of tinfoil. LILA sits at a dining room table eating leftover steak. They both scroll on their phones. Light streams in through an offstage window.
A moment.
Then, a sound from above—a thump, like something falling to the ground.)

LILA: Was that—?
SOLI: I’ll go check.
LILA: Thanks.

(SOLI goes up the stairs.
LILA gets up from the table, opens the freezer, takes out a container of vanilla ice cream. She sits and eats while watching an iPad baby monitor that rests near the couch.
SOLI reenters.)

LILA: Was it the / sound machine—
SOLI: Sound machine, yeah.
LILA: I need to move it.
SOLI: Yeah he loves knocking it off the—
LILA: He’s been pulling all the stickers off the wall too. Yesterday during nap- time he was sitting there, singing to himself, peeling the monkey stickers off the wall . . .
SOLI: So cute.
LILA: I think I’ll have Andy repaint that wall when he’s done in the bathroom.
SOLI: Andy’s the—
LILA: Contractor. Yeah.
SOLI: That’s a good idea.
LILA: And then maybe he can move the changing table—
SOLI: Yeah, I was thinking the other side of the room?
LILA: Near the window—?
SOLI: Yeah.
LILA: But then you’re like changing him next to the / window—
SOLI: Well there are latches, I don’t think he can—
LILA: That’s true.
SOLI: Like I don’t think he’s going to open the window.
LILA: You’re right. I’m so paranoid. Pregnancy brain.

(Back on their phones. 
Beat.
LILA gets up.)

SOLI: Back to work?
LILA: Yeah. You’re doing the aquarium this afternoon?
SOLI: I think so.
LILA: Every morning now, it’s, I’m serious, he’s like—
SOLI: Oh about the—
LILA: “I wan see sea-houses! Go see sea-houses with Soli!”
SOLI: So cute. He loves the seahouses.
LILA: He loves you.
SOLI: . . . So cute.

(Beat.)

And then you remember I just need to leave by like / four—
LILA: (not totally fine) Yeah no, that’s totally fine. Is it like an intense—
SOLI: It should be quick, I just don’t want to be late.
LILA: Wasn’t the wedding like a year ago?
SOLI: Yeah.
LILA: So why are they—
SOLI: I guess they just want to make sure we’re still together, like it wasn’t fake or something.
LILA: So dumb. Why don’t they just put, like, a camera in your bedroom.
SOLI: I know.
LILA: Fucking criminals. Fucking scapegoating everyone else when they’re the fucking criminals.
SOLI: Yeah.
LILA: I had to stop reading the news.
SOLI: Did you?
LILA: (re: her belly) Just until she’s here.
SOLI: I get that.
LILA: It just makes me so—
SOLI: I get that. LILA: I just can’t.
SOLI: I get that.

(Beat.
Another sound from upstairs. LILA darts up.
SOLI texts madly on her phone. 
After a moment, LILA reenters.)

SOLI: . . . Everything okay?
LILA: Yeah, he’s totally out. (She’s looking up.) But the sound machine—
SOLI: Was it on the floor again?
LILA: No. That was what was weird. It’s still on the changing table.

(Beat.)

SOLI: Hm.
LILA: He knocked it off last time?
SOLI: I think so . . .
LILA: You—
SOLI: No, I mean, yeah. He did.
LILA: So I guess it was . . . something else?

(She looks up.)

SOLI: Maybe the heater. Doesn’t it sometimes—
LILA: Andy fixed that.
SOLI: Oh.

(LILA’s still looking at a particular spot on the ceiling.)

LILA: I think it might have been . . . coming from the bathroom?
SOLI: Eli’s bathroom?
LILA: Yeah.
SOLI: Maybe Andy came back early from his—?
LILA: He wouldn’t budge on this vacation. I told you that. Didn’t I tell you that?
SOLI: Oh, right. So it isn’t Andy.
LILA: It isn’t Andy. (lowering her voice) You don’t think like an animal could have, like—
SOLI: No, no.
LILA: I should go check on—
SOLI: The door is closed, he’s fine, look— (pointing to the baby monitor) He’s asleep.

(Beat. LILA looks distraught.)

Maybe it was, like, I don’t know, do you have those—back home we had those, what do you call them, “woodpickers”?

LILA: Woodpeckers?
SOLI: Yeah. Woodpeckers.
LILA: Yeah, that isn’t really what woodpeckers sound like.
SOLI: No?
To me it does.
. . . Maybe Venezuelan woodpeckers.

(The sound again, louder.)

LILA: (terrified now) I’m calling the cops.
SOLI: The cops?! NO. Why would you—
LILA: (lowering her voice) Because that sounds—that sounds like a fucking animal inside the house. Like a, I don’t know what it would be, some kind of giant—rodent—

(SOLI grabs LILA’s phone out of her hand.)

Um . . .

SOLI: I think you’re overreacting.
LILA: Can I have my phone, please?
SOLI: I don’t think you should call the cops.
LILA: Why not? SOLI: I just . . . don’t want you to do something you’re going to regret.

(Beat.)

LILA: Why would I . . .
Sorry, why would I regret calling the cops? (realizing) Oh god.
You’re worried about—
SOLI: It’s just the cops right now—
LILA: Of course, of course—
SOLI: You don’t know which ones are fine and which ones are—
LILA: Yeah, that makes total sense, I’m so sorry—
SOLI: I avoid them, I haven’t even been driving anywhere except for you guys—
LILA: But you have papers.
SOLI: Kilmar had papers.
LILA: Sorry . . . ??
SOLI: That guy from El Salvador. Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
LILA: Sorry, I’m not reading the news.
SOLI: Right.

(Beat.)

It’s just, I think I would want to leave. If you called them.
And you have to work.
And I want to take Eli to see the seahorses.

(Beat.)

It’s probably just like . . . a tree branch. Hitting the side of the / house.
LILA: You’re right.
I’m being paranoid. I’m sorry.
SOLI: You’re okay.
LILA: Pregnancy brain.
SOLI: It’s okay.
LILA: And my dad is just like constantly putting these . . .
Irrational fears in my head.
SOLI: That sucks.
LILA: This week he thinks I’m exercising too much.
SOLI: Like that’s why—
LILA: The baby’s so small, yeah, and so now I’m, like, skipping my walks—
SOLI: I wondered why you—
LILA: —And I need those walks. I need these walks.
Because it’s already just like—all the feelings. All the time.
SOLI: That’s normal. That’s so normal.

(Behind them, a figure rushes down the stairs and out the front door.)

LILA: FUCK, what the FUCK was that—
SOLI: Lila.
LILA: No, FUCK OFF, Soli, I knew I should have called the cops.
SOLI: Lila. It’s okay.
LILA: How is it okay, how is it okay, what the fuck was that, that was like—an
intruder—
SOLI: She’s not coming back.
LILA: I don’t care if they’re coming back, they were here, they were in my home.
SOLI: No, listen to me, I’m telling you she’s not coming back.

(Beat.)

LILA: Who isn’t coming back?
SOLI: Mariana.
LILA: Mariana, like . . . Sadie’s old babysitter?
SOLI: Yeah.
LILA: The one who was in—
SOLI: Eli’s playgroup. Yeah. That Mariana.

(Beat.)

LILA: I’m sorry, I’m really confused right now.
SOLI: It was just for a day or two.
Just until things calm down where she lives. But I texted her, though.
I told her to leave.
LILA: What are you—
SOLI: I should have asked you.
I just didn’t want to get you involved, you know?
LILA: She’s been . . . staying in there? SOLI: She really needed somewhere to go.
LILA: Like sleeping in there?
SOLI: And I knew you weren’t using that bathroom.
LILA: For how long?
SOLI: Just for like a week.
LILA: She’s been sleeping in my bathroom for a week?
SOLI: They think I got married for the green card, my place isn’t safe for her . . .
LILA: You need to go.
SOLI: Lila.
LILA: Putting me at risk, putting Eli at risk.
SOLI: Lila. It’s Mariana.

(Beat.)

LILA: Is she in trouble?
SOLI: . . . We’re all in trouble.

(Beat.)

That guy—the one from El Salvador?
LILA: I haven’t been reading the news.
SOLI: They sent him to CECOT (pronounced seh-cot).
He has a five-year-old kid.
They say the only way out of there is in a coffin.
LILA: Jesus.
SOLI: A week ago, they came to Mariana’s house.
They were doing, they said it was some kind of routine check. Okay, but she never had a routine check before . . .
There’s this lawyer working in their neighborhood— He was there and, like, stalled them.
But they know where she lives. They’re taking people off the street— Loading them into
unmarked cars—
Bringing them to these camps in Louisiana and Texas—
LILA: Sorry, can you not use that word.
SOLI: What word?
LILA: Sorry. “Camps.”

(Beat.)

SOLI: You had someone in your family who—
LILA: My dad’s side.
SOLI: Who on your dad’s—
LILA: All of them.

(Beat.)

Well, except my dad’s dad. My grandpa.
He was lucky.
The rest of his family was . . .
SOLI: Not so lucky.
LILA: Yeah.

(Beat.)

It’s horrible what’s happening now. But I’m pregnant, I have a two-and-a- half-year-old
son.
SOLI: And you know I would do anything for Eli.
But Mariana, she’s here on her own— No family, no nothing.
Maybe we can . . . help her be lucky.
LILA: If they show up at my door, what am I supposed to do?
SOLI: You’re supposed to ask for a warrant.
LILA: What am I supposed to tell Greg? What am I supposed to tell Eli?
SOLI: Tell him she’s here to help with the new baby.
Or . . .
Tell him that you’re doing something brave.
LILA: Fuck, Soli. You should have asked.
SOLI: I know. I’m sorry.
LILA: What was she doing up there anyway? Fucking yoga?
SOLI: I don’t know.
You usually take your walks at lunch and— I guess she didn’t see my texts . . .
LILA: Well, tell her to come back. Tell her we can talk about this. I have to call Greg.
Maybe we can get her a lawyer.
SOLI: She has a lawyer.
LILA: Or an Airbnb or— You should have asked.
SOLI: I know.
So I’m asking you now. Will you let her stay? Here? With you?
For a while?
(LILA looks out. Considering.)

(END OF PLAY.)

Read more from Issue 22.2.