by Rajiv Joseph
SIMON: I’ll take care of it.
MICHAEL: You’ll take care of what?
SIMON: You can have the rug.
MICHAEL: And the books and the chalk.
SIMON: We’ll ship them.
MICHAEL: Thank you.
SIMON: You’re welcome.
Michael goes back to walking around the rug with Hana.
MICHAEL: We got the rug.
HANA: I love this rug.
MICHAEL: I love it too.
They tromp around. He looks his daughter in the eye.
MICHAEL: Whatever I can do for you, I will do for you. Do you understand me? If you want something, tell me. Anything you want, I will make it happen, if I can.
Long beat.
THERESA: What if I sometimes called you Mr. Wolf?
Beat.
MICHAEL: Well, let me tell you something . . . My name is Mr. Lawrence.
(referring to Hana)
And she used to be Mrs. Lawrence, but is now Ms. St. Clair, which is who she originally was.
(referring to Julie)
And she’s Mrs. Parker-Lawrence.
And you are Ms. Lawrence.
So you can call me Mr. Lawrence, or you can call me Michael, or you know, if you wanted to . . . “Dad.”
There’s a lot of names that you can call a person. Ok?
Awkward beat.
JULIE: Will you draw something? On the chalkboard? For me, for us.
THERESA: What do you want me to draw.
Julie looks to Hana and Michael.
They all consider it.
HANA: I don’t know. Whatever you want. The universe.
Theresa gets up. Michael and Hana sit down next to Julie. They all watch her.
Theresa goes up to the chalkboard. She takes a piece of chalk. She thinks . . .
She spins the chalkboard around . . . It’s blank on the other side.
She begins to draw a circle, slowly . . . just as she completes it . . . blackout.
END OF PLAY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The playwright wishes to thank The Lark Play Development Center, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, The Laurents/Hatcher Foundation, Angelina Fiordellisi, Seth Glewen, Arian Moayed, Omar Metwally, South Coast Repertory Theatre, and the Atlantic Theatre.
