Dividing Lines | Líneas Divisorias, livre ebook

• First produced by Aluna Theatre at the Theatre Centre, Toronto, in November 2019.

EPISODE-​​ what kind of a daughter am I?

How do you know if someone with Alzheimer's’ is hurting?

How do you know how much are they hurting?

Julia is released from the hospital.

How do you explain to someone with advanced Alzheimer's’—who has just broken their hip—how to get into a taxi?

“Julia bend your knee, like this, so we can take you home”—HOME?—back to a nursing home!

Beat.​ From now on I will only be able to transport her in an ambulance.

Hospital. Ambulance. Nursing home.

How do you explain to someone with Alzheimer’s how to do physiotherapy?

Simple, right?

“Julia, put your right hand on the bar—Julia, watch me. Julia...Julia.”

Alzheimer’s is not simple.

And then the follow ups, which are a waste of time because Julia can’t do physiotherapy—but if I don’t take her to the doctor—what kind of a daughter am I?

Nursing home, ambulance, doctor, ambulance, nursing home.

Ambulance, doctor, ambulance, nursing home.

Ambulance, doctor, ambulance, nursing home.

Beat.

Julia’s teeth are rotting.

How do take someone with advanced Alzheimer's to the dentist? You don’t.

What kind of a daughter am I?

Beat.

But those are physical pains.

What about the soul?

My mother lives in constant terror. There is are no antipsychotic pills that can take her fear away.

I can’t take her fear away.

What kind of a daughter am I?

Beat.

My mother was once a lover.

We spend every holiday at the beach house. In the border between Panama and Colombia. The dividing line between two oceans.

Jorge has a ritual: when he arrives at the gate he takes off his watch.

Jorge y Julia wake up early in the mornings and sneak off for a swim in the ocean, where they make love.

And I... am introduced to a way of thinking and the revolutionary songs of Victor Jara, Mercedes Sosa, Violeta Parra---Anyone here knows these songs? ​If there is a latino ask them maybe to sing one?

I know that for most of you these names don’t mean much...although we Latinx artists insist in writing plays with all these songs and names in them—but for us—we dream of Las Americas—a land of peace, equity and justice for all.

We dream of individual freedom.

We dream of choices.

We dream of a better quality of life for everyone.

We dream, we dream, I dream!

A confession.

I dream of the day my mother’s calvary will end.

Beat.

Nursing home—

Ambulance—

Doctor—he tells me that most old people, like Julia, die within two years after breaking their hip.

Hope!

Ambulance.

Nursing home.

Whispering. Say these in Spanish and then put then write the translation to be projected. Maybe this can be done with cue cards.

Mamita déjate ir | Let go Julia.

¿No quieres ver a papi otra vez? | Don’t you want to see Jorge—

¿En el cielo? | —in heaven?

Pídele a Dios que te lleve. | Ask God to take you.

Julia opens her eyes, slaps me on the face, and goes back to sleep. ​Beat. D​oes Julia want to

live like this?