Voice of a Man

Voice of a Woman

Voice Reading selections from a Guide to Jerusalem

Voice of a Saleswoman in a sweetshop

Voice of a Taxicab Driver

Voice of a Boy

Spfx :
Taxicab Horn — a single note
First eight notes, for harp, from Stravinsky’s Orpheus

This play has been put together as an oratorio of voices. I envisage the participants sitting on a concert stage, each one standing to speak his lines and then sitting down again. Their voices are to be both human and mechanical, although at times the mechanical sounds are human and the human voices are only background noises, or rhythm. Occasionally the voices join to form small choruses.

Man:
It’s as if we’d been together.

Woman:
It’s as if we’d been together.

Man:
It’s as if we hadn’t been.

(Music)

Man:
It was just luck.

Woman:
Listen. Listen.

Man:
It’s Stravinsky.

Woman:
That’s not Stravinsky.
That’s what happens to us now, always.

Woman:
It was, it didn’t end, it didn’t start.

Man:
How did it start?

(The taxicab horn stops)
(Speaking together, as if far away, in a dreamlike tone)

Man:
How did we meet?

Woman:
It was, I remember now.

Man:
It was.
You know, it’s Buber’s funeral today. Martin Buber.
Yes. It was wintertime.

Woman:
Don’t leave me.

Man:
I’m not leaving.

Woman:
I can see it in your eyes.

Man:
It’s different. It’s not leaving. It’s wandering. You’re from so far back.

Woman:
You’re mine.

Man:
I was born in Jerusalem and I grew up in Jerusalem and I’ve lived here most of my life. And suddenly I’m a stranger.

Woman:
I love you.

Man:
Suddenly I’m a stranger.

Voice Reading Guidebook Selections:
The Valley of Hinnom circles the southern and western sides of the city, beginning near King George Street (Terra Sancta), then descending to the Mamilla Cemetery, to the business district, and to the Mamilla pool. It circles Mount Zion, dividing an extension of the Old City from the village of Abu Tor. Near Ein Rogel, the Valley of Hinnom runs into the Kidron Valley, at which point a single valley is formed. A man ascending Mount Zion…

(End of Reading)