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Theater

Mad as the blood sound
A play

 


Ezzat Goushegir
January 2, 2006
iranian.com

Lu Gang the Chinese student who murdered seven professors at the University of Iowa -- including himself -- tells his story. The play is a discovery through Lu Gang’s internal life. The play has been read at The Women’s Project in New York, directed by Elaine Smith, and at Room 41 in Chicago by Hannah Gale. Here is a scene of “Mad As The Blood Sound”.

Scene 3

WHO AM I?

(A music is heard. Gang Lu unskillfully dances
with
one of the cardboard soldiers from up the stage.
There
are a row of Chinese soldiers down stage. 
He puts a
blonde wig on the soldier’s head.)

Gung Lu:

You like it ha? (pause) I like it too…

Do you have a good time with me? (pause)  Me too…(pause)

You have big tits!... Chinese women don’t have big tits, but you have big tits…yeah…you have…

(Suddenly music stops. He stops dancing too.)

What’s wrong with you? We both are having a good time…Don’t we? (pause)

Don’t be ridiculous!...Don’t we have a good time? (pause)

No?...(pause) Why?...Because I touched your tits?...your…What’s wrong with that? All right…all right…all right…

Don’t leave me alone…please…don’t…(pause) sit with me and have a beer…(pause) Have a beer with me!...Don’t leave me alone…ok?

(He replaces the cardboard soldier down stage. Then
brings a pitcher of  beer and two glasses.)

Oh damn it! She left me!...O.K…Go away bitch…you fucking jerk!...(pause)

No…it’s not the way of my talking!

(He sits and drinks alone, talks to the audience.)

It’s like a movie to me at least!...It didn’t really happen to me…I’m trying to imagine things in my mind…Because I’m trying to make another character of myself. If you want to be accepted in a new society, you have to be a part of them.

I can’t be relaxed…I don’t know how to act…Perhaps I’m so relaxed…I don’t know…I just don’t know…I don’t know what I’m saying! But I know that those who lie, make me vomit…

I left my Chinese friends, because they’ve lost their pride…They’re licking American assess! (pause)

I can’t act like Americans…It’s so far away from me…far away from me!!...

I feel I’m not a MAN anymore…I’m a WOMAN…The way Americans talk to me…they talk to me like I’m stupid…

They smile at you like this…

(He makes an artificial smile.)

And talk behind you like this…

(He makes a face.)

He is so boring! So polite…His English is awful…His accent…oh…and they laugh!...He so polite, it bores me!...He is nice…but you know…He is CHINESE!...You know…

(He drinks beer.)

I chose loneliness because people make me depressed…

(He stands up.)

What’s my real character?

(He looks at the mirror.)

Who am I?

LU GANG, born in 1963 in Beijing, China…

No…I’m not LU GANG. I don’t know myself anymore!

(Light shows two rows of cardboard soldiers down
stage and up stage.)

I’m between these…I’m not Chinese and I’m not American…

Who am I? What am I doing here?

Where is my place?

China?

 (The voice of protesters are heard: “WE LOVE RICE,
BUT WE LOVE DEMOCRACY MORE.” As the voice
grows, down stage we read on a screen: “JUNE 1989,
TIANANMEN SQUARE.”. Then a slogan: “WE NO
LONGER TRUST DIRTY PUBLIC SERVANTS,
WE TRUST DEMOCRACY.” The voice is gone.)

The end of the dictatorship of the proletarian… The dictatorship of the proletarian…Proletariat!...My parents!

They are not able to dictate any thing! They are still living with a dream of chair man Mao…

They are just an ignorant couple who some day used to believe in communist movement. Time has never changed from 1949…Even though Deng Xiaoping tried to make a reform:

(As Deng Xiaoping): “It doesn’t matter a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice.”

But still our tables are empty and the world goes forward very fast…and I’m a bullet of energy who is leaping in this corner of the world…and my voice has no sound for the deaf…and my hand…

(He moves his hand on the air.)

No sound…because it’s just one.

(He claps and makes a melody with two hands.)

Two hands together make a sound.

(A shot is heard from distance, the other shot closer …
Repetition of several shots. Then the sound of marching
Soldiers and tanks and screaming and shooting, after a
moment, silence.)

The goddess of democracy collapsed. The huge statue of the goddess, because you…you…made it of paper not the stone!

Where am I? Wait a minute…

Where am I?

Not in the U.S. Not in China!

Where do I belong to?

Nowhere!...

Hanging between the sky and the ground!

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