To order a copy ... tddtheatre@aol.com

Excerpt from "Extreme Unction":  (Note: Some of the charactersmay be played by a man or a woman, therefore they are givenmale and female names respectively.)
ACT II, Scene Two 
Penance and Eucharist

(Everyone comes to an abrupt, normal pace in-place movement to signify that a five-minute break had actually taken place.  Enter David.)

David

OK.  We have about fifteen-minutes left.  I intend to keep my promise to Mike/Michelle.

Mike/Michelle

Don’t worry about it.  If we go until ten o’clock, it’s OK.  Remember, I have a ride home.

David

OK.  This scene presents the plight of torture victims after their release.  We have to remember those victims who died while incarcerated: the unborn baby for instance and the mother and father’s problems.

Ezra/Erma

I don’t know that ‘incarcerated’ is the proper word.  The word implies that they were imprisoned lawfully.  There have been many who have been imprisoned just for having a mid-Eastern sounding name.  

David

OK.  Imprisoned will be the word we will use, lawfully or unlawfully.  We also have to remember that some of the guards, the torturers are viewed as victims.  They’ve been drafted, if you allow, into the system of torture inadvertently, accidentally or involuntarily.  Now I’ve written this scene with two prisoners and two guards being interviewed separately.  However, I think it would be more dramatic, if they were questioned by a clinician.  I’d like to experiment with the improv approach again.  You can read the monologue I have prepared or use it as a reference.  However, if you can,… create your own monologue.  If not, create your own victim while reading.  By that I mean you can be demonstrative or withdrawn, etc.  I will be the clinician.  Do I have volunteers?

Mike/Michelle

I’d like to be one of the guards.  I’d like to be Sergeant Sullivan.

David

OK.  One volunteer.

Aislinge

I’d like to be the mother of the miscarried child, Alama.

David

Any…more…volunteers. 

Geraldo/Gisela

I’d like to be Hernandez.  I know.  I know.  I think I can handle it.  I…

Ezra/Erma 

(Interrupting.)

I’ll take Ahmad.

Joi/Jai

I’ll take prisoner 6482.  We can do away with the ACH-med 6482?  

Ezra/Erma

Yeah.  That’s demeaning.  What was his name?

Joi/Jai

Can I give 6482 a name?

David

His name was Habib Khaliq.  (Pause.)   He was my brother.  (Gasps from the cast.)

He was a genius, naïve perhaps, but a very gentle man.  He loved mathematics and was a devout Muslim.  He respected his fellow professors highly and held them in great esteem.  

Joi/Jai

Was?

David

He wandered off into the desert.  I don’t know what happened to him.  I think it was too much for him …

Cast  

(Collective sympathies.)

David

(Collecting himself, continues.) 

Joi/Jai

David, may I speak with you in private?  It’s important.

David

Yes.

(David and Joi/Jai move to the back of the stage, David listens.  They nod to each other in agreement.  They return to the group.)

OK.  Let’s get some chairs up here.  We need five.  Separate them by about two or three feet.  We’ll put the table over here.  OK.  Have a seat.  Go to....  ACT II, Scene Two, Page 57.

Clinician

Michael Sullivan….

Sullivan

(Sullivan stands.  Looks at the prepared monologue.  Discards it.  He jumps to attention.  Stiff as a board, he salutes the clinician and shouts.)

That’s Master Sergeant!  Michael Connor Sullivan, United States Marine Corps, sir!  

Clinician

I’m very sorry Master Sergeant Sullivan, but it says here you were just released from prison.  You lost all of your rank when you were sent to prison.

Sullivan

Master Sergeant Michael Sullivan, reporting as ordered, sir.! 

(He maintains his salute, unnoticed by the clinician who has his face buried in Sullivan’s file.  Sullivan repeats himself, but louder.) 

Sullivan  

Master Sergeant Michael Sullivan, reporting as ordered, sir!  

Clinician

Alright, alright.  Sergeant Sullivan, you have been… (Looking up at Sullivan.)  Sergeant Sullivan you don’t have to salute me.  

Sullivan

Sir, yes, sir.  

Clinician

You don’t have to stand at attention either, Sullivan.  

Sullivan

Sir, yes, sir.  (Sullivan remains at attention.)

Clinician

Stand at ease.  

(Sullivan, like a robot, spreads his feet, being careful not to move his right foot, and swings his hands to his back, clasping them.  He looks straight ahead.)

Sullivan

Sir, thank you, sir.

Clinician

Sergeant Sullivan, you were released about three years ago.  

(The clinician looks up at Sullivan.)  

Sergeant, why don’t you have a seat?  Relax.  I communicate better if you are sitting across from me and not towering over me.

Sullivan

Aye, aye, sir.  (Sullivan sits.) 

Clinician

What was your job at the prison, Sergeant?  

Sullivan

My job?  (Spitting out every word.)  My job... was to take those Iraqi Muslims, ...those scum bags… Ya’ know they think their bodies are temples,... especially the fundamentalists.  I, the “King of Soft”, that’s what they called me, ya’ know.  ‘Cause before the prisoners were sent upstairs, they had to go through me.  I softened ‘em up.  How do you think I got all these stripes?  The OGA’s, (Pronounced oh-ga’s.) they called themselves “other government agents”, I called them ‘the other guys upstairs’, the ooo-gooo’s, they wanted me to get the ACH-meds primed.  Anyway, I get all my troops ready.  They’re all keyed up for the invasion.  I launch my attack and invade that temple.  I defile it and desecrate it:  That shrine of theirs.  I do it deliberately, repeatedly and, very often, sadistically.  With a little sex from the girls thrown in for variety …but…  more for my entertainment.  I do it with pleasure.  And I make sure the ACH-meds know it.  Pretty soon they depend on me for everything.  I tell them when to sleep, when to shower, when to shit, when to eat and when to drink.  For as long as I have them they do… as… I tell them.  By the time the ogoo’s get them, the ACH-meds have no identity.  They forget their dreams, their mothers, their ideals, their wives and they are ready to do or say anything.  As I’m working on their body I work on their minds.  “I’m gonna’ bring your wife in here and we’re gonna’ let the boys have at her.  You can watch, if you’d like ACH-med.”  It’s no longer about just them.  I’m gonna’ go after their kin, their friends, their business partners.  Of course I won’t, but they don’t know that.  It’s enough that they think I’m gonna’ bring in their boss or their girlfriend or that their wife is in the next room with the boys.  Those prisoners were dreamin’ of me every night.  If they weren’t sleepin’ they were thinkin’ of me an’ what I was gonna’ do to ‘em next.  No more thinkin’ about time with their friends tomorrow.   … Tomorrow was mine.  The only thing they have to hold on to is “What is he gonna’ do to me tomorrow?”  Pretty soon they’re tellin’ me what hurts most.

Clinician

Well, I think that will be enough today, Sergeant.  

(Sullivan, jumps to attention, takes one step back, salutes, does an about face and sprints to exit.)

Clinician

Habib Kha…Khalick

Alama

He will not answer, sir.  He is silent.

Clinician

Habib… you’re next.  (Pause.)  I guess he’ll have to wait.  Alama… Hud...hay…

Alama

Alama Hudhayfah.  That is me.  

(Aislinge places her script on the table in front of her.)

Clinician

Do you speak English very well, Alama?

Alama

Not very well, but yes, I am learning.  I am a student at university.

Clinician

We can begin today, Alama, if you don’t mind, by telling me how you came to be a prisoner.

Alama

Yes.  My husband, ‘Ikrim, and I just finish my sister’s wedding celebration.  We were taken by state police.  I don’t know why.  ‘Ikrim did not know either.  We were happy.  We wanted baby.  Now… now I can’t have baby.  (Pause as Alama sobs and recovers.)  We were taken to prison.  ‘Ikrim and other men in one building and I and other women in another.  We find each other with help.  I talk to him only once in three years.  It was cold and dark place.  They beat me badly.  I have two broken arms.  I cannot use this one.  They stand on my leg.  “Your husband, ‘Ikrim, is terrorist.  Yes?”  I say no.  They stand again.  “ ‘Ikrim is not terrorist,” I say.  He is kind, gentle man.  They stand again.  I feel my knee break.  I don’t remember after that.  I don’t see ‘Ikrim since reception.  

Clinician

Where is your baby, Alama?

Alama

I have not seen ‘Ikrim and I not hear him since that day in cell with only a break in wall to hear.  I felt his breath.  He smelled bad.  I never smell him again.  Then the guards came.  They beat me again.  Again.  Again.   “No talking.  You talk again we will beat you... again.”  Then …. (She trembles and shakes violently.)  They rape me… and other women.   Khalidah was raped many times in cell.  Only one guard kind to us.  

Clinician

Alama, where is your baby?  Where is ‘Ikrim?