הדמויות

תרגומים

The Girl Who Is Actually A Wheelbarrow/ Oded Liphshitz.

Cast: Various characters. Originally performed with a cast of 5m. 4w.

Synopsis:

Otto, the narrator, asks to bring to life the young girl who is lying motionless on the floor in order to narrate her story for one single day. He is in need of a heroine that will be able to carry the weight of a story for the timespan of one day. The times are rough and it seems that characters can’t hold the weight of stories because of a growing existential whim of self awareness. They become skeptic of their own nature and rebelliously doubt the existence of the plot-line, which, in result, weakens and break. Otto argues that in a world that is left empty of belief, his characters are destined to doubt their motivation. They begin to search for their true purpose and ask a question from which there is no return – Why? However, there’s a need for the stories to keep on being plotted and for the narrator to stand his guard and sustain his interest, which is, the for the time to keep moving forward.

The hour, the last hour of night, is crucial. The angels are arriving in order to redeem the girl from the misery that awaits her upon the earth before the story begins. They do not believe in the postponement of her fate and they propose to Otto a moralistic offer- To take the girl’s soul today instead of tomorrow and in this way to preserve her innocence and her momentarily- impeccable soul. Otto assertively rejects the offer.

He hangs on to his own reasons and has no intention of letting go of his story even after hearing the warning voices of the angles. He decides to go on, even though he realizes that the price for keeping his story would be the corruption of the girl’s soul.

The girl wakes up to life, confirming the suspicions of the narrator. She creates difficulties for him as she starts doubting her true nature, and leaves him alert to cautious. A strong impulsive urge leads her to find her own identity and to solve the riddle of her existence in a strange world. She refuses to accept her given identity – to be a child whose fate is to carry passengers on her back, as if she was a wheelbarrow. A duty that is imposed on her by the village’s commoners.

As the play goes, her inability of finding a private moment, caused by Otto’s manipulation of her liberty of thought, causes her distancing from her initial sense of self. She is bent to serve as she is told, as a tool in the hands of the characters that surrounds her: the blind man, the domineering mother and her daughter, the cat, the mourning family who have lost their father, the moon and the boy on the the swing. Characters and episodes by which the moral codes of the surreal world are revealed. 

In the last scenes, the girl is left passionless and indifferent to her initial desire of discovering her true self. She is completely and utterly excepting her now-formed being, as a girl who’s actually a wheelbarrow. In a conversation with Otto she wonders if her initial dreams were ever even real and if she ever had a authentic self. The story ends as promised, where at the end of the day the girl remains motionless as the two angels arrive to examine her again. They now see how changed and corrupted her soul is, and how much she’s been through. They take her soul to put in a small container were all the other souls of the passing day were kept. Otto remains alone, he prepares for another day and story, when he says that from the distance a voice of another girl is already heard.

הפקות

בכורה

Hamakom Theatre, Vienna (Staged reading). Dir by Ingrid Lang, Oct. 2015.

ציטוטים

[מופיע הירח]

הירח: ילדה, את לא יכולה לבכות עכשיו,

אין אף אחד שמקשיב לך.

הילדה: אני חייבת, אני לא יכולה כבר להתאפק

אמרה הילדה.

הירח: אפילו אין אף אחד שיכול לעבור פה בטעות 

ולשאול אותך מה קרה

ולמה את לבדך באמצע הלילה.

הילדה: למה, אבל אתה רואה, אני יכולה להקדיש את הדמעות האלו לך

הירח:  את לא יכולה לבכות בשבילי

זו טעות, אני ירח, אין לי רחמים.

הילדה: אז למה אתה משתתף בצער שלי?

הירח: אני לא משתתף, רק רציתי לומר לך

לא כדאי לבכות בלילה שכזה

חבל על הדמעות שלך, יש בהן כל כך הרבה התכוונות.

הילדה: בשביל זה בכלל לא היית צריך לפתוח את הפה?

הירח: אין לי פה, גם זאת טעות

אני ירח, רחוק רחוק

ואין לי חצי דבר איתך.

הילדה: לפחות לבכות אני יכולה

[הילדה בוכה, כעבור רגע]

הירח: רק אל תבכי בשבילי, זה מפריע לי.

הילדה: אני לא בוכה בשבילך 

אני לא בוכה בשביל אף אחד, אמרה הילדה.

הירח: אם אין בשביל מי לבכות, אז כבר לא כדאי לבכות

לא כדאי

תאמיני לי שאני יודע

כי אני הירח ואני לא מצטער על שום דבר

להתראות הילדה שהיא מריצה.

הילדה: אתה הולך?

הירח: אני לא יכול ללכת, זו טעות.