Atlantis

Lally Katz

• Publisher: Currency Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781760622251
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Théâtre

Lally Katz is on a journey. She's left Australia behind and she's in the country of her childhood, trying to find a way back to when things were innocent. Her relationships are chaotic, her professional life is a shambles and contemporary America seems riddled with charlatans and shysters. But along the way moments of wisdom bubble up, as if from some lost ancient city beneath the waves off Florida...

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The fabulous Lally Katz once again mines her life - both real and imaginative - for an epic story lined with romantic dilemmas and unforgettable encounters. A grand adventure through cynical times, but infused with Lally's unwavering optimism.

ACT TWO

SCENE ONE

A PILOT speaks.

PILOT: Good evening, folks. We have begun our descent into New York City. We will be landing at JFK Airport in approximately twenty minutes. I hope you’ve enjoyed your flight with us. You’ll notice how dark it is below, there are many areas of New York still without power after the hurricane. And New York continues to be on high alert for a second hurricane.

LALLY: [to the audience] New York City. Speeding through the darkened New York streets in a taxi, I sit in the front seat next to the driver. I feel it’s safe because she’s a woman. The driver has a long, thin, pale brown ponytail. I notice very soon that she is missing a lot of key teeth. She’s overweight, but only loosely. She, like everyone else in this story, is a real person.

NEW YORK TAXI DRIVER: First time to New York?

LALLY: No. I live in Australia. But I was born in New Jersey.

NEW YORK TAXI DRIVER: Jersey—now Jersey got hit even worse than we did.

LALLY: I hope my grandparents are okay. They’re in a really nice retirement village.

NEW YORK TAXI DRIVER: A hurricane don’t care how ritzy their place is. If it wants to hit, it hits. Where you staying?

LALLY: Airbnb.

NEW YORK TAXI DRIVER: Ain’t that illegal in New York now?

LALLY: I think so.

NEW YORK TAXI DRIVER: Well, don’t go getting in trouble. After the hurricane it’s impossible to get gas. My husband’s loser brother is trying, but he’s a loser.

LALLY: You’re married?

NEW YORK TAXI DRIVER: I got a common-law husband.

LALLY: That’s nice.

NEW YORK TAXI DRIVER: Well, it ain’t no picnic. He’s got seven kids. Ranging from six years old to nineteen. I ain’t their birth mother. My husband had ’em with his first wife. But she’s a drug addict now and hardly ever wants to see them. Just if they can do something for her. It’s real hard on the kids, you know. Especially the middle kids. The older ones have learnt to know better, and the younger ones know me better than they knew her. We keep praying she’ll get her life together. She’s always asking me for money, but the only salary I got is from driving the cab. My husband’s got a disability, so he can’t work. And this salary don’t go far with seven kids. Plus I’m trying to put some away.

LALLY: Wow. You’re an angel.

[To the audience] What a great character!

NEW YORK TAXI DRIVER: Well, I got a belief. That helps. Have you ever heard of the lost city of Atlantis?

LALLY: Sure. The myth?

NEW YORK TAXI DRIVER: It’s no myth. It was a real city—where everything was perfect. They were real advanced in everything. And then it got taken underwater. Some say that Atlantis was greater than Asia and Africa in size. But I don’t think it was really that big. One day and one night Atlantis was taken over by the sea. If it was as big as they said, it would have taken at least a week. But I suppose the sea is powerful though. And Atlantis is still down there under the sea. That’s my belief. That soon we’ll all be taken back to Atlantis. That’s why there’s the hurricanes and the floods we been getting so much of lately. So I’m saving up all the money I can, to move my family to Florida, so we’ll be the first people taken back there.

LALLY: Miami’s in Florida! Will that be taken by the sea?

NEW YORK TAXI DRIVER: Of course. Everybody knows that. Miami’ll be the first city to go. It’s a shame, because I’d rather move to Orlando. I got a cousin there.

LALLY: [to the audience] What she says kind of makes sense to me. Even if she is saving up all her money to take her family to Florida to drown them. I realise that to me, Miami’s already under the sea. Perfectly preserved, in another time. It’s already an Atlantis. The Miami that I would want to find—my childhood, my family home, my panther—are unreachable in time. And time is just as powerful as the sea.

NEW YORK TAXI DRIVER: My belief is what keeps me going. The world’s not like it was. It’s people, you know. The weather is acting like the people. Nobody cares about nobody no more. Everyone mindin’ their own business, lookin’ after their own interests. Didn’t used to be li...