Sleep Deprivation Chamber

Adam Kennedy, Adrienne Kennedy

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Year: 1996
• Print ISBN:
  9781559361262
• eBook ISBN:
  9781559367226
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

Winner of the 1996 OBIE Award for Best Play

A gripping examination of the conflicting realities of the Black experience of twentieth-century America.

A broken taillight leads to the brutal beating of a highly educated, middle-class black man by a policeman in suburban Virginia. The Kennedys interweave the trial of the victimized son (subsequently accused of assaulting the offending officer) with his mother's poignant letters of defense and remembrance.

SCENE III

Hotel. Washington. Early morning.

Day there may not be a trial.

SUZANNE (Narrates Dream Scene): I dream Governor Wilder answers my letters. Enclosed is a thesis on the force and effect of firing all manual weapons and another thesis on present remedies against the plague and the play Hamlet.

I’m sitting with the Antioch students in the snow on the Quad; beyond, some play football, and we go to Yorick’s grave.

DREAM SCENE: (Suzanne is sitting with Antioch students in the snow on the Quad; beyond some play football. She sleepwalks toward Yorick’s grave. March enters.

Suzanne sees Teddy standing in Yorick’s grave being questioned.)

SUZANNE (Continues narrating Dream Scene): I am sleepwalking toward Yorick’s grave. March enters our room in Earl’s Court the Autumn of 1961. We arrive in London from Southampton on the way to Ghana, there is some problem with a visa.

DREAM SCENE: (Suzanne sees Teddy standing in Yorick’s grave being questioned.)

UNSEEN QUESTIONER: Now, when you went to the hospital after leaving the—you went to the emergency room at National Orthopedic Hospital after leaving the detention center, what problems—medical problems were you having when you went in there?

TEDDY: I had—I was having difficulty breathing. I had bruises on my face that were painful. I had lacer—cuts, lacerations on both of my wrists.

I had my back, or my lower back and my upper back and my stomach were—I was in extreme pain on both sides of my body. And I had several cuts on my lip and inside my mouth. (Indicating)

DREAM SCENE: (Teddy standing in Yorick’s grave.)

UNSEEN QUESTIONER: What treatment did they give you at the emergency room?

TEDDY: They gave me a physical, and then they checked—they gave me X rays to see if there were any broken bones.

UNSEEN QUESTIONER: And what did the X rays show?

SUZANNE (Continues narrating Dream Scene): I dream of a summer evening in Cleveland in the 1940s. My father and his friends held the meeting of the NAACP on an old campsite I loved as a child, a place called Aurora, Ohio.

I walked down a path lined with whitewashed stones. But seeing into the wooden cabin where my father and his friends sat was difficult. The Canadian Soldier moths covered the screened door of the cabin. It was Cabin 17.

DREAM SCENE: (Suzanne walks down a path lined with whitewashed stones. Seeing into the wooden cabin where her father and his friends are is difficult. Canadian Soldier moths cover the screen door of the cabin, Cabin 17. Suzanne writes Cabin 17 down on a yellow pad. And stands on bottom step. She hears her father and his friends laughing. She hears her father whistle, “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”)

SUZANNE (Continues narrating Dream Scene): I’ll come back in August when the Canadian Soldiers die. I want to see my father and his friends. I hope when I return to Cabin 17 in August I will hear my father discuss (as they always did) how to make Cleveland a better place for Negroes, how to raise money for the Quincy Library and for the cornerstone ceremony for the Central Y and, as they always did, talk about justice for the children, and Bob Feller.

Teddy, was the back porch of my house with the trellis of honeysuckle submerged there on the floor of Dale Creek?

TEDDY: Yes. I saw your mother sitting on the steps stirring a cake and you were seven and licking vanilla icing.

(Sounds of father’s friends singing. Fade.)

(Phone. Teddy appears. He is dressed in a suit.)

SUZANNE: Patrice called. Your Uncle March’s back. She says he’s dazed but fine. A Mr. Chavez brought him in a Buick. He was with a group of migrant workers near Palo Alto.

TEDDY: Mom, I’m happy.

(Pause)

There may not be a trial today but we’re prepared and we’re going to court.

I want you to stay in the hotel. I’ll call you as soon as I can.

(Fade.

Suzanne sits motionless, image of Yorick’s grave before her.)

TEDDY: Edelstein expected the proceedings to last several minutes while the judge granted the motion. But the D.A.’s plan began to unravel.

My case was called and the assistant commonwealth attorney explained to the judge, the Honorable Cartwright, why the case should not be heard in front of her and taken to jury.

The judge disagreed with Wagner and denied her motion. The case would be heard today by her.

(Fade to trial. Courtroom. In the courtroom are Teddy, Mr. Edelstein, the Judge, Ms. Wagner and the court reporter. Teddy sits separately.)

JUDGE: Let’s proceed with the opening statements.

MS. WAGNER: Yes, Your Honor. May it please the court, the commonwealth’s chief witness to testify is Officer Holzer. He will tell this court that in the early morning of January 11th, he was traveling in his police cruiser on a routine patrol. On that morning, he was t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Scene I
• Scene II
• Scene III
• About the Author