AURORA’S LAMENT
Donna Abela
Characters:
AURORA, migrant from the Philippines
LUKE, young working-class man
JOAN, Luke’s mother
TRUCKIE, truck driver
Set in a suburban house and street, an office block roof top, a windy south coast caravan park, a highway.
Aurora’s scenes are in the present. To emphasise her sense of isolation and exile, I suggest that only present tense sounds from the caravan park accompany her speeches. Luke and Joan’s scenes are all in the past.
Aurora’s Lament was written for audio. It could, however, also be staged.
This work is a free adaptation of the Old English poem The Wife’s Lament.
PROLOGUE
FX Interior. Caravan in a gale force wind.
AURORA: after weeks of oblique glancing
fitful sleep
daydreaming maybes
we
between floors
stairwell sex
two office block cash-in-hand cleaners
buckets spilt
rubber gloves off
reaching
touching
going up in the world
FX Exterior. Office block roof top. Street sounds from below.
LUKE: who knew we had keys to the roof?
with you
heights up here don’t scare me!
I’m steady
and I can see all the Sydney bridges
lit up all around us
with you
I can feel my heart plunge and play
without you
I’d know none of this!
FX Interior. Caravan in a gale force wind.
AURORA: you took me home
took me in
opened up your musty bedroom
and asked about my past
asked enough to know to
leave it be
just sleep-fall with me into a tired tangle
a shared breath
letting your bed
safe as houses
float us away
FX Exterior. Backyard. Magpies and lorikeets chirp.
LUKE: she lives in the city
with some nuns
near their convent
in a special house for just ladies
is Catholic like us
but she can’t stay there forever
she cooks real good
is heaps kind
saves all her pay almost
but she isn’t stingy
she brings late night cakes to work
evening tea she calls it
and never lets me pay
she’s from the Philippines
her name’s Aurora
you’ll really like her mum
FX Interior. A kettle comes to the boil and screams.
JOAN: Aurora
Luke’s gone
he left
didn’t say why
well before dawn
didn’t you hear him getting up?
getting dressed?
forgetting his phone?
dead to the world were you?
well I heard him
did something happen between you two?
It’s just that
when Luke stopped doing drugs
he stopped sneaking off
but he’s good now
he’s got you now
got no reason in the world
has he
to shoot through like this?
FX Interior. Caravan in a gale force wind.
AURORA: now
in a caravan park
in a grove of grief
on a coast I don’t know
I want your olive skin
your chiselled lips under my fingertips
not this punctured heart heaving
Why was I exiled?
What did I do?
FX Interior. Caravan in a gale force wind. The windows rattl...