EVERYTHING THAT NEVER HAPPENED excerpt by Sarah B. Mantell

EVERYTHING THAT NEVER HAPPENED Sarah B. Mantell

Allison Schwartz Paradigm Talent Agency 140 Broadway, 26th floor, New York, NY 10005 212-897-6400 aschwartz@paradigmagency.com

“It is only by tracing the pinprick back to other pinpricks – when his mother tried to fix his sleeve while his arm was still in it, when his grandfather’s fingers fell asleep from stroking his great-grandfather’s damp forehead, when Abraham tested the knife point to be sure Isaac would feel no pain – that the Jew is able to know why it hurts. When a Jew encounters a pin, he asks: What does it remember like?”

-Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated

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A NOTE ON THIS WORLD This play is everything that never happened in The Merchant of Venice. Or it’s Shakespeare’s play that is everything that never happened. In any case, this world exists in the space between what Shakespeare made and the Jewish culture, law, and history that we carry in our bones.

Clothing can suggest 16th century Venice but it should be more improvised, more flexible, more like rehearsal room costuming. Nothing in this play should get within a mile of stuffy.

The world should feel like a Katch Silva photograph Like “Steal Your Heart Away” by Watkins Family Hour Like a Wolf Kahn painting Like Andrew Bird’s entire Tiny Desk Concert Which is to say Like joy and honesty and loss

Each scene should be verbally interrupted by the next one. The characters may spend a moment in the wrong place before joining the new scene.

As little of the world as possibly should exist physically. It is created primarily through language. We should be able to see its workings, its construction, its skeleton. It is an excuse for light. And unexpected moments of color. Above all, it breathes. The visual world of the play functions like memory—we only see the things we need, the things that we touch. The water should live entirely in language and sound until the last scene of the play. Let the worlds be willed into being in an inconsistent way. Storytelling is messy. It’s all about what we leave out.

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CHARACTERS JESSICA, female, young LORENZO, male, young SHYLOCK, male, older* GOBBO, male, younger

*But only by 1596 standards. Probably 40s.

A NOTE ON CASTING At the heart of this play are questions about the privilege and pain of being able to pass as something you’re not. And about Jewish assimilation into whiteness. In practical terms that means that Lorenzo and Gobbo must look white. (I'm thrilled if the ethnic identities of those actors are more complicated.) One or both of the Jewish characters must be played by a person of color who is white passing or has a relationship with passing. Two of the most stunning performances I've seen in these roles have been from Latinx actors who understood deeply what it meant to have passing privilege in a way family or friends did not. The bridge that the play became between our experiences helped to make those productions sing in a profound and undefinable way. You should also have Jewish people in your rehearsal room though in what role or roles is up to your particular production. And please remember that Jewish identities and POC identities have never been mutually exclusive.

Please drop Shakespeare’s characters from your mind. Avoid casting or playing them like they are canonical. These characters should thrive on the rhythmic, precise, volleying back and forth of language, of physicality, of humor and heartbreak. Think less William Shakespeare and more Aaron Sorkin meets Pig Iron.

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SCENE 2

Shylock interrupts the scene

SHYLOCK Francesco

JESSICA No

She joins him

Gobbo is helping her cook Handing her ingredients

SHYLOCK Lapachio, Antonio, Gasparo

JESSICA Dad

SHYLOCK Galvachio?

JESSICA Not that one For sure not that one

SHYLOCK Which one should I lend to?

JESSICA A mercer, a grocer, a merchant…?

SHYLOCK Yes Which one

JESSICA Why do you always ask me?

SHYLOCK You have a mind for this

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JESSICA You keep saying that But right now I’m trying to cook, so

SHYLOCK Fine

She cooks He looks at her

SHYLOCK You’ve gotten tall

JESSICA Stop it I haven’t

SHYLOCK You’ve gotten so tall

JESSICA Dad

SHYLOCK What?

JESSICA Stop

SHYLOCK Okay okay

JESSICA I’m just wearing shoes And standing on carpet

SHYLOCK Mmhm

JESSICA I’m not tall compared to anyone else I’m only tall compared to you

SHYLOCK Oh yes?

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JESSICA Yes

SHYLOCK Is there another measurement that matters?

She chops Shylock studies her

SHYLOCK Noah

JESSICA What?

SHYLOCK Benjamin

JESSICA Noah and Ben want you to lend them money?

SHYLOCK No This is another subject

About you

JESSICA NO

SHYLOCK About who—

JESSICA No!

SHYLOCK Who should marry my very tall—

JESSICA Carrot

SHYLOCK Daughter

Gobbo hands her a carrot

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SHYLOCK Mendel?

JESSICA Carrot

Gobbo hands her a carrot She chops

SHYLOCK Samuel

JESSICA Carrot

Gobbo hands her a carrot She chops louder

SHYLOCK You think I didn’t see you Running up just as the gates closed tonight All out of breath and— Do you think I’m stupid?

I know what being in love looks like

Gobbo looks up Shylock doesn’t see him

JESSICA Stop making fun of me

SHYLOCK Did he run ahead? So no one would see?

How could I consider him for you if I don’t know who he is?

JESSICA You’d consider Someone I—

SHYLOCK I’d think about it

JESSICA And if it’s someone you wouldn’t like?

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SHYLOCK Would my daughter pick someone I wouldn’t like?

JESSICA How many restrictions on who you would even begin to consider if I—

SHYLOCK How many restrictions?

How many restrictions on where I can eat and sleep and move Here In Venice In 1596

Less than that

JESSICA Stop bothering me

SHYLOCK How many restrictions in the Pale of Settlement

JESSICA That’s not Venice

SHYLOCK No?

JESSICA That’s Russia

SHYLOCK Right

JESSICA That’s 1791 By the Dnieper River That’s forever from now

SHYLOCK And how many restrictions on what I can do for a living? I can sell rags or lend money. That’s now, yes?

JESSICA Yes

She goes back to the soup

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A moment

SHYLOCK And you’re not going to tell me

He searches her face

You’ll be gone In another house Six children Twenty grandchildren Descendants numbering in the hundreds In the hundreds and hundreds You’ll get as short as me As bound to forget important words like…

He searches for the word

JESSICA Astringent

SHYLOCK Yes!

You’ll be all those things At this rate Before you tell me his name

JESSICA Dad

SHYLOCK It’s not Mendel?

JESSICA No

SHYLOCK Isaac?

JESSICA Dad

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SHYLOCK Which one My very tall daughter Should I pick?

SCENE 3

Back by the river

LORENZO Shylock?

JESSICA Yes

She joins him

LORENZO Your father’s name is Shylock

JESSICA Yes

LORENZO I know him

JESSICA You do?

LORENZO He…

JESSICA What?

LORENZO (a half-truth) …my friend who’s looking to borrow, right?

Says he’ll borrow from— Says Shylock last of all Not if there’s anyone else who will lend –

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GOBBO Jessica!

JESSICA Coming!

LORENZO When were you going to tell me who you were?

JESSICA NEVER, okay?

Never I was going to drift back into the ghetto like some Monday morning ghost and marry a man I’ve known my entire life and have sixteen children pop out fully formed from under my very long skirts and stay

And stay Inside those walls on that one little scrap of pavement on top of so much water until my body turned to bones and my bones turned to dust and you never ever saw me ever again

A beat

Just first

I wanted to come here With you And see one more river

LORENZO Listen Jessica, that’s not some little— This is a problem that— And I am a person that— This is This is

JESSICA Venice This is Venice In 1596

I’ll go

She turns to go

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LORENZO Wait

She stops

Just let me think Just let me think a moment

Okay Yes Leave with me

She turns to him

JESSICA Is that a joke?

LORENZO Is it funny?

JESSICA No

LORENZO Leave with me

JESSICA Like it’s that simple

LORENZO It is that simple!

JESSICA You’re not Jewish

LORENZO Neither are you!

JESSICA What?

LORENZO Not if you take my name

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Not if you take My religion My culture My history

Not if you take my— Then neither are you

JESSICA Is that a proposal?

LORENZO Yes

GOBBO Jessica!

JESSICA Really?

That?

LORENZO What?

JESSICA I thought it would be less— Nevermind Go on

LORENZO You say one vow One vow, one drop of water on your head, and you—

You can visit every part of the city Of the world And anywhere else you want

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