Jitterbug Preview

Jitterbug by Micki Shelton

A short play.

CHARACTERS

Dalia—About 80, lifelong Jewish New Yorker

Michael—19, Irish Catholic

Young Dalia—17, Jewish New Yorker

SETTING About 1953, New York City

(As the set is arranged, music from the 1940s or 50s. Maybe it is Dean Martin singing “That’s Amore,” “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing,” or “In the Mood.”)

DALIA: It’s not an issue anymore. Jewish. Irish. Who cares? Orthodox rabbis? Yes. Conservative rabbis? Maybe. Not mine. Not my rabbi. Bring home a black lover. In some houses, it matters. Not mine. Not anyone I know. A Muslim maybe. Maybe. Who cares? Some people yeah, but I don’t care to hang out with them. Them, them—those to whom it matters—those are not my kind of people. But once, once—it mattered. It did. Back then. (Beat.) “You don’t look Jewish.” I’ve heard that a thousand times. Especially when I was young, with all that blond hair. And every time, every time it takes me back. Sometimes, for just a moment, a teeny-tiny moment; sometimes, like tonight—they played that music—and it took me back. Took me right back.

(Scene shifts to an alleyway in New York City in the early 1950s. There is Michael’s handmade “staircase” of three or four steps made of scrap wood or actual stairs of an apartment. Michael is practicing learning to dance as a 1940s or 50s tune plays loudly on a circa 1953 transistor radio. Sometimes he attempts dancing up the stairs, not too badly. Young Dalia turns a corner and sees him. The loud music blocks out the sound of her footsteps. She stands and watches him unseen for a few moments.)

YOUNG DALIA: You like to dance.

MICHAEL: (Stopping and suddenly turning.) I, uh, didn’t know anyone was around. (Nervous, turns the dial in the wrong direction; the music gets louder until he turns it the right way and it turns off. ) I was—

YOUNG DALIA: I like to dance too.

MICHAEL: There aren’t a lot of places ter, ter, um, practice. It’s daft anyway, I guess. Wanting to dance.

YOUNG DALIA: I don’t think so. Most girls don’t think so. Me, anyway. I don’t think so. Are you really going to dance up those stairs?

MICHAEL: Maybe. You don’t think its rubbish? Me da thinks so. I mean my dad, Pop… well… and he’s a musician so you’d think he’d… But anyway, he does. Think it’s daft.

YOUNG DALIA: Wants you to be a doctor.

MICHAEL: (Laughing.) Well not anything that highfalutin, as if I had the brains, or could. But something, something respectable. (Suddenly struck.) You have beautiful eyes.

** Read the rest of the play by purchasing the Pilot Issue of New Theatre Magazine on issuu.com **