Page 123 - Dark Matter Issue5 Part II

busy for when his own daughter, Rachel, was young and he was making his

name as a writer. And it is Robert who sits with Admira when she confesses her

wish to become an avenger—feelings that terrify her so she has been trying to

starve herself to death “so I won’t raise my son to be a killer.” Robert’s ability to

hear the full force of Admira’s rage allows her to arrive at the moment of clear

sight (Katharsis) she and the audience require—and after she speaks, she

breaks her starvation by eating the chocolate he has offered.

ADMIRA: Suddenly all I could see were swollen bellies. In the room all around

were women crying. I was one of their voices. All alone, shivering. But all I could

see were bellies heaving. Like the bellies of the sea. Swollen sea bellies. And

the sea was singing to us; she opened her mouth, swollen bellies heaved out. I

tasted sea salt in my mouth. I cannot explain what I saw. We were each one of

us waves, all the women alone in that room were like the waves on the sea; I

saw it all in that moment. I remember I said to myself,” I am going to live." That is

my story, too, isn't it, Robert?

Fear of refugees is a fire being stoked across the world in 2016, but what is really

at stake here is not so much fear of the other as fear of what openness to the

suffering of others will awaken within the self. Facing someone who has endured

the seemingly unendurable rouses the irrational, the unexplored inside the self,

and in order to reintegrate that sufferer into the larger world, those who dare

listen will also be challenged and changed. Such listening must be done in

community; the characters in The Beekeeper’s Daughter form a family around

Admira. Each actor in the drama plays a role in her final decision to return to life.

In the theater, the audience becomes the larger listening community; perhaps

they are strengthened for the task of becoming empathic listeners to those who

are suffering in the world, perhaps, too, they become more aware of the benefits

of taking action to mitigate that suffering.

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