Lucy Asks Why
Pink is a very short monologue by a very small girl. Lucy is a mere ten years old and the conceit of the monologue is that it is really a kind of one-side dialogue. The problem is that the other person is dead and lying in a coffin. The crux of the conflict is that the person in the coffin is Lucy’s nurse, an African Zulu woman who has been shot to death taking part in a protest march. Lucy cannot understand what changed between them and the metaphorical imagery is just the beginning of the heartbreaking trek to the end:
“your eyes used to look at me when I was little, they would look at me like they were tickling me, just tickling me all the time, like I was special, but they went out, they went out like a light does”
Prisoner of Love
A character in I am Yours is reading a book of medieval German poetry and translating it as he goes. The poem at first seems romantic in nature, like some sort of grand expression of undying love and passion. But close inspection within context reveals a more sinister meaning behind the declaration of passion. It is a metaphor consistent with the themes of all the plays in this collection:
“You are locked in my heart
The key is lost
You will always have to stay inside it…
For always.”
Just Funny
Not all the metaphorical imagery in the plays in this collection are such a serious nature. Sometimes, the author just tosses in a little bit of humor, though maybe not entirely for comedy’s sake:
“You gotta do something about those socks, Toi, all the men in this family have bad feet. Your father’s socks coulda killed somebody on a bad day. I’m serious, like someone who was infirm or in their eighties.”
The Crackwalker
The title character does not actually appear, but is merely referenced. As such, he acts a metaphorical figure rather than an actual flesh and blood realization of humanity. Of course, he is flesh and blood within the conceit of the reference, but it is less about him personally than his one peculiar idiosyncrasy which is based on an actual figure, thus muddling things even further. The real-life guy got his name as a result of obsessive-compulsive behavior: walking the sidewalks of the Kingston always being careful not to step on a crack. The metaphorical dimension is clear enough: we all try to avoid stepping on cracks of one sort or another as we prance our way through reality.
Dialogue
Metaphor is plentiful in the radio drama Tornado. Occasionally, a conversation is almost predominantly constructed of such imagery which is fitting since the title itself, while literal, also acts as a far-ranging metaphor:
DEXTER: Like a cat, and and you know what a cat makes me think of?
VELVETEEN: What, Dex?
DEXTER: The devil. You tempt me, and play with me…I’m beginning to think you’re not human.
