How To Be A Man, is a play written collaboratively by Rivka and her students at Eyman State Prison. The play was performed for an audience of teachers and inmates in May 2014.
Selection from How To Be A Man:
Scene: A guy tries to tell his girlfriend he loves her by folding origami birds for her, but he keeps failing. His Bunkies try to help him get 20 birds folded in time for mail call. One of the guys on the run is soured on love and tries to stop them.
A: Hey man, what’re you doing?
B: Making these for my girl. It’s her birthday tomorrow.
A: Origami? Really?
B: I don’t know, when I got put in here, she said she was sorry birds couldn’t fly in cages. Isn’t that just the most… She talks like that. And tomorrow’s her birthday and I really want it to be special. I want to send her a bird for each year. 20 birds. You know anything about this?
…They fold, other men, D, F, and G come along and join in when they hear what he is trying to do. They work on the birds, until C, a man soured on love, enters.
C: What is this crap?
A: Don’t worry about it.
C: I’m not worried. What the hell are you doing.
D: What does it look like?
C: Why?
F: For his girl.
C: Whats the point? You know she’s gonna move on. Probably with some other dude right now.
A stands up.
A: Why would you say that?
G: Go easy.
A: What’s your problem?
C: No problem. You’re just living a fantasy. That chick don’t want a box of birds, she wants a man.
B: Why don’t you just keep walking?
A: Keep walking.
C: Whatever.
They work faster on the birds. C comes back with some water and dumps it on the birds. The men all stand up as…
How to Be A Man, Part 2: Know When You’ve Made a Mistake and How to Say “I’m Sorry”
Pat-down, 2 Ways: All men in a line are patted down by 2 COs
Version 1: While moving down the line, one of the COs says the following, while pulling out contraband from the men’s pockets:
There's nothing wrong with making a mistake. Only the insecure man thinks that making a mistake is bad, because he's not comfortable with who he is in the first place. Confident men know when they're wrong and aren't afraid to admit it. Learn to say "I'm sorry" in different ways. Men know that saying "sorry" doesn't always have to be verbal. You can even say "I'm sorry" without moving your vocal chords back and forth. Men know that there are often more effective ways of communicating regret than two measly words.
Version 2: Two COs search the men on the line. One of the COs is new and is being “shown the ropes” on how to be hard. As they find nothing the COs grow increasingly aggressive, and the chorus of inmates says the following:
There's nothing wrong with making a mistake. Only the insecure man thinks that making a mistake is bad, because he's not comfortable with who he is in the first place. Confident men know when they're wrong and aren't afraid to admit it. Learn to say "I'm sorry" in different ways. Men know that saying "sorry" doesn't always have to be verbal. You can even say "I'm sorry" without moving your vocal chords back and forth. Men know that there are often more effective ways of communicating regret than two measly words.
There's No Place Like It, a play about love, disconnection and technology, by Rivka Rocchio, was featured and produced by Arizona State University's TheatreLAB series.
- Thursday, October 30th 7:30PM
Selection from There's No Place Like It:
TINA
We used to wrap up in each others’ arms. And the presence meant something and our arms
LEVI
Our hands
TINA
were decidedly one another’s
LEVI
Intangible, but manageable, real. Your dark eyes…
TINA
In absence, love became fettered to the earth. Our connection chained to phones. This untouchable feeling now grounded. Now enclosed in clear boxes.
LEVI
But in this separation, free from the leering gaze of others. Your pixelated love, sometimes clearer in the grains.
TINA
Our voices moving across lines. Through space and time. Our declarations reaching through the air. Intangible-
LEVI
but still somehow manageable. A feeling. A connection.
TINA
But now we’ve moved to texts.
LEVI
I can message you instantly. I love your dark eyes.
TINA
But words are thought without breath. Without life. And now, even in our presence, we are absent.
LEVI
Hyper-connected moments. You know the moment I think of you. Our messages have layered the days with new meaning.
TINA
You have wrapped your words in someone else’s convention and form. Abbreviated by haste so that even you becomes u.
LEVI
From three letters to one.
TINA
A hollow vessel I could never fill and i, with its short pillar base and floating cloud-like pinprick –
LEVI
Doesn’t even come close.
TINA
Stripped of punctuation: The loving warmth of parenthesis. The urging on of commas, or the decisiveness of a period.
LEVI
Free from conventions, we linger in ellipses and dashes. Our half thoughts leading the other on-
TINA
But never creating a whole. Stripped of words. We used to wrap up in each other’s arms. Our skin just a mask for a skeletal connection. The closest we could be.
Do you remember that feeling?
