Characters
Laura
Sabrina
Kareem
Spy
Lines to be sung are in italic.
A horizontal rule indicates some kind of change in the space.
Gig time: to be set up for music/tracks. Although there is a soundscape to the whole piece, these are more focused musical moments.
Lecture mode: to be set up like a presentation/lecture.
Spy world: to be for developed spy-vetting interview.
This is a work of fiction.
Gig time.
Landscape, Lives, Legacies tune. Laura and Kareem jamming as audience come in.
Laura Landscapes, lives, legacies (Six times.)
Polluted
Depleting
Flooding
What form can something take without water?
Sabrina comes in.
Sabrina Water shapes landscapes, lives, legacies.
We are around 65 per cent made up of it ourselves.
We are more water than we are
anything else.
Omnipresent
miniscule to massive
stem cells to glaciers,
polluted, depleted, flooding.
Omnipresent
miniscule to massive
stem cells to glaciers
polluted, depleted, flooding.
What form
can something take
without water?
———————————————————————————————————————
Lecture mode.
Sabrina Hi. Welcome everyone.
Laura Great to have you here with us.
We are here today to give a lecture on the –
Sabrina The highly edited highly condensed –
Laura History of water in the Middle East –
Sabrina Let me just repeat that again, especially for any Middle Easterners and/or history professors in the house – this is a highly edited, highly condensed –
Laura History of water in the Middle East –
Sabrina More specifically,
the history of how
the water in the Middle East
has been used by Britain
for its imperial purposes.
And how that has affected billions of –
Laura Landscapes, lives, legacies –
Sabrina Hear that? I’ve never given a lecture before
and lectures are generally pretty dry
so I thought, as you might have guessed,
let’s do it as a bit of a gig instead,
but, well, I can’t sing.
Laura So I came in. Laura, hi.
Sabrina Or play any instruments.
Kareem Hi. Kareem.
Sabrina We’re all British Middle Eastern by the way.
I’m Egyptian.
Laura So am I. And it’s really North Africa
if you want to be geographically correct –
Sabrina But if we did that then
Cyprus is in the Middle East
and if Egypt is then why not Sudan
and Ethiopia and Eritrea and Djibouti
and nobody defines things
by pure geography really do they?
Laura But Egypt does at least have
a sliver of itself in that area
and is pivotal in its politics
so politically, it’s the Middle East.
Sabrina Half, I am. I mean half-Egyptian that is.
Laura Me too.
Sabrina I hate saying that –
Laura Me too.
Sabrina Half is such an annoying phrase
when it comes to an identity.
Laura Everyone is full.
Sabrina Yes! What makes us
is what makes us,
the percentages are capitalistic measurements
on human existence
and at very best, a guess.
Laura But even if we didn’t say half
others would ask because we don’t look
how anyone wants an Egyptian to look.
Sabrina Even though Elizabeth Taylor
looked Egyptian enough to play Cleopatra
and Scarlett Johansson would of course be able
to portray Nefertiti – or a tree.
Laura We could be here all day for that.
Sabrina True say. Okay, focus.
Laura Egypt.
Sabrina How I fell in love with the subject
of wat...