Now You See Her

Amy Nostbakken, Amy Nostbakken, Norah Sadava, Norah Sadava, Lisa Karen Cox, Raha Javanfar, Cheyenne Scott, Maggie Huculak

• Publisher: Coach House Books
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781770566262
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Now You See Her nominated for three Dora Mavor Moore Awards; Outstanding New Play, Outstanding Costume Design & Outstanding Sound Design/Composition.

Now You See Her named one of Toronto's Top Ten Plays of 2018 by the Toronto Star.

Six diverse women's voices merge into one devastating (and funny) portrait of modern feminism.

They are the invisible, the vanishing, and the disappeared. In an insurrectionary outburst of original music, words, and movement, the six characters in Now You See Her explore some of the diverse ways women fade from sight in our culture. They sing, dance, and thrust themselves into the elements as they travel through the seasons of their lives. Their voices are defiant. Their question is simple: why and how do we allow our power to disappear without a fight?

Now You See Her follows Quote Unquote Collective's acclaimed international hit Mouthpiece.

Act 1, Scene 1
Spring

Darkness. DARYA is sitting on the top ledge of the piano with her violin, plucking it and looping the sound until a soundscape of raindrops is created. She continues to play and loop as the rain gets heavier. Lights slowly dawn on the rest of the women who are onstage wearing nude shifts under fur coats. They sit with their legs spread as if preparing to give birth. The spring choreography begins with slow, sparse movement alluding to birth – both literally and metaphorically as the birth of spring/nature/humanity. The choreography becomes increasingly violent, and the women shed their coats, as contractions and labour occur. The title ‘SPRING’ is projected on the scrim with imagery of a woman’s back in movement. Darya joins the others in the dance and the violin-rain subsides as a vocal soundscape emerges. FLO removes the coats that have been shed, Darya climbs a ladder and pulls a cord that unleashes rain across the front of the stage, a baby is passed between three of them, then they all join each other in the heat of contractions. The grunting and pushing intensifies until on the final exhale they are sent upstage right where they will sit. Darya has wrapped the baby and hands it to JENNIE. Darya walks downstage to deliver her text. During this text DEZ is dancing full throttle around Darya – it’s like a duet but Dez can’t see Darya.

DARYA: Wakey wakey, everybody!

It’s time! Yup, today, right now. This hour.

It’s that time! Yeah! And we’re here, and it’s not by accident,

am I right?

Don’t blink (hissing sound effect plays). Or you’ll miss four

seasons passing by

for one night only

you will see,

or maybe you won’t

or maybe you will

(points to an audience member) You … might not.

These ordinary women … vanish (whoosh) … before your very

eyes.

But for NOW. YOU. SEE –

Act 1, Scene 2
Dez

Dez is downstage right. She interrupts Darya and continues dancing.

DEZ: ‘Heyyyy! Long hair, long hair. Heeeyyy! Don’t care, don’t care. Heeyyyy! If ain’t nobody likin’ what we doin’ what we tell them, man, shit: Long hair don’t care.’

I just got home from the most amazing bush party. So I’m sitting at the bonfire and then I hear someone playing a really bad version of ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ So I go to check it out. And I’m like holy shit, this is the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. And I’m full-on entranced by this horrible, horrible ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ Her name is Michelle and she lives up-island on the Cowichan reserve. She’s planning on going to UBC next year. That’s insane, ’cause I want to go there too, for Environmental Sciences. I’ll probably get in … yeah, okay, my grades are kinda crappy, but it’s not a big deal. I just have to pass my final exams.

At least History’s easy. All I have to do is drop names like John A. Macdonald and Duncan Campbell Scott, and I’ll get an A for sure. ’Cause, you know … white guilt. Don’t worry, I can say that. I’m part white.

Michelle gets it. Tonight we were connecting on another level. We were lying on the grass and I was like, ‘So yeah … the stars are pretty crazy. There’s the Big Dipper. And the Little Dipper. And some other ones.’ She’s laughing – oh my God, she’s leaning in. I should kiss her. Should I kiss her? Should I kiss her?

Dez starts dancing again. Her phone buzzes from the floor downstage.

Hold on.

She moves to her phone, checks who it is.

Ahhhhhhh, it’s Michelle!!! ‘Long hair don’t care no shampoo.’ I should text her something in my language. I’ll use my app. I know, I know, I need to use an app, sorry.

(On phone) Okay, what do we got on this thing. The deer is far, that’s a big squirrel, do you like fruit? I like you – oooooh. Too forward? Should I?

NE STI ET NEȻE.

She doesn’t even speak SENĆOŦEN, she’s not gonna know what it means. I’m doing it.

She hits ‘send.’ Darya enters from offstage, Dez falls back, Darya catches her and lifts her back up to standing, in a new state.

In this world they call me Dez and I’m Straits Salish of the Saanich Nation. Now that we’ve clarified that, I’m sure you can guess what happens to me in the end. That’s fucked up. I’m tired of dying every night to make others feel something. I don’t want to do it anymore. But I guess I signed up for this. So I’m going to speak with you in a way that is healthy for me, for my family, and hopefully for the other Indigenous women here.

ÍY, ȻNES QENONE HÁLE TÁ,. U, EUQ ȻNES QENONE HÁLE.

(Translating) It’s good to see you all again. I never see you all.

Act 1, Scene 3
Kate’s Conference 1

Lights snap to fill the stage and loud music is blasted. All of the women walk efficiently through the space with an air of importance. KATE sits upstage left to put her heels on. Kate gets up on her feet, walking tenuously and shakily like a baby deer finding its legs. Kate moves in a diagonal line at a slower rhythm than the rest. The moment she lands downstage right, the others have grouped around the piano upstage left. JOANNE sits at the piano, prepared to play.

KATE: So I’m at a four-day Synergy in Science conference here in Halifax.

Joanne begins playing Vivaldi’s ‘Spring.’

I’m a featured speaker tonight. I’m here to deliver my paper on the effects of multiple biological stressors on the honey bee colonies in South America. We’ve discovered that the presence of varroa mites and the presence of microsporidia parasites may be causing a synergistic interaction resulting in higher rates of colony collapse, so, you know, fascinating stuff. Anyway, I’m standing in a circle of colleagues having a conversation with Brian Levine, a brilliant bioengineer, when I feel a man’s hand. Land. On my arm.

She places her left hand on her right arm. Stops, looks at hand.

And I feel it before I see who it belongs to and (looks at guy) yeah, I don’t know this guy, and he’s leaning in as though he’s about to introduce himself but instead he speaks across me to Brian.

Beat, looks at arm, looks at guy, then Brian.

So, he’s talking to Brian, they’re talking about … right, soybeans, crop doubling in Regina. (Smiling and nodding.) They’re having a nice conversation and he’s leaning right in like he’s gonna tell me who he is.

Points to his name tag.

I can see that his name is Robert, so Robert and Brian, I gather, went to King’s College together. His face is now right up close to my face.

Hand still on arm, she looks at it, looks at Robert, looks at Brian.

I can see he’s got a mild case of eczema. He’s still holding my arm and it’s getting very heavy now, it’s sweaty.

She looks around, and the chorus of women begins to sing.

There’s probably ten types of bacteria growing under there. And I’m looking around, trying to find somebody to make eye contact with. And I wonder ….

All women including Kate howl in a dissonant chord: ‘How. Long.’

How long … I’m going to be waiting.

Act 1, Scene 4
Joanne

A recording of Kate’s final ‘waiting’ is heard echoing and growing, then morphing into Joanne’s voice repeating the same word. Kate turns upstage and meets Joanne, who is crossing diagonally downstage; they see each other and have a brief moment of connection. Joanne starts to melt. At first Kate moves out of her way and watches her. Just as she is about to fall, the sound of a telephone echoes in the distance. Kate catches her and sends her downstage centre.

JOANNE: I am waiting for my heart to stop pounding … I just got off the phone with the CJF, who called to tell me that I’ve been given the honour of a Canadian Journalism Foundation lifetime achievement award.

Turns back as if to look at phone.

They said, and I quote, that ‘my commitment to journalism and social activism over four decades embodies what a lifetime of journalism should be.’

All the women file onto the stage in military formation and form a ‘V’ behind Joanne. Jennie’s baby cries; she shushes it and runs to sit on the piano bench, calming the baby.

I will be receiving this award in the autumn in Toronto. (Beat) So.

The chorus of women perform precise, militant choreography, emphasizing Joanne’s text. With each movement, there is a sharp inhale or exhale of breath. They are learning from Joanne, reinforcing her; they are her internal battalion preparing her for war.

That gives me six months to figure out what I’m going to wear. I’m not going to wear pants. At my age, with this face, I’ll look like a man. I gotta wear a dress. But I can’t wear my perfect sleeveless anymore because of these.

Jiggles right tricep.

Ah! I do have an okay dress with a low neckline that features my décolletage – but I have n...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• A Note from the Creators
• Performance History
• Notes on Performance
• Act 1, Scene 1: Spring
• Act 1, Scene 2: Dez
• Act 1, Scene 3: Kate’s Conference 1
• Act 1, Scene 4: Joanne
• Act 1, Scene 5: Flo’s Clock
• Act 1, Scene 6: Jennie Googles
• Act 1, Scene 7: Women Get the Vote
• Act 2, Scene 1: Summer
• Act 2, Scene 2: Kate’s Conference 2
• Act 2, Scene 3: Never Ever
• Act 2, Scene 4: Tracing
• Act 2, Scene 5: Flo’s Pop Song
• Act 2, Scene 6: Walking in the Night
• Act 2, Scene 7: Practising
• Act 2, Scene 8: Darya’s Veils
• Act 3, Scene 1: Fall Dance
• Act 3, Scene 2: The Fall
• Act 3, Scene 3: Kate’s Conference 3
• Act 3, Scene 4: The Shirt Dance
• Act 3, Scene 5: Disappearing Act
• Act 3, Scene 6: The Hunter
• Act 3, Scene 7: Flo’s Dressing Room
• Act 3, Scene 8: Joanne’s Fall
• Act 3, Scene 9: Flo’s Jazz Solo
• Act 3, Scene 10: Anorexia
• Act 4, Interlude: Darya
• Act 4. Scene 1: Winter
• Act 4, Scene 2: Letter to a Friend
• Act 4, Scene 3: Kate’s Send-Off
• Act 4, Scene 4: Joanne’s Winter
• Act 4, Scene 5 Final Text
• Act 4, Scene 6: The Great Gig in the Sky
• Acknowledgements
• About the Authors