Performance Script

Scene 1: In the living room. There will be two chairs, a table, and two triangles for background with poster of Kim Jong-un

(Light on)

F & M: Long live for Great comrade Kim Jong-un

F: There are nothing changes in our life at North Korea. The life is colorless.

M: People believe they are living happily under Kim Jong-un, but actually we lost our freedom already. Just like how we lost our daughter.

F: We did not lose our daughter, she is ……

M: Do you know all these days, all I think about is our daughter. I wonder is she having a good life in South Korea or not? She was so young when you send her out.

F: She was the treasure of us. The colorless life becomes colorful for me because of her. But the world outside of our country is much better for her to grow up.

M: I don’t understand! Was it better for her to live alone in another country?

F: I know it would not be easy to her! But you don’t know about outside. Beyond the mountains of mountains, there are big cities with giant buildings, children learn real knowledge at schools and their lights shining up their whole city during the night. She would have a better life at South Korea!

M: Again! Those things you heard about from your illegal radio.You graduated from a college! Why you believe that thing?

F: My College let me know there is a better world outside. And that’s why I sent our daughter out with all our money, she deserves a better life.

M: But we will never know she has the better life or not!

(Sit down, and Drinking tea, pause)

F: You know, I miss her too. Days and nights, our family is not a family because we miss one fo the most important members.

M: We all miss her. The days and nights here are so colorless for me

F:My love, I have an idea. Let’s escape to South Korea too.

M: But last time was so difficult for our daughter to get out! You spend all our money to let the soldiers send her out. We won't have such amount of money again!

F: Last time was a special situation. But we can still escape now. There are people who want to escape all the time. And they have secret transport ways in the mountains and on the sea.

M: But nobody knows those people succeed escaping or not. Maybe they die on the way.

F: I know it will be dangerous. But it worth trying for a better life, to live together with our daughter! Usually, escape from the mountain is safer, but I don’t want both of us to get caught together.

M: So what do you think is safer?

F: I will escape from the sea, and get attention from the coast guards. Then you can have time to escape through mountains. Trust me, we will have a better life in South Korea.

(Light off, scene changes. Father will stand in the stage right, the mother will stand in stage left. They will take turn reading their letters)

Father Letter 1:

   Now I know that besides the mountains, there are timeless waters, endless seas, and lots of people in this world whose names don’t matter to anyone but themselves.

   I don’t know how long we’ll be at sea. There are thirty-six other deserting souls on this little boat with me. White sheets with bright red spots float as our sail.

   When I got on board I thought I could still smell the semen and the innocence lost to those sheets. I look up there and I think of you and all those times you resisted. Sometimes I felt like you wanted to, but I knew you wanted me to respect you. I knew it would be hard for you to let our daughter go. You thought I was testing your will, but all I wanted was to be near you. Maybe it’s like you’ve always said. I imagine too much. Maybe the outside world is not that perfect. I am afraid I am going to start having nightmares once we get deep at sea. I really hate having the sun in my face all day long. If you see me again, I’ll be so dark.

   Lastly, Whatever you do, please be careful with the soldiers. They’re almost not human.

Mother Letter 1:

     I remembered you once told me that the soldiers are almost not human. And yes, I agree with you today. Bullets day and night. I thank god our daughter got out when she did. I used to thought butterflies are beautiful whenever they appear in the spring after those cold and long winters. I don’t sketch met butterflies anymore. Because i don’t even like seeing the sun, besides manman says that butterflies can bring news. The bright ones bring happy news and the black ones warn us of death. The only few I see on this journey are the black butterflies.

Father Letter 2:

There are nothing on the sea. The whole sea looks like one. I cannot even tell if we are about to drop off the face of the earth. Maybe the world is flat and we are going to find out, like the navigators of old. As you know, I am not very religious. Still, I pray every night that we won’t hit a storm.

But still, we had a crack at the bottom of the boat that looks as though, if it gets any bigger, it will split the boat into two. The captain cleared us aside and used some wood to clog up the hole. Everyone started asking him if it was okay if they were going to be okay. He said he hoped the Coast Guard would find us soon.

The night I had a nightmare about I was at the bottom of the sea. It was not a good time.

The next days We spent most of days telling stories. Someone says, Krik? You answer, Krak! And they say, I have many stories I could tell you, and then they go on and tell these stories to you, but mostly to themselves. Sometimes it feels like we have been at sea longer than the many years that I have been on this earth. The sun comes up and goes down. That is how you know it has been a whole day.

Mother Letter 2:

       I was terrified, I saw a group of students who got shot in front of fort dimanche prison around the border of our homeland. They were demonstrating the bodies for all these young generation trying to escape recently. I’m concerned, even scared, about our daughter’s situation and yours, my love, I hope you are safer on the boat out there. After what I saw, I’m afraid that I will never go outside again. Not even in the yard to breathe the air. The soldiers, and even people, are always watching you, like vultures. At night, I can’t sleep. I count the bullets in the dark behind those woods I passed with great fear. I keep wondering if it is true. Did our girl really get out? And will you? Will i?

Father Letter 3:

The water is really piling into the boat. We take turns pouring bowls of it out. I don’t know what is keeping the boat from splitting into. And people are throwing out their caring from the boat.

I am more comfortable now with the idea of dying. Not that I have completely accepted it, but I know that it might happen. Don’t be mistaken. I really do not want to die. I know I am no good to anybody dead, but if that is what’s coming, I know I cannot just scream at it and tell it to go away.

   I hope another group of young people can do the radio show. For a long time that radio show was my whole life. It was nice to have the radio like that for a while, where we could talk about what we wanted from government, what we wanted for the future of our country. It was the radio let me see all those colorful lives outside of our country.

   Beloved North Korea, there is no place like you. I had to leave you before I could understand you.

Mother Letter 3:

      I will keep writing to you my love, I thought marriage will keep us together safe and sound until we die. I hope it will. When we see each other again as we promised, it will seem like we lost no time.

     On my way to you, I met a group of people escaping as well; yesterday. The soldiers arrested a lot of people near South Korea’s border, I did not know that there will still be soldiers from the North, we all did not know. They shot a whole bunch down. I am writing you from under the banyan tree in the yard in our new shelter. Also, why do I feel you leaving me even though I’m getting closer to the destiny? I feel like all  those mountains are pushing me farther and farther away from you/

Father Letter 4:

Maybe I was too positive about our plan.

The boat is sinking all the time. They say I have to throw my notebook out. The water is rising again and they are scooping it out. I asked for a few seconds to write this last page and then promised that I would let it go. I know you will probably never see this, but it was nice imagining that I had you here to talk to. I hope you and our daughter will have the life we dream about in South Korea.

Perhaps I was chosen from the beginning of time to live there, at the bottom of the sea. Maybe this is why I had the nightmare. Maybe this was my invitation to go. In any case, I know that my memory of you will live even there as I become a child of the sea.

(Scene changes. Mother arrive in South Korea, she waits in the XXX building.)

M:

    My husband, I wanted you to know that I understood what you have done all these years for me and our daughter. I did not told you that I knew this thing one of a friend we had told me. Those bastards were coming to get our daughter. They were going to arrest her, for her questioning the government in class. They were going to peg her as a member of the youth federation and then take her away. You heard it before I did. You went to the post and paid them money, all the money we had. Your small land in the village that you’re father left for you, you gave it all away to save her life. I was so mad for not knowing what really happened that day, i have no words to thank you for this. You are the man who gave everything to save our lives.

  

   On my final steps here, I began to run and run so the black butterflies that appeared wouldn’t land on me. I know what must have happened. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I cannot see staying back in North Korea forever. I am writing to you for the last time. Last night on the radio while waiting for you, I heard that another boat sank off the coast. I can’t think about you being in there in the waves. \

(Fade out lights)

  Behind these mountains are more mountains and more black butterflies still and a sea that is endless like my love for you. My dear, where are you? I am right here.

(Black out)

End