Prologue
SETTING: On one end of the stage, TRACIE stands in front of a group of students in a dilapidated classroom at Brooklyn College. A few blocks down Bedford Avenue, and on the other end of the stage, ISIDORE begins a lesson for a small cluster of children at D’var Torah Day School.
TRACIE
Ok. Let’s do it. Make sure to turn off your cell phones and turn on your minds. We’ve got a lot to talk about.
ISIDORE
Hello class. Thank you for inviting me today to…to.
Where is this?
(Beat).
D’var Torah Day School.
Very good.
And since you are at D’var Torah. This is what I will give.
TRACIE
I’m going to betray my instincts and trust that you all completed the reading for today.
Right?
What did you think?
(Beat).
Well.
Speechless. That’s how I was too the first time I read To the Lighthouse. Even though this is English 101, I want to try something a bit more complex. Y’all can handle it.
ISIDORE
Nu, little pishers we will discuss a matter that is of utmost importance. That is the meaning of the Great Tree of Life. What is this? //I want you to stop and think.
TRACIE
/I want you to stop and think. Listen to your thoughts. What do the words in your head sound like? How do you describe the world? Woolf would spend hours listening to herself. Writing down the words. Recording her thoughts. Her diaries are full of it.
ISIDORE
We will begin in the beginning. What did God create?
(Beat, eliciting student responses, etc).
Besides ice cream.
(Beat).
In the beginning. What did God create?
(Beat).
Before jet fighters.
(Beat).
Yes. Very good. God created the heavens and the earth.
We only know so far of the earth.
And he created a garden. In there he made the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. And the Tree of Life which was an etrog. Who would give it all up for an apple?
TRACIE
What Woolf does in this book is to present a discourse on perception. How a single action can have infinite interpretations depending on what your angle to the event is.
ISIDORE
The Tree of Life. When God, blessed be he, threw Adam and Eve from the Garden was it for taking of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge?
(Beat).
No! This was not the case. It was because he did not want for mankind to eat from the fruit of the Tree of Life. “And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat, and live forever.” God does not want for man to, like Him, to live forever.
Would you like this, little pishers?
TRACIE
Remember to think of what the kitchen table looks like when you’re in the living room. The philosophical question is: does the table even exist if you can’t see it? Woolf’s question is: how does the table exist in memory and perception?
ISIDORE
Yes?
Not me. Forever is a long time. Longer than the time until your birthday.
TRACIE
Let’s do a thought experiment.
ISIDORE
No. Because we do not have of the Tree of Life we will not live forever. And you will live your lives and then they will end. And we must think: who will we leave the world to?
TRACIE
(Throughout the next sequence TRACIE and ISIDORE both begin to approach one another at the center of the stage, though they should not recognize the others’ presence).
On my way to class I picked a branch off a tree.
(Takes out a branch).
I said a little apology to it. Told it it was better off giving up a limb for the sake of understanding Virginia Woolf than becoming a statistics textbook. Now: I want you to tell me. What is it you think of when you see this branch? Go ahead, tell me.
(Beats as necessary as students answer, etc.).
Yes, a branch. Very original.
Ok, yeah. The oak trees on your avenue growing up. That’s nice.
What else?
ISIDORE
For me, I leave this to you. To carry on. For this you must do the best with what you have. You must protect your family. You must lead the life of righteousness.
TRACIE
When I see it I think of the trees along the Charles River in Boston, where I went to school.
ISIDORE
You must make amends because someday you will be at an end.
TRACIE
I think of sitting under those branches reading… it reminds me why I’ve strove for something…to have my own vision, maybe? It reminds me why I’ve always tried to keep moving.
ISIDORE
For you, today I brought a special gift.
(Checks pockets).
TRACIE
I need all the reminders I can get. Sometimes if you don’t keep going, the weeds and the underbrush and all that… nature stuff, they just grow up around you til the daylight is all gone.
ISIDORE
Maybe I have forgotten it?
TRACIE
Well.
We’ll just put it on the table for awhile while we think about that.
ISIDORE
Ah, here. I have left it on the table.
(ISIDORE takes the branch from TRACIE).
Such a precious thing should not be left here. I have brought you a very branch from The Tree of Life, mayn kinder.
(Interacting with students, etc.).
Why, yes, it is from the Garden of Eden.
Just on the way here, I stopped by to pick this up to show to you.
No, I can’t tell you where it is. But I’ll give you a clue. It is not far from the Coney Island. That’s all I can say.
Now listen. Life is short. We must remember to work for future generations. This I believe. But part of working towards this future is in remembrance. Putting down roots. The tree reminds you to put them down. Remember who you are.