by Erin Ajello
Setting:
Time: October of 2017
Place: A college town in New York.
Characters:
Veronica- a college student, 20
Briana- a college student with short hair, 20
Courtney-a college student, 18
Scene 1
(At the back of the stage, throughout the entirety of the play, there is a whiteboard with markers in front of it. How dim or bright the whiteboard appears varies in different scenes, and nameless characters played by two girls who change their clothing slightly every time we see them constantly walk by and add “metoo” to the board. When the play opens, Veronica and Briana are sitting outdoors on two separate benches. They have backpacks next to them, and appear to be chatting either before or after going to a college class.)
Veronica
Me too.
Briana
Yeah, duh. You and everyone else.
Veronica
Why do you sound so casual about this?
Briana
Because we’re college women in New York. Pretty much anyone who fits that category has a #metoo story.
Veronica
If you think that every single woman our age in our city has a story about sexual assault, don’t you think that’s a problem?
Briana
God, obviously it’s a problem. I just don’t think jumping on a hashtag bandwagon is the solution.
Veronica
Neither do I. But starting a conversation about this can be a step towards it.
Briana
Sure. A step towards everyone talking about how if they’re brave enough to tweet about it, they’re helping.
Veronica
How are you this cynical about this?
Briana
Maybe because the “I Have” hashtag is already being used, okay? There are guys using this as an opportunity to laugh at the girls they assaulted. Maybe there’s not too many of those, but maybe they’re also getting away with saying this because the people using this to make sick jokes are hiding under the countless amount of people that keep joining in saying-
Courtney
Me too. I posted mine this morning.
Briana
And the #IHave jerks haven’t commented on it yet?
Veronica
No guy I’m friends with on Facebook commented that on mine.
Courtney
Same. I’m not saying that means every guy we know is perfect, but at least it means we’re not friends with assholes.
Briana
All it means is you’re not friends with assholes dumb enough to publicly comment saying that.
Veronica
God, Bri. I really didn’t think you would jump all over us for being part of this.
Courtney
Yeah, way to show your solidarity.
Briana
Maybe I don’t want to be a part of some sick girl’s club where everyone sits around sharing rape stories.
Veronica
It’s not about just blending into a group of victims and obsessing over what you went through.
Courtney
It’s about showing how huge of an issue this is, coming together, and trying to get this to stop happening so often to so many of us.
Briana
Yeah, that’s what it means to you guys. But it’s not something that I want to be involved with.
Courtney
Don’t you think that the more people that are trying to get involved, the bigger an impact we can have? Why wouldn’t you want to be a part of this?
Briana
I don’t need to justify why I don’t want to “share my story” or “join in making a difference”. You can talk about this all you want, especially if you’re still trying to work through whatever your story is.
Veronica
Bri, that’s a bit harsh. Why can’t we talk about-
Briana
Because as far as I’m concerned, I don’t have a story and I don’t want one. Not. Me.
(Briana grabs her bag and walks away quickly. She heads towards the other side of the stage, where there is a bathroom sink and mirror set up, and lights go out where Veronica and Courtney are sitting. Briana pulls her phone from her bag, and the screen display is shown above her on the stage. She unlocks her phone and opens Facebook. A draft post is visible, with a long post that she quickly scrolls past. We see that the last line of the post is “#metoo”. Briana clicks the “delete draft” button, and hurriedly hits “yes” when it asks for confirmation. She shoves her phone back into the bag, looks into the mirror, and begins to cry. Lights go out and the bathroom set is cleared away.)
Scene 2
(Lights go up to show Veronica in a bedroom set with a desk, desk chair, bed, and laptop. Veronica is sitting on the desk chair facing the audience. There is a desk with makeup supplies in front of her. As she speaks, she applies makeup while facing the audience, as though the space in front of her is a mirror.)
Veronica
Some people say that if something really tragic happens to you when you’re young, it can scar you for the rest of your life. I think the earlier something happens, the more time you have to get over it. To move past it so you can spend your time becoming a new person. I may only be twenty, but compared to my sixteen-year-old self, I’m a new person. See, sixteen-year-old me was admittedly boy crazy. Guys were everything-they were the musicians I listened to, the actors I watched movies for, and basically all my friends and I talked about. Plus, for the most part, boys liked me and I liked flattery. That was pretty much all I wanted from them though- some attention and someone to hold hands with and maybe give up my first kiss for, but only if they were really special. The guy who took my first kiss, my first everything, was not special. He was a stranger who became intimately acquainted with my drink before meeting me. Only, to my memory, we were never introduced. He’s only a hazy memory of a football jersey and bad breath and suffocating weight. After I woke up from a nightmare of a night, I realized what happened and dealt with it the best I could. I told my mom, even though it was the hardest thing I ever had to talk about. I saw a therapist and I talked about what happened and how it affected me. How it changed me. You see, I decided I didn’t want the rest of my life to be defined by one night. I decided to be a person who could be more than just a victim. And now, I’m hoping I can be the kind of woman who uses her voice to defend other women too. Today I’m posting a #metoo story because I’m a new person now, one ready to stand with my sisters and say, ‘Me too’.
(Veronica now has a full face of makeup on. She looks at the audience for another beat while seeming to study the air in front of her. Apparently satisfied with her makeup, she stands up and walks over to her bed. She flips open her laptop, and the screen appears via projection onto the whiteboard. Everything she just said is on her profile page as a post from two days earlier. She has 83 Facebook notifications from the post. As she hovers over them, we can see that her screen says, “Courtney and 56 others liked your post. Ashley and 25 others have commented on your post.” Veronica takes a deep breath and clicks on the comment notifications page. She scrolls through comments quickly, but pauses over a small section of them. In between two comments from girls that both say, “Me too” with broken heart emojis, there is a man’s comment. The Facebook name of the man is “AnonyMike” and the comment says, “’I’m a new person now, one ready to stand with my bros and say, ‘I have’.” Veronica looks upset and confused and clicks on the man’s photo. In his profile picture, the man is holding a red solo cup and wearing a football jersey. Veronica breathes sharply, slams her laptop screen shut, and tries to steady herself. She cries softly for a moment, then picks up her phone and begins to dial it.)
Hey, Courtney. Are you busy, or…? Could you come over? I need to talk to someone. Okay. Yeah. See you in a few.
(Veronica opens her laptop again, screenshots her post with the man’s comment at the bottom, and deletes it. She walks back to the ‘mirror’ and her fingers trace the mascara lines from the makeup she cried off. She shakes her head and laughs bitterly.)
Veronica
Yeah. Definitely a ‘new person’.
(Lights out on Veronica’s room.)
Scene 3
(There is now a classroom set up on the stage. There are several seats arranged in a circle, with paper packets on each seat. Courtney is the only person on stage. She is standing and holding a packet, mouthing the words she is apparently reading off the page. She does this for a beat, with exaggerated expressions before sitting down in a chair at the back of the circle. She is facing the audience at a diagonal slant when she begins to speak.)
Courtney
Everyone knows that everyone around them is an actor. Everyone lies, or pretends to be someone they aren’t, or makes themselves appear better than they really are. I decided to major in acting because at least in an acting class, everyone knows that we’re all just playing our parts. But outside of this room, people want to appear genuine. They want you to think that they’re sincere because being labeled “fake” is one of the worst things for a teenage girl to be called. That, or “immature”. So far today, I’ve been called both. But hey, I should have expected it, right? When I made my Me Too post, I didn’t give any specifics. I didn’t lie about something happening that didn’t. I just also didn’t have as bad a story as Veronica. I didn’t think that you could only use the hashtag if you were physically assaulted. I mean, I’ve been made uncomfortable by guys. I’ve had guys follow me home, and corner me in hallways until I told them my name and gave them my number, and rank every part of my body according to “fuckability.” But, according to everything my parents, teachers, and bosses have said to me when I complained about any of these things, that’s “just boys being boys.” Well, maybe I think boys can be better. Or can at least act like they are. I did mean everything I wrote in my post. Guys have put me in positions that made me feel unsafe and made me feel like I was in the wrong for it. Like I was guilty for somehow looking a certain way that made them treat me like this. I didn’t think that girls were going to compare posts. I didn’t expect to read a comment from my sorority sister saying, “Yeah, yeah, this happens to all of us. You weren’t really raped though, right? So why post anything?” I really didn’t expect to see another one say, “Yeah, compared to what Veronica went through, this is nothing.” I hadn’t realized that if my story wasn’t as bad as someone else’s, I didn’t have the right to say anything. I didn’t know that everything I went through was “nothing.” But I do know if we keep calling other girl’s experiences nothing, if we keep saying things aren’t really that bad, then nothing is going to change. No one will learn to act better.
(Courtney stands up and looks at the script again. She considers it for a beat before placing it on her chair and walking out of the classroom. Lights out.)
Scene 4
(Veronica and Courtney are both sitting outdoors on the same bench, with their backpacks next to them. This is the same set from Scene 1.)
Veronica
Do you want me to talk to them?
Courtney
No, please, no. I don’t want this to be a big thing.
Veronica
Yeah, but they’re our sisters. They shouldn’t have commented and said what they did. If we just talk to them, maybe they’ll understand that-
Courtney
That I’m a stupid freshman who needs her big sorority sister to stand up for her over a Facebook post? No, Veronica. It’s not worth it. I want to just forget about it.
Veronica
I know, but-
Courtney
Besides, you deleted your post, too, right?
Veronica
Yeah, but that was for a totally different reason.
Courtney
Yeah, but either way, we both would rather delete it and move on than have to deal with people being assholes. So let’s just move on.
(Enter Briana, holding a school bag and sitting at the bench next to them.)
Briana
Hey, guys.
Courtney
Great, and now Briana gets to be right about all this.
Veronica
It’s not about who gets to say they’re right, Cor.
Briana
Okay, I usually like being told I was right, but you guys look upset. What’s up?
Courtney
Nothing.
Veronica
It’s just that people did end up posting some stupid stuff on our #metoo posts.
Briana
Wait, people we know?
Veronica
Some, yeah. Guess you were right. We do know asshole guys and apparently even some girls that had a problem with what we said.
Briana
Wow, that’s fucked. Sorry you guys had to deal with that.
Courtney
I guess we should’ve just not said anything, like you said.
Veronica
Definitely. I wish I hadn’t posted anything.
Briana
Well, wait, I didn’t want to be right. It’s not as if I wanted you guys to feel worse for trying to speak up. I just wanted you make sure you both realized that posting under a hashtag wasn’t going to change what already happened.
Courtney
Yeah, duh. We obviously knew that.
Veronica
But we didn’t realize that it could make us feel worse about what already happened. Whatever, can we just change the subject?
Courtney
Come on, we should probably get to class.
Briana
Sure. You guys go ahead, I’ll catch up.
(Veronica and Courtney take their bags and leave. Briana sits there and watches them leave before taking her phone out and walking away. Lights out.)
Scene 5
(Briana is standing alone on stage. The entire back wall of the stage is one long mirror, with the whiteboard now at the left of the stage. When girls enter and exit the stage to write on the whiteboard during this scene, they enter from the left side, write on the board, and leave from that same side so that they do not walk in front of Briana. Briana faces the mirror at an angle the entire time she speaks, and the audience can only read her expressions off the mirrors.)
Briana
(Briana is finishing stretching as the lights go up. When she starts to speak, she dances in front of the mirror.) I used to do ballet when I was in middle school. I know, I don’t exactly look like a dancer. I hated the costumes that came with it, the girly tutus, the pink everything. But I loved being able to move with the music. My hair used to be long then, too. It would take forever to get it into a bun for practice. Whenever practice was over, the first thing I did was always take my hair down. (Briana stops dancing and for the rest of the time she talks, varies between pacing and standing still in front of the mirror.) I wish I had left it up when I walked home. I wasn’t thinking that my hair could be a handle for someone. I didn’t think about things like that. I thought about dancing and homework and hanging out with my friends. And then, suddenly, I had thoughts that scared me. I thought what happened must have been my fault. I thought, well, this is why young girls shouldn’t walk home alone. This is why I should have asked my mom to pick me up from class. This is what I get for existing without thinking of the consequences. How dare I walk home without considering how dangerous it is to walk alone on a city street for half an hour? I should have known better, right? But I learned. I quit ballet. I cut my hair to my shoulders all by myself. And I threw away all my pink clothes. I joined basketball and when I had to go home from practice, I would leave in my sweat-covered uniform with my hood up over my head. Oh, and I took the bus, so I only had to walk by myself for four minutes. I changed everything about me because I thought that was the answer. Until about a month ago. I did everything I usually do when I’m on the way home from my night class: I put earbuds and a hoodie on, was wearing my tomboy clothes, made sure I looked down and walked fast. But I wasn’t fast enough, or maybe smart enough, to outrun 200 pounds of violent intent. I thought now that I’ve changed so much on the outside, I would never again feel like an embarrassed fourteen year old. Yet now here I am, fourteen in my twenty year old body, trying to figure out how to change this body so that no one will ever touch it again. And while I try to quietly calculate this, try to solve this problem with only my mirror as my confidant, suddenly everyone is talking about rape. I turned off notifications for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, and every news channel app I have. I don’t want to have a conversation, or hear anyone else’s. What I want is to never feel like this again and to find some kind of guarantee that this won’t ever happen again. None of the hashtags everyone’s talking about come with a contract swearing that speaking out about this will actually change anything. Or that speaking out won’t somehow make things worse. But I’m starting to think that maybe this can’t get any worse. I definitely don’t think I could feel worse. I can’t really feel anything except angry anymore. And angry is enough to make me want to speak up. I don’t owe anyone “my story”. I don’t want anyone to read this and say they understand. I want my anger to help change something for the better. I want to scream for everyone who has ever been forced to be silent. I want to yell until every potential rapist hears that we’re fighting the fuck back. I want us to stop blaming ourselves, even though I know we don’t mean to. I want to stop feeling guilty because someone else took away my innocence. I want things to change. And I’m willing to scream my lungs out until they finally do. (Briana steps back from the mirror and draws her fist back. She aims at the mirror, starts to extend her arm, and instead draws it back again. Instead of punching it, she takes a deep breath and puts her chin up. She pulls out her phone, and we see her screen. Everything she just said is on a phone memo. She copies and posts the text into a Facebook post, and hits “post now.” Putting her phone away, she walks over to the whiteboard and writes “metoo.” She exits the stage, and the lights stay on for a moment, letting the audience see only the mirrors and the whiteboard, which is now full.)
The End
