Beth is a woman mourning the death of her husband. The scene starts with her speaking to the media, expressing her appreciation of the support she has received since her husband, an unarmed African American man was shot dead, murdered. She thanks the community for their: calls, flowers and cards expressing their love and support. She switches back and forth within the performance from being the wife in mourning of a murder that should not have happened and being the battered woman of the man who was murdered. The public presentation is one that has been seen often in recent history but what happens when the cameras are gone and what had happened before the situation occurred are very different realities. Beth is torn between privately feeling a silent appreciation to the officer who killed her abusive husband and being the face of what has become an epidemic. As she collects the last of the cards and decides that keeping her private life private we see the soul that had once been lost be found again, in a silent double edged sword of loosing her husband in a public murder and gaining her freedom in a private and silent “thank you.” The tables have suddenly changed for her and she can now move forward free of fear of being beaten to death and losing the child she is presently carrying like she had before. Life is now shining on her. *While the story deals with the murder of an African American man by a police officer Beth does not have to be African American.
DI/ Female- Another Breath
$50.00Price
- (Beth collects herself and her thoughts before she steps to the podium. There are lights flashing from the reporters that have assembled. She quiets the audience before she speaks.) First on behalf of myself and my family I would like to thank all of the media outlets for attending. Yesterday I was sitting in my living room eating popcorn and laughing (Beat) I was laughing at the comedian I was watching on television who had said some joke about how stupid relationships are. He said that men and women should never be together because men aren’t faithful and women aren’t smart. (Laughs) My dad would say something like that to my mom sometimes and then she would hit him in the arm and he’d grab her around her waist, laugh and kiss. (Beat) Sorry. Last night was the last night of normalcy that I believe I will ever have because when I woke up this morning I woke up a widow. Two detectives came to my house and told me my husband had been killed the night before. Like any normal person I asked them how he died, they looked at each other like neither one of them wanted to answer but they both knew. He had been shot and killed, by a police officer at the Mallow Hills Police Station. Another black man murdered, added to the list. Shot. Dead.