Blind Spot by Deborah Girard-Brown

This Play is the copyright of the Author and must NOT be Performed without the Author's PRIOR consent

ACT I

SCENE 1

SETTING: Interior of a photography studio

AT RISE:

EFFIE, a dark-skinned African-American woman, in her 40s,
is sitting on the floor sifting through what appears to be dozens of
boxes of slides, contact sheets and studio memorabilia

On the walls are blown up examples of her father, MAGNUS’ work:
middle-class African-American family moments: weddings, proms, family
portraits

EFFIE is a tattoo artist. Her arms are intricately tattooed

LOVIE, a beautiful, light-skinned African-American woman, about the
same age, joins her

LOVIE: Look who’s here!

EFFIE looks up

EFFIE: Well, now I know I really am getting ready for a funeral!
Lovie, who was it that died the last time we met?

LOVIE: Nice to see you too, cuz. What’s all this?

Gestures to the mess on the floor

EFFIE: Negatives. Hundreds of them. All waiting to be put in some
kind of order, I guess.

LOVIE: All Mr. Magnus’?

EFFIE: (shrugs) Must be 40 years worth. Figured I’d start clearing it
out, now that it’s “official,” before/

/LOVIE: Before the “better half” starts in?

EFFIE (laughs): You got that right.

LOVIE: Anything worth keeping?

EFFIE shrugs. She holds up a negative strip to the light. She keeps
working as they talk

EFFIE: I didn’t spend much time in here once Joe passed.

LOVIE picks up a few of the photos, looking over them carefully.

LOVIE: I don’t know most of the families there in those negatives.

EFFIE: Well, New York can be kind of a hike sometimes…

EFFIE/ LOVIE: /But MAGNUS knew everybody!

LOVIE: He made me laugh so!

EFFIE: Oh, but he was a grumpy old coot!

LOVIE: True, but funny.

EFFIE: Had a real good eye!

LOVIE: He ever talk to you about this?

EFFIE: Photography? Oh yes, all the time. I’m not surprised by all
this…The way he watched everything.

LOVIE: ….the light, shadows, color…

EFFIE uses her hands to frame a shot in the air.

LOVIE: ….the way a movie looked like, rather than (laughs)

EFFIE: … What the story was about!? Yes, I remember!…

LOVIE: So annoying!

EFFIE: You’d be getting to the good part...

LOVIE: and he’d be criticizing the shot!

The two women laugh

EFFIE: I used to think that he was a little... (gestures with a
finger in a circle near her head)

LOVIE: Crazy? Nah, to him that was how you told a story.
EFFIE: By the way things looked. I guess you knew my father real
well.

LOVIE: I wish. I really liked him. I knew looks were important to
him.

EFFIE: Well, if that’s so, then answer this: Why’d he marry such
an ugly woman?

LOVIE: So mean!

EFFIE: Me?

LOVIE: Her!

EFFIE: Bossy! Pushy!

LOVIE: Not the easiest person to get along with.

EFFIE: And need I repeat? Uggggly! That hair!

LOVIE: Alright, alright, let’s try to be nice.

EFFIE: What for? Was she ever to us?

LOVIE: Not that I can recall, but you’re the daughter.

EFFIE: You’ve been to my Daddy’s shop. Ever see any pictures of her?

LOVIE shakes her head

EFFIE: Not a one. What does that tell you?

LOVIE: He thought she was ugly too? I don’t really know.. Remember
what he said to you when you were carrying Henry? (imitating Magnus’
voice) Now don’t you be giving me no ugly grandbabies! (laughs)

EFFIE: He liked having you around, that’s for sure. But he
surrounded himself with the likes of my mother.

LOVIE: Maybe she was good looking once?

EFFIE: Nah

LOVIE: You’re right…. nicer, then?

EFFIE looks at LOVIE in disbelief

LOVIE: Alright, alright. Seems mean to trash talk your Momma at a
time like this……Aunt Sissy dragged me here all the time. She loved
photography, too. I guess between the two of them that’s how I got
the bug too. They were real close, you know. She told me he taught her
a lot, and his lady friend too.

EFFIE: What lady friend?

LOVIE: I don’t know. Never met her. Aunt Sissy said she was always
on the road, working, taking pictures. A real free spirit type.

EFFIE: Too free to settle down. Like you. That kinda life has its perks.

LOVIE: I always thought Aunt Sissy wanted to be like her, but
couldn’t, because of me.

EFFIE: Wasn’t your fault your mother died, and Sissy took you in.
That was her choice.

LOVIE: I know but still.. I could tell it would always make her sad
to talk about her.. Wondering how life could’ve been...

EFFIE: Look, we all do. Do you think I don’t wonder where I’d be
if Joe hadn’t stopped at that gas station just as it was being
robbed? Worse day in my life, losing him. But as I understand it,
Sissy’s dance card wasn’t exactly overflowing. You were her last
chance to have a family. You were not a mistake for her.

LOVIE: I must have been somebody’s mistake. No man ever claimed me.
Not even after my mother died. Mr. Magnus was the only man who ever
showed me some kindness as a child. Let Aunt Sissy give me the family
name. That meant a lot to me.

EFFIE: What more do you want, Lovie? You got a name, had two
mothers, what else do you need?

LOVIE: I want to fill in the gap!

EFFIE: So that’s why you’re here now? To dig up some family
dirt?

LOVIE: Look Effie, when Sissy died I figured I would never know more
about myself. It was like having a door slammed in my face. Then when
I heard your father had passed, I thought there might be one last
chance to be more than that girl the Washingtons took in from time to
time.

EFFIE: Family can’t solve all your problems ….answer all your
questions. Sometimes having a family just makes things worse, believe
me. Somethings just have to stay the way they are. You have to
accept that.

LOVE: Effie, I know we aren’t really friends, and you weren’t
always happy to see me whenever I showed up. I always thought things
could be different between us if….

EFFIE: If what? If I wasn’t so dark? Looked a little more like you,
so I could have a chic-er look rather than (gestures her body) look
like this?

LOVIE: That’s just not fair. I’ve never treated you any way but
as family. Why do you always have to give me such a hard way to go?
Haven’t we fought this war far too many times? You’ve got this
blind spot about me that you just won’t let go of. Like a dog with a
bone.

EFFIE looks regretful but says nothing.

EFFIE: You’ve seen the kids since you’ve been back?

LOVIE: Henry.

EFFIE: I think I’ll be supporting that boy for a long time.

LOVIE: Why do you say that?

EFFIE: Because he’s got this idea that he’s going to be a photographer.

LOVIE: Timing couldn’t be better. Lots happening now.

EFFIE: You’ve been encouraging him.

LOVIE: What? Why do you say that?

EFFIE: Because I know you!! How do you go and get up in his mind so
fast, when you haven’t been around for more than 10 minutes! I swear, Lovie! I want him to
go to dental school, where he can make some real money. Not scrounging around, living in
his car, taking high school senior pictures around the country. The only pictures I want
him shooting is down the throat of some rich white man who needs root canal and is only too
happy to pay top dollar to keep his snowy whites intact!

LOVIE: I’m not trying to influence him! We were just talking, that’s all!

EFFIE: Lovie, I don’t mean to sound rude, you coming down here from New York
for Daddy’s services and all, but I can’t have you interfering with my family business.
I got a plan for him and his sister and I don’t need nobody planting mind bombs in my way.

LOVIE: I’m not. I didn’t mean to. We were just talking, that’s all.

EFFIE: Sometimes talking brings the things you don’t want to be talking about, up. And then
there’s no turning back.

LOVIE: I didn’t let any genie out of the bottle, Effie. Henry
must’ve said this to you before. I’m sure it wasn’t the first
time you heard it.

EFFIE: Yes, but with a big difference – nobody here encouraged him!

LOVIE: You mean nobody but your father. Who understood him, one artist to another.

EFFIE: Nobody was listening to Magnus. And don’t you think you
calling Henry an artist is gonna change me and my way of seeing
things.. There’s no way this is going down smooth with me. An
artist! (grunts)

LOVIE: Henry listened. What do you think ---all those dreams would
all be over once Magnus was gone? Being an artist isn’t a curse.

EFFIE: Yes I did! I thought the book would be closed on the subject
once Daddy was in another place.

LOVIE: Dreams aren’t so easily forgotten. I know. Couldn’t you
just point me in the right direction, now that I’m here.

EFFIE gestures around the studio

EFFIE: There’s a whole lot of mystery in this stuff. Maybe I’ll
find some answers too.

The two women begin to select boxes, open albums.

EFFIE: I was thinking, maybe he’d like it if we invited back some
of his best customers, or models even. You know, to the repast.
Afterwards.. Kind of celebrate his work, the art of capturing it all.

LOVIE smiles

EFFIE: Now what?

LOVIE : (imitating EFFIE’s voice) “The art of capture?” Well,
Effie, if you don’t almost sound like a sensitive soul yourself!

EFFIE reaches for some old prop to toss at LOVIE

Act 1

SCENE 2

SETTING: MAGNUS STUDIO. A wall of the studio is covered with a photographs

Most are stylistically the same as the opposite wall, but interspersed
with the traditional photographs, some more artful interpretations
that seem to belong to a different photographer

EFFIE is taking a break, sitting in front of an old backdrop

LOVIE ENTERS from rear of the studio with a box full of photos

EFFIE: What’s that?

LOVIE: A mystery, I think.

EFFIE: Whose?

LOVIE: That’s the mystery – I’m not sure. Take a look at these – all the same woman.

LOVIE shows EFFIE some of the photos

LOVIE: Know her?

EFFIE shakes her head. LOVIE studies a series of photos in particular

LOVIE shares the photos with EFFIE

LOVIE: Look at the way your Daddy photographed her. As if he was
trying to hide who she really was.

EFFIE: Not surprising – seeing that she’s half naked, most of the time!

LOVIE looks at EFFIE as if she’s had an epiphany.

EFFIE: No, no, stop thinking that!

LOVIE stands up and starts to pace.

LOVIE: Well it could be!
EFFIE: It’s a long shot, Lovie. We don’t even know who she is, or
even if she’s still alive.

LOVIE: We could ask.

EFFIE: Ask who? My mother? Oh yeah, (as if speaking to her) ‘Hey
Momma, who’s this naked woman, that’s not you? Know where we can
reach her?

LOVIE: Hmm, maybe we can find out without Lily’s help.

EFFIE: Not the kind of surprise you want to bring home to the
family, Lovie.

LOVIE: But this could be her!

EFFIE: And it could stir up a lot of bad blood.

LOVIE turns away

EFFIE: Think of it this way. If this is an old somethin’
somethin’ Daddy had years ago and my Momma didn’t know – it
would just kill her. You know how she feels about her looks. And if
she did know, we’d just be stirring up old wounds. What kind of
memorial would that be for anyone?

LOVIE: I know, but damnit, it’s the only clue I’ve got!

EFFIE: It ain’t even a clue – you don’t even know if this woman
was a customer, a girl friend, a student in an art class or what.
She’s just naked!

LOVIE: Naked stands for something! Women didn’t just take off their
clothes and pose like this (makes an exaggerated gesture) for a
polaroid in those days! This is intimate – look at those photographs!

EFFIE exams the photos more carefully.

EFFIE: Think you look like her? Can’t really see her face. Sissy
ever say your mother was a model?

LOVIE: You think Aunty Sissy would tell me if my mother sat naked for
your father? If it was up to Sissy, she’d have me believe I was the
second immaculate conception!

EFFIE paces, with photos in her hand

EFFIE: Hmmmm

LOVIE: I always thought it was odd the way she’d get all melancholy
whenever I’d bring it up. You’d think she was the orphan!

EFFIE: Ok, so what do you want to do?

LOVIE: Look through Mr. Magnus’ old records, maybe he’s left
something in the studio I can use to track her down.

EFFIE: You really don’t know what could be a clue, Lovie. So you
just gonna look through everything? Kinda an invasion of privacy, don’t you
think?

LOVIE: You want to sell this business? You have to inventory everything anyway, clean the place up, and while you’re doing that it’s only natural you’d come across a few old notes. Henry or whoever buys the business isn’t going to want most of this stuff anyway.

EFFIE gives her a sharp look at the mention of HENRY

LOVIE: If he was to take over the business – after dental school and all.

EFFIE: I guess families keep secrets the hardest. Ok, if you help me get the shop in shape,
you can do a little sleuthing at the same time. But my mother isn’t to know what you are up to.

LOVIE: I promise.

LOVIE turns to walk away.

EFFIE: We only got three days.

LOVIE turns, rushes back to hug EFFIE

LIGHTS dim

[End of Extract]