Invisible Prisons
Three people on stage
All standing tall but looking different directions (lcr)
A piece of chain is on the floor in front of each one.
A small metal garbage can is in the centre in front of the mic.
(can propped up to make max sound when chain dropped in.
The three people are silent
And then they start chanting quietly
Fate fate fate
Date date date
Mate mate mate
Chants now gradually get louder and louder
And the three characters gradually bend more and more forward heads down
Real emphasis on the “ate” syllable. Almost spit it out
Negate
Berate
Isolate
Alienate
Instigate
Annihilate
characters are now bent over and pick up the length of chain in front
And put the chain over their shoulders.
Character 1 in the centre stands up straight and steps forward to the
Character 2 and 3 remain bent
Characters should fully embrace their story.
It IS their story
The telling of each story needs to be slow, and emotional
With body movements and expression
Character1
white scarf is hidden under black shirt to make her look shapeless
I had a great childhood. I was an only child, totally loved and doted on by my parents and grandparents. Everyone thought I was perfect. I had heaps of friends and I did really well in school. I thought about becoming a doctor like my Dad but I decided to become a pharmacist so that I would have regular working hours and could be home with my children. Long before I met Tod and married him, I dreamed of having a perfect little house and a perfect little family.
I met Tod right after I got my first job as a pharmacist. He was a drug sales man and he had the most beautiful smile and he wore really crisp white shirts. When he came into the drug store, I asked him what the most beautiful man in the world was doing in our store. That really made him laugh. And before he left, we’d made a date for the next night. We got engaged two months after we met. A year later, we had a beautiful wedding. I was so happy. I could hardly wait to start a family. Tod always drank too much, and I teased him about it. He’d just laugh and was still caring and kind and I thought that his drinking would end once he was a father. When our first daughter, Tracy, was born, Tod changed. He started complaining about everything. He said that I was fat because I wasn’t back to my pre-pregnancy weight. He degraded me and criticized my house keeping. My worry and depression only made me eat more. When he was drinking, he’d really be nasty. Finally I left him and my daughter and I came to the transition house. He stopped drinking and seemed like the wonderful man I had married and so I went back to him. Then I got pregnant and he started drinking again. He’d start on Wednesday and drink right through the weekend. When he was drinking, he’d throw me around and threaten me. I knew that I couldn’t stay with him and I left him again for five months.
With one three year old and another child on the way and no husband to take care of us, I couldn’t imagine how we would manage. I still dreamt about having a perfect little family. Tod promised me that we would have that perfect family, if only I would give him one more chance. As soon as we moved back home, he started drinking again. He’d be out in the garage every night until 2 am drinking beer after beer. Then he’d expect me to be happy to see him in bed. He wouldn’t listen when I asked him to brush his teeth because the smell of alcohol made me feel sick. Then on “that” night, my little girl was sleeping with me and he was hollering. She saw way too much. I tried to lift her up to get her out of the bedroom and he lost it. All reason left him. I tried to grab the phone to call 911 and he stuffed the phone down his pants. “Don’t worry, I’m not going there,” I quipped. He pushed me into a rocking chair and started to choke me. He weighed twice as much as me. There was nothing I could do. He squeezed harder and harder. I was terrified. Suddenly I felt a huge peace surround me, and I was out of my body looking down on the room. All the terror was gone. Looking down, I could see Tracy screaming. I could see myself in the chair . I could see Tod towering over me squeezing harder and harder and harder and harder….
Character 1 lays down under white scarf
Negate
Berate
Isolate
Alienate
Instigate
Annihilate
Character 2 and 3 chant and thump chains
Character 2
I was an overachiever and a journalism student. When I was 21, I met the love of my life. It seemed like he gave me the world. For six months he spoilt me rotten. He paid for everything and treated me wonderfully. The only indication that something was wrong was his jealousy. Once he was so jealous that I talked to his friend, that he grabbed me by the shirt and ripped it . Right away he apologized and I forgave him.
He started to say stuff like, why do you have to wear lip gloss? Lip gloss makes you look like a slut. He hated it if I wore shapely clothing. I had to dress in lots of layers.I became his possession. It seemed like he controlled everything . When I got a job, he made it impossible for me to keep it. When we moved out or our apartment and got our own house, he started really beating me. I have had lots of broken bones and bruises everywhere on my body. He would punch me on the head and kick me and smash things. He grabbed me by the hair so hard that if fell out in clumps. He would pick me up and throw me. Eventually all my school friends gave up on me.
My reliance on him was like a sickness; After you invest in a relationship, you try to do everything to keep it. Physically leaving isn`t that hard. It is the emotional detatchment and then trying to find yourself again. You need balls of steel to
leave because you can`t imagine your life without him.
He raped me constantly and once he beat me for three hours until I was unconscious. He got charged with assault and I went to a transition house for ten days and I got some counselling
(pause for effect)
But still I went back to him. He said that he would beat me everyday until I got the charges dropped. I avoided the subpoena and the police issued an arrest warrant for me. His anger got worse and worse and he showed me a gun and threatened to kill everyone in my family. Finally, somehow I broke free of him. I couldn`t take any more.
The last year has been hard. I feel a lot of anger and I can`t control my emotions. I still feel like an outcast because for so long, I was controlled by his stupid rules. I couldn`t wear makeup, or choose my own clothes or pick my own friends.
I moved away to try to put the abuse behind me and I see a psychiatrist who is helping me deal with my constant nightmares. Now, I also have a good summer job and I`m planning to go back to school in the fall.
Character 2 drops chain into a metal chain trash can. (lots of noise of the chain dropping) Then she stands straight and pulls out a the long coloured silk scarf (that has been hidden)and ties it around her waist (or tucks in her shirt and flips the scarf over her shoulder.) she transforms from shapeless to shapely She moves to one side and stands tall and smiling
Character 3 chants and thumps chain
Negate
Berate
Isolate
Alienate
Instigate
Annihilate
character 3
Here I am. I’m 59 years old. I’ve been free for the last ten years, but before that I had twenty-eight years of hell. When we met, my husband seemed so proper. He had great blue eyes and fair hair. We graduated from university one week and got married the next and then moved 1200 miles from all of our friends and family. The emotional abuse started immediately but it was insidious. I didn’t realize that it was abuse. (pause)
For twenty eight years, I didn’t realize that it was abuse. Just little things, like I was too fat. I was a lousy cook and housekeeper. I wasn’t very smart. Sometimes I didn’t have a meal ready on time or I made the wrong thing. Sometimes I had to study because I’d gone back to university for another degree. My husband hated that I had life that he couldn’t control. I quit university and I tried so hard to be thinner, smarter, better. The harder I tried, the more control he got and the meaner he got. I thought it was all my fault. We’d drive back and forth to work together and I wasn’t allowed to say one thing that happened in my workday. I wasn’t allowed to say anything that I’d heard on the radio, and yet somehow I was supposed to provide creative smart conversation.
If I made any friends, my husband always said bad things about them. He ridiculed my mother even though she was ill with cancer. He used really disgusting language ( I hated the sound of the word fuck) but gradually I got used to it and it didn’t bother me as much. Then he started using my mother’s name as a swear word. I never got used to this and it never stopped hurting me. Every year, I made new year’s resolutions to grow thicker skin, to not let words hurt me.
Then he started to also physically hurt me. When I was eight month pregnant , he pumped up and down on top of me having violent sex. The placenta broke and our baby was born a month early. When I was pregnant for the second time, he threw me stomach first into the kitchen counter with enough force to break the counter. My kids witnessed him smashing things, chasing me and threatening to kill me. Usually when he grabbed me and tried to hurt me, I’d collapse on the floor and plead “Please don’t hurt me. I’m sorry. I’ll do anything” Often this was enough and he would stomp angrily away. He never once apologized. He always said it was my fault and that if I ever left or told anyone, I’d never see my kids again. I believed him. For twenty-seven years, I just kept trying harder to be good enough, thin enough, smart enough.
One spring, after months of mental abuse, I broke down and told his sister what a hell I was living in. She said that her brother had done the same things to her when she was a kid. Suddenly it was as if my eyes were opened. I understood that everything was not my fault. I still thought that I loved him. I told him that I’d give him one more year, but things had to change. Nothing changed. I confided in my family doctor and got her to check my hormone levels in case I wasn’t thinking clearly. I went to a therapist to make sure my decision to dump my partner was rational. I was afraid that he might kill me or kill himself but I thought that even if it cost me everything, even my life, that it was worth it. Even when I left, I still thought that I cared for him but I just never ever wanted to be controlled and abused by him again.
It still amazes me that I was so controlled I couldn’t recognize the emotional and physical pain as abuse. I had a university degree, I was the breadwinner for the family and still I was locked in an invisible prison of abuse for 28 years.
Character three drops chain with lots of noise into the chain trash can
Character three stands tall and pulls out coloured scarf from under the back of black top The scarf is swirled as character two and three embrace. Then they move over and help character 1 up from the floor. They all share the weight of the chain.
The three characters smile and say sweetly
Appreciate
Negotiate
CoOperate
Communicate
Interrelate
Celebrate
On the word interrelate
Characters toss one end of their coloured scarves up in the air
One end of each scarf falls to the floor,
The characters smile and bow to the audience.
The end.
Three people on stage
All standing tall but looking different directions (lcr)
A piece of chain is on the floor in front of each one.
A small metal garbage can is in the centre in front of the mic.
(can propped up to make max sound when chain dropped in.
The three people are silent
And then they start chanting quietly
Fate fate fate
Date date date
Mate mate mate
Chants now gradually get louder and louder
And the three characters gradually bend more and more forward heads down
Real emphasis on the “ate” syllable. Almost spit it out
Negate
Berate
Isolate
Alienate
Instigate
Annihilate
characters are now bent over and pick up the length of chain in front
And put the chain over their shoulders.
Character 1 in the centre stands up straight and steps forward to the
Character 2 and 3 remain bent
Characters should fully embrace their story.
It IS their story
The telling of each story needs to be slow, and emotional
With body movements and expression
Character1
white scarf is hidden under black shirt to make her look shapeless
I had a great childhood. I was an only child, totally loved and doted on by my parents and grandparents. Everyone thought I was perfect. I had heaps of friends and I did really well in school. I thought about becoming a doctor like my Dad but I decided to become a pharmacist so that I would have regular working hours and could be home with my children. Long before I met Tod and married him, I dreamed of having a perfect little house and a perfect little family.
I met Tod right after I got my first job as a pharmacist. He was a drug sales man and he had the most beautiful smile and he wore really crisp white shirts. When he came into the drug store, I asked him what the most beautiful man in the world was doing in our store. That really made him laugh. And before he left, we’d made a date for the next night. We got engaged two months after we met. A year later, we had a beautiful wedding. I was so happy. I could hardly wait to start a family. Tod always drank too much, and I teased him about it. He’d just laugh and was still caring and kind and I thought that his drinking would end once he was a father. When our first daughter, Tracy, was born, Tod changed. He started complaining about everything. He said that I was fat because I wasn’t back to my pre-pregnancy weight. He degraded me and criticized my house keeping. My worry and depression only made me eat more. When he was drinking, he’d really be nasty. Finally I left him and my daughter and I came to the transition house. He stopped drinking and seemed like the wonderful man I had married and so I went back to him. Then I got pregnant and he started drinking again. He’d start on Wednesday and drink right through the weekend. When he was drinking, he’d throw me around and threaten me. I knew that I couldn’t stay with him and I left him again for five months.
With one three year old and another child on the way and no husband to take care of us, I couldn’t imagine how we would manage. I still dreamt about having a perfect little family. Tod promised me that we would have that perfect family, if only I would give him one more chance. As soon as we moved back home, he started drinking again. He’d be out in the garage every night until 2 am drinking beer after beer. Then he’d expect me to be happy to see him in bed. He wouldn’t listen when I asked him to brush his teeth because the smell of alcohol made me feel sick. Then on “that” night, my little girl was sleeping with me and he was hollering. She saw way too much. I tried to lift her up to get her out of the bedroom and he lost it. All reason left him. I tried to grab the phone to call 911 and he stuffed the phone down his pants. “Don’t worry, I’m not going there,” I quipped. He pushed me into a rocking chair and started to choke me. He weighed twice as much as me. There was nothing I could do. He squeezed harder and harder. I was terrified. Suddenly I felt a huge peace surround me, and I was out of my body looking down on the room. All the terror was gone. Looking down, I could see Tracy screaming. I could see myself in the chair . I could see Tod towering over me squeezing harder and harder and harder and harder….
Character 1 lays down under white scarf
Negate
Berate
Isolate
Alienate
Instigate
Annihilate
Character 2 and 3 chant and thump chains
Character 2
I was an overachiever and a journalism student. When I was 21, I met the love of my life. It seemed like he gave me the world. For six months he spoilt me rotten. He paid for everything and treated me wonderfully. The only indication that something was wrong was his jealousy. Once he was so jealous that I talked to his friend, that he grabbed me by the shirt and ripped it . Right away he apologized and I forgave him.
He started to say stuff like, why do you have to wear lip gloss? Lip gloss makes you look like a slut. He hated it if I wore shapely clothing. I had to dress in lots of layers.I became his possession. It seemed like he controlled everything . When I got a job, he made it impossible for me to keep it. When we moved out or our apartment and got our own house, he started really beating me. I have had lots of broken bones and bruises everywhere on my body. He would punch me on the head and kick me and smash things. He grabbed me by the hair so hard that if fell out in clumps. He would pick me up and throw me. Eventually all my school friends gave up on me.
My reliance on him was like a sickness; After you invest in a relationship, you try to do everything to keep it. Physically leaving isn`t that hard. It is the emotional detatchment and then trying to find yourself again. You need balls of steel to
leave because you can`t imagine your life without him.
He raped me constantly and once he beat me for three hours until I was unconscious. He got charged with assault and I went to a transition house for ten days and I got some counselling
(pause for effect)
But still I went back to him. He said that he would beat me everyday until I got the charges dropped. I avoided the subpoena and the police issued an arrest warrant for me. His anger got worse and worse and he showed me a gun and threatened to kill everyone in my family. Finally, somehow I broke free of him. I couldn`t take any more.
The last year has been hard. I feel a lot of anger and I can`t control my emotions. I still feel like an outcast because for so long, I was controlled by his stupid rules. I couldn`t wear makeup, or choose my own clothes or pick my own friends.
I moved away to try to put the abuse behind me and I see a psychiatrist who is helping me deal with my constant nightmares. Now, I also have a good summer job and I`m planning to go back to school in the fall.
Character 2 drops chain into a metal chain trash can. (lots of noise of the chain dropping) Then she stands straight and pulls out a the long coloured silk scarf (that has been hidden)and ties it around her waist (or tucks in her shirt and flips the scarf over her shoulder.) she transforms from shapeless to shapely She moves to one side and stands tall and smiling
Character 3 chants and thumps chain
Negate
Berate
Isolate
Alienate
Instigate
Annihilate
character 3
Here I am. I’m 59 years old. I’ve been free for the last ten years, but before that I had twenty-eight years of hell. When we met, my husband seemed so proper. He had great blue eyes and fair hair. We graduated from university one week and got married the next and then moved 1200 miles from all of our friends and family. The emotional abuse started immediately but it was insidious. I didn’t realize that it was abuse. (pause)
For twenty eight years, I didn’t realize that it was abuse. Just little things, like I was too fat. I was a lousy cook and housekeeper. I wasn’t very smart. Sometimes I didn’t have a meal ready on time or I made the wrong thing. Sometimes I had to study because I’d gone back to university for another degree. My husband hated that I had life that he couldn’t control. I quit university and I tried so hard to be thinner, smarter, better. The harder I tried, the more control he got and the meaner he got. I thought it was all my fault. We’d drive back and forth to work together and I wasn’t allowed to say one thing that happened in my workday. I wasn’t allowed to say anything that I’d heard on the radio, and yet somehow I was supposed to provide creative smart conversation.
If I made any friends, my husband always said bad things about them. He ridiculed my mother even though she was ill with cancer. He used really disgusting language ( I hated the sound of the word fuck) but gradually I got used to it and it didn’t bother me as much. Then he started using my mother’s name as a swear word. I never got used to this and it never stopped hurting me. Every year, I made new year’s resolutions to grow thicker skin, to not let words hurt me.
Then he started to also physically hurt me. When I was eight month pregnant , he pumped up and down on top of me having violent sex. The placenta broke and our baby was born a month early. When I was pregnant for the second time, he threw me stomach first into the kitchen counter with enough force to break the counter. My kids witnessed him smashing things, chasing me and threatening to kill me. Usually when he grabbed me and tried to hurt me, I’d collapse on the floor and plead “Please don’t hurt me. I’m sorry. I’ll do anything” Often this was enough and he would stomp angrily away. He never once apologized. He always said it was my fault and that if I ever left or told anyone, I’d never see my kids again. I believed him. For twenty-seven years, I just kept trying harder to be good enough, thin enough, smart enough.
One spring, after months of mental abuse, I broke down and told his sister what a hell I was living in. She said that her brother had done the same things to her when she was a kid. Suddenly it was as if my eyes were opened. I understood that everything was not my fault. I still thought that I loved him. I told him that I’d give him one more year, but things had to change. Nothing changed. I confided in my family doctor and got her to check my hormone levels in case I wasn’t thinking clearly. I went to a therapist to make sure my decision to dump my partner was rational. I was afraid that he might kill me or kill himself but I thought that even if it cost me everything, even my life, that it was worth it. Even when I left, I still thought that I cared for him but I just never ever wanted to be controlled and abused by him again.
It still amazes me that I was so controlled I couldn’t recognize the emotional and physical pain as abuse. I had a university degree, I was the breadwinner for the family and still I was locked in an invisible prison of abuse for 28 years.
Character three drops chain with lots of noise into the chain trash can
Character three stands tall and pulls out coloured scarf from under the back of black top The scarf is swirled as character two and three embrace. Then they move over and help character 1 up from the floor. They all share the weight of the chain.
The three characters smile and say sweetly
Appreciate
Negotiate
CoOperate
Communicate
Interrelate
Celebrate
On the word interrelate
Characters toss one end of their coloured scarves up in the air
One end of each scarf falls to the floor,
The characters smile and bow to the audience.
The end.