Missing Face, The

Movement One

Movement One (Time present, midnight. Patches of dark clouds hanging as if suspended by the fingers of an emerging, crescent moon. Drums, throbbing in the heart of the land. A cast of round mud huts, crowned with conical thatchroofs stand defiant, confronting the face of the modern mansions ahead of them, and outside the rustic ambiance of this present state. At the center of these huts the eye is struck by the regal eminence of one particular hut. This hut is beaded with cowrie-shells draped around it, its front door embroided with red eagle feathers. This is ODOZI's compound. ODOZI is the blacksmith, hunter and farmer. He is also MOMAH's uncle and the Diopka, elder orfather of Idu kingdom. Prominent in this compound is the 1 "Ogwa, " as the communal grotto/shrine with the double-faced ancestral mask, wearing extensive, long rafia "beards" from jaw to toe as its distinctive feature. Standing, resplendent in the lower right, and a little away from the grotto/shrine is a loom with colored threads and some designs in the making. On the lower left is the blacksmith's forge with tools and metals hanging above the bellows, and with scraps in the making on the other side. The heart of the land continues throbbing with the rhythm of drums. Soon, voices flow into the rhythms and amplify them until they stop suddenly as two other strange voices emerge and gain prominence among the rhythms in the grotto/shrine. It is IDA BEE and her teenage son, AMAECHI. They look burdened by the weight of their baggage. In spite of this sagging load which they try so much to adjust, they appear fascinated by the ritual power of this environment. AMAECHI is visibly weighed down by his own burden and soon loses interest. Tired, weary and frustrated, he throws his bag on the floor and slumps down .) IDA BEE: Uh, uh-Pick it up. AMAECHI: I'm tired Mama. IDA BEE: Tired? We just got started. AMAECHI: I'm tired and I don't want to go any further. IDA BEE: You want to stop now after coming this far? 2 AMAECHI: Mama, I'm tired. I'm tired of the whole trip. IDA BEE: Pick up the bag Amaechi. We've got a lot of ground to cover before it gets dark. AMAECHI: We ain't got no business out here in the jungle mama, and you know it. IDA BEE: Amaechi, we've been through all this before. AMAECHI: I don't get it. What do you hope to find out here? IDA BEE: Our place in the world. AMAECHI: Our place is back in Milwaukee, not Africa. IDA BEE: How many times have I got to tell you that the homeland of black people is Africa, not Milwaukee? AMAECHI: Mama, I was born black in Milwaukee, not Africa. So don't confuse me. IDA BEE: Are you confused child? AMAECHI: (Irritably.) I'm tired. Tired of messin' around out here and gettin' no place. IDA BEE: (Exasperated.) What do you know about gettin' anyplace? I'm the one who works from paycheck to paycheck in an empty job goin' nowhere. Nike shoes and video games-bills piling up before I even 3 earn the money. Hate to see the mailman comin'. There's got to be more to life than payin' bills. That's why we must find our place in the world. A place where we can be whole ... a place that can fill the emptiness with kinship and the spirit of our ancestors. AMAECHI: What kind of kinship you talkin' about Mama? IDA BEE: Family. AMAECHI: Only family I know is in Milwaukee. We got Uncle Henry and Uncle Ron and Aunt Kathie and Aunt Gloria. They're my people. We know them. They know us. But nobody knows us here. We're strangers to them, and they're strangers to us. So, we don't belong here! Ma, let's go back to Milwaukee, where we belong ... where we know somebody . IDA BEE: All we got in Milwaukee is a bunch of fractured lives. Uncle Henry is an alcoholic. His wife and children livin' up in Kenosha with Uncle Ron, whose little Oshkosh job can hardly feed himself, let alone some extra mouths. And Uncle Charlie? Well, you know Uncle Charlie. So slick he can't keep himself out of jail. And Aunt...