SIX MOONS IN BAKARULAKA
or how modernity came to its enddeep in the Amazon rainforest
a playby Arthur Martin
7/11
SIX MOONS IN BAKARULAKA
or how modernity came to its enddeep in the Amazon rainforest __________________________________________________________
characters:
Rachel and William, wife and husband – young anthropologists in the field.
setting:
a hut on the edge of an Amazon rainforest village – Bakarulakaevery scene takes place on the night of a full moon __________________________________________________________
Academical background notes at end.
__________________________________________________________
Scene 1: first night
Inside a single room hut. On either side of the door is a desk with a laptop on it and achair in front. There is window above each desk, and then further from the door in eachdirection a hammock. There are four travel trunks piled in William's half of the hut (stageleft), and one in Rachel's (stage right) half.Rachel is sitting on the chair by her desk, her arms around her knees pulled to her chest,slumped, looking overwhelmed. William is organizing file folders and typing on hiscomputer, organizing the same files in a database program.Rachel:Oh god. What am I doing here?William:Uh... Your dissertation research. Your Ph.D. Everything you've beenworking toward for the last four years.Rachel:[Moaning...]Uuuhh.William:Your future! Come on, Rach, it's natural to have some doubts when youfirst arrive in the field. It's like that stuff from Rodriguez's fieldworkseminar – culture shock, too much self awareness – you got the high gradein that class.Rachel:[Sullen.]
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Yeah…William:You're the princess of ethnographic field research, the first pre-ABD withan article published in the Journal of Qualitative Anthropology...Rachel:Yeah. Thanks, Will.[Feeling a little better.]And you know, as I've told you before, I couldn't have done that withoutyou as an example of how to really buckle down with some hard corededication and focus. You taught me that by example.William: Well, you were a hard worker before that...Rachel:Yeah, but I didn't really understand the- you know, the focus, the- questfor perfection kind of hard work until I saw you- particularly with theKaplan Prize competition-William:Yeah, I was really after that one...Rachel: I know. And I saw that. And at first it was almost scary, the way you were.But then I realized that that kind of zeroing-in focus and dedication to theperfect result, that is the way, that's what- part of what made you great inthe way that you were- or are, actually.William:Well, you really are great at what you do too.Rachel:Hm.William:I just wish- I mean you probably wouldn't feel so insecure and on yourown if you'd tried harder for the NSF qualitative research grant. Or theWenner-Gren.Rachel:Hm.William:Because they do fund the qualitative stuff sometimes.Pause.William:But, yeah, they tend to demand a bit more rigor in the structuring of your-or one's inferences.Rachel:[Slightly sarcastic.]Yeah, thanks again Will.
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Scene 1: first night for Six Moons in Bakarulaka
or how modernity came to its end deep in the Amazon rainforest
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