VIGNETTES

[viːˈnjɛt, vɪˈnjɛt]
NOUN vignettes (plural noun)
Brief evocative descriptions, accounts, or episodes

Written By
Charles Croes
.
First performance
Cas Di Cultura – Aruba
Inspired by
Marjory Vermeer
To be performed by C.A.A.
Creative Arts Aruba

CAST

Characters are characterized within the scripted opening scenes of each.

Opening scene

STAGE:

100% dark. Curtains very slowly start to open. The curtains stop opening
midway.

SOUND

Heavy Rainstorm and Powerful Thunder Sounds for Sleeping - Black Screen Rain |
Sleep Sounds - YouTube Sound fades when the curtain is fully opened.

TWAS THE WEAK BEFORE.

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From time to time, the sound of harsh lightning comes and then goes away. This
is used to place emphasis on specific scenes, moods or dialog . Thunderstorm
Sounds | Rain with Heavy Thunder and Loud Lightning Strikes for Sleeping,
Relaxing - YouTube

STAGE:

See if we can get video of rain falling in a Cunucu area. Show on back screen.

🔴 LIVE HEAVY RAIN 24/7 - Rainstorm & Distant Thunder Sounds - Heavy Rain
Sounds to Sleep, Relax - YouTube

ENTER FOGO

FOGO

Fogo is a scruffy character. Terribly dressed with large shoes and pants that are
huge. His shirt is an old long sleeved shirt that has soil stains around the cuffs.
The pants are synched with a long rope to hold them up. His hair is a disaster and
a small old and broken Fedora hat sits on top. He wears no stage make up except
dirt marks on his hands and neck. His face is relatively clean.

Fogo comes out from behind the curtains. He has a piece of cardboard to protect
him from the rain. The cardboard is wet and drips water. Fogo enters from
behind the curtains and stops. He looks at the curtains and starts to mutter as he
slowly pushes one of the sides to open it.

FOGO

Zeta cune. Zeta cune

Sigu – Sigu

He keeps pushing

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 FOGO

Maishi tai crece

Sigu – Sigu

He pauses. Looks at the sky.

Spera dak wanta.

He looks around

Booboochi ta riba laman

Tempo nanki – ta Tribon e ta mata.

Sigu – Sigu

Fogo walks a few steps Stops and

looks over his shoulder. He calls out

Machi!

Maaachi!

Fogo looks at the audience and says

Machi ta bai contestami

Sigu – Sigu.

MACHI

Is a thin short woman that is strong yet frail at the same time.. She stoops and
walks in short steps. Her dress goes to the floor and her shirt top is buttoned to
the neck. She has a kitchen towel in her hand and is constantly dusting things.
When she is with Fogo, she dusts him.

TWAS THE WEAK BEFORE.

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 ENTER MACHI

Machi

Stop e gritamento dushi.

Grita bo ta grita

Mane bestia na porta di slagerij..

Papia mane hende drechi.

Djos libra nos no ta biba na Playa.

Nan lo a kore cu nos.

Fogo

He is smiling and then thinks before saying

Machi ta corda con

ba cushna stoba pami?

Machi

Kwa?

Baka of Kabrito?

Fogo

Bestia chiki

Machi

Si – semper ba gusta.

Machi becomes quiet and looks far off. She slowly turns to FOGO

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 Machi

Fogo por haci Machi un fabo.

Fogo looks at her

Machi

Laga Machi sosega riba flur un rato

anto contami e storia di e corbatanan.

Fogo

Machi, e storia aki, ta bai asinaki.

Corda bon cu tur cos ta berdad.

Well - mas o menos.

Toch dushi, ateki pabo.

VIGNETTE #1

FOGO – CHIPI-CHIPI

Ephraim Odor

Director

During all Vignette monologs, the actors

will act out the story on the stage

Many years ago, in the 1840’s, many small ships came to Aruba to dock and fix
their sails or to do repairs on their hulls or masts. Some ships came carrying
goods from India and England and other far of lands. On these ships would come
the people that manufactured and sold their goods. Those were interesting
times.
TWAS THE WEAK BEFORE.
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One such man was a young short Jewish man named Benjamin Pick who bought
fine silk cloth from China and made the most beautiful silk Modern designed
men’s neck- ties (Corbatas’ Estilo modern hecho de seda) . His market
destinations were Venezuela and Colombia because he heard the gentlemen of
these countries dressed in fine garments and boots from Spain and wore fine
neck-ties as well as always having silken handkerchiefs. So it became the goal of
Benjamin Pick to come to these far off lands and make a fortune selling men’s
neck-ties.

Even though Benjamin came fine prepared for this voyage, the small vessel
encountered bad weather and high seas. This caused delays and Benjamin found
lodging in a small house along the seashore of Martinique. As nice as the island
lady on Martinique was, the three month delay cost Benjamin Pick dearly in food
supplies and an occasional bottle of wine for him to drink along with the land
lady. Worse was that absolutely not one soul in Martinique wore neck-ties so he
wasn’t able to make any money only spend it.

After several months, the ship set sail with destination

Aruba and then on to Venezuela and Colombia.

When they arrived at the small docks of Aruba, the small ship had to be once
again repaired and poor Benjamin had no choice but to take his cargo and see
what he could sell on this small little island. And so, he sat on his box of ties on
the docks and waited for someone to come to him to buy his ties. No one did.

For several days, there had been a rotund man named Conks that came to the
docks to pick up cargo and he would always nod at Benjamin. Finally one day,
Benjamin waved at Conks and the two shook hands and started to talk. Benjamin
told him the story of his adventure on the high seas and the many delays. He
explained that his money was almost finished and he needed to sell his modern
silk neck-ties to get cash. Conks asked where his ties were and Benjamin told him
they were in the wooden box he was sitting on.

TWAS THE WEAK BEFORE.

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The two men continued talking and Conks finally asked Benjamin to call him
Conks. Benjamin said to call him Benchi. The two men shook hands and walked
into town. They arrived at an old house in which lived a man named MIX. They
asked him to please check in his trash to see if he had an old bicycle in his back
yard. Mix left and came back a few minutes late carrying an old bicycle. Conks
looked at the wreck and asked him to take off the two wheels and fix to tires.

A while later Mix returned and the three went back to the dock to look at the
wooden box. Conks talked to Mix and after some fixing and hammering, the
wooden crate full of modern silk ties was converted into a street vendor’s cart.
The cart had a small roof to prevent the sun from damaging the silk-ties. Mix
painted the cart white.

And so, Benjamin walked around yelling KASHARIM MODERNIDAE. In Hebrew

this meant modern ties. Benjamin only sold a few ties and went to Conks with
this problem. Conks smiled and told Benjamin the following:

I will ask Mix to paint two signs for your cart, and I suggest that you walk down
main street and yell out the following: CORBATA MODERNA PRIJS TA CHEEP.
Benjamin wrote this down and One side of the cart had a sign that was finished
while the other was to complicated for Mix to write. Mix also took the liberty to
translate MODERNIDAE to La Moderna.

And so Benjamin went out on the streets and started to bark out his product.

CORBATA MODERNA PRIJS TA CHEEP. This turned out to be too long and people
laughed at him, so he changed it to:

MODERNA PRIJS TA CHEEP. His business started to pick up. Then came the next
change.

MODERNA TA CHEEP. Sales were booming and Benjamin hardly had time to
speak so he just said.

CHEEP - CHEEP

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Eventually, everyone came to know Benjamin Pick, however they all called him
Chipi-Chipi. A few years later, Benjamin opened a small store and then one
slightly bigger. Finally, he had to name his store. It was easy. He called it La
Moderna and sold neckties and clothes to everyone I town.

Some years later, his son Benchi took over La Moderna and became a famous
man.

NOTE: Conks always wore silk ties which he got at a Chipi-Chipi price.

CORBATAS
MODERNA

AND THAT IS THE TRUTH!

(Almost)

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 THE “V”

Directed by

Marjorie Vermeer

If any of us thinks back on our youth, I feel sure that we will view
ourselves as having been much freer spirits than we are today. In
most cases, our lives will seem to have been without limits and
boundaries. Perhaps that was our reality then and also perhaps, now
that we are wiser – not to mention a bit older, our realities are lost (or
hidden) in the mountains of restrictions that our social lives and age
have placed on us all. With that in mind, the following is a memory of
a reality. It is a visit to a time when I was a freer spirit and it is
certainly a time when ‘today’ was not a consideration. The following is
from me to you and there are no claims on it to be anything but a
footnote of an event. Consider it a “P.S.” on the childhood memories
of a kid, and as all of us know, kids’ invent all sorts of stuff.

During vacations we would get up in the mornings and run out into
the street by my house and get together to do nothing else but “play”.
Bread would be baking in someone’s home and the thick full aroma
that floated on the streets still resides in (at least) one of my nostrils.
Each day started the same in that we would each arrive at the corner
and then go to the playing field nearby at almost the same time and
start at the same point we left off yesterday. More than once we would
start the day by going to a sandy lot by my house and place our
marbles in the same spots as they were the evening before.
Conversations and arguments would pick up where they left off
yesterday and, in that way, it seemed like one long continuous
summer that was an uninterrupted, lovely - lengthy play-time. It was
bliss.

One of those summers was interrupted by the unplanned and

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certainly the unexpected. This interruption happened at the start of
our vacation and - as such - the rest of the vacation was textured by
this event that happened and we spent endless nights talking about it.
Today, as adults, when we meet and talk about old times – which is
seldom, the same old summer event comes up and we start to go over
it again, perhaps hoping to squeeze another forgotten detail from that
one day. This particular summer, my best friend "Denchie" introduced
me to 'hiking'. It is something he discovered by reading a “Scouts’”
book and felt the two of us would be just perfect at it. After all, we had
Cunucus, beaches and all sorts of other places to go to and partake in
the glory of a long ‘hike’. As planned, this discovery resulted in walks
in Cunucus and along miles of beaches. This was an age where "Fast-
Food" didn't exist and to keep ourselves nourished we hiked with
brown paper bags that held sandwiches and bananas or whatever the
available fruit was. One of us carried a "Community" thermos filled
with ice which would be busy turning itself into cold water. That was
'then', this is 'now' and I'm still not decided on which is a better time
to be alive, and I suppose that the answer to that is of no
consequence.

We were in the Cunucus of Dakota. This area had not been developed
at all and was nothing more than a dense woody area that had many
crisscrossing paths or small trails. I recall how we would hike and
encounter other walkers that would be using the paths for more
serious business such as going shopping or returning home carrying
something. In the same way that capillaries serve the blood stream,
these small trails served that small area of the island. We were
moving along and talking in the dense woods following one of the
small paths of that area and Denchie heard something. "Wanta"
"Wait" he said. I stood still. He leaned his head and I did the same to
try and hear what he did. Finally I did. It was the faint sound of pain.
We said nothing and started to walk over to the source of that sound.
The sound of pain became so much more obvious and I remember
being glassy-eyed at the thought of what awaited us.
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The two of us were absolutely focused on this one single sound. It
was a wailing or bleating sound and it penetrated me before I ever
saw the source. Then there it was - A baby goat stuck in the "V" of the
base branches of a small tree. The mother goat was standing close
enough to her baby and in doing so was leaning on it and her love
was causing it more pain by further driving the baby goat into the “V”.
Hidden in the under-brush of tangled trees and dense bushes were
the other goats. It was an astoundingly large herd - all silent and
looking. This small creature looked skyward and pained and the
bleating sound that had drawn us there finally sank into us.

At the onset, we were nothing more than two boys on a hike but now
we knew that we were now involved in something beyond what the
day had set out to be. However in all that, the solution to the pain was
so very simple. We could do what the mother could not, and that is,
lift the baby goat out of the "V". Simple. Denchie went over and gently
moved the mother goat to the side, then lifted the baby out of her
predicament and set her on the ground. And with this, in the woods
and in the middle of the day, our day was about to begin and this
beginning would offer us more surprises than we had already
experienced. I was sure that all of the goats would now be happy and
make some sort of a happy goat sound and then run off. It imagined
that we would feel better and be heroes – at least in the eyes of the
goats. It didn't happen that way.

The entire herd stayed and then came out from under the trees and
foliage to slowly move over to Denchie. As these skittish and wild
animals moved over to him his face showed that he now knew that
something was happening and that this "something" was good. A
conversation was silently taking place. He started to quietly laugh and
then knelt down. He was getting lost in this herd of absolutely wild
animals and the thread of instinct that dwells in us all told him to sit –
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he did. I watched as his new (if only temporary) tribe of grateful
friends rubbed against him while making low murmuring sounds. I
stared in amazement as he laughed like a boy that has just been
surprised on his birthday. The sight was remarkable, and when he
realized I was standing off to the side, he invited me to sit with him.

I started to slowly walk into the herd but as I did, I noticed that some
of the goats left. I backed off and they went back to this small ring of
natural appreciation for another living thing. The goats were saying
thank you to a boy and did not want me to interfere. I'm not sure how
it worked but after a few minutes of this "closeness" they suddenly
left. I watched as they left their pellet-like droppings behind. Denchie
had been sitting in a pile of these pellets himself. He looked down and
laughed and I went over to him and sat with him in these pellets of
love. We were boys and it was an uncomfortable thing to do but we
hugged. We never carried our slingshots on hikes again that summer
and used them only for shooting at tin-cans. When not hiking, we
stuck to marbles and spinning tops.

When "Kite" season came we immersed ourselves in that. Hiking

became a regular thing and although we had discussed and planned
how we would handle various situations. We never found any other
distressed animals. It was a different time and I know that I was a freer
spirit than I am today. As I reflect on that time, I also know that my life
was without limit or boundaries and that the only thing that ever held
me back from anything was 'me'. That was my reality and without
doubt I was blessed to have lived it. My only pain is that I cannot
seem to pass on this "spell" or "aura" to my children or to those I
speak to.

I wish so much that I could tell you how much I love living here. If you
are only a visitor, then I am sorry for you. You will taste this rock but
cannot live it nor can you allow her to devour you in the same way as

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she allows me to live here and, in the end, Aruba will take me into her
soil. I will be devoured into Aruba.

If you are a visitor, it is quite possible that at the end of your stay, you
are not going back to reality. Perhaps this is reality and what we
create elsewhere is the unfortunate.

If you are a resident, it is up to you to protect this reality, because

while in our lives we will come to many “VEES” in the road, the small
tree and the “V” that held that goat is gone.

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