Mlima’s Tale
By Lynn Nottage
4.5/5
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About this ebook
“A beautiful, endlessly echoing portrait of a murder and its afterlife. Ms. Nottage shaped this story with such theatrical inventiveness and discipline that it never feels sensational… A finely wrought fusion of elements.” —Ben Brantley, New York Times
Continuing in her tradition of crafting thought-provoking, socially conscious dramas, Lynn Nottage’s play tells the story of Mlima, an elephant struck down by poachers for his magnificent tusks. Beginning in a game park in Kenya, the play tracks the trajectory of Mlima’s tusks through the ivory trade market while Mlima’s ghost follows close behind—marking all those complicit in his barbaric death.
Lynn Nottage
Lynn Nottage's plays include 'Crumbs from the Table of Joy,' 'Fabulation' and 'Intimate Apparel,' for which she was awarded the Francesca Primus Prize and the American Theatre Critics/Steinberg New Play Award in 2004. Her plays have been produced at theaters throughout the country. 'Ruined' is the winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and 'Sweat' is winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.
Read more from Lynn Nottage
Sweat (TCG Edition) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Kilroys List, Volume Two: 67 Monologues and Scenes by Women and Nonbinary Playwrights Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Intimate Apparel/Fabulation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Mlima’s Tale - Lynn Nottage
I
THUNDER IS NOT YET RAIN
A wilderness where a big tusker might seek refuge.
The savannah. Full moon.
Mlima, an elephant sensing danger, calls out to his fellow travelers.
MLIMA (With intensity and urgency): When I was young I was taught by my grandmother to listen to the night. Really listen … for the rains in the distance … listen to the rustling of the brush … for the cries of friend or foe. She’d say you must listen with your entire body, feel how the earth shifts when there’s the slightest disruption, because how you listen can mean the difference between life and death. It’s the truth of the savannah, something we all learn at a very young age. Sacred words passed from generation to generation like stories of the verdant time before the violent crackle, before the drought and the madness … A time of plenty, when the plains and rivers were owned by all, a time recalled by my grandmother with such alacrity that one needn’t be nostalgic. She’d say if you really listen, our entire history is on the wind.
(He listens and feels the night with his entire body, feet, ears, nose. Movement.
Slowly, the layers of sounds of the savannah fill the space.
The crickets, the orchestra of wild animals, cowbells, whistles, and the faraway voices of the Maasai.)
Even now, I hear the remnants of stories told by Long Ears, the elder, who knew where to find the sweetest acacia trees or the cool dark mud that was said to keep him ageless. When pushed he’d tell of how, once, he roamed so far across the land that it took him one year to find his way back home through the thorny thicket.
He returned with stories of rivers so wide they couldn’t be crossed, trees so tall they did battle with the sky, and a sea of bobbing beasts and men. He’d walked across a world with no fences, no roads or resistance. We listened, though no one here believed such a far-fetched