Tiger

Gianina Cărbunariu
Mihaela, the Tiger in our City – A Mockumentary Play

 

English Translation by James Christian Brown

 

CHARACTERS:
 

Prologue: Documentary makers – Their number will be the same as that of the actors in the production. At the premiere there was a cast of three actors, each of whom played a number of roles.

SCENA 1: TAXI DRIVER

SCENE 2: HOMELESS PERSON 1, HOMELESS PERSON 2

SCENE 3: JAPANESE TOURIST, FRENCH TOURIST, TRANSLATOR

SCENE 4: Representatives of the population of PIGEONS, CROWS and SPARROWS

SCENE 5: PENSIONER, DOCUMENTARY MAKER

SCENE 6: OWNER OF THE CAR, CAR OF THE OWNER

SCENE 7: DOCTOR (female)

SCENE 8: BANK BRANCH MANAGER (female) and EMPLOYEE

SCENE 9: ANIMAL 1, ANIMAL 2, ANIMAL 3

The animal and bird characters are not in any way to be played as actual animals or birds. These characters (animals, birds, the car) refer to certain social categories (some disadvantaged, others privileged), to certain majority or minority ethnic groups, to certain typologies in society.

Prologue

DOCUMENTARY MAKER 1:

Good evening! Welcome to our play.

The story we are going to present is the tale of a Siberian tiger born in a nice average-sized European city. Two years ago, Mihaela the tigress escaped from our city’s Zoo and wandered free for almost five hours before the authorities managed to track her down.

DOCUMENTARY MAKER 2:

We wanted to understand the circumstances in which this happened, so we have tried to document every step taken by the big cat, right from the moment when she left her cage. We have mainly used our own interviews, but there is also some material taken from the archives of a local TV station.

DOCUMENTARY MAKER 3:

What you are about to see is thus a documentary play, a play built up out of interviews with a good number of those who interacted with Mihaela and who were willing to share their experiences with us. We thank them all for their kindness and assure them that we have done our best to remain faithful to their statements.

 

SCENE 1: Interview with a TAXI DRIVER

So... what was it like? I’ll tell you what it was like. It must have been nine o’clock. Ten past nine. Twenty past at the most. I took a group of tourists to the Zoo. No sooner had the tourists got out of the car than I found myself with... What can I say? I didn’t even see when he got into the back seat. And once the customer’s in the car you can’t say no. A customer is a customer. You don’t even bother what they look like these days, do you? As long as they’re a customer, and they’ve got the money. I took it he wanted me to take him into the centre. “All right if I leave you beside the pedestrian area?” I took it he agreed. To be honest, I did most of the talking on the way. I don’t know… about this and that. Oh yes, I know. About the city. About how nice it is here. Especially the centre. Completely renovated. We have a very nice city, very quiet, and the people are welcoming and hard-working. We have a city… what can I say?... like any self-respecting European city should be. A real jewel. We’re all very proud of it. Of course there are parts that are rather… not so pleasant, so to speak. But that will be dealt with in time; you can’t tackle everything all at once. But these are small problems, nothing important. Like the problem with the… but that’s not the fault of our city; these are problems that come from outside. Oh yes. From the South. It’s from the South that all the problems come now. That lot were brought from there, from the South. There’s lots of them here from the South. They come up here, they like it, and unfortunately they stay. They’re noisy, they’re aggressive, there’s no wayyou can get along with them. I pointed them out in the street: “Look at them!” See how they hang around in groups, especially near the parks, all day long. At night—what more can I say?—you just can’t go that way. I mean, you do go, but… it’s at your own risk. They brought them here when the Summit was on. They cleaned up the capital to look like a European city, put them in trucks and dumped them here. Seemingly it would cost a lot to kill them. I don’t know, there’s got to be to be some solution. Make them a paddock somewhere on the edge of town, for example. I don’t know if they’ve bitten anyone. I mean I don’t personally know anyone who’s been bitten by one of those wretched dogs… But of course they’ve bitten people. Yes… that’s pretty much what the discussion was about. He listened, seemed interested, although he was looking out of the window all the time. Like a tourist. Admiring everything. I think he liked what he saw. I arrived beside the pedestrian area and I said: “I’ll leave you here.” He opened the door and made to get out and go. I said: “That’ll be fifteen lei (three euro), mate. It’s not free. What’s this about?” He gave me a puzzled look. I said: “Look, I’ll do a deal with you: you wipe my windscreen and clean my mirrors, and we’ll call it quits. No free rides here; everyone works in this city.” He wiped my windscreen. He wiped my mirrors… and my headlights. With his fur coat. He was well wrapped up; he had a fur coat like… Really nice. Then he headed off quickly down the pedestrian street. After that I got on with my business; I picked up another group of tourists. I guess it was 9:40? Or thereabouts. (Pause) I hope I’ve given the right answers.

 

SCENE 2: Interview with two HOMELESS PEOPLE in the Central Park

HOMELESS PERSON 1:

We’ll tell you how it happened. I saw him first.

HOMELESS PERSON 2:

I saw him before you.

HOMELESS PERSON 1:

He spoke to me first.

HOMELESS PERSON 2:

I didn’t hear him say anything until I invited him to drink with us. Then he nodded, meaning “yes”, he felt like a bevvy.

HOMELESS PERSON 1:

We didn’t invite him, he invited himself. We don’t invite just anyone to drink with us, you know.

HOMELESS PERSON 2:

But she wasn’t just anyone, was she?

HOMELESS PERSON 1:

Oh, she was no hot shakes. Pardon me. At the end of the day she was nothing but a... Anyway, it was me that I realized she was a she and not a he.

HOMELESS PERSON 2:

You can’t even tell whether you’re a he or a she. He said: “Hey, fur coat, come over here.
 

HOMELESS PERSON 1:

Fur coats are feminine. The thing is that that day I’d got hold of some cash. And I had just got a bottle of the hard stuff...

 

HOMELESS PERSON 2:

Surgical spirit, to be exact.

HOMELESS PERSON 1:

We mix it with the same quantity of water.

HOMELESS PERSON 2:

So it goes further. And so we won’t go blind.

HOMELESS PERSON 1:

We come here to the park, and sit on a bench behind the trees, so no one will bother us. We have two of these plastic bottles, one of water from that fountain over there and one empty. We pour the water into the empty bottle, like so, till it’s half full, then pour in the spirit till it’s full. We mix it, like so... and we drink it. I gave her some of mine to drink...

 

HOMELESS PERSON 2:

That’s not true! I gave her some first, because you didn’t want to share.
 

HOMELESS PERSON 1:

Come on, didn’t I say it doesn’t matter who was first?! Let’s tell the story so the people can understand. Because it’s the story they’re interested in, not who was first. No? So, we gave her a drink and we asked her: “Look, where are you from?” And she’s like:
 

HOMELESS PERSON 2:

“I’m from here. Where else would I be from?” Well, of all the fucking… Pardon me. I said: “Well, you don’t… say.” “From here, from this city?” I insisted. Because I go by the principle that it’s not the clothes that make the man but the man that makes the clothes. Or the fur, at any rate.

HOMELESS PERSON 2:

And she’s like: “Yes, I was born here, in this city.”

HOMELESS PERSON 1:

“And your parents, where are they from?”

HOMELESS PERSON 2:

And she’s like: “They’re from this city too.”

HOMELESS PERSON 1:

“Actually born here, right here?”

HOMELESS PERSON 2:

“No, they came—huh huh huh—from Siberia.”

HOMELESS PERSON 1:

“Well you see? That’s the catch! You can only say you’re really from here when you’re third generation.”

 

HOMELESS PERSON 2:

All right, but at the end of the day the important thing is to get on with your own

business.

HOMELESS PERSON 1:

Yes, that’s what I said when I saw there’d be end of it with him. With her.

HOMELESS PERSON 2:

She’d started to get annoyed. That third generation thing didn’t go down well.
 

HOMELESS PERSON 1:

She didn’t yell or anything, but she started sort of growling. And we didn’t fancy having some gendarme coming along to ask what we were up to.

HOMELESS PERSON 2:

The important thing is to get on with your own business and keep in your place.

 

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