Observing a mid-process, rehearsal-room run of “Memory of Water,” I was awestruck by a particular passage of Stephenson’s remarkable writing. In this mysterious scene, Mary appears to be having a conversation with the ghost of Vi, her mother. As is the case with all great writing, nothing is exactly as it seems. But the enigmatic exchange is full of mystery and regret, pain, and longing.
“VI: You invent these versions of me and I don’t recognize myself–
MARY: I’m not listening to you–
VI: I’m proud of you, and you’re ashamed of me–
MARY: I am not–
VI: I hear you say it all the time. I’m not like my mother, I’m not. I’m like my father. Look in the mirror. Why can’t you see it? Everyone else can. Look at the curve of your cheek, look at your hands, the way they move. You’re doing it now. That’s me. I got it from my mother. She got it from her mother. And on it goes, so far back that we don’t know who began it or on what impulse, but we do it, we can’t help it–
MARY: I’ve inherited some of your gestures. So what?
VI: Don’t try and reinvent yourself with me. I know who you are.
MARY: You don’t know anything.
VI: I look at you and I see myself.
MARY: Have you finished?
VI: Never.”
This remarkable passage of dialogue, so dense with the inescapable legacies that our families imprint upon our psyches, is a paradigmatic example of the kind of thematic questions that BackStage hopes to raise. Enjoy the writing. Come see the show.
