What’s the Secret, Ben?

What’s the Secret, Ben?

This play is a take-off on Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman.  It does not deal with Willy Loman and his family.  Rather it is the development of Willy’s brother Ben and his life in Africa before his death.  In Miller’s play, Ben, who has been dead, appears as a ghost in Willy’s desperate hallucinations.  In Willy’s conversation with his neighbor Charley, the audience learns that Ben had seven sons, thus Willy does not expect to get any of the inheritance his brother, who had left home at the age of nineteen to search for diamonds in the mines of Africa and came out hugely rich at the age of twenty-one, is likely to leave his family.

We see at the opening of this play Ben contemplating death, because he is dying of cancer.  He is particularly disturbed because he is expecting his sons with their wives to come swooping down from their different perches like vultures to see what they can get out of the old man before he dies.  Little interested in coming to visit Ben while he was robust and younger, now after years of absence they “suddenly” show an interest in his wellbeing.  They do not fool Ben, however, for he is well prepared for their necrophagous visit.

Predictably, the sons, with their wives, begin to arrive faithfully little by little.  It does not take long for them to reveal their true colors and motives, biting each other in the back, each claiming to deserve a hefty chunk of Ben’s estate with passionate and logical justification.  As time begins to drag for their impatience, they begin to plot his murder, since “he was going to die anyway.”  Among them are Ben’s faithful doctor, Harrison, and Rebecca, one of the wives, who has been accustomed to high living but now begins to fall under the spell of unexpected love.  Her new personality begins to insinuate itself in bachelor Harrison’s romantic sensibilities.  There is also the Benjamin of the family, Ben Junior, jazz musician recently discharged from the Army.  His hipster life and bohemian attitude toward life carries a certain sense of justice and genuine love for his “pop.”

The intrigue of the other members of the family pressures Junior into participating in Ben’s murder – passionately against his better judgment and feelings.  The date is set for Ben’s murder: death by poisoning.  Junior and June, one of the wives who has fallen in love with him, are to carry out the nefarious deed by poisoning his dessert.  With so many dishes and servings looking alike, the inevitable happens: they poison the wrong person, Joe.  Unbeknownst to everyone, except his latest wife, Miriam, Ben has been listening to all their secretive plotting conversations with hidden mikes throughout the house.  But Ben was not going to wait to be poisoned “by another hand.”  Because of his unbearable pain, Ben had arranged for Harrison to give him a pill that would relieve his pain permanently.  While Joe is dying from the poison intended for Ben, the shrewd Ben is also dying from the pill he has just swallowed, saying to his dead son, “Don’t fret, son, I’ll be right behind you.”

Under the mistaken [misled] belief that Ben had not yet made out his last testament, the scheming sons had wanted him dead before he could cut them out of his will.  But the last testament has most surprising but revealing contents and conditions.

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Celestina

Celestina

Taken from the Tragedia de Calisto y Melibea [published in 1499], which is believed to be the model for Shakespeare’s Rome and Juliet, this play plucks out the minor but one of the most memorable characters in literature, Celestina.  In the earlier work this character appears as an old crone once a successful prostitute, who now serves as a tutor to young girls seeking [“in the life” – prostitution] a means of feeding themselves and perhaps their young families, and is also a mender of hymens for young wayward ladies who are willing and able to pay to have their pure virginity restored.  This play, however, presents a beautiful, intelligent, well-educated girl “in the life,” whose clientele includes successful businessmen, a renowned Archbishop, and politicians.

Opening the play is a scene of Celestina and her mother discussing the merits and demerits of prostitution, the mother wishing that her daughter could have a more respectable career but accepting Celestina’s position: except for our prudery about sex, why is prostitution any less respectable than any other commercial business that sells a valuable product in great demand, especially if the clientele is doubtless respectable?

Celestina has won a respectable place in the community because she does not flaunt her beauty or success, but is obviously appreciated, especially by the men, and also because as a brilliant fundraiser for the Church she has been accepted as a respected member of the Board.  In a meeting with the Board, despite Celestina’s admirable efforts at diplomacy, when the Archbishop feels “attacked” by the subject of the clergy abuse of its young and female parishioners, he explodes in anger a storms out of the meeting.  To divert attention from the growing discontent of the community in the negative publicity about the abuse of young boys, girls, and women in the confessional, the Archbishop publicly announces a campaign to clean the city of all prostitution by closing all brothels and arresting any and all streetwalkers.

Immense pressure is placed on Celestina when she discovers that word has gone out of her abominable “business” and that the Archbishop has broken his appointments with her, however much he craved his masochistic flagellation “therapy.”  Forced to decide whether to allow herself to be run out of town, Celestina elected to go public and name names of her clientele, arguing that if she is guilty, so must her clients who pay for her services.

Not one to take such public disgrace lying down, the Archbishop calls on a couple of his more able henchmen to go teach her a less she will never forget and put her out of business permanently.  They mutilate her so that she will never again be able to sell her wares in the open market.

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Ecstasy Celebrates Doomed Women in Ciudad Juarez - A Play By David Hernandez

For years now women have been murdered in Ciudad Juarez and vicinity, and its causes remain a mystery to the general public, most of it because the American public has not taken the trouble to learn about its southern neighbor, its culture and history, much less its very different values than American ones.  This play presents characters little familiar in American life, though the male and female protagonists are an American (Barry) and a beautiful Chicana (Soledad).

The term “ecstasy” takes on a double meaning in this play: it refers to ecstasy, the deadly drug and the pleasure the drug dealers take in torturing, raping, and killing their victims.  The American is a businessman taking advantage of the two cultures on either side of the border, but his Mexican competitors, who have been outwitted by the American, are constantly vigilant in searching for some way to compete with him, especially if they can find a way of running him out of town.

Opening the play is a scene where Barry and Soledad have just enjoyed a sexual interlude and are expecting some of his business competitors.  But along comes a corrupt Mexican highly ranked cop who accuses Barry of spying for the CIA, which could mean nuisance meddling in Mexican commercial and police affairs.  The plot revolves around these accusations and denials and the unexpected plea by some Mexican women, seeking asylum in Barry’s home, because they believe that Soledad, known to be Barry’s “woman,” could be sympathetic and aid them.

As the police investigations come close to proving that Barry is the CIA spy, he gets Soledad’s confession that she is the spy as they both discover that their “fling” has developed into a deep mutual love.  The collusion between the cops and dealers produces the information that reveals that the fugitive women have been staying in Barry’s home.  It is also discovered that Soledad is the CIA spy and is dragged out with the other women, all sure to meet with the same fate of the known murdered women in Ciudad Juarez.  Out of love, Barry takes gun in hand to go rescue his Soledad with little hope of reaching her before his body is riddled with holes.

This play is available from digilibro.