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| Since 1986 at the Burstein Family Stage | Home of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama |
                 
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FILL OUR MOUTHS by Lauren Feldman
Notes from the PlaywrightSo I read this poem ages ago. Actually, it was in an anthology of Pablo Neruda poems given to me by a friend of mine. I was in a "searching" part of my life - (when are we not in a searching part of our lives?) - and we might have read one or two aloud together - I don't remember - and I'd forgotten about the beauty and power of poetry, and I read these poems and they thrilled me. And I found this particular one, and I dog-eared it. And I read it often. Aloud, asoft, to myself, to others. Time passed, I moved on, became a playwright, went to grad school, and wrote this play. And as I was thinking of titles for it, I thought about perhaps borrowing from a poem. I picked up Neruda and found this poem again and reread it. And, much to my surprise, I realized that this poem had stayed in the back of my consciousness the entire time I was writing this play. It's funny, that - how things stay a part of you.... I landed on the phrase "fill our mouths," and I thanked Neruda for what would become the guiding title of this play. -- LMF An Excerpt from "Too Many Names" by Pablo Neruda
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(...) No one can be named Pedro, no one is Rosa or Maria, all of us are dust or sand, all of us are rain in the rain. They have talked to me of Venezuelas, of Paraguays and Chiles, I don't know what they're talking about: I'm aware of the earth's skin and I know that it doesn't have a name. (...) When I sleep all these nights, what am I named or not named? And when I wake up who am I if I wasn't I when I slept? |
This means that we have barely disembarked into life, that we've only just now been born, let's not fill our mouths with so many uncertain names, with so many sad labels, with so many pompous letters, with so much yours and mine, with so much signing of papers. I intend to confuse things, to unite them, make them new-born, intermingle them, undress them, until the light of the world has the unity of the ocean, a generous wholeness, a fragrance alive and crackling. |