STUDY: Paper Menagerie

ACT ONE (1031)

SCENE ONE (286)

Protagonist is crying and can’t be soothed. Mom takes him to the breakfast table. She cuts up Xmas wrapping paper and folds a paper tiger. It plays with the boy. He laughs.

SCENE TWO (324)

BACKSTORY - Dad picked Mom out of a catalog. He signed up for some service in 1973. Saw a picture. There were facts about her, but none of them were true. He flew to Hong Kong to meet her. Dad pays a waitress to translate for him. They fly to Connecticut and protagonist is born in the year o the tiger.

SCENE THREE (421)

Protagonist asks Mom to make a goat, a deer, a water buffalo. He has memories of them playing. Water Buffalo wanted to allow in the soy sauce. Tiger pounced at sparrows and got his ear torn. He sees a documentary and asks for a shark. Shark sinks. Makes a tinfoil one.

ACT TWO (1012)

SCENE FOUR (189)

He’s ten, moves to a new house. Two women neighbors visits. Makes racist comments.

SCENE FIVE (453)

Mark comes over with Star Wars action figures. Jack’s not impressed by the Obi-Wan that doesn’t do anything but swing his arm up and down. So Jack’s like show me your toys. He brings out his paper menagerie. Mark says his toys are made out of trash. Tiger breaks Obiwan. Mark punched Jack. Tiger jumps on Mark. Mark crumples him up and tears it in half.

SCENE SIX (370)

Mark is popular and makes racist comments at him in school for two weeks. Jack wants to know if he has a chink face. He tells mom to speak English. He says we should have Chinese food. Dad suggests a cookbook. She says if she says “love” it’s on her lips, but if she says “ai” it’s in her heart. And Jack wants real toys.

ACT THREE (996)

SCENE SEVEN (413)

Jack gets Star Wars toys, he puts away the paper menagerie into a shoebox. They escape, he catches them and tapes them shut. They make noise, they go into attic. He refuses to talk to mom unless it’s English. Her mom is trying but it’s awkward. She would make a few origami animals but Jack always put them away. Mom gives up in high school. She becomes a non-entity to him.

SCENE EIGHT (583)

Jack and dad are standing next to mom in the hospital bed. Jack’s mind is in on-campus recruiting season. Dad seems weak an old. He realizes he doesn’t know much about dad either. Mom tells him she’s fine and he should go back to school. Don’t worry about me. He mimes the motions of what sons are supposed to do. She tells her that if anything should happen to her to take the box of origami out on Qingming and think of her. WORLD BUILD: Qing Ming is the Chinese Festival of the Dead. She would write letters to her dead parents about her life in America. She would fold it into an origami crane and release it. She repeats her request. Jack doesn’t want to miss his flight. That’s all he cares about. Mom dies while he’s flying over Nevada.

ACT FOUR (1863)

SCENE NINE (115)

Dad ages fast. House is too big. He and girlfriend Susan helps pack. They find the shoebox. The animals did not move. Was it magic or childhood memory?

SCENE TEN (304)

Susan is on a trip. He’s watching TV. Documentary on sharks come on. He sees the shark in his memory. A piece of paper is moving. It’s Laohu (tiger). Susan had put the origami around the apartment as decoration. Laohu jumps into his palms and unfolds himself. It’s filled with Chinese. He checks the internet. It’s Qingming.

SCENE ELEVEN (97 + 1239)

He takes the letter downtown where Chinese tour buses stopped. He pesters people until a young woman agrees to read it for him.

It’s a sad letter to Jack. She’s talking about her pain. She talks about the animals and how they will stop when she dies. If you think of me on QingMing they will come alive. She tells him the story of her life. The village and prince. Peasant families. Great Famine. Zhezhi paper craft was paper magic in Sigulu. Tigers to chase mice. Birds to chase grasshoppers. Cultural revolution. Mom suicide. Dad killed by boys. She was orphaned. She snuck away to Hong Kong. Men took her to Hong Kong to be sold into slavery. She took care of Mr. Chin’s boys and was beaten. Old fish woman helped her get into a catalog. Then suburbs of Connecticut. She was lonely. Then you were born. You shared characteristics of my parents and me! Now I had osmoen to talk to. You know what the Chinese think is the saddest feeling in the world? It’s for a child to finally grow the desire to take care of his parents, only to realize that they were long gone. I know you don’t like your eyes and hair, they are my eyes and hair. But you’ve brought me so much joy. Now you won’t talk to me and I’m losing everything all over again.

SCENE TWELVE (108)

He can’t bare to look into the young woman’s face who helped translated the letter for her. He asks her to help her trace the word ai out. He refolds tiger and takes him home.