We're in tech this weekend for I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me By a Young Lady From Rwanda, and i have a sketch of the second character in the play to share.
This is Simon, Juliette's writing teacher. He is a frustrated novelist, a mildly successful poet, working part time helping refugees like Juliette write creative pieces about their experiences. When he meets her, he's sweetly but frustratingly clueless about her situation, ignorant without malice, and his actions toward her are informed wholly by the inadvertant presumption of his European white male academic perspective. For her part, Juliette finds him unkempt and questions his writerly skill, even as she longs for a teacher to help her improve the craft of her writing in English, a language she is still learning.
You can see from the sketch--he doesn't tuck his shirt in or button it all the way up. He's a bit schlumpy in his corduroy pants and his fuzzy plaid cardigan and his almost-hip spectacles frames. He means so well, and he tries so hard, bless his heart. He does eventually help Juliette with her work, and in the process she helps him come out of his own shell.
And, that's pretty much it for this show: two characters who almost never leave the stage, one major look each...and, once this opens, i think i'm probably on to something new, a paper project. I'm thinking maybe Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke!
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