The Brooklyn Rail

The curtain rises as 59 New Yorkers stand on a bare stage. One by one they slowly and methodically leave the stage, the 36th person is escorted off silently by the two cops that suddenly appear without fanfare. The process continues until there’s just one person left: 

It’s Zohran Mamdani standing in front of a painted scenic flat depicting Grand Army Plaza. 

He turns into a pigeon.

The scenic flat falls forward startling the bird who flies around the space before landing again. Behind the wall was an older lady with a wheeled cart. She feeds the pigeon. We watch this for a while. 

A large rat the size of a PT Cruiser enters the stage and swallows the woman. The pigeon flies away and circles above the audience. 

The rat speaks: 

Rat: Where should I begin? The weight of the trains are on my shoulders and the day is starting again before the last one even got to finish. They say we’re scrambling at their feet, but it’s a lateral injustice. Vague accusations about belonging, I’m sorry ownership, or “land” or signification. And there’s a blinking light signaling to me thinking the fight isn’t over yet. We’re gathered in the premature summer heat and there’s an anxious feeling about what’s going to happen next. A group of girls holding Chanel Maxi Flap bags speak to one another firmly about matcha lattes and Raya. Porto Rocha. A reusable water bottle that hasn’t been washed in months. Intuition. Hands off. A theatrical parade led by Pat Oleszko, I’m mistaken, it’s a protest: no difference. A black puffer and a dream. And I’m trying to wear less polyester these days because it makes me itchy. It’s the audacity. Or it’s an interracial couple waiting in an hour-long line for ice cream. Miscegenation. Fucking a squirell. It’s lacking integrity and it chooses you. Telfar. Unrelated. Chewing through the wiring. A lease renewal and a stack of books you haven’t read including Lena Dunham’s memoir. But it feels good to have it near. 

The rat leaves the stage.

*

A false ceiling lowers into the playing space as the rat exits making the stage appear 12 ft high. 

A young black girl falls from the ceiling. She is not injured, just slightly tussled as if they fell onto a softer landing place. Another girl falls, then another. Until 12 girls ranging from ages 8–16 are on stage staring blankly at the audience. 

(A few black women in the audience stand up and leave “Oh, hell no.”) 

The sound of a rattling car engine.

A saturated blue light, making the girls appear purple. 

They begin to play two games of double dutch as the car engine rattles on creating a hypnotic rhythm.

The blue light turns into an audience blinding white light. The oscillation of the jump ropes fractures the light into a strobe. 

The light/music crescendos until the space returns to a fluorescent stasis revealing just one girl left alone on stage. She crosses right and sits on the lip of the stage. (We’re at BAM by the way.) 

She takes out a small bag of snacks: a bag of chips, a honey bun, and a bev. She remains there through the duration of the piece speaking the text in the outlined text box at the bottom of the document (unamplified):

A teenage boy enters on a Citi Bike and circles the stage. He dismounts. Props the bike up on its kickstand and exits. He re-enters on another Citi Bike; dismounts and balances the bike on top of the other bike. He exits. Returns on another bike. Balances the bike atop the growing stack. This continues multiple times until the column of bikes grows precariously tall defying the laws of physics. As the stack grows the false ceiling rises. This task requires a ‘Genie lift’. 

The stack of Citi Bikes is now taller than the proscenium. 

*

An older white man (who may or may not be or look like Jim Fletcher) comes out shirtless and starts dancing a techno shuffle to a minimal beat. 

We’re now on the dancefloor of QNCC in East New York. 

We watch Jim dance for a few minutes. 

The shadow of a lynched figure appears superimposed onto the column of Citi Bikes. 

Another guy, [name redacted], comes out and watches Jim for a while. 

Jim begins to crawl up the Citi Bike column. [redacted] loses interest and faces the audience. 

A group An army of light skin guys appear around [redacted]. 

[redacted] speaks. As he speaks the light skin army makes a series of minimalist geometric shapes. But they mostly stand in a line and snarl or fade in and out of consciousness. 

[Name redacted]: Pinnacle soft shoe melatonin trip to Berlin Airbnb facile faculty natures perfume pre-pubescent Broadway rice queen apology text remote detonated slow release Creatine flatulence infatuation hearing damage assets ascension hemoglobin two face rupture in order access Face ID hard launch time Doxycycline liquid death circuit modern Monstera Crossfit entropic and the little things get harder to manage. Intolerant checkerboard gag reflex on linen sheets tear stains lube stained chronic pains crushed irreverent cadmium red ring light aspiring gay microcelebrity. Post inflammatory hyperpigmentation. Barry’s and brunch. Peptide creative director consolatory ad agency fiber supplements Dr. Evan Goldstein. Prayers prolapse. Somewhere there’s a black boy praying on my downfall lol kissing white boys at a house party on a Tuesday in Prospect Lefferts Garden. There is an opacity. Looking past the person you’re talking to. Doomscroll. A painting studio with no ventilation. I’m not really looking for a relationship right now. 

The army gets on their knees face to ass like an anilingus human centipede and crawls offstage. After his speech [redacted] goes to the back wall and reveals that what appeared to be a wall is a curtain. He draws the curtain revealing a ghost kitchen and then leaves. 

We watch the workers in the kitchen cook for a while. The music is dissonant. Delivery drivers on E-bikes and mopeds begin to line up waiting for their pick up orders. One of the delivery drivers turns and speaks:

Delivery Driver: “It is a rainy and disgusting Saturday in New York City today, which means I will not be leaving my house, which means I will be getting literally every single thing I need delivered to my front door because I’m lazy, I hate cooking, and because I can. And because I’m a professional DoorDash customer. I will also be including all of the pricing and the receipts for proof, just because I’m nosy too. But it is 10 a.m. and I just got my first delivery of the day, which is my coffee. I do only get coffee delivered when it is raining outside because otherwise I’m walking my dog every single day anyways. But when it’s raining, I don’t like to walk my dog too far because he’ll get so wet and disgusting. But I always get the exact same order from Starbucks. This is an iced latte with almond milk, two pumps of vanilla, vanilla cream, cold foam, and cinnamon. And this was $21.20. Cheers. It’s now 1:47 p.m. and my second delivery of the day just arrived, my lunch. I really wanted to try Goop Kitchen for the first time today, but it wasn’t available for delivery, probably because of the rain. Instead, I got Croft Alley. Shocker. I got their Chinese chicken salad, which I would say is honestly my favorite salad of all time. And this was $32 and something cents with a 20% tip. If you are ordering, especially on a rainy day, please be sure to tip generously. I mean, always tip generously if you can, but especially when it’s raining. My third delivery of the day just arrived at 6:20 p.m. because it is dinner time. And because I am incredibly predictable, I got St. Ambrose. However, I did switch it up this time. This time I got the grilled salmon. I always get it well done. And of course I paid for the $5 bread. Sometimes they give me—I’m actually very curious, only whole wheat and it really pisses me off. But hopefully this time they gave me the good bread. They gave me not the good bread. Oh, I lied! They gave me two pieces of white bread and then one piece of whole wheat. Okay, I’m happy. This was quite pricey because the salmon alone was $59. So the total after tax and 20% tip was $70. I’ve been sitting around debating what I want to order for dessert because for once in my life, I’m not in the mood for froyo. And then I remember I actually have an extra big fat cookie from the other day from a different delivery that I had. I’m not going to count it, but I have no more deliveries left in me  for today. I’m going to heat this up in the microwave. But the grand total for all three of my deliveries today was $124.19. Honestly, three deliveries for me on a really rainy gross day: not that bad for me.” (1A)

^{(1A) TikTok video from @audreypeters on April, 25, 2026.}

(The driver gets on his moped and flies away and the curtain of the kitchen closes.) 

*

The young girl who has been sitting on the edge of the stage for the duration stands and comes center stage. Her eyes begin to beam a bright light.

END OF PLAY

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