Fur

CITRONA: I wanted love and I used to dream about that. I had dreams where my mother would hold me. I had dreams all the time. I don’t dream anymore. I don’t remember how to sleep. I don’t sleep because I’m a monster and monsters are hard to love

What truly drew me into the text is Citrona. Citrona is treated like a monster, put in a carnival slideshow, abused in a way that no human being should ever be abused. Her own mother has harmed her and sold her. In spite of all this adversity, Citrona wants love more than anything. She has been denied love for so long that she thirsts for it. While society tells her that she is a monster, Citrona’s humanity reminds us that she is more beauty than beast. Michael exoticizes Citrona. He claims to love her, but his love seems superficial. While Citrona seeks love more than anything, she does not submit to Michael. Instead, she dedicates her love to Nena..

NENA: What are you going to do to me?
CITRONA: (Avoiding the question): I wrote you a poem.
NENA: A what?
CITRONA: A poem.
(Pause.)
NENA: Oh...
CITRONA: Would you like to hear it?
NENA: I guess so... What’s a poem?
CITRONA: Oh...It’s a...well, it’s a family of words you put together that says what’s in your heart.
NENA: Oh...
CITRONA: Before I met you, I dreamt of your face.
It was the face of love in an hourglass, pouring over me.
Sand filling me up, drawing out my darkness.
If I could rest my head between your legs, I could sleep.

(Silence. Michael disappears from view.)

Anyway...that’s a poem.
NENA: Wow, well, I never knew words could be put together like that. It’s beautiful I think...Something new, every day...
CITRONA: Yep. Something new.

This specific excerpt is most tragic. Citrona is far from monstrous. Instead, she is thoughtful. She writes poetry for Nena. We are consistently reminded of Citrona’s civilized nature. Although Citrona is treated like a beast and caged like an animal, she is able to love with sincerity. Cruz states, "In my work, I define beauty as the transformation of women from sexual object to spiritual being. The protagonist in Fur, Citrona, though considered a disposable piece of human slideshow flesh, comes to realize her own power through the act and reaction of love. Citrona is both the beauty and the beast defining her own postapocalyptic fairytale." Citrona is an enduring figure. By the end of the text, Michael’s scream leads us to wonder if Citrona has finally conquered Michael. Has she finally dominated the figure that has caged her like an animal? While we never know for sure, perhaps we are left with the idea that Citrona reasserts herself and gains her own agency. In killing Nena, perhaps Citrona frees herself from unrequited love. Perhaps now she truly does have Nena. When Michael screams, perhaps we are called to think of this as an end to male dominance. Citrona, the animal or beast, arises as the Woman.

(Excerpts are taken from Out of the Fringe)

OTHER SELECT PLAYS (in no particular order):

El Grito Del Bronx

Photograph courtesy of http://www.tisch.nyu.edu/props/IO/19062/253/elgritosmall.JPG

Another Part of the House

Cigarettes and Moby Dick

Dreams of Home

Electra and Hero Deem

Frida: The Story of Frida Kahlo

The Have-Little

Miriam's Flowers

Latins in La La Land

Lucy Loves Me

Miriam's Flowers

Rushing Waters

Salt

Telling Tales

Touch of An Angel

Welcome Back to Salamanca

When Galaxy Six and The Bronx Collide