Scene 1
The action of this play is set within two different “worlds.” One is the world of actual visceral human interaction; the other is online. Scene 1 takes place in at Swarthmore College in Philadelphia and features Iraq War vet Elliott Ortiz who now works at a Subway restaurant and his cousin Yasmin “Yaz” Ortiz who teaches as the college. While they both wait for another person, Elliott growing increasingly anxious about making his shift at Subway. Eliott asks for her help in dealing with the approaching death of the woman who raised him, Aunt Ginny while she angles to get a resistant Elliott to witness the final papers of divorce. When Professor Aman finally arrives, Elliott asks him to translate a phrase from Arabic to English but is noticeably reluctant to admit where he heard the phrase.
Scene 2
Scene two is set in the online world connecting Japan, Philadelphia and San Diego. Elliott’s mother, Odessa takes the screen name Haikumom while in her Philly living room. Madeline Mays is an adopted Japanese-American now living in Japan and connecting under the screen name Orangutan. Meanwhile, in San Diego is middle-aged African American “Buddy” Wilkie working with online alias Chutes&Ladders. They are connecting on RecoverTogether.Com, a site founded by Odessa. She is amazed that Orangutan has returned to the site after an absence of three months. Chutes&Ladders, on the other hand, begins harassing Orangutan over her long hiatus as soon as he logs on.
Scene 3
Back in the real world, Elliott is taking an order at Subway while Yaz is in the middle of a class lecture about musical dissonance. John Coltrane is the primary subject of this lesson. The most significant aspect of this scene is the introduction of a character known only as Ghost who speaks just one line, the phrase which Elliott had the professor translate: “Can I please have my passport back?” Yaz gets a phone call informing her to pass a message along to her cousin: they are waiting for him to get to the hospital so they can take
Scene 4
Meanwhile, the online world introduces a new character as well: a crack addict who calls himself Fountainhead. He’s more than that, of course: named John in the real world nearing forty, white, and hiding his addiction from his wife and son. The son knows something is up, however. The most meaningful revelation in this scene is that Fountainhead also lives in Philadelphia and becomes something of a caretaker to Odessa.
Scene 5
In that real world, Eliotto and Yaz are meeting at a flower shop to discuss his response to Ginny’s death. Elliot asks if his real mother, Odessa, has made any inquiries of assistance or help and is hurt to hear of his biological mother’s apparent indifference. They finally decide on an appropriate floral arrangement, one which avoids cheap carnations and instead reflects Ginny’s own garden sensibility.
Scene 6
Orangutan is online alone early in the morning in Japan. It is early afternoon of the previous day in San Diego when Chutes&Ladders joins her. They discuss addiction as she confesses to a growing compulsion to smoke crack despite being clean and sober for three months. Haikumom (Odessa) chastises him for being difficult in the face of Orangutan merely trying to reach out for friendship. They are joined by a Fountainhead who is definitely not off the wagon and assumes none of them will care that he’s still using or reach out to help him.
Scene 7
In the real world, Odessa meets with John for casual conversation, is interrupted to take a call from her son Elliott and reaches out to John’s yearning for help by discussing the pros and cons of various places he could get into a rehab program. He growing increasingly ill-at-ease with the very personal direction the real life meeting has turned to. Elliott and Yaz arrive and join them asking for financial assistance in buying the floral arrangement for Ginny. John offers, but they refuse and when Yaz offers to pay, Elliott grows increasingly unhappy with both women. Ultimately the scene ends with Odessa offering to pawn her one single computer to raise the cash.
Scene 8
Orangutan presses Chutes&Ladders to contact his estranged son, but when he finally makes the call and Wendell picks up, he hangs up, then logs off. Yaz and Elliott at the same time in Odessa’s home where Elliott logs onto his mother’s site under her screen name Haikumom and begins berating Orangutan to the point that she recognizes someone is pretending to be her online friend. Yaz is shocked when Orangutan begins referencing Elliott’s addiction to pain killers and, further, how he has been hospitalized three times for overdosing. Elliott ferociously pulls the computer’s plug from the outlet while pleading with his cousin to just drop the entire subject. Ghost then suddenly appears and he is able to distract her by revealing the specter’s presence to Yaz for the first time. With Odessa’s computer in tow, they both leave for the pawnshop.
Scene 9
At the IRS office where he is employed, Chutes&Ladders is going through his mail when suddenly Orangutan logs online with the news that she has at last tracked down the address of her biological parents. She is apprehensive, however, because with only three months of being sober behind her, it seems too much of a risk emotionally to pursue this knowledge further. He confesses that he once actually did go to his son’s house after five years of being clean but was asked to leave. She flirts with him slightly, then logs off with the warning that in just five minutes she will board a train. He drops everything and departs his office leaving behind everything except the contents of a package from Haikumom: a deflated water wing.
Scene 10
Elliott and Yaz deliver the eulogy for Ginny. It is revealed that she herself was childless, but much of Puerto Rican community in Philadelphia looked to her as a surrogate mother. While Ginny’s life is being celebrated in death, Odessa is alone in her home, forming a puddle on the floor with a spoon. Orangutan, meanwhile, is frozen in place on the train platform awaiting its inevitable arrival.
Scene 11
Chutes&Ladders has inflated the water wing. Over the phone he conducts negotiations to sell her car.
Scene 12
Meanwhile, in Japan Orangutan fell asleep at the train station and gets awakened by a police shining his flashlight in her face. A dazzling light shines brightly over Odessa and while Elliott cannot see it, Yaz witnesses the phenomenon. Yaz urges Odessa to go toward the light with the message that it is perfectly all right to go. Ambulance sirens are heard in the distance and the lights goes out. Yaz urges Elliott to forgive his mother.
Scene 13
Orangutan confesses to Chutes&Ladders that she failed to board the train and he confesses to her that he has purchased a ticket to Japan. She is overjoyed at this news. Fountainhead logs on with news that he is in the hospital tending to Haikumom because she had made him—not Elliott—her emergency contact. The other two plead with him to do all he can to take care of her; the woman who changed their lives for the better. He has informed his wife that he’s at the hospital with a friend and when she hangs up on a note of suspicion, Fountainhead texts her the information she will need to log onto RecoverTogether.com to see what he has been posting.
Scene 14
Yaz logs onto the website under the screen name Freedom&Noise from a Puerto Rico hotel. She introduces herself as an interim administrator of the site during the period that Odessa must spend recovering. Elliott enters and rebukes her for getting involved, but she remains committed. When she leaves to make a personal phone call, Elliott is visited by Ghost again. This time the specter touches him on the face.
Scene 15
Despite some embarrassment, John is bathing Odessa in the tub. Orangutan is at the airport, anxiously awaiting the late arrival of Chutes&Ladders. They hug and reveal their “real world” names to each other, then leave. Elliott and Yaz prepare to scatter Ginny’s ashes over a Puerto Rican waterfall. Yaz reveals that she has bought Ginny’s home and Elliott discloses that he is heading to L.A. afterward rather than going back to Philadelphia. He then proceeds to relate a dream in which the first man he ever shot in Iraq has transformed into an alive and smiling Ginny. He then confesses that the reason he can’t go back to Philly is because deep inside him was a desire for Odessa to experience a relapse. Yaz responds with advice that he should go to the West Coast and once there, don’t ever look back.
