Girl Before The Radium Tattoos by Beth Blair
CHARACTERS:
ANNOUNCER Voice from Off Stage (female or male)
MARIA Maria Sklodowska, a young Polish girl, the future Marie Curie
BRONYA Oldest of the three Sklodowska sisters
HELENA One of Maria's older sisters
TUPSIA Polish female professor in Maria's new private girls'
school
INSPECTOR HORNBERG Russian uniformed official whose job it is to monitor schools
in Warsaw for compliance with Russian regulations
KATIA Female friend of Maria's
ANDZIA Female friend of Maria's
Other Girls could be used as extras in the classroom scene
SCENE ONE
It is 1875
MARIA SKLODOWSKA (a young Marie Curie) and sister HELENA question their
older sister BRONYA as they study in a tiny bedroom of their family's cramped
apartment in Russian-occupied Warsaw, Poland.)
MARIA: I won't go back!
HELENA: Me, neither!
BRONYA: You will both go back.
MARIA: I'll study science and mathematics here with Father.
HELENA: Mother needs me at home. I'll help with meals. (Beat.)
Always thinking about food, anyway.
BRONYA: Stop it! You're both being childish!
MARIA: The authorities shouldn't have closed our school at the Convent!
BRONYA: Blame the authorities all day long, but what good does it do?
MARIA I will do something, too.
BRONYA: Don't!
MARIA: You watch. Someday I will make things better.
BRONYA: Okay, you had better start thinking more about your
studies, then, and less about who is occupying our city.
MARIA: If we don't think about it, we will never get rid of these people,
Bronya. Why did they have to shut down our school?
HELENA: They don't like nuns, do they?
BRONYA: They don't like Catholic nuns. They want us to stand with them
on Saturdays in their Orthodox churches, speaking Greek! Can't
speak Polish, but please speak Greek. Now, please be quiet so I
can study.
Maria pauses as if to try to study, but then blurts out
MARIA: Why won't the Russians just let us be?
BRONYA: You don't take a people "over" and let them be, Maria.
They want us to speak only Russian and forget every-
thing Polish. They will not be happy until we all become
Russian citizens!
MARIA: I NEVER will!
HELENA: Thinking about all this makes me tired and a little hungry . . .
how about if I bring us all . . .
BRONYA Father and Mother say someday we will overtake them.
MARIA I want to overtake them NOW—-not someday! How dare they
think Warsaw wants to be part of Russia?
BRONYA Don't be foolish! You are risking getting into trouble with this
kind of talk.
Maria pauses to summon her courage
MARIA: I am doing something, too! Everyday I am teaching Andzia and
Katia and Katia and all my friends to speak lots and lots of Polish
words!
BRONYA: Maria, you must not get caught speaking Polish! Soldiers are
watching everywhere. Inspectors may even come into your
new school to spy on you We have to do as the Russians say
when they are near. That's how most of the Polish teachers are
handling things.
After a pause:
MARIA: Maybe we shouldn't do what they ask us to do. Father has
refused to work as a science teacher in their schools. He says
that is what a good Polish patriot does—-resist them!
[end of extract]