Professional Documents
Culture Documents
RADIO SLOVENIJA
Department of Drama Programmes
Text written by
MARIJA MERCINA
1
THE DONOR – A SOUND PLAY
CHARACTERS
THE ORGAN DONOR: VIKTORIJA BENCIK
THE LETTER WOMAN: TJAŠA ŽELEZNIK
THE NURSE: JANA ZUPANČIČ
THE DOCTOR: UROŠ SMOLEJ
THE DRIVER'S FATHER: UROŠ MAČEK
THE VOICE IN THE ELEVATOR
2
THE DONOR – A SOUND PLAY
The scenes therefore proceed like a parallel world (of experiences in) time. In
between the scenes the sounds, together with the music, are at times set up like
short time loops (e.g. a wheel – a respirator in action).
THE VOICE IN THE ELEVATOR: The door is going to close. (The door.
The ride begins.) The elevator is going up. First floor. (A bell rings.) The door is
going to open. The door is going to close. The elevator is going up. Second
floor. The door is going to open...
THE ORGAN DONOR (intro): Until this moment I was indifferent, hollow,
empty. Emptiness can hurt as well. I never knew how much I could take.
THE ORGAN DONOR (against background music): The letter has a Ljubljana
postal stamp. I won’t even open it. I know what’s in it even though there’s no
sign saying Slovenia Transplant.
3
THE DONOR – A SOUND PLAY
THE VOICE IN THE ELEVATOR: The door is going to close. The elevator
is going up.
4
THE DONOR – A SOUND PLAY
THE ORGAN DONOR: Well, what can happen to a healthy young man in the
city centre on a cycle track close to home?
THE VOICE IN THE ELEVATOR: The elevator is going up. Second floor.
The door is going to open.
THE ORGAN DONOR: I’m going there even though they don’t have visiting
hours right now. They’ll let me see you anyway.
THE VOICE IN THE ELEVATOR: The door is going to close. The elevator
is going up.
THE NURSE (intro – a thought – against the background sounds in the ward):
I started working in the intensive care department five years ago. I’ve seen a lot,
5
THE DONOR – A SOUND PLAY
but never such an odd visitor. She behaved as if she’d called to pay her respects
to someone.
THE ORGAN DONOR (against the background sounds in the ward): Hello. Is
he asleep?
THE NURSE (background sounds – intro – a thought): Whoever let her come
up here?
THE ORGAN DONOR (against the background sounds in the ward): When is
he going to wake up?
THE ORGAN DONOR (against the background sounds in the ward): May I
wake him up?
THE NURSE: I told her I’d call the duty doctor. I’ll go out of the room for a
short time to let her be alone with him.
THE ORGAN DONOR: Just a short time ago we were making love. I nuzzled
under your armpit, nibbled at your belly. »You are so handsome, you smell so
nice.« I wanted to doze off for a while longer, stay in our nest, in my little
house, under my little blanket in order to keep our nest warm.
6
THE DONOR – A SOUND PLAY
THE NURSE: She knew nothing about his condition. I should have prepared
her for the truth, at least to a certain extent, but I didn’t know how. I rummaged
around the machines for a bit and told her that the doctor was expecting her.
MUSIC.
THE DOCTOR: He’s in an apneic nonresponsive coma. His vital functions are
being upheld purely with the help of machines.
MUSIC.
7
THE DONOR – A SOUND PLAY
THE NURSE: I didn’t want to hear him tell her that he’s not sleeping but rather
that he’s unconscious. And when she asks him what the prognosis is, when is he
going to wake up, what will he tell her?
THE NURSE (intro – a thought): She kept looking at him and I knew she
didn’t understand at all.
BROOM SOUNDS.
THE ORGAN DONOR: I told him yes, of course, you decide on donating,
you’re a donor, it says so on the donor’s card, just leave me here a little longer.
8
THE DONOR – A SOUND PLAY
SOUND SCENE 10
THE ORGAN DONOR: Into whose veins shall your heart push blood after the
surgeons grab hold of you? I told you to make me a baby, I wanted to propagate.
You shall start bleeding, oh how much blood there is in a healthy grown-up man
even when he’s dead…
THE ORGAN DONOR (a recollection): The letter. It’s still here. I’ve been
looking at it for hours, tormenting myself. I know what’s in it. I’m going to open
it no matter how painful the truth may be.
9
THE DONOR – A SOUND PLAY
THE LETTER WOMAN: Dear sir or lady! I don’t know you. According to the
law I shall never find out who you are. Never has anyone given me as much as
you did by signing your permission for organ harvesting. By doing it you have
given us the ultimate present that a person can give: life.
THE ORGAN DONOR: What a presumptuous letter! How dare she write it!
THE LETTER WOMAN: You have given our three children their father back
and rendered me back my husband, but believe me that I can feel your pain, too.
THE ORGAN DONOR: Why did they give her my address? She doesn’t know
the first thing about me and yet she dares write about my feelings and my loss.
10
THE DONOR – A SOUND PLAY
THE LETTER WOMAN: I realize that the source of our happiness is also
your irreparable los. We sympathize with you.
THE ORGAN DONOR: I refuse to read the letter to the end. She writes to me
about perfect family happiness, the hypocrite, lying that by expressing sympathy
she has me and my beloved in mind. She wants to comfort me as if there existed
solace for the greatest possible loss.
THE ORGAN DONOR: It makes me feel even worse than before, imagining a
family glowing with happiness while I’m here alone, all empty inside.
11
THE DONOR – A SOUND PLAY
THE ORGAN DONOR (intro: very slow speech): The phone call that broke
the silence that afternoon a week after the funeral made me go completely nuts.
THE ORGAN DONOR (a thought): This person – whom I don’t want to meet,
neither him nor his daughter –, this person has upended the universe by a single
phone call.
12
THE DONOR – A SOUND PLAY
THE DRIVER’S FATHER: I have never experienced anything like it. She
laughed. And she never stopped laughing.
THE DRIVER’S FATHER: I had to cut the conversation short. I’d give
everything I own if it only meant that I never called her.
THE ORGAN DONOR: Why did you make that phone call?
THE DRIVER’S FATHER: I had to. I told her it was my fault entirely.
13
THE DONOR – A SOUND PLAY
THE ORGAN DONOR (intro – slowly): Why was the daughter looking for
her phone without stopping the car first?
THE ORGAN DONOR: Why did my beloved have to ride by on his bicycle at
that very moment?
THE DRIVER’S FATHER (to his daughter – over the mobile phone): Hallo?
Hallo, can you hear me?
A CAR BREAKING. OUTSIDE THE CAR: A THUD AS THE CAR HITS THE
BODY OF A CYCLIST. A TRAFFIC ACCIDENT. THE BICYCLE WHEEL IS
WINDING DOWN. MUSIC CHORDS.
THE DRIVER’S FATHER (a confession): She didn’t stop. Looking for her
mobile phone, she veered off the road, knocking a man off his bicycle in the
process.
THE ORGAN DONOR (Intro): Why did the corner of that house have to be
there?
14
THE DONOR – A SOUND PLAY
THE DONOR: Why did it have to happen exactly the way it happened and with
such merciless, killing precision?
THE DRIVER’S FATHER (from the mobile phone on the seat): Hello? Hello,
can you hear me?
THE ORGAN DONOR: A single phone call less and my beloved would still
be alive today!
THE DRIVER’S FATHER: She never stopped. She was looking for her
phone.
15
THE DONOR – A SOUND PLAY
MUSIC.
THE LETTER WOMAN: There was never a moment when I forgot about
you.
16
THE DONOR – A SOUND PLAY
THE ORGAN DONOR (a thought): After that phone call at least I knew what
had happened.
17
THE DONOR – A SOUND PLAY
THE ORGAN DONOR (a thought): I knew that life is generally not regulated
by any sensible laws.
THE VOICE IN THE ELEVATOR: Ground floor. The door is going to open.
THE ORGAN DONOR: Is that someone keeps cracking jokes at our expense.
THE VOICE IN THE ELEVATOR: The door is going to close. The elevator
is going down.
18
THE DONOR – A SOUND PLAY
FADE-OUT.
19