Act 01, Scene 01 - 03 - Lady Nijo
From: Top Girls, by Caryl Churchill
Genre: Dramedy
Topic: Children; Loss
Chaarcter: Female; Japanese; Nun; Materialistic
I saw my daughter once. She was three years old. She wore a plum – red small – sleeved gown. Akebono’s wife had taken the child because her own died. Everyone thought I was just a visitor. She was being brought up carefully so she could be sent to the palace like I was.
I never saw my third child after he was born, the son of Ariake the priest. Ariake held him on his lap the day he was born and talked to him as if he could understand, and cried. My fourth child was Ariake’s too. Ariake died before he was born. I didn’t want to see anyone, I stayed alone in the hills. It was a boy again, my third son. But oddly enough I felt nothing for him.
