Term of Art was first performed in 2018 at the Public Theater as part of the Weasel Festival, featuring Schann Mobley, Bryce Payne, and Jenna Zafiropoulos. An expanded version premiered in January 2020 at JACK as part of the Exponential Festival, featuring Bryce Payne, Jorge Sánchez Díaz, Izzy Sazak, and Jenna Zafiropoulos. This is an excerpt of the 2020 play.
The four speakers take on many different voices, while moving in and out of different kinds of physical relation. There is much more movement than is indicated in the script; for a sense of this you can check out the performance documentation video. When not speaking, performers are often counterpointing others’ movements or setting up a subsequent scene. The movement score sometimes aligns with and sometimes juxtaposes what is happening in the text.
Term of Art draws on and writes over Supreme Court oral argument transcripts relating to immigration, the border, Guantánamo, and drone policy. A list of sources is appended.
-A-
1
IZZY
You can make something out of anything
any situation even bad ones you can learn something
if you look around, and you’re like this really sucks
all of it can be put into what you make
all of your experiences, your—
(IZZY TOUCHES JORGE’S SHOULDER OR NECK.)
feelings
(BRYCE LAUGHS.)
What
BRYCE
Nothing
IZZY
Everything you see, think, miss, touch
even if it seems pointless or painful or—
you can think of it as material
JORGE
Butcher paper, cardboard, yarn, pipe cleaners, Popsicle sticks—wow, man, you went All Out
IZZY
Don’t anybody say I don’t fuckin Love you guys!
…
Okay, so. Go to town.
BRYCE
What?
IZZY
No, I mean you can’t. Go anywhere. But you can make stuff.
JENNA
When I began drawing the sea
is when I began not to see outlines
Up to then, the outline was all I could see,
was actually all that seemed real to me.
Our instructor said, man,
you know outlines aren’t real.
And I was like
Are you fucking me?
I know outlines are real.
Outlines are what keep things apart.
And he was like No, they’re not.
And I was like Fucker
And I went back to my National Geographic.
IZZY
And you can go places in your mind, like:
Maybe it would be good to think about what you remember
from home
something that was beautiful about home
something you miss
2
JENNA
Okay okay so my question is: are you allowed to detain someone indefinitely?
BRYCE
So I wouldn’t call this indefinite detention. It’s true there’s no outer limit in terms of a number of days, but it is detention that’s specifically pending a determination of eligibility for asylum
JENNA
But that assumes the determination is going to be done quickly—but it can take years, right?
BRYCE
It can take a long time. You have to be patient.
JORGE
Who do you love more than the world?
BRYCE
Just think of it as if you had cancer.
3
IZZY
…
What are you drawing?
JENNA
Um
(shoulder shrug)
IZZY
Let’s see…how bout:
how much do you wish we could go back?
…
…
JENNA
Wait—are you asking me?
IZZY
Yeah
…
JENNA
A lot
IZZY
A lot.
What would we do if we were there?
JENNA
Mm bike riding maybe?
IZZY
Yeah
JENNA
And the swing we put up between the trees
IZZY
Yeah
I bet that would still be there
4
BRYCE
What they want is that thing of okay you crossed the line, but you could not have not done it.
JORGE
He leaned over my shoulder, watching me draw. He put his hand on my shoulder, my chest. Or maybe he didn’t. What he didn’t tell me, or maybe he did, is that what matters is what it is made of:
JENNA
The paint is made of oil. The law is made of injury. The play is made of failures. The ship is made of cardboard. For want of glue, “it’s held together by pressure only.”
JORGE
What he wanted was for me to see softly. I sometimes still can. There’s a kind of unhitching that happens, of what you see from what it is. Like you are not seeing lines, but you are not knowing names either. This is not this, whatever this is, this is—what it is.
JENNA
What is this?
IZZY
What is what?
JENNA
What is This?
IZZY
What Is it?
JENNA
What is it?
IZZY
I don’t know
JENNA
You Know what it is
IZZY
I don’t know what It is
JENNA
This
(JENNA GRABS IZZY’S HAND AND PULLS IT TOWARDS JENNA’S MIDSECTION. IZZY PULLS AWAY BUT JENNA SQUEEZES IZZY’S HAND AND JENNA HOLDS IT OVER HER CROTCH FOR ABOUT 40 SECONDS.)
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
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…
(JENNA IS STILL HOLDING IZZY’S HAND TO HER CROTCH. JORGE LIES WITH HIS HEAD IN BRYCE’S LAP.)
BRYCE
We missed each other,
we kept missing each other, and in the end
we misunderstood each other, missed what the other one was about.
JORGE
You’re different with me than them.
BRYCE
Because we missed each other it’s hard to say that we really missed each other. What we were missing didn’t exist and had never. Or perhaps that lack was what we’d missed all along, even when together, and that yearning for what was missing was what we named our desire. Which is why, perhaps, we go on desiring one another even so long after the first time we missed, because we defined love, in the case of one another, as this kind of
(JORGE CROSSES TO IZZY.)
failure
Even if we were together there would be no satisfaction. Something would be lacking, or someone would be found to be so.
(JENNA LETS GO OF IZZY’S HAND, SLAPS THE BACK OF HER HEAD, LEAVES.)
5
IZZY
I have that itch like a match and I’m waiting for someone to light me.
JORGE
Did you do it?
IZZY
Yeah
JORGE
What were you watching?
IZZY
I didn’t watch anything
JORGE
No?
IZZY
No I did it with my own brain
JORGE
What did your own brain tell you
IZZY
Um
I forgot
JORGE
You forgot?
IZZY
Mhm
JORGE
Do you want me to remind you?
IZZY
Is that a new phone?
JORGE
No, I got it like a month ago.
IZZY
You change your phone more than I change my underwear.
JORGE
Well that’s a little weird!
IZZY
I’m kidding
JORGE
You’re so dirty
IZZY
You do change your phone a lot
JORGE
I do not, the phone I had before this was just a tiny / little thing
IZZY
You should give me your number
JORGE
What?
IZZY
So I can call you
Later
When I get out.
…
JORGE
Okay
IZZY
You will?
JORGE
Do you want to watch a video?
IZZY
K
…
(THEY SIT NEXT TO EACH OTHER, WATCHING A VIDEO.)
You don’t have to
obviously
JORGE
don’t have to what
IZZY
give me your number
It’s just I thought we were /
JORGE
We are, we are But
this is really dangerous for me
(JORGE PUTS A HAND ON IZZY’S LEG.)
JENNA
After being separated from their families, children were reclassified as unaccompanied children, or “UACs.” But they were not unaccompanied.
IZZY
Write it on me.
(JORGE WRITES A NUMBER ON IZZY’S ARM OR LEG.)
6
IZZY
Now, is—is your argument about the new admits, the people coming to the border, premised on the idea that they simply have no constitutional rights at all?
BRYCE
It is premised on that. / Now we do
IZZY
Okay. I mean, surely that—that can’t be right. Could we torture those people? Could we put those people into forced labor? Surely the answer to that is no, right?
BRYCE
I guess what I would say is the court has said time after time that insofar as people arriving—aliens arriving at our shores are concerned, any process is due process
JENNA
If any process is due process then no process is due
IZZY
When are you due, darlin’?
JENNA
I’m not, now.
IZZY
I’m so sorry
JENNA
I’m asking to be released on humanitarian parole.
IZZY
I’m so sorry. We only grant parole if you’re expecting
BRYCE
(or we used to)
7
IZZY (READING)
The Unaccompanied Child said the staff grabbed his hand and pulled it towards his midsection while sitting. The Unaccompanied Child pulled away, but staff member squeezed his and held it over his crotch for about 40 seconds. Staff then slapped the back of the Unaccompanied Child’s head.
BRYCE (READING)
A few days later while the Unaccompanied Child was sleeping, the staff member squeezed the Unaccompanied Child’s crotch area over his clothing. The staff threatened him not to say anything. The Unaccompanied Child disclosed that he had a romantic relationship with a staff member, stating they were boyfriend-girlfriend.
IZZY (READING) + JENNA (TRANSLATING)
The Unaccompanied Child alleged that during orientation he was isolated in his room and she would bring his meals and they would kiss. The Unaccompanied Child would not disclose if he and the staff member engaged in sexual acts other than kissing, but he did say they used protection. The Unaccompanied Child reported that a Youth Care Worker had been passing him letters and made statements like should we go to the bathroom or should we go to the house alone or I want to give you a blowjob (roughly translated).
BRYCE (READING) + IZZY AND JENNA (TRANSLATING)
During a group outing, the staff member and the Unaccompanied Child had a lot of physical contact, including touching hand to hand, standing abnormally close to each other, sitting with thighs and shoulders touching and making front contact. Other staff members had previously expressed concern about this staff member having inappropriate boundaries with the Unaccompanied Child, noting that they touch each other in a playful way and make opportunities to be alone together as much as possible. Another Child Care Worker stated that he saw one of the notes given to the Unaccompanied Child, and it stated:
JORGE
Love you so much, really I do
IZZY
I should wear a mask when I approach myself. I should schedule a tryst by a tree in the woods, there to meet my own person. Or I should just move more quietly in my mind for a while. Not say this is this or that but let the feelings be felt and maybe then I can stop feeling that I feel nothing, or recognize this feeling of feeling nothing as a feeling in itself.
(PHONE SOUND)
8
JENNA
How old are you, 13?
JORGE
16
JENNA
16! Wow
JORGE
You don’t believe me?
JENNA
I believe you
JORGE
But I’m a year behind because I failed one year
JENNA
What are you, stupid?
JORGE
I just couldn’t go
…
There’ve been a lot of things I’ve seen that were out of control
JENNA
Like what kind of things?
JORGE
How old are you?
JENNA
Guess
JORGE
Um Thirty… seven?
JENNA
Oh fuck you, how old is your mother
JORGE
Thirty-three
JENNA
Do I look older or younger than your mother to you
JORGE
Older
JENNA
Jesus!
JORGE
How old Are you?
JENNA
Twenty-four.
JORGE
So you’re only—
eight years older than me
…
JENNA
If you’re sixteen
…
JORGE
You look older
(JORGE EXITS.)
JENNA
Fuckin prick.
BRYCE
His father was dismembered in front of him
…
…
Is why he couldn’t go to school
9
IZZY
Let’s think of some important questions we can answer: where are you, where did you come from, how did you get here, do you have any cards?
JENNA
Cards?
IZZY
Cards
JENNA
Cards cards, like playing cards?
IZZY
No, cards
JENNA
Cars?
IZZY
Cards
JENNA
Carts?
IZZY
Cards
JENNA
I can’t—
IZZY
Like—like—Valentine’s
JENNA
Oh greeting cards no we don’t
10
BRYCE
Someone said, “She’s a tall drink of water.”
“And I bet she’s been drunk many times,” he replied.
My mother said, “No she hasn’t been,” thinking he meant I’d been drinking, and maybe he did. But that’s not what the term means, she’s a tall drink of water.
It doesn’t mean that the woman is drinking. It means she’s there to be sipped.
JENNA
I want to tell you something about love, which is, at first, after she called him, I only wanted to know everything about her. But later, I did not want only to know.
JORGE
That’s my heart!
JENNA
I wanted to swallow her.
IZZY
If you want to stay you have to leave
JENNA
The question, in this case (as in many cases) is:
JORGE
You would eat my heart out?
JENNA
If the UAC’s stepmother reported that the minor was staying up late texting a worker from the shelter; if she believed the minor and the worker were in a romantic relationship and may have kissed; if the UAC stated that he was in a relationship with a 24-year-old woman staff member; if the UAC was placed in Pennsylvania but left after 15 days to move back to Texas to live with the woman; can it be said that we are not, in this country, transgressing a boundary far more profound than any the children have crossed?
IZZY
Later, he called to say that he loved me. Later, I happened to visit his city. Later, we lived in the same city. Later, he began texting me late at night when he was drunk and wanted someone to jerk off to. That isn’t a reason you can normally give. I mean, maybe you can, but then what am I supposed to say? No? I can’t say that. So—so—so what—what is it I can say?
JENNA
There’s the question of what one has done and of what one might do. How in making happen what might happen we make happen what, otherwise, might not.
JORGE
If I left, love, I would take this with me: the light in the room. The moon in your mouth.
BRYCE
If you leave you won’t be able to come back
IZZY
Years passed.
Sources for Term of Art, Section A
PRIMARY SOURCES
Supreme Court Oral Argument Transcripts
Other Legal Documents
Joint complaint by the Women’s Refugee Commission re: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Detention and Treatment of Pregnant Women
Department of Health and Human Services reports on sexual abuse of children in government custody
Personal Accounts
Adayfi, Mansoor “In Our Prison by the Sea.”
Gorman, H. Candace. “Why I Am Representing a ‘Detainee’ at Guantánamo.”
Slahi, Mohamedou Ould. Guantánamo Diary, edited by Larry Siems.
Visual Art
Martín Ramírez, Untitled (Arches) c. 1960-1963. gouache, colored pencil, and
graphite on pieced paper.
“Ode to the Sea,” an exhibit of art by detainees at Guantánamo curated by Erin Thompson
SECONDARY SOURCES
Books
Espinosa, Victor. Martín Ramirez: Framing his Life and Art.
Jaffer, Jameel. The Drone Memos: Targeted Killing, Secrecy, and the Law.
Milner, Marion. On Not Being Able to Paint.
Articles
Chotiner, Isaac. “Inside a Texas Building Where the Government is Holding Immigrant Children.”
Dickerson, Caitlin. “What it Looks Like to Care for Separated Migrant Children.”
Holmes, Jack. “An Expert on Concentration Camps says that Is Exactly What the U.S. Is Running at the Border.”
Mejia, Brittany and Kate Morrissey. “U.S. is Using Unreliable Dental Exams to Hold Teen Migrants in Adult Detention.”
Merelli, Annalisa. “From families split to ‘lost’ children, the stories behind the
Mindock, Clark. “U.S. immigration officials looking at housing migrant children at Guantánamo Bay, report says.”
Misra, Tanvi. “What Do Migrant Kids See When They Visualize Home?”
Nazario, Sonia. “Someone Is Always Trying to Kill You.”
Rosenberg, Carol. “Congress Weighs Whether to Allow Guantánamo Prisoners to Travel to the U.S. for Medical Care.”
Schwartz, Alexandra. “The Disarming Paintings Made by Guantánamo Detainees.”
Stern, Jeffrey E. “Alka Pradhan v. Gitmo.”
Taub, Ben. “Guantánamo’s Darkest Secret.”
Thompson, Erin. “Art Censorship at Guantánamo Bay.”
∩
Kate Kremer is a playwright and publisher whose works have been presented at the Collapsable Hole (kUnST fEsT), JACK (Exponential Festival), the Public Theater (Weasel Festival), Dixon Place, and the Wild Project (SFX Fest), among others. Her writing has appeared in Fence, HowlRound, and Culturebot. Kate is the editor of 53rd State Press. Her performance novel The Intimacy is forthcoming from Community Mausoleum in 2027.