Alaska
​Matt Dalgetty

Shayef – A young Yemeni
Mac – A young white American
Sakr – Another young Yemini
Bosun – Older African American
Sailors – Older Yemeni men who speak indistinct Arabic

A large oil tanker. The stage consists of two scenes. One is a small patch of deck on the ship’s bow. The other is a long hallway with a meeting room, there is a large table in the center of it and a porthole facing the audience. On the other side of the hallway is a waterproof door. The waves of the ocean can be seen behind the deck, and behind the waterproof door.

The waterproof door is closed. The light rises on Mac and Sailors in the meeting room. Sailors talk inaudibly in the back Mac is looking through the porthole talking on the phone. His coveralls are dirty, there’s paint in his hair. The sea can be seen raging at the back of the stage. 

Mac: … more than anything. – I was thinking about our house today too, the lavender walls? – Yes – You want a bird? Like your mom. A bird is flying around the room – And we are in bed – What? – yes we are – I miss you I know – what? – I can’t hear you – What did you say? Can you hear me? – Caprice? – Hello? Ok I can’t hear you, If you can hear me I love you and I will talk to you tomorrow when I get off

Act I

Mac and Shayef in dirty blue coveralls are scraping paint off the deck. There is a rusty handrail behind them. The sea can be seen raging in the background. The ship pitches and they stumble.

[Laughing] Mac: Whoa! maybe we die today.. this could really be it for us.
Shayef: No I have to get home, we buy four cows for my wedding.
Mac: Oh yeah – what do you do with them?
Shayef: We make a big pit, big fire, fill it with coals, it’s a party.
Mac: You roast the whole cow?
Shayef: Yes we cook the whole cow, we sing – uh nanana na.
Mac: Na naan a na. That’s what I want to do when I get married to Caprice!
Shayef: You want so much! Always more. It is like when we chew khat, nanananaana we up until the morning. That’s what we do at my wedding. Chew big khat.
Mac: Shayef, what does Shayef mean in English?
Shayef: Shayef doesn’t really mean in English.
Mac: It doesn’t mean anything or you don’t know?
Shayef: It does not mean what it means in Arabic. 

Sakr stumbles his way on to the stage, holding onto the handrail.

Mac: Sakr, what does Sakr mean?
Sakr: What?
Shayef: What is Sakr in English?
Sakr: It is eagle.
Mac: Because in English you know what it sounds like? like soccer. Do you know what Alaska means in English?
Shayef: No, what does it mean?
[to Shayef] Mac: It means the object upon which the sea crashes.
Shayef: Like a beach. And Mac?
Mac: Mac means a Big Mac like Macdonald’s.
Sakr: Ah I do not like Macdonald’s.
Mac: I do not like Macnaaanaa na naa
Shayef: Nana nana na naaaaa.

The ship pitches, they stumble, and lights dim. The hallway is now illuminated. Mac and Shayef enter through the wateproof door singing Arabic music. Shayef walks offstage. Bosun walks on stage and through the hallway to Mac.

Bosun: You dogged down all the doors?
Mac: All secure, lights in the shop and paint locker off. Its really shit out there now.
Bosun: Its getting worse. I’m not sure what y’all’ll get into in the morning but come find me at six if you’re working OT.
Mac: Yeah we are.
Bosun: You using the sat phone?
Mac: Yeah.
Bosun: Ten minutes.
Mac: I know.
Bosun: Just passing word down from the officers, you know they love that phone. I don’t understand, like you aint gonna see em when you get back? She’ll have plenty to say then. Me I’ll wait, just be drinking coffee in my room. You know? I’m home when I’m home, and out here... Thing doesn’t even work in this weather anyways.
Mac: Yeah I know Bo.
Bosun: I know whenever I’m home after a couple weeks wife says “Getting close to time to go back to work!” Don’t be feeling some kind of way Mac, I been out here a long time. You’re a good worker, you keep at it and do your seatime you’ll be bosun before long. Hell might even be a mate some day and then you can talk on that damn phone all you like.

Mac enters the meeting room, the angry sea can be seen in the background. Mac picks up the satellite phone and dials. He walks around the table and looks out through the porthole facing the audience. There is no answer, he tries again, then puts the phone down and looks back into the porthole.

Act II

The deck is slowly illuminated. Mac, Shayef, and Sakr roll paint on the deck. The sea rages.

Mac: I don’t know why I couldn’t get a hold of her last night.
Shayef: Habibi you are worried.
Mac: I mean I have to be, I don’t know what she’s doing, or if she needs to talk to me.
Shayef: You are worried because you can not talk to girlfriend? I have never seen my wife.
Sakr: She will be very beautiful.
Shayef: This is what my mother says. The wedding will be big party. After that I will take a house. My family works on it now.
Mac: When I get off I’m going to go to the city and rent a big house. We are going to paint the walls and decorate it. She’s an artist.
Shayef: Come to Yemen, the people are very friendly. My family will cook for you and you can stay at our house and see the country. 
Mac: Chew khat?
Shayef: Yes we will chew khat and walk in the mountains.
Mac: I want to see the sea.
Shayef: Ocean is very beautiful. Yemen is beautiful country.
Mac: Maybe I will find a wife there.
Shayef: You must first convert if you want wife, but Yemen women are the most beautiful. 
Sakr: Right now they are fighting in Yemen. President Salah was shot by sniper. Before I was on this job I try to go home but the airport is closed because of the rebels. 
Mac: Are they terrorists?
Shayef: No they are not terrorist like here. Sometime when you get stopped at checkpoint on the roads you say “Death to America” and they let you go. But they stay in Yemen. Its civil war.
Mac: That’s crazy.
Shayef: Sakr is from village close to mine. We have a lot of guns.
Mac: That is good, that is like America.
Shayef: Yes Yemen always fighting but my family is peaceful. We have a house and a farm. My father used to work in the city but now we grow many trees. In the morning we walk the goats through the mountains and at night the men get together, chew khat and talk.
Mac: You guys don’t ever run out of things to say? And what about the women?
Sakr: The women cook in the house or go with other women.
Mac: But they can’t talk on the phone or drive? hold on let me try the phone again. 
Shayef: There is bad weather.
Mac: Its almost dinner anyways, and it looks like its going to rain. I don’t know why Bo’s got us painting right before the rain. And where is he? He was talking to me the other day giving me all this advice about how I’ll be Bosun some day, like I’d even want to be. So what, so I could sit in my room and drink coffee all day and look out the window? I’m going and if he asks where I’m at tell him I’m drinking coffee and waiting for an actual job that isn’t painting in the fuckin rain.

Mac leaves. Sakr and Shayef continue to paint and start talking in Arabic.

Act III

Mac is in the meeting room, he dials the phone and looks through the porthole.

Mac: Hey – oh my god its good to talk to you, I missed you yesterday what happened? – You’re crying, don’t cry – What’d you do? – What – What the fuck did you do? – I’m not yelling at you – uh huh – OK – so you saw him two days ago at Longshot – uh huh – You did what? – You went to his apartment – You fucked him? – Did he wear a condom – Caprice DID HE WEAR A CONDOM? – OK – I can’t believe you did this. I thought like oh well she might have danced with somebody or maybe she made out with somebody, but not this, not this – I know – No – So I’m out here and you see your ex one night and then plan to meet again another night, and you’re not going to say anything to me? – What’d you try to say to me? – I don’t believe you – Did you go down on him? – No don’t cry, answer me. Did you... go down... on him? – uh huh –

Sailors enter and lean against the side wall of the meeting room talking. They and Mac eye each other. Mac tries to lower his voice but can’t and starts shouting.

Mac:  Oh so he went down on you first so you just didn’t want to be rude? Huh – yeah you bitch – who the fuck am I? – NO I AM NOT.

He slams the phone on the floor, the sailors jump. Mac points to them, says “fuck the mate” and starts to leave. Shayef comes through the waterproof door and then enters the meeting room after hearing the sound. He looks down at the pieces of the phone. 

Shayef: Habibi, what’s going on?
Mac: She fucked her ex. She ran into him two days ago and then they made a plan and she went over there last night. That’s why she didn’t pick up.
Shayef: Mac I am so sorry.
Mac: Its my fault we were kind of in an open relationship, I thought it was different though. I loved her, she talked it up so much. I was like how could I ever sleep with someone else. I was going to but I didn’t because how would I be able to even say that to her? There was no way.
Shayef: I don’t understand what you’re saying, I am sorry to hear this, but this is Americans. In Yemen no man ever look at my wife, never see her in her life.
Mac: You know someday I am going to your country, but I’m rescuing all of your women.
[incredulous] Shayef: Rescue? Rescue to what? like your girlfriend rescued? Now she bes with other men. You think woman wants that? You think she like that better?
Mac: Fuck you, you don’t know.. fuck her too, and Ziad, let her fuck him.

There is silence for a moment with both men shaking. Suddenly Shayef smiles and looks to Mac.

Shayef: I do know what that means, Ziad in English.
Mac: What?
[Smiling] Shayef: It means more.