Prompt #9--A Spoonful of Water

The first instance of the storylines merging in this play is when Elliot and Yaz get on the rehab forum and talk to Orangutan because they are trying to sell Odessa’s computer.  Elliot fakes being Haikumom, which Orangutan sees through very quickly.  Then, Orangutan suggests that Elliot become a part of a pain medication addiction forum, which offends Elliot greatly and lets him know that Odessa has been public with Elliot’s addiction.  This scene does a couple of interesting things that are necessary plotwise.  First, it reveals Elliot’s addiction, which had been unmentioned thus far in the play.  Secondly, it aggravates Elliot into hating his mother even more.  The fact that Orangutan almost immediately notices that Elliot is not actually Haikumom seems to fit into the recurring theme of emotional presence over physical presence; that is, the play stages the forum members as speaking to each other directly because they are emotionally available for each other despite the physical distance between them, whereas Elliot and Odessa are rarely onstage conversing with each other because neither of them are emotionally available for the other, despite how physically near each other they are for the majority of the play.  Also, the poor maternal relationship between Elliot and Odessa is pretty similar to Orangutan’s nonexistent relationship with her birth mother.  From the beginning of the play, Orangutan and Elliot have traveled a very far distance to receive some kind of closure from their birth mother; however, by the end of the play, neither of them would succeed.