Parsley

A NEW WORK FROM

the piece

C is a woman. X is a man.

We meet these two characters across three different eras: Now, Then, and Before.

Each era is different, and yet not much has changed. Regardless of time, they end in the same place. X is alone, and C is left with no more cards to play.

We are sent backwards in time through the eras in search of a better ending.

Throughout history, female characters who have lost their virtue, honour, or social standing have regained their value through sacrificing their own lives. This trope of the fallen woman recurs throughout western canon. We live in a culture built out of these myths, where feminine strength can only be validated through self sacrifice.

Parsley looks at how these inherited narratives dictate our understanding of feminine worth, and shape the way we walk together through the world.

X. I would if I could.

C. You could. I can’t.

Therein lies the difference.

X. Not terribly different, and yet –

BY CAITLIN GEORGE

My mother always used to tell me that parsley is a woman’s herb. Not the plant, that the herb was for women. I’ve no idea what that means.

As far as I can tell parsley is a bit of green people put on top of one-pot meals in restaurants, to dress them up, make them look more attractive, before being immediately kicked to the outskirts of the plate by whoever is wielding the fork. Only to later be abandoned to the compost with the leftover mess of scraps.

I don’t think that’s the parallel she was trying to draw.

I doubt she even knew what she meant. I’d ask her, my sisters and I would ask her, we never really got an answer. I couldn’t tell if she didn’t want to elaborate because my dad was there or because we were invariably eating dinner. Men aren’t great with talk of blood and other things that might ooze out of bodies. Women’s health is not appropriate dinner conversation.