four - mother’s daydream

A musical, in theory... part 11 of 14

Jun 28, 2025

A musical called four is the work of theoretical theatre* I’m currently sharing. Click here for the start of the story.

Here is the mother’s daydream.

Image shows bits of text, sentences, phrases, words, cut out and stuck to the same piece of paper. Some are old, printed notes that read: She tries. She tries. She understands. She tries. She tries. She looks back, she looks back. Beside these notes, new handwritten notes read: She wants to bathe away all the stuff on her. Bathing, gazing. Steaming, dreaming. Candles, stars. Held. Bubbles, jars. Soothe, smoother. Warm, still. Besides those notes, old printed notes read: Bathing. Fond, distant and secret. Softness. Cushion. Gentle. At the bottom, new handwritten notes read: She looks up at the ceiling, in the bath, and doesn't see the child in the attic, but the sky and the moon and the stars.

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My new notes say
she wants to bathe away
all the stuff on her.
All the stuff on her skin.
She’s covered in the residue of stories.
Not the stories caught on hooks inside her,
not her moments,
but the residue of other people’s stories
that they’ve thrown around like
brightly coloured powdered paint
while she was running from container to container,
revisiting, remembering, re-evaluating
maintaining the family.

She is tired and filthy.

She needs candles and stars
and bubbles and jars.
She needs to steam
and daydream.

Image shows old, printed song lyrics with the title “The Moon and the Stars”. The lyrics read: So long, so long ago, do you remember? I was laughing. I was trying not to laugh but I was laughing. I was falling into bed, giving in to bed and loving you for making it this way. And all you would do was hold me close, all you would do was pull me closer. All you would say was, "I love you more than the moon and the stars".

Image shows old, printed song lyrics, continued: Not long, not long ago, do you remember? You were crying. You were trying not to cry but you were crying. You were stranded on the bed, giving in to bed and hating that it had to be this way. And all I could do was hold you close. All I could do was pull you closer. All I could say was, "I love you more than the moon and the stars". And here you stayed, day after day. I cared for you. Here you stayed, week after week. I cared. But here you stayed, month after month. I tried to care, and here you stayed, year after year after month after week after day after day after day. And the moon and the stars faded away, didn't they?

There wasn’t much I wanted to keep of the libretto snippets I wrote twenty-five years ago, but I didn’t want to let the moon and the stars fade completely away. It was the only moment when anyone in the house had something fully coherent to say.

It is a moment of understanding, even without the context it had, which I have left in the past because it no longer matters.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Bathing…
In theory, what does the daydream of bathing do? How does it help us get through?

Click here to listen curiously to the father in the previous post

Click here to listen curiously to the son in the next post

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*This may be theoretical theatre, but it’s still protected by Copyright © 2000-2025 by Jenifer Toksvig All Rights Reserved. Though I may be inspired by conversation and ideas, as long as you don’t infringe my copyright, anything you write in response to this belongs to you. Obviously. The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard is translated into English by Maria Jolas, quoted here where referenced for the purposes of researching this work.

The Copenhagen Interpretation

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