Rising Water Text Analysis

RISING WATER

Drama is about people, their stories, and story-telling. Theatre is a visual presentation of people and their stories. Action is a depiction of change—physical, mental, emotional—in the people of the story. Reaction is a response of the viewer to the people, their stories, and the changes that occur in their lives.
Rising Water, by John Biguenet, is superb story-telling about CAMILLE (slender but no longer young) and SUGAR (her husband, no longer young or slender) as they endure a night of despair after waking to discover their house is flooded. By using a folding, disappearing staircase, they flee to their cluttered attic to escape the rising water. To ease their fear of the flood and to strengthen their hope for rescue in the morning, they look through the clutter and relive minor and major events of their past.
These two people, in their own right, are superb story tellers who believe stories may ease them through the night. They recall the death of their daughter, Suzie, and the disappointing aspects of their son, Frankie. They recall happy moments: their first sexual happiness, details of their wedding, and reactions of their parents to the marriage. With a powerful sense of irony, Biguenet through Camille, recalls “the rain kept coming down” and the folk belief of her father that rain on a wedding day is a sign of good luck. They recall less happy moments: hints of sexual promiscuity, unfulfilled plans that have remained closed in Camille’s “hope chest,” their fear of death, and the possibility that the “dead have a claim on” them. Camille is excitable; Sugar is less so: he comments “the things scare you witless when you [are] small, they just make you sad when you get old, don’t they?”
These details are “theatrical” in essence; they become “theatre” in reality as a result of Biguenet’s use of dramatic devices. His careful use of language helps the audience see the differences between Sugar and Camille. Sugar is visionary, idealistic and, at times, simple. Camille is realistic, not given to flights of fancy, and often impatient with Sugar. Each of them has a degree of earthiness and eroticism. Camille is slender; Sugar is not. This difference in size is important. After removing a vent, Camille can clamber out of the attic; Sugar is too large for this means of escape. For much of the play, Biguenet shows the duality of the situation. Sugar, in the attic, looks through the hole, glimpses the beauty of nature (yes, Biguenet shows that element), but remains trapped inside. Camille, on the roof, reveals a degree of romanticism when she speaks of the beauty of the water and the stars, but she, too, remains trapped. No one responds to her frantic cries for help; no boat comes to her rescue; and no helicopter circles over the roof in a search for victims.
The static quality of Rising Water precludes overt actions. But subtle changes occur in the physical, mental, and emotional aspects of Camille and Sugar. Camille is certain no food is in the attic; Sugar insists they might find some food stashed away in some now-forgotten place. Each of them is angry at times and suggests reasons for the flood: an overflowing toilet, faulty construction of the water system and the levees, or the malevolence of an angry Divine Being. Each of them struggles with acceptance of their situation. Implied questions of “Why me? Why us? When will the boats come? Will helicopter pilots see us?” or “Are we going to die?” hover over the script.
With a degree of ambiguity at the closure of the script, Biguenet hints that Camille and Sugar may have accepted the fate of their dire situation. After hearing about a past near-tragedy of Sugar and his father, Camille suggests they sing to each other, as the father had sung to Sugar. Thus the script closes with their singing “If ever I ever cease to love, / If ever I cease to love, / The moon would turn to cream cheese, / If ever I cease to love.”
Biguenet succeeds in pulling the reader/audience into the “story-telling” of a painful event. Although Biguenet makes allusions to the hurricane Katrina, the script is not really about Katrina. If it were, some critics would pass by the script with comments such as “Oh, another play on a natural catastrophe. Hasn’t enough been written already on Katrina? Is the playwright taking advantage of natural disaster to heighten his script?”
With his focus on the lives of two people, Biguenet “tells the story” of Camille and Sugar as they face a human tragedy that forces them to examine and re-examine many elements of their lives. In doing so, Biguenet risks the charge of some critics that he is melodramatic; perhaps he is. Other critics charge that he is sentimental; perhaps he is. Still other critics charge that he overuses biblical allusions; perhaps he does. Some critics will be effusive in their comments about the appeal of a heart-wrenching story and will not make these charges; perhaps they are right. Some critics will accept the story of Camille and Sugar as a universal story of human beings who believe stories from their past will help them live through—possibly survive—the tragedy of a natural phenomenon; perhaps these critics are right.
In these paradoxes lies the power of great art. Human emotions are fragile, being pulled in different directions at the same time. Great art touches those human emotions; the result of these “touchings” will vary according to the variations in the viewers. Human adversity exists for everyone. Thus Camille and Sugar may be considered “everywoman” and “everyman” of our time—presented through the drama of Rising Water.

Herman P. Wilson
August 3, 2008