LESSONS FROM A JELLYFISH is a memory play told through the eyes of the adult Ariela, the play’s hero. Ariela has artistic gifts that aren’t evident to the casual observer. Medical professionals are puzzled how to treat her. School teachers don’t know what to do with her. No one sees beyond her disabilities. A surgery nearly costs Ariela her life. When doctors can’t help Ariela, the Mother turns to psychics for reassurance and guidance.
Ariela’s mother must not only move heaven and earth to get her daughter the education and health care she needs, she must also battle—physically, emotionally, strategically--to give her daughter a rich life. To enable her to manifest her creativity. To be seen. To be known.
As narrator, Ariela speaks directly to the audience. She uses a wheelchair and a communication device, much like Stephen Hawking, one of many people she meets in the play. She also communicates through painting, tells off-color jokes, and gives her mother grief. At the risk of being a shopworn trope, Ariela is profoundly unsentimental. She’s artistically talented, loving, often hilarious, and at times, difficult, especially with her mother. Just as Stanislavsky writes about the juxtaposition of beauty and its opposite, Ariela is full of contradiction.
Through faith, art, wit, and a computer with a voice, Ariela realizes her spirituality and artistic gifts. And her mother finds the connection she wants with her daughter.