An excerpt from AFRODISIAC by Maryline Chery
(Playwrights Canada Press)
RHIZOME: Imagine the earth. An enormous sphere. A ball, if you will,
A gigantic ball.
Blue
Green
White
Brown, as well.
A gigantic mass floating in the universe without any support. Do you see it? Zoom in a little more. Come closer. Now we’re going down. We’re penetrating the ozone.
RHIZOME gets up from her throne and pretends to jump into the void.
DJ LEFT HEMISPHERE starts playing a melody, creating an air of mystery and levitation, like a galactic saga.
The wind stings your face. It’s cold. It’s going fast, real fast. We’re going down, even more. Your body seems light and heavy all at once. The pressure is pushing us toward the bottom but we’re still floating high.
Here
There’s the sky
The clouds
Goosebumps on our skin
It’s massive
You follow?
RHIZOME playfully moves around the structure.
There you have all the continents. Surrounding them you have the oceans, the sea, never-ending water connecting them all. You see them? Come closer.
A voice-over of RHIZOME echoes throughout the space:
People
Thousands and thousands of people
Millions
Billions of people even
Eight billion people
Known or unknown
She smirks.
Like you and me
All these people
You see them?
They’re on the continents, in the countries, on the islands too. There you have Africa: you can’t miss her, she shines the brightest with her soil, her valleys and mountains. Okay. You’re still there? Cross the Atlantic Ocean. Zoom in a little bit more. Come. This is Canada. C-A-N-A-D-A. Here there are provinces, territories, cities, suburbs. Choose a province, only one. Ah!!! Quebec. You see it? Come a little bit closer.
Here
This city
It’s Laval
It’s big, Laval
Not as big as the earth, but still big
There are all kinds of areas
Sainte-Rose
Laval-Ouest
Duvernay
Saint-François
And this one right here
Do you see it?
It’s Saint-Vincent-de-Paul.
DJ LEFT HEMISPHERE slows down the rhythm, letting a gentle melody reminiscent of a music box resonate, as if in a child’s dream.
RHIZOME is now at the bottom of the structure.
In Saint-Vincent-de-Paul there’s a block made up of only one street.
On that street there’s a house.
In that house, on the second floor, there’s a little window that overlooks a very small bedroom.
In that very small bedroom, there’s a little girl.
Mady.
She’s thirteen years old. You see her?
There she is crouching, unpacking boxes.
Hum, you thought we were done? Nan!
Zoom in a little more.
You see her head?
Well, in her head there are tons of ideas.
Good ones and bad ones.
Sometimes joyful but more often bleak…
On her head there’s hair.
And at the root of her hair, inside her…
There’s me.
Excerpted in part from “AFRODISIAC” by Maryline Chery. © 2026 by Maryline Chery. Used with permission of Playwrights Canada Press. Published by Playwrights Canada Press. https://www.playwrightscanada.com/
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Maryline Chery is an accomplished actress, playwright, dramaturg, and improviser of Haitian descent. She studied theatre at Concordia University and in 2021 launched her first solo performance, AFRODISIAQUE, which was presented at the Segal Centre for Performing Arts. Subsequently, the show was performed at the Zoofest Festival (OFF Just for Laughs) at the Monument National, where it won the award for Show of the Year. The production later toured Montreal’s cultural centres as part of the city’s 2022–2023 season. In 2018, Maryline participated in the seventeenth Francophonie Summit in Yerevan, Armenia, where she conducted workshops in creative writing and acting. In 2022 she received the Gloria Mitchell–Aleong Award from Black Theatre Workshop for artistic excellence and community initiatives in the arts. In 2024 she won the award for Stage Actress of the Year presented by Gala Dynastie. Maryline’s mission is to represent the richness of Kreyol culture in her work as an actress and playwright. She strives to create vibrant, diverse, engaged, and colourful pieces of art that reflect her cultural heritage.
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