Water by the Spoonful

The Elliot Trilogy #2

by Quiara Alegría Hudes

Somewhere in Philadelphia, Elliot has returned from Iraq and is struggling to find his place in the world. Somewhere in a chat room, recovering addicts forge an unbreakable bond of support and love. The boundaries of family and community are stretched across continents and cyberspace as birth families splinter and online families collide.

Quiara Alegría Hudes is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Water by the Spoonful, the Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights and the Pulitzer Prize finalist Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue. Her other works include Barrio Grrrl!, a children’s musical; 26 Miles; Yemaya’s Belly and The Happiest Song Plays Last, the third piece in The Elliot Plays trilogy.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre, Fiction, School, Read For School, Contemporary

104 pages, Paperback

First published August 28, 2012

About the author

Quiara Alegría Hudes is a writer, barrio feminist, and native of West Philly, U.S.A. Hailed for her work’s exuberance, intellectual rigor, and rich imagination, her plays and musicals have been performed around the world. They include a Pulitzer-winning drama, Water By the Spoonful, and a Tony-winning Broadway musical, In the Heights (co-authored with Lin-Manuel Miranda). Her screenplay adaptation of In the Heights opens in movie theaters nationwide this June.

Along with her cousin and a dedicated circle of volunteers, Hudes founded and runs Emancipated Stories, a collection of pages written by people who have been or remain incarcerated.

Reviews

[Brina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Water by the Spoonful is Quiara Algeria Hudes Pulitzer winning play. Hudes had been producing plays since the age of fifteen and attended Brown University to study under the tutelage of Paula Vogel. Spoonful is part of Hudes' trilogy featuring Elliot Ortiz, an Iraq war veteran who has been coping with life since his discharge and his birth mother Odessa also known as Haiku mom who runs a chat room for recovering crack addicts. A powerful drama that runs the gamut of human emotions, Water by the Spoonful is a powerful piece of playwrighting.

Elliot Ortiz has been discharged from Iraq for six years. Working steadily at Subway, he lives in North Philadelphia among an extended family of aunts, uncles, and cousins. His closest family member is his cousin Yazmin, an adjunct professor of music at a nearby university. Although both in their twenties, both cousins have taken over as head of their family because many uncles are since deceased, including their aunt Ginny, Elliot's adoptive mother, who has just passed on. At the play's opening we meet the cousins as Elliot is still grappling with the demons of his Iraqi past and Yazmin struggling to keep him afloat.

Rather than a play in two acts, the play is fourteen scenes long as Hudes alternates between Elliot and Yazmin's reality with Odessa running her chat room. Odessa has been a failure as a mother, leaving Elliot to be raised by her sister Ginny, a pillar of the Philadelphia Puerto Rican community. Although a poor mother, Odessa has been sober for over six and has successfully moderated a chat room, saving hundreds of lives. We meet three such characters in Orangutan, Chutes and Ladders, and Fountainhead, all striving to be sober and amount to achieving happiness in their lives. Elliot can not fathom that his mother has created something positive and attempts to derail what she achieved. As a result Elliot appears in asides in the chat rooms with Yazmin attempting to dissuade him from crumbling Odessa's remade life.

Although a Pulitzer winner for its content matter about Iraqi veterans and drug rehabbers, I did not find Water by the Spoonful at quite the level as other Pulitzer winners that I have read. Yes, the story is powerful about people overcoming addiction and remaking their lives. I even found some of the interchanges in the chat rooms as well as the dialogue between Elliot and Yazmin comedic. Yet, with many characters and storylines, the play felt disjointed at times. I felt that if Hudes had focused on Elliot's relationship with Odessa and Ginny, that the play might have been even more powerful.

Quiara Alegria Hudes has brought the dangers of drug usage among veterans to the forefront in Water by the Spoonful. She navigates issues as PTSD, drug addiction, and adoption, as all some to a nexus in both Elliot and Odessa's lives. A Puerto Rican from Philadelphia, Hudes has chosen to write a trilogy of plays about issues close to her personally. Perhaps I would have known the story better if I started with Hudes' first installment Elliot's Fugue. Water by the Spoonful on its own is powerful but the viewer meets the characters in the middle of their story. On its own, I rate Pulitzer winning Water by the Spoonful 3.75 stars. This rating may have been higher had a I read its predecessor first.

[Kenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nobody can make you invisible but you.
Water by the Spoonful ~~ Quiara Alegría Hudes



One of my reading goals this year is to read more play scripts, focusing on contemporary scripts. I've start this journey with Water by the Spoonful. Water by the Spoonful, the Pulitzer Prize winning play by Quiara Alegría Hudes, tells the parallel story of crack addiction and how it effects those around the user. Eliott, an ex-marine and caretaker of his mother, came back from Iraq with an injured leg, Trying to get his life together, and to take care of his ill mother, Elliott takes a job at a Subway. His cousin, Yazmin is an adjunct music professor at a local University. The two find that Eliott’s mother has been sent to the hospital due to an illness, but she doesn’t last long and quickly passes.



In the not so distant world exists a group of recovering addicts, who come together to get the support and strength they need to stay clean, in an online chat room. The drug of choice, crack cocaine. Orangutan, an adopted recovering addict from Asia, who is 95 days sober, Chutes&Ladders, a former user who has since settled down after losing touch with his family and who has become an IRS customer service representative, and Haiku-Mama, the moderator of the chat room who is the rock of support to all, except her family when they need her the most. Most recently, the funeral planning of her sister, Eliott’s adoptive mother.



While, Water by the Spoonful is a show of harsh reality, we've seen this before; there's nothing new here, nothing that is revelatory. Where Hudes succeeds, is in writing dialogue that is witty and heart wrenching. Hudes breathes new life into this 70's style drama. It’s very dense, very rough, but is very real. Many people, unfortunately, will relate to the characters in this piece. Quiara Alegria Hudes’ has written a script of nasty truth that can only help shine a light on the fact, that if you are struggling with a  vice, you are not alone.

[Dusty · Rating 5 out of 5]

This brilliant, Pulitzer-winning play touches on a lot of hot topics, including war, addiction, and Puerto Ricans' eternal struggle to claim their place in the US mainstream. But most importantly, it is a story about family--about honoring the bond to all the people that have raised and cared for you, about building a new family for yourself when your biological relatives have turned their backs on you.

Initially, the play is divided between two groups of characters. In the first group, we have Yazmin Ortiz, an adjunct music professor, and Yazmin's cousin, Elliot, who served in the Iraq War. Like the Puerto Rican family I married into, the Ortizes are a large, interconnected mess of people. Yazmin and Elliot are cousins, but Elliot claims two of Yazmin's aunts as his mother. As we learn, he is the biological son of one aunt, Odessa, but was raised by another aunt, Ginny. Exactly why Odessa gave Elliot up is revealed in a crucial, moving scene in the middle of the play, and I will not reveal it here. Suffice it to say, Yazmin's aunt/Elliot's adopted mom Ginny dies, and the event forces members of the family who have successfully avoided each other for a long time to clash and try to sort out their differences.

The second group of characters is comprised of crack addicts who support each other in an internet chatroom. Odessa is the chatroom moderator and the link between the family and internet scenes. Known to her addict friends as "Haikumom," Odessa is a wise, patient online presence who "censors" the other characters' obscene outbursts. Though we learn that several people have tried to find support in the chatroom environment, the play only introduces us to three characters in addition to Odessa/Haikumom. The first is Chutes&Ladders, a middle-aged African American IRS employee who seems to take pride in living an uneventful, passionless life without crack. Orangutan, a transnational adoptee, has returned to her country of birth, Japan, in an effort to reconnect with her birth parents -- an adventure Chutes&Ladders opposes because he cannot fathom undertaking it by himself (or sober). Fountainhead, a new addition to the group, is a white, wealthy man who wants to recover from his addiction without revealing it to his wife or kids. Privileged and naïve, Fountainhead quickly becomes a punching bag for Chutes&Ladders and Orangutan, who believe that a person has to hit rock bottom before he can be serious about breaking the habit. They are probably right.

As the play progresses, the walls between these worlds break down. Odessa/Haikumom meets John/Fountainhead for a lunch that is interrupted by Yazmin and Elliot, Yazmin and Elliot log into the chatroom under Odessa's alias, etc. Along the way, we learn that Odessa and Elliot have both revealed to one of these worlds without anticipating that they will be discovered in the other, and Odessa decides to sell her computer--her best ally in her war against addiction--to buy flowers for Ginny's funeral. Selling the computer is a symbolic gesture that in the context of the play represents Odessa's "choice" between the biological family that sees her as a let-down and an addict and the makeshift, digital "family" that sees her as a martyr. Does Odessa make the right choice? I will leave it to you decide.

I read this play with the students in my "Literary Diversity" class. To be honest, I picked it in a hurry when I was planning the syllabus because I needed a play (not my area of expertise) and because the Ortiz family reminded me so much of my in-laws. However, reading it again these last few days with a group of other people and the chance to slow down and think about how it is put together has helped me appreciate it as a great story and a fine literary achievement. Like I said earlier, the play addresses timely topics, but it does so in a timeless way. The playwright, Quiara Alegría Hudes, is best known for her work on the Tony-winning musical In the Heights, but Water by the Spoonful confirms that she is far more than a one-hit wonder. The play is the second in a trilogy about the experiences of Elliot, a Puerto Rican man who fought a war for a country that barely recognizes his right to live in it, and I look forward to digging into the other two installments. In short, this is a great, teachable play, and one that I expect to revisit.

[Rachelle Urist · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quiara Alegría Hudes is not a name I knew, but she won the 2012 Pulitzer prize for this play, Water by the Spoonful. It turns out she also wrote the book for In the Heights, and won a Tony nomination for it. The lyrics were written by Lin Manuel Miranda. I saw the show, but forgot that it was not Miranda who created the entire musical, as he did for Hamilton. Hudes has a unique mind. Her originality is rife with significance on many levels. While her non-linear style in this play makes for some confusion, it also adds richness, especially since midway through the play the story’s meaning and import become crystal clear. She combines fourth-wall realism with uncanny, cyber-space realities whose pseudonyms (online usernames) and virtual locales are confounding, at first. Her virtual realities include folks with names such as “Fountainhead,” “Chutes and Ladders,” and “Orangutan.” Eventually, we learn their real-world names and their connection to the characters who launch the show. The play is about family, addiction, loyalty and protection. It took me into places and people I would never otherwise encounter. Hudes is a young and a masterful playwright. Her hefty opus are the sweet fruit of her talent combined with her Puerto Rican heritage, tight family bonds, and her mother’s encouragement to tell the family’s stories.
2_ Elliot: A Soldier’s Fugue is the first a trilogy of plays. This play was a 2007 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. It’s a good play, but not as complex or compelling as Water by the Spoonful. Hudes credits family members for inspiring some of the dialogue in the play. The play involves three generations of soldiers. Grandpa served in Korea, Pop in Vietnam, Elliot in Iraq. Elliot’s mom, Ginny, Pop’s wife, was an army nurse in Vietnam. That’s where she met Pop. Some of the elders’ memories seep into the dialogue in intriguing ways. Pop, for instance, recalls “poems” that his unit created to chant while marching. These include: “One two three four. / We’re gonna jump on the count of four. / If I die when I hit the mud / Bury me with a case of bud / A case of bud and a bottle of rum / Drunk as hell in kingdom come. / Count off: One two three four.” And “One two three four. / We’re gonna charge on the count of four. If my heart begins to bleed / Bury me with a bag full a weed / A gag full a weed and a / Bottle of rum / Laugh at the devil in kingdom come. / Count off: One two three four.”
The “fugue” of the title is a reflection of the verbal fugue here, consisting of four sets of intersecting stories. The playwright herself is an accomplished pianist. In this play, Grandpa is a flutist whose melodies, played for his fellow soldiers, encouraged or consoled them. With his playing, he taught them the difference between major and minor keys, and they learned to request something in the requisite key, depending on the situation. Grandpa muses: “of everything Bach wrote, it is the fugues. The fugue is like an argument. It starts in one voice. The voice is the melody, … the statement. Another voice creeps up on the first one. Voice two responds to voice one. They tangle together. They argue, they become messy. They create dissonance. Two, three, four lines clashing. You think, good god, they’ll never untie themselves. How did this mess get started in the first place? …It’s all about untying the knot. … Major keys, minor keys, all at once on top of each other. … In Korea my platoon fell in love with Bach. All night long, firing eight-inch howitzers into the evergreens. Flute is very soothing after the bombs settle down. They begged me to play. ‘Hey, Ortiz, pull out that pipe!’
One reviewer wrote: “Pop is a naïve young man, who takes his father’s flute with him to war though he knows not how to play, and eventually has his high spirits shattered as his tour drags on. … Elliot copes with the new horrors of modern war. …when wounded, he suddenly finds himself a hero, albeit a carefully-constructed hero, shaped and molded by reporters and TV producers to reflect a certain version of war and the American soldier.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

This could easily turn into an after-school special but it never does. The playwright’s empathy rings clear and true throughout and draws you into this small but strong Puerto Rican family.

[Jack Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-Read Review (for fun) (September 13th, 2023):

Water by the Spoonful is an emotional impacting tour-de-force. I continue to resonate with how Hudes depicts community here, and how those on the online support forum and the Ortiz family members themselves struggle against the boundaries of their relationships and pasts. For readers/viewers familiar with Elliot, a Soldier's Fugue, there are some great Easter eggs ready for you to catch. Elliot also continues to be a compelling lead whose bitterness and humanity shines through it all.

Everyone gets developed thoroughly, and the quasi-romantic framing of Chutes&Ladders and Orangutan took me by surprise this go-around. When a new user comes onto the forum, the two others feel threatened. There's plenty of conflict and turmoil. However, it doesn't feel heavy or like it swoops in at the expense of the characters. Given how Water by the Spoonful ends, I'm excited to see how Hudes wraps up the family saga in The Happiest Song Plays Last. I understand why this play won the Pulitzer Prize. The power it exudes? Beautiful.

First Read Review (September 8th, 2018):

Well, I didn't expect this play to EMOTIONALLY WRECK ME AND HIT ME SO HARD, but here we are. Hudes' Water by the Spoonful is an emotional roller coaster with an amazing story, strong cast of characters, beautiful dialogue, and the opus of dramatic stakes that all came together to create a work I won't forget about in a while.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to add the other two plays in this trilogy to my TBR shelf and send an e-mail to my professor thanking him for making our Technical Production I class read this.

[Jolene · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't read this until after I had already assigned it to a few high school juniors in a lit circle/book club unit on rhetoric of and within American plays. (Don't worry your little heads: A co-teacher had read it beforehand.) But one of my groups was struggling with all the pseudonyms, so I buckled down and read in one evening when I couldn't sleep anyway, and oh, man, when the spoonful-of-water beat drops. 😭 I don't think my students liked it as much as I did. One group debated whether that exact scene -- right before Odessa relapses and overdoses-- was one of redemption rather than unbelievable grief, and I was like, whoa whoa whoa hold on where do we see this in the text? (Don't worry: we got there together.)

Stunning pedagogy aside (I'll do it better next year, promise), there's so much to explore in this one: addiction, of course, but also generational trauma, war and PTSD, #internetfriends, what we owe to our family, and the feeling of dissonance that comes with the American "dream."

I would loooooove to see this one on the stage, especially that final scene with the three moments happening at once and, in each of them, a reaching out, a coming together.

[P.C. Parn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not a play connoisseur, that said, I enjoyed Water by the Spoonful.

About a variety of characters attempts to overcome their past, Water by the Spoonful explores just how someone recovers from trauma. Following addicts and an American veteran, Water by the Spoonful does a good job of showing, rather than explaining. This may be something particular to well done plays, but Hudes doesn't waste words. The readers/viewers are given only what they need and nothing more. That said, I could feel the emotion of Water by the Spoonful, and I imagine it would be a heavy play to watch.

One of the things I enjoyed about the play was its diversity of characters. Each character comes from a different background and has a different story. While I couldn't personally relate to all of the character's experiences, I could relate to them as humans. That, in my mind, is the mark of a good writer.

Water by the Spoonful is a quick read. It's not terribly light, but it's worth your time.

[Anna (abookobsessed) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to read thi for my American Literature class.

My rating might change, since we will talk about this play in class, and my opinion on it might be influenced by that!

[Charliek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Idk man I read this for class

[Mignon DeLarre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good play. On my list of plays I'd like to be in or direct

[Caleb Caj.]

Okay, now THIS...this is straight heat (and fairly redeeming as I reconsider my feelings about contemporary drama).

[Elizabeth☮ · Rating 4 out of 5]

The characters come together to plan a funeral. The characters on stage are not only interacting with one another in person, but also online.

This one spoke to me because you have a group of people interacting online that are all addicts. They are helping one another live day to day even though their real lives are quite in disarray.

A key point is that while the characters communicate virtually, in the end, it is only through human connection that healing begins.

[Jeff Arena · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think that when you read most great plays, you feel the love of the author for every character. Each character, no matter how flawed, is observed with care and compassion. So it is with Water by the Spoonful. The middle of a trilogy, it expands the community of the first play (Elliot, A Soldier's Fugue) in unexpected ways. It also develops a larger world view, using a simple and honest integration of online conversation. This play is full of feeling, an active plot, and layered themes.

[Nicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deals with the effects of drug addiction very honestly while maintaining addicts' humanity. The online world was particularly creative, staged as people in chairs doing every day activities like making coffee while speaking their written conversations on an online forum out loud. Here the dialogue between the recovering addicts was especially witty and full of heart. Enjoyed the play, though stories of recovering addicts have never touched me deeply enough to warrant more than 3-stars.

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel kind of blasphemous saying this, but I thought this place was nice, but not as moving as I expected it to be. The ending was kind of anticlimactic to me. Still a good play, just not on my top ten of 2012.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty great. I have to admit. It’s a pretty great play.

[Delara H F · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think it could have ended a bit sooner, somewhere I could rate it 5stars not 4!
I loved the name it just perfectly matches with the whole play.

[Si Squires-Kasten · Rating 3 out of 5]

Totally competent, totally mediocre.

[Cecilia Melara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This play depicts the real life struggles that immigrant families face when arriving in America, as well as children with immigrant families. It is a story about finding your identity in a society that tells you how you must act and live. It is very relevant in today’s society, with the creation of social media and its rising popularity. The main character, Elliot, and his cousin, Yaz, show different sides of the struggle it is to live in a White-dominated city. Elliot has come back from Iraq, injured and extremely disappointed with his life. He isolates himself and is very closed off with everyone except Yaz. His relationship with his mother is nonexistent due to his past with her while she used drugs. This causes him to blame all of his hardships on his mother. There are so many relatable issues embedded in this play. Drug abuse, finding your identity, trying to fit in, etc. Like Elliot, Yaz struggles with her identity. She changes herself to try and fit in with the society around her. As a woman in today’s society, I related to her character the most. With social media and its interpretation of what it means to be beautiful, I can see myself and my struggles through her character and her struggles.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pulitzer Prize Winner, 2012

Elliot is an Iraqi veteran who is haunted by his past . . . like, literally. A ghost keeps appearing and asking him for his passport. Elliot is trying to get his life together after the war when his mother-like aunt passes away.

Yazmin is an adjunct music professor and Elliot’s cousin. Her life is also shaken up when her aunt dies.

Odessa is a recovering crack addict and Elliot’s estranged mom. She lives on an Internet forum where she helps other addicts in their recovery.

As deaths in the family often do, the death of Elliot and Yazmin’s aunt brings a lot of family drama and trauma to the surface. This was a challenging read. When you learn the meaning of the title, it will break your heart.

[The Nutmeg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't hate it! (Why do all these current pieces of serious literature have so much profanity in them? The f-bombs were SO not necessary. If it hadn't been for all the language I seriously would've...loved this, actually. Rant over.)

It'd be really interesting to see the online scenes staged. Also, I appreciated how stage-time was nicely divided among characters...it gets so boring for the audience when they spend all their time with one or two leads, you know?

[Bethany bookin-it · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is definitely not your typical play, but it is definitely an emotional rollercoaster. It was very hard to read at times simply because of how raw and real it was. The characters are complex and deep. There is not one person that is perfect the entire books or doesn't make you flinch at some point. On the other hand, not a single one is completely foul without a redeeming moment.

You should read it. It hurts :)

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, not good. This is one of those plays that isn’t particularly memorable. A loose sequel to Eliot: A Soldier’s Fugue, Water by the Spoonful picks up a few years later and introduces a bunch of new characters. Similar to other recent plays – Sons of the Prophet, which was nominated for a Pulitzer the same year this play (undeservedly) won, and A Free Man of Color, to name two – Hudes picks up a whole slew of subplots and issues, throws them into a blender, and hits frappe.

Similar to the two other plays I mentioned, the result is a shallow, meaningless mess of issues that substitutes brief sound bytes for emotional journeys. Quasi-recommended.

[toniii antony · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love how the strong community online juxtaposes with the broken relationships in real life (mainly with Haikumom/Odessa’s arc but Fountainhead/Jon’s too!)

The ongoing theme of redemption— whether it’s possible or whether it can truly last is beautiful and sad, especially when your family is part of the problem.

Funny how I read this during mother’s day!

4.3/5 !!

[Nat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Phenomenal but devastating— an unforgettable story of war and addiction.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

One day at a time--
Deliberately poignant.
Hate how well it worked.

[Sidd Nareddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

BEST BOOK EVER I LOVED IT SO MUCH #READING

[Liren · Rating 3 out of 5]

read for class!

[Luke Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short but beautiful play about addiction, family, and the ways people come together and fall apart. I'm glad this was recommended to me and read well without the other two titles in the trilogy.