Juniper's Whitening / Victimese

by Helen Oyeyemi

Two plays exploring the pain of living and the difficulty of dying by a sensational new writer
Juniper's Whitening

"Tell me this - is it true that if you make someone die, and they come out the other side, it doesn't matter? I'm sure something clung to Lazarus. Something must've shone through him."

In Aleph, Beth and Juniper's nightmare house, kindness is entrapment, and resurrection is a weapon. Aleph love/hates Beth, Beth love/hates Aleph, and all Juniper knows is that Beth can't seem to stop being murdered.

One thing above all: none of them must look out of the window.
Victimese

"I was thinking, Eve, that you need to touch bottom - just so you know you can do it. So you know it's not that difficult; so you know that you don't have to tunnel far; so you know that you're not that actually as deep as you think you are."

Eve is unable to leave her student room but unable to bear staying in it. In harming herself she hopes to demonstrate her courage and independence to both herself and her friends. But her sister's arrival and need for her friendship forces her to face painful truths and to examine whether it is possible to temper emotional courage with the humanity to give and ask for aid.

Genres: Plays, Magical Realism, Horror, Fiction, Theatre

80 pages, Paperback

First published January 20, 2005

About the author

Helen Oyeyemi is a British novelist. She lives in Prague, and has written eleven books so far, none of which involve ‘magical realism’. Can’t fiction sometimes get extra fictional without being called such names…?

Reviews

[Doug · Rating 1 out of 5]

.1, rounded up to 1.

I detested Oyeyemi's latest novel, Gingerbread, but was warily curious as to what she might be like as a playwright, since theatre is my forte. I should have realized she'd have not an ounce of talent there either, and been 'done in one'. These are not only terrible reading, neither of them are at all stage worthy (and indeed one seems to have only been staged once during Oyeyemi's college days, and the other never performed at all).

The first, 'Jupiter's Whitening' is just gibberish that makes no objective sense, not even on the simplest of levels. The second, 'Victimese' at least has a theme, but the characters, such as they are, are all one dimensional and their dialogue is not only unrealistic but ... painful. A total waste of time, even though it only took a little over an hour to read both.

[Ceallaigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Don’t nursery rhymes drive you mad? They circle in such cruel patterns, over and over, and almost all of them sound eerie sung in the dark.”
“I don’t know… even in the dark, I think nursery rhymes are kind of… safe. I mean, what happens when you don’t want tot think about something? You could start mumbling ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’, or you could drown in memories. Pretty simple choice, I think.”
“Repeating ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ is no way to hang on to your sanity, Juniper.”
— from “Juniper’s Whitening”

TITLE—Juniper’s Whitening & Victimese
AUTHOR—Helen Oyeyemi
PUBLISHED—2005

GENRE—drama
SETTING—a room? in an undisclosed place?; a university dormroom
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—neurodivergency, mental illness, relationships, death, dark academia

WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
PLOT—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
BONUS ELEMENT/S—I loved the dark academia vibes of the second play.
PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“Yes, there’s a formula—you know what I’m talking about. I’d need to start speaking victimese to you; tell you about how much I’m hurting and how it all seems so hopeless—I’m supposed to honour you with the pretence that you can reach me, that you can actually make a difference to what’s happening in my head, and then when you have these ego-coins in your hand, you’ll lavish your help on me. Only it wouldn’t really be help at all. Besides, I can’t remember the victimese for ‘thank you’.” — from “Victimese”

I’ll be honest and say that a) reading plays or drama is not really my thing, I have a hard time picking up on the metaphors and allegories etc. and b) these plays definitely went way over my head. 😅 I feel like I “got” some of what they were trying to say but definitely couldn’t like write an essay explaining it or anything. I would LOVE to see these plays performed though as I feel like then I’d probably see what I don’t see when reading just the scripts (I know, obviously, right? 😂)

Anyway these plays still definitely had that Oyeyemi darkness and mysterious allure. The language was really poignant and the visual direction seemed SO powerful. I especially loved the creeping, claustrophobic feeling of the first play, and the tense desperation and dark academia vibes of the second one. I’ll definitely be giving these a reread this fall and hopefully more of what’s hidden will reveal itself to me then. ❤️

“Do you fear for your soul?”
“Yes, because I have to keep snatching it back from somewhere.”
— from “Juniper’s Whitening”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

TW // self harm, incest, child abuse (Please feel free to message me privately to ask about specifics regarding any of these or other TWs in this book!)

Further Reading—
- everything else by Helen Oyeyemi especially White is for Witching, and What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours
- The Starless Sea, by Erin Morgenstern
- Ninth House, by Leigh Bardugo—TBR
- Oligarchy, by Scarlett Thomas—TBR

[Eleanor Toland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helen Oyeyemi is better known as a novelist than a playwright, something reflected in this short collection of two plays. They're more short stories than plays, really: the dialogue is interspersed with long, elaborate stage directions that read like chunks of narration.

Juniper breaks free, and the lights come on. She is barefoot and messy-haired, dragging the blanket around her and blinking confusedly at the light. Aleph moves towards her and she retreats, but he only pulls the blanket off her so she's standing in her nightie.

There are far too many passages like this. It gives the impression of a playwright not confident enough in her dialogue to let it stand alone. That being said, the two plays are well worth reading with their unsettling plots and beautiful writing.

Both stories involve characters who are trapped. The first, a fantasy, explores the concept of being trapped in a very literal way — Juniper's Whitening involves three characters confined to a house, unable to escape even through murder. It's a violent story of repressed memories and revenge, set in what may or may not be hell.

The first play is followed by Victimese, a more realist sketch which seems at first to be less bleak in tone than Juniper's Whitening. A university student with severe depression refuses to leave her bedroom; her friends and sister gather to try and help. The situation quickly escalates into existential crisis and painfully personal confessions. It's an unhappy story, but there's a spark of magic in it.

[Kaylee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the only thing I've read by Oyeyemi that I haven't fell madly in love with. Perhaps it's because I love her prose, and something was lost in her plays? (I probably would have enjoyed both a lot more if I'd read them before I read her novels.)

[Juniper T · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't understand it but I loved every minute of it. I think that confusion is part of the beauty. Oyeyemi's writing is a gift.

Juniper's Whitening: 5 stars
Victimese: 3 stars

[Toria · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two plays. I enjoyed reading them, can't comment on how they might perform.

Juniper's Whitening had some of that nice metaphory house and death stuff that we see blossom in Oyeyemi's later books.

Victimese was more literal fiction than most of Oyeyemi's work. Set and written at university, topics of suicide and college problems without romanticization or magic.

Quick reads, recommended for Oyeyemi fans who want to follow the development of some of her recurring themes.