Odie
Odie is brother to Stella and Wak. He is bitterly patriotic, corrosively vengeful and politically unforgiving. A violent coup disrupted the country and led Wak to flee in exile; a situation which Odie has twisted into an act of cowardly desertion. Odie has also constructed a vision of the lives of refugees like Wak which is one of high living and solace in comparison to those who stayed behind. Wak’s return from exile has pushed Odie into a much higher gear and his emotional reaction to his brother’s return is beginning to verge on psychotic. Perhaps political outrage is not the only thing is causing the simmer to come to a boil. Perhaps, in fact, neither Odie nor Wak are what he has led us to believe.
Stella
Stella is sister to Odie and step-brother to Wak. Her role is as a kind of agent of mediation between the two brothers. Odie’s manipulative tendencies plays on the fact that they each shared the womb in opposition to Wak; it is an attempt to make her feel closer to her one sibling than to the other. The play is essentially divided into two parts: one in which we take Odie at his word and one in which everything is revealed to be not be quite what one things. Stella is, in a way, the audience’s proxy. With Wak away (and presumed dead) she has little choice but to accept Odie’s version of the truth. The real truth cuts much more closer to home than mere political posturing.
Wak
Wak is the eldest (step-) brother to both Odie and Stella. He spends ten years in exile in a foreign country which is depicted to be quite economically stable by Odie.
The return of Wak from exile after so many years has an unusually intense effect upon Odie; to the extent that even Stella is moved to question his sanity. A reason for this sudden shift in intensity is eventually divulged, but suffice to say for the purpose of avoiding spoilers that their father showed an emotional preference for Stella and Wak. From this unstable beginning originated the seething violence that Odie builds toward Wak. When the truth is finally exposed, it paints a portrait of both Odie and Wak that stands in stark contrast to the portrait painted by Odie. Wak—through the mediation of Stella—comes to foster a compassionate clemency for Odie despite his crimes and misdemeanors being unforgivable.
