She is a pretty subject.
GEORGE: Yes . . .
(BOATMAN enter)
JULES: Your life needs spice, George. Go to some parties. That is where you’ll meet prospective buyers. Have some fun. The work is bound to reflect —
GEORGE: You don’t like my work, do you?
JULES: I did once.
GEORGE: You find it too tight.
JULES: People are talking about your work. You have your admirers, but you —
GEORGE: I am using a different brushstroke.
JULES (Getting angry): Always changing! Why keep changing?
GEORGE: Because I do not paint for your approval.
(Beat)
JULES: And I suppose that is why I like you.
(Begins to walk away)
Good to see you, George.
(JULES crosses as if to exit)
GEORGE (Calling after him): Jules! I would like you to come to the studio some time. See the new work . . .
JULES: For my approval?
GEORGE: No! For your opinion.
JULES (Considers the offer): Very well.
(He exits. GEORGE flips a page over and starts sketching the BOATMAN)
GEORGE and BOATMAN (Sing):
You and me, pal,
We’re the loonies.
Did you know that?
Bet you didn’t know that.
BOATMAN:
’Cause we tell them the truth!
Who you drawing?
Who the hell you think you’re drawing?
Me?
You don’t know me!
Go on drawing,
Since you’re drawing only what you want to see,
Anyway!
(Points to his eyepatch)
One eye, no illusion —
That you get with two:
(Points to GEORGE’s eye)
One for what is true.
(Points to the other)
One for what suits you.
Draw your wrong conclusion,
All you artists do.
I see what is true . . .
(Music continues under)
Sitting there, looking everyone up and down. Studying every move like you see something different, like your eyes know more —
(Sings)
You and me, pal,
We’re society’s fault.
(YVONNE, LOUISE, OLD LADY enter. GEORGE packs up his belongings)
ALL (Sing):
Taking the day on Sunday
After another week is dead.
OLD LADY: Nurse!
ALL:
Getting away on Sunday
Brightens the dreary week ahead.
OLD LADY: Nurse!
(GEORGE begins to exit, crossing paths with DOT and LOUIS, who enter. He gives DOT a hasty tip-of-the-hat and makes a speedy exit)
ALL:
Leaving the city pressure
Behind you,
Off where the air is fresher,
Where green, blue,
Blind you —
(LOUIS leaves DOT to offer some pastries to his friends in the park. Throughout the song, he divides his time between DOT and the others)
DOT (Looking offstage in the direction of GEORGE’s exit, sings):
Hello, George . . .
Where did you go, George?
I know you’re near, George.
I caught your eyes, George.
I want your ear, George.
I’ve a surprise, George . . .
Everybody loves Louis,
Louis’ simple and kind.
Everybody loves Louis,
Louis’ lovable.
FRANZ (Greeting LOUIS): Louis!
DOT:
Seems we never know, do we,
Who we’re going to find?
(Tenderly)
And Louis the baker —
Is not what I had in mind.
But...
Louis’ really an artist:
Louis’ cakes are an art.
Louis isn’t the smartest —
Louis’ popular.
Everybody loves Louis:
Louis bakes from the heart . . .
The bread, George.
I mean the bread, George.
And then in bed, George . . .
I mean he kneads me —
I mean like dough, George . . .
Hello, George . . .
Louis’ always so pleasant,
Louis’ always so fair.
Louis makes you feel present,
Louis’ generous.
That’s the thing about Louis:
Louis always is “there.”
Louis’ thoughts are not hard to follow,
Louis’ art is not hard to swallow.
Not that Louis’ perfection —
That’s what makes him ideal.
Hardly anything worth objection:
Louis drinks a bit,
Louis blinks a bit.
Louis makes a connection,
That’s the thing that you feel . . .
We lose things.
And then we choose things.
And there are Louis’s
And there are Georges —
Well, Louis’s
And George.
But George has George
And I need —
Someone —
Louis — !
(LOUIS gives her a pastry and exits)
Everybody loves Louis,
Him as well as his cakes.
Everybody loves Louis,
Me included, George.
Not afraid to be gooey,
Louis sells what he makes.
Everybody gets along with him.
That’s the trouble, nothing’s wrong with him.
Louis has to bake his way,
George can only bake his . . .
(Licks a pastry)
Louis it is!
(She throws pastry away and exits. Enter an American southern couple, MR. and MRS., followed by GEORGE, who sketches them. They are overdressed, eating French pastries and studying the people in the park)
MR.: Paris looks nothin’ like the paintings.
MRS.: I know.
MR. (Looking about): I don’t see any passion, do you?
MRS.: None.
MR.: The French are so placid.
MRS.: I don’t think they have much style, either.
MR.: What’s all the carryin’ on back home? Delicious pastries, though.
MRS.: Excellent.
MR.: Lookin’ at those boats over there makes me think of our return voyage.
MRS.: I long to be back home.
MR.: You do?
MRS.: How soon could we leave?
MR.: You’re that anxious to leave? But, Peaches, we just arrived!
MRS.: I know!
MR. (Gives it a moment’s thought): I don’t like it here either! We’ll go right back to the hotel and I’ll book passage for the end of the week. We’ll go to the galleries this afternoon and then we’ll be on our way home!
MRS.: I am so relieved.
(As they exit)
I will miss these pastries, though.
MR.: We’ll take a baker with us, too.
MRS.: Wonderful!
(They exit)
CELESTE #1: You really should try using that pole.
CELESTE #2: It won’t make any difference.
CELESTE #1 (Starts yelping as if she had caught a fish): Oh! Oh!
CELESTE #2: What is wrong?
CELESTE #1: Just sit there.
(She carries on some more, looking in the direction of the SOLDIER and his COMPANION, who converse for a moment, then come over)
SOLDIER: May we be of some service, Madame?
CELESTE #1: Mademoiselle.
CELESTE #2: She has a fish.
CELESTE #1: He knows.
SOLDIER: Allow me.
(SOLDIER takes the pole from her and pulls in the line and hook. There is nothing on the end)
&nb
sp; CELESTE #1: Oh. It tugged so . . .
SOLDIER: There’s no sign of a fish here.
CELESTE #1: Oh me. My name is Celeste. This is my friend.
CELESTE #2: Celeste.
(SOLDIER fools with fishing pole)
CELESTE #1: Do you have a name?
SOLDIER: I beg your pardon. Napoleon. Some people feel I should change it.
(The CELESTES shake their heads no)
CELESTE #2: And your friend?
SOLDIER: Yes. He is my friend.
CELESTE #1 (Giggling, to SOLDIER): He’s very quiet.
SOLDIER: Yes. Actually he is. He lost his hearing during combat exercises.
CELESTE #1: What a shame.
SOLDIER: He can’t speak, either.
CELESTE #2: Oh. How dreadful.
SOLDIER: We have become very close, though.
CELESTE #1 (Nervous): So I see.
(Music)
SOLDIER and GEORGE (Sudden and loud, sing):
Mademoiselles,
I and my friend,
We are but soldiers!
(Rumble from the COMPANION: SOLDIER raises hand to quiet him)
SOLDIER:
Passing the time
In between wars
For weeks at an end.
CELESTE #1 (Aside):
Both of them are perfect.
CELESTE #2:
You can have the other.
CELESTE #1:
I don’t want the other.
CELESTE #2:
I don’t want the other either.
SOLDIER:
And after a week
Spent mostly indoors
With nothing but soldiers,
Ladies, I and my friend
Trust we will not offend,
Which we’d never intend,
By suggesting we spend —
THE CELESTES (Excited):
Oh, spend —
SOLDIER:
— this magnificent Sunday —
THE CELESTES (A bit deflated):
Oh, Sunday —
SOLDIER:
— with you and your friend.
(SOLDIER offers his arm. Both CELESTES rush to take it; CELESTE #1 gets there first. CELESTE #2 tries to get in between the SOLDIERS, can’t, and rather than join the COMPANION, takes the arm of CELESTE #1. They all start to promenade)
CELESTE #2 (To CELESTE #1):
The one on the right’s an awful bore ...
CELESTE #1:
He’s been in a war.
SOLDIER (To COMPANION):
We may get a meal and we might get more ...
(CELESTE #1 shakes free of CELESTE #2, grabs the arm of the SOLDIER, freeing him from his COMPANION)
CELESTE #1 and SOLDIER (To themselves, as they exit):
It’s certainly fine for Sunday ...
It’s certainly fine for Sunday ...
(Dejected, CELESTE #2 grabs the COMPANION)
CELESTE #2 (As she exits, carrying COMPANION):
It’s certainly fine for Sunday ...
(GEORGE is alone. He moves downstage as FIFI rises. He sits)
GEORGE (Leafing back through his sketches. Sings):
Mademoiselles ...
(Flips a page)
You and me, pal ...
(Flips)
Second bottle ...
Ah, she looks for me ...
(Flips)
Bonnet flapping ...
(Flips)
Yapping ...
(Flips)
Ruff! . . .
Chicken ...
Pastry ...
(Licks lip; looks offstage to where DOT has exited)
Yes, she looks for me — good.
Let her look for me to tell me why she left me —
As I always knew she would.
I had thought she understood.
They have never understood.
And no reason that they should.
But if anybody could ...
Finishing the hat,
How you have to finish the hat.
How you watch the rest of the world
From a window
While you finish the hat.
Mapping out a sky,
What you feel like, planning a sky,
What you feel when voices that come
Through the window
Go
Until they distance and die,
Until there’s nothing but sky.
And how you’re always turning back too late
From the grass or the stick
Or the dog or the light,
How the kind of woman willing to wait’s
Not the kind that you want to find waiting
To return you to the night,
Dizzy from the height,
Coming from the hat,
Studying the hat,
Entering the world of the hat,
Reaching through the world of the hat
Like a window,
Back to this one from that.
Studying a face,
Stepping back to look at a face
Leaves a little space in the way like a window,
But to see —
It’s the only way to see.
And when the woman that you wanted goes,
You can say to yourself, “Well, I give what I give.”
But the woman who won’t wait for you knows
That, however you live,
There’s a part of you always standing by,
Mapping out the sky,
Finishing a hat ...
Starting on a hat ...
Finishing a hat ...
(showing sketch to FIFI)
Look, I made a hat ...
Where there never was a hat ...
(MR. and MRS. enter stage right. They are lost. The BOATMAN crosses near them and they stop him in his path)
MR.: Excusez, Masseur. We are lost.
BOATMAN: Huh?
MRS.: Let me try, Daddy.
(Slowly and wildly gesticulating with her every word)
We are alien here. Unable to find passage off island.
BOATMAN (Pointing to the water): Why don’t you just walk into the water until your lungs fill up and you die.
(BOATMAN crosses away from them, laughing)
MRS.: I detest these people.
MR. (Spotting LOUIS, who has entered in search of DOT): Isn’t that the baker?
MRS.: Why, yes it is!
(They cross to LOUIS. GEORGE brings on the HORN PLAYER cut-out. OLD LADY enters)
OLD LADY: Where is that tree? Nurse? NURSE!
(Horn call. DOT enters, and suddenly she and GEORGE are still, staring at one another. Everyone onstage turns slowly to them. People begin to sing fragments of songs. DOT and GEORGE move closer to one another, circling each other like gun duellers. The others close in around them until DOT and GEORGE stop, opposite each other. Silence. DOT takes her bustle and defiantly turns it around, creating a pregnant stance. There is an audible gasp from the onlookers. Blackout)
(Music. Lights slowly come up on GEORGE in his studio, painting. DOT enters and joins GEORGE behind the painting. He continues painting as she watches. He stops for a moment when he sees her, then continues working)
DOT: You are almost finished.
GEORGE: If I do not change my mind again. And you?
DOT: Two more months.
GEORGE: You cannot change your mind.
DOT: Nor do I want to.
(Beat)
Is it going to be exhibited?
GEORGE: I am not sure. Jules is coming over to look at it. Any minute, in fact.
DOT: Oh, I hope you don’t mind my coming.
GEORGE: What is it that you want, Dot?
DOT: George. I would like my painting.
GEORGE: Your painting?
DOT: The one of me powdering.
GEORGE: I did not know that it was yours.
DOT: You said once that I could have it.
GEORGE: In my sleep?
GEORGE: You don’t have enough now?
DOT: I want the painting, too.
(GEORGE stops painting)
GEORGE: I understand you and Louis are getting married.
DOT: Yes.
GEORGE: He must love you very much to take you in that condition.
DOT: He does.
GEORGE: I didn’t think you would go through with it. I did not think that was what you really wanted.
DOT: I don’t think I can have what I really want. Louis is what I think I need.
GEORGE: Yes. Louis will take you to the Follies! Correct?
DOT: George, I didn’t come here to argue.
(JULES and YVONNE enter)
JULES: George?
GEORGE: Back here, Jules.
DOT: I will go.
GEORGE: Don’t leave! It will only be a minute —
JULES (Crossing behind canvas to GEORGE): There you are. I brought Yvonne along.
YVONNE: May I take a peek?
DOT: I will wait in the other room.
YVONNE (Sees DOT): I hope we are not interrupting you.
(She and JULES step back and study the painting. GEORGE looks at DOT as she exits to the front room)
JULES: It is so large. How can you get any perspective? And this light ...
(GEORGE pulls a lantern close to the canvas)
GEORGE: Stand here.
YVONNE: Extraordinary! Excuse me.
(YVONNE exits into the other room. DOT is Sitting at her vanity, which is now cleared of her belongings. YVONNE and DOT look at each other for a moment)
Talk of painting bores me. It is hard to escape it when you are with an artist.
(Beat)
I do not know how you can walk up all those steps in your condition. I remember when I had Louise. I could never be on my feet for long periods of time. Certainly could never navigate steps.
DOT: Did someone carry you around?
YVONNE: Why are you so cool to me?
DOT: Maybe I don’t like you.
YVONNE: Whatever have I done to make you feel that way?
DOT: “Whatever have I done ... ?” Maybe it is the way you speak. What are you really doing here?
YVONNE: You know why we are here. So Jules can look at George’s work.
DOT: I do not understand why George invites you. He knows you do not like his painting.
Four by Sondheim Page 41