In America

by Susan Sontag

  “Oh, dear Ryszard, don’t apply what I say to yourself,” she said grandly, tenderly. “I must be concentrated. It’s the only way I know how to be.”

  “It is your genius,” he said.

  “Or my handicap.” She smiled. “I’ll admit that I miss going to the theatre.”

  The next evening Ryszard took a box at the China Theatre, on Jackson Street, a bluntly colored two-story building with a tiled roof upturned at the corners. After the first clang of gongs and cymbals from the shirtsleeved orchestra at the rear of the stage, as one, two, three, eventually some twenty brightly encumbered actors surged into view through a flap of cloth on the left and began shouting in falsetto voices at one another, Maryna tugged at Ryszard’s jacket like a child. Then something transpired, some lurch of story, for suddenly six of the actors dashed away through the opening, similarly draped, on the right.

  “Brilliant, isn’t it?” said Ryszard. “No entrances and exits to decide—actors always come on at a trot from the left and go off at the same velocity on the right. No character to construct out of one’s inner resources—that one is a man of valor because he has painted a white mask on his face and that one a cruel man because he has painted his face red. No concealment of the mechanics of spectacle—when a property is needed, someone brings it on the stage and hands it to the actor; when a costume needs adjusting, the actor stands a little apart from the others and the dresser arrives to fix the costume. No—” Why am I chattering like this, Ryszard admonished himself, when she can see everything I’m seeing, and more?

  At the tumblers and the pasteboard lions and dragons Maryna clapped her hands gleefully. “I could sit here all night!” she exclaimed, she exaggerated. “I want it to go on forever.” Ah, said Ryszard to himself, it’s still all right.

  The next morning Miss Collingridge was taking her pig, stricken with a stomach ailment, to a veterinarian; she’d told Maryna she might not arrive for their work together until the late afternoon. Seizing on the time freed by this happy misfortune to propose, exceptionally, a daytime excursion, Ryszard came to fetch Maryna for a ferry ride around the Bay with a stop in Golden Gate Park. She was still thinking, she told him, about the glorious artifice of last night’s entertainment.

  “There is another Chinese theatre here I wish I could show you,” said Ryszard. “But it has only a pit with benches and standing places, there are no boxes for ladies, and the night I went it was packed and the stuffiness and heat were unbearable, the audience numbering, besides Chinese men, quite a few louts and, as I can testify, pickpockets. The interest of the experience (no, I lost only two dollars and my handkerchief) is that they do neither opera nor circus. The stage is much smaller than where we were last night, so I was prepared to see a simpler pageant. You know, one of those plays in which the sun emerges, followed by a dragon, the dragon tries to swallow the sun, the sun resists, the dragon flees, and then the sun performs a dance of victory, which is rapturously acclaimed by the audience. Not at all! Loin de cela! To my surprise, everything was quite compatible with reality.”

  “I should like to know what you mean, dear Ryszard, by reality.”

  “First of all,” said Ryszard, “the plot of the drama I saw. Of course I didn’t understand a word of what was said, but the story seemed clear. It concerned a writer who was hopelessly in love, well perhaps not altogether hopelessly, with a beautiful lady much wealthier than himself.”

  “And married, no doubt.”

  “Happily, not. No, the lady was quite free, except for the impediment of their difference of fortune, to return the writer’s love.”

  “Ryszard”—Maryna laughed—“you are making this up.”

  “No, I swear I’m not.”

  “And did she give herself to the impecunious writer?”

  “Ah, that’s what made the drama I saw that evening so much like life. The actors walked back and forth, arguing with one another, some even jumped up and down, but in the end there was neither a marriage nor a funeral. Apparently, to the logical Chinese mind, it makes no sense for a story that unfolds over several months—even years—of its protagonists’ lives to be represented in one evening. No, a play ought to last as many months or years as the story it tells. Whoever wishes to follow, let him come again.”

  “And how do you—I’m asking the writer—how do you think the play ends, when it does end?”

  “I think that, since in China events occur which according to our conceptions are exceedingly improbable, the lady will bestow her love on the penniless writer.”

  “Do you?”

  “However,” he continued, “the laws of dramatic suspense require that the courtship take a very long time.”

  “Are you sure? Perhaps you’re being pessimistic.”

  “It’s a month since I saw my episode. I presume that the enamored writer has not yet succeeded in winning the hand of the comely ‘Flower of Tea’—”

  “Ryszard—”

  “But he may have already won over several influential relatives who have promised to plead his suit.” He smiled gravely. “You see how patient I am.”

  “Ryszard, I want you to go somewhere else while I prepare for the audition.”

  “You are sending me away,” he groaned.

  “I am.”

  “For how long? Is it like the Chinese play? Weeks? Months?”

  “Until I summon you. If I’m successful, I shall welcome you back.”

  “And then what happens?”

  “Ah, you want to know the end,” she cried. “You cannot be both a character in the play and its author. No, you must wait in suspense. As I do.”

  “What suspense? How can you fail?”

  “I can fail,” she said solemnly.

  “If Barton turns you down, he’s an idiot and doesn’t deserve to live. I shall come back and kill him.”

  She repeated this to Miss Collingridge, expecting to make the young woman laugh.

  “Idiot,” said Miss Collingridge. “Not eediot. And kill, not keel.”

  “Miss Collingridge predicts,” she told Ryszard, “that it is my destiny to be loved by the fair sex.” Ignoring Ryszard’s grimace, Maryna went on: “And you should be happy about that. For so far, I must tell you, no Yankee has yet looked me over, none has paid me a compliment. But since, if one is to believe the saying here, a woman’s will is God’s will, I am content.”

  A few days later Ryszard left the city, choosing to stay away from Maryna in the company of a pair of elderly Polish émigrés, veterans of the 1830 Uprising against Russia, who lived in Sebastopol, a village about forty miles north of San Francisco. It is perfect here for writing, he told her in his first letter, for I have absolutely nothing else to do; the two old soldiers will not let me meddle with the household chores. I am writing many things, he told her in his next letter, among them a play for you, which, as you needn’t remind me, I once promised, oh it seems long ago, I would never attempt. On some mornings, rereading it at my table, I think it quite splendid. Will you think so, too? Maryna, my Maryna, comely Flower of My Heart, I count on your covering the poverty of my play with your royal cloak.

  She wrote him, asking his advice about what she should propose to Barton for her opening vehicle. She would much rather do Shakespeare (Juliet or Ophelia) but thought it wiser to start with a play whose original language was not English: her accent would grate less. Camille, perhaps. Better still, Adrienne Lecouvreur; playing an actress, at the worst she would appear to be … an actress. The play was popular on American stages and a favorite with visiting European stars, starting with Rachel herself, who had opened her only American tour with it in New York twenty years ago.

  Camille, wrote Ryszard. It is a much better play. If you’ll permit me, I’ve always thought Adrienne Lecouvreur rather maudlin and shrill. You must know that, Maryna, no matter how much you relish the part. I will confess that the ending leaves me quite dry-eyed, except when you do it. And that’s because, etc., etc.

  She asked Bogdan’s
opinion, too. Adrienne Lecouvreur, replied Bogdan. Definitely Adrienne. His letters from Anaheim were always laconic. They contained reassuring news about Peter, discouraging news about efforts to sell the farm, but little of Bogdan’s own state of mind. She was grateful that he never made her feel uneasy about leaving him with the child. She would send for Peter and Aniela soon—as soon as she’d had the audition. She had to devote all her time to preparing. She needed to be entirely single-minded. She wanted to experience herself as completely alone. It occurred to her that she might never be alone again.

  * * *

  “NOW, YOU mention genius,” said Angus Barton, although Maryna hadn’t mentioned it. “And genius speaks in every tongue, I’m not saying that isn’t true. And I’m not saying I don’t believe you weren’t some kind of star in your own country, all your compatriots here in San Francisco who have been writing me letters and coming by the theatre and imploring me to see you and leaving me articles about you, which of course I can’t read, they couldn’t be making it all up, could they, but this is America, and you say you want to act in English even though it makes no sense for a foreign actress to come here and not act in her own language, since our public is used to that, and think they do understand as long as they know the story, though I hold to the old-fashioned idea that when it comes to a play the audience ought to understand the words. And I’m not saying that the public in America hasn’t opened its arms to foreign actors, but they come from countries that Americans like the sound of, like France and Italy, and I’m afraid your country isn’t one of those, and they come here on a tour, with everything nicely prepared, and everyone eager to see them, and then they go home. And I’m not saying that I won’t give you an audition, if only to get your friends to stop badgering me, I’m willing to do that, but you must agree I can be honest with you, I shall criticize you frankly, I’m not going to mince my words.”

  “Yes,” said Maryna.

  “And I’m not saying I think it’s a complete waste of my time for me to give you an hour on Wednesday morning, sorry that I can’t spend any more time with you now, I have an appointment in a few minutes, but I don’t want you to get your hopes up, you seem like a nice woman, very dignified, with your mind all made up, I like that, I like a woman with spark, a woman who knows how to stand up for herself, but you have to bend in this country too, everyone does. And I’m not saying that you’ve not heard this before, but theatre has to be good business, people here don’t go so much for highfalutin ideas of theatre such as they keep on with in Europe. And I’m not saying that you don’t know that, but what I see before me is a lady, and perhaps back in your country a refined woman like yourself would make a great impression, you can impress the public with that here too, but they don’t want a steady diet of lady, not even our rich folk in San Francisco, and we have plenty of them now with all the Comstock bullion, like the late Mr. Ralston who built this theatre and the Palace Hotel too, he liked a lot of fancy European things. And I’m not saying that they’re just a bunch of snobs living in the mansions on Nob Hill, who all take boxes at the California, because rich people want to think they have culture, that’s why the city has so many theatres, and there are quite a few Jews in society here, and I guess they’re the most cultivated, but you can’t play only to them. So I’m not saying that San Francisco doesn’t have some people who know what they’re seeing, when Booth does a turn here or one of the big stars on tour from Europe comes through, all of them hoping to play at the California, since everyone knows that after Booth’s Theatre in New York it’s the best theatre in the whole country, and that makes our public extra hard to please, especially the newspapermen here, who are just waiting to puncture the balloon of some big foreign reputation. But I’m not saying that ordinary people don’t go to the theatre too, and if you don’t please them it doesn’t work at all. They have to cheer and laugh and poke each other in the ribs and cry. I wonder if you could do comedy roles. No, from the look of you, probably not. Well, that settles it. You have to make them cry.”

  “Yes,” said Maryna.

  He looked at her sharply. “I don’t discourage you, or disarm you, with all this prattle?”

  “No.”

  “Ah, I see. You are proud, you are confident. You are probably intelligent. Well,” he snorted, “that’s no asset for an actor.”

  “I have been told that before, Mr. Barton.”

  “I suppose you have.”

  “But you could be more condescending. You could have said to me that intelligence is no asset for a woman.”

  “Yes, I could have said that. I shall hereby make note not to say it to you.” He stared at her with curiosity and irritation. “I tell you what, Madame I-can’t-pronounce-your-name. Let’s get this over with. Are you prepared to do something right now?”

  Of course she was not. “Yes.”

  “And we’ll part as friends, right? No hard feelings. And it will be my pleasure to invite you to my box any evening this week.”

  “I shall not waste your time, Mr. Barton.”

  Barton slapped the desk. “Charles! Charles!!” A young man peeped through the door. “Go run over to Ames’s office and tell him to hold tight, I won’t be free for another half hour. And send William to put some lamps on the stage, and a table and chair.”

  “A chair is enough,” said Maryna.

  “Forget the table!” shouted Barton.

  As Barton led her from his office through a maze of corridors, he said, “And what are you going to do for me?”

  “I was thinking of Juliet. Or Marguerite Gautier. Or perhaps Adrienne Lecouvreur. These are all roles I have played many times in my native country and have now learned in English.” She paused, as if hesitating. “I think, if you have no objection, I shall show you my Adrienne. That was the role in which I made my debut at the Imperial Theatre in Warsaw, and it has always brought me luck.” Barton whistled, and shook his head. “Yes, the climax of Act Four, when Adrienne recites to her rival, in front of a glittering assembly, the insulting tirade from Phèdre, and from that straight into Act Five.”

  “Perhaps not all of Five,” said Barton quickly. “And I won’t need Phèdre.”

  “In any case,” Maryna continued imperturbably, “I shall require the good offices of a young friend, who is waiting in the lobby and has my copy of Adrienne with her, to join me on the stage to read.”

  “We had Ristori in San Francisco with her troupe doing that only two years ago. But she was at the Bush. Of course she did it in Italian. Maybe she did one speech in English—no matter, you couldn’t understand a word she said. After she paid for most of her reviews, the public came, and in the end it was quite a success.”

  “Yes,” said Maryna, “I was sure that you were familiar with the play.”

  They had reached the wings. Before her was the dim stage, and waiting at the center a plain wooden chair. A stage! She would be walking again onto a stage! Maryna paused for a moment, a moment of genuine hesitation, so overcome was she by excitement and joy, which she supposed Barton would interpret as stage fright. No, not even stage fright, but ordinary panic, the panic of the amateur who, having passed herself off as a professional, is about to be caught out in her deception.

  “Well,” he said, “here you are.”

  “Yes,” she said. Here I am.

  “The stage is yours,” he said, and left by the steps on the right, pausing midway to pull an envelope out of his pocket and slice it open with a stiletto.

  “Put aside your doubts,” said Maryna, meaning his damned letter, “and If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.”

  “Ah, Mark Antony to the plebs.” Barton turned back to look at her. “You should hear how Edwin Booth delivers those lines.”

  “I have.”

  “Really. And where, may I ask, did you see our great tragedian? I’m not aware that he has yet made any European tours.”

  She stamped her foot lightly. “Where I am standing now, Mr. Barton. Last September. His Mark Anto
ny, and his Shylock.”

  “Here? So you’ve been to the California Theatre! But of course, you told me you’ve been in the state for a while.” He had reached his seat in the middle of the tenth row. “Now, you must be my guest sometime this week.”

  Maryna beckoned to a timorous Miss Collingridge to remove her sailor hat, come on the stage, and occupy the chair, from which she would read (without emotion) the lines of Maurice, Adrienne Lecouvreur’s beloved, and, at the end of the act, the few lines of Michonnet, the prompter at the Comédie-Française, Adrienne’s dearest friend as well as hopeless candidate for her love.

  “Remember, don’t act. Just give me the lines.”

  “Give,” mouthed Miss Collingridge. “Not geeve.”

  Maryna smiled. “And don’t worry for me,” she whispered. “I shall be”—she was still smiling but now to herself—“I shall be ‘all right.’”

  Maryna looked about the empty theatre. How was she to do her best in these dismal circumstances? There were no admiring friends in the seats, no other actors, no painted scenes, no properties (should she have asked for something, a candle, a shoehorn, a fan to serve as the bouquet of poisoned flowers?), no audience to stimulate her. Only the chair to talk to, with Miss Collingridge in it, and one unsympathetic man to judge. And Miss Collingridge looked so abject and small. Perhaps she should imagine it was Ryszard in the chair instead. And would she have her voice, the commanding voice audible without effort (without effort!) at the rear of the second balcony, to say Adrienne’s lines in English? In America!

  “Just the death scene, the second half of Act Five, Mr. Barton. Do not despair. I shall begin,” she said, the voice was not the actress’s voice, “after I have opened the small casket containing the poisoned flowers sent by the Princesse de Bouillon, which I believe are from Maurice, and kissed them. Begin with my reply when Maurice, who has just been shown into my apartment, says to me”—a little fuller than flat-voiced—“Adrienne! But your hand is trembling. You’re ill. Miss Collingridge…”