IRINA. But then he himself would not have been born.
PAVEL. Precisely. Which is why he’s been trying to kill himself for the past half century. And God, in his spite, won’t let him succeed. He is now, I believe, one hundred and thirty-seven.
OLGA. Two failed poisonings. Seven botched hangings. The incident with the crossbow.
(OLGA and PAVEL share a knowing look.)
NIKOLAI. My paternal aunt, Olga Andreyevna Barkakovich.
OLGA. (She coughs into a handkerchief.) Don’t worry about my coughing, dear. It’s just a case of —(She coughs again into the handkerchief.) — fatal consumption.
NIKOLAI. Though may I point out that our pure country air has held back the disease for a full four decades.
OLGA. (To IRINA.) Is he always so cheery?
IRINA. I’m afraid so. It is a sickness of his.
OLGA. Well, nevertheless, welcome, dear child. Though what you two can mean by moving here is more than I can fathom. Pavel stays here only to escape his gambling debts. I was disappointed in love and have vowed to live out my life in the isolation of the countryside. But you — have you any notion of the tedium, the mindless allegiance to tradition, the dust —
NIKOLAI. (Snatching the interested IRINA away.) Come, my precious, let me introduce you to Marfa, the cook, who saw Napoleon himself pass by when she was a child and has many droll stories to tell of those fateful —
(Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on the COMEDY. SAMMY is prepping a nervous IRV.)
IRV. (He addresses an imaginary woman, holding out his hand.) Hello, I’m Moe Silverman. Hi — Moe Silverman.
SAMMY. Jesus, Irv. You could give yourself any name in the world, and you pick “Moe Silverman”?
IRV. All right. Mel. Mel Silverman.
SAMMY. (He throws up his hands.) Never mind. But while you’re picking, pick yourself a new career. You want to give her what she doesn’t have, and she’s already got a writer on her hands. And make it snappy — she’ll be here in an hour.
IRV. I told you. I already got it figured out. (Practicing.) Actually, Audrey, I’m a philanthropist.
SAMMY. Wow. Living in this dump?
IRV. (Practicing.) Though I live modestly, I direct several charitable foundations, which calls for a good deal of travel and social —
SAMMY. No, no, no. Remember? What she doesn’t have. Her husband’s a big-shot writer. Cocktail parties, autographings, the phone’s ringing off the hook. She’s typing his letters and mixing his drinks and taking his messages. So you offer her just the opposite. Quiet. Serenity. Selflessness.
IRV. (Practicing.) Actually, Audrey, I’ve become quite interested lately in Buddhism.
SAMMY. Mel Silverman, Buddhist philanthropist. I don’t know. I think it needs work. The point is, you’re someone who has time to listen to her. To pamper her.
IRV. (Practicing.) There’s actually nothing in Buddhism opposed to sex. Or shopping.
SAMMY. You’re the kind who likes to stay in on Friday night, you know . . . listening to Mozart. Plus, what’ll really hook her is that unlike her lying rat of a husband, you’re honest.
IRV. (Practicing.) And I’m extremely honest.
SAMMY. Are you crazy? You don’t tell her that! If a waiter tells you the special is fabulous, do you believe him? No! You gotta let her find that out for herself. Put your high moral character on display.
IRV. Like how?
SAMMY. By puttin’ down the toilet seat, for starters. (Checks his watch.) Hey, I’m late. Gotta run.
IRV. Yeah, and I gotta get the mess in the kitchen cleaned up.
(Both exit. Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on the AVANT-GARDE PLAY. A long pause.)
WOMAN. Room service was supposed to be here six hours ago.
MAN. No doubt they’re busy delivering other meals.
WOMAN. (She looks down at the corpse.) I wonder if perhaps he died of starvation. Read the menu again. It seems to help.
MAN. (He opens a menu.) “All entrées come with soup or salad and choice of baked potato or coleslaw.”
WOMAN. Coleslaw is one of my favorite foods.
MAN. Actually, I don’t believe coleslaw is a food. What I mean to say is that it doesn’t grow out of the ground. There are no silos filled with coleslaw. Coleslaw is a dish, not a food.
WOMAN. (She faces the MAN. Pause.) You don’t love me anymore.
MAN. (He hides behind the menu.) “Baked salmon, served with steamed vegetables and lemon wedge. Chicken-fried steak. Meatloaf, served with succotash. T-bone steak —”
(Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on the PERFORMANCE ART MONOLOGUE.)
MARSHA. (Referring to the couple from the AVANT-GARDE PLAY.) Those guys . . . are so . . . weird. That’s what they’re really like. They’re married, in real life. I’m telling you, even if they paid me, I would never, ever share a hotel room with them. They’re trying to have a kid and if they ever do it’ll be a total alien and the birth announcement will like run in the National Enquirer. Fortunately for humanity, I think they’re just too strange to conceive. Then again, my parents did, despite being the least physical people on the planet. I swear, not even the camera crew for Wild Kingdom could ever catch them kissing. Frankly, I think their birth certificates are fakes and they were both raised in petri dishes. But even weirder, how could it be that such total Best of Barry Manilow types — I mean, my parents actually read the articles in TV Guide — how could they have possibly produced me? They’re such paint-by-numbers, follow-the-crowd people, and I’m such an improviser. I don’t have a script for this. Or for anything else. I’m not following anybody’s footsteps, especially when it comes to theater. I’m going where nobody’s been. Not like some of the fogies here. The ones whose watches all stopped back in the fifteen hundreds, who want to do Shakespeare over and over and over and over. And not like the ones who just like to play dress up. Like —(Russian accent.) — darling Irina. I mean, if you subtract out the lifts in her shoes, the tucks, the lip surgery, the wig, and the magic of silicone, the woman would totally disappear. A carcass. Even her butt’s fake. One side, anyway. I forget which one. Car accident. A pin in her hip and an artificial buttock. I know, I shouldn’t tell you all this, but I’m a truth-teller. It’s my calling. And do I spare myself? No way! Did I come out here and pretend to feel great, the show must go on, Ethel Merman to the max? No — I told you the truth. I feel crappy! (She opens her mouth wide toward the audience on the left, sticking out her tongue as for a doctor.) You see all that white gunk on my throat? That’s the truth. Could you see over there?
(She turns her head toward the right and opens her mouth again. Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on the RUSSIAN PLAY. IRINA and NIKOLAI are looking out a window.)
NIKOLAI. — none of the ridiculous affectation of French manners here that has so infected St. Petersburg. No “Monsieur” and “Madame” and “très amusante.” And no overrefined French cooking, too insubstantial for our Russian climate. Marfa, a true patriot in the kitchen, will keep us well fed on borscht and potato bread. Dear Irina, we’re going to be so very happy here!
(He embraces IRINA, her back to the audience. We see one of NIKOLAI’s hands creep slowly and curiously from her neck to the middle of her back, obviously heading curiously toward her fake buttock. IRINA grabs his hand from behind and breaks from his embrace. Shocked at his behavior, she peers at him with hatred.)
IRINA. But I loathe you! (She realizes she’s accidentally spoken her mind rather than her line.) — I mean, borscht! And that cook of yours appears not to have washed her hands in a month.
NIKOLAI. Obsessive hand-washing, dear heart, is another French affectation. The traces of Russian soil under her nails actually help to impart a marvelous flavoring to her cuisine.
IRINA. But I take lumps of sugar, not clods of earth, in my tea.
NIKOLAI. (Pointing out window.) Look! There’s Great-Grandfather. He really is quite charming, Irina. And he’s steeped in generations of knowledge about farming.
Let us take advantage of this opportunity to absorb the rural wisdom gained from his own father and grandfather and great-grandfather and great-great —
(Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on the ENGLISH MYSTERY. CLIFFORD, COL. HARDWICKE, and REV. SMYTHE are standing and chatting.)
COL. HARDWICKE. First-rate dinner. Can’t beat English peas.
REV. SMYTHE. Though where one could find English peas in December is a mystery worthy of Inspector Swift himself.
(Clap of thunder. BEETON enters.)
CLIFFORD. Cigars, Beeton. And brandy. Bring us the best the house has to offer.
BEETON. Very good, sir. (Exits.)
COL. HARDWICKE. This should be something well worth sipping.
CLIFFORD. And why not? “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die.”
REV. SMYTHE. (Looking out window.) Still coming down hard.
CLIFFORD. How many days has it been raining here?
REV. SMYTHE. Three, isn’t it?
COL. HARDWICKE. Four, actually.
CLIFFORD. Hmmm. Thirty-six to go.
REV. SMYTHE. (Pause.) Are you suggesting — the forty days and nights?
CLIFFORD. The timing is apt. Let’s be honest, Reverend. Our species has made an absolute mess of things. Why not wipe us all out and start over?
COL. HARDWICKE. Clifford, really.
REV. SMYTHE. But God loves his children.
CLIFFORD. He’s got a bloody strange way of showing it. Letting us gas and bayonet and bombard each other, living in mud and filth, smelling the rotting bodies that can’t be retrieved for fear of machine-gun fire. (To COL. HARDWICKE.) This isn’t potting natives in India, Colonel. Not one of you has been to the front! Nor Inspector Swift either, with his putrid optimism. (BEETON enters empty-handed, looking shaken.) Where is Swift, come to think of it? And Beeton, where are the bloody brandy and cigars?
BEETON. Please forgive me, sir. But Inspector Swift — Inspector Swift, sir, is dead.
(Clap of thunder. CLIFFORD cowers at the sound.)
COL. HARDWICKE. Dead? Is this some sort of joke?
REV. SMYTHE. Lord protect us.
CLIFFORD. (To BEETON.) Speak, man.
BEETON. After dining, he used the telephone in the study, sir, to make an urgent call, so he said. When I knocked, so as to fetch the cigars, there was no answer. I knocked again, then finally looked in. And there he was, slumped on the floor. When I checked his pulse . . . (He trails off.)
COL. HARDWICKE. Our foremost detective — himself the victim of murder.
REV. SMYTHE. Murder? We have no knowledge that it was murder.
(All turn in unison to face COL. HARDWICKE.)
COL. HARDWICKE. Quite right. Dashed hasty of me. Been reading too many mystery novels of late. (He forces a laugh.) Let’s have a look at the body. My wife was a nurse. Perhaps there’s still hope.
(ALL exit. Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on RICHARD III, act 1, midway in scene 2. GLOUCESTER and LADY ANNE face each other across the corpse of King Henry VI — the same male corpse from the AVANT-GARDE PLAY but now with a crown on its head and lying on the couch. GLOUCESTER wears a dagger-bearing scabbard.)
GLOUCESTER. I did not kill your husband.
LADY ANNE. Why, then he is alive.
GLOUCESTER. Nay, he is dead; and slain by —
(The phone rings. GLOUCESTER whirls and glares into the wings. It rings again. He whips out his dagger and brings it down onto the telephone table, severing the cord. He lifts up the phone, crosses the room, triumphantly drops it into the wastebasket, and returns.)
GLOUCESTER. He is dead; and slain by Edward’s hand.
LADY ANNE. In thy foul throat thou liest: Queen Margaret saw
Thy murderous falchion smoking in his blood;
The which thou once didst bend against her breast,
But that thy brothers —
(Zap sound. Lights out briefly, then back on. MAN and WOMAN from the AVANT-GARDE PLAY have partially made their entrance. The Shakespeareans are still in place. LADY ANNE looks in dismay at GLOUCESTER, then both stare accusingly at the audience. GLOUCESTER sighs, snatches the crown off the corpse’s head, and disgustedly rolls the corpse from the couch to the floor with a thud as he and LADY ANNE exit. MAN and WOMAN take their places. WOMAN erases a word in her crossword puzzle. MAN reads a newspaper. After a time, he turns the page. WOMAN gently clears her throat, but no words follow. Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on the SOUTHERN PLAY, as before.)
AARON. (Continuing his litany of complaints.) Aunt Cordelia’s in the asylum in Tupelo, hoarding the sugar cubes from the dining room and giving ’em to all the young doctors she tries to seduce.
(Sound of train whistle. CAROLINE drains the last sip of whiskey from her glass and regards it.)
CAROLINE. Mighty fine breakfast. What’s for dinner?
AARON. Everyone’s waiting for Grandmammy to die, to hear the twenty-seventh revision to her will —
CAROLINE. Lawyer was here again yesterday.
REGINALD. Twenty-eighth.
AARON. Everyone cozying up to her in the most repulsive fashion, in hopes of getting River Oaks, her twenty-thousand-acre estate —
(LUKE enters. He’s thirty and wildly energetic, caroming around the room, picking up and putting down objects, chuckling to himself — the very opposite of the character Aaron describes. All stare at him in bafflement.)
AARON. While everyone knows that my stepbrother Luke, here — who’s hardly left his room for years, just hunched up in the closet, in the dark, hardly speaking —
LUKE. (Hearty and loud.) Howdy, all!
AARON. (Pointedly to actor playing Luke.) And hardly moving, just like the salamanders he raises in his closet. Which is all he’s done since the fateful day he came upon Grandpappy’s body down by the river —
CAROLINE. (To REGINALD.) This boy do go on, don’t he.
(Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on the PERFORMANCE ART MONOLOGUE.)
MARSHA. So like my father is the manager of Planet Snooze, this store that’s as big as a freaking galaxy that just sells beds. His one goal in the universe is to put people to sleep. Yawning was considered a big conversation starter in my house. “You going to sleep soon?” “Did you get a nap in today?” And then in the morning, every morning — the sleep report. “So how did you sleep?” “OK, I guess.” “Just OK? Let’s talk about that later. How ’bout you, Mother?” “Oh, my, I had a wonderful sleep.” (She sniffles loudly.) God, I’ve got to take something for this cold. Hold on. (She fishes a pill out of a pocket, looks in vain for something to wash it down with, discovers that the whiskey bottle is empty, and throws up her hands.) Oh, well. There’s always saliva. (She stops talking, spends five seconds collecting saliva in her mouth, then manages to squeeze the pill down her throat.) My mother stayed home till I was in middle school. Then she got a part-time job out at the mall at Jingle Bell Lane, one of those shops that sells Christmas crap the whole freaking year. The place is like on permanent pause. It’s always December there. There’s always fake snow on the windowpanes. Maybe you’d stop aging if you like barricaded yourself inside and never left. If you could stand “The Twelve Days of Christmas” playing nonstop. You want to set me off, start singing that song. And that stupid fake scent in those shops. Christmas is supposed to smell good by itself, without Dow Chemical. I swear that stuff affected my mother’s brain. She’s got this sort of bulgy forehead, probably because the part of the brain devoted to gift selection and home decoration is like totally huge and has swallowed up the parts for fashion and musical taste. Both my parents worked in these weird island worlds — no racism, sexism, pollution, assassinations, riots. Like they never happened. I swear, if you went into Planet Snooze and screamed “Martin Luther King!” in my father’s face, he’d say, “You bet. We’ve got loads of kings.” Can you imagine being an only child, marooned with these loonies? Where was Child Protective Services? It was like living in a freaking morgue. I should have gotten free antidepressants in my
school lunch. Not too much, like that new guy playing Luke —(Gestures toward the wings.) — who I think maybe got his diet pill uppers mixed up with his Tic Tacs and took like a few dozen too many. So anyway, growing up with —
(Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on the SOUTHERN PLAY, as before. Luke is still bouncing around the room.)
AARON. And personally, I’ve always felt that Luke’s salamanders were metaphors for his desire to burrow into the darkness, to escape the horrible memory of —
(Luke is too wired to remember his southern accent or even that he’s in a play.)
LUKE. What horrible memory?
(REGINALD, CAROLINE, and AARON exchange worried looks.)
CAROLINE. (Improvising.) My, what a northern southern accent you’ve got, Luke. Calm yourself. And tell us about Belle.
LUKE. Belle?
REGINALD AND AARON. (Shouting.) Belle!
(This jars LUKE’s memory.)
LUKE. Oh, yeah. (Puts on southern accent and rushes madly through his lines.) I think Belle might be hurt. She’s my favorite salamander. She’s the one I found down by the river. You know the place. You all do. Down there where they found the — found the — found the body, found Grandpappy’s body. (Having finished his speech, he resumes moving around the stage, stops next to CAROLINE, and speaks without an accent.) So what are you doing after the show?
(Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on the COMEDY. A Mozart slow movement is playing. IRV is finishing showing AUDREY MCPHERSON, a harried forty-year-old, around the apartment. She finds herself eyeing the books in the bookcase.)
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