by Ted Dykstra
RICHARD
I understand.
TED
I’m sorry about your troubles.
RICHARD
Thank you, Teddy.
TED
Um, we’ll see you next week, okay?
RICHARD
I look forward to it. (RICHARD exits.)
TED
That was pretty good there for a sec.
TED sits at the stage left piano. RICHARD re-enters stage right, sits, and plays. TED exits.
At the Tarragon Theatre, 1996.
Photo by Beatrice Campbell.
PIANO BAR
RICHARD sings a suitable song for a piano bar. TED enters talking on a cellphone with drink and cigarette in hand. RICHARD continues to play.
TED
You sell when I tell you to sell, you buy when I tell you to buy—this is not a dialogue, asshole! (He hangs up.) I’ll have another one of these, dollface, and I mean that politically correctly. Tell starboy to make it a double, will you? Hey, Paul, Paul, Paul, Paul, Paul, Paul, Paul, paul! Oh, sorry, I thought you were Paul. (RICHARD finishes the song.) Hey, that was great.
RICHARD
Thanks.
TED
How old are you there, little guy?
RICHARD
Seve… uh… nineteen.
TED
Yeah right, can I see some ID? (RICHARD balks.) Don’t worry, I won’t blow your cover. That was pretty good there, eh? I know music.
TED plays the knuckle-roll song on the piano. RICHARD takes his hand away.
RICHARD
Thanks. So, do you have any requests?
TED
Do you know (the name of the song he just played)?
RICHARD
(slumping with disbelief) I just played it.
TED
What, in your last set you mean?
RICHARD
No. I just played it.
TED
No you didn’t.
RICHARD
Yes I did.
TED
No you didn’t.
RICHARD
Yes I did.
TED
I was standing right here.
RICHARD
Well, I played it right here.
TED
Are you calling me a liar?
RICHARD
No, I’m not calling you a liar—
TED
You think I don’t know (name of song)? You’ll tell me though?! I was listening to that song before you were born, you little underage smartass.
RICHARD
I’ll tell you though—maybe if you weren’t yelling across the bar to Paul or talking on your cellphone, you might have heard—
TED
You don’t want to play the goddamn song, that’s fine with me! Just say, “I’m sorry, sir, but I’d rather not play that particular selection at this juncture.” And we move on!
RICHARD
(trying to get him to quiet down) Okay, okay. I’ll play it again.
TED
You’ll play it for the first time. (RICHARD begins to play.) Hey! (RICHARD stops playing and looks at him.) Say it.
RICHARD laughs. TED crosses over to him menacingly.
You better say it.
RICHARD
I’ll play it for the first time.
TED
Goddamn right! (RICHARD begins to play.) Yeah, that’s (name of song)! (beat) I gotta to take a whiz, kid. (TED exits.) Gary! Gary! Sorry, I thought you were Gary…
RICHARD continues to play (name of song) until Mr. Scarlatti enters.
MOVING ON
TED
Ricky, Ricky, what you do, eh?
RICHARD
Oh sorry, Mr. Scarlatti, I was just fooling around.
TED
That’s-a (name of writer of the previous song).
RICHARD
Mr. Scarlatti. You know (name of writer)?
TED
Yeah. I like-a (name of writer). He’s a man. He’s a real man. He’s a piano man.
RICHARD
That’s a good one, Mr. S.
TED
Thank you.
RICHARD
So, how’s your back?
TED
Not so good, how’s your Bach?
RICHARD
Not so good.
TED
(as he lies down) What else have you got for me this week, Ricky?
RICHARD
Well, believe it or not, I’m still working on the second Chopin Ballade.
TED
Oh, she’s a pig.
RICHARD
Yeah. Oh, I’ve got the Schoenberg.
TED
Oh no, no, no Shoenberg, I’m in the mood for a melody.
RICHARD
How about the Mozart Fantasia in C Minor?
TED
Give me the Bach. You play that for my back. My back likes that one. Take it from the cadenza, Ricky. The B flat. (beat) It’s-a good for my back to “be” flat.
RICHARD
I don’t know where you come up with them, Mr. S.
TED
It’s a gift. (RICHARD begins to play in a rush.) Hey, hey, hey. Think before you play, Rambo. Breathe. Start again. (RICHARD plays a segment, then stops.) Ricardo. You play this better three weeks ago. What’s-a matter? Think before you play. Breathe. Let’s go. Start again. (RICHARD plays one note then stops.)
RICHARD
Mr. Scarlatti, I can’t go on. I’m seventeen years old. I can’t go on being a piano nerd. Sitting for hours on end in a room by myself trying to make my fingers do unnatural contortions. The piano’s become like this millstone around my neck. I feel guilty when I’m not practising, I feel inadequate when I do. I’m not going anywhere as a classical pianist. You know it, and I know it. And anyway, how is it relevant? I want to work to change the world, Mr. Scarlatti. Politically. How am I going to do that being a classical pianist? Classical music is this middle-class, European, elitist art form that is dying in front of an apathetic public that gets more satisfaction playing Nintendo. And acoustic instrumentation is dead. I mean, no offence, Mr. Scarlatti, but the piano is going the way of the typewriter… or the eight-track cassette. And classical musicians are becoming this smaller and smaller cabal of crazy archaic artisans, like stonemasons or blacksmiths or something. I mean, we’re weird now, but we’re going to get weirder and weirder as we get fewer and fewer, until finally we’ll be totally outside of society altogether. Cultural lepers. (beat) I just want you to know that this has nothing to do with you. I think you’re a great teacher and a great guy. I’ve learned a lot from you… and not just about the piano. But it’s time for me to move on. Mr. Scarlatti… (long beat) I’m quitting the piano.
Pause. A deep snore comes from Mr. Scarlatti. RICHARD leans over him.
We hear the finale of Horowitz’s Carnegie Hall performance of the Mephisto Waltz by Liszt.
RICHARD
Ted. Ted!
TED
What?
RICHARD
Do you want another beer?
TED
Yeah, yeah. Shh. This is the part.
RICHARD
What part?
TED
The part I’ve been telling you about! It sounds like a Ping-Pong ball being dropped. (RICHARD exits to get them a beer.) How does he do that?! Here it comes again. Ping-Pong ball.
RICHARD hands a beer to TED; TED crosses to his piano.
Here he goes. Listen to this.
We listen to the end of the recording as TED plays air piano along with Horowitz. At the end he cheers along with the crowd and collapses on
the piano, listening to the applause as it fades.
That, my friend, is one little seventy-five-year-old man, one big black piano, and two thousand people who would rather be there than anywhere else; whose lives were forever altered on that day, who still say today, “I was there when Vlad played Carnegie Hall.” If you’re not going to play like that what’s the point? I think that’s why I quit. I knew what I’d have to go through to play like that. What seventeen-year-old kid wants to sit in a little room by himself staring at little black dots, developing hemorrhoids? I was a social kid. I wanted to be out in the world with people, real live people. Interacting, you know? Now that people are such a big part of my life, I often wish I was in a little room by myself. Stupid thing is, now I know how to work. Now I’ve got discipline. Now I enjoy practising. Now it’s too late. But some little part of me still thinks I could have done it. I could have been a world-class classical musician. I could have played Carnegie Hall. It’s very important for me to believe that, because if I didn’t believe that, it would mean that I didn’t quit because I wanted a normal life, it’d mean I quit because I wasn’t good enough. (pause) Shit, now I’m depressed.
RICHARD
Do you remember the last time we got this drunk together?
TED
Vaguely.
RICHARD
Well you put on that same cd of Vladimir Horowitz playing the Mephisto Waltz by Franz Liszt…
TED
Guilty, my lord.
RICHARD
…and you made the same fehschtunkineh speech you just did.
TED
I did not.
RICHARD
You did too.
TED
I did not.
RICHARD
You did too.
TED
(beat) Did I really?
RICHARD
Yep.
TED
That’s pathetic.
RICHARD
Yep.
TED
Thanks, now I’m even more depressed. You know what I’m talking about though, don’t you, Rich?
RICHARD
Yeah. (beat) But you know—we’re not bad piano players.
TED
No, we’re not bad.
RICHARD
We’re okay.
TED
We’re pretty good.
RICHARD
We’re quite good.
TED
We’re two of the best piano players in the world.
RICHARD
No, we’re not.
TED
We’re two of the best piano players in the country?
RICHARD
No, we’re not.
TED
We’re two of the best piano players in the city?
BOTH
(beat) No.
TED
In the neighbourhood?
RICHARD
Yes.
BOTH
We are two of the best piano players in the neighbourhood.
They contemplate this. They look at their hands. They look at each other. They get up and they put on their tuxedo tails. They check with each other that they’re ready and sit down at their pianos together.
They then play the first movement of the Bach D Minor Concerto as well as two of the best piano players in the neighbourhood can play it.
The end.
At the Tarragon Theatre, 1996.
Photo by Lydia Pawelka.
Acknowledgements
Beatrice Campbell; Celia Chassels; Jean and Chalmers Doane; Melanie Doane; Theo and Rosie Dykstra; Theo and Truus Dykstra; Mallory Gilbert; Luke, Natasha, William, and Amelia Greenblatt; Tanya Greve; Fiona Jones; Steve Lucas; Kate Lushington; Gloria Muzio; Robin McKim; the Ontario Arts Council; the Tarragon staff; and all of the people who attended and gave feedback on the first workshop of 2P4H.
David and Ed Mirvish and all of those at Mirvish Productions who have supported the show throughout the years, Judy Richardson, Ben Sprecher and William P. Miller, and Rob Barg and the teams at Yamaha Canada and Yamaha Artist Services International.
A special thank you to Urjo Kareda for his dramaturgical input and support of the original production.
The playwrights would especially like to acknowledge Andy McKim’s role as the consulting director of the original production. His input was, and is still, greatly appreciated.
Ted and Richard in front of Persephone Theatre, Saskatoon, during their first Canadian tour, 1997.
Photo by Beatrice Campbell.
Ted’s professional career began in Edmonton at the age of fifteen. Since then he has gone on to play leading roles on every major stage in Canada, often combining his musical skills in such roles as Mozart in Amadeus; Cale Blackwell, a character based on Jerry Lee Lewis, in Fire; Shostakovich in Master Class; Glenn Gould in An Evening with Glenn Gould; Hedwig in Hedwig and the Angry Inch; and Cousin Kevin in The Who’s Tommy. School children around the world know him as Bach in the film Bach’s Fight for Freedom. He is also a veteran of both the Shaw and Stratford Shakespeare festivals. He has appeared in dozens of films and tv shows and has also voiced dozens of cartoon characters. In 2000 he turned his attention to directing, and has since helmed many award-winning shows across the country, notably for Soulpepper Theatre, of which he is a founding member. He has also directed 2 Pianos 4 Hands across America and in Australia and Hong Kong. Recently, his performance and adaptation of Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata received accolades from critics and colleagues alike. He has received four Dora Mavor Moore Awards, a Gemini, an Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Award, a Robert Merritt Award, and a Chalmers Award for acting, writing, and directing.
All of the above, however, pales compared to being the proud father of Theo and Rosie.
Richard Greenblatt is an actor, director, writer, and musician who has been a professional theatre artist for almost four decades. He was born in Montreal and studied piano for ten years with the late Professor Dorothy Morton of the McGill Conservatory of Music. He received his acting training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, England. Since returning to Canada, he has performed in theatres across Canada and abroad, as well as in feature films, television, and radio. He has directed well over one hundred productions for theatres across the country, the vast majority being original and/or Canadian works. He has also directed many classical works, as well as the premieres of groundbreaking and award-winning plays for young audiences.
As a writer, he wrote or co-wrote 2 Pianos 4 Hands, Sibs, The Theory of Relatives, i.d., Letters from Lehrer, Care, and Soft Pedalling. 2 Pianos 4 Hands has played on five continents and in over two hundred cities since it opened at the Tarragon Theatre in April 1996. Greenblatt himself has performed the play with co-creator Ted Dykstra over 850 times across Canada and in New York City, Washington, DC, London, and Tokyo. He has taught acting, directing, and play creation at most of the theatre-training institutions in Canada.
He lives in Toronto with partner Tanya Greve and their daughter Amelia, and is the proud father of Natasha, Will, and the dearly missed Luke Greenblatt.