Norman, John - Gor 20 - Players of Gor.txt

by Players of Gor [lit]

  tend to amplify the actors’ voices. If women are generally precluded from

  participation in the major dramatic forms, they are, however, more than

  adequately represented in the great variety of minor forms which exist on Gor,

  such as low comedy, burlesque, mime, farce and story dance. To be sure, these

  women are usually

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  slaves. Free women, on the whole, affect to find the professional stage,

  particularly in its manifestations in the minor forms, unspeakably disgusting

  and indecent; they feign horror at the very thought of themselves going on the

  stage; it would be much the same thing, surely, as being displayed publicly on a

  slave platform or slave block. They usually attend performances incognito.

  I have mentioned that masks are commonly worn in serious drama and sophisticated

  comedy, such as it is; I might also mention that they are not worn in most of

  the minor forms, such as mime or story dance, unless called for by that plot, as

  in the case of brigands, and so on; farce, on the other hand, represents an

  interesting case for in it some characters commonly wear masks and others do

  not; the Comic Father, the Pendant, usually depicting a member of the Scribes,

  and the Timid Captain, for example, are usually masked, whereas the young

  lovers, the Golden Courtesan, the Desirable Heiress, and others, are not. Some

  roles, those of saucy free maids, comic servants, and such, may or may not be

  masked, depending on the troupe. As you may have gathered many of the characters

  in Gorean comedy and in the minor forms are, for the most part, stock

  characters. Again and again one meets pompous merchants, swaggering soldiers,

  fortune tellers, parasites, peasants and slaves.

  These stock characters are well known to Gorean audiences and welcomed by them.

  For example, the Pompous Merchant and the Wily Peasant are well known. The

  audience is already familiar with them, from numerous performances in dozens of

  plays and farces, many of them largely improvised around certain standard types

  of situations. They know generally how the characters will act and are fond of

  them. They are familiar even with mannerisms and dialects. Who would accept the

  Comic Father if he did not have his Turian accent, or the Desirable Heiress if

  she did not speak in the soft accents of Venna, north of Ar? What would the

  Timid Captain be if he did not, beneath his long-nosed half-mask, have those

  fierce mustaches to twirl, the formidable wooden sword dragging behind him? Even

  gestures and grimaces are well known, looked for, and eagerly awaited. This type

  of familiarity, of course, gives the actor a great deal to build on. The

  character, even before he greets the audience in the initial parade of the

  actors, is for most practical purposes established, and in rich, complex,

  detail; furthermore it is anticipated with relish and welcomed with affection.

  This being the case it is interesting to note that one actor’s Merchant is not

  the same Merchant as that of another actor. Somehow,

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  within the outlines of the role, and the traditional business associated with

  it, these actors manage to make their versions unique and special onto

  themselves. I suspect that there are no purely interpretive arts; all arts, I

  suspect, are ultimately creative.

  “Please, Master,” whimpered the girl holding my are, pressing herself against

  me. “Please, Master.”

  I looked to one side, to the ground at the side of the raised platform. Two

  girls were there, standing back, waiting. Judging from the brevity of their

  bell-like skirts, given that shape doubtless by a lining of crinoline, and their

  bare arms, with puffed, short sleeves, I took them to be Saucy Maidens, probably

  a Bina and a Brigella. The Brigella, in particular, was lovely. I had little

  doubt if I should tip those skirts to the side I should encounter slave brands.

  The skirts, incidentally, are made to tip. This is utilized in various sorts of

  stage business. For example, one comic servant may pretend to inadvertently drop

  larmas, one by one, off a platter, which the girl, one by one, bends over to

  retrieve, another servant behind her. Then, while the girl chides them for their

  clumsiness, they change places, and, to her feigned exasperation, repeat the

  trick. The skirt may also be lifted up, for example, by the wily Peasant,

  reported looking for a lost ox, and so on. The audience, of course, generally

  has the same preferred coign of vantage as the lucky servant or the Wily

  Peasant.

  With the two girls was a rather paunchy, harassed-looking fellow, with long

  sideburns and a rimless cap. Another fellow, a sailmaker, I think, was

  negotiating with him for his Golden Courtesan. The paunchy fellow was shaking

  his head. he did not wish, surely, to see her off the stage during a

  performance. The sailmaker was willing to wait. Then it seemed that the paunchy

  fellow, though sorely tempted, decided to hold on to the girl. Doubtless he

  needed the money, but what would he do without a Golden Courtesan? She probably

  also played the role of the Desirable Heiress. The same girl is often used for

  both roles. I looked back to the stage. The Golden Courtesan was probably

  unaware that she had nearly changed hands.

  ““Master,” whimpered the girl beside me.

  “Kneel,” I told her.

  “Yes, Master,” she moaned, and knelt beside me. I did not wish her to interrupt

  the performance.

  I looked back to the paunchy fellow and saw him, with his swaying belly, looking

  out into the crowd, somewhat apprehensively. The two girls with him, the Bina

  and the Brigella, seemed somewhat ill at ease, too.

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  I returned my attention to the stage.

  The Golden Courtesan, facing away, was now feigning indifference to the suits of

  both the Comic Father and the Pedant. Two servants, Lecchio and Chino, are also

  in attendance. Chino, usually the servant of the Comic Father or the Merchant,

  is willowy and mischievous, with a black half-mask, with slanted eye holes, with

  red-and-yellow diamond-figured tights and pullover. Lecchio, usually the servant

  of the Pedant, is short and fat, a willing dupe of Chino and a sharer in his

  fun. He wears a brown tunic with a hood which he sometimes pulls over his head

  to hide embarrassment. The Comic Father and the Pedant pursue their suits. Chino

  and Lecchio conspire. Chino kicks the Comic Father and then looks away, studying

  clouds. In a moment Lecchio kicks the Pedant. This is repeated several times.

  Soon the Comic Father and the Pedant, each thinking the other is the assailant,

  are in furious controversy. It seems they will fight. Chino, followed by

  Lecchio, points out that their rich garments might be soiled, that their wallets

  might even be lost in such a scuffle. The Comic Father and the Pedant then give

  their robes and wallets to the servants and begin to berate one another and pull

  beards. The servants, of course, immediately don the garments and, swinging the

  wallets on their strings, meaningfully parade in front of the Golden Courtesan,

  who, of course, taking them for rich suitors, goes away w
ith them. The Comic

  Father and the Pedant, now without their robes and wallets, soon discover the

  trick. Crying out they give chase to the servants.

  The girl kneeling beside me held my leg and pressed her cheek against my thigh.

  She kissed me. She looked up at me. “Please take me to a pleasure rack, Master,”

  she said.

  “Be patient,” I told her.

  “Yes, Master,” she moaned.

  The next performance, following on the heels of the first, was a love-potion

  farce, a form of farce with many variations. In this one the principal

  characters were the Golden Courtesan, Chino, the Merchant and the Pedant. The

  Merchant was played by the harassed, paunchy-looking fellow I had seen earlier.

  The Pedant, this time, was depicted not as a member of the Scribes but as a

  member of the Physicians. In brief, the Merchant, intending to visit the Golden

  Courtesan, sends Chino for a love potion. Chino, of course, obtains not a love

  potion but a powerful laxative from the Physician. The Merchant takes the potion

  and visits the Golden Courtesan, with Chino in attendance. Predictably, the

  Merchant must continually interrupt his initial advances which, of course, are

  bumbling and clumsy, and not much to the liking

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  of the courtesan, to rush hastily to the side of the stage where, conveniently,

  amy be found a great pot. Chino, meanwhile, exaggeratedly, in these interstices,

  is assuring the courtesan of the merchant’s prowess as a lover. he is so

  successful that the courtesan soon begins to pant and call the merchant, who,

  eagerly, rushes back, only in a moment, unfortunately, to be forced to beat a

  retreat to the pot. Chino then again begins to reassure the confused, uncertain

  courtesan. Soon he is demonstrating, even, with caresses and kisses, all in the

  name of the merchant, just how skillfull the merchant would be. The couresan

  becomes more and more helpless and excited. Meanwhile the Physician comes by to

  check up on the efficacy of his potion. His conversation with the merchant

  provides ample opportunity for ‘double-entendres’ and talking at cross-purposes.

  The physician, in departing, puzzled that the potion has not yet taken effect,

  assures the merchant, sitting on the great pot, that he should allow it more

  time, that doubtless he will soon feel its effects. The merchant, however,

  convinced that this is not his day, now hobbles home, clutching the great pot.

  Chino grins and shrugs. He then leaps upon the Golden Courtesan. The time, after

  all, has been paid for.

  In a moment the actors had returned to the stage, bowing. With them, too, were

  some of the actors from the earlier farces, usually presented in rounds of four

  or five. Some tarsk bits rattled to the boards. These were gathered in by the

  Chino and Lecchio. The Bina and Brigella, too, were now passing through the

  drowd with copper bowls. They were both very lovely, in particular, the

  Brigells. Such girls, like the other actresses wiht a small troupe, usually

  serve also as tent girls. It helps the troupe to meet expenses. I placed a tarsk

  bit in the towl of the Brigella. “Thank you, Master,” she said.

  The paunchy fellow, his belly swinging, now out of character as the merchant,

  was informing the qudience that a new round of farces, all different, would be

  performed within the Ahn. I saw his eyes momentarily cloud and, glancing back, I

  think I detected a possible cause for his distress. In the crowd was an officer

  of the Master of Revels, with two members of the Council Guard.

  I drew the girl beside me to her feet. “Oh, yes,” she breathed, “now,” holding

  me, pressing her naked, collared beauty piteously against me, “take me to a

  pleasure rack. Now, please. I am so ready. I am so hot!”

  “Not yet,” I told her.

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  I then bought her a pastry from a vendor. “Eat it,” I told her, “slowly, very

  slowly. Make it last a long time.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  When a woman is ordered to eat a pastry in this fashion, she knows that she is

  barely to touch it, and then only once in a while, wit her small teeth. Rather,

  primarily, almost entirely, she is to address herself to it with her tongue.

  This puts her under a good discipline, is a good exercise for the tongue and

  tends to increase sexual heat. N the case of the free woman the tongue is

  usually something which serves rather conventional purposes, for example it

  helps her to talk. IN the case of the slave girl, however, it serves other

  purposes as well.

  I moved along the front of the stage, through the crowd, the slave, the pastry

  clutched in her hands, at my elbow.

  I paused only a yard or two from the end of the stage, before a kaissa booth.

  I saw a large figure walking by. It might have stalked off one of the long,

  narrow, roofed stages or Ar, such as serve commonly for serious drama, spectacle

  and high comedy. It wore the ‘cothornoi’, a form of high platformlike boots, a

  long robe padded in such a way as to suggest an incredible breadth of shoulder,

  a large, painted linen mask, with exaggerated features, which covered the entire

  hed, and the ‘onkos’, a towering, imposing headdress. Such costumes are often

  used by major characters in serious dramas. This exaggeration in size and

  feature, I take it, is intended to be commensurate with their importance. They

  are, at any rate, made to seem larger than life. I did not know if the fellow

  were an actor or simply someone adopting such a costume, all in the fun of

  carnival. As he walked away I noted that the mask had a different expression on

  the back. That device, not really very common in such masks, makes possible a

  change of expression without having recourse to a new mask.

  A fellow, a pulley-maker I recognized from the arsenal, and the arsenal kaissa

  champion, rose to his feet, from where he had been sitting cross-legged before

  the kaissa board in the kaissa booth. “A marvelous game,” he said, rubbing his

  head, bewildered. “I was humiliated. I was devastated. I do not even know how he

  did it. In fourteen moves he did it! In fourtenn moves he captured three pieces

  and it would have been capture of Home Stone on the next! Perhaps there were

  illegal moves. Perhaps I did not see everything he did!”

  “Try another game,” encouraged the paunchy fellow, he who had been associated

  with the stage and who, it seemed, had an interest also in the kaissa booth.

  “Perhaps your luck will change!”

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  But the pulley-maker, almost reeling, made his way away, through the crowds.

  “Why did you do that?” asked the paunchy fellow of the man sitting behind the

  board.

  “he thought he knew how to play kaissa,” said the man behind the board.

  “How much have you taken in tonight?” asked the paunchy fellow, angrily,

  pointing to the copper, lidded pot, with the coin slot cut in its top, chained

  shut, near the low kaissa table.

  The fellow behind the table began to move the pieces about on the board.

 
; The paunchy fellow seized up the pot. He shook it, assessing its contents.

  “Four, five tarsk bits?” he asked. Judging from the timing and the sounds of the

  coins bounding about inside the pot there was not much there.

  “Three,” siad the fellow behind the board.

  “You could have carried him for at least twenty moves,” siad the paunchy fellow.

  He replaced the copper coin pot, chained shut, beside the kaissa table.

  “I did not care to do so,” said the fellow behind the board.

  Interestingly the man behind the board wore black robes and a hoodlike mask,

  alsso black, which covered his entire head. He did not wear the

  red-and-yellow-checked robes of the caste of players, he was not, thus, I

  assumed, of that caste. Had he been of the players he would doubtless have worn

  their robes. They are quite proud of their caste. His skills, howver, I

  conjectured, must be considerable. Apparently the arsenal champion, one of the

  best twenty or thirty players in Port Kar, had been not match for him. Perhaps

  he had engaged in illegal moves. That seemed more likely than the fact that he,

  a fellow like him, associated with actors and carnival folk, and such, could

  best the arsenal champion. It ws carnival time, of course. Perhaps the champion

  had been drdink.

  “If the game is not interesting for htem, if they do not htink they are really

  playing, seriously, they will not want a second or a thrid game,” said the

  paunchy fellow. “We want them to come back! We want the board busy! That is how

  we are making the money!”

  The price for a game is usually something between a tarsk bit and and a copper

  tarsk. If the challenger wins or draws, the game is free. Someteimes a copper

  tarsk, or even a silver tarsk, is nailed to one of the poles of the booth. It

  goes to the challenger if he wins and the game is free, if he draws. This is

  because a skillful player, primarily by judicious exchanges and careful position

  play, can often bring about a draw. Less risk is involved in playing for a draw

  than a win, of course. Conservative players, ahead in tournament play, often

  adopt this stratagem, usuing it, often to the fury of the crowds and their

  opponents, to protect and nurse an established lead. A full point is scored for