ROSE: My friend Leonard thinks it’s something in the water.
CHARLOTTE: He’s not the father?
ROSE: Sometimes he seems to think he is. But sometimes he doesn’t.
CHARLOTTE: What stories the world is full of! So are you telling him he is or he isn’t?
ROSE: I want to see what it looks like first.
CHARLOTTE: Why! Tell him it’s his and you can change your mind later.
ROSE: But we always end up fighting like brother and sister. And that can’t be right, can it.
CHARLOTTE: You young people—why are you always digging away at each other for the truth? We never dreamed of telling the truth to a husband and the result was practically no divorces. —Well, thank God for the airlines! You know, if something drops on the uniform the company pays the cleaning.
ROSE, near tears: How can you be so happy!—you’re wonderful!
CHARLOTTE: I can’t help myself—I’ve been happy since I was a baby and I never changed. It irritates my husband but what can I do? —First thing in the morning I open my eyes and I’m so overjoyed I could eat the whole world for breakfast. Listen, I like your Leonard; I would let him be the father.
ROSE: It’s strange, I think I feel older than you.
CHARLOTTE: Italians love to cook, that’s my salvation. And I’m in pretty fair shape—I used to dance, you know.
ROSE: Professionally?
CHARLOTTE: Radio City Rockettes nine years. We met in the alley of the theater. He was a Navy pilot, stage-door Johnnie, he’d come back from bombing Asia and go banging through that chorus line . . . eighteen girls on a thirty-day leave! But a delight, a dee-light! Funny? Gimme a break, the man was sheer humongous wit. I weighed one-eighteen those days, till the bread did me in. I lost twelve pounds last year but who’s kidding who, I’m still everybody’s mother. Leonard and Peters enter; rather expressionless, even solemn looks.
Well? The men glance uneasily at each other. So? They still hesitate.
LEONARD: Well it’s a washroom, right?
CHARLOTTE: A washroom!
PETERS: Where you wash up.
CHARLOTTE: Mama mia . . . To Rose: They don’t see anything! He walks around the house like a blind man— “Where’s my glasses? Where’s my suspenders? Where’s my bathrobe?”
ROSE: By the way, how did you know I was pregnant?
CHARLOTTE: I’m part Gypsy.
LEONARD, to Peters: Is that true? Peters sighs and looks away.
CHARLOTTE: What does he know? To him nothing is true unless you can hammer it, fuck it, or fly it around. —Gypsy women, darling, can tell you’re pregnant just by looking into your eyes. Not only that, but I can tell you it’s a girl.
PETERS: Now how could you know that, for God’s sake?
CHARLOTTE: Because the air is full of things! Gesturing between Rose and herself. And we are looking at each other through the air, aren’t we?
PETERS: I feel I have lived my life and I eagerly look forward to a warm oblivion.
LEONARD: May I ask whether you intend to start a new night-club or is this a . . . ?
CHARLOTTE: Depends; if this man’s deal is good I would certainly consider a new club . . . why?
LEONARD: I’m not trying to pressure you but if it’s going to be a club I’d like to talk to you about the music.
ROSE: He has a great little band. She danced in Radio City.
LEONARD: Really, a Rockette? To Peters: Is that true?
CHARLOTTE: Why do you keep asking him if it’s true! You think I’m off my nut, or something?
LEONARD: Oh no-no, please don’t think I . . .
ROSE: No-no! He didn’t mean anything like that . . .
CHARLOTTE, to Peters: Well aren’t you going to answer him?
PETERS, shuts his eyes, sighs, then . . . : Yes, it’s true.
CHARLOTTE: Well I’ll go find this Calvin and see what kind of deal he has in mind. Tell them your philosophy. Charlotte exits.
LEONARD: We should really pick up the laundry . . .
ROSE: Your philosophy?
PETERS: No-no, it was only a dream I had many years ago. After my wing was destroyed.
ROSE: I love dreams, could you tell it?
PETERS: I’m afraid I have to rest now. Why don’t we all?
ROSE: I’d love to, frankly. What was your dream?
LEONARD: Shouldn’t I pick up the laundry?
ROSE: Try to rest, Leonard.
LEONARD: Should you be on the floor?
ROSE: It’s okay.
LEONARD: Should I look for a pillow?
ROSE: You’ve got to try to have a little confidence, Leonard.
LEONARD, self-blame: I know.
ROSE: I mean try to assume that whatever is going on out there will go on without us for a while. So you might as well rest.
ADELE: This is my kinda thing, I tell ya. It’s been going on without me for a long, long time.
ROSE: All right then . . . She stretches her legs. All lean back and close their eyes. Pause. I don’t think you’re resting, are you?
LEONARD: I want to be the father, Rose.
ROSE: We’ll see. I don’t like deciding right now.
LEONARD: But when you do, will you think of me?
ROSE: Of course. Slight pause. If not, you could be its brother.
LEONARD: A brother twenty-eight years older?
ROSE: Well, an older brother. It happens.
ADELE: Appearance is everything; my older sister’s got those hips, those eyes, and those ambitious legs—the girl could raise a man from the dead just by stepping over his grave. And now she’s down Wall Street with her own office at Bear Stearns.
PETERS: I dreamed of another planet; it was very beautiful—the air was rose, the ground was beige, the water was green, the sky was the fairest blue. And the people were full of affection and respect, and then suddenly they grabbed a few defectives and flung them into space.
LEONARD: Why were they defective?
PETERS: They were full of avarice and greed. And they broke into thousands of pieces and fell to earth, and it is from their seed that we all descend.
LEONARD: Well that’s very strange . . . I mean we usually assume that man is born good . . .
PETERS: Not if you look sharply at the average baby.
ROSE, hand on her belly: How can you say that?
PETERS: If a baby had the strength, wouldn’t he knock you down to get to a tit? Has a baby a conscience? If he could tear buildings apart to get to a suck, what would stop him? We tolerate babies only because they are helpless, but the alpha and omega of their real nature is a five-letter word, g-r-e-e-d. The rest is gossip.
Calvin enters with Charlotte, both studying papers of figures. She sits down absorbed in papers, and working a pocket calculator.
CALVIN, absorbed in his figures: Harry.
PETERS: Yes? Calvin still doesn’t look up. . . . Did you call me Harry?
CALVIN, surprised at himself: What?
PETERS: Charley . . . come on . . . Calvin stares at him as he approaches. It’s me! Calvin stares front. Mother and Dad . . . remember Mother and Dad? Fishing in Sheepshead Bay? The fluke? . . . I know!—the bluefish, when you gutted that big bluefish and brought it over to . . . what was her name!—Marcia . . . yes, Marcia Levine!
CALVIN: Marcia Levine?
PETERS: In that shingle house on the corner! You said she had . . . To the others: Excuse me, please— To Calvin: . . . the best ass on the East Coast.
CALVIN, very doubtfully, striving to recall: Marcia Levine?
PETERS: For God’s sake, Calvin, you’d be in there whole days with her! Frantically—to all. Am I the only one who remembers anything? I’m going to fall off the earth! Furiously to Calvin: For God’s sake, man, you’d lie on your bed looking up at the ce
iling endlessly repeating, like a prayer, “Marcia Levine’s ass, Marcia Levine’s ass . . . Marcia Levine has the most beautiful ass in America!”
CALVIN: I don’t remember her . . .
PETERS, laughing happily: You have to step out of this . . . this forgetfulness, Calvin! It’s a terrible, terrible thing to forget Marcia Levine! . . . Listen, you do know I’m Harry, don’t you?
CALVIN, a remoteness coming over him: You’re mistaking me for somebody else.
PETERS: No! Charley, I will not accept that! Charley? Please . . . if you forget me . . . don’t you see? If you forget me—who . . . With a desperate cry. Who the hell am I! Charley, save me! Calvin is staring front, eyes dead. Peters roars in terror into his face. Man . . . wake up your dead eyes! Calvin doesn’t move. A moment. . . . Sorry for troubling you. Closes his eyes in pain; slumps down on a seat. Pause. God, if no one remembers what I remember . . . if no one remembers what I . . .
Cathy-May enters. She is in a tight white miniskirt, transparent blouse, carries a white purse and a brown shopping bag . . . and wears a dog collar.
Why are you wearing a dog collar?
CATHY-MAY: Case I get lost, he said.
PETERS: Dear . . . listen . . . could I ask you . . . ?
CATHY-MAY: Don’t ask me too much, I might not be here by the end.
PETERS: Could I just listen to you?
CATHY-MAY: But don’t take too long. And please don’t hurt me. He presses his ear to her breast. She breathes in deeply, and exhales. You were loved, Harry. But I’m very tired.
PETERS: Please; more . . . She inhales again. Yes! More! She does it again. Oh, glorious . . . to hear a woman’s deep breathing again! She breathes in and out again and again, her breaths coming faster and faster . . . and now he is breathing with her. Oh Cathy-May, Cathy-May, Cathy-May . . . !
Larry enters, walks over to her and rips the shopping bag out of her hand, turns it over—it is empty.
LARRY: This is shopping? Where’s the stuff, left it on the counter again? Feels her for panties. And where’s your underwear? To Peters: And this woman votes! Walks around bareass on New York streets? Bends over in the fruit market to test tomatoes in front of Koreans?—a married woman? What am I a fuckin’ ox, I don’t have feelings? Take her to a counselor and I’m behind her on the stairs and she’s wearing no panties!—for a conference with a counselor? Meantime I’m overdue for a heart operation, so I’m not supposed to be stressed! Can you believe a fucking doctor telling me not to be stressed in the City of New York? And that idiot is going to operate on me!—Look at this! Shaking the bag. Look at this! . . . Where’s your underwear? You belong to me or not? I said you belong to me or not! Where is your underwear, stupid!! With a sweeping gesture he sends her onto her back, legs in the air, and looks under her skirt; she is struggling ineffectually to free herself. You see underwear, Mister? Look, everybody! He is trying to spread her legs apart. Forget your shoes and take a look at this! How can this belong to anybody! —Look at it!
CATHY-MAY: You were loved, Harry!
LARRY, struggling with her legs: Show them, show them! Look at this, Professor!
Peters, crying out, tries to intervene but the horror of it sends him away, rushing about, covering his eyes and yelling.
PETERS: Nonononono!
LARRY, to Peters: What are you scared of, come here and open your eyes!
The struggle stops; Larry is kneeling beside Cathy-May now, kissing her gently. She has become inert. Peters comes, bends, and presses his ear to her breast.
LEONARD: What do you hear?
PETERS: Footsteps. And darkness. Oh, how terrible to go into that darkness alone, alone! Cathy-May emits one last exhale. Peters kisses his finger and touches it to her mouth.
CATHY-MAY: C-aaaaaaahh! And then she is still.
ADELE: I was a substitute teacher for six years in Weehauken New Jersey. But little by little I came to realize that I am a brokenhearted person. That’s all there was to it—I’m brokenhearted. Always was and would always be. At the same time I am often full of hope . . . that for no particular reason I will wake up one morning and find that my sorrow has left me, just walked away, quiet as a pussy cat in the middle of the night. I know it can happen . . . She picks up her mirror and examines her face. I know it. I know it.
PETERS, slight pause: —Rest now. All rest. Quietly, please. Quietly rest. While we think of the subject. While breath still comes blessedly clear. While we learn to be brave.
Rose and Leonard sit on either side of Peters. Farther upstage, frozen in time, Larry is looking into the empty shopping bag, Charlotte is working her calculator, Calvin is staring into space, Adele is examining her face in her mirror, turning from side to side.
Light begins to die on these. Rose opens her eyes. Light dies on Leonard now, and only Rose and Peters are illuminated.
ROSE: Papa?
PETERS, opens his eyes, listens: Yes?
ROSE: Please stay.
PETERS, straight ahead: I’m trying!
ROSE: I love you, Papa.
PETERS: I’m trying as hard as I can. I love you, darling. I wonder . . . could that be the subject!
For a moment he is alone in light. It snaps out.
RESURRECTION BLUES
A PROLOGUE AND TWO ACTS
2002
Characters
GENERAL FELIX BARRIAUX, chief of state
HENRI SCHULTZ, his cousin
EMILY SHAPIRO, a film director
SKIP L. CHEESEBORO, an account executive
PHIL, a cameraman
SARAH, a soundwoman
POLICE CAPTAIN
JEANINE, Schultz’s daughter
STANLEY, a disciple
SOLDIERS, WAITERS, PASSERSBY, PEASANTS
Place
Various locations in a far away country country
PROLOGUE
Dark stage. Light finds Jeanine in wheelchair; she is wrapped in bandages, one leg straight out. She addresses the audience.
JEANINE: Nothing to be alarmed about. I finally decided, one morning, to jump out my window. In this country even a successful suicide is difficult. I seem to be faintly happy that I failed, although god knows why. But of course you can be happy about the strangest things . . . I did not expect failure in my life. I failed as a revolutionary . . . and come to think of it, even as a dope addict—one day the pleasure simply disappeared, along with my husband. We so badly need a revolution here. But that’s another story. I refuse to lament. Oddly, in fact, I feel rather cheerful about it all, in a remote way, now that I died, or almost, and have my life again. The pain is something else, but you can’t have everything.
Going out the window was a very interesting experience. I can remember passing the third floor on my way down and the glorious sensation of release. Like when I was a student at Barnard and went to Coney Island one Sunday and took that ride on the loop-the-loop and the big drop when you think it won’t ever come up again. This time it didn’t and I had joined the air, I felt transparent, and I saw so sharply, like a condor, a tiger. I passed our immense jacaranda tree and there was a young buzzard sitting on a branch, picking his lice. Passing the second floor I saw a cloud over my head the shape of a grand piano. I could almost taste that cloud. Then I saw the cracks in the sidewalk coming up at me and the stick of an Eskimo ice cream bar that had a faint smear of chocolate. And everything I saw seemed superbly precious and for a split second I think I believed in god. Or at least his eye, or an eye seeing everything so exactly.
Light finds Henri Schultz.
My father has returned to be of help. I am trying to appreciate his concern after all these years. Like many fools he at times has a certain crazy wisdom. He says now—despite being a philosopher—that I must give up on ideas which only lead to other ideas. Instead I am to think of specific, concrete things. He says the Russians have al
ways had more ideas than any other people in history and ended in the pit. The Americans have no ideas and they have one success after another. I am trying to have no ideas.
Papa is so like our country, a drifting ship heading for where nobody knows—Norway, maybe, or is it Java or Los Angeles? The one thing we know for sure, our treasure that we secretly kiss and adore—is death—
Light finds Emily Shapiro and Skip L. Cheeseboro.
—death and dreams, death and dancing, death and laughter. It is our salt and chile pepper, the flavoring of our lives.
We have eight feet of topsoil here, plenty of rain, we can grow anything, but especially greed. A lot of our people are nearly starving. And a bullet waits for anyone who seriously complains.
Light finds Stanley.
In short—a normal country in this part of the world. A kind of miraculous incompetence, when you look at it.
I had sixteen in my little brigade, including two girls. We were captured. They shot them all in thirty seconds.
Light finds Felix Barriaux.
My uncle Felix, the head of the country, spared me. I still find it hard to forgive him. I think it is one of the contradictions that sent me out my window. Survival can be hard to live with. . . . None of my people was over nineteen.
Light finds nothing.
I have a friend now. When I woke on the sidewalk he was lying beside me in my blood, embracing me and howling like a child in pain. He saved me. His love. He comes some nights and brings me honor for having fought.
The last light brightens.
Up in the mountains the people think he is the son of god. Neither of us is entirely sure of that. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.
Brightens further still. Slight pause.
What will happen now, will happen: I am content.
She rolls into darkness. The last light brightens even further, widening its reach until it fully covers the stage.
SCENE I
Office of the Chief of State, Felix Barriaux. He is seated at a window near his desk, studying a letter while filing his nails. Intercom barks.
The Penguin Arthur Miller Page 133