David Hare Plays 2

by David Hare

  110. INT. CHESNEAU’S OFFICE. NIGHT

  The group go past the open office door. We just catch their voices as they do.

  Chesneau But Jack … listen …

  A pause. The office ransacked, deserted. Then we adjust to settle in the foreground on the drawer full of agents’ name plates, forgotten on the desk.

  We hold on that.

  111. INT. STAIRWELL. NIGHT

  At the top landing as the group all reach it, the military are waiting already by the exit door at the top of the building to take the Ambassador out on the last flight.

  As the group reaches the small landing, the Ambassador turns to speak to the assembled company. He still holds his bag.

  Ambassador Gentlemen, before I leave I would like to …

  A great cry from the bottom of the stairwell.

  Soldier Sir. Sir. Let’s get the hell out.

  The Ambassador shocked by the voice of the panicking Soldier.

  They’re breaking into the Embassy.

  Ambassador What?

  Soldier They’ve heard this is going to be the last flight.

  There is a second’s indecision on the Ambassador’s face, then suddenly he gestures at the door.

  Ambassador All right – out!

  112. INT. EMBASSY. NIGHT

  At once the mad scramble is shown going on downstairs as the two GIs on guard desperately close the main doors to the Embassy against the crowd. Then they run across the lobby to where a third GI is waiting holding the door to the stairway open.

  First GI OK, for fuck’s sake lock it.

  The main doors being smashed open and the crowd pouring into the Embassy.

  113. INT. STAIRWELL. NIGHT

  At the top of the stairwell, the military and CIA scramble desperately out of the tiny exit door on the landing out to the waiting helicopter.

  114. INT. STAIRWELL. NIGHT

  One GI slamming the stairwell door and locking it while the other two run for the stairs.

  115. EXT. ROOF. NIGHT

  The waiting helicopters now loaded, waiting, blades turning. The door to the stairwell held open by the last Officer.

  116. INT. STAIRWELL. NIGHT

  The last Soldiers running up the stairs. Reaching the top. There are sounds of people coming up from below, but at once the GIs open gas canisters and throw them down the stairs at the approaching crowd. You catch a glimpse of them scampering through the door and it closing as the screen smokes out.

  117. EXT. STREETS. NIGHT

  The streets of Saigon. Night. Quiet. Nothing moves. Eerie. The sound of the helicopters has gone. The cathedral. The opera house. Tu Do deserted.

  118. EXT. COMPOUND. NIGHT

  The two hundred Vietnamese and Brad in the school compound, waiting, scanning the empty sky.

  119. EXT. STREETS. NIGHT

  A side street. Round the corner, jogging in a small group, come eight soldiers in formation. They are in army uniform, with guns, in full battledress. As they turn into the street, the group suddenly breaks up and they stop. They put down their guns, and start to undress. They put down their boots, guns, clothes, in small heaps on the pavement. They stand a moment in their boxer shorts. Then turn, as casually as they can, and disappear down the street. The little puddles of clothes left behind them.

  120. INT. HELICOPTER. NIGHT

  Inside the helicopter the group has settled, cheerful. A false exhilaration. Chesneau is sitting next to Judd, on one side. Suddenly he remembers.

  Chesneau Shit.

  Judd What?

  Chesneau I’ve remembered …

  Judd puzzled.

  Judd What?

  Chesneau looks down, appalled, disturbed. Avoids the question.

  Chesneau Something.

  Judd (a joke) Do you want to go back?

  Chesneau turns, looks back, the truth dawning on him of what he has done.

  Chesneau (under his breath) God forgive us.

  Suddenly the Pilot turns and yells back from the controls, as a can of Heineken is opened in front of him.

  Pilot Hey, you guys. We’re all going home!

  Fast fade.

  THE BAY AT NICE

  For Blair

  Characters

  Valentina Nrovka

  Sophia Yepileva

  Assistant Curator

  Peter Linitsky

  The Bay at Nice was first performed at the Cottesloe Theatre, London, on 4 September 1986. The cast was as follows:

  Valentina Nrovka Irene Worth

  Sophia Yepileva Zoë Wanamaker

  Assistant Curator Colin Stinton

  Peter Linitsky Philip Locke

  Designed by John Gunter

  Lighting by Rory Dempster

  Directed by David Hare

  The scene is set in Leningrad, 1956.

  A large room with a gilt ceiling and a beautiful parquet floor. At the back hangs Guérin’s huge oil painting of ‘Iris and Morpheus’, a triumphant nude sitting on a cloud over the body of the King of Sleep. The room is airy and decaying. It is almost empty but for some tables pushed to the back and some gilt and red plush hard chairs. Sitting on one of these is Valentina Nrovka. She is a lively woman, probably in her sixties but it’s hard to tell. She is dressed in black. Her daughter Sophia is standing right at the far end of the room looking out of the main door. She is in her early thirties, much more plainly dressed in a coat and pullover and plain skirt.

  Valentina You don’t want to leave an old woman.

  Sophia You’re not old.

  Valentina looks round disapprovingly.

  Valentina This graveyard! I’m not going to speak to all those old idiots.

  Sophia They expect it.

  Valentina Nonsense! I’ll sit by myself.

  Sophia is still looking anxiously out of the door.

  Sophia I’m afraid we’ve offended the Curator.

  Valentina Don’t say we. I offended him. He was shabbily dressed.

  Sophia He wanted you to see the new extension.

  Valentina What for? He insults the walls by hanging them with all that socialist realism. Whirlpools of mud. I’d rather look at bare walls. At least they are cleanly painted. I’m tired of looking anyway. ‘Look, look …’ (She smiles, anticipating her own story.) Picasso lived in a house so ugly – a great champagne millionaire’s Gothic mansion with turrets – that all his friends said ‘My God, how can you abide such a place?’ He said, ‘You are all prisoners of taste. Great artists love everything. There is no such thing as ugliness.’ He would kick the walls with his little sandalled foot and say, ‘They’re solid. What more do you want?’

  Sophia By that argument, if everything’s beautiful, then that includes socialist realism.

  Valentina Please. You know nothing of such things. Don’t speak of them. Especially in front of other people. It’s embarrassing. (Valentina has got up from her seat and is walking to the other side of the room.) What rubbish do they want me to look at?

  Sophia They think they have a Matisse.

  There is a silence. Valentina shows no apparent reaction.

  Valentina You haven’t been to see me.

  Sophia No. I’ve been busy.

  Valentina Ah well.

  Sophia The work has been very hard. And the children. At the end of the day I’m too tired to do anything. I’ve said to my employers, as a woman I resent it.

  Valentina ‘As a woman’?

  Sophia Yes.

  Valentina What does that mean?

  Sophia Well …

  Valentina This fashion for calling people women. Now always ‘as a woman’, they say. It was so much more fun when I was young and you could just be a person. Now everyone speaks ‘on behalf’. ‘On behalf of Soviet women …’

  Sophia I only meant that I have a family. I also have a job. That’s all. And at the school I am taken advantage of.

  Valentina They take you for a fool. They know you can never say no.

  Sophia is looking across at her back, tr
ying to judge her mood.

  Sophia Who visits you?

  Valentina No one. The Troyanofskis of course. They are terrible people. Madam Troyanofski wants to start a salon. I’ve told her it’s too late. All the artists are dead. The poets are moaners. And the playwrights are worse. Because they’re exhausting. People run round the stage. It tires me. In their stories the minute hand is going round like crazy. But the hour hand never turns at all. (She smiles.) ‘Ah well,’ she said, ‘if there are no artists worth asking, we can always talk philosophy.’ No thank you!

  Sophia She likes ideas.

  Valentina Yes, well, they’re Jews. (She shrugs.) Tell me, who do you think I should be seeing? Name anyone in Leningrad who’s worth an hour. A full hour.

  Sophia Well, of course I enjoy everybody’s company. I find something good or interesting in everyone.

  Valentina looks at her mistrustfully.

  Valentina Yes?

  Sophia Shall I get you something to drink?

  Valentina Where is this man?

  Sophia You frightened him.

  Valentina What? So much he’s thinking of not showing me the painting?

  Sophia I’ll go and see.

  Valentina No, stay. I want to talk to you.

  Sophia stays, but Valentina makes no effort to talk.

  Sophia The twins both asked me to send you their love.

  Valentina How old are they?

  Sophia Eight.

  Valentina Then plainly you’re lying. No eight-year-old asks after adults. Or if they do, they’re faking. Why should your children fake?

  Sophia I said I would be seeing you and I suggested …

  Valentina Ah well, yes.

  Sophia … they send you their love.

  Valentina Now we get the truth of it. Their love was solicited. Like a confession.

  Sophia If you insist.

  Valentina And Grigor … what?

  Sophia Grigor is working. He would be here today.

  Valentina But?

  Sophia But he is working. And he’s not interested in art.

  Valentina No.

  There is a pause. Sophia looks away, as if anxious to say more, but not daring.

  Where is the painting?

  Sophia They’re getting it now. It’s in a vault at the bottom of the building.

  Valentina Have you seen it?

  Sophia Not yet.

  Valentina What does it show?

  Sophia A window. The sea. A piece of wall.

  Valentina It sounds like a forgery.

  Sophia They think you will be able to tell.

  Valentina How can I tell? I don’t know everything he painted. Nobody does. He got up every morning. He set up his easel and he started to paint. If at midday he was pleased, then he signed it. If not, then he threw it away and began fresh the next morning. It was said, like a dandy who throws white ties into the laundry basket until he ties one which pleases him. (She smiles.) Matisse was profligate.

  Sophia So there may be lost work?

  Valentina Well, of course. (She turns away, contemptuously.) And if there is, what will happen to it? They will put it on the walls of this hideous building. And the state will boast that they own it. And people will gawp at it and say ‘What does it mean?’ Or ‘Well, I don’t like it.’ I am told that in the West now people only look at paintings when they are holding cubes of cheese on the end of toothpicks. To me, that says everything of what art has become. (She smiles.) Yes, indeed, I sympathize with Grigor. Why be interested in all this gossip and hoopla?

  Sophia No, you’re wrong. It is painting itself which Grigor dislikes.

  Valentina Because you paint?

  Sophia looks at her angrily.

  Sophia I shall look for the Curator.

  Valentina I have heard all these rumours. Even I. Who have no contact with life except through the Troyanofskis. They are my inadequate means of access to what is happening in the world. Through them everything is admittedly made mean. And yet. I have heard of your behaviour with Grigor.

  Sophia Mother, I don’t want to speak about it now.

  Valentina Why?

  Sophia You will learn in a moment. Soon I shall talk to you.

  Valentina When?

  Sophia When I have your whole attention.

  Valentina Are you choosing your moment?

  Sophia No.

  Valentina It sums you up. You think everything is a matter of mood.

  Sophia I know you better than that.

  Valentina You think attitudes are all to do with whim. You understand nothing. Attitudes are all to do with character.

  Sophia Please don’t lecture me. (She is turning red with the effort of having to say this.) If we are to speak we must speak as equals.

  Valentina is looking across at her with sudden kindness and love.

  Valentina Little Sophia, you’ve used up all your courage already. Come here and tell me what’s going on.

  Sophia, trembling, doesn’t move as Valentina opens her arms to her.

  Sophia No, I won’t come. I mustn’t. I’m determined to be strong with you.

  Valentina You’ve come to make a speech?

  Sophia Well, yes.

  Valentina Well, make it.

  Sophia What, now?

  Valentina Yes.

  There is an agonizing pause.

  Sophia No, I can’t.

  Valentina Why not?

  Sophia Because I have rehearsed but now I’m frightened. I’ve said these things to no one.

  Valentina And yet everyone knows.

  Sophia does not move.

  Sophia I work. I am sober. I am honest. All day at that school. As you say, always extra duty. I stay long after class. Then I go and stand in line in the shops. I look after the children. I offend no one. And yet if I even have a thought – a thought even – it’s a crime. Everyone is waiting. Everyone stands ready to condemn me. (She turns and suddenly rushes to the far side of the room.) No, it’s too cruel.

  She is overwhelmed. She stands facing away from the room. Her mother does not turn. Then in the silence the Assistant Curator comes in carrying a canvas which is facing towards him. He is in his mid-thirties. He wears a blue suit. He is nervous.

  Assistant The painting is here.

  Valentina Where?

  Assistant I have it. Madame Nrovka. (He holds it out, a little puzzled, from the far side of the room.)

  Valentina Put it down.

  Assistant Where?

  Valentina Well, over there.

  She gestures at a distant chair. He leans it on the chair, face turned away.

  Assistant Will you view it?

  Valentina I will look at it later. I’m talking to my daughter.

  Sophia Forgive me. I’m appallingly rude. (She wakes up to his embarrassment and walks over to shake his hand.) I’m Sophia Yepileva.

  Assistant I’m the Assistant Curator.

  Valentina No doubt your boss has sent you. He is too frightened himself.

  Assistant I’m sorry?

  Valentina If he is frightened, why did he ask me? Why do you need me? Surely you have experts?

  Assistant We do. Of all kinds.

  Valentina What do they say?

  Assistant There is a slight problem. (He looks nervously to Sophia, as if not liking them both to be there.) How shall I put it? There are shades of a dispute. The scientific experts are used to handling older paintings.

  Valentina Yes, of course.

  Assistant We know a great deal about pigment chronology. We have radio carbon. We have X-ray crystallography. We have wet chemistry. All these are invaluable if the painting is old enough. Because dating is what usually gives the forger away.

  Valentina But Matisse is too recent.

  Assistant That’s right. (He smiles, nervous again.) That is what we – who help run the museum – we are saying this to the scientists, you see. Who do not work for us. They work for the Ministry.

  Valentina Ah, well.

  The
re is a pause as the Assistant appreciates she has understood the problem, then he hurries on.

  Assistant Their work is very useful. It is respected. Within certain limits. They have proved that if the canvas was forged, it was forged some time ago. Almost certainly in France. They can establish that. Where and when. That is useful work. But it does – in this case – we believe – stop short of who.

  Valentina Which you mean is much more a matter of taste.

  Assistant Oh no … not entirely … (He smiles reassuringly at her.) There is circumstantial evidence. We can guess at motive. We are very suspicious. Obviously. Because Matisse is so recently dead. Only two years ago. If someone were trying – what? – to test the water, this would be an ideal moment. A forger usually offers a cycle of work.

  Valentina This would be the first.

  Assistant Exactly. (He looks to Sophia.) Forgers usually can’t resist. Once they have acquired a style, they’re reluctant to let go of it.

  Valentina No different from painters. Except the very greatest.

  Assistant Vrain Lucas forged manuscripts in the hands of Julius Caesar, the Apostle Paul and Joan of Arc. A bewildering diversity. But mercifully for us, exceptional.

  Valentina And what about the art critics?

  Assistant Yes, a couple have also had a look.

  Valentina Well?

  The Assistant looks hopelessly.

  Assistant Adjectives are so subjective, isn’t that the problem? ‘Over-decorative’. ‘Too plastic’, they say. ‘Too cold’. ‘Not fluid’. They mean one thing to one man, something quite different to another. (He pauses a moment.) So we thought to ask someone who knew the man himself.

  Valentina shrugs this off.

  Valentina Surely many people knew him. He even visited this museum, I think.

  Assistant I gather, yes. We were honoured. Some time before the war.

  Valentina So?

  Assistant It was felt you understand his spirit.