by Alan Filewod
Boom, Baby, Boom!, a jazz play set in Toronto in 1959, was first produced at the du Maurier World Stage Festival at Harbourfront in Toronto, 15–18 June 1988.
PRODUCTION
Director / Bauta Rubess
Movement / Susan McKenzie
Set Design / Marilyn Bercovich
Costume Design / Reg Bronskill
Stage Manager / Cheryl Landy
Music / Nic Gotham
CAST
David Bolt / Clem Hambourg
Cynthia Eastman / Laila Ozols (née Mednis)
Martin Julien / Jekyll
Vieslav Kyrstyan / Aivars Pūtvējinš
Kate Lynch / Ruthie Hambourg
Ann-Marie MacDonald / Austra Mednis
THE BAND
Richard Bannard / Babe – drums
Victor Bateman / Herbie Durbie – bass
Allen Cole / Allen Kennedy – piano
Nic Gotham / Black Hat – saxophone
CHARACTERS
The Club:
Clem Hambourg, a real character, a minor legend in the Toronto jazz scene. Born a Russian Jew in London, England at the turn of the century; moved to Toronto in 1910 where his father established the Hambourg Conservatory of Music. Belonged to the upper-class set of Toronto. His brother Mark – 19 years his senior – was a child prodigy of the piano whose lessons were paid for by Paderewski. His brother Jan lived in Paris with his wife, the daughter of Lord Muir and close chum of Willa Cather. His brother Boris played with the Hart House Quartet and ran the Conservatory in Toronto until his death in 1952. Clem was trained as a concert pianist but rarely played. The story of his life previous to the House of Hambourg is murky. He was an eccentric who ambled through life with a bowler on his head, a cigar between his teeth, and a chihuahua on his elbow. After the demise of his club, he played piano at restaurants and did some extra work for the CBC.
Ruthie Hambourg, Clem’s wife, a real character, somewhat fictionalized. Slaved in the kitchen of the House of Hambourg and sewed costumes for the Victory Burlesque for extra income. Also belonged to a mystical Order which communed with the spirits of the dead. Allowed their apartment to be overrun by some 18 cats and conducted fierce quarrels with Clem. Jekyll, in his mid or late twenties, an aspiring poet-cum-artist-cum-musician. Bound to be working for an institution in his forties.
Musicians: Black Hat, Kennedy, Herbie, Babe.
The Latvians:
Austra Mednis, later Shirley, a spunky, yet haunted aspiring beatnik with a faint European accent. Latvian. She became a refugee at the age of 6 and arrived in Canada at the age of 13. Now she is 21 and testing her limits.
Laila Mednis, Austra’s sister, 7 years her elder. By 1959 she has two children. Her husband Gunars travels selling life insurance. Laila believes her older culture to be superior to the barbaric Canadian one.
Aivars Pūtvēginš, Austra’s financé. Aspiring to upward mobility, and in 1959, reaching it. Sober, nationalistic, he desperately wants a cultured wife and a growing family.
Sundry cameo appearances of Toronto’s community:
Dr Roy Milford, mental health expert
A Latvian policeman
Radio announcements
Miss Toronto
TV ads
Wanda
Several sections throughout the play suggest action, music and imagery. The specific nature of these scenes must be developed via improvisation with actors and work with a musical director.
In scenes among the Latvians, text in brackets should be spoken in Latvian. It is not my intention to provide employment only for Latvian actors. These parts could be played by any actors with an Eastern European background, or by anyone with the willingness to learn a foreign language.
The New Canadians must not be played by any other ethnic group or as any other ethnic group than East European. Bulgarians, Hungarians, Poles, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Byelorussians, Serbs, Croatians, and Czechs may harbour reasonable fears as regards an invasion by Russians. Italians or Germans do not share the same historical experience.
INTRODUCTION
Boom, Baby, Boom! is a study of how people confront a painful past and an ominous future.
Clem Hambourg, age 59 or 66 at the time of the play, runs an after-hours jazz club and is considered a patron saint of the growing Toronto scene. Few of his patrons realize that he comes from a family of world-renowned classical musicians. Clem is an oddball, considered a profligate black sheep by the old society of pre-war Toronto. The club – The House of Hambourg – is his pride and joy, and its impending closure an unmitigated disaster.
One night, a young woman clambers through the window of the club. She calls herself Shirley but her real name is Austra Mednis, a Latvian immigrant or “New Canadian.” Since her arrival in Toronto in 1951, memories of the war are constantly kept alive by her family and friends. She is convinced that either the bomb will drop or the Russians will invade very soon – either way the world is about to end. In the meantime, she wants to live it up, do it all. She runs away from her engagement party into the underbelly of Toronto, and behaves as outrageously as she imagines a proper Bohemian should.
It is 1959 in Toronto. The world of jazz has lost Lester Young and is about to lose Billie Holiday. Buddy Holly dies earlier in the year. The Cuban missile crisis is down the road. Nixon is visiting Khrushchev. The papers are full of news about fallout shelters and heroin addiction in Hogtown. It is also a time of optimism and excitement – the world is just discovering Kerouac and flower power will soon flex its muscle. Austra and Clem have an adventure.
FIRST SET
SCENE ONE
(The club. An empty space. A piano on stage. Darkness. Ruthie stands in the darkness with her back to the audience, holding an empty picture frame. Clement Hambourg is seated at the piano with his back to the audience, smoking a cigar, blowing rings in the air. He starts to play The Moonlight Sonata with a great flourish. Puts cigar down. Squints at the audience.)
Clem: I remember you … welcome, welcome back to the House of Hambourg. We’ve missed your esteemed company, old man – haven’t seen you since we had the club on Bay Street, – no, Bloor Street! Bloor Street – yes they’re building the new emporium there now, the Madame Host Renfrooze where squares croon the blues while trying on shoes. – it’s taken you five years to get back to my conservatory – where have you been, Korea? Oh, much has happened, much, very much. Yes, I’m still married to Ruthie, she’s sewing for the Victory Burlesque, and … petit point and … You’re not a real estate agent, now, are you? No? Oh good good good. Listen to this. (Pulls some doggerel out of jacket pocket)
Give me your tired, your beat,
Your cool subterraneans yearning to breathe free,
The wretched hipsters of your teeming shore –
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
(During this roll call, three Musicians appear and take poses behind the gilt frame.)
Toscanini? Present.
Rubinstein? Present.
Ravel? Present.
(The musicians take a bead on Clem and start to move towards him, slowly.)
Clem: Chaliapin? Present. Stravinsky present Michael Mark Jan Boris and Clement Hambourg present Austra Mednis.
(Austra enters and grasps Clem by the arm. The musicians return to their portrait image.)
Clem: Present.
Austra: I could hear you from the attic. I even unplugged the fridge so I could hear better.
Clem: But you haven’t even arrived yet.
Austra: I have read Henry Miller (Musicians applaud after names) and Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg and Jean-Paul Sartre. And I am an atheist. And I don’t care if I’m a virgin.
Clem: (To Austra) Welcome. (To Kennedy) Welcome.
(Image changes to surreal club. Austra sits down at the table. Kennedy strides to the piano, the frame disappears, the musicians take off their formal clothing. “Moonlight Sonata.”)<
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Clem: Hey, Herbie Durbie, how’re ya doin, and Babe, nice to see ya, (To audience) damn fine drummer that – he looks like a missionary –
(All other cast appear. They seat themselves and echo the movements of the pianist precisely with their torsos and their heads. Even the drummer echoes him.)
Clem: (Going out into audience) Welcome, welcome to the House of Hambourg. Clement Hambourg, I’m delighted to, etc. (Comment on appearance) That’s Allen Kennedy playing and Babe and Herbie Durbie, keep an eye on them, they’re going to be famous those boys (listens and we watch) and later we’ll have Black Hat and maybe Sarah Vaughan or Louis Armstrong, he’s in Burlington tonight, they all come here to jam and – that where you’ve been? … oh and you must re-visit one of Ruthie’s pizzas, she makes them herself and you don’t have to drive all the way to Buffalo to try one … Come in, come in … (Pointing at pianist) Does that look like a beatnik to you? Are you hep? Are you hip? Do you dig? Are You Enlightened? Eh, plus ça change … Jack Kerouac’s 37 today … the old get younger all the time.
(All watch pianist, until he turns to Clem.)
Clem: I dig! Bloody excellent! Okay-erooni, you can come any time, but not this Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we are closed, Toronto doesn’t swing until 11 p.m. next Thursday, see! you! then!
Black Hat: (From audience) Two-three-four!
(Scene erupts into strong and emphatic jazz.)
SCENE TWO: TORONTO, HECK
(Sax starts to play. “Jekyll” theme. Austra and Clem leap to their feet and stride in the manner of Black Hat the sax player.
Black Hat the sax leaps up on stage and leads all others except Laila and Aivars in this movement.
Each character has an instrument which determines their actions: Austra – piano and drums, Clem – piano, Aivars and Laila – bass, Jekyll – sax, Ruthie – bass.
Jekyll peruses the crowd, asks them for money – hey, I’m an artist. Austra is wandering through the city using movements: crouch, lean, pivot, and leap.
Laila sniffs about looking for Austra. It is 6 a.m. Aivars, in his black hat, is wandering through town, looking for Austra. Diagonal movement. He has a photograph of Austra in his hand. Wherever he stops, he asks “Have you seen Austra Mednis – my fiancée?” Finally he asks that of the moon.
N.B. Lines printed in square brackets are spoken in Latvian or the appropriate other language.
At the end of the music there is a cacophony of sound. Ruthie appears at the top of the stairs, wielding a broom.)
Ruthie: What’s all this ruckus, Clemmie!? I’m trying to concentrate up here on a fitting, it’s impossible, and it’s the Divine Delilah with her pink spangles and all. You promised that Allen Kennedy was never to play here again, he pumps the piano so hard, we have to re-tune it every time, I won’t have it, we’re poor as church mice, you tell him that.
Clem: Yes, Ruthie, my dear.
Jekyll: “Howl.” By Allen Ginsberg. “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, … angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night”
Ruthie: (Interrupting) I thought you were going to get that student, that Hagood Hardy, now there’s a nice boy, a real musician, and he has a very deep soul, I can see that.
Clem: Yes, Ruthie.
(Jekyll exits. Aivars falling asleep, Laila shaking him.)
Laila: Neguli, neguli [Don’t sleep, don’t sleep]. (He slumps forward) She comes home. I kill her. I kill her. (Laila gets more and more drowsy, as her anger turns to anguish and falls asleep)
Clem: When everyone has dispersed, Clem likes to play Beethoven with his eyes closed. (Kennedy begins to play Beethoven.)
Clem: Beethoven, what a champ. Stone deaf and dying of liver disease, he cooks up the Missa Solemnis. Man, that’s hot! (Clem starts singing some Beethoven, conducting. Austra leaps into centre stage.)
Austra: Mr Hambourg. I could hear you from Cumberland Street. I even climbed through the window to hear better.
Clem: But we haven’t been introduced.
Austra: Oh, I like windows. Sometimes I climb out of my bedroom window at night. There is a magnolia tree which always hits me in the face. Once in the war I pushed through a window on a train because a man looked hard at me and said “devuchka” which is Russian for “girl” but really it means I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll
Clem: Blow your house down.
SCENE THREE
(Spotlight on the cameo appearance of the real live Dr Roy Milford, Toronto mental health expert. He is a man with a cigarette glued to his lips, darkened glasses and a clipped moustache.)
Dr Milford: Dr Roy Milford, Toronto mental health expert. As a mental health expert, I know that music can have a soothing effect. For instance: when I play jazz recordings for my patients prior to shock treatments, I find their fears and apprehensions diminished greatly. My favourites are Ron Collier and Dave Brubeck. Guy Lombardo, no. Oh, you’d rather have some benzedrine. Hey, no panic. In this age of the H-bomb, we’ve all got our problems. (Laila wakes up, cries out “Austra!”)
SCENE FOUR
(“Swinging Shepherd Blues” by Moe Koffman. Movement sequence, Clem and Jekyll hiding Austra. Clem turns around, Austra is gone. During this sequence, Aivars wakes up, looks at a newspaper, simultaneous with Ruthie doing the same. Laila pacing.)
Laila: Hello, Mount Sinai hospital? yes, I am looking for my sister, she has disappeared. A-u-s-t-r-a M-e-d-n-i-s. Mama, es esmu pie telefona! [Mama, I’m on the phone!] She is just 21 years old, a baby, an A-student … Nothing happened, we had a party, she was … Aivar, kā saka līgava? [Aivar, how do you say “bride”?] … fiancée, fiancée … (Ruthie, Musicians, Aivars, are all looking at the newspaper:)
Ruthie: (Picks up newspaper) July 10, 1959. Your stars today: (Sundry lean in to look at paper)
Aivars: “Staggering girl tells of buying dope in restaurant.” Norrrm’s Grrill … Norm’s Grill …
Laila: (To phone) thank you. Mama!
Herbie: Norm hates bad press. (Clem suddenly tears open the door, as if to catch sight of Austra. Nothing there.)
SCENE FIVE
(Scene changes to Norm’s Grill. Sleazy music – on AM radio. Image à la Edward Hopper. A nylonclad leg belonging to Wanda dangles through a picture frame. The musicians hang out at the grill. Ruthie wanders in and out of the scene in a trance.)
Jekyll: The heat was on in Toronto’s jungle last night and the inhabitants walked warily.
Black Hat: (To the nylon leg) Hey, Wanda, your “uncle” says better go out and make some loot.
Herbie: He said: your “uncle.”
Other men: Hey, Wanda!
Wanda: (Played by Laila) Aw, shut up! (Wanda gradually exits.)
Jekyll: It was in Norm’s Grill at Carlton and Jarvis. One of those fetid Friday nights at Norm’s Grill. When the good of Toronto was sleeping tight. Norm curled up around his cash register like a stinking sock, sucking up the pennies from heaven and the dollars from hell. Hey, it’s a thirty dollar a day habit, and it’s a seller’s market. An attractive 17-year-old blonde wearing a light blue skirt spilled her coffee while haggling for a fix. She was lucky she wasn’t sold to the white slave trade.
Ruthie: It was one of those swampy Toronto nights, the kind of night when you brush against someone on the street and they scream because you don’t give them enough space, their head is too crowded. (Austra appears, having run away from her engagement party. She wears a print dress with a full skirt, and glasses. She is in the wrong place at the wrong time)
Austra: I’d like to speak to Mr Norman, please. I am looking for employment.
Kennedy: At two o’clock in the morning?
Herbie: Get lost, kid, go back to mommy.
Austra: Tu esi riebīgs un nosprāgsi ellē. [You are disgusting and will perish in hell.] (Population of Norm’s Grill laughs.)
Black Hat: You know what makes Norm sick. Sputniks. Beatniks
. And ethnics.
Babe: You ever waitressed before?
Herbie: Norm don’t need no waitress, kid.
Ruthie: This is a rough town. It only looks nice compared to where you came from.
Jekyll: Let me show you something. Over there, in that booth. Count ’em – five, five females. It’s two o’clock in the morning on a Friday night – what are they doin’ out here at Norm’s. Look at the one with the duck haircut oiled to her head. I don’t think she’s my mother’s daughter. And the one with the sharp sports shirt and the stripes and the spick and span shoes. Men’s shoes. I’m tellin’ you, mister, it gives me the creeps. What’s wrong with a toasted Danish at Fran’s. Let ’em go there.
Austra: I will take any job. – I would like to join the white slave trade.
Black Hat: Where do you think this is –
Black Hat, Herbie & Kennedy: Detroit?
Austra: I would like to join the white slave trade.
Black Hat: Where do you think this is –
Black Hat & Babe: Moscow?
Austra: I would like to join the white slave trade.
Ruthie & Jekyll: Can you type?!!
Austra: I’m not going home.
Clem: Welcome. (Austra runs away. Aivars arrives on Norm’s Grill scene just as everyone is leaving and the bar gets pushed away.)
Aivars: Excuse me, there is a question I have. You have seen – (No one is there, Aivars has to leave. Norm’s Grill disappears.)
SCENE SIX: THE HOUSE OF HAMBOURG, CLOSING TIME