The CTR Anthology
Page 59
(Ruthie exits.)
Clem: I’m just going for a walk. (He pulls on a coat, and exits.)
SCENE TWELVE
(Austra is walking through the city, followed by Black Hat and Babe, who use their instruments – saxophone and mallets – to create a brooding soundscape. Herbie and Kennedy re-create the airplane drone. Slowly, Laila and Aivars step into the space, wearing the coats they wore as immigrants.)
Austra:
One two three four five six count the steps
Don’t step on the cracks or you break you mother’s back.
Rain rain go away come again another day.
First it’s Bloor and then it’s Danforth.
First it’s Bloor and then it’s Danforth.
First it’s Bloor and then
(beat)
I remember I do too I remember everything.
It was under the bridge. I was six. It was fun,
I had fun.
Nobody said I couldn’t.
Laila: Nobody said we weren’t ever coming back.
Austra: Mama buried the jars of jam in our yard. School was over. There wasn’t any school. The jam jars would sleep there like bears in winter, Mama said. Laila still made me read every day.
Laila: We’re just going on a little trip.
Austra: Mama made us play hide and seek under the haystack.
Laila: So the soldiers couldn’t find you.
Austra: When the bombs dropped, we were under the bridge. Mama said don’t be scared. They were great big lights. I liked it. But Laila was crying. And Aivars was singing. And Laila hit me.
Laila: It was under the bridge. I was thirteen. It was the end of my life. They had to cancel the spring dance. Mama buried my earrings with the jam jars. Miks was never coming back. I knew we wouldn’t come back. Mama told Austra to play hide and seek. I knew it was because if the soldiers found us that was it. I knew it would be bad. Russian, German, American soldiers it didn’t matter. The bombs were terrible. I hear them in my sleep. I hear them when my children cry in the park. These people in their big countries they don’t care how much they drop. They always have more people left. I wasn’t afraid right away. I was always afraid. I saw the soldier crying and then I was really afraid.
Aivars: It was under the bridge. The man across from me looked like my father who had been deported. The girl beside him looked like my sister who had disappeared. The woman next to her looked like my mother. My mother stayed and joined the Party. I didn’t know that yet. It wasn’t our war, it never is. It was that murderer Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill and Harold Macmillan. They are murderers. They shook hands with the butcher Stalin. I had a trick for when the bombs fell. I like to hum under my breath. This time it didn’t work.
(Clem enters.)
Clem: It was under the bridge. I knew this was the last good club. I knew all my brothers would be dead soon. I knew I would go on living. I knew Ruthie would never forsake me. It was under the bridge. I found Shirley there. Under the Danforth. The rain was so loud. I kissed her on the cheek. I knew she wasn’t called Shirley. I kissed her on the cheek to say goodbye. It was a smooth cheek. Under the bridge.
(Clem, Laila and Aivars exit.)
Austra: I laughed when the bombs dropped and Laila hit me. And Aivars frowned as he hummed under his breath. They wanted me to be afraid. I don’t want to be scared of anything. Canadians are never scared. Canadians are so naïve. My name is Austra Mednis.
(Ruthie appears.)
Ruthie: It was under the bridge. I knew it!
SCENE THIRTEEN
(Herbie hides behind the bass, Babe stands by it as if holding the neck, Kennedy buries his face in the score. Jekyll enters seemingly empty club, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase.)
Jekyll: Hey, I got a job with CBC!
(No one is there, no one responds.)
Jekyll: CBC!
(No one answers. Jekyll goes over to the drums and plays a little, as he speaks.)
Jekyll: I got a job at CBC!
Down in the House on Jarvis Street,
The chick at the desk was giving me the rumpled sheet look.
As I picked up the Official Application.
So I told them:
“Gerald Brown” – my maiden name –
“born in Lindsay, Ontario, 1933,”
editor of the high school newspaper, Trinity
college, all that.
I couldn’t tell them everything.
They are afraid of knowing everything.
“Sax lessons in September, Psychoanalysis in
October,” they don’t want to know my
favourite composer.
Just the meaningless statistucs of your journey
through life.
I was empty that day.
I had no expectations.
The chick at the desk was waiting.
I handed it to her.
She looked at me.
I looked at her.
She said, “We’ll call you.”
I said, “Don’t make me laugh.”
She watched me slide out the door,
And tossed her hair like french fries in oil.
(Musicians appear, Jekyll leaves the drums.)
Jekyll: Hey, guys, I’m gonna put you guys on the radio!
Herbie: Wow, man, you’re breaking my heart. Cheer down, will ya?
(Sixty seconds of bad music, ‘CBC’ theme “Meditation.” Jekyll dances a very funny, flamboyant CBC dance. Music ends)
Jekyll: Sooooo. Drinks on me, OK? The Park Plaza. The Park Plaza and then down to the Purple Onion and later maybe this new place, the what-chamacallit. I’ll be waiting for you. See you then!
(Jekyll exits.)
SCENE FOURTEEN: THE LAST OF THE HAMBOURGS
(“Clement” theme plays. We are in Clement’s room. Clement enters with an empty picture frame, and places it in front of each musician. Image of reverie. He puts the frame on the floor. A knock on the door)
Austra: (Offstage) Mr Clement, I have to talk to you.
(Clem hides. Austra enters the room)
Austra: Mr Clement? Hello? (Looks around the room) Toscanini … To … someone … Hambourg! Oh look at this … Oh Mr Clement! You look so funny with the black tails and … The Hambourg Trio. To mxflz … Hambourg … In friendship … B … Bela Bartok?
(Clement standing above her.)
Clem: I do not recall asking you to meddle in my personal matters.
Austra: This is a miraculous secret, why do you have this kept secret? and oh … look … Happy Birthday from Arnold Schïnberg to … Cl … B … Boris … Boris!? Oh I see and this is Boris and … Boris and – (surprised) They’re not to you.
Clem: Mr Clement Hambourg may stop liking a certain runaway.
Austra: Mr Clement Hambourg. You will have your new club. My fiancé is happy to get you a loan. To try to get you a loan. To do his best. (Silence) Mr Clement, baby, I am talking to you. I am telling you something.
Clem: Yes, Shirley, dear Shirley. Bank managers are very important people to know. As are undertakers, and sellers of encyclopedias. But Clement is a solo artiste. A visionary. Not a businessman.
Austra: I called him here for you. New he can send me flowers every day, he can buy me brooms and negligées. Now the worms are out of the can, know what I mean?
Clem: You made sacrifices. Clement did not ask for them. (Pause) We can get you married, Shirleykins. We’ll find you a nice jazz fan. They’re very polite, you know. They don’t blow their nose in the tablecloth and they clap just so. We will find you someone polite.
Austra: Mrs Gordon Smith.
Clem: It’s a free country.
Austra: Mr Hambourg, please. Please, he will get you the loan.
Clement: A loan, a loan, crazy. How does Shirley think will we pay it back? Perhaps we will sell these treasures. One, two, three, a dozen? All of them? Who’s first? Anna Pavlova? Or Toscanini? Mark Hambourg? Who do you think, Shirley, who?
&nb
sp; Austra: My name is Austra Mednis.
Clem: No, no, for us you are Shirley, always Shirley. We will not send you back, your are a refugee. We shall be keeping you in chocolates and nylon stockings and American nicknames until you are a proper Canadian girl. Yes, a shiny New Canadian, in mint condition, a Shirley to beat all Shirleys.
Austra: My name is Austra Mednis. I was born in Latvia. That is a small country by the Baltic Sea with only a few million people. Something like Switzerland. There are few of us, and we don’t make cuckoo clocks.
Clement: My name is Clement Hambourg. Apparently I showed some promise. In the future, I shall try hard to be innocuous. Did you receive an invitation?
Austra: I am going for a walk.
Clem: I won’t hear of it. You will get doused. The rain is pounding the sidewalks, why should you?
Austra: A walk!
(She turns, runs to exit. Clement stands in her way, plays cat and mouse, laughing nervously. She get out, leaving we see her pull on the coat which she wore under the bridge. He turns back to audience.)
Clem: My doctor says I’m a very high-strung chap. I must absolutely do the least shockable things to myself. I mustn’t smoke or drink anything stronger than milk. He says, “If you want to play, baby, eat ice cream and walk the tight rope!” There’s not so much whoopee in my playing now. It’s too dangerous. I say let the young ones play the jiujitsu music. Tear your lip up. Bruise your knuckles. I like black.
(He sinks into a chair. Ruthie appears.)
Ruthie: If this club shuts down, he’ll get cancer. Clement will draw his last breath, I tell you, an apocalyptic day will dawn the night this club shuts down.
Clem: Well, we’ll have to close the club. A man with a black hat will come and close the club down.
(Knocking on the door. He opens the door. No one is there. The portraits in the room begin to gleam eerily. People are standing behind the frames. The portraits have come alive.)
Clem: Clement Hambourg!
Ruthie: Present.
Clem: Ruthie Hambourg!
Ruthie: Present.
Clem: Mark Hambourg!
Ruthie: Absent.
Clem: Jan Hambourg?
Ruthie: Absent.
Clem: Boris Ha – ?
Ruthie: Absent.
(The portrait of the trio has been emptied out.)
Clem: Catherine Hambourg?
Ruthie: Present!
Clement: (Horrified) Present!
(Two dead mothers begin to speak simultaneously in two picture frames.)
Dead Mother #1: Clement. Your father and I are rolling in our graves.
Clement: Oh dearie me. (He starts to dance a defiant boogie woogie.)
(Other portraits of musicians lose their subjects, who walk down the aisles reciting, “Your brother Mark, Your brother Jan, Your brother Boris” over and over again.)
Both Dead Mothers: Clement. A seedy nightclub is not the 1812 overture. An after-hours coffee shop on Cumberland Street for various … characters … is not Handel’s Messiah. Is this music? This is noise. Clement, you are a great disappointment to us. And a disgrace … To the family. And to this city.
Clem: I am not Glenn Gould!
(“Dies Irae” music begins. The demise of the club. Ruthie appears in the doorway with her broom.)
Ruthie: I summon the dead.
I summon ye spirits of the dead jazzmen.
I summon ye to save our club.
(No one answers her. Clement staggers across the stage like a broken wind-up toy, Ruthie rushes to his support.)
Clem: Yes, welcome, welcome, oh, how was New York, jolly good, no, and you don’t have to drive to Buffalo to get them, no, I’m not really with the Hart House Quartet, that’s my brother Boris, no, I never met Paderewski, that’s Mark, no he wasn’t married to Willa Cather, that was my brother Jan, I mean his wife was her bosom friend –
(Clem wanders into the audience and continues speaking until he runs down.)
Clem: No they aren’t coming tonight, do sit down, we will have Norm Amadio and Ed Bickert and later Don Francks will present a reading from The Connection. They just did it at the Living Theatre you know, that’s in New York, too, where is that oh there I’m terribly sorry –
(Austra has begun to whisper her life story in Babe’s ear; he plays his drums in response. Jekyll and Aivars arrive stiffly in their suits and begin to dismantle the club. Ruthie tries to make it at least more comfortable for everybody. The drum seems to fly through the air as it is brought to the front of the stage, with Babe and Austra maintaining contact. The bass is carried across the stage like a coffin, with Herbie still playing it. He lies down on his back, still playing until he peters out. Clem clambers back up on stage, waving a stash of classical music.)
Clem: It’s closing time. It’s closing time. (He throws the music up in the air and collapses under the sheets. Kennedy slowly slithers off his piano bench. Black Hat is carried out by the two men, still playing, his sax wailing and wailing. Ruthie goes with him. Austra stays on stage talking to Babe.)
Austra: … under the bridge. And the funny thing is, the sound of the rain was louder than the bombs.
(Babe slumps over his kit. Austra looks up. Light change.)
CODA
(Ruthie enters, close to the audience. She looks at them as if they are attending her funeral.)
Ruthie: Welcome, welcome, welcome. I remember you – you were so hungry all the time. And you – you lived in that nice house on Bridle Path. And you – you were dating that lovely Negro girl from Settlement House. And you. You’d just come here from Newfoundland. You proposed to your girlfriend in the parking lot. And you. You’re driving cab now. And you. And you. Who the hell was born in Toronto anyway except for Vincent Massey. And he was born in
(Ruthie blanks, exits.)
FINAL IMAGE
(1963. Aivars pushes a baby buggy. Austra reads from Howl to the baby. Clem, his hair ever more wild, sitting alone at the piano. The club has disappeared. It is many years later, when Clem is playing piano in a spaghetti restaurant.)
Clem: I’ve been fighting for years to find a place like this one as an intermission pianist. The super-Stalinists of the piano who like to listen to their Ferrante and Teicher to drown out the dentist’s drill, they would turn their noses up, but I’m very happy. Very happy. Ruthie is my old age pension. I told her to make ties she makes damn good ties. I made an ad for Kleenex. My boys, they played for me. And that waitress in the bunny suit over there – she’s a sculptor. Clem is telling you the truth. I want to play the piano for all the spaghetti eaters of this world. I’ll play any request. Beethoven with a beat. Berlioz with a bump. Bartok with a boom, baby. The Götterdammerung? Mind if I spice it up?
(He flexes his fingers to play the first chord.)
THE END
Lola Starr Builds Her Dream Home A TRAVESTY
Sky Gilbert
Playwright, poet, actor, or drag queen extraordinaire, Sky Gilbert is co-founder and Artistic Director of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in Toronto. He has written and directed numerous plays for Buddies, including Pasolini/Pelosi, The Dressing Gown, Drag Queens on Trial, Ban This Show, The Postman Rings Once, and Capote at Yaddo, as well as Lola Starr Builds Her Dream Home, In keeping with the nature of his work, he has been an outspoken commentator on issues affecting the lesbian and gay communities. He has also been instrumental in nurturing and inspiring young artists through the Rhubarb ! and QueerCulture festivals he initiated at Buddies. Sky Gilbert is the recipient of the Pauline McGibbon Award for directing in 1985, and the Dora Mavor Moore award for his play The Whore’s Revenge in 1989.
Lola Starr Builds Her Dream Home was first produced by Buddies in Bad Times Theatre for the Edmonton Fringe on 13 August 1988.
PRODUCTION
Director / Edward Roy and Sky Gilbert
Sets and Costume Design / Leslie Frankish
Music / Cathy Nosaty
Lighting / Lome Reid
CAST
/> Sky Gilbert / Lola Starr
Debra Kirshenbaum / Tina Starr
Joe Colborne / Eat Me, Decorator
Steven Cumyn / Malcolm Inklepoop, Mover, Cleaner, Reporter
Les Porter / Minoola Grump, Mover, Cleaner, Reporter
Edward Roy / Johnny Bad
CHARACTERS
Lola Starr, a film legend
Tina Starr, her teenage daughter
Eat Me, their dog
Johnny Bad, a no-good bum
Malcolm Inklepoop, an intrepid reporter
Minoola Grump, a busybody neighbour
Various Reporters, Decorators, Movers, and Members of the Norwich
Junior League, PTA Clean Council and 4-H Club
SETTING
Lola’s dream home in Connecticut
NOTE
All characters should be played by men except for Tina, and Johnny and Malcolm should be played by the same actor.
ACT ONE
SCENE ONE
The set is the bare bones of Lola Starr’s new home in Norwich, Connecticut. The time is the mid-1950s. Lola has recently purchased the home which is a large old 1920s vaudeville theatre, in a shambles. The lights come up on a large empty room with cobwebs. In the upper regions of the set we see the vaulted ceiling of the old theatre dimly. The effect is chilling and lonely. We might get the feeling that the theatre is haunted. After a moment or two of this we begin to hear humming noises in the distance. The effect is reminiscent of the approach of the seven dwarfs in Snow White singing “Whistle While You Work.” The door finally opens and Lola appears, resplendent in white furs and sunglasses. She looks around.
Lola: Oh my … oh dear … (pause) Oh … Lord … this is it … I can’t believe it, my … new life … starts here … oh my. … (The clamour of voices outside the door, all the little people.)
Voices: Can we come in?
Lola: (breaking out of her hypnotic reverie) Oh yes of course everyone … do come in please do … yes … I’m sorry I forgot … yes come along…. (the door opens further and light floods the room. Tina – Lola’s daughter – enters, followed by four movers dressed in mover outfits, and finally, the dog, Eat Me. All carry boxes, including the dog. They hum as they come in. Lola is being very magnanimous. She reminds us of the Good Witch of the East in The Wizard of Oz.) Yes … everyone … fell free to enter make yourself at home yes please … go ahead everyone … yes … that’s it … lovely yes … relax make yourself comfortable … .(They begin taking things out of boxes and start to sing.)