MOMPOU Charmes 3 [2:12]

 

MOTHER: Aida, I think you should try to limit yourself to a single toddy at the Plaza, not several, before we sally forth, since otherwise you’re inclined to follow not one but several trains of thought, which is confusing to me.

MRS. AID: Who’s confused, you or me? I’m — you know, I do wish the young men were not so — narcissian, so self – infatuated . . .

MOTHER: You’re never quite satisfied. After all, a hired escort is just that.

MRS. AID: That depends on the service that supplies them. I think we ought to switch to — I have the card.

Oh, here, it’s called 30 “Companions for Madame.”

MOTHER: I don’t like the sound of that. We’d probably find ourselves with a pair of middle – aged, broken – down brokers getting paunchy.

MRS. AID: Not if we specified exactly what we like and refused compromises.

MOTHER: It was a nice evening in the park, moon nearly full. My young man knew exactly where to direct the driver. Of course, it’s a little indiscreet outdoors.

MRS. AID: My dear, if we start to worry about discretion —

MOTHER: We should start at the Plaza and cross the park to a little apartment kept for such occasions.

MRS. AID: Yes. You mean a pad.

MOTHER: With a view of the reservoir. A powder room and kitchenette for making Welsh – rarebit or a crabmeat omelette with chilled wine.

MRS. AID: 1:05 Speaking of wine.

MOTHER: Of course you’d like a night – cap.

MRS. AID: Pourquoi pas? It’s nice to remember an evening over a night – cap.

MOTHER: Crème de?

MRS. AID: 1:07 No, no, I think I’d prefer a mellow, reflective libation such as medium dry sherry.

MOTHER: You’ll find a bottle of Pedro Domcq at the bar.

MRS. AID [at the bar]: And you? What would you like for a midnight libation?

MOTHER: The usual.

MRS. AID: Which is?

MOTHER [turning slowly with a lascivious smile]: — The warm, salty juice of a young lover’s loins . . .

VASLAV: This is — abominable.

MRS. AID: That libation is kept in laboratory bottles, chère.

MOTHER: I’ve found it outside bottles. But, you know,  1:37 thought it a little presumptuous when he put my hand on his equipment so quickly. Not that I — but you know they shouldn’t be quite so forward — so quickly.

MRS. AID: They have other assignments, I suppose.

MOTHER: Yes, before and after. One should demand escorts that aren’t debilitated by previous engagements.

MRS. AID: I suppose it was a mistake going into the bushes. You came out looking a bit disheveled and your escort complained that his clothes were irreparably damaged.

MOTHER: They always pretend to have lost their cuff – links or torn their something or other, it’s part of the game. And you. I noticed a great agitation among the forsythia bushes that you disappeared into with that suspiciously dark Lothario of yours.

MRS. AID: But all in all considered, we didn’t have too disappointing a time.

MOTHER: No, but we ought to investigate other services. Such as, let’s see, where’s the, oh, here’s a service with a superior sound: “Cavaliers for Milady.” It’s engraved which means it involves more expense. But we could be more specific about our requirements.

MRS. AID: Yes, why not, we’re still attractive enough to settle for only the best.

NANCE: Mummy, please, please, leave us alone a while!

MOTHER: The child wants some privacy with her imaginary companion. Let’s indulge her and take our drinks to the garden and plan tomorrow’s adventure. [She exits.]

MRS. AID [lingering at the mirror, a moment of candor]: Into my sixties, and no relief in sight . . . Well, despair is no where! No where! [She exits.].

MOTHER: Nance! What are you — ? Child, what is it now? She’s cut her forehead, it’s bleeding.

MRS. AID: Yes, I see. She tried to embrace the statue in the hall, collided with it violently. And look! There’s blood on the fig – leaf.

Q- MOTHER: Gracious — yes!

CHOPIN Opus 28 PRELUDES # 2 in A MINOR [2:09]

MRS. AID: Obscene, salacious, face it, you’re harboring a monster in your house, a travesty of a child in a ruffled white skirt and pink sash and Dotty Dimple curls!

MOTHER: — Are you reproaching me for it?

MRS. AID: Isn’t it your idea to pass her off as a child in costumes like that?

MOTHER: No, it’s Lucinda Blair’s. That sentimental dressmaker regards her as a child. Says, “Oh, she’s a child, just a precocious child, every night she should be in a little girl’s party dress to receive her dream beaux!” You see, she was here one night when the child received Valentino after an old flick at the Modern Art cinema and performed an Argentine tango with his — apparition, I suppose you’d call it.

MRS. AID: Oh – ho – ho, then why didn’t she dress her up like — Nita Naldi, was it?

MOTHER: Whoever, I don’t remember.

NANCE: Must you discuss me so— [She weeps a bit.]

MOTHER: Oh, it’s all so confusing. Who invented madness if not God?

MRS. AID: Show Lucinda the blood spot on the fig – leaf: she’ll dress her differently then.

MOTHER: Yes, it is a little bit de trop, the blood of the fig – leaf bit. I had no idea she had such — embarrassing aberrations. [She sighs dramatically.] Tomorrow I’ll simply have to find a place away for her. I suppose Riggs Institute or —

MRS. AID: They wouldn’t accept her. She’d make disgusting advances to the attractive male patients and even young doctors. Where she belongs, if anywhere on earth, is in a segregated ward of a real asylum, that sort of institution is the only solution: face it!

NANCE: Be still about me! Please!

MOTHER: You see that she isn’t retarded in the clinical sense.

MRS. AID: Fuck the clinical sense: obscene is what she is and it can only grow on her. Time’ll make her hideous as the portrait of Dorian Gray.

NANCE: Deserted? — Put away?

MOTHER: The child has a morbid derangement that defies diagnosis. She reads adult fiction and she expresses herself in the language of a refined, grown – up young lady, except it’s twisted, depraved, so shocking that I’ve stopped taking her out. Last time I did, she suddenly leaned forward in the car and said to the young chauffeur, with her hand on his neck, “Take me for a pilgrimage after dark.”

MRS. AID: Pilgrimage?

MOTHER: After dark, meaning she wished to seduce him.

MRS. AID: Did she?

MOTHER: Indeed she didn’t. I had priority there till his wife made him quit. — Nance, go up to bed! — Do you hear me? —I said go up to bed!

NANCE: He may return, after all . . . [She picks up the book of photographs and opens it on her lap, as primly as if it were a book of scriptures.]

MOTHER: What’s she reading? [She snatches the book.] Why, it’s a book of memories and photographs of Nijinsky, she’s staring at him in costume for L’Apres Midi d’un Faun!

MRS. AID: And got him confused with the statue in the hall. MOTHER: Bed, I said go up!

[She tries to pull Nance off the sofa but the “child” clings desperately to it.]

MRS. AID: Oh, leave her there, what does it matter if she stays there all night! —Let’s finish our drinks and tomorrow’s arrangements. My Fabergé case, where is it?

MOTHER [leading Mrs. Aid off through the hall]: In the garden with your hat and gloves.

Q- [They are off: we hear their indistinct voices and laughter until the curtain.

MOMPOU Scenes d enfant jeux sur la place [1:41]

Nance looks desperately about her: she abruptly notices the escort service cards on the table, reads them aloud.] NANCE: — “Cavaliers for Milady” — “Companions for Madam” — with phone numbers for both! Oh, I’ll call! [Nance is dialing the phone.]

MOTHER [from the garden]: —The secret is thinking young.

MRS. AID [from the garden]: — And feeling young. Yes. And a little cosmetic surgery after a while . . .

MOTHER [from the garden]: — We have a few years to make the most of . . .

[Nance is dialing the phone.]s

NANCE: “Cavalier — Companions?” I, I — want one — tonight, no, it’s not too late, I’ll — pay — extra! [Snatches her mother’s evening – bag from the table.] Whatever is charged! —You have the address, Park at Fifty – five, I’ll be waiting outside on the stone steps, and, oh, please hurry. I’ll be on the steps of stone with a — lighted candle, don’t disappoint me, please don’t keep me waiting and send me an escort cavalier that looks like him! —Nijinsky!

[She turns about excitedly, snatches a candle from the candelabra on the table and rushes out to the entrance, which be comes visible as the interior is dimmed. Nance is lighted with her lighted candle and evening – bag.]

NANCE: Oh, God, make him hurry, I don’t have — a few years left me!

SLOW CURTAIN :  [original stage direction VALS LENTE]

[ music runs to end, past curtain]

NOTES TO MUSIC:
Mompou’s Scenes d’enfants (Scenes of childhood)

CHOPIN PRELUDES

NOTES ON THE TEXT

NYC SPECIFICS

[DK NOTE: have her down center, looking at the audience as if the Apollo was out there.]
{DK NOTE: is the pediment of the bay window like a little stage? The windows and the curtains like a small proscenium?]

JOSIE: —What’re you lookin’ at, Miss?
NANCE: The moon-vines are open.

[and later:

VASLAV: Watch what your hands reach for! I don’t live there ex­cept in your madness and fever. Stop it! — I am Spirit! [He retreats from her hands.] Or I will leave you and not come back. You can stare your eyes out at my photographs in a book and I’ll not enter the room . . .
NANCE [extending her hand again]: Please, it can’t be wrong to —
VASLAV: Not just wrong but impossible. You must learn to ac­cept. IT — WILL — NEVER — BE — REAL! You can only — dream!
NANCE: How long can you stay if I — don’t touch.
VASLAV: Till you go up to bed or till the moon-vines close.

From Williams’ KIRCHE, KÜCHE, KINDER :
MAN: As the sun begins to fade over SoHo, the giant daisy of day is mysteriously retracted, yes, it disappears through that window by which it entered and is shortly replaced by a fragrant night-blooming vine . . . Now this transparent wall which I face, the wall which is called, in theater, the fourth wall — is white, plain white, unadulterated, yes, unbesmirched by whatever good – natured vulgarities may occur in the course of this, uh — performance. It represents, you see, the basic innocence of nature — not visible and therefore — invisible . . . SoHo? SoHo . . you see, the basic innocence of nature — not visible and therefore — invisible . . . SoHo? SoHo . .

MAN: The daisy of daytime, Miss Rose, has now completely folded — like many a good play in Boston . . . The night-blooming vine is now appearing in the daytime daisy’s place. So time’s passing’s intruding even here, walled off from things external. But time is not a thing that can be walled off as external. It is within all places and organisms as well, be they of the animal or vegetable kingdom . . . 

[Over the following lines, a night-blooming vine slowly uncoils from where the daisy of daytime appeared and vanished.] 

MAN: The night-blooming vine trails delicately down the wall from the window.

MAN [facing the chair front]: Aye, there’s sorrow in a man’s life but there’s much of joy, too . . . Interpretation of experience never fails to discover elements of the beautiful as one discovers bits of a broken bottle catching sunlight in an otherwise sordid and ugly heap of rubbish. I do not deny that most of experience is a heap of rubbish, but I affirm, as I have always affirmed, there is somewhere hidden in this sordid heap of rubbish the translucent and hence lovely fragment of broken glass refracting the pure light of heaven as a mirror held to the eyes of Our Lady Immaculate. I have seen it with reverence and wonder in the eyes of the mad, innocent beings too fondly touched by the moon . . . 

FURNITURE AND PROPS:

MOTHER:  the little Regency chairs, they’re delicate antiques, you wouldn’t be comfortable in them and they’d collapse, so compose yourself on the big leather chair by the table. [DK NOTE: Regency Furniture Style (1800 – 1837) Regency furniture tended to have flat surfaces without carvings or contoured lines with delicately painted and/or veneered wood, metal inlay, and classicizing motifs like rosettes, lion masks, and metal paw feet.]

MOTHER: I see you’ve brought your sewing. [DK NOTE: could be wrong, could be crochet or knitting]

NANCE: Please return to your chair [DK NOTE: not the Regency chair, but one near the phone]

VASLAV [on sofa]: Are you a lunatic too?

MOTHER: soft drinks in the cooler of the little bar over there, there’s ice in the silver bucket.
[DK NOTE: perhaps the drinks etc., are never seen]

a valium tablet from this little pill-box.

[He leaps over a small table] [DK NOTE: different from the table by the phone?]

NANCE: The phone is on the table, right beside you, behind the jar of peppermint stick candy.

the book of photographs

[He indicates flow­ers in a vase on incidental table.] [DK NOTE: third table?]

[She rushes to hand him the roses; they fall from his hands to the carpet. 

They admire themselves in the mirror.] [DK NOTE: the pier-glass]

I’ll — pay — extra! [Snatches her mother’s evening-bag from the table.] [She turns about excitedly, snatches a candle from the candelabra on the table and rushes out to the entrance, which be comes visible as the interior is dimmed. Nance is lighted with her lighted candle and evening-bag.]

[DK NOTE: offstage garden/ upstairs bedroom] 

CONFIDENCES TO THE AUDIENCE

VASLAV: Well, I created the illusion. Et ça va. [That’s how it goes] [DK NOTE: DIRECT ADDRESS:] Actually, I was short. Slant – eyed, my hair receded early. My legs were so muscular that my upper torso, while hairless and well – formed, seemed inad­equate to them. However, costumes and light and the creations of Bakst and my passion for my art, and, I must admit it, the posses­sive care that Diaghelev gave me ’till I defected to matrimony and madness, made me appear to have beauty. And I had an arrogant way. Well. The apparition of a dancer leaps without effort, noth­ing to make him breathless. — You seemed to be dressed for a little girls’ party.

and

[DK NOTE: DIRECT ADDRESS:]I understand erotic impulses, was taught them early in life and was a good pupil. But, finally, found them inadequate as my torso to my abnormally mus­cular legs. To be disembodied is a release from passions. But music haunts me still.

 

POEM

The Paper Lantern

My sister was quicker at everything than I.
At five she could say the multiplication tables with barely a pause for breath,
while I was employed
with frames of colored beads in Kindy Garden.

At eight she could play
Idillio and The Scarf Dance
while I was chopping at scales and exercises.

At fifteen my sister
No longer waited
Impatiently at the White Star Pharmacy corner but plunged headlong into the discovery, Love!

Then vanished completely —

for love’s explosion, defined as early madness,

consumingly shone in her transparent heart for a
season and burned it out, a tissue-paper lantern!
—        torn from a string!
—        tumbled across a pavilion!
flickering three times, almost seeming to cry …

My sister was quicker at everything than I.

IMAGES OF NANCE:
http://davidkaplandirector.com/spectre-images-nance/

 

DANCE OPPORTUNITY

[DK NOTE – Aida dancing at the mirror  – body extensions large enough to be seen from the back / Mother seen from front wanting to dance / Mother dancing with Aida

MOTHER: I suspect that she’ll call you nothing at all unless you force her to. force her to. She seems not to notice your presence and maybe that’s just as well. Now do get settled. Nance? Nance?
NANCE [impatiently]: Yes, Mummy?
MOTHER: This is your sitter tonight. She’ll sit with you ’till Mummy returns from her social engagement. [To JOSIE.] If we’re out till midnight, tell the child it’s bedtime. The child’s nursery is the second room to the right in the upstairs hall.
JOSIE: —How old is this “child”?
MOTHER: We don’t discuss that in her presence.
JOSIE: I don’t sit with mental patients.
MOTHER: Nance will give you absolutely no trouble.
JOSIE: I sit with infants and I sit with small children but not with nothing morbid, nothing unnatural, no.
MRS. AID [at the mirror, gaily]: How limiting. [Aida dancing at the mirror]
MOTHER: Look at the child.
JOSIE: I see her, that’s enough. I waited twenty minutes outside the door. My fee is five an hour so with cab fare from Queens and back —
MRS. AID: We have escorts waiting! This is intolerable! [DK NOTE – singsong rhythm of the words, dancing at the mirror.]

MOTHER: Mrs. Flattery, please don’t invent complications. Nance has the breeding and manners ofa sweet little girl well-brought – up. Now my friend is right. We have gentlemen waiting for us, and so we must go.

NANCE [clasping her hands ecstatically]: Oh, VASLAV! [ something changes here – END OF MUSIC? Entrance of Nijinsky music from the Weber?] 

JOSIE: Who’d she speak to, why’s she sitting like that with her eyes bugging out? [Josie has come in front enough to see Nance’s face, or Nance has turned around]
MOTHER: Because you’ve disturbed her. The child is sensitive, she’s led a very sheltered life. Please don’t disrupt it at a single sitting. Now everything’s at your disposal but the little Regency chairs,
[DK NOTE – maybe moving the knitting off the Regency chairs]they’re delicate antiques, you wouldn’t be comfortable in them and they’d collapse, so compose yourself on the big leather chair by the table. You’ll find soft drinks in the cooler of the little bar over there, there’s ice in the silver bucket. If you prefer beer, there’s beer. I see you’ve brought your sewing, so just settle down and sew, and if Nance appears restless, give her a valium tablet from this little pill-box.
JOSIE: Oh, drugs, is it?

MOTHER: Heavens, no, a prescription medication. She likes a card – game sometimes. And is quite good at rummy or double – solitaire or even Black – jack. Of course if she wants to go out, di­vert her from the idea, oh, and she hates TV unless it’s something artistic on the educational network.
JOSIE: I always watch Cannon, Cannon is on tonight.
MOTHER: The child detests such unrefined things on the tube, you mustn’t expose her to them.
JOSIE: I never been on a job of this type in my life.
MRS. AID: She’s inventing problems to over – charge you.
MOTHER: That I know. Josie, you can see she’s reading a book, not restless and won’t be restless unless you’re unpleasant. We’ve never had trouble with sitters that weren’t unpleasant. Now just enjoy a fewhours in charming surroundings including the child.

JOSIE: She ain’t readin’ no book, she’s starin’ at a naked man’s statue in the hall there. [DK NOTE – how is this reconciled with looking at the audience?.]

MRS. AID: This is a woman with a dirty mind.[Aida dancing at the mirror, back to us, the mother joining her]
MOTHER: Tais – toi. Je peux faire la paix. Tu peux appeler un taxi.
JOSIE: Talkin’ in some secret foreign langwidge, something secret?
MRS. AID: Oh, mon Dieu! Les hommes attendent: dépêche – toi!
MOTHER: Miss, excuse me, Mrs. Slattery? Is it?
MRS. AID: Call her Madam and kiss her goddam ass, we’ve got to go.

JOSIE: Flattery and no madam.
MOTHER: The child looks into space when she’s meditating.

NANCE [behind her hand]: Wait, wait, don’t go!

JOSIE: Who’s she tellin’ to wait? The naked man’s statue? She’s staring direckly at it.
MOTHER: What a disgusting suggestion! I think you had better not talk to the child if you have such depraved ideas. If we had time, I’d engage another sitter . . .
JOSIE: You wan’ me to go, I’ll be happy to go. I wasn’t told that I was engaged to sit with a grown woman disguised as a little girl. I noticed at once she wasn’t readin’ no book but was starin’ at that naked man’s statue in the hall and her hand is — look at her fingers, she’s —

[Mrs. Aid chuckles while preening at the pier-glass.] MOTHER: You are going too far. Sit down and stop express­ing these disgusting and ignorant ideas. Classic statues are called nude, not naked. And it’s wearing a fig leaf.
JOSIE: If they’re naked I call ’em naked and I expect a special price for a special job like this one.

MRS. AID [turning from mirror impatiently]: Oh, will you stop haggling with that biddy, we’re going to be late at the Plaza and find ourselves without escorts.

MOTHER: I was waiting for you to stop admiring yourself in the mirror, dear. Are you satisfied with your appearance now?
MRS. AID: Quite!  [DK NOTE: FINALLY TURNING AROUND SO WE SEE HER FACE]

 

THE VAUDEVILLE ACT

(worked directly to the audience — see the Dueling Bankheads. Can they get in front of Nance? Does Nance crouch low?

MOTHER: Now, Aida, on this occasion.
MRS. AID: Which?
MOTHER: Our adventure tonight.
MRS. AID: Ah?
MOTHER: Don’t be so aggressive. Permit the young man to make the first advances.
MRS. AID [realistically]: What if he doesn’t?
MOTHER: He will if you don’t grab at him practically on sight.
MRS. AID: You plan a date like an old general does a military campaign.
MOTHER: Yes, wisely and well.
MRS. AID: My advice to you is don’t pay in advance.
MOTHER: I wouldn’t dream of it.
MRS. AID: You wouldn’t dream of it but you did it, I haven’t forgotten if you have.

[Monologue to the audience, a la Tom in Glass Menagerie]

It was at the Pavillon. (pah vee YAWN) We’d wined and dined them and you said, “Dear, would you mind paying the check?”, slipping a couple of hundred to him under the table. He smiled with delight, and said, “Why, yes, of course, but excuse me a mo­ment while I drop by the boys’ room.” Well, he dropped by it forever, not a sign of him since.

MOTHER: Aida, shall we?
MRS. AID: Shall we what? [disturbed at being interrupted with her reverie, and interrupted with the audience]
MOTHER: Dispense with reminiscence and get on the go?

[The cab honks.]

MRS. AID: If I were you, I’d remove some of those rings. [what does the Mother do? rings/gloves?]
MOTHER: This escort service assured me the young men had excellent character references.
MRS. AID: I hope that’s not all they’ve got.

NANCE [to the statue in the hall]: They’re leaving: then you can enter!
MOTHER: Nighty – night, Nance, darling, be a good little girl. Oh, my gloves and purse. [what does the Mother do? rings/gloves?]
MRS. AID: In opposite importance.
MOTHER: Au contraire! En avant!

[They go out. JOSIE stares suspiciously at Nance.]

THE DUELING BANKHEADS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmFxOKb_c SEHEADS

 

BEHAVIOR CONTRARY TO THE DESCRIPTIONS:

DK NOTE: “She’s still acting indecent with her hands in her lap and staring at that naked man’s statue and you come here” — the audience does not see this, there is a split between what is described and what is going on — as if we were seeing what Nance imagines, or Nance’s disassociation from what other people apprehend. “The window is behind you” is perhaps another.

The music to entice Nijinsky into the room plays on a music box:

DK NOTE: THE FORM OF THE MOTHER & AIDA IS NOT NECESSARILY THE SAME AS JOSIE or NANCE & VASLAV
Juan Gris: Pot of geraniums, 1915

INVERTED ROLES DANCE

[JOSIE exits through the hall. VASLAV returns to the sofa.] [DK NOTE: a la Spectre, he is on the couch passive, extended, she is the aggressor with the fluttering hands]

NANCE: She’s gone now, we’re alone. [She touches his face and throat lingeringly.]

VASLAV: I’m sorry I can’t respond. — What is your name? [DK NOTE: a la Spectre, he is on the couch passive, mouth not moving]

NANCE: My name is Nance.

VASLAV: Enchanté. —Why haven’t you gone to the party?

NANCE: I wasn’t invited to one.

VASLAV: You’re dressed as a little girl for a bal masque, for a masquerade party.

NANCE: No. This is how I dress when alone every night.

VASLAV: Hmmm. — If I were still human, I would be — sympathique . . . Please remove your hand. —I suspect that you will have no love in your life outside of your fantasies, because when people go mad, they’re usually, almost always, kept under close custody, and intimacies are forbidden.

NANCE: — There are diamonds of perspiration on your forehead and throat.

VASLAV: You do — imagine — well . . .

NANCE: I feel this blue vein pulsing in your throat and I feel —

[He catches her hand.] [DK NOTE: a la Spectre somnambulistic] 

VASLAV: No, no. No more, I’m sorry. I can’t go back that way, not even in your fantasy. It was too much: it burned me up, it interfered with my art and finally blasted my mind. I know how sad it is, to be deprived of gratification of strong natural longings, but there are other things, there’s a lifetime of dreaming before you in this elegant house, or at least till — you’re abandoned.

[She continues to caress him.]

VASLAV: No, no, I said no. —Well, of course if you have to. — I’ll — submit, I was — always passive permissive. — You do know where to touch to thrill the skin — if the skin of apparitions could be thrilled.

[She continues her touches.]

VASLAV: However — If you go on with this, I’ll dissolve. You’ll find your hands are empty, moving in air. —Of course I admit that’s probably not much different from the caresses of those that caressed me and whom I caressed when I lived but there is a difference and that difference is a great one. —You’ve defiled me! I’m not yet entirely free from the memories of my body and the disgust of being exploited as a body when I existed as a great dancer and wanted only that. I told them and wrote in my diary that I am spiritual food.

NANCE: I know your diary. I have read that, too.

VASLAV: Begun in St. Moritz, a place of retreat from war.

NANCE: You devoted yourself to music and choreography and then your words to the world.

VASLAV: I informed the world that I am spiritual food. People go to the church in order to pray and there they are made to drink wine and are told that it is the blood of Christ. The blood of Christ does not intoxicate — on the contrary, it makes people sober. Catholics do not drink wine, but make use of it in a symbolic way. They swallow white wafers, thinking that they swallow the blood and flesh of Our Lord. I am the spirit in the flesh and flesh in the spirit.

NANCE: Yes, remember the flesh, it cries to be remembered.

VASLAV: In becoming an apparition, I rise, I rise, above flesh!

NANCE: Please, not completely! Not above my — desire!

VASLAV: Don’t play Diaghelev with me. [He retreats.] [DK NOTE: He gets off the couch, they dance together. She is Diaghelev pursuing him] He dyes his hair in order to look young. Diaghelev’s hair is white. He buys black dyes and rubs them in. I have seen this dye on Diaghelev’s cushions. His pillowcase is blackened by it. I hate dirty linen and therefore was disgusted by this sight.

NANCE: Not with me, please not disgusted with me!

VASLAV: Then control your hands, control your ravenous lips!

NANCE: I know my age is disguised by inappropriate clothes. Please be tolerant of my hungry flesh, my — my ravenous lips, they’re human!

VASLAV: Accept me as I am.

NANCE: You are?

VASLAV: I am the Lord. I am Man. I am Christ.

NANCE: I know, I read, I remember, but for tonight — for me? Be man?

VASLAV: Woman disguised as child, false child, lonely woman.

NANCE: Loneliest woman, prisoner of child’s clothes!

VASLAV: I consent no longer to the service of lechery, at the height of my ascent into purity as an artist. You know my words by heart but you don’t understand me. No. You’re a lunatic in their eyes, so was I. Led about, watched over, treated like a pet monkey on a chain!

NANCE: But there was Romala. You had flesh for her, were man, not apparition!

VASLAV: In her I bred Kyra, direct descendant of Christ. A difference, no?

NANCE: Let me be Romala for you; breed for you a descendant of Christ!

VASLAV: Watch what your hands reach for! I don’t live there except in your madness and fever. Stop it! — I am Spirit! [He retreats from her hands.] Or I will leave you and not come back. You can stare your eyes out at my photographs in a book and I’ll not enter the room . . .

NANCE [extending her hand again]: Please, it can’t be wrong to —

VASLAV: Not just wrong but impossible. You must learn to accept.
IT — WILL — NEVER — BE — REAL! You can only — dream!

NANCE: How long can you stay if I — don’t touch.

VASLAV: Till you go up to bed or till the moon – vines close.

NANCE: But touches I just imagine, if they satisfy me, if they seem so real, why can’t I, why won’t you permit it?

VASLAV: I can’t bear to be reminded of — being used for — don’t make me repeat all that.

NANCE: But it’s agony for me.

VASLAV: When Diaghelev took Massine and out of spite I married on that long Pacific voyage this woman who used me for ambition, to advance herself from the chorus to first ballerina, that was agony, too.

NANCE: But yours is past. Mine’s now!  [DK NOTE: the dance and the music stop before the sound of the door opening]

[There is the sound of a door opening offstage.]

THE TOUCH ON SKIN

The Pronoun ‘I’
QUEEN [to the Young Revolutionary]: Since the boy never looks at my face why should I bother with this uncomfortable mask. —The charade, the bal masque is nearly over now . . . Now I offer you the secret of my young body . . . [She opens her padded robe.] If your preference is for boys, well, there’s Dominique, all but the genitalia exposed. A lovely – looking boy and his limitless narcissism — sadly amusing. — Victim, yes. We all are. — Victims . . . Our defects are not things chosen but things imposed. My defect — the eroticism that runs riot in my veins, an hereditary thing as common to my House as, say, the arrogance of the Hapsburgs and their pride . . . — collateral relatives. Name them, the Houses, I’ve got a bit of them all. But something entirely my own. [She leans forward.] I am very, very clever! — in that respect at least, allow me to say that I crown the lot of them. You’ll see! — Centuries from now this thing I have in my fingertips, this sensual stroking compulsion — would classify me as a —“skin – freak”? — So what? [She runs her fingertips over the body of her boy – beloved.] Music! Dance — celebration of the flesh! [She throws off her padded robe and whirls about the room in an ecstatically sensual dance.] — While obscene drawings of one I’m supposed to be are carried about the streets and effigies burned — of one gone long ago.

The Parade
DON: Sit back down. [She sits.] DON: — Closer — I’m cold. —That smooth skin of yours emanates — sun – warmth. — I’ve written a lot of verse this summer. I sent a batch of it off to my lady agent. She sent it back. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but we don’t handle verse.” [Pause.] Purity and passion are / Things that differ but in name / And as one metal will emerge / When molten in a single flame. MIRIAM: —I wish that your poetry was a little bit better, Don. DON [grinning]: So do I.

The Chalky White Substance: [Luke leans into his embrace.] Mark: It always amazes me, the smoothness of your skin under the robe, not granulated at all by the chalky white substance. Luke: I know you like the touch of smooth skin so I keep mine smooth for your pleasure.

The Traveling Companion
VIEUX: Look, Beau. I’m fully aware of the difference in our ages and attractions. [He lifts his hands.] All that I still desire is the finger touch, fingertips on the bare skin, light and caressing, that only: the Bangkok massage which I learned there.

Sunburst
GIUSEPPE: Preciouhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6w4rfAq0Bgs commodity, running out fast. Five A.M. and sunup’s when? LUIGI: For me when Peterson rolls over slowly and starts the Bangkok massage mitt with me.

MOMPOU

The Variations on a Theme of Chopin is a work for solo piano by Federico Mompou. It is based on the Prelude in A major, Op. 28, No. 7, by Frédéric Chopin.

We first hear the Chopin prelude on the music box:

Another spooky version:

Listen too, to the Tick tock of clock into music box (different Chopin, but the strangeness of it is worth stealing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6w4rfAq0Bg

and then some things from

The recording of Mompou himself playing the variations. above