The Traveling Companion & Other Plays Page 9

  MRS. AID: Well, your olfactory sense has failed you, dear.

  MOTHER: So impetuous that I had to restrain him as best I could. Eyes devouring, hands so busy about me, I lost my breath.

  MRS. AID: Be that as it may, real or imaginary, a fantasy of your libido, I think it might have been well to have booked a suite at the Plaza. “Wow, wow, have a popper!” —more appropriate there.

  NANCE [in a whisper]: Are you still near?

  VASLAV: Pour le moment. Pas maintenant .

  NANCE: I will die if you go! You know what loneliness is!

  MOTHER: Aida, I sometimes wonder what’s going on in their heads.

  MRS. AID: Perhaps it’s better not to.

  MOTHER: Probably for the first time in their lives they’re encountering ladies of taste and distinction.

  MRS. AID [dizzily]: I quite agree that may be. Did you say taste and—?

  MOTHER [dizzily]: Distinction, ladies of taste and distinction.

  MRS. AID: Oh, yes, that, the widow of the late Stuyvesant Aid and the widow of the late, heavens, how depressing, widows of the late, we mustn’t think of the late. It is getting late. Where is my—Goddamn it, my adorable little—!

  MOTHER: What?

  MRS. AID: Pendant Cartier watch, platinum, diamond and amethyst studded, gone. And you declared to me they had honest credentials?

  MOTHER: Don’t jump at conclusions, a pendant watch could easily be torn loose by accident in—

  MRS. AID: Removed! By intention!

  MOTHER: During all that wild activity in the forsythia bushes?

  MRS. AID: Activity in the forsythia—no! “Wow, wow, have a popper!” —Broke it under my nostrils and detached the, oh, they’re quick at detachments, ladies of distinction doesn’t obliterate their monastery concerns.

  MOTHER: Monas—?

  MRS. AID: MONETARY! —detachments, calculations, concerns with! —Oh, well, less time than money.

  MOTHER: Them?

  MRS. AID: No, dear. Us.

  MOTHER: —Aida?

  MRS. AID: Did I tell you he said “Wow, wow, wow!”?

  MOTHER: Yes, and “Dynamite, have a popper.”

  MRS. AID: But the “Wow, wow, wow,” it reminded me of the old times in Havana where our party wound up one night at a private sex show.

  MOTHER: Aida, please, the child.

  MRS. AID: Finale of the performance! All the actors and actresses, so to speak, got down on all fours, hands and knees, and started barking “Wow, wow,” to imitate dogs, you know, while indiscriminately mounting each other.

  MOTHER: Aida, I said the child.

  MRS. AID: Exactly, barking “Wow, wow,” and one little performer in the show looked up and said very sweetly, “Dogs”—to explain the commotion, the action.

  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 “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: 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: No, no, I think I’d prefer a mellow, reflective libation such as medium dry sherry.

  MOTHER: You’ll find a bottle of Pedro Domecq 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, I 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.]

  [The light returns to Vaslav.]

  VASLAV: What strange women, quite shameless.

  NANCE: Why don’t they take me with them and their young men?

  VASLAV: Be satisfied with your fantasies.

  NANCE: They’re not always as lovely as you are. [She continues caressing him.]

  VASLAV: I wish you would sublimate these desires. What you caress is totally unresponsive, it’s all your fancy, rien de plus.

  NANCE: Oh, but it’s so—real to me! [She drops to her knees before him.]

  VASLAV: Stop it, I said stop, or I’ll leave at once as I warned you before!

  NANCE: No, no please!

  MOTHER [from offstage]: Nance, was that you screaming?

  NANCE: —No, Mummy—practicing—classic drama.

  VASLAV: If you continue, I’ll disappear again, and this time completely and not appear ever again.

  NANCE: Oh, I’ll—kill myself if you leave before morning.

  VASLAV: Then don’t go on with imaginary love-making.

  NANCE: To me it’s real.

  VASLAV: To me it’s a degrading memento of what I can’t accept now. [He springs up from the sofa.] God loves the artist.

  NANCE: I know, but—

  VASLAV: God loves and protects
the artist, even your fantasies of one. Bonsoir, je pars!

  [He rushes into the dark hall. Nance screams despairingly. Her Mother and Mrs. Aid rush into the hall.]

  NANCE: WHEN WILL YOU COME BACK? WHEN? WHEN? [She collides with the antique sculpture in the dim hall.]

  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.

  MOTHER: Gracious—yes!

  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.

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

  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 : VALS LENTE

  1Pronounced: chórts - n’yem. (ed.)

  THE PRONOUN ‘I’

  (A SHORT WORK FOR THE LYRIC THEATRE)

  The Pronoun ‘I’ (a short work for the lyric theatre) was first performed at the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival on September 29, 2007. It was directed by Julie Atlas Muz; the set and costumes were designed by Jerry Stacy and Jon Pacheco; the lights were designed by Megan Tracey. The cast, in order of appearance, was as follows:

  MAD QUEEN MAY: Julie Atlas Muz

  DOMINQUE, her young lover and a poet: James Tigger! Ferguson

  A YOUNG REVOLUTIONARY: Zachary Klause

  A COURTIER: Daniel Nardicio

  A NUMBER OF BEDRAGGLED MOBSTERS INTENT UPON THE QUEEN’S DESTRUCTION: a dozen members of the audience

  LEADER OF THE MOB: Adam Berry

  Time: some centuries past. Scene: minimal representation of a throne room, and a section of the Queen’s bedchamber, upstage right, concealed at rise by a purple velvet curtain bearing the crest of her House.

  Mad Queen May should be performed by a young actress, lovely of face and figure. Since she is required on all public occasions and most private ones to play a part old enough to be her grandmother, age must be simulated by an artfully designed mask over which is usually drawn a veil suspended from the tip of her medieval, cone-shaped hat, which is gleaming and glittering with pearls and jewels.

  At rise she lolls in her throne chair, toying with the curls of a petulantly pretty youth named Dominique, sprawled indolently on cushions at her feet. He is her latest lover and an enormously vain poet who cannot begin a poem without the pronoun ‘I’. Only his genitalia are clothed. Offstage there are sounds of a riot, reduced to a murmur by closed gates and curtained casements.

  QUEEN: I am May of England, now known as Mad Queen May. —I wonder why?

  DOMINIQUE: And I?

  QUEEN: I doubt that you’re more than partly why.

  DOMINIQUE: I?

  QUEEN: My ministers were supposed to report to me on the latest insurrection. The report was to be delivered hours ago. There’s still not a peep out of them and I can hear the rabble louder than ever, as if it were—

  [A ragged young revolutionary steals into the room and conceals himself behind a tapestry beside the door, downstage right. The Queen is not unaware of his entrance, but seems unperturbed.]

  DOMINIQUE: I?

  QUEEN: Yes, it’s always “I”.

  DOMINIQUE: You call yourself “we”, which is the pl
ural of “I”.

  QUEEN: On public occasions only—privately I am “I.” Once I was known—could you believe it, my dear? —as Fair Queen May.

  DOMINIQUE: That I don’t remember.

  QUEEN: I’d hardly expect you to remember what I was called before you were born or conceived, but I was once known as Fair Queen May. Later, as Good Queen May. And now? As Mad Queen May.

  DOMINIQUE: So you were once favorably regarded by your subjects?

  QUEEN: Favorably, once, and tolerantly for quite a while. [She moves downstage to address the audience.] My ministers say that my failure, my refusal, to make important alliances with various foreign princes to whom I was neither sexually nor spiritually attracted has made it necessary for them and their successors to impose upon my subjects a series of deceits, passed off as miracles, which have replaced Fair Queen May and Good Queen May with this reproduction of Mad Queen May. —I trust none of you enough to disclose the unscrupulous methods by which this deception was practiced upon my subjects and the successors of my subjects. Well. Of course the kingdom, they tell me it’s now an empire, has been visited by such distractions as the black plague, the pox, reverberations of the inquisition in Spain, attacking armadas from hither and yon, Irish wars, altered conceptions of the shape and movement of the planet: then more wars, always and always more wars that we’ve survived by grace of a surrounding sea—

  [She has, during this, revealed her fair young face, and there has been the music of a court dance. Dominique lolls in slumber beneath the throne. She dances a bit to the music.]

  QUEEN: —Now there seems to be a very, very serious insurrection among my subjects against whom they believe to be still Mad Queen May who is also Despised Queen May. I didn’t despise my subjects, not in any of my earlier impostures and certainly not in the present. I was simply immured from them, I was permitted no contact after Fair Queen May the First could not be passed off any longer as young and fair.

  DOMINIQUE [rousing slightly from slumber]: Did you say “fair”?

  QUEEN: Did I? Why, Yes, I did—remembering times long past . . . [She lowers her veil over her face and replaces the mask.]