[tu]chmyblog

betting on the dust commander

The first thing I notice when I read Betting on the Dust Commander by Susan-Lori Parks is the quote by Gertrude Stein. The quote says that repetition makes the repeated item more clear to both the speaker and the spoken to. The quote is in a place on the page that gives it more status than even the stage directions. As a result, I have a suspicion that the play will involve repetition in some way. Because I am familiar with other work by both the playwright and with Gertrude Stein, I am already clear that the play will deal with repetition. However, what I am not prepared for is that the play takes place without any actors on the stage and their voices are electronically feed to the audience through speakers. Interesting. And why? This is something I find out when I read the stage directions. Images are to be projected to the audience by a slide show. A double frame slide show. And this is all the information we get about the slide show. There are no images suggested by the playwright, just that there is a double frame slide show.

The next thing that I notice is that the first scene is marked by the letter A and is very short. The lettered scene markings suggest that each scene might be a test answer, test presented later upon exiting the theater. Also with the slides and the juvenile language, I am propelled into the world of younger school days and test-taking sensibility. The lettering also suggests the scenes as laboratory specimens. Many of Susan-Lori’s plays have this sensibility; the characters seem almost as though they are archeological ‘specimens’ that have been collected by the author and presented for our benefit and that of mankind. Perhaps these plays may someday have historical value if not already. History and it’s influence on the present is a theme that figures largely in many of her plays.

Part B, the second of three scenes, is much longer and something more is revealed about the characters and the invisible Dust Commander. The most profound difference is that the actors are now onstage and have a physical relationship to each other and the audience. At a point half way through reading this section, I decide that the play must be about having terrible hay fever. I am also looking for repetition. Where could it be? I feel like a detective solving a coded puzzle. Where did it go? The play is not so long so I will find it soon. Ah, there it is. But I don’t even get that the last scene is exactly the same as the first until after I start imagining what to write about the play. I am putting C next to A and matching them up carefully, line for line, feeling very smart because I have solved the puzzle. I also understand that even though the last scene is the exact same scene as the first, it effected me differently and that is why I did not recognize the repetition immediately. Which is exactly the point. After the B scene, the A scene seems different. According to the quote at the beginning of the play, I should now understand the A scene more fully.

Objects:

Single socks

A few lighters

Pens and pencils

Single Earrings

A few playing cards

A broken necklace

The Completion card from a tarot deck

Pages from a notebook with writing on them

This is Marqua, city of lost hopes, city of abandoned dreams and castaway lives, of passions never lived and desires unmet. This is not a sad place. It is a place of second chances. And third chances. It is where things live that have been lost or left behind. The lost sock, a missing child, the clasp to a broken but once loved and lovely necklace. Little birds. A movie plays in the theater made with footage from cutting room floors. A bookstore is filled with books made from chapters and stories unprinted. A water fountain-sculpture of single discarded words balances on quotes in the center of the apiary garden where the air smells of last autumn and is laced and scattered with hopes. An unclaimed echo returns from long away hills. In the garden, tended are hopes, and when ready, lifted to the sky by families of finches and hummingbird choirs from their earthly rootings, and given flight. Sometimes, two or three trips are made to the apiary ceiling before freedom falls. All in all is what is their lives, this travelling and tending. Such birds have flight for sooner reasons. Mostly, all things find completion here. Here is where endings are found for forgotten beginnings. All lost things, tossed away, forgotten, will be remembered. Books are finished, and [socks, lighters, pens, pencils find their mates and…]

(a leah mercer representing Brisbane joint)

text, images, actions

Text

"A blind man extends his hand

(in the dark? In the night?)

The days pass and I dream of catching,

stopping that which flies." -A. Giacometti, from a poem he wrote (I have no idea where I found this.)

p. 19 - "No. I would rather spend my life in hotels, cafes and public places… passing through…"

p. 68 - "I have always been sensitive to the fragility of living beings, as if it took an incredible amount of energy just for them to stay on their feet… I shall never succeed in showing in a portrait all of the force there is an a head. Just staying alive demands so much will power, so much energy."

p. 19 - "For me, a head was a totally unknown object; it had no dimensions."

p. 46 - "In 1940, to my utter horror, my statues began to shrink… Inexorably, all my statues wound up just a centimeter tall. One last touch and… oops! The statue disappeared. Only later did I understand this: I was instinctively reducing the size of my sculptures to reflect the real distance at which I had seen a person. A girl fifteen meters away was not eighty centimeters tall, but about ten. And, to grasp a whole and keep from drowning in details, I had to be far away. Details always bothered me… So I backed up further and further, until everything was on the verge of disappearing."

p. 62 - "I started seeing heads isolated in a surrounding void. The first time I clearly perceived a head I was looking at freeze and come to a complete standstill in time, I trembled in terror as I never had in my life, and a cold sweat ran up and down my spine… The head was no longer that of a living being, but an object I was looking at as I would have any other object… No, it was different: the head was not like just any other object. It was somehow both alive and dead at once. I let out a scream of terror as if I had just crossed a threshold and entered a world which nobody had ever seen before."

p. 12 - "For the first time, I could not get the modeling right. I kept going astray: everything would just disintegrate before my eyes; the model’s head was like a cloud, indefinite and limitless… It had become completely impossible for me to reproduce the general form of a head… Finally, all I could do was throw the bust into the garbage pail."

Text for someone else

"A head, everybody knows perfectly well what a head is."

Actions

62 - "measuring the distance between objects."

8 - "a quite impressive way of listening…"

46 - "…always walked with a slight limp after the accident."

62 - "…I let out a scream of terror…"

images

a man holding his head on.

a woman drowning.

a frozen lake with heads showing above the ice

an arial shot of people in a busy city square

a child looking through a spyglass

a closeup of a kiss

NARRATOR: [I realize that I have fallen down inside my body and I can see out, through where my hand lies. I am a travelling eyeball and I can see the light shining through my hand, all pinky and stretched out like bats wings. So pretty up to the light.]*** And I can see that it is a city here. A city of birds and winged creatures and ancient tomes filled with wisdom. And a girl runs into the street and it is me and I know her and I am so… I am so afraid and glad and silly and jumpy all at the same time. [But we go anyway, we get on the ice floe just before it cracks away and we are alone, floating in deep silvery water.]* My hand flew up to my throat and I was in the night again. The boys laugh behind me. [And I am suddenly aware, all at once of the fragility of living things. Just staying alive demands so much will power, so much energy.]** My eyes are wide as plates, my hands grip the sides of my legs, my sholderblades are pinched together, my hips cocked to one side and I’m counting to myself. Counting days, counting breaths, counting people I have known, the ones I love. Then there are shooting stars and mothers and movie scenes in train stations and rocks from Spain. And I say goodbye. I die a little death and hurts only a little. A little pitter patter in my heart and I can feel it, here, as it flies away from me, out of my chest. A little bird.

WOMAN: She puts her right hand over her heart, and closes her eyes.

WOMAN/NARRATOR: You see, this is the little death that I must die. That I will die again.

NARRATOR: And then I am standing on the sidewalk. In the goddamned drizzle. My hair is a mess. And I’m just me. And only a moment has passed, and everything is the same, my jacket, the sea, my sneaker. My crush on the barman. Some broken glass, a taxi. I turn around to face the voice I heard just a moment ago.

ANGEL: "Excuse me," I say. "Are you talking to me?"

WOMAN: Excuse me. Are you talking to me?

NARRATOR: They look so young.

ANGEL: They are so young.

WOMAN: They are BOYS.

NARRATOR: They thrust their chins toward me as they speak and make clicking noises with their tongues and whistle.

BOY 1: Yeah.

BOY 2: Yeah.

ANGEL: I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you. What did you say?

WOMAN: I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you. What did you say?

BOY 2: He wanted to know if you’d do that again.

BOY 1: Shut up.

NARRATOR: Do what again?

BOY 1: Shut up.

BOY 2: He said he wants you to bend over. Nice night.

NARRATOR: Come closer.

BOY 1: Me?

ANGEL: Both of you.

NARRATOR: I just want to look at you. Up close.

ANGEL: Come on, closer.

BOY 1 & 2: OK. What?

(The ANGEL reaches up and touches the boys on their cheeks and kisses both of them on the lips. They back away from her toward the pub. She draws a star on the ground with her foot..)

END.

BALLAD OF THE BLUE WORM A Love Play The Beginning An apartment building. An old city A new time in the present. Daytime, dark, steamy, dank. The sunlight lights like candles or small lamps. Water drips from something into something else and back again. Doink. Doink. Doink. Doink. Doink. Doink. Doink. Doink. A music box plays a tinkling, Tinkle. Tinkle. Tinkle. Tinkle. Tinkle. Tinkle. Tinkle. Stops. Then plays again. Then stops. More dripping. THE MECHANIC: Sits at a card table below. DIEGO: Sits across from THE MECHANIC. Above them the clock on the wall has all sevens. DIEGO: Stands on the table to read the clock. He is a dwarf. THE MECHANIC: Reads his manual, paces, reads, paces. DIEGO: Trying to repair his favorite music box that won't play a real song. He loves his music box. He is still a dwarf. THE SMOKING LADY: Sits in her apartment, smoking, staring into her large mirror. She wears white gloves and an evening gown. She smokes all of the time. She puts on makeup. THE HAIR LADY: Sits in an enormous chair in a tiny apartment. She is also tiny, but her hairdo is very, very big and shaped like the chair. She is very old and has a large choker of pearls on her narrow neck and blue, blue eyeshadow on her moist cloudy eyes. A fly buzzes by her hairdo. She is dressed in a style of days gone by. BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. THE LOVER: Cooks in her kitchen. She is expecting a visitor or a customer. She regrets never having said she's sorry. She doesn't have the right ingredients for her pie. THE HAIR LADY: SLAPS at the fly. SLAP EVERYBODY: Looks toward the slap. LOOK THE MONKEY LADY: Paces on the top floor. Her television buzzes and lights the room. She shakes her finger at it, then paces some more. She has a blonde wig, high heeled shoes and is naked from the waist up. She is old. Where are the monkeys? THE BLUE WORM: Far below, sews a new blue jacket. It is made of blue felt and has no arms and big, blue buttons all up the front. It is very long and will fit him snugly from the floor to above his head when he puts it on. He listens to a radio from the early 1950's. (“Don’t know why, there’s no sun up in the sky, stormy weather…) He hums, tunes the radio, hums, tunes the radio, sews his jacket. He is an actual worm and not a person so it is remarkable that he can sew. In the sky, there are two moons. One is large and one is small, both round, both cheese, both full. HAIR LADY: My hair is enormous. SMOKING LADY: Big moonlight. WORM: Sewing. Mmmmmmmmmmm. Mmmmmmmmmmm. HAIR LADY: My style is my style. DIEGO: Music box music. Music box music. LOVER: Big Moonlight. Big Moonlight. THE MECHANIC: Drip. Drip. HAIR LADY: So I said, "Winston, you know I don't like my lamb without mint jelly! Why would you serve it to me like that when you know full well that I have never had lamb without mint jelly? Who in their right mind would eat lamb without mint jelly! All civilized peoples have mint jelly with their lamb." Then we had a laugh and he went off to collect my jelly from the pantry. Ohhh. SMOKING LADY: Gazing into her mirror. There are so many things I wish I had done. There are so many things I wish I had done. SMOKING LADY: Smokes. SMOKING LADY: Smokes. MONKEY LADY: Small moonlight. MECHANIC: Drip. WORM: Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. WORM: Sews jacket. MECHANIC: Remarkable. HAIR LADY: So I said, so I said, he said, she said. MONKEY LADY: Running. Quentin? Petey? Where's mommie's cream crepe bed jacket? Petey? Quentin? DIEGO: The Music box tinkles. HAIR LADY: A fly buzzes by her hairdo. BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. MECHANIC: SLAMS his hand down on the table./ HAIR LADY: SLAPS at the fly SLAM/SLAP EVERYONE: Looks toward the SLAP DIEGO: The music stops abruptly. DIEGO: Squeezes his music box. MECHANIC: Drip. MECHANIC: Drip. HAIR LADY: I hadn't been out there for years and years but we often had laughs. So I said, "Winston, Lamb and mint jelly is comfort food, and a lady needs to be comforted in the fashion to which she is accustomed or it simply isn't comforting." He was wearing a grey tie that evening. MECHANIC: Tick, tock DIEGO. Tick tock. Tiiiiiimes a wastin. DIEGO: Tick, tock. HAIR LADY: One reason why the hair has to be teased at all is to give it lift and volume. Without that my hair would just lie flat on my head. WORM: Mmmm. Sews. MONKEY LADY: They always bring me flowers. He loves me, he loves me not. LOVER: Plucking petals from a dead daisy… MONKEY LADY: He loves me, he loves me not… SMOKING LADY: Lights another cigarette. Lights another cigarette. You made me love you. You did it. You. MONKEY LADY: Daisy's are my favorite. They keep for years and years. Oh, I love the theatre! The lights, the costumes! WORM: Mmm. Pricks himself. RAAAAAGH! MONKEY LADY: Petey? Quentin? HAIR LADY: A woman's hair is her crowning glory. THE LOVER: Love? What is love? MONKEY LADY: I found a bad magazine under the bedsheets! Dirty little monkeys. Mommy is going to put you to bed without any supper. But how can she make supper without her spangly shoes? What was I looking for? There. Bad, bad monkey I see you. DIEGO: Two single notes sound from the music box. TINKLE TINKLE THE MECHANIC: Stares at DIEGO. DIEGO: Tinkle tinkle. THE MECHANIC: Drip. Drip. Clang. WORM: Puts on jacket. Rolls on the floor. Blue! Blue! Blue! Blue! Blue! Blue! Blue! Blue! Blue! Blue! THE LOVER: If I had only made him stay home that day. There's NEVER enough sugar. How can there be a pie? SMOKING LADY: There are so many things I wish I had said. MONKEY LADY: I never would have had children if I had known about the sacrifices. My life on a silver platter. Layed out for the world to see. Consumed like cheese, like water, like… my daisies are out of water. Hey boys, would you like to come upstairs? THE LOVER: Never sugar never sugar never sugar. SMOKING LADY: There are so many things I wish I had said. MONKEY LADY: I am a real chanteuse! WORM: Blue! Blue! Mmmmmm. HAIR LADY: I have seen women looking like that in public - and, well, and it is a shameful thing. Sometimes I have a mind to tell them. I want to say "lift your hair and lift your spirits!" But I don't. A woman's hair is her crowning glory. Well said. DIEGO: Music box tinkles three notes. MECHANIC: Always at the wrong moment. Clang. Begoing. Begang gang. Drip drip. DIEGO: It was a fatal error. A mishap with the microtweezers. MONKEY LADY: Mommy found her cream crepe bedjacket so she can lie forever in bed and look like a queen! THE LOVER: Was there anyone down there in the rubble? Did they have any sugar? I could never ask that in public. SMOKING LADY: Big moonshine. HAIR LADY: Small moonshine. WORM: Puts on his long blue coat. MONKEY LADY: Satin crepe is soft and smooth on mommy's happy skin. SMOKING LADY: Lights a cigarette. There are so many things I whish I had done. SMOKING LADY: Big moonshine. HAIR LADY: So I said, "Winston, you are making that up!" He had a habit of pulling my leg. WORM: Mmmm. Admires his blue felt suit with his movement. SMOKING LADY: Smokes. Smokes. Smokes. MECHANIC: Drip. Drip. Drip. LOVER: They said there was a Jew hiding in the rubble. That’s why they took him away. That’s why they took him away. DIEGO: Tinkle tinkle. Ping ping. LOVER: Turns on the sink faucet. MECHANIC: Drip drip. LOVER: Mostly I like them young. I can admit that. I can admit I can feel something for the young ones. A sugarless pie is all I can make do with now. Hello? Hello? Did someone knock? It's alright I'll be here later. Waiting for the bread to rise. HAIR LADY: Once upon a time I became angry. "Stop the car," I said, "Stop the car. We are going much much too fast and I don't like it." And you better believe he stopped that car. LOVER: We left the meeting together but by the time I arrived home I was alone. HAIR LADY: Winston? Yes of course that’s who I mean. He was, in fact, my driver. SMOKING LADY: Lonliness is next to is next to is next to… smokes. HAIR LADY: I had a perfect life. My children slept in my hair right where I could keep an eye on them. WORM: Mmm. Bluuuuuuuuuuuue. Bluuuuuuuuuuuue. Moves toward the stairs. HAIR LADY: SLAPS at the fly. SLAP EVERYBODY: Looks toward the slap. DIEGO: Tinkle. Tinkle. Oh, box, play. My little box. MONKEY LADY: Come babies! Time for telly! Time for the flower show. Roses are red. LOVER: I should have known that I would never see him again. Just sent him away. They said someone saw him, though. At the jail. The supplies delivery. Too risky. Oh, what is love when a lover is alone? Turn on the gas. I have beads I bought in Switzerland in the early days. Between the boards. Before the rations. WORM: Has reached SMOKING LADY'S apartment. SMOKING LADY: Moves toward the window and looks out. WORM: Moves very close behind her. SMOKING LADY: Smokes. Looks out the window. WORM: Mmmmm. SMOKING LADY: There are so many things I wish I had said. LOVER: I didn't want to do it. HAIR LADY: I’m the luckiest woman alive. MONKEY LADY: Come on up and see me sometime. EVERYONE: Big moonshine. Small moonshine. Big moonshine.

smoking lady

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