(no subject)
It's so long, I have to update the play in pieces, so read my last LJ cut first, and then this one for the end of the play.
H: And if I'm inarticulate about this, you must understand that this is a difficult thing for a man to tell his wife. I'm only doing it- I'm only telling you- because it seems to be the only way to solve this problem.
W: (Smoothing her skirt over her stomach) Yes. This problem.
H: Now try not to interrupt, darling, unless you have to. Unless you're unclear about anything. Save your remarks and comments for the end. All right?
W: I'll try.
H: All right. (He takes a deep breath) Now. To begin with, I've been lying to you this evening.
W: Lying?
H: Ssshhh. Lying. I don't have a class tonight. I've never had a class at night. I don't believe in evening classes. All these years I've been lying. The class that I've told you meets at night actually meets on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at ten A.M.
W: I see.
H: You may well ask, therefore, where I go on these nights when I say I have classes. (Pause) And that is what is so difficult to tell you. (Pause) The fact is, I don't leave this house. Not really. Oh, I leave by the front door, all right. But I immediately circle around in back and go down into the cellar by means of the bulkhead.
W: I see.
H: Now. What do I do in the cellar? You are probably asking yourself that. What do I do in the cellar?...Don't look at me, darling! (Pause; then grimly.) Here's what I do in the cellar. I make my way to a small space behind the furnace. And in that small space, I have hidden...certain things. (Pause) What have I hidden? I'll tell you. (He counts them off on his fingers.)Some black theatrical makeup. A woolly wig. A complete change of clothes. And a small mirror. That's what I have hidden in the cellar.
W: I see....
H: Yes. You see, my darling, or you're beginning to. When I go into the cellar, I set the mirror up on an adjacent water pipe. I strip myself to the buff. I daub myself from head to toe with that dusky makeup. I glue on that curly wig. I don those makeshift clothes. I leave the cellar. Go to the front door. Ring the bell. And reappear to you. So you see, my poor darling, I am your Negro visitor, and have been all along.
W: You.
H: Me.
W: But-
H: Oh, I know it sounds implausible. But remember how you always lower the lights. Remember too, that I played Othello in high school. Somehow I was able to pass. I have deceived you for these past years. Deceived my own wife! Disguising myself as a Negro and capitalizing on the sympathies you naturally feel for that unhappy race!
W: But...why?
H: Because I wanted to make love to you. And somehow this seemed to be the only way I could do it. You'll have to admit it worked.
W: (Looking at her stomach.)Oh yes. It worked.
H: So out of all this depravity, at least a child will be born. And I was its father, after all.
W: I'm somewhat...stunned...by all this.
H: I know you are, darling. (Gets up) Try to assimilate it while I'm gone.
W: Gone?
H: I'm going down to the cellar now.
W: To put on your costume?
H: No. To burn it.
W: Burn it?
H: Yes. It's all over now. Because you know. The mask is off. Any attempt to wear it again would be foolish. I'd be nothing but a self-conscious amateur. Our love life would be as absurd as it was before I found this way around it. So I'm going to destroy my role. (Pause. He looks at her.) And when I come back, I want you gone.
W: Gone?
H: You must leave me now.
W: No.
H: You must. Oh, my darling, this urge to love you is still in me. I don't know what...oblique form...it will take next. Take the child and go.
W: Never.
H: Please. Listen: I don't know what I'll think of next, in the cellar. I've got Genet down there. And a complete de Sade. I'll reread them both, looking for increasingly complicated arabesques of sexual perversion. I may reappear with a whip. Wearing riding boots. Or dressed as a woman. Get out, darling. Run to the suburbs. Give my child a normal home. Go!
W: Normal? Normal? (She laughs uneasily) What is normal?
H: You're normal, my love.
W: Me? Oh, my God, how little do you know! (Grimly.) Sit down. I have a tale to tell-o...
H: Nothing you could say...
W: Sit down.
H: Nothing...
W: I've known all along you were my dark lover!
H: (Sits down.) You've known?
W: From the beginning.
H: But...how?
W: Five years ago, when you announced to me that you had scheduled some evening classes, I became suspicious. And so when you left for the first class, I...followed you.
H: Followed me?
W: Yes. I followed my own husband. Followed you to that tacky little theater-supply shop downtown where you bought your disguise. Followed you back here. Followed you into the cellar, hid behind the hot-water heater, watched you change into your poor, pathetic imitation of a Negro.
H: You spied on me...
W: Yes, I spied on you, my darling. Furtively, suspiciously, like some aging matron. But when I saw what you were doing, when I understood that you were doing it for me, my heart went out to you. With a great rush of longing, I dashed back upstairs, eager to receive you, but at the same time terrified that you would see that I recognized you. Frantically, I dimmed the lights, to make things easier for both of us.
H: I thought it was because you were romantic.
W: I know you did, darling. And I let you think that. But no: it was simply so I wouldn't give myself away.
H: You were acting? The whole time?
W: Yes. Wasn't I good? Pretending that you were someone new and strange? I, I, who am no actress, improvising like a professional during that whole scene!
H: (Shaking his head) It's hard to believe...You seemed so...excited!
W: I was! I was terribly excited. I'll admit it. That strange, sly courtship, the banter, the give-and-take, with all those peculiar racial overtones. I threw myself into it with a vengeance. But then...when you carried me into the bedroom...everything changed.
H: What do you mean? I was a tiger!
W: You were, darling. You were a tiger. But I wasn't.
H: You said you loved me.
W: I was only pretending. I really hated you.
H: Hated me?
W: Hated myself. It was awful. I felt so guilty. All my old sexual agonies were magnified, as it were, by a gallery of mirrors. I wanted at least to whimper, as I did normally, with you, when you were white, but now you were black, I had to stifle my own sighs. Worse: I had to pretend, to play, to fakethe most authentic experience a woman can have! And all the time, I felt like a thing, an object, a creature without a soul, a poor, pathetic concubine in the arms of an Ethipian potentate. And when you left - finally left - I just lay on the bed, arms folded across my breast, like a stone carving on my own tomb. It took every ounce of energy I could muster to rise and greet you at the door when you returned from your supposed class. (Pause)
H: So. For the past five years you have been through hell.
W: No. After that first ghastly evening, I suffered nothing.
H: You mean, you grew accustomed...
W: I mean, I wasn't there.
H: You weren't there?
W: No. I left the house right after you went into the cellar.
H: But then who...was here...with me?
W: I got a substitute.
H: I see.
W: Oh, darling, try to understand. I simply could not endure another evening like that. The sham, the pretense- it revolted me. And yet I knew how much it meant to you! All the next day, I racked my brain, trying to figure out something which would satisfy us both. I took a long walk. I wandered all over town. Finally, about an hour before I was due home, I saw a woman. Who looked a little like me. Same hair, same height...roughly the same age. It was at least a chance. Before I really knew what I was doing, I approached her and asked her whether she'd like to sleep with a Negro. Naturally, she said she would. And so now, for the past five years, this good woman has come here while you were in the cellar changing your clothes, and in the dim light, she has pretended to be me.
H: I see.
W: Do you hate me very much?
H: No. I don't hate you. But I must say I'm somewhat...surprised.
W: I suspected you would be.
H: But what about that? (Points to her stomach)
W: (Clutching her stomach) Ah, this...