Howard Barker: Plays Nine. Howard Barker
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I smelled you with my first breath / I smelled you / and you were not then / nor are you now / a rose / though roses were near / oh yes / roses were near / they overhung the window / my dear father / supplemented even those / bouquet upon bouquet / by my mother’s bedside / on tables / thrust in buckets / but I chose / ha /
(He bites his lip in self-adoration.)
To inhale the midwife / a perspiring hag who / I daresay / had been put to considerable exertion persuading me to quit the womb /
(He smiles.)
She hoisted me / she dangled me / she slapped my arse / and I / precisely where her armpit was exposed /
(He exults.)
CHOKED ON THE ODOUR OF THE WORLD /
(He tilts up the face of THRASH with one hand.)
Kiss me / kiss me /
(She concedes. WARDROBE pulls away violently from her at the conclusion of the kiss, teetering and nauseous.)
I decline to discriminate / I declare / I /
(He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.)
I assert / I yell my repudiation of /
(He spits.)
This / this / illogical and entirely artificial distinction between /
(And spits again.)
the so-called ugly / and the so-called beautiful /
(He presses his fingers to his lips.)
What is this / after all? / a discipline / an arbitrary discipline / to which no man need subscribe /
(He regards THRASH with a determined objectivity.)
Is it not an act of moral and aesthetic independence / on our part / to declare this / this /
(He experiences a wave of nausea, but controls it.)
Conventionally / odorous / and /
(His head swims.)
Conventionally /
(He suffers. He turns swiftly to the frowning yet fascinated BIBLE.)
ARE WE NOT PRIVILEGED / YES / PRIVILEGED / BY VIRTUE OF OUR APPALLING SOLITUDE / TO /
(He drags his gaze back to the unmoving old woman.)
Re / re /
(He bites his lip.)
Re-everything? /
(He disciplines the chaos of his thoughts.)
I say this woman is adorable / I both say it / and intend it / I cannot / can I? / only say it /
(He looks at BIBLE.)
The intention is all /
(He returns his gaze to THRASH. Slowly he proceeds to unbutton his waistcoat, dropping it to the floor. He then works at his shirt, methodically. BIBLE’s fascination draws him up out of his sheets, a pale spectator.)
2
WARDROBE’s concentration is shattered by the intrusion of a dishevelled SOLDIER. WARDROBE turns on him seething with temper and bewilderment.
WARDROBE: DID YOU FRIG MY MOTHER? / DID YOU? / DID YOU? / DID YOU FRIG MY MOTHER? / YOUR FINGERS SHONE / YOUR SHINING FINGERS / HE SAYS YOU FRIGGED MY MOTHER /
(He explodes in hysterical laughter, bending from the waist in his exertion. The SOLDIER recoils.)
It’s all right / it’s all so very / very / normal and all right /
(He recovers.)
Usual / normal / and all right /
(The SOLDIER stares, embarrassed but unable to withdraw from WARDROBE’s gaze.)
I shan’t last /
(The SOLDIER looks concerned.)
Out here / shan’t last /
(The SOLDIER shrugs. He tightens his mouth in his anxiety. WARDROBE sobs, and smothers the sobbing.)
Find the violin /
(Restored, WARDROBE plucks up his waistcoat. The SOLDIER pokes around the littered room.)
Over there somewhere /
(He buttons the garment.)
The violin /
(The SOLDIER retrieves the wrecked instrument. He extends it tentatively towards WARDROBE.)
That’s it /
(The SOLDIER frowns.)
That is the violin / or if it is not / strictly speaking / any longer a violin / it possesses all those elements that formerly constituted a violin /
(The SOLDIER shakes his head, bewildered. WARDROBE is incensed.)
YOU HAVE COME HERE FOR YOUR MUSIC LESSON / HAVE YOU NOT? / I ASSURE YOU THE THING YOU HAVE IN YOUR HAND / NOTWITHSTANDING YOUR CONTEMPT FOR ITS CONDITION / REMAINS AN INSTRUMENT / ALL INSTRUMENTS MAKE MUSIC / FIND THE BOW AND PLAY IT / THEREFORE /
(BIBLE extends a hand to WARDROBE. The gesture is ignored as WARDROBE, oddly calm, apostrophizes the unhappy SOLDIER.)
When your service is completed / when / after much discomfort / and some danger / possibly / you have served your term / and are restored to your mother / or your father / or / having neither mother nor father / to the cold and empty room sufficiently familiar to you to be recognized as home / when this day / this longed-for / ached-for / day arrives / remember / if you can / it will be your utter insignificance that has guaranteed this contract imposed upon you by the government has been honoured / and when / wedged in the troop train / through tears of joy you see this loathed landscape slipping by / spare a thought for me / who is not / and never could be / insignificant / and as a consequence / will never see his home again / but who will be starved / beaten / and driven into suicide / because I am a rebuke to the poverty of men / in thought / and dream / and therefore hateful to them / play now / play anything / but play /
(Obedient to WARDROBE’s instruction, the SOLDIER lifts the remnants of the violin to his chin, and with the bow, creates wretched sound. BIBLE smothers his head in the photographs. Boots begin to fly. WARDROBE, seemingly entranced, paces up and down beating time. The SOLDIER persists, but in pain. At last he abandons his efforts, letting the bow droop in his hand.)
PLAY / PLAY /
(WARDROBE’s vehemence compels the SOLDIER to resume, and he thrashes the instrument with a reckless vigour. WARDROBE is exultant. The shower of boots intensifies, some striking the unflinching and still crouching OLD WOMAN. At last, in an apotheosis of despair, the SOLDIER flings the instrument to the floor. The boots cease. The SOLDIER stares at the floor.)
Excellent /
(WARDROBE regards the SOLDIER, provocative, mischievous.)
Deeply / deeply / excellent /
(The SOLDIER does not lift his eyes.)
We lend too much / vastly too much / authority to the instrument / its form / its tuning / etcetera / it is a servitude / our spontaneity is constricted by our unquestioning obedience to this inflexible regime / the tangled strings and splintered wood now lying at your feet / if it no longer constitutes one instrument / constitutes another / is it not the will to music that we should revere / and not the discipline of its machinery? /
(The wind blows. The SOLDIER senses he is mocked. His mouth works in his frustration.)
SOLDIER: I’m ignorant /
(He squirms.)
I’m ignorant / as you said / and /
WARDROBE: Did I say? / did I say ignorant? /
SOLDIER: Insignificant /
WARDROBE: That I did say / insignificant / yes /