Artaud Meets Berto in a Paris Cafe
Rico Viejo
Artaud Meets Berto in a Paris Cafe
by
Rico Viejo
~~~~~
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Artaud Meets Berto in a Paris Cafe
Copyright © 2010 by Rico Viejo
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Artaud Meets Berto in a Paris Cafe
The scene is a louche cafe in Paris. The cigarette-smoke-grime-encrusted back wall has the entrance door at the left; the rest of the wall has windows, opaque with dust and condensed perspiration. There are rickety tables, each with two chairs, in front of the windows. There is a battered bar on the wall at the left, a banquette with several small tables on the right. At center stage is a table for two.
The year is 1948 or 1949. It is a cold, windy, rainy fall day. The type of weather a novelist doesn’t start a novel with. People in the restaurant wear wet raincoats and hats. There are many umbrellas to trip over.
When the curtain opens, or rises, we see an incredibly beautiful young woman, JULIET, sitting alone at the center-stage table. She inspects her face carefully in the mirror of her compact. She has a lipstick in one hand—ready to strike, a cigarette and the compact in the other. There is a an ashtray, a half-empty pack of cigarettes, and a half-empty glass of red wine in front of her. Her cheap raincoat is draped over the back of the chair opposite her.
There are a few seedy people at stools by the bar, perhaps a prostitute or two, a thuggish bartender behind the bar, and an ugly-looking waiter in black trousers with a dirty white towel, as apron, leaning against the bar. There are adulterous couples at a few of the tables by the windows. Quiet conversations to establish future rendezvous and future deceptions. There is some coughing. Some sneezing at the cigarette smoke. The clink of glasses. The clank of cutlery by those so uncaring of their health as to eat there.
ARTAUD sweeps into the cafe. He is wearing a rain-drenched hat and a long, heavy overcoat, thrown over his shoulders like a cape. He has a sodden, smoking cigarette in one hand. He heads majestically toward the banquette, graciously nodding at people who raise their hands in greeting or obeisance. He notices Juliet to his right. He knows her from somewhere. He remembers. On the screen. They have something in common. He goes over to her table and stands there. He looks down at her, breathing hard, hoping she will look up at him, see him, and want him for a lover.
Juliet continues her study of her face in the mirror, ignoring Artaud and her cigarette, which is about to burn her fingers. We can see her long, lovely, silk-encased legs, one crossed over the other, under the table. She stretches her lovely neck, reaches around and scratches the back of it, and continues to ignore Artaud.
ARTAUD [angrily]: You do not bother me!
Juliet continues to ignore him. She sees a flaw in her makeup and proceeds to fix it.
Artaud storms away from Juliet’s table and to the banquette. He sits in the middle part of it, with his hat and coat on, and sucks at his damped-out cigarette angrily. The surly waiter appears with a glass and bottle of wine, puts the glass on the table, fills it with wine, then sets the bottle next to the wine, and goes back to the bar. Artaud ignores waiter and wine, and fumes—unlike his cigarette.
Another beautiful un-louche WOMAN enters the cafe. She approaches Artaud, leans down and kisses him on the cheek, then sits next to him and looks at him, adoringly.
Artaud does not look at the woman, but in the direction of Juliet.
A note to the director: if the tables have glass tops, pages of the script can be inserted under the glass, so the actors can thoughtfully read what they are to say, before they say it. That will save a lot of rehearsal time.
ARTAUD [angrily]: She does not bother me! She spurns me.
WOMAN [disdainfully]: Her? She spurns you? That’s just Juliet Berto, famous New Wave actress. Do you want her to bother you, Antonin? I could arrange it. I would do anything for you.
ARTAUD [bitterly]: She is stupid.
WOMAN [thoughtfully]: Probably. She’s beautiful. Like me. And you think all beautiful women are stupid.
ARTAUD [with great assertiveness]: All women! They have no sensitivity.
WOMAN [curious]: To you?
ARTAUD [pleased that he has made her understand]: Exactly. Let me read you my new poem.
WOMAN [thirstily]: Why not read it to her? I’m thirsty.
The woman reaches for the glass of wine, but Artaud snatches it away from her, spilling much of it on his coat.
ARTAUD [looking down at himself]: And all at once this trickle of wine on a volcano, the thin, slow falling of the mind.
WOMAN [excited to learn something more of the man she’s abandoned a wealthy husband and two lovers to be with, to cherish, forever—that very day]: So that’s why you never take your overcoat off? To keep wine off your trousers?
ARTAUD [proudly]: I have no trousers. My creativity prevents them.
WOMAN [even more excited]: Let me look. [she opens Artaud’s coat and looks inside, then closes it, and grabs the glass of wine and tosses the rest of the wine down] And ragged socks? And a chewed up garter? You’re such a darling!
ARTAUD [tired of her chatter]: Silence! Your talk is like the chatter of a beggar’s teeth.
Artaud gets up from the table and walks over to Juliet’s table. He is in profile to the audience. He pulls his coat open and exhibits himself to Juliet (but not to the disappointed audience). The actor is holding the script just inside his coat while he stands. Or there could be a large-print version under the glass on the table to cover the standing part.
JULIET [looking at it, speaking slowly]: Let me guess. Journalist? No. Commissar? Maybe. Poet? Probably.
ARTAUD [nose in the air]: I am Artaud. The poet. The artist, the actor, the writer, the philosopher, the drug-addict, the misunderstood genius.
JULIET [calmly]: And exhibitionist?
ARTAUD [with great humility]: Yes. I must.
JULIET [a snide smile on her face]: You must?
ARTAUD [poetically]: The screams of wonder, shock, and outrage. The running. The beating of umbrellas on my head and shoulders, the pugs and poodles ripping my socks, the whistles of the gendarmes. It is like escaping from hell. I escape. Then I create.
JULIET [wearing a thoughtful frown]: Yes, I can see how that would work. Librarians chase me. But aren’t you founding a culture on the fatigue of your bones?
ARTAUD: Perhaps. [looking down at himself] It is impressive. No?
JULIET [checks it again, then looks up at the ceiling and thinks. While she is thinking, he takes a cigarette from her pack and lights it. Leaning forward to steal the cigarette, he almost reveals himself, or his copy of the script, to the audience. Having made her judgement, Juliet looks back at Artaud]: Cute. But not as pretty as Godard’s.
ARTAUD [with great skepticism and in a low voice, while looking at his own]: How could his be pretty?
JULIET [with a dreamy look on her face]: He has beautiful tattoos all over it. Flowers. Mermaids.
JULIET [with a calculating expression]: Not sure. If you want to see big, you should see Dreyer’s. No tattoos, though.
ARTAUD [prudently]: Never heard of Dreyer. The pig!
JULIET [giving him a warm smile]: Sit down. If you’re so talented, maybe you can help me with a problem.
Artaud sits. His coat remains open. He wants to impress her with both mind and body.
Another note to the director: The remainder of this play is very tender and intimate. It can be useful to have the actors enter into an affair with each other during the rehearsals. If they should already be having an affair, hope that it is on the upside. If they should be married, hope that it has only been for a short time.
JULIET [concerned, slightly motherly]: Don’t you think you should cover it up?
ARTAUD [nonplussed]:
