Artaud Meets Berto in a Paris Cafe Read online

Why?

  JULIET [whispers]: Other people will see it.

  ARTAUD [ostentatiously, loudly]: Every man in this cafe admires it. And every woman wants to enjoy it again. [he smirks at her]

  JULIET [still whispering]: I don’t.

  ARTAUD [still ostentatious]: You can’t.

  JULIET [hissing at him]: You’d refuse me?

  ARTAUD [holds out his hands to his sides, palms up. His coat falls dangerously open. He smiles, knowingly]: Enjoy it again. We actors must be careful of our meanings. [pauses] You need to talk to me? What can I help you with? What can I tell you?

  JULIET [ducking her head and looking at him under the table]: Isn’t it cold? It’s drafty in here.

  ARTAUD [assuringly]: If it gets cold, I will hold it in my hand. [he shows her his right hand. The audience can’t see that that—this?—line is pencilled on the palm of his hand.]

  JULIET [frowning, then speaking confidentially]: I have a problem with my crocodile. Do you know anything about crocodiles?

  ARTAUD [slams his fist on the table, knocking the cigarette off the groove in the ashtray]: I know everything about crocodiles. I know everything about everything. You have a crocodile?

  JULIET: Yes. [in a sing-song voice] When the minions of an African King kidnapped me off the streets of ancient Rome to replace all of the women in all of his harems, they gave me a crocodile.

  ARTAUD [doubtful]: You didn’t like the job?

  JULIET [informatively]: Other minions had kidnapped an American pop singer with dark skin and a big butt. She was jealous. She was more his type. So he sent me home on his private jumbo-jet, with the crocodile and an Artaudemer-y-Vachequimou platinum watch, encrusted in diamonds, and with a sapphire crystal.

  ARTAUD [suspicious]: What time is it?

  Juliet pulls a simple black watch from her bag.

  ARTAUD [his suspicions justified]: Ah ha!

  JULIET [proud of her practicality]: I carry a TimeHex. You can put it in a puddle and drive your car over it. And it continues to keep perfect time. After you wipe it off.

  ARTAUD [admiring, envious]: A useful feature.

  JULIET [getting serious again]: Anyway, enough of this beggar’s chatter. The crocodile. I have a problem.

  Juliet and Artaud both lean forward, to speak confidentially. They both know talk of crocodiles is disgusting to the patrons of louche cafes. They both know they will excite the patrons’ fantasies. They can read from the same script. One actor must be able to read upside down. Both actors must be able to read. Maybe a copy for each. A better performance if the actors are nuts about each other—see previous note.

  ARTAUD [looking hypnotically into her lovely eyes]: I am a genius. I know everything. I can solve your problem. I can make you happy. Sensa fine.

  JULIET [batting her eyes at him]: I gave it some pigeons and cats for breakfast, and it tossed them right up! Sensa kept it down.

  ARTAUD [sure of his ability to solve her problem, now]: No doubt. Never pigeons and cats. Bad combination. Impossible. You have rats?

  JULIET [indignant at the suggestion that she might not]: Of course!

  ARTAUD [rhythmically]: Cats and rats. Or pigeons and pugs.

  JULIET [perplexed]: Pugs?

  ARTAUD: Yes. [with a look of passing terror on his face] They stick to your ankles like leeches in the swamps of Borneo. [he shakes his head and shudders]

  JULIET: True. [thinking pause] There are some annoying little boys.

  ARTAUD [as if he’s smelled something bad]: With fish.

  JULIET: Oh?

  ARTAUD [distressed at her slowness to catch on to his method]: Garçons and poissons.

  JULIET [acknowledging his greatness]: You are a poet after all. I’d never have guessed it from your book I read. That had something like ‘O dedi/A dada orzoura/O dou zoura/A dada skizi’. Didn’t do much for me!

  ARTAUD: [proudly]: You’ve read my work!

  JULIET [in a tired voice]: When I’m on the set, waiting to be called, I’ll read anything lying around.

  ARTAUD [realizing the hidden genius of this woman]: Not the script?

  JULIET [confidentially, confidently]: Never. I make up my lines as I go along. And I get writing credits.

  ARTAUD [now absolutely taken with her]: Directors and actors are soon forgotten, but writers live forever. But dead writers should make way for the living!

  JULIET [revealing her insightfulness further]: Yes. Look at Chaucer. He didn’t.

  ARTAUD [totally infatuated]: And Shakespeare. And Artaud. They won’t.

  JULIET [coming down to earth again, with a sigh]: And then there’s the jaguar Cary gave me.

  ARTAUD [who could think of nothing more delightful than tooling around France in a powerful sports car, at her expense, with her doing the driving, so he’d have his hands free to—]: A car?

  JULIET [not realizing she had inflamed his passions and might want to keep the conversation automotive]: No, a big cat. The car is a Talbot-Lago.

  ARTAUD [who had peddled used cars at one point in his checkered career]: The T150C SS Figoni et Falaschi ‘Goutte d’Eau’?

  JULIET [annoyed that he wasn’t dealing with her zoological problem]: Yes. He didn’t like to ride in my beat-up Triumph.

  ARTAUD [metaphorically waving a flag at her]: A French car is better, of course.

  JULIET [disappointed at Tony for using English components]: It has a Wilson box.

  ARTAUD [ever disdainful of America, which had never offered him a screen-test]: Woodrow?

  JULIET [seeing the parallel]: Kind of. Indecisive. You never know which way it will go when you step on the gas. [instinctively, she moves her feet, quickly, alternately, under the table]

  ARTAUD [not jealous because he admires the British-American actor’s comedic abilities]: Cary was very kind to you.

  JULIET [tearfully, wistfully]: And I to him.

  ARTAUD [with an air of great resolution]: The car you feed gas. Lots of it. You feed the jaguar what I recommended for the crocodile. [pauses, thinking, suddenly inspired] Do you like this jaguar?

  JULIET [sadly, wiping a tear from her cheek, and smearing her lipstick in the process]: No. But Cary was sweet. I keep it for sentimental reasons.

  ARTAUD [intrigued by his current inspiration]: The crocodile. Do you like it?

  JULIET [petulant. Which doesn’t work with smeared lipstick]: Not right now. Ruined my rug.

  ARTAUD [expansively]: We could stage it. A life-and-death struggle for survival between the jaguar and the crocodile. I could get a theatre. A huge theatre.

  JULIET [ever the businesswoman]: What’s in it for me?

  ARTAUD [dramatically]: You could be on stage with them, with a whip.

  JULIET [thinking there must be more]: And?

  ARTAUD [seductively]: Wearing nothing but a top hat, G-string, and high heels.

  JULIET [getting the picture]: And sunglasses?

  ARTAUD [sensing success]: Yes! Exactly! Like Fred Astaire.

  JULIET [bursting his balloon]: I wouldn’t do that for Fellini, and I’m not doing it for you. Even if you dance with me in a white suit.

  ARTAUD [appalled at what some directors might do]: Fellini would have you whip animals?

  JULIET [saving Federico’s honor]: No. Girls. He gave Marcello the part.

  ARTAUD [who would have liked to have had the part, the freedom to whip girls]: That was a good part.

  JULIET [whom film history will show was absolutely right]: I know. I would have been great. Never thought he’d finish the movie. He had writer’s block.

  ARTAUD [ever the problem-solver]: Yes. Yes. I could have fixed that.

  JULIET [happily imagining being a witness to Fellini’s greatness]: He could exhibit himself, right?

  ARTAUD [being geographical]: Yes, in Paris. Works every time!

  JULIET [wondering]: Why Paris?

  ARTAUD [wondering how the Italian Renaissance had ever happened]: The Italian police only whistle at women.

  JULIET [fondly remembering a parti
cularly handsome, but inattentive, carabiniere]: Tell me about it! And they’re no good with minions.

  There are now many PEOPLE on the banquette and at the tables across from it. They are plaintively calling to Artaud.

  PEOPLE [plaintively]: Come talk to us! Come ennoble us! Come criticize the poems we’ve written!

  ARTAUD [to Juliet, deciding to play it cool]: I must go. I have my responsibilities. It is not admiration which makes me work but its absence, and in order for me to feel its absence it must from time to time be present. Delighted to meet you. [he kisses her hand]

  JULIET [to herself: Artaud completely forgotten]: I’d better go, too. I double-parked the Teardrop.

  NADA+

  Celine and Julie Go Boating, Eight-and-a-Half, My Life and Times with Antonin Artaud, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Weekend.