Photo by Wikimedia
Reincarnation is a dance. It’s a movement of life to the rhythm of the universe. The idea is simple. There is spirit and there is matter. And they join together; one as one dancing partner and one as the other. The two together make a partner. They’re together for a time while they’re on the dance floor and then they separate and go their individual ways for a while and then they come together once again. And it goes on forever.
– RAMA ~ Frederick Lenz
TIME and PLACE
A decade or two either side of Yeats’ Second Coming.
Europe, China, India, and Kashmir.
CHARACTERS
LEIF CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN, dancer, poet, and believer in reincarnation. Late 20’s. For most of the play his head is covered by an invisibility cloak making him appear to be headless.
ANNETTE. An artist. At other times Leif’s sister. Two years younger, blond, and beautiful.
ELISE, an artist.
ERIK, an artist.
SVANE, an artist.
MODEL, female. A non-speaking part.
SCENE 1
Five painters (“facing” the audience) stand behind easels that block their upper bodies from the audience’s view. LEIF is the one in the center. ANNETTE, ELISE, ERIK, and SVANE are on either side of him. Downstage from them with her back to the audience sits the MODEL, ostensibly nude, her gown at her feet. From time to time the four (other than LEIF) peer around their canvases to take a look at the MODEL. Lying on the table next to her is a wrapped bouquet of dried flowers.
Intermittent pauses, while painting.
SVANE
Who … do you think, were the greatest artists ever?…
Present company excluded, of course.
ELISE
Are you bored, Svane?
That’s a bullshit question.
SVANE
Why, Elise? Why is that a bullshit question?
ELISE
Because the greatest artists ever were Greeks.
Who sculpted the greatest statutes ever.
Of gods and goddesses.
And they’re dead, and gone, and unremembered.
Without names, beyond memory.
SVANE
[pause] Well, aside from them, who were the greatest?…
Ones with names.
ANNETTE
Michelangelo….
Hands down.
ERIK
No argument there, Annette.
David.
The Pieta.
The Sistine Chapel.
And a very stiff neck.
ELISE
Isaac Newton.
SVANE
He was no artist.
ELISE
So … who’s to say who’s an artist or not?
SVANE
Are you?
Are we?
ERIK
John Steinbeck and Vincent van Gogh.
SVANE
Hell! If you’re going to be like that, Erik:
Galileo Galileo and Andrew Wyeth.
ANNETTE
Rembrandt and Ray Charles.
ERIK
Hugh Hefner and Gustav Klimt.
ELISE
Renoir and Barbra Streisand.
SVANE
Ingmar Bergman and Pablo Picasso.
ANNETTE
da Vinci and Baryshnikov.
ERIK
Jackson Pollock and Lou Reed.
ELISE
This whole conversation is getting ridiculous.
Lengthy pause.
ERIK
Christ! Is she thin!
ELISE
She is thin. And looks so sad.
SVANE
Don’t mention it.
ANNETTE
They already have.
SVANE
She used to be the toast of Budapest.
Kisses and champagne, all over her body.
ANNETTE
Kisses, lips, and tongues.
Judges, magistrates, and members of Parliament.
SVANE
Most touched female in the country.
ANNETTE
The city, too.
ERIK
I doubt it!
SVANE
Take it from me, Erik, she is art.
ANNETTE
And if you can’t see it, why are you here?
ELISE
Why are any of us here? Or even artists, for that matter?
SVANE
We are artists because we thrill to beauty.
At least that’s what we told the jury who voted us in.
ERIK
But her? Beauty?
ANNETTE
Run.
Her beauty will follow you.
Cry.
Her beauty will see through your tears.
Dance with her, and her beauty will forgive you.
Her beauty is in the spaces everywhere.
And, oh! How the universe needs it now.
ELISE
If her beauty is the key to the universe, I’d better run!!
SVANE
We are supposedly artists, Elise.
And we can find beauty anywhere.
So, can it.
ANNETTE
We are the guardians of beauty.
The high priests and priestesses of the temple.
ELISE
Then paint a giraffe taking a dump!
The MODEL suddenly gets to her feet, throws the bouquet of dried flowers at the artists, puts on her gown, and exits.
SVANE
Great! Well, that ends that!
ANNETTE
I was almost done.
ERIK
I’ve been done an hour.
ANNETTE
Let me see.
ERIK turns his canvas around so that everyone can see:
SVANE
What a piece of crap!
ERIK
What was I supposed to do?…With her as a model?
Anyway, we’ll see what the judges think….
Show us yours, Svane. Mr. Bigmouth.
SVANE turns his canvas around so that everyone can see:
ANNETTE
Dear God, Svane!
Can all you do is paint pictures of swans?
SVANE
It’s my name, isn’t it?
ANNETTE
You will never be a great painter if you do not tell the truth.
SVANE
Who says I want to tell the boring truth?
I want to feel.
And to make you feel.
Do you know what I mean, Annette?
And where?
ANNETTE
You’re a pervert.
SVANE
So was Zeus….
So? What’s yours?
ANNETTE turns her canvas around so that everyone can see:
ELISE
Certainly sad enough.
And ugly enough.
Especially that sneer on her lips.
But, art?
I hardly think so.
It’s so fake.
You’ll never learn to paint a nude. It’s a tragedy.
ANNETTE
I’m a tragedy? I’m the best artist of the lot.
ELISE
If you think so, just look at this.
ELISE turns her canvas around so that everyone can see:
ERIK
Call the police! Call the politically correct police!
Here’s the sorriest pornography I’ve ever seen.
Click here for complete script.