Людмила Ансельм - Короткие пьесы

OLGA.Misha, why do you want your shoes?

MICHAEL.I can’t go to Paris like this barefoot… My feet are cold… ( OLGA finds his slippers and puts them on his feet ) Is Olga gone?

OLGA.Just for a minute…

MICHAEL.I have something very important to tell you… Listen carefully ( dreamily ) Galya! We are in America! We are in a free country! Now we can go to Paris together… We will go up the EIFFEL Tower and walk along the Elysian Fields… What more? The Louvre! We will stroll by the river at night… Oh, and the bridges… What is that river?

OLGA.The Seine…

MICHAEL( weakly ). Yes, yes the Seine… Now we are as free as birds… No Communist Party to take you away from me and mess up our lives… Give me your hand… I want to feel beside me…

( OLGAgives him her hand )

Galochka, I’m so glad you forgave me… On the train I will lie on my bank and sleep… Just don’t go away, Galochka, and don’t take away your hand… We are going to Paris… We’re together… Now we are together… Forever…

( Michaellies peacefully on his bed. Olga covers him with blanket )

Galochka, put your hand over my eyes… This bright light… It disturbs my sleep… Thank you, thank you… I love you…

( OLGAputs her hand over her father’s eyes as lights fade )

THE END

MISHACHEKHOV – Sixty year old actor. A smallish dapper man with a beard. Wearing white shirt and tie.

XENIACHEKHOV – His wife is in her sixties.

It’s 1954 in their home in Los Angeles. Misha is sitting at a desk, or table, with a top drawer in it.

( Mishasits in an office chair on wheels. Using an old phone he holds the receiver and waits. He is smoking. Music is playing very loudly from somewhere in the house )

XENIA( off stage ): Misha! Misha, breakfast is ready!

( Mishaputs the cigarette into the ashtray and pushes it away. He grabs the phone receiver, dials a number. Xenia enters the room sniffing the air )

MISHA:I am busy…

XENIA:You’re smoking again? You’ll die!

MISHA:I know! I know! I will die… ( Smiling ) May be not from smoking…

XENIA:You promised me, and your doctor… and you still…

MISHA:OK! That is the last! Don’t nag me any more… I’m calling…

XENIA( off stage ): Who are you calling?

MISHA:Yul…

XENIA:( off stage ) Yul Brynner? Why? Is he starting lessons again?

MISHA:I heard that he will be in “The Brothers Karamazov”…

XENIA:( entering )You want to congratulate him?

MISHA:I have an idea… I want to help Marilyn Monroe…

( SighingMisha sets down the receiver ) Nobody answers…

XENIA( indignant ): Agh! Are you up to your old games!

MISHA:What do you mean?

XENIA:Oh! He doesn’t understand! I’ve had enough of your escapades… Sally, Anne, and Margaret that vamp back in Connecticut…

( Xeniaexits )

MISHA:Listen, we were working on “The Cherry Orchard”… This was one of my first lessons with Marilyn. She played, Anya, the daughter of the heroine. To my surprise, I felt a strong sense of excitement… sexual excitement.

XENIA( entering with a tray of tea ): No surprise there! It is not the first time…

MISHA:Marylyn projected a powerful feeling.

Istopped her… and asked Marylyn if she was thinking about sex while she was acting the role of Anya.

XENIA:Uh-huh…

MISHA:My sudden question shocked her. She said that in no way was she thinking about sex… She was concentrating only on playing the role.

XENIA:You believed her?

MISHA:It became clear that she completely unconsciously radiated a sexual aura… When I explained this to her she said she wanted to be a serious actress and not just a sex symbol… and… yes… I believed her.

XENIA:Uh huh, so… where does Yul come in? Why do you want to call him?

MISHA:Maybe Yul will talk with the studio bosses about

arole for Marylyn in “The Brothers Karamozov”…

XENIA:What role do you have in mind?

MISHA:Grushenka. Grushenka, the heroine…

XENIA:( astounded ) Michael!

MISHA:I’m not Michael; ( with shy smile ) I’m Misha!

XENIA:Naïve!…You aren’t on the moon, you’re in America!… Marilyn Monroe as a Dostoevsky Russian enchantress!

MISHA( dreamy voice ): I can see Marilyn as Grushinka…

XENIA:Misha you are batty. Crazy!… She is another passing fancy of yours.

MISHA:Marilyn is not passing fancy, she is my student.

XENIA:Margaret was your student too and she had no acting talent. But in your craziness you gave her leading roles in your productions…

MISHA( compassionatelyconcerned ): Xenia, calm down…

XENIA:I can’t calm down… Have you completely forgotten your mooning outside Margaret’s dorm window in plain view of all your students?

MISHA:But Marilyn is a serious and talented actress…

( Xenialaughs about that idea )

XENIA:You are a great and talented actor too! You’d better think about yourself… I can’t forget how well we lived in Connecticut, you had a group of actors there…

MISHA( with patience ): The war began… The money stopped… We could only move to Los Angeles… Here only movie studios, no theaters… They invite me to play in movies, but it’s my Russian accent… here it’s good only for foreign men with beards… for spies… criminals.

XENIA:( angry ) No! All was ruined with your infatuations… Nobody wanted to trust their money to a crazy Russian.

MISHA:That night you were crazy too… Remember, what did you cry to the students?

XENIA:Of course!…You get out! You… You all… You nosy! You gossipy understudies! ( Pause ) And you!… You!… Whore!…Get out! You dumb vamp! Get out! Crazy… Slut…Seductress!… Bait… Bitch… Prostitute!

MISHA:Why did you call my students such dirty words?

XENIA:I called “bitch and prostitute” your lover Margaret.

MISHA:You cried me: “Go ahead die!… Die!… Die you bastard!” Did you really want I would die?

XENIA:No… I only wanted the students go away from the room and you finish this scene. I know you didn’t have a heart attack…

MISHA:How did you guess?

XENIA:I knew your dirty tricks… After you finished playing… you put your head up and asked me: They… They are gone?

MISHA:But I played heart attack very well… All the dorm students actually believed that I could die…

XENIA( sadly ): You didn’t die then, but you’re dying now…

MISHA:What do you say?

XENIA:You are dying as a theatre actor here in Hollywood. “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach”

MISHA( hands up ): Stop! It is hard for me… Yes, now I can only promote… motivate my students here. But I was a great actor!

XENIA:Did you really come here to teach Hollywood actors, to make them better? To make movie bosses richer? Why are you here?

MISHA:I am here… helping people to grow spiritually…

XENIA:( laughs ): You are calling Yul because… because in order to help Merilyn grow spiritually… Misha, I keep reminding you why you came to America… You had a dream to make a theater like Stanislavsky in Moscow… You are working very hard, creating a group of talented actors, and all in vain… Where is your King Lear, Don Quixote, Pickwick Papers?

MISHA:( seriously, slowly, sadly ) I don’t know… I think about how it happened. I analyze…

XENIA:You came to conquer America with our art and in the end America conquered you…

MISHA:So it seems… I arrived in America, where I didn’t understand anything or anyone… It was an unbelievable, astonishing country… And I with my Russian mentality dreamed of accomplishing something new, to astonish all country. Later I understood that it could not be any different…

(Pause)

Remember! When we come to America, whole world went crazy. In Germany fascism, in Russia communism… I wanted to warn the American people that the same thing could happen here… Maybe didn’t understand anything…

XENIA:You don’t understand a lot of things…

MISHA:But I always believed in the great mission of theater… And I believe now…

XENIA:Misha, there is no mission…

Misha( surprised ): Do you really think that?

XENIA( confidently ): Yes…

MISHA( confused ): Then why did I become an actor? You think only because for to make the audience relax and laugh, instead of getting any emotional experience?

XENIA:Of course! The people work all day. They are tired. They come to theater to forget about their real life… They want to laugh…

MISHA( very intensely, sadly, showing his emotions by, standing, sitting, etc ): Xenia, often I have the same dream… I’m sitting in my theater dressing room in Moscow, make up all over my face. I’m playing “Hamlet”… wait nervously… and then the warning bell rings. I walk out on stage. In front of me this dark silent auditorium and I speak into this empty darkness the first words of Hamlet’s monolog, “To be, or not to be”… Then I wake up… and recognize where I am and I am filled with such melancholy… I know I will never get to play Hamlet… not ever… not ever in America. It’s not like Russia…

( Mishaslumps from exhaustion. His eyes fill with tears. He takes a cigarette… He lights it… takes a hungry drag. Xenia doesn’t stop him )

MISHA( seriously intensely ): Now I have come to the conclusion that it was a complete mistake to leave our native land…

XENIA( upset ): Oh Misha! Stop! Stalin was crazy. He was arresting actors right and left…