Travesties (6 page)

CARR
: We?

TZARA
: Well, I dine with them, and, in fact, was doing so on this occasion when someone at the bar piano started to play a Beethoven sonata. Lenin went completely to pieces, wept like a child. When he recovered he dried his eyes and lashed into the Dadaists! – ‘decadent nihilists, flogging too good for them', and so on. Fortunately, the name Tzara meant nothing to him, but a few days later I met him at the library and he introduced me to Cecily. ‘Tzara!' said she. ‘Not the Dadaist, I hope!' I could feel Lenin's eyes upon me. ‘My younger brother, Tristan,' I replied. ‘Most unfortunate. Terrible blow to the family.' When I filled up my application form, for some reason the first name I thought of was Jack. It has really turned out rather well.

CARR
(
With great interest
): Cecily knows
Lenin
, does she?

TZARA
: Oh, yes, he's made quite a disciple out of Cecily. She's helping him with his book on Imperialism.

CARR
(
Thoughtfully
): Did you say the reference section?

TZARA
: They agree on everything, including art. As a Dadaist, I am the natural enemy of bourgeois art and the natural ally of the political left, but the odd thing about revolution is that the further left you go politically the more bourgeois they like their art.

CARR
: There's nothing odd about that. Revolution in art is in no way connected with
class
revolution. Artists are members of a privileged class. Art is absurdly overrated by artists, which is understandable, but what is strange is that it is absurdly overrated by everyone else.

TZARA
: Because man cannot live by bread alone.

CARR
: Yes, he can. It's
art
he can't live on. When I was at school, on certain afternoons we all had to do what was called Labour – weeding, sweeping, sawing logs for the boiler-room, that kind of thing; but if you had a chit from Matron you were let off to spend the afternoon messing about in the Art Room. Labour or Art. And you've got a chit for
life? (Passionately) Where did you get it?
What is an artist? For every thousand people there's nine hundred doing the work, ninety doing well, nine doing good, and one lucky bastard who's the artist.

TZARA
(
Hard
): Yes, by Christ! – and when you see the drawings he made on the walls of the cave, and the fingernail patterns he one day pressed into the clay of the cooking pot,
then
you say,
My God, I am of these people!
It's not the hunters and the warriors that put you on the first rung of the ladder to consecutive thought and a rather unusual flair in your poncey trousers.

CARR
: Oh yes it was. The hunter decorated the pot, the warrior scrawled the antelope on the wall, the artist came home with the kill. All of a piece. The idea of the artist as a special kind of human being is art's greatest achievement, and it's a fake!

TZARA
: My God, you bloody English philistine – you ignorant smart-arse bogus bourgeois Anglo-Saxon prick! When the strongest began to fight for the tribe, and the fastest to hunt, it was the artist who became the priest-guardian of the magic that conjured the intelligence out of the appetites. Without him, man would be a coffee-mill. Eat – grind – shit. Hunt –
eat
– fight –
grind
– saw the logs –
shit
. The difference between being a man and being a coffee-mill is art. But that difference has become smaller and smaller and smaller. Art created patrons and was corrupted. It began to celebrate the ambitions and acquisitions of the pay-master. The artist has negated himself: paint –
eat
– sculpt –
grind
– write –
shit. (A light change
.)
Without art man was a coffee-mill: but
with
art, man – is a coffee-mill! That is the message of Dada. – dada dada dada dada dada dada dada dada dada dada dada dada dada dada…
(
TZARA
is shouting, raving
.
CARR
immobile.)
(Normal light as
BENNETT
opens the door. Everything back to ‘normal'
.)

BENNETT
: Miss Gwendolen and Mr Joyce.

(
GWENDOLEN
and
JOYCE
appear as before
.
BENNETT
retires
.)

JOYCE
: Good morning, my name is James Joyce –

CARR
: James Augusta?

JOYCE
(
Taken aback
): Was that a shot in the dark?

CARR
: Not at all – I am a student of footnotes to expatriate Irish literature.

JOYCE
: You know my work?

CARR
: No – only your name.

TZARA
: Miss Carr…

GWEN
: Mr Tzara…

CARR
: … but something about you suggests Limerick.

JOYCE
: Dublin, don't tell me you know it?

CARR
: Only from the guidebook, and I gather you are in the process of revising that.

JOYCE
: Yes.

GWEN
: Oh! I'm sorry – how terribly rude! Henry – Mr Joyce –

CARR
: How'dyou do?

JOYCE
: Delighted.

TZARA
: Good day.

JOYCE
: I just wanted to say –

GWEN
: Do you know Mr Tzara, the poet?

JOYCE
: By sight, and reputation; but I am a martyr to glaucoma and inflation. Recently as I was walking down the
Bahnhofstrasse my eye was caught by a gallery showcase and I was made almost insensible with pain.

GWEN
: Mr Joyce has written a poem about it. It is something you two have in common.

JOYCE
: Hardly. Mr Tzara's disability is monocular, and, by rumour, affected, whereas I have certificates for conjunctivitis, iritis and synechia, and am something of an international eyesore.

GWEN
: I mean poetry. I was thinking of your poem
‘Bahnhofstrasse', beginning
   ‘The eyes that mock me sign the way
Whereto I pass at eve of day,   Grey way whose violet signals are
   The trysting and the twining star.'

TZARA
(
To
JOYCE
): For your masterpiece
I have great expectorations
(
GWEN
's
squeak, ‘Oh!'
)
For you I would evacuate a monument.
(
Oh!
)
Art for art's sake – I am likewise defecated

GWEN
: Dedicated –

TZARA
: I'm a foreigner.

JOYCE
: So am I.

GWEN
: But it is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. I have a good ear, would you not agree, Mr Tzara?

TZARA
: It is the most perfect thing about you, Miss Carr.

GWEN
: Oh, I hope not. That would leave no room for development.

JOYCE
: But have you not read any of Mr Tzara's poems?

GWEN
: To my shame I have not – but perhaps the shame is yours, Mr Tzara.

TZARA
: I accept it – but the matter can be easily put right, and at once.

GWEN
(
Fluttering
): Oh, Mr Tzara!…

(
TZARA
retires to the sideboard, or writing table if there is one, and begins to write fluently on a large piece of white paper
.)

CARR
(
To
JOYCE
): And what about you, Doris?

JOYCE
: Joyce.

CARR
: Joyce.

JOYCE
: It is not as a poet that I come to see you, sir, but as the business manager of the English Players, a theatrical troupe.

CARR
: The business manager?

JOYCE
: Yes.

CARR
: Well, if it's money you want, I'm afraid …

GWEN
: Oh, Henry! – he's mounting a play, and Mr Joyce thought your official support –

JOYCE
: Perhaps I'd better explain. It seems, sir, that my name is in bad odour among the British community in Zurich.
Whether it is my occasional contribution to the neutralist press, or whether it is my version of Mr
Dooley
, beginning:
   ‘Who is the man, when all the gallant nations run to war,
   Goes home to have his dinner by the very first cable car,
   And as he eats his canteloupe contorts himself with mirth
   To read the blatant bulletins of the rulers of the earth?'
–and ending:
   ‘It's Mr Dooley
   Mr Dooley
   The wisest wight our country ever knew!
   “Poor Europe ambles
   like sheep to shambles”
   Sighs Mr Dooley-ooley-ooley-ooo.'
or some other cause altogether, the impression remains that I
regard both sides with equal indifference.

CARR
: And you don't?

JOYCE
: Only as an artist. As an artist, naturally I attach no importance to the swings and roundabout of political history. But I come here not as an artist but as James A. Joyce. I am an Irishman. The proudest boast of an Irishman is – I paid back my way …

CARR
: So it is money.

JOYCE
: A couple of pounds would be welcome – certainly, but it is to repay a debt that I have come. Not long ago, after many years of self-reliance and hardship during which my work had been neglected and reviled even to the point of being burned by a bigoted Dublin printer, there being no other kind of printer available in Dublin, I received £100 from the Civil List at the discretion of the Prime Minister.

CARR
: The Prime Minister –?

JOYCE
: Mr Asquith.

CARR
: I am perfectly well aware who the Prime Minister
is
– I am the representative of His Majesty's Government in Zurich.

JOYCE
: The Prime Minister is Mr Lloyd George, but at that time it was Mr Asquith.

CARR
: Oh yes.

JOYCE
: I do not at this moment possess £100, nor was it the intention that I would repay the debt in kind. However I mentioned the English Players. By the fortune of war, Zurich has become the theatrical centre of Europe. Here culture is the continuation of war by other means – Italian opera against French painting – German music against Russian ballet – but nothing from England. Night after night, actors totter about the raked stages of this alpine renaissance, speaking in every tongue but one – the tongue of Shakespeare – of Sheridan – of Wilde … The English Players intend to mount a repertoire of masterpieces that will show the Swiss who leads the world in dramatic art.

CARR
: Gilbert and Sullivan – by God!

GWEN
: And also Mr Joyce's own play
Exiles
which so far, unfortunately –

JOYCE
: That's quite by the way –

CARR
:
Patience!

JOYCE
: Exactly. First things first.

CARR
:
Trial by Jury! Pirates of Penzance!

JOYCE
: We intend to begin with that quintessential English jewel,
The Importance of Being Earnest
.

CARR
(
Pause
): I don't know it. But I've heard of it and I don't like it. It is a play written by an Irish – (
Glances at
GWENDOLEN
) Gomorrahist – Now look here, Janice, I may as well tell you, His Majesty's Government –

JOYCE
: I have come to ask you to play the leading role.

CARR
: What?

JOYCE
: We would be honoured and grateful.

CARR
: What on earth makes you think that I am qualified to play the leading role in
The Importance of Being Earnest?

GWEN
: It was my suggestion, Henry. You were a wonderful Goneril at Eton.

CARR
: Yes, I know, but –

JOYCE
: We are short of a good actor to play the lead – he's an articulate and witty English gentleman –

CARR
: Ernest?

JOYCE
: Not Ernest – the other one.

CARR
(
Tempted
): No – no – I absolutely –

JOYCE
: Aristocratic – romantic – epigrammatic – he's a young swell.

CARR
: A swell…?

JOYCE
: He says things like, I may occasionally be a little overdressed but I make up for it by being immensely overeducated. That gives you the general idea of him.

CARR:
How many changes of costume?

JOYCE
: Two complete outfits.

CARR
: Town or country?

JOYCE
: First one then the other.

CARR
: Indoors or out?

JOYCE
: Both.

CARR
: Summer or winter?

JOYCE
: Summer but not too hot.

CARR
: Not raining?

JOYCE
: Not a cloud in the sky.

CARR
: But he could be wearing – a boater?

JOYCE
: It is expressly stipulated.

CARR
: And he's not in – pyjamas?

JOYCE
: Expressly proscribed.