Catastrophe Practice (22 page)

SCENE: A cellar in a town
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The structure contains two levels. The upper level consists of two rooms separated by a central partition: it is in darkness. The lower level is one long room, with pipes and cables along the back wall as if for telephones, drains, gas, electricity, etc
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This lower level is dimly lit. Left of centre is an old-fashioned stove, which glows. Centre is an elaborate brass bedstead. On the right is an area of junk in semi-darkness. Far left are screens as if in an actor's dressing-room. The flue-pipe of the stove goes up crookedly above the bedstead and into the floor above
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The whole structure is contained within vertical side walls and a flat roof so that it is like a doll's house with the front removed. There are narrow vertical spaces between the side walls and the sides of the stage. In the left vertical space there are ladders descending from what seems to be a manhole at the street-level above: the right vertical space is like a disused ventilation shaft
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A young man, Anderson, is on the bed in the lower level. He sits cross-legged, in his underpants, and has the handpiece of a telephone wedged beneath his ear. The wire from the telephone goes up to a clip on to a cable over his head
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Anderson appears to be listening. After a time he enunciates carefully
—

He seems to listen
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Then he unclips the wire from the cable above his head. He clips it to another cable. He takes from a table by his bed a tuning fork, which he strikes and holds against the bedstead
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There is a high-pitched humming noise; which fades. Then Anderson speaks with the deadpan voice of someone on an intercom radio
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Bert. Two tadpoles. Coming up through the sewers. Tell them what to do, will you?

He stares at the audience
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There is a deep rumbling noise from the pipes; as if from an organ, or faulty plumbing
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Anderson puts his hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone
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The rumbling fades
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Anderson says in an ordinary voice
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Put your hands and feet on the floor. Your body on the ceiling —

He listens
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Then he unclips the wire from the cable: he clips it on to a bar of the brass bedstead. After a time he imitates, rapidly but just intelligibly, the high-pitched gibberish of a voice on a tape being played too quickly
—

When they came to the barricades against its soft grey walls they battered —

He stares at the audience
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Then he imitates ponderously but again just intelligibly, the deep distorted drawl of a voice on a tape being played too slowly
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There-were-not-many-left-to-tell-the-tale.

He listens
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Then he takes from the table by his bed a small instrument which makes clicking noises such as is found in children's crackers. With this he makes clicks, in bursts, into the mouthpiece of the telephone; as if establishing a programme in a system by a code
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He listens
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Then he speaks in an ordinary voice
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— The doctor says it must have been agony —

He watches the audience
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After a time a light comes on in the room upstairs, left. This room is piled high at the back with books and old newspapers. There is a stove against the wall of the central partition on the right. (It is into the bottom of this stove that the flue-pipe goes up from Anderson's room below.) The flue-pipe from this stove goes halfway up the central partition and then through into the room which is in darkness, right
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On top of the pile of books against the back wall in the room on the left is perched an elderly man, the Moor, who wears a white robe and has a beard. He reclines on one elbow just under the ceiling — like Michelangelo's God the Father on the roof of the Sistine Chapel; or like Karl Marx, or a gorilla. He has a hand on a light bulb which is on the ceiling. After a time the bulb seems to burn his fingers. He takes his hand away. The light in the room goes out: there is a tinkle as if of glass on the floor, breaking
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Anderson gets off his bed, goes to his stove, takes off the lid, and looks inside
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After a time he drops the lid of the stove as if it has burned his fingers
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He looks at the audience
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Then he goes to his bed, lies on his back underneath the flue-pipe, unscrews an inspection
plate in the bend of the pipe above his bed, opens it, and peers up as if the pipe were a telescope. After a time he puts his mouth to the inspection plate and enunciates carefully
—

He puts his eye to the inspection plate. The light in the Moor's room, upper left, comes on again. The Moor has fitted another bulb into the socket which hangs from his ceiling. (He has beside him a paper bag from which he seems to take his light bulbs as if they were nuts.) He keeps his hand on the bulb. After a time it seems to burn his fingers again. He holds on. It is as if he were in agony
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Anderson takes his eye from the inspection plate. He looks at the audience
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Then he puts his mouth to the inspection plate and enunciates carefully
—

The world is on a tortoise. The tortoise is on a bird. The bird is on the sea —

He puts his ear to the inspection plate
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The Moor, upstairs, as if he can hold on no longer, lets go of the light bulb. The light of his room goes out. There is a tinkle as if of glass on the floor, breaking
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Anderson gets up, goes to his stove, and makes as if to lift the lid off. Then he seems to think. The light in the Moor's room comes on again. This time the Moor is holding the bulb with the hem of his white robe
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Anderson looks at the audience. Then he puts a hand in his underpants. He lifts off the lid of his stove using his underpants as protection
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The Moor begins to climb down from his perch of books. He finds this difficult, since he is holding on to the light bulb. But as he pulls on the wire, he finds that this can be drawn down
through the ceiling. Then as the wire comes through the ceiling there are cries and gasps from the room, right, which is still in darkness, as if someone were being garotted there
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Anderson looks up
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After a time the lid of the stove which he is holding through his underpants seems to burn his fingers: he drops it
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The Moor has reached the floor. He gives the wire from his light bulb a jerk, and the cries from the room, right, are abruptly silenced. Downstairs, Anderson looks at his hand
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Upstairs the Moor, still holding the light bulb with the hem of his robe, comes and stands in front of his stove which is against the central partition
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(In this position it might be difficult for some of the audience — in the right half— to see exactly what he is doing, since their view is somewhat obscured by the central partition.)

The Moor lifts the lid off his stove with his other hand using the hem of his robe. He stands with his robe raised as if he is about to pee into the stove
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Anderson leaves his stove. He goes to his bed and lies underneath the flue-pipe and looks through the inspection plate again which is directly under where the Moor is standing. The Moor seems to be having difficulty in peeing. After a time there is the sound of flute music (a flute sonata by Bach) from the room in darkness, top right
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Anderson takes his eye away from the inspection plate. He looks at the audience
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At this moment the Moor seems to be able to pee
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Anderson closes the inspection plate
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There is a puff of steam from the stove by
Anderson's bed, where the Moor's pee seems to have gone
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Anderson stares at his stove
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After a time, there is a smaller puff of steam from the Moor's stove upstairs
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The Moor puts the lid back on his stove. He looks at the audience
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The flute music stops
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Downstairs, Anderson gets off his bed. He puts the lid back on his stove. Then he comes to the right front of his room and looks up towards the Moor's room, left, as if trying to see (as if from the point of view of half the audience) what the Moor has been doing. He looks at the audience. Then he goes to the front of his room on the left, and looks up towards the room in darkness, right, as if trying to see (from the point of view of the other half of the audience) where the flute music had come from
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After a time there is in this room a flash, as if of a flashlight photograph, or from a small explosion of gas
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Here there can be glimpsed, briefly, the figure of a man hanging by the neck from a wire from the ceiling
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Then the room is in darkness again
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Anderson looks at the audience
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The Moor, on the left, has turned away from his stove. He takes a step towards the left: then he appears to tread on broken glass. He lifts his foot. He holds it as if in agony. He lets the bulb go. It is pulled up, as if by a counterweight, on its wire through the ceiling
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At the same time there is a bumping and groaning noise from the room, right, as if the body were being lowered on its wire
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When the light bulb has reached the Moor's ceiling there is a tinkle, as if of glass breaking
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The Moor's light stays on
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The Moor stays in the position of a statue
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Anderson, who has been watching the audience, goes to his stove and squats down in front of it. The stove has a door with a glass window in it. Anderson opens the door into the stove
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He takes from it a small pan which he carries over to a table, right, in the area of junk
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He puts down the pan. He swi
tches on a light which hangs on a wire from the ceiling above the table.

The light in the Moor's room goes out.

Anderson looks up: he seems to listen.

On the table in Anderson's room there are some old-fashioned scientific instruments — a microscope, some slides, some glass retorts and rods. Anderson sits behind his table and takes a glass rod and dips it into the pan and mimes placing a drop of liquid on one of the slides. He pulls down the light on its wire above the microscope
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At the same time there is raised, on a hinge, the cover to the manhole into the street, top left. Anderson looks up
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Then there comes from the darkness of the room, right, the sound of a man's voice, as if reciting poetry
—

Anderson listens. Then he puts the slide under the microscope
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The voice continues.

— My arms so tight;

The bounds of hell —

Anderson puts his eye to the microscope
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On what seems to be the street-level at the very top of the structure a bright light comes on. (At this level there can be seen what look like the
bottoms of buildings.)

On to this level there comes, from the right, a woman, Hortense. She wears shorts and a T-shirt and has a haversack on her back
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She looks over her shoulder apprehensively, as if someone has been following her
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Then she puts her haversack on the ground and stands with her back to the audience as if she were beside a road waiting for a lift
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Anderson looks up from his microscope. As he does this the light at the top of the structure becomes dim
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Hortense looks at the manhole, left
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Anderson stands. He pushes up, on its wire, the light that hangs above the microscope. As he does this, the manhole on the street closes. Hortense stares at it Then she comes to the front of the structure and looks over
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Then she goes to the manhole and tries to force her fingers into a crack to lift it up
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Anderson watches the audience
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Hortense goes to her haversack, opens it, and takes from it a frogman's breathing apparatus, which she puts on
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Then she comes to the front edge of the top of the structure and looks over
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The light at street-level becomes watery. Anderson sits behind his table again and pulls down on its wire the light that hangs above the microscope. The cover of the manhole, behind Hortense, opens
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