Camille
Roy
Working Note
(from original "Cheap Speech" working notes, going in and out of character, while writing the play)
--I'm a set of notes.
--Not a normal personality. All my characters are fictitious, all my stories are true.
--Sliced deep. In the hotel of my known liar.
--Everyday you tell me a totally different story.
--And it was true too.
Speaking exaggerates certain pleasures of the mouth. The ones I hide from trouble. Overabundant, "poetic" meaning, coupled with a replacement?"pleasure" for "sense". That's my universe of discourse.
But what about all your personalities popping out. The comedy pulses, even though it?s basically sad. Fear frogs jump and croak in a land of fear frogs, and so on.
[[ All during my childhood the dog Oscar barked in our yard. He wouldn't stop. Odd that he was warning us. The summer I turned 14, he lay down under the lemon tree and died. ]]
Who am I? I drive a bus. I'm in sales, I sell shoes. I mean, I'm a cowboy. Then I became a delirious teacher. I come out of hiding when there's a space.
The priest stuff is crap. I want to take that out. But what to replace it with?
streaming shouting insurance. I'm in sales. I sell shoes to the masses. I teach drama. I drive a bus. I walk the line. I'm a shepard. I mean a cowboy. Delirious teacher! I come out of hiding when there's a space.
Wanda
Here I am this grizzled old dyke and I've never had a lesbo fusion relationship. I've been squired by one butch after another. I want my twin, my secret twin, the one scraped out of my ear when I was 2. Was that you?
grrl
All my characters are fictitious, but my stories are true.
Wanda
Be my lonesome dove.
Bogdan
She's filled with dead souls. And they're slippery, the dead. They don't answer back directly, but they know how to make their presence felt. Think of them next time you slip into the back room, looking for whatever it is you're looking for. So you huddle against the wall there. You slide down. Next thing you know you're crying and immobilized at the same moment. Catatonic grief.
Wanda
Little broken thing. She's so artificial, I love that.
Cheap Speech
Synopsis
A comic version of love and nausea. Sydney, an abstract-novelist-dyke is living on Wanda?s sex work earnings. Wanda has a bad case of stripper?s disgust. They quarrel and hurtle apart, through urban undergrowth, each bolted to a separate flaw in the social texture. There's a multiple personality somewhere, a baby, and a theater?plus a Romanian refugee who has been boiled in history. In this urban jungle, anyone you meet can flash a sentence and reel across the stage, and the sadist is melancholy, the effect of too much sex, power, torture, and poetry.
Characters
Wanda stripper,
sex worker, femme, female
Sydney (Sid) experimental writer, butch, female
Bogdan Vladu Romanian immigrant/refugee, late twenties, male
grrl multiple
personality, various ages and sexes
Set
Garden bench. The scenes switch back and forth from 'park' to 'office'. We used white rectangular pedestals; on one side of the bench there was office stuff arranged on the pedestals, on the other were arranged several flower pots with plastic flowers stuck in their dirt. The office included a typewriter on a typing table, which was swung out in front of the bench for the office scenes. Scene switches were indicated by lighting changes, which highlighted one set of pedestals or the other. The 'park' half of the stage could also be indicated by a few crepe paper flowers scattered around, big as heads. Every now & then someone would give one of the flowers a good kick.
Prop note: Throughout the play, Sid carries around a fat notebook with pages falling out. This is her "novel".
[Sid enters, followed by Wanda, who is carrying a hat box. They sit down on a park bench.]
Wanda
I
want to be admired thru layers of leaves, with sun in between, like a
sparkled frost. Just bark, water, grass, then someone beautiful, like
me. [takes out and puts on her hat, which has a veil. She'll wear this
hat for the rest of this scene] So?what do you think?
Sydney
It'
yellow.
Wanda
Yes,
it is.
Sydney
Yellow.
[a moment of glum silence]
Wanda
It
was yellow when I bought it but you didn't say anything.
Sydney
(mumbling)
...Cause but no cure.
Wanda
Oh.
Sydney
...
Wanda. I'm wandering, thought-wise. All dart & trace, the bat is in
my mouth, flapping, and I can't stop talking about myself. [sighs]
Wanda
What?
Sydney
Flat
is a story, sharp is a distinction between objects and light.
Wanda
It's
your novel again, isn't it.
Sydney
"Dunno
and don't you forget it." That's my favorite Americanism today. When I'm
like this, my ribs crack like string beans.
Wanda
[fretful]
Yesterday you told me it would be just a list of noises.
Sydney
What?
Wanda
Your
novel.
Sydney
That's
not enough. Today, I want it to be so big, it'll have it's own ... climate.
[holds
up her novel]
Wanda
You
need another sense then. Why not add smell. It could be a list of noises
and smells.
Sydney
Okay.
Wanda
Try
on your hat.
Sydney
Okay.
[takes her hat out of its box; it's a sort of black pirate hat; she puts
it on.) You sure you like this?
Wanda
O
yes. It's fine, you're mine.
[they look at one another]
Sydney
Yellow
IS your color. Svelte as a furry little beaver, but so exact.
Wanda
Thank
you... [romantically] Particularly today, feel me. My sentimental face.
Sydney
[slips
her fingertips under Wanda's veil]
Wanda &
Sydney
[in
unison] Wedded and weeded.
Wanda
You
want me more than you want a quiet evening.
Sydney
I've
written almost a thousand pages of a continuous present. My novel. For
you, love. [shoves "novel" at Wanda]
Wanda
[doesn't
take it] And I don't get it.
Sydney
I
know. That bugs me.
Wanda
So
many pages. As if any little hurry had subsistence.
Sydney
Hey!
[pulls a loose page from "novel", jumps up on the bench & reads it]
My
aesthetic is a unit
not
of logic, but of quantity.
My
aesthetic's an interval
during
which there's a difficulty.
Any
sentence might be a person.
And
when it happens, they [indicate audience] look up!
Bring
me sugar. Bring me milk. But I
can't
say, [leering] Milk me, Sugar... Or can I?
Wanda
[trying
to understand] You can't have...grammar without...servitude?
Sydney
My
aesthetic, exactly.
Wanda
Amazing.
It doesn?t stop coming does it. Or at least, it's not over til its over
til the fat lady sings...
[Wanda
jumps up on the bench with Sid]
Yogi
Berra said that. He was Italian so he knew about the opera!
[pause]
That was okay.
Sydney
You
think?
Wanda
[sits
back down] Yeah.
Sydney
You
liked the poem bit?
Wanda
Yeah,
I told you.
Sydney
I
dunno... [still standing on the bench] What I want is, no audience, just
evidence. Private matters.
Wanda
You
change your mind every five minutes.
Sydney
You
are only my toy-to-be-adored. In my room, when there's no one around,
I rub words on your mouth [runs her finger across Wanda's lips]. It's
the friction that I like. [leers] Just you & me, baby. That's
my aesthetic.
Wanda
I'm
insatiable. You like that.
Sydney
Yeah!
[Sid sits back down on the bench]
Wanda
[morose]
So why do I get bored? It's not the insatiable part--that's alright. I
guess. I guess it's alright. But it's not where I'm AT. [Wanda sits down
on the bench takes out a compact & a lipstick, lifts up the veil on
her yellow hat and puts on lipstick). I redden my lips. [applies lipstick]
And I do it for a reason. [looks at audience] Say why. [knocks Sid's leg]
Say why.
Sydney
[bored]
Why.
Wanda
Because
the dead ones are out there [gestures at audience] and I'm glamorous.
I get to be. That's the way it is. [walks towards audience] And the money's
so easy I can't stop. Easy money. It's a fat dream, soft enough to sleep
on. I like to sleep once in awhile. But what I don't understand is, why
are you dead. Sweetheart, watch this. [She begins to rock on her hips
like a stripper and unbutton her sweater]
Sydney
Baby,
don't do that. Please.
Wanda
Why?
Sydney
Everyone
will know what you are.
Wanda
How
are they gonna know? They'll just think I spent a lot of money on my underwear.
Sydney
C'mere.
[pats
the seat next to her, Wanda ignores her, continues dancing.]
Don't
worry about them. The dead, I mean. I'm not, and I'm doing the script.
So why should you worry? Just sit here and play your part, which right
now is to listen to me talk about ghosts.
Wanda
BUT
WHAT IF EVERYONE IN THE AUDIENCE IS DEAD?
Sydney
Well
I'm sure not everyone is dead.
Wanda
HOW
DO YOU KNOW THAT?
Sydney
I'm
guessing. Probabilities. I mean, they might be dying. That's different.
Dying is a period of categorical ambiguity in which a person is still
among the mundane living, but babbles of the past, a sign that he or she
is also in the process of becoming one with the ancestral shades. [Sid
puts on sunglasses]. But I wanted to tell you about ghosts...
Wanda
You
always do this.
Sydney
What?
Wanda
When
I get upset you say something you know I won't understand.
Sydney
I
can't help it.
[gets
up & approaches Wanda, who is still wiggling/dancing]
I'm
a writer. My lines mount my horse. My words tread, trod. [stops, confused]
..So why is it I don't even know how to say what I want, or even say what
I DO.
Wanda
Shut
up.
Sydney
Then
there's always some dumb jerk nearby who's every move is thrust out like
an articulated thumb. Is that privilege? It confuses me.
Wanda
[to
a reggae beat]
O,
O, O. Shut up...O O Shut up..
Sydney
[over
Wanda's sing-song shut-ups]
On
the other hand, the things I really know I'm right about I feel no need
to mention. So everything I end up saying is only half heart.
Wanda
Shut
shut up. [winds her arms around her own waist, rocking her hips] SHUT
up shut-up-shut uppp, SHUT up, shut-up-shut-uppp.
Sydney
I
can't talk to you.
Wanda
[snaps]
Go fasten a nerd to a yurt.
Sydney
I
can't talk to you unless I pretend you're a writer. Then we'll speak,
one writer to another, like Sky to Headline!
Wanda
O
Shut Up.
[Sid does]
[grrl rises up, from behind the plastic roses on pedestals.]
grrl
A
large yellow tulip came up in my lunch box. I mean sand box. Not bad,
huh?
Wanda
[still
swaying] A tulip for lunch. Tasty!
Sydney
[politely,
to grrl] You're the gardener, I take it?
grrl
Don't
put ideals into my head! But then again, maybe I am the gardener... and
I'll be having a baby, too. A son, I guess. [to the others] Should I do
it? Have my baby?
Sydney
Why-
grrl
I'll
call him Luv. My son. Look at the roses. They're growing so fast they
seem to be shedding. [tenderly] No buds yet--but we're watching!
Wanda
If
you're going to have a baby you'll need a stroller. And diaper service.
Cribs and bibs and stuff. And time--so much time it's horrible.
grrl
You're
a mother too!
Wanda
You'll
have to stuff your head with the kid. Room for nothing else in it. I had
to clean out my brains with cotton wool after I shipped my son off to
Minnesota. I threw the baby junk out into the street. I decided it was
time for him to spend some time with his father...
grrl
That's
cold.
Wanda
I
didn't ask for him. He came.
grrl
Do
you ever call or write?
Sydney
She
never does. That's our Wanda.
grrl
[moves
out from behind pedestals, approaching Wanda & Sid]
Well
I'm not like that. I'm older. And my motherliness is increasing, now that
I'm older. I have tits and hips; before I had skin & bones, and the
little milk sacs of my skinny years. Now I want a baby to take my breast,
a Water Baby in trunks, glittering like a light in the water...and I'll
be poolside, wading in someone's big eyes, warm as soup.
Wanda
You
must be pregnant.
grrl
Is
that alright? I'm an introvert.
Wanda
That's
alright.
Sydney
[puts
her hand on grrl's stomach and leans down as if to examine it] Growth
is secretive but exquisite.
Wanda
[to
grrl] What a pair we'd make. You're a pal of a grrl. And I know what its
like to be with child. I can tell you about the chemistry and genetics?and
remember, there's no telling nothing without Ultra Sound. Clearly
we're wasting time. You need a doctor's examination and I need a new feeling.
What do you say?
grrl
Okay!
Sydney
[to
herself] I hate children.
[Wanda grabs grrl by the arm, and they start to leave, Sid follows]
Wanda
[to
Sid] You stay here.
Sydney
Really?
Wanda
Yeah.
I changed my mind. Once I thought we'd wed--my money and your thoughts--or
else I'd burst in the darkness of the theater. But now...
Sydney
Now?
Wanda
I'm
here and you're there and I'm exactly free of you. Now and forever, with
a chomp.
Sydney
You
can't leave me?you're my wretched tabloid and I'm your reader!
Wanda
It's
true, I have as many stories as I have hairs. But now I've got to grow
my own new life.
[grrl and Wanda exit together.]
[Sid sits on the bench, dejected. This is her duet with silence.]
Sydney
If
I thought I was here, I'd get up.
(silence)
Sydney
If
I thought this was my duet, I'd break the story that she likes best.
(silence)
Sydney
Softer
in parts makes a start. Tassel my breath. [she blows on her hands, sits
up]
(silence)
Sydney
[Sid
lies down on the ground, where she'll stay for the rest of the scene.
She is still wearing her hat, and the sunglasses.]
Nothing
is as clear as the immediate past!
(miserable silence)
Sydney
[tone
of explanation] Wanda said - Come into my house, come in So I did. And
then I fucked her blessed Virgin every night, and she was good. Afterwards,
Wanda'd curl up by me, all dispersed and sweet. I liked being the angel
of her warehouse. The window was bigger than the bed, and next to a forestation.
Fire trucks, window, bed. Sirens. The highlights came and went.
(silence)
Sydney
Of
course, Wanda's not her real name.
(silence)
Sydney
Her
real name is even stupider.
(silence)
Sydney
But,
my name is Sid. I could be interesting but I'm not in the mood. What a
waste. [throws herself on the ground and begins to pound it with her fists]
I'm LEFT. TOSSED. I'm OUT. [stops pounding]. I don't belong to anyone's
house anymore. I won't be playing with Wanda's pet rats anymore. I may
as well stay here and find a bush to call my own. My own bush home. There
must be a one for me somewhere around here. Weedy but fragrant, maybe
a Scottish Broom. I like straw. I've slept in stables and vacant lots.
Hah. I've been around, lots more than Wanda thinks I have. And in a few
weeks, flea-bitten and skinny, I'll wait by her door. And maybe she'll...
(silence)
Sydney
Maybe
she won't.
(silence)
Sydney
[beginning
to crawl] People crawl through the grass when they're looking for a contact.
Because a lens lost is revealed by a boil of light. Contact, that's the
wish you want.
Bogdan
[entering]
Bogdan is here. I am Bogdan.
Sid
[crawling
on all fours] Wanda taught that attention paid, wanders off... I'm not
listening!
Bogdan
Why
not listen to me. A few exhausted sentences?were all I managed to carry
to this country...Or is this show just...a slag heap of your words in
my mouth!
Sydney
I'll
try another sense. How about smell. [smells the ground] Dirt in the park
smells like--snail trails and piss. And hey, a spider fondles my head,
then glides earthward from my .. ear lobe. [sits up, brushes her ear lobe]
It's not a good life. But my goal is the heavenly O... I mean Wanda.
Bogdan
Look
at the mess you make. Dragging a television foot and you don't even notice
it. Whereas I am not from here. I have no idea what to do with ideograms,
such as appliances.
Sydney
Don't
try to distract me. My girl Wanda left me flat. Now I'm crushed as a jerk.
Bogdan
Poor
lingerie baby.
Sydney
It's
not a good life.
Bogdan
Then
start the next life.
Sydney
NO.
Bogdan
It's
just your heart forcing anarchy through the tube of your throat...an expression
from Romanian folklore.
Sydney
You,
Bogdan Person -
Bogdan
Bogdan
Vladu, from Romania.
Sydney
I
have real worries which you are distracting me from just now.
Bogdan
[following
her] If you only had a life?I wouldn't be here. I'm Content?s Dream.
Sydney
You're
Contents' Dream.
Bogdan
Yes.
Sydney
That's
an idea, right?
Bogdan
No.
See, my country, Romania, is always a highway to someplace else. The Romans
came first, followed by the Goths, Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Magyars, Mongols...Then
these empires: Byzantine, Ottoman, Russian. Invasion erasing invasion...this
is my Contents. You, on the other hand, are stuffed with orderly history?but
only want what you've lost.
Sydney
Huh.
So Wanda, gone, burns up my algebra...
Bogdan
Do
you really think you're going to find Wanda, down there with weeds and
bugs?
Sydney
It's
something to do.
Bogdan
You
are theatrical--which doesn't get far today.
Sydney
You
shouldn't talk so much. Because I don't know you.
Bogdan
I'm
Bogdan Vladu.
Sydney
I
know THAT.
Bogdan
But
you don't. Because you think I'm a creep, buzzing and bugging in your
grief house. But creep means to shift position, and I am firm. Here, in
my selfish structure. [smacks his chest]
Sydney
Bogdan,
I lost my love boat. Now my nights will be as big as my past.
Bogdan
[striding
back and forth]
I
know. Now listen. My grandfather was a Fascist. After the war he left
my father and grandmother in Constanta, and went up to the mountains to
organize with other Fascists. They staged guerrilla actions up until 1959.
Eventually the movement collapsed, though lots of those guys are still
up there, telling stories. So one day, after the Revolution, my grandfather
drove to Germany. Everything he saw was beautiful, orderly, prosperous.
"That," my grandfather told me, "That was what we were trying to do."
[pause]
Sydney
You
have a story.
Bogdan
What
do you think of it?
Sydney
I
don't know why I'm talking. Listening is steadier. Go ahead & flap
your lips, as much as you want. Make a speech!
Bogdan
While
you crawl around in dirt, among spiders and marigolds.
Sydney
Okay.
Bogdan
How
boring you are!
Sydney
[hurt]
How can you say that? Especially to someone in my condition.
Bogdan
That
Wanda...She's the blond asteroid who fell to earth, in one mean streak.
Crash, thud, burn. What a girl.
Sydney
You
know her?
Bogdan
A
bit. Professionally, I mean.
Sydney
What
do you mean, "professionally"?
Bogdan
[silent]
Sydney
Let
me guess, you respect her work.
Bogdan
She's
a fine stripper.
Sydney
O
god. What can you do--when your girlfriend likes to dance and has a walk
like a 30s orchestra?an organza rump?and a little coating of fat that
slides over her bones like a layer of vagueness. I called it her angel
cellulite, tender under her black lace. She likes rosy colors and yellow
colors and fake pearls.
She rattled my drum. BANG POUND BANG POUND, went my huge empty heart.
Bogdan
What's
the problem?
[jumps
on the bench and declaims the following]
You
have elections, freedom of capital movement, private property. NOW BECOME
NORMAL. Everyone knows Communism was a mistake. Fascism also was abnormal.
Since you can't live your life over, you just have to kill it. Empty your
past.
Sydney
O
Bogdan. Grief glows like the worm in my apple.
Bogdan
It
is obviously difficult to learn what is beautiful and to have one's mentality
changed. But that is what Romanians are doing. We are being educated,
aided by state and science and the free market.
[pause]
Sydney
Do
you believe that crap?
Bogdan
Hey,
I left the country. But first I told my sister, "My problem is that I
have no money. The only people who have money now, after the revolution,
are ex-Communists. They exchanged power for money?the new ruling class.
So we are ruled by a class of capitalist communists!"
Sydney
And
what did she say?
Bogdan
"In
the new Romania, there will be no sin, only crime."
Sydney
I
like that.
Bogdan
That's
because?it's so American. I left the shadow thugs of Romania for wide
open American crimes. My freedom mind has the pure criminality of a democrat!
Why why why are you leaving us, my sister cried. It's simple. When spring hurried through the lunatic forest, I left the country of need [comes down off bench and approaches audience] for the state of desire.
Now I stand outside the stripping theatre and bark, "LIVE all-girl Wiggling SEX ACTS. Fluffy tits! Thigh cream! Knock-knock! Show starts in 10 minutes!" I make eye contact. Dig into the eyes of a stranger. Dipping, sucking. Like a spoon into strange soup. This grating intimacy is capitalism. It's not greed. I'm not particular about how I live.
Sydney
Hummmh.
Bogdan
[casually]
Saturdays I work the early shift with Wanda, and after, I buy her a whiskey
sour while the M.C. Patty tinkles the piano with her long orange fingernails.
Talons of love...
[pause]
Sydney
I
never saw you over there.
Bogdan
You
never went over there.
Sydney
Well,
I'm not the jealous type. Wanda used to complain that I wasn't jealous
ENOUGH. Better not to push it.
Bogdan
[delicately]
I understand that because these women sell their bodies dosen't necessarily
mean they are no good.
Sydney
[sharply]
Wanda doesn't do dicks. She dances for tips.
[pause. Bogdan rolls his eyes or otherwise indicates not only that Sid is fooling herself, but that he himself may have had an "experience" with Wanda]
[Sydney sighs] But you're not down on prostitution.
Bogdan
I'm
not.
Sydney
What
can you do. I got to know Wanda when I was working at the video game parlor.
She used to come around after her shift at the theater. She looked great.
Bogdan
[in
an Eastern European accent]. A natural born stone fox in all her glory...
Sydney
Wow.
I couldn't believe she wanted to see me.
Bogdan
She
was your cherry.
Sydney
She
was my 1997 smash. She put a wafer into my mouth, and gave me her checkbook.
So I ate her money, and was glad.
Bogdan
Now
she's cut the knot.
Sydney
Now
she's zigged. She's buzzed.
Bogdan
Bye
bye Wanda.
[light down]
BIO: Camille Roy is a writer and performer of fiction, poetry, and plays. Her most recent book is a work of fiction entitled SWARM, published by San Francisco?s Black Star Series in 1998 with support from the San Francisco Arts Commission. Other books include The Rosy Medallions (Kelsey St Press, 1995) and Cold Heaven (plays, O Books, 1993). She is a founding editor of the online journal Narrativity (http://www.sfsu.edu/~newlit/narrativity) and her work is available online at http://www.grin.net/~minka. Her email address is minka@grin.net.
