The curtain is up. The show we’d planned to put on has suddenly gone beyond our wildest expectations. It’s overflowing its banks like river water in a river, to emphasize the goodwill of us stars. We could call them water games.
But how did we get here?
“Peter, have you seen the news on tv?” Audrey asks me.
A star watching tv in her golden cage? So they have antennas on Olympus? Yes, she watches the news, like everyone else.
“Yes.”
“Have you heard what’s happened in Prague?”
“Sure, it’s the third time they’ve given the news. Poor sods.”
An enormous flood had buried Prague in mud. Hundreds dead, thousands homeless, desperation in abundance.
“We need to help them. To do something for them,” says Audrey.
“Like what?” She always has some lovely charitable idea. I pretend to follow her lead.
“A big worldwide show. Live from Prague.”
“What for example?” I ask. What can we perform that can’t be repeated three times before the final shooting? What have we got to do with a place in such a mess we it would be impossible to retouch our make-up? Myself, I don’t really care, but where does someone like her think she can go without urgent need of her make-up artist?
“A tragedy. By Shakespeare. By Sophocles. Hamlet. Oedipus. There are women with leading roles, aren’t there?”
“Who knows? -- I don’t remember. But are you talking about going over there? But when, exactly? When they’ve cleaned up the mess, right?”
“Right away. To pick up their morale. They’ll feel better after watching us, you’ll see.”
“And rehearsals?”
“We’ll take the script onto the stage and read it. There isn’t any time to think about it too much. It’s spontaneous, alive.”
“But – I don’t know, can’t we organize a fund-raising drive from here?”
“Peter, you just don’t get it. We already did a fund-raising for the children in Afghanistan two years ago. We can’t do the same thing every two years. We need to do something different.”
I don’t know how I let myself be convinced. Maybe it was the black and yellow ball floating on the mud in the 10 o’clock news. And where was the little boy? That question with no answer convinced me. Yes, we should go over there and do the show. I call my agent to ask him how old Oedipus is in the play. Hopefully, not a doddering old fool. I’d ruled out Hamlet from the start, because it reminds me of the first time I’d been booed. It was also the last, because after that I found success. But I’m superstitious, no doubt.
“But Oedipus marries his mother,” the agent says.
“Oh!” I answer, stunned. Audrey won’t like that, not so much because of the marriage as the age of the female lead. The mother of a forty-year old king (which is my age) can’t be young. Oedipus liked them old. But if Audrey is so keen on this charity show, she’ll have put up with a few wrinkles of sacrifice, won’t she?
“Listen, Stan, we’re doing it, that’s final. Organize it and tell the papers. If we want to collect enough booty, we’ll need a lot of hype.”
“When do you want to leave for Prague?”
“As soon as they’ve cleaned up the mess.” I tell Audrey:
“I’ve spoken to our agent. It’s all set and we’ll leave as soon as possible.” I have to tell her about the mother: “Eh – you know about Oedipus’ wife, the part you’ll take, I guess?”
“If you want to tell me she’s his mother, I already knew. I’ll do it anyway, it’s for a good cause.”
The next morning Stan sends a courier with the Sophocles. I read it. A marvel of perfection. Oedipus seems older than me. No matter, it’s for charity anyway. I haven’t even finished when they start bombarding me with phone calls. The news has spread. Everyone wants to take part in some way or other. I call Audrey:
“Ok, but this tragedy only has four actors. We can’t find a leading role for everyone who wakes up at the last moment. Why didn’t they get the idea themselves?”
We choose the other actors among our common friends and we arrange to meet the next day at my house.
But the meeting is called off because we’re all too busy. Too busy. Meantime, the mud is cleaned off the streets of Prague and we’re getting close to our departure. Without any rehearsals. Without any costumes.
“Well, a thing like this comes off better if it’s improvised. Living theatre, that’s what we mean to do. Good theatre,” says Audrey.
So we don’t do anything and I arrive at the departure in a state of confusion. Stan has organized it all.
“The mud?”
“All cleaned up. Pristine squares, gleaming buildings. We’re off.”
Ocean. Europe. The South-East. I can’t recognize Prague’s bluish light. The air is darker, as if something had contaminated it. Maybe it’s only an impression, maybe it’s the beginning of autumn. The last time I was here it was May.
“Peter, we’re at the hotel”, says Audrey.
The taxi had stopped while I was lost in thought, staring at the marks of what had happened. There are lots. Crater-deep holes in the asphalt, gutted houses, stores without windows like empty eyes.
And this is the centre, the area they’ve tried to fix up, knowing we were arriving. Ok, maybe not only for our arrival, but that counted for something, too. The hotel is splendid, the hall reassembled like a set. This is for us as well. Powerful gods just landed from out of an almost cloudless sky. That’s why we’ve come down, otherwise we’d have stayed in Olympus.
My suite is on the top floor. From my room I can see the cathedral. I think that’s what it is, because I always travel like an ignoramus. I go to thousands of places and only see hotel rooms and restaurants. I can’t do any walking around, otherwise everyone will recognize me. The bad part of life as a divinity is the cult you have to accept.
I only want to sleep.
“We’ll get together in my room for rehearsal later on? Tom and Matt will be coming, too.” Audrey isn’t the type to loosen her grip.
“I’m tired, but you’re right. We have to rehearse at least once, come rain or shine.” And it had better not be more rain, especially tomorrow!
“See you at eight. Bye, darling.”
“Bye, see you.”
I eat a sandwich in front of the cable tv and open up a tin of orange squash. They’re showing Imitation of Life, a film with Lana Turner and one of my top cult movies. It’s the story of this theatre actress, her nanny and their daughters, one who feels neglected and the other who is fair-skinned and won’t accept the fact that she’s half Black. Lana Turner gives up everything for her career, she becomes rich and famous, but in the end she is sorry.
Why be sorry? Bread and orange squash you can still have, even if you’re rich and famous. But the other things, no, for example streets repaved in honour of your co
ming. Bread and orange squash in a mega-luxury hotel. And that doesn’t make you feel sorry at all.
It’s time to go to Audrey’s room. She’s in a tracksuit and has prepared four sheets. She thinks we’ll seem more Greek that way. But we’ll only seem more idiotic. Matt opens a bottle of champagne and, laughing we drink it. Then he opens a second bottle and we drink it acting. Other things that don’t make you at all sorry.
“Good God, this Oedipus had nothing better to do than go and look for trouble,” says Tom.
In effect, he’s right. “But it’s not his fault. He killed his father without knowing it, he married his mother without knowing it and he discovers the truth without knowing it.”
My father. I should have killed him myself, if he hadn’t decided to do away with himself on his own. As for my mother, I only had time for a small child’s idea of marrying her, because she died when I was six. Truth? To be realistic, truth is an irrelevant issue.
“Want another drop of Crystal?”
Champagne for stars. “Sure, thanks.” My father drank it, too. There’s no poverty in my past, only a bastard father.
At the end, Oedipus blinds himself with his mother’s belt buckle, the same belt she used to hang herself with. I pretend to blind myself with an ice-pick, drinking a few more bubbles. The sheet drops and I drag it around the sitting room, empire-style.
“What a great story this is!” comments Matt. "And you were fantastic.”
“Marvelous”, says Tom, moved.
“It was worth the while, wasn’t it?” smiles Audrey “You’re great.”
Compliments among actors. Always sincere, always convinced. We’re all good, no? All absolutely unique. I’m happy with my Oedipus. Sure, we’ll have to read the part, but it doesn’t matter. But will these people understand the English?
“Good-night, everyone. See you tomorrow.”
Tomorrow I want to take a walk incognito. I love going around incognito, because I’m so famous that when someone recognizes me he thinks he’s seeing things. When I give a nod to admit my identity I feel great, even if it’s a worthless trifle. I’ll go visit the church I can see from the window of my room.
And the day after tomorrow is our grand opening. Everyone is invited. The show is free for the poor sods because it’s living off tv rights and credit card donations. It will be broadcast worldwide, this rubbish with us reading a Greek tragedy in English. And it will be written in big black letters that we’re doing it for free. Big black letters because Stan certainly won’t miss the chance to underline it. Big black letters with underscoring. These unfortunates feel lucky to have won the gods’ attention, and we are the gods, and it all ends in glory. Why are we so magnanimous?
I was an idiot to come here to do this. I should have stayed in Hollywood and made a contribution on the flood victims’ bank account. I’m at the height of my career. What reason did I have to look for publicity? I’ve just won the Oscar, what more do I want? The Nobel Peace Prize? I hate acting live, even if I was in theatre for many years. You have to work your way up. When you make a mistake you can’t change it, but under these circumstances everyone will forgive me, I know that. They’ll love me for the risk I took.
Good night.
The next day I take a walk to the church. I let myself be recognized by everyone because I feel like it. They ask me about Audrey. No, unlike me she doesn’t like being seen. She’s more discreet, or maybe she’s afraid of looking less beautiful in real life. Tom and Matt make private calls on the local rich and famous. We all have out small vices, under this heaven of fake stars.
I feel a bit ornery when I get back to my room. I’d thought I’d be stopped by a lot more people, that they’d have dared touch my arm. Maybe American movies aren’t so popular here. But no, that’s impossible. Clearly they’re more reserved here, clearly they can’t believe their eyes when they see me in the street.
Whogivesadamn about this God-forsaken place, forgotten by humans, too, except for us, until tomorrow. Then everyone’s eyes will be fixed on this rather sad place that’s afflicted by such monstrous weather.
The last unofficial rehearsal, in my room this time.
“Not too long, like yesterday, right?” I ask Audrey, who’s the first to arrive. “Even shorter, because Tom and Matt aren’t here.”
“What do you mean they’re not here?”
“Other commitments. They haven’t taken this thing too seriously.”
“Hell, I won an Oscar and I’m here and they cut out and skip rehearsals? Do you think they’ll deign to take part in the performance?”
“They said that tomorrow they’ll be on stage before us. After all, we’re acting with the script in hand.”
“They really are coming tomorrow? What a great honour!” I’m annoyed, most of all because they’ve managed to arrange a better evening than mine. Until it gets late, Audrey and I repeat our parts and theirs, too, because it feels like we’re reciting to the wall if the other half of the dialogue is missing. Hell, we’re so serious that it doesn’t even occur to me to open the champagne.
The only thrilling moment is when we call Harvey and he isn’t at home. His mobile is turned off. “And where has he gone at ten o’clock at the age of fourteen?”
His grandmother isn’t there, either. “And where has she gone at 10 o’clock at the age of seventy-five?”
After five minutes of worry we remember the time zone. He’s at school, it’s still morning. And his grandmother can manage, that’s for sure.
Harvey is the son we had when we were married, Audrey and I. I wanted to bring him along, but Audrey said he’d miss too many school days and we shouldn’t make him feel different by taking him everywhere like a puppet. In my opinion, he liked it. Instead, in some hidden place where she doesn’t keep her polish and her jewels, she still feels like the small-town girl she was, and she doesn’t want our son to get a swollen head. To me it just seemed a good idea to bring him to Europe. But she wouldn’t hear of it. That’s why I don’t feel like opening the champagne.
One of the most sought-after women in the world, and I can’t wait for her to go back to her own room.
I make conjectures about Oedipus and Harvey. It’s not that his mother’s beauty and success will corrupt their relationship? Maybe he wants to kill me and take my place in her life. But what place? There’s no place for anyone in Audrey’s life, and I think that he’s understood that too by now. We’re two wanderers without Jocasta, without mother or sister or lover. He lives with me, and while we’re away he’s with Audrey’s mother. Worst sort of mother, not so bad grandmother.
Here we are, now he’s getting out of school. “Hi there, Gu.”
“Dad, how are you? I see you tried to get me before. How’s mom?”
“Yeah, we got the time mixed up. Mom is marvellous, like always.
”
“And how are they getting on, those poor flood victims?”
Gu isn’t like us. He really does feel sorry for the unlucky. Maybe it’s his age.
“It’s all back to normal. Everything is ok here.” I’m lying. In realty I haven’t found out anything about the situation except for what concerns me as Oedipus, as long as I am Oedipus. Maybe I should have, but I’m leaving in two days anyway.
“When are you coming back?”
That’s his favourite question. Favourite I don’t know, but the one he’s asked most in his life, poor kid.
“On Tuesday. What should I bring you?”
I used to bring him
a toy, but now that he’s grown I never know what to bring. “Nothing, I don’t need anything.”
I don’t deserve a son like this. Neither does Audrey. She covers him with designer clothes that he only wears when he goes to see 'her' and she takes him places that are ridiculous for a fourteen-year-old. No, he certainly isn’t at risk of falling in love with his mother. A perfect woman, but only in two dimensions. “Say hi to mom. I won’t call her ‘cause I don’t want to bother her.”
He knows who he’s dealing with. “See you soon, son.”
I turn on the tv to see if they’re talking about the show. I can’t understand a single word but I am able to recognize my face in other languages, too. Ok, here we are. From the speaker’s excitement I understand that this show is an event for the whole country. So we haven’t come here for nothing. I knew it would go like this. Maybe the day after tomorrow a lot more people will recognize me. Pity I’m leaving the same day. I’ll come back with Harvey next summer.
I turn out the light and go to bed. Tomorrow’s the great day. A great day like so many great days in my life, and maybe not as great as some. But it’s for a cause and that’s always a hundred thousand more points in the great starry scoreboard of shaggy goodwill.
Good night, Gu.
When I wake up it still feels like night. Instead, it’s a leaden-skied morning. A verse I’d repeated yesterday evening comes to mind, “Ah, dark cloud of shadow hanging unspeakably above me, indomitable and bearing misfortune.” Strange, I know a remark about the climate in Oedipus by heart. It hasn’t got much to do with climate, but it fits well with this sky.
“Maybe we ought to postpone the whole thing?” I ask Audrey. Goodwill is fine, but it’s looking pretty muddy here.
“That’s what I was thinking, too,” she answers. But the wheels of the show are already in motion, and the journalists are already here. We can’t look like cowards, especially not us, especially not now. We go on, at whatever cost. It’s raining a bit, but not too much. At noon there’s a lucky break in the clouds that gets bigger after an hour. At two o’clock we go down for lunch with the journalists and the authorities. It’s unavoidable, like the press conference afterwards. Audrey and Matt explain to all those present that we are actors who will play our parts. Obviously, it was necessary to clarify our position. I go back to my room, have a shower and the evening comes on. I don’t even think that we needed more rehearsals because we are so professional and savvy. Harvey calls to say break a leg. “You know the time-zones better than me, that’s for sure. A big hug, son.” It’s like I’m saying good-bye forever. “Look, dad, we’ll see each other in two days. Bye for now.” Oedipus has contaminated me - I’m making a tragedy out of nothing.
There’s wind on the terrace because of the helicopter blades and of the cloud-front that looks like it’s being swept away in the distance. We reach the square in a few minutes and it’s already full of people. We drop down from on high, like the gods of Greek tragedy. It’s getting dark.
Tom and Matt are enjoying themselves. Audrey is carefully controlling every expression and holding back her hair. I’m looking on. There’s an endless crowd. It’s incredible how people like us govern the human tides. We’re more powerful than Greek tyrants.
Backstage. The make-up is waiting. Minimal, like the minimal costumes, simple white tunics with hemp-coloured cloaks. Mine is red. “Why don’t we start out with our usual clothes, then put on the cloaks and only at the end the tunics?” proposes Tom.
“Good idea,” I agree at once. I like it. It gives the idea of a show in progress. And then, the best ideas always come at the last minute.
Washed, ironed and made-up. We’re ready. A fellow gives out the scripts with our parts written in large letters. I’ve almost learned it by heart, I won’t have to look at it too often.
The scene is made up of a white backdrop with a few columns, a large red door in the middle, two smaller blue side doors and two wooden Louis XIV chairs that serve as thrones for me and Jocasta. The lights are lovely, and so is the night, luckily. In many points around the square and the city mega-screens have been put up so that everyone can see us. Better, that way I can pretend it’s cinema and maybe I can get over some of this stage-fright. Hamlet, Baltimore, sixteen years ago.
We all feel it, now that we’re back here waiting to go on.
“I can’t go out there” – says Audrey – “I’m going to run away.”
But we all know she’s the least terrified of all.
Tom is already green because he’ll be on in just a few minutes.
Ok, I have to go out there. I’m going, I’m going, I’m going, I’m going. Now I’m going, I’m going, I’m going, I’m going.
“Oh children of Cadmus the Elder, why are you sitting there like beggars adorned with branches? The city bursts with the smoke of incense, with chanting and crying.”
How true are the words I pronounce. How it corresponds with what I see, these crying people who have come here to hear me, who am, after all, singing a poem.
“I would be no man if I did not feel pity for you now.”
And I do feel it, completely, for these poor devils. I am a king, no? I live in a far-off, happy place, far from them, far from their destroyed, sodden houses. I play my part and they love me. I am only more fortunate than Oedipus because I know who I am. Poor Oedipus, what a terrible discovery to make under this gloomy sky filled with lightning. It starts raining again.
Here’s Tom who plays the priest, then Matt who plays Tiresias, the blind prophet. Then Tom comes back dressed as Creon, my uncle brother-in-law.
We perform in the shelter of the stage, wearing the cloaks we’ve just put on. Luckily, because it’s cold now. The public is unsheltered and soaking wet, but they stay glued to their chairs.
The messenger and the other messenger, who are Matt and Tom again, reveal my birth to me, while Jocasta, who knows everything by now, doesn’t want me to understand what I’ve done – mother love. “Luckless one, may you never know who you are!”
I’m a lucky one, that’s what I am, because water from the river is invading the square and there they are there up to their knees being broadcast worldwide because as a gesture of goodwill we’ve decided not to interrupt the play.
The rain gets heavier and the river higher the rows of seats and the houses are invaded again. The audience stays on, even if they know that at this very instant they may be losing everything. Their homes, which aren’t in a play, their Jocasta, who is only their old mother. What keeps them there on their chairs? They don’t see realty, distracted as they are by the fiction. They need our divine permission to run away shouting, to run home.
I look at it all from far away, even if it’s all here in front of my eyes. I’m carried away by the artifice, too. And so are my god colleagues. I am like Oedipus, I don’t know who I am.
One step after another, I go down into the stalls: “Come now and cast me out of this land, where I can speak to no mortal.”
I go further from the stage and can’t hear the others’ lines, so they can’t hear me. The square is delirious, I am delirious. Prague is my Thebes, this descent into the slime my punishment for closing myself off in a cage of luxury. I get down on my knees and the mud is at my throat. I hope Harvey is watching.
The rain gets heavier, the level of the mud rises. I’ve reached the end of the crowd and come back. I’ve finished and am exhausted by this rain and by this Oedipus.
“By which we see that no mortal can deem himself to be happy until he has reached the end his life without encountering any cause for suffering.”
Roaring, thunderous applause – despite everything, the enthusiasm of the crowd. They get up out of the mud that covers them to the knee and all around the firemen are already at work – too few – to help the flow of people exiting. If they believe it, good for them. For us there is a military helicopter waiting, surrounded by a ring of policemen – too many.
There’s no time to change our clothes. We hop on. We people are kept in shape with work-outs and massages, we are. A hop to go back to where we came from, to a sky full of bluish clouds.
“But – it’s not dangerous to fly in this weather?” asks Matt.
“Less than running down there,” Tom points down below.
“I’m exhausted,” says Audrey.
“Shattered,” I add, looking down. This is how we got here, with all our good intentions. And this is how we exit, flying.
Another terrible wave of mud. People fleeing in every direction with no soundtrack, almost no shouting and very little noise.
”By which we see that no mortal can deem himself to be happy until he has reached the end his life without encountering any cause for suffering.” I don’t deem myself to be happy, even though I’m leaving trails of glory behind. They tell us we’re flying to a hotel outside of town. A few jolts, a couple of shivers, mostly from the cold because of our wet clothes.
“And our things?” asks Tom.
Of course, how am I going to change my clothes?
“Don’t worry, we’ve taken the liberty of transferring your luggage into the new suites.”
Perfect. I want to stay on high. I don’t want to go back to the ground floor of this earth. In the room there’s no lack of warm water. I don’t want to turn on the tv nor to guess what’s going on in unintelligible languages. Ignorance is a feeble excuse, but I’m a foreigner and a star and that said I get into the tub.
Matt calls: “Have you seen the tv with you dredging the mud on your knees like a guru? Do you realize you’ve become a myth? And a disaster broadcast live moves the whole world.”
“Think so?”
“You’ll see that the funds will be arriving soon. We’ve served our purpose.”
Our purpose. So I turn on the tv, but then Tom phones: “Have you seen?”
“No, Matt told me.”
“Incredible, what we did. I wanted to tell Audrey, but she put down the phone because she was so tired. It was a huge effort.”
“Think so?”
A huge effort. With the curtain up, we disappeared into a black cloud, Our descent among the mortals is over. A huge effort. Very aesthetic. The rain pours down every minute of the last night.
And now the same helicopter as yesterday carries us to the airport above the black clouds, beyond which I’ll see my son. We go back to our dry homes, where our only problem is falling asleep.
translated by Brenda Porster