SUPPLEMENTARY E-RESOURCE: VAN HOVE’S DISEASE GERMS

Disease Germs (1982) was van Hove’s second play, again one he both wrote and directed. As with Rumors, its text appeared in my 1984 anthology. The following is the introduction I wrote, here republished verbatim:

Van Hove again comes at Disease Germs with his auteur technique, and it is his personal voice dominating the piece, as it does Rumors. But it is the same voice in a very different register, if you will. For Disease Germs is like some camp grand opera, in which the uniformly female cast of characters is played by men. In sensibility Disease Germs is not so very different from the Genet of The Maids or Werner Fassbinder’s hysterical operatic film, The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant.

And by operatic, I intend a very particular connotation. There is no explicit singing (in fact all the musical selections are borrowed paradigms of recorded kitsch: James Bond sound-tracks, Citizen Kane, The Merry Widow, etc.), but the characters bemoan their fate through operatic postures, by way of spoken arias and duets. There is something Wagnerian about the feverish emotional tone of these set pieces, so that all genuine feeling gets expanded in the crucibles of operatic convention and cliché.

As in Rumors, the dialogue is but a hint at the entire theatre experience envisioned by van Hove and his extraordinary set/lights/costume designer, Jan Versweyveld. For this reason, very specific indications of the original mise-en-scène are included.

The space is a gigantic void on which a fantastic regurgitation of overblown passion may be enacted. Like Sartre’s No Exit or Buñuel’s Exterminating Angel, it is a space in which elegant people are trapped, confront each other and themselves, and are consequently transformed. A misshapen semi-human/semi-beast, Louisa, inhabits the space; like an antique fury, she longs for company to share in her misery. In a grandiose coup de théâtre the oversized barn doors to the space swing open to permit entrance to a troop of cape-swirling, manicured ladies. Louisa entices these grandes dames, each a parody of femininity, to expunge herself of a given romantic past. Each woman in turn goes into an aria-like “dream,” recounting a painful romantic episode. As she speaks, she evolves into a creature of the Louisa family: stripped of femininity (and most of her clothes), stooped over, and snarling. Louisa and her growing band of inducted furies threaten to outnumber the ladies who remain, as the latter attempt an escape. The outcome is too piquant to give away here.

Suffice it to say that the tone of the “dreams” derives from confessional magazines for affluent women, and that this mode is both exalted and sent up, as the ubiquitous Typist conscientiously records each successive true confession. The play “shifts gears” drastically in the final scene, as Jeanne and Johanna, who to that point had been in the background, undergo a confrontation. This subdued coda, laced with silence, could imply that all the action which precedes is an emanation for Jeanne and Johanna’s underside reality. The final scene is the surface or objective version of their personal transactions, and the rest a working out of their difficulties through fantasy life.

Once again van Hove has fashioned a plausible fictional universe that refers only obliquely to daily reality. In it the play of music, lights, space, and histrionics share an equal part with the text in significative import.

Below is the description of the show I published in The Drama Review at the time:

Ziektekiemen (Disease Germs), written and directed by Ivo van Hove, was performed in Antwerp under the aegis of AKT (Antwerps Kollektief voor Teaterprodukties) in the spring and summer of 1982. The space is capacious—like an airplane hangar. Because of the pervasive dark, it seems empty as the spectators enter. The actual dimensions of the room cannot be made out. The audience sits in a little cluster at one end of the room. The Typist, a transsexual in a blonde fright wig and high platform shoes, greets the people as they enter and plays music of the Tom Jones/Engelbert Humperdinck variety on a record player. She dances a bit by herself. Once the spectators are seated, the partial darkness becomes total.

Furtive animal noises, like the scurrying and grating of rats, are heard in the dark. Gradually, dim red lights come up on Louisa (a male actor in a dress), an androgyne misshapen into some animal form: She wheezes and rasps, like a hyena. She wears high heels, with bare legs and buttocks, and an enormous grotesque appurtenance in which a light is concealed attached to her chest; this light is turned on and off throughout the show, illuminating her face. She walks stooped over, with a pronounced limp, moving alternately slowly and quickly. In a monologue—all speech is in Dutch—she describes the space as one from which there can be no exit and ends with the plaint, performed with the histrionic expansiveness of Greek tragedy, “Ah, that headache! Migraine, migraine.” Citizen Kane music booms out. At the farthest rear of the space, seemingly a great distance away, huge doors swing open majestically. A shaft of light floods in. Six women (men in drag) enter, wearing enormous capes which they fling about like vast moths, moving as though in some outlandish fashion show. They move at individual speeds to different parts of the space, stirring up clouds of dust with their swinging capes. Tiny blue lights slowly dim up throughout the space, revealing its actual gigantic dimensions for the first time. Each “woman” is in her own pool of light. There is also a light on a big American car in the distance. Lights out.

One of the women, Theresa, sweeps down toward the audience, moving through a column of blue light. She is very feminine, dressed in a grey, silver gown and shimmering necklace. The others are now dim forms rushing about in the dark, searching for exits. They have a discussion about being trapped and reveal themselves as high society ladies. Meanwhile Louisa, the beast of the first scene, takes her place under an antique, dirty-green sofa, on which a dim light has come up. She taunts the distraught ladies. Laura, Theresa’s companion, orders her servant, Alice (dressed in self-effacing black), to hide her jewel case; Alice complies. Another character, Petra, goes upstage to explore the space while the others uncork and sip a bottle of champagne to pass the time. Petra returns from her reconnaissance to report that the place is a barren “desert” but that there is a car which might promise some hope of escape.

Mention of the car sends Petra into a reminiscence of an episode from her past in which she lost her virginity in a car. Throughout this speech, Louisa stalks Petra, pouncing on her as it ends, slapping her and tearing her blouse open; an open gash is revealed on Petra’s chest. Petra physically transforms into a beast like Louisa. Throughout Petra’s speech, the Typist has taken up quarters in the far distance, in a small, lighted cubicle that is apparently her office. She types throughout the speech and now runs to the front, comically dropping the page as the Batman theme tune is heard. She hands the paper to Louisa, who reads fragments of it aloud. The others, who have re-grouped upstage, mock Petra’s anecdote. Louisa warns them that, “Soon the tongues of fire will lick at your breasts. ‘Til the skin cracks and the sparks fly off.”

Most of the characters remain on the dark perimeters while Theresa and Laura chat downstage about jewelry and expensive artworks. Then Theresa begins her own anecdote, which concerns an infidelity she experienced. She describes in the tones of an expensive women’s magazine, the conflict she endured between her husband and his paramour. Both Petra and Louisa stalk Theresa with small flashlights; the Typist is back in her cubicle typing. Again the Typist runs to the front, stumbling and fumbling, to deliver the transcript of the speech to Louisa, who exults derisively. An enormous scaffolding in the center of the space is now illuminated. As the monstrous music from Citizen Kane bursts forth, Theresa strips off her clothes in grandiose gestures and reclines on the sofa. Petra goes over to the nearly naked Theresa, leans over the back of the sofa, and caresses her while singing a lullaby. They are illuminated by a light underneath the sofa. Meanwhile the Typist brings a tray with a Campari for Louisa. The two then waltz to a tune from The Merry Widow. Very far away, Jeanne and Johanna do a more beautiful version of Theresa and Louisa’s ugly moves.

The dancers disperse into the darkness. The light beneath the sofa comes up to reveal Theresa still reclining on it. Laura rushes over to offer words of sympathy. “It’s me, Laura—Laura with the jewels…” She sees blood dripping down Theresa’s leg and screams for help. James Bond music plays. Theresa, now a beast, taunts Laura and lashes out at her, slashing her face with lipstick. Laura torments Theresa, accusing her of vacuity and frigidity. She coaxes Theresa to get undressed. Laura begins her own speech as the Typist types in the upstage cubicle. Laura’s servant, Alice, a bit to the rear, has opened the jewel box, removed and donned Laura’s pearls, and parades up and down defiantly. There is a spot of blood on her neck. The others prompt Laura to come over to their “side.” As Laura denounces her boyfriend—“Dear … cruel Richard, I never want to see you again”—a cry of victory goes up from the others. Red light permeates the entire space as pandemonium breaks loose. The women crawl around, try to climb up the walls and screech. They chase after Laura, who flees before them. Johanna, Jeanne and Alice circle the sofa waving little flashlights. Flamenco music plays and they plot a get-away in the car. Jeanne and Johanna run toward the car in the rear area. Louisa calls out jibes, and Alice begins a speech about her love, jealousy, and violent hatred of Laura, her mistress. The Typist types. Alice strips off her clothes and becomes animal-like. Nevertheless Jeanne and Johanna grab her arm and pull her upstage to the car. She is the only one able to drive.

Music from the rock group Queen plays as the three make their get-away. Those who have previously transformed into animals utter poisonous prognostications of doom as they climb into the car. Alice, with Jeanne and Johanna as passengers, drives the car down one side of the space and comes to a halt at the front parallel to the audience, directly in front of Laura, who is blocking their way. Laura, illuminated by the headlights, implores Alice to get out so they can “make a new start.” Alice, in response, turns on the car radio (which plays the Beatles’ “Darling”), and Laura begins a striptease. After a pause, Alice starts up the car and runs over Laura. Laura seems to actually be crushed under the car wheels. The three women pile out of the car in hysteria, Alice now completely a beast, bringing up the rear. Blackout.

When the lights come up once again, the sofa has been moved alongside the audience. The only remaining characters are Jeanne and Johanna. They are now practically naked and are limited to a square of light marked off by vertical white fluorescent lights at four equidistant points. Joanna reaches into the car and turns on the radio—Yves Montand sings “Let’s Make Love” (from the movie The Billionaire). Jeanne and Johanna have a subdued conversation riddled with pauses. This scenes’s tone is intimate and realistic in contrast to the operatic hysteria of all that has preceded it. At the end of the scene, in which they are evidently trying to work out the problems of their “lesbian” relationship, there is a blackout.

The lights come up on Louisa—her face entirely covered by a bandage and smoke seemingly rising from the top of her head—who makes a speech. The Typist kneels downstage of Louisa holding a flashlight on her. Louisa speaks about men and women—the latter “tired of love … stringing each other onto meat hooks,” the former “lean panthers, violent and vulnerable.” When she finishes, lights come up throughout the space, picking out all the cast members, who are now entirely naked. Citizen Kane music blares forth. They pick up the capes, which are lying by their sides. They Typist runs to the back to fling open the great barn doors. All the actors run, stumbling, to the exits, but, one after the other, each drops in a pool of light and seems to die. The Typist and Louisa then meet center stage, and march out the center door, arm in arm.

Looking back from this point in time it is clear that van Hove and Versweyveld were laying down certain markers in Disease Germs that have recurred in new iterations throughout their extensive oeuvre: the use of kitsch pop songs and tunes, the masterful use of spatial planes and shuttering off parts of the space, from the Typist’s office at the furthest remove down to the intimate close scenes with Jeanne and Joanne, the emphasis on physical and visual action, the addition of stunning visual treats—in this case, the automobile—and the tropes of gender exploration. In these earliest shows there is a blatant, cruel humor though, which is hard to detect in most of the later work, but which was great fun.

Van Hove got a fair amount of press coverage for this, his second show. Here is a sampling:

“… a tasty, kitschily melodramatic show…” (De Ruyter, 2 April 1982).

And:

The play tries to show that men in the long run wish to be seen as and to remain women, and that they don’t know anything else they might wish for. That is the point of departure, and it’s made with strongly asserted, though haphazard, argumentation. (PvG, 22 March 1982)

Also:

Ivo van Hove’s text as written is too sentimental and too overladen, but that can be chalked up to personal taste. … The verbal power that’s missing in his writing is more than made up for in his directing. … The show is chock full of terrific, gripping images. (Vander Veken, 30 March 1982.)

The above review whose title translates as “Terrific Images Surrounding a Weak Script,” may account in part for van Hove’s denigration of his writing and decision shortly thereafter to abandon playwriting.

Here also are some telling remarks about the show that Ivo made in interviews at the time:

“‘It starts off extremely baroque but winds up in realism.’” (Vander Veken, 24 March, 1982) And:

‘What ultimately gets said isn’t all that important. To be honest, it’s often just slapping together a compilation of tabloids. Everything militates to the idea that every relationship no matter what form it takes is a potential murder.’ (PvG, op cit.)

DISEASE GERMSBy Ivo van Hove

Translated by David Willinger and Karel De Sloovere

© David Willinger 1983

CHARACTERS

LouisaTheresaLauraAliceJeanneJohannaPetraTypist

SETTINGThe space is capacious like an airplane hangar. It is empty, except for some scaffolding in the center, a huge dirty green antique sofa, and a large American car in the distance. Equally far off is the Typist’s office space, a walled-in cubicle, so far off it can barely be made out. The audience sits isolated, very far from the action.

Scene IAt rise, The Typist, a transsexual in blonde fright wig and high platform shoes, greets the audience and plays bad ‘50s music of the Tom Jones/Engelbert Humperdink variety on a record player. She dances a bit by herself. Once the audience is seated, total darkness descends. Furtive animal noises in the dark, like the scurrying and grating of a rat. Then, gradually, dim red lights come up on Louisa, a man in the form of an animal like a hyena: high heels, bare legs and buttocks, an enormous, grotesque appurtenance attached to her chest in which a light is concealed. This light is turned on and off throughout the show. She walks stooped over with a pronounced limp, moving now slowly, now quickly all of a sudden. Continuous wheezing and rasping as she speaks in her disconnected way. She gives the impression that she has inhabited this space for hundreds of years.

LOUISA: The doors are….From outside they’re trying to squeeze their way in….I can read the signs;The signs tell meWhen they’re coming and how many there are.Everything will become….I have to make all the preparations.They’re pushing against the doorsWith their broken wings

Blood and wounds, Shattered backs, And their skulls split.The exits are shut tight.Nobody can escape.Wiping memories outIs the only way….The strangers….There must be someone who can feel at home here.When and how many….Ah, that headache! Migraine, migraine!

Scene IIMusic from Citizen Kane booms out. At the furthest rear of the space, seemingly miles away, huge doors swing majestically open. A shaft of light floods in. Six Women enter, moving as though in some outlandish fashion show, wearing enormous capes which they fling about, like vast moths. They move at different speeds to different parts of the space, stirring up clouds of dust with their swinging capes. Louisa goes to hide in the sofa, which has become slightly visible. Tiny blue lights slowly rise throughout the space, giving an idea of its actual gigantic dimensions for the first time. The women, at the end of this extended entrance, distribute themselves about the space, each in her own pool of light. There is also a spot on the car in the far distance. Lights out.

Scene IIITheresa sweeps down toward the audience. She is very feminine, dressed in a grey and silver gown and shimmering necklace. She moves through a column of blue light. While Theresa pretends to be at ease in the space, the others are now dim forms, rushing about in the dark, searching for exits.

JOHANNA: Ah!THERESA: How dusty. (Starts putting on lipstick.)LOUISA: Your lipstick is out of place here. (From beneath the sofa. The light

concealed in her bosom has gone on and off.) Ladies, entrez! La porte de paradis est ouverte!

JEANNE: Here?THERESA: Yes, my darling. The middle of nowhere. Any objections? (Lights up a

cigarette.) I’ve got a terrible headache.JOHANNA: A little static comes with any change of climate. Take a sucking candy

and cut out the cigarettes.THERESA: Thank you, dear Johanna. Laura, where are you?JEANNE: I’m cold.LOUISA: (From beneath the sofa) They’re going to be drilling for oil here on this

plain, dear hearts.LAURA: (Sweeping downstage, beneath the scaffolding, right up to the audience)

Set down that little case in a safe place, Alice. (There is a big light behind her.) Nobody’s to be trusted. Except you, of course. (Alice hides the little case somewhere in the open space. At this point the two couples, Laura and Theresa, and Jeanne and Johanna, are grouped separately, and Petra is off to the side.) I managed to set aside a couple of bottles of champagne. So shall we…?

LUISA: Don’t be so generous. A few days from now a bit of champagne could be a lifesaver.

LAURA: A few days from now I’ll be at the banquet with Baron De Lâtre. Has anyone gone to inspect the terrain, or are you all just waiting on your fate?

LOUISA: (Still from beneath the sofa) Fate has no power. It’s only the urge in each of us that we call fate: A purely human thing.

JEANNE: But we’re still here, shut up on this plain regardless.LOUISA: Shut up. There are thousands of hidden exits.LAURA: Show me and I’ll vanish right through. The champagne I’ll leave for all

of you.LOUISA: Scabies are digging tunnels under the skin, for a way in to a way out.

The way in you know….LAURA: Scaby! You dare call me a scaby?! Alice, the little case. We’re leaving.

Let’s having nothing to do with that canine twit.THERESA: Let her be Laura. Talking’s her only release.JOHANNA: She’s nothing but an obnoxious virgin, beneath our station.JEANNE: She stinks like a rotten apple.LOUISA: Is one rotten apple all it takes to ruin the whole fruit bowl? I thought you

ladies had more resistance that that!THERESA: Where’s the champagne?LAURA: Champagne brût de la campagne. Straight from the bottle.

(Each one takes a sip from the bottle. They are now having a little party. Petra comes back downstage from her exploration, speaks to herself about how she finds the space.)

PETRA: It seems that we’re on an endless plain. No living beings, no animals, no insects, no water, no grass. Only us. Further on the air becomes thinner.

JEANNE: Is there really nothing at all?PETRA: Only a car and a huge sofa.JOHANNA: A car!THERESA: Where?LAURA: Does it still run?PETRA: There is no way out.LAURA: Yes there is. Does the car still run? How did it look?PETRA: I think it still runs. (And Petra goes into her dream. We now see the

Typist in her office in the deep background. We hear her typing very far off. Louisa circles Petra, snorting all the while.) A little old-fashioned, but very elegant.Ronnie should take me for a Slow ride through lush, linden-covered drives—I with a wide-brimmed hat, garnished With plastic fruit,A sporty cap, and a fringed shawl.Sun streaming through the leaves.

LOUISA: (Stalking her) Like a barrage. It’s an ambush.PETRA: I’m in such a fever, Ronnie….

Can’t we stop for a moment?Your love is eating me up alive.Is it really that good, Mister?Yes, it is a little bit small.

(Louisa slaps her across the face, Petra rips open her own blouse, to reveal an open wound on her chest. She removes her lovely hat and jewelry. Louisa helps. Petra is transforming into an animal like Louisa.)

LOUISA: Ssshhh, sleep. Just sleep.PETRA: It is a little bit small, Mister.

Would the Mister like to make love with me? (Cries softly. Curls herself into a ball.)

LOUISA: Childish dreaming. Haha. She knows that dreaming’s the only thing that makes her happy. (The Typist has stopped typing, taken the paper our of the machine, and run all the way downstage, carrying the page to Louisa, who takes it.)

LOUISA: (Reads it quickly, then mutters a few words) “A little old-fashioned...,” “linden-covered...,” The wounds of the past chiseled into the petrified faces of the old women. They say that even these wounds heal.

(Meanwhile the other women have moved upstage and taken off their caps. They now comment on Petra’s dream, rather hysterically.)

JEANNE: Your jokes are insanely jolly.LOUISA: Jokes?THERESA: Sarcasm would be a better word.LAURA: Why are you here? I don’t know you.JOHANNA: Hold up! We have to organize ourselves. We have to survive. The

situation is grave.JEANNE: Indeed, it doesn’t make any sense dealing with her. We’ve got to find a

way out.LOUISA: Everything is a way out.LAURA: We won’t get anywhere analyzing dreams. Petra’s still a child. We

shouldn’t have sent her on the reconnaissance mission.THERESA: She’s coming out of it. The rest will calm her down.ALICE: How long will it take before the air starts getting thinner in here?JOHANNA: If we stay together, we’ll find the way. But someone has to take the lead.LOUISA: To the starting line ladies. File those nails.THERESA: Do you have a better idea, honey?LOUISA: No, I do not have a better idea. I don’t need a better idea.JEANNE: I’m cold.JOHANNA: We’re all cold.LOUISA: Soon the tongues of fire will lick at your breasts.

‘Til the skin cracks and the sparks fly off.PETRA: (Waking up, taking fright) Ronnie!LOUISA: You dreamed him, Petra. He doesn’t exist anymore.

Scene IVJeanne and Johanna vanish upstage together toward the car. Theresa, Laura, and Louisa remain downstage. Louisa remains behind Theresa, taunting her.THERESA: Sun…sun…LOUISA: Here the sun doesn’t shine, never.THERESA: Have you ever been here before?

LOUISA: Yes. (Theresa, taken aback.) I don’t mean it like that. But I do have a feeling that I’ve been here before. That there’s no water, no growing, no sun. It all feels natural to me. Something I know. Something I feel safe with.

THERESA: But we’ll die.LOUISA: Probably. But not quite on the first day. The air contains enough oxygen

for the time being. We’re still too full from what we went through yesterday. The memory of it still keeps us busy. (Theresa and Laura now chat.)

THERESA: Yesterday Peter sat—Peter’s my husband. He’s now an artistic advisor, a coming man—Peter and I sat on the patio of our villa barbecuing. It was lovely. Why didn’t you come?

LAURA: Business, Theresa, a jewelry transaction. A solitaire, very valuable and rare. My husband doesn’t believe in stones, he invests in houses. It was already three o’clock when I decided not to buy the stone, and ordered from Chantal with the money I’d saved. A real little gem, Theresa. A turquoise one in natural silk, gently dipping, softly split, matching brooch with turquoise features. A work of art.

THERESA: And?LAURA: And?THERESA: How much?LAURA: One thousand, five hundred, brooch included.THERESA: Mm, very distinguished.LAURA: And how is Peter? I heard he got a promotion.THERESA: Peter’s a darling, a lovely man. He got promoted last week to artistic

advisor, and there’s a chance that Old Man Salsberg will be gone soon.LAURA: Peter, the president! Fantastic! (Kisses Theresa out of sheer

enthusiasm.)THERESA: But he’s my husband first and foremost. Full of little attentions and

over-sensitive to my mini-depressions. LOUISA: Mini-depressions?PETRA: It’s the past.

(As Theresa goes into her dream, the Typist starts typing in her office. A square of white vertical fluorescent lights comes on around Theresa. She darts around as though in a jail. Jeanne and Johanna move in a bit to watch.)

THERESA: It is the past, but I have a feeling that it’ll never really be a past perfect.There’s still a painful spot. It keeps me occupiedNight and day. I dream about it.Bad dreams, exciting dreams.I’m ashamed of it.If I had a choice in the matter, I wish I’d never met that man. He was a colleague of Peter’s when he was still administrative assistant with the company. One day Peter invited him out to eat. As soon as Frans came in, it happened. I’ve never been so in love. He came so close to my image of the ideal man. His hands, there was something about them. They were strong, but at the same time beautiful and so finely shaped. As much the hands of a woman as a man. Peter and I had been married three years. I started having pain when we made love. I developed an aversion to sex. Even so, we made love five times a week. In spite of

the fact that I had no desire to. I felt like a child that’s forced to eat mush against his will. It disgusted me. He disgusted me.It was unbelievably confusing. I was married and in love with another.It was six years ago this happened.Meanwhile Frans got married to a very lovelyWoman who I got along with all right.He’s still administrative assistant with that company.Peter had worked his way up, one promotion after another.He became second-in-command in the organization.Peter and Frans stayed good friends.Our marriage became a habit.Maybe my expectations being stretched too high,I’m looking for a second Frans in Peter.Over the years I learned to keep my love for Frans to myself.

(The Typist stops typing, takes paper out of the machine and brings it downstage to Louisa.)

LAURA: I thought the two of you were happy.PETRA: That dream grew out of polluted thoughts.JOHANNA: For us Peter and you were the ideal couple.PETRA: Everyone deludes himself in some way. An old philosophy says that

images of reality are only shadows.LOUISA: Where are the others? Where are they, the strangers, the little monsters?JEANNE: Our culture can’t be reduced to little monsters. That’s fake.LOUISA: Who’ll be able to tell the fake from the real? They say that even

Salvador Dali has put fake Dalis on the market. Our whole culture is a fake.

JOHANNA: Then what? Where does it all start?LOUISA: Start? How did we get here?

Where are we? Why?THERESA: I lied. My husband and I are still happy. After nine years of being

married we’re still in love with each other.PETRE: (Laughing) Dreams don’t lie.

(Petra and Louisa, the two beasts, menace Theresa with light bulbs as Jeanne and Johanna flee back upstage.)

LOUISA: You pretend to speak the truth, but the lie is sharpening itself like a razorblade.

LAURA: We’re going to die!LOUISA: Not before the blood takes the place of tears.THERESA: That’s not true. We were happy before I got here.

It’s the air, it’s so thin.It’s affecting my thoughts and feelings.In all these nine years I’ve never once beenUnfaithful, not even in thought.

LAURA: So what do you think you’re doing here then? How dishonest. Everything changes, Theresa. We live in the midst of whirlwinds.

THERESA: Not me. I am who I am.

LOUISA: Another one. (Takes the paper, and quotes:) “Through the years I learned to keep my love for Frans to myself. It’s a painful delusion, but I’d rather have that than nothing.”

THERESA: Lies!PETRA: The truth.LOUISA: Shadows of the truth. Stains that never get washed clean.THERESA: You’re pushing me into thoughts that I’d rather not have.LOUISA: But you have them anyway.THERESA: They’re lies, every last one of them lies. You want to drive me crazy.LOUISA: The madness you’ve been carrying around like a mother, afraid of the

mysterious pain you had the first time you gave birth. Now you have your child: a deformed little worm.

Scene VThe whole scaffolding is lit up. Monstrous Citizen Kane music blasts forth. Theresa strips off her clothes in grandiose gestures. Goes over to the sofa, also transforming into an animal. Petra goes over to the nearly naked Theresa, leans over the back of the sofa, caresses Theresa, sings a lullaby to her. They are illuminated by a light underneath the sofa. Laura, with caricatured gestures from the opera, approaches in order to better see what is happening to Theresa.

Scene VI

LAURA: Theresa, Theresa.

(The Typist brings over a tray with a Campari.)

TYPIST: Madam.LOUISA: You’re tiring. (The Typist moves off.) Stay. I need you.

(Louisa and The Typist dance to music from The Merry Widow, under the scaffolding, grotesquely. Jeanne and Johanna do the same dance further upstage, but beautifully and romantically.)

LOUISA: It’ll be rough going with Laura. Tears are a strong shield. In her case the weapons will have to be chosen with great subtlety.Blood, the blood. (Trying to arouse pity.)The pig seeps ‘til it’s empty.Theresa’s her best friend. Her downfallWill speed up Laura’s suffering.We’ll break her paws if we have to.Her head will come off.She’s starving. Even now.Senselessness will rush through her just like throughThe neck of a giraffe.

PETRA: A graceful finish.LOUISA: Bring me some lipstick, crimson red. And spray deodorant, if we’re

going to be holding out here for a few more days. You can go…

Scene VII

Theresa is still lying on the sofa. Laura emerges from the dark. Alice, though still in the dark, scurrying after. Alice wears Victorian schoolgirl’s uniform. Laura’s only light is hidden in her dress.

LAURA: Theresa! It’s me, Laura. Your best friend.ALICE: She’s sleeping, Miss Laura.LAURA: What do you know about it? Get out! (Alice off.) Theresa, say

something. (Hyper-romantic.) It’s me… Laura, Laura with the jewels. Please, answer. We ought to do some barbecuing together. And Peter’s being made president. What did they do to you?

PETRA: Maybe she wants to be alone.

(Laura sees the blood dripping down Theresa’s legs. Theresa is now lit completely in red. Laura in blue. Laura starts screaming, and James Bond music plays throughout the scene. Laura keeps falling and getting up.)

LAURA: Blood! A doctor, quick, a doctor. Theresa! A doctor. Call him. Call a cab. Do something. Warm compresses. A clean bandage. We’ve got to clean the wound. (Nobody responds.) Theresa, we’re alone.

THERESA: (Who is now transformed to an animal) You are alone, my jewel.

(Louisa and Petra laugh sharply.)

LAURA: Where are the murderers hiding?Behind which face was the weapon polished? Watch out, Laura. Look around. Stay here, don’t move.So long as you don’t move, the starving lion won’t attack you.

THERESA: Watch out, behind you.

(Laura takes fright. There is nothing behind her. Theresa laughs.)

LAURA: Why, Theresa? I’m your best friend. If Peter was here….THERESA: Shut up about Peter. I don’t know him.LAURA: Peter’s your husband.THERESA: (Wounds Laura’s face with lipstick) I’m here and have no other

existence. Your world is appearance, make-up. I’m free of Peter, of you, of everything. I’m what’s left over, what is real.

LAURA: You’re sick. They’ve destroyed you. They’ve taken everything from you. All love, all tenderness, all pride. (Silence.)

THERESA: And now? Am I ugly now?LAURA: To me you’re as beautiful as ever, because I see past what they made you

into.THERESA: Dream on, whirling about in circles that never end. You’ll break too,

even if you’re made of steel. I hate you, I’ve always hated you. Your infantile belief in happiness. Pick the day with your mouth black from chocolates, tramping around on perfumed toes. Pick the days ‘til the days start picking you, and you search blindly for your food in this barren desert. You shall die, suffer, stuffing yourself with your jewels ‘til your stomach bursts open, blood splashing everywhere. And I’ll look down on you from my throne. I’ll look and see how you scratch like a stupid cow with your head against a fence to ease the itching. The fence

of your luxury, your jewelry. The pain will be grueling. Little Laura, tell me again, how many children do you have?

LAURA: None, you know that….THERESA: Oh yes, how could I have forgotten? You couldn’t even come. How

many times did I have to hear about that over coffee? “Theresa, I’m frigid. I’m always pretending. I can’t help it, but….” A couple of glistening tears on your cheek. “I don’t feel anything when Richard comes in me. He’s so brutal.”

LAURA: Why Theresa?THERESA: “He fucks me like a rhinoceros. In all five years I haven’t had one

single orgasm. I’m at my wit’s end. I can’t talk to him about it. He’s so nervous.” Talk to me, get undressed. See the cancer creeping trough your own breasts. Get undressed. (Coaxing her.)

(The Typist, far off in her office, starts in typing.)

LAURA: Dearly beloved Richard,We haven’t seen each other for a few days, so here’s a letter.You must be very busy with your theatre business, andI’m working on my new collection.Especially stones, with a southern look this time.It’ll be great.Were you able to book the Canadian mime group?And the clowns from Paris?

(The Typist stops, pulls paper out of the machine, and throws it away.)

After the season ends, I’m going down to the Ivory Coast,As much for business as pleasure. If you have some free time….I can see about getting two seats on the plane.Our latest honeymoon.But as to the immediate future: What do you say to dinner with Old Mac Saturday evening? If you feel like it, justCall.I can’t see you before Saturday.I hope everything goes well. Kisses, Laura.P.S. If you can’t make it to the Ivory Coast,Let’s arrange for a long weekend in Paris.

Scene VIIIDuring the above, Alice has removed her outer garments. Now, as James Bond music plays, a red light comes up on her. She takes eccentric clothes out of the little case and puts them on. A spot of blood is visible on her neck. She takes Laura’s pearls out of the little case and puts them on.

LAURA: Alice, you too.ALICE: The little case is empty, Madam. Alice has emptied it out for herself.

Alice walks up and down with the little case right under Madam’s nose. Alice is rich now.

JOHANNA: Alice!ALICE: I’m coming!

Scene IXPetra, Theresa, and Louisa, the three that have transformed to beasts, now cluster together to gang up on Laura, who is apart, cooling herself off with a fan.

LOUISA: Alice is going. Still a little unsteady in your spiked heels, her neck strangled in a colorful boa. You play your part with hyped-up glitter. Everybody is going. Beneath your peacock tail sits a spotted hyena, at the ready, chomping stupidly on your furry skin. Alice is going. Theresa is going. Petra is going. You’re sick. You’re deadly sick.

ALICE: The spider laid his eggs in the powder on your cheeks.THERESA: The cheek swollen like a pregnant mother. A knife in it. White fluid.

And from the cheek that’s been cut open, dozens of young spiders are crawling, irritated by the harsh daylight.

LOUISA: Write a letter before you go crazy.

(The Typist types.)

LAURA: Dear… cruel Richard,I never want to see you again.

Scene XA cry of victory goes up from the beasts, a red light permeates the entire space, and pandemonium breaks loose. Various of them crawl through the space, Theresa climbs up a wall, etc. Laura is running, to try to get away.

Scene XIJohanna and Jeanne wield yellow flashlights, and Alice a white one. Flamenco music plays, as they stalk around the sofa.

JOHANNA: Alice!ALICE: I’m coming.JEANNE: Careful, Johanna.

(Alice comes over.)

JOHANNA: Jeanne and I have a plan. You can join us if you wish.ALICE: A plan?JOHANNA: First we’ve got to check and see if the car really runs.JEANNE: You’re the only one who knows anything about cars. Only you can help

us to escape.ALICE: Escape!JOHANNA: Shh, nobody must know. Only the three of us are going.ALICE: Do we leave the others behind here?JEANNE: Do you really care?JOHANNA: This is your chance to begin your life as a real woman.JEANNE: We help you, you help us.ALICE: What’ll I be able to do once we’ve escaped? I don’t have any house, any

work, any husband. I have nothing.JOHANNA: We’ll take care of that. You can trust us.JEANNE: Life always offers something. Join us. You’ve got nothing to lose.

(They go upstage to the car.)

LOUISA: (Mocking) Stay together, turtledoves.ALICE: (By the car) Am I pretty?JOHANNA: You’re very pretty.ALICE: Really?JOHANNA: You don’t believe me?

(As Alice goes into her dream, the Typist types.)

ALICE: Sometimes I think I’m pretty.Miss Laura was pretty.Even when she was shoddily clothed, the shapes of her body were very attractive.When her hair went unwashed for weeks on end, her face remained sharp. She had something natural about her; something sharp. Hours I’ve spent looking at myself in the mirror searching for a trace of natural beauty, but I only saw brushed-back hair, red on my lips to accentuate them, a light layer of brown make-up, and clothes that don’t really fit.

JEANNE: Alice, you’re pretty, just as everybody’s pretty in some way.ALICE: Some women are prettier than others. I’m not pretty. I’m uglier than

Miss Laura. When we went shopping she’d ask me if the frock she had on was pretty. I got painful pleasure out of saying that the frock fit her very well, even if it wasn’t true. And if she was wearing something that did make her pretty, I humiliated her.Everybody looked at her.Men’s eyes slid past me to her. She was a challenge. I felt myself small and dirty. I tried to get her to stay inside as much as possible, with me, so that all her attention would be fixed on me. But I felt unhappy. (Pause.) I could have mutilated her. Beaten her ‘til she was crippled, cut a knife through her face. Everything –Everything that would set me above her.I loved her.My love consumed me.I wanted to physically merge with her.Murder her.

JEANNE: Did you murder her?ALICE: No. I forced her to respect me. I drove her crazy. I deceived her. I cut

her out of my life.

(During the above, Alice has been removing her dark, dull outfit. She becomes rough and animal-like. And from the stooped-over submissive servant she was, she stands up straight, tall, and masculine.)

JOHANNA: We have to get out of here. Get away from this desert.

Scene XIIThe Escape. Music from the rock group, Queen, plays. Jeanne, Johanna, and Alice rush about looking for the car, in the style of a getaway from an American movie.

PETRA: Run. Run away from this dark world.Run quickly with your broken paws, soundless as in a dream.Shouldn’t we do something?

LOUISA: Let them. They’re running away into madness. But there’s no danger in that.

THERESA: Alice is capable of doing anything.LAURA: Alice! Ha, ha, ha…THERESA: Alice isn’t running away; she’s searching…LAURA: What is she searching for? A lover? She’s not even a woman. Her

mannish behavior infuriates me.LOUISA: (To Laura) She’s the tick of the bomb in your seedless belly.

(They board the car, and Alice takes the wheel)

PETRA: Ride Alice.THERESA: Ride, softly, fast, ride your steel-grey horse, innocent Amazon.

Spurt poison like deadly fog into her body.LOUISA: The bomb’s ticking. The belly’s stretching.LAURA: I hold her in check. Without me, she won’t get out.PETRA: The huge floodgates are closed.LAURA: The water explodes furiously into the slit of light. The water level’s

rising, sure of itself. Up to the chin. The swimmer gasps.

(The car has been skirting the wall and coming downstage. Theresa jumps on the moving car and hangs off it.)

THERESA: Stop her, friend. Stop what’s pushing her.

(Laura puts herself in the path of the car, which comes to a stop in front of her. She is illuminated by the headlights.)

LAURA: We have to talk Alice, we have to talk.You can’t leave me behind. I’ll die without you.Ask questions. Ask me anything.We have to make a new start.You’re lost without me. Lost. Stop, Alice.I love you.I know the pain I inflicted on you.You must forgive.We’ll start from the beginning.

(Alice turns on the car radio. The Beatles’s “Darling” plays. Laura does a striptease in the light from the car’s beams. Then Alice starts up the motor and runs Laura down.)

Scene XIIIJeanne and Johanna jump out of the car and flee hysterically to one side. Alice stays in the car, breathing heavily in post-coital passion. Only the car headlights remain on.

LOUISA: The ticking is over. The bomb exploded. The seed spilled orgasmically through her head like after a rape.

JEANNE: I want to go away.

JOHANNA: We are going away. And she’s not going to keep us back here, with that spoiled personality of hers.Why did you do it?We should be alone together, far away.You shouldn’t have killed her.You killed us as well. You dragged usAlong in a senseless slaughter.

ALICE: (Coming out of the car, showing her disease symptom on her neck, as Jeanne and Johanna cry.)Crying children, tipsy men, bubbling coffee percolating.A heated house.That’s the world you want to go off to.Not me. I want to be myself. Laura.

JOHANNA: You’re acting like a painted whore.JEANNE: I’m cold.JOHANNA: We’ll go home Jeanne.JEANNE: Yes, home.

Scene XIVSeveral months later. The sofa is now to the side of the audience, in an area not used up to now. Pause. Jeanne and Johanna straighten themselves out. All the others have left. They are practically naked, and continue to strip further. This scene is played in a square of light. The tone is realistic and flat in contrast to the preceding. Johanna reaches into the car, and turns on Yves Montand singing “Let’s Make Love,” from the movie The Billionaire.

JEANNE: What time is it?JOHANNA: I don’t know. (Silence)JEANNE: (Running to Johanna) We have to stay together.

(Silence. Then she goes off again.)

JOHANNA: A cup of coffee.JEANNE: There is no more coffee. (Johanna looks at Jeanne for quite some time.)JEANNE: What is it? (Silence.) What is it? (Silence.)JOHANNA: Come. (Jeanne goes to Johanna. Johanna starts to undress Jeanne.)JEANNE: No, I don’t feel like it.

(She runs away from Johanna, who goes to the car and turns the music up.)

JEANNE: How was it with him?JOHANNA: Good.JEANNE: What did you do?JOHANNA: Do I have to?JEANNE: Yes, you do.

(Johanna turns off the music.)

JOHANNA: I waited for him at the station. He came a half hour late. We went for a cup of coffee, rented a room. After that we went to eat Italian food. All that took five hours. And now I’m back here with you.

JEANNE: Did you enjoy yourself?

JOHANNA: I made it all up.JEANNE: Why do you say that?JOHANNA: Because you mustn’t think….JEANNE: Then what did you do?JOHANNA: Why? I picked him up. We went somewhere. After that we had a cup

of coffee and went to MacDonald’s for hamburgers.JEANNE: Where did you go then?JOHANNA: Where he lives.JEANNE: What did you do there? Sleep?JOHANNA: We most certainly did not sleep.JEANNE: Then what?JOHANNA: We tried to get familiar with each other once more, since we hadn’t seen

each other for two months. (Silence.)JEANNE: Go away. You must go away. You must. You do well anywhere you

are. (Joanna touches Jeanne.) No.JOHANNA: Then what?! We have to move forward. Together.JEANNE: What for?JOHANNA: What?JEANNE: Nothing.JOHANNA: What?JEANNE: Everything.

I’m lost when you’re not here. I can’t control myself anymore. I do stupid things. It doesn’t make any sense.

JOHANNA: We shouldn’t throw each other away.JEANNE: I can’t take it. (Silence.)

It’s a physical reaction, as though I’d been drinking black coffee continuously for three weeks straight. A shiver which never reaches a breaking point, an endless gulf, tired of living, feelings of inadequacy, terror of losing you. (Silence.)

JOHANNA: You’re not losing me. I’m here.JEANNE: Don’t you see it? I’m lost. Pointed in the wrong direction. I can’t do

anything. I can’t even give you my love.JOHANNA: You’re everything, Jeanne, everything.JEANNE: With the exception of him.JOHANNA: He helped me to believe in myself again. You make me feel insecure.

For months now I’ve taken meticulous care of my body. For you. A body you ignored, insulted. That’s why I need him.

JEANNE: For self-improvement.JOHANNA: And you! Isn’t that what you need me for? (Silence.) Sorry. Why do

you always try to make me smaller?JEANNE: Maybe because you’re too big. I can’t do without you, and I can’t do

with you, if he’s there. I’m slipping into a morass of confusion.JOHANNA: I love you. Grab hold of me. We stay together. Each of us has to

respect the other person. You’re the woman I was looking for, the one I was afraid of.

JEANNE: If only I could spit it out. If only I could cleanse you out of myself. Our life together is a search for a reason to split up. We are that much despair. (Silence.) When do you see him again? (Silence.)

JOHANNA: I don’t know.JEANNE: Tell me, I want to know.JOHANNA: I can invent whatever I feel like.

JEANNE: Why do you say that?JOHANNA: Tomorrow. And then we will again be exactly where we are today. On

the edge of a ravine. Is there a ravine?JEANNE: I’ve looked down into it. You haven’t.JOHANNA: I hate you. (Silence.)JEANNE: What is it?JOHANNA: Nothing. (Silence.)

Scene XVLouisa is under the scaffolding in her high heels, her face entirely covered with a bandage, smoke rising up out of her. The Typist is kneeling downstage, with a flashlight trained on her.

LOUISA: The women,Tired of love,String each other on to meat hooks,Eyes darkened with mascara,Bored through with false eyelashes,The gangrene raging up through their legs,Festering feet, And hollowed-out, defunct breasts,The women have been beaten.The arteries of love are swollen.With spiked heels they cut open Their bald-shaven armpits,From the festering wounds stream lipstick.Bodies emptied of thoughts.After a slow, excruciating hunt.Cut off from their pasts.Their bridegroom, their daily pleasure.Women gasp in the clouds of dustFrom their hidden dreams, hate, and obsessions.The men are bornLean panthersViolent and vulnerablePerpetuum mobile.

Hard Citizen Kane music. All the men are naked, but pick up their capes. The Typist flings open the huge barn-like doors at the very far end of the space. They run, stumbling to the exits, but each, one after the other, drops in a pool of light, and dies. Then Louisa and the Typist leave by the center door, arm in arm.