Remembrance and Pantomime Read online

  (She has turned, then turns back)

  Don’t bother with the sweepstake ticket, you hear? ’Cause you ent going win it.

  (Exit. JORDAN alone)

  JORDAN

  My old queen is gone. And Albert, my young prince. Ah, Ezra, Ezra! I armed for death, and was unarmed by loss. I’ve had a son shot in the Black Power riots. I thought he did it out of contempt for me—not out of hope for others—and it has not changed this country. The other one has chosen a slower death in this place—art. He lives like a hermit up in the country now. I gave them to this country—one for politics and one for art. My brother the railway porter is now head of the local union in Hartford, Connecticut, and keeps begging me halfheartedly to come to the States. He knows damn well I’d be a misfit there. I’d be a misfit in England, too. I’ve been there once, and I found it a mean place. Remember what we saw, Pilly? An archipelago in a beautiful sea. Cities where all the races joined to make one race. Athens. The glory that was Greece. You remember, man, Pilly. Can’t tell me you don’t remember …

  (PILGRIM, in black, with sash appears on the veranda)

  PILGRIM

  I remember. I remember it damn well.

  JORDAN

  Some educational conference. Every day there I was, frightened I’d bump into Esther Hope. They took us out by train to a farm in the Berkshires, Pilly, chaps from Malta, the Sudan, from all over the Commonwealth. Ceylon … In that malicious cold.

  PILGRIM

  That was the sadness of our generation, A.P. It was like a light going out in our minds, the empire fading. Bought a sweepstake ticket for the first time in my life yesterday.

  JORDAN

  You, Pilly?

  (Laughs)

  Why?

  PILGRIM

  Well, I feel I pushing on myself, Albert. Don’t get up. And don’t give up. Keep up them remembrances. They going good. I’ll send that boy around.

  (He recedes into darkness. INTERVIEWER enters as before)

  JORDAN

  I taught those little bastards well, didn’t I? I taught with a passion. Wrong things or not. Some of them are big shots today, judges. But I was a holy terror in that classroom, boy, Pilly. There would be a deathly silence when I entered, the kind of silence that we keep for kings. I taught them with the love that comes through books and I inspired the fear that would give them confidence.

  (He rises)

  And though I old, Pilly boy! Where you? Don’t leave too, Ezra Pilgrim. Though I old, and this hand that used to hold that leather strap like a scepter, quivering, I still say: Let lightning flash from your eye when you remember those dead, all those dead, arranged in your memory, grave after grave, like empty desks in a classroom, knowing that is the old One Jacket Jordan thundering to teach, to teach!

  (He has put on his jacket. He crosses to the desk. As young JORDAN)

  I am trying to tell all you blasted young whippersnappers that Thomas Gray is saying: It doesn’t matter where you’re born, how obscure you are, that fame and fortune are contained within you. Your body is the earth in which it springs and dies. And it’s the humble people of this world, you Junes, you Walcott, and you Brown, and you Fonesca, and you Mango Head, that he’s concerned about. And he’s concerned about them from the very first verse of his “Elegy” as he meditates aloud. Now, class, close books and recite from memory!

  (He recites each line and the class recites after him)

  JORDAN AND VOICES

  “The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

  The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea

  The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,

  And leaves the world to darkness and to me.”

  (Fadeout)

  Pantomime

  For Wilbert Holder

  Characters

  HARRY TREWE, English, mid-forties, owner of the Castaways Guest House, retired actor

  JACKSON PHILLIP, Trinidadian, forty, his factotum, retired calypsonian

  The action takes place in a gazebo on the edge of a cliff, part of a guest house on the island of Tobago, West Indies.

  Pantomime was first produced by All Theatre Productions at the Little Carib Theatre, Port of Spain, Trinidad, on April 12, 1978, directed by Albert LaVeau, with the following cast:

  HARRY TREWE

  Maurice Brash

  JACKSON PHILLIP

  Wilbert Holder

  The play was produced by Liane Aukin for the British Broadcasting Corporation on January 25, 1979, with the following cast:

  HARRY TREWE

  Robert Lang

  JACKSON PHILLIP

  Norman Beaton

  Act One

  A small summerhouse or gazebo, painted white, with a few plants and a table set for breakfast. HARRY TREWE enters—in white, carrying a tape recorder, which he rests on the table. He starts the machine.

  HARRY

  (Sings and dances)

  It’s our Christmas panto,

  it’s called: Robinson Crusoe.

  We’re awfully glad that you’ve shown up,

  it’s for kiddies as well as for grown-ups.

  Our purpose is to please:

  so now with our magic wand …

  (Dissatisfied with the routine, he switches off the machine. Rehearses his dance. Then presses the machine again)

  Just picture a lonely island

  and a beach with its golden sand.

  There walks a single man

  in the beautiful West Indies!

  (He turns off the machine. Stands, staring out to sea. Then exits with the tape recorder. Stage empty for a few beats, then JACKSON, in an open, white waiter’s jacket and black trousers, but barefoot, enters with a breakfast tray. He puts the tray down, looks around)

  JACKSON

  Mr. Trewe?

  (English accent)

  Mr. Trewe, your scramble eggs is here! are here!

  (Creole accent)

  You hear, Mr. Trewe? I here wid your eggs!

  (English accent)

  Are you in there?

  (To himself)

  And when his eggs get cold, is I to catch.

  (He fans the eggs with one hand)

  What the hell I doing? That ain’t go heat them. It go make them more cold. Well, he must be leap off the ledge. At long last. Well, if he ain’t dead, he could call.

  (He exits with tray. Stage bare. HARRY returns, carrying a hat made of goatskin and a goatskin parasol. He puts on the hat, shoulders the parasol, and circles the table. Then he recoils, looking down at the floor)

  HARRY

  (Sings and dances)

  Is this the footprint of a naked man,

  or is it the naked footprint of a man,

  that startles me this morning on this bright and golden sand.

  (To audience)

  There’s no one here but I,

  just the sea and lonely sky …

  (Pauses)

  Yes … and how the hell did it go on?

  (JACKSON enters, without the tray. Studies HARRY)

  JACKSON

  Morning, Mr. Trewe. Your breakfast ready.

  HARRY

  So how’re you this morning, Jackson?

  JACKSON

  Oh, fair to fine, with seas moderate, with waves three to four feet in open water, and you, sir?

  HARRY

  Overcast with sunny periods, with the possibility of heavy showers by mid-afternoon, I’d say, Jackson.

  JACKSON

  Heavy showers, Mr. Trewe?

  HARRY

  Heavy showers. I’m so bloody bored I could burst into tears.

  JACKSON

  I bringing in breakfast.

  HARRY

  You do that, Friday.

  JACKSON

  Friday? It ain’t go keep.

  HARRY

  (Gesturing)

  Friday, you, bring Crusoe, me, breakfast now. Crusoe hungry.

  JACKSON

  Mr. Trewe, you come back with that same rake again? I tell
you, I ain’t no actor, and I ain’t walking in front a set of tourists naked playing cannibal. Carnival, but not canni-bal.

  HARRY

  What tourists? We’re closed for repairs. We’re the only ones in the guest house. Apart from the carpenter, if he ever shows up.

  JACKSON

  Well, you ain’t seeing him today, because he was out on a heavy lime last night … Saturday, you know? And with the peanuts you does pay him for overtime.

  HARRY

  All right, then. It’s goodbye!

  (He climbs onto the ledge between the uprights, teetering, walking slowly)

  JACKSON

  Get offa that ledge, Mr. Trewe! Is a straight drop to them rocks!

  (HARRY kneels, arms extended, Jolson-style)

  HARRY

  Hold on below there, sonny boooy! Daddy’s a-coming. Your papa’s a-coming, Sonnnnneee Boooooooy!

  (To JACKSON)

  You’re watching the great Harry Trewe and his high-wire act.

  JACKSON

  You watching Jackson Phillip and his disappearing act.

  (Turning to leave)

  HARRY

  (Jumping down)

  I’m not a suicide, Jackson. It’s a good act, but you never read the reviews. It would be too exasperating, anyway.

  JACKSON

  What, sir?

  HARRY

  Attempted suicide in a Third World country. You can’t leave a note because the pencils break, you can’t cut your wrist with the local blades …

  JACKSON

  We trying we best, sir, since all you gone.

  HARRY

  Doesn’t matter if we’re a minority group. Suicides are taxpayers, too, you know, Jackson.

  JACKSON

  Except it ain’t going be suicide. They go say I push you. So, now the fun and dance done, sir, breakfast now?

  HARRY

  I’m rotting from insomnia, Jackson. I’ve been up since three, hearing imaginary guests arriving in the rooms, and I haven’t slept since. I nearly came around the back to have a little talk. I started thinking about the same bloody problem, which is, What entertainment can we give the guests?

  JACKSON

  They ain’t guests, Mr. Trewe. They’s casualties.

  HARRY

  How do you mean?

  JACKSON

  This hotel like a hospital. The toilet catch asthma, the air-condition got ague, the front-balcony rail missing four teet’, and every minute the fridge like it dancing the Shango … brrgudup … jukjuk … brrugudup. Is no wonder that the carpenter collapse. Termites jumping like steel band in the foundations.

  HARRY

  For fifty dollars a day they want Acapulco?

  JACKSON

  Try giving them the basics: Food. Water. Shelter. They ain’t shipwrecked, they pay in advance for their vacation.

  HARRY

  Very funny. But the ad says, “Tours” and “Nightly Entertainment.” Well, Christ, after they’ve seen the molting parrot in the lobby and the faded sea fans, they’ll be pretty livid if there’s no “nightly entertainment,” and so would you, right? So, Mr. Jackson, it’s your neck and mine. We open next Friday.

  JACKSON

  Breakfast, sir. Or else is overtime.

  HARRY

  I kept thinking about this panto I co-authored, man. Robinson Crusoe, and I picked up this old script. I can bring it all down to your level, with just two characters. Crusoe, Man Friday, maybe even the parrot, if that horny old bugger will remember his lines …

  JACKSON

  Since we on the subject, Mr. Trewe, I am compelled to report that parrot again.

  HARRY

  No, not again, Jackson?

  JACKSON

  Yes.

  HARRY

  (Imitating parrot)

  Heinegger, Heinegger.

  (In his own voice)

  Correct?

  JACKSON

  Wait, wait! I know your explanation: that a old German called Herr Heinegger used to own this place, and that when that maquereau of a macaw keep cracking: “Heinegger, Heinegger,” he remembering the Nazi and not heckling me, but it playing a little havoc with me nerves. This is my fifth report. I am marking them down. Language is ideas, Mr. Trewe. And I think that this pre-colonial parrot have the wrong idea.

  HARRY

  It’s his accent, Jackson. He’s a Creole parrot. What can I do?

  JACKSON

  Well, I am not saying not to give the bird a fair trial, but I see nothing wrong in taking him out the cage at dawn, blindfolding the bitch, giving him a last cigarette if he want it, lining him up against the garden wall, and perforating his arse by firing squad.

  HARRY

  The war’s over, Jackson! And how can a bloody parrot be prejudiced?

  JACKSON

  The same damn way they corrupt a child. By their upbringing. That parrot survive from a pre-colonial epoch, Mr. Trewe, and if it want to last in Trinidad and Tobago, then it go have to adjust.

  (Long pause)

  HARRY

  (Leaping up)

  Do you think we could work him into the panto? Give him something to do? Crusoe had a parrot, didn’t he? You’re right, Jackson, let’s drop him from the show.

  JACKSON

  Mr. Trewe, you are a truly, truly stubborn man. I am not putting that old goatskin hat on my head and making an ass of myself for a million dollars, and I have said so already.

  HARRY

  You got it wrong. I put the hat on, I’m … Wait, wait a minute. Cut! Cut! You know what would be a heavy twist, heavy with irony?

  JACKSON

  What, Mr. Trewe?

  HARRY

  We reverse it.

  (Pause)

  JACKSON

  You mean you prepared to walk round naked as your mother make you, in your jockstrap, playing a white cannibal in front of your own people? You’re a real actor! And you got balls, too, excuse me, Mr. Trewe, to even consider doing a thing like that! Good. Joke finish. Breakfast now, eh? Because I ha’ to fix the sun deck since the carpenter ain’t reach.

  HARRY

  All right, breakfast. Just heat it a little.

  JACKSON

  Right, sir. The coffee must be warm still. But I best do some brand-new scramble eggs.

  HARRY

  Never mind the eggs, then. Slip in some toast, butter, and jam.

  JACKSON

  How long you in this hotel business, sir? No butter. Marge. No sugar. Big strike. Island-wide shortage. We down to half a bag.

  HARRY

  Don’t forget I’ve heard you sing calypsos, Jackson. Right back there in the kitchen.

  JACKSON

  Mr. Trewe, every day I keep begging you to stop trying to make a entertainer out of me. I finish with show business. I finish with Trinidad. I come to Tobago for peace and quiet. I quite satisfy. If you ain’t want me to resign, best drop the topic.

  (Exits. HARRY sits at the table, staring out to sea. He is reciting softly to himself, then more audibly)

  HARRY

  “Alone, alone, all, all alone,

  Alone on a wide wide sea …

  I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,

  And cried, A sail! a sail!”

  (He removes the hat, then his shirt, rolls up his trousers, removes them, puts them back on, removes them again)

  Mastah … Mastah … Friday sorry. Friday never do it again. Master.

  (JACKSON enters with breakfast tray, groans, turns to leave. Returns)

  JACKSON

  Mr. Trewe, what it is going on on this blessed Sunday morning, if I may ask?

  HARRY

  I was feeling what it was like to be Friday.

  JACKSON

  Well, Mr. Trewe, you ain’t mind putting back on your pants?

  HARRY

  Why can’t I eat breakfast like this?

  JACKSON

  Because I am here. I happen to be here. I am the one serving you, Mr. Trewe.

  HARRY

&nb
sp; There’s nobody here.

  JACKSON

  Mr. Harry, you putting on back your pants?

  HARRY

  You’re frightened of something?

  JACKSON

  You putting on back your pants?

  HARRY

  What’re you afraid of? Think I’m bent? That’s such a corny interpretation of the Crusoe-Friday relationship, boy. My son’s been dead three years, Jackson, and I’vn’t had much interest in women since, but I haven’t gone queer, either. And to be a flasher, you need an audience.

  JACKSON

  Mr. Trewe, I am trying to explain that I myself feel like a ass holding this tray in my hand while you standing up there naked, and that if anybody should happen to pass, my name is immediately mud. So, when you put back on your pants, I will serve your breakfast.

  HARRY

  Actors do this sort of thing. I’m getting into a part.

  JACKSON

  Don’t bother getting into the part, get into the pants. Please.

  HARRY

  Why? You’ve got me worried now, Jackson.

  JACKSON

  (Exploding)

  Put on your blasted pants, man! You like a blasted child, you know!

  (Silence. HARRY puts on his pants)

  HARRY

  Shirt, too?

  (JACKSON sucks his teeth)

  There.

  (HARRY puts on his shirt)

  You people are such prudes, you know that? What’s it in you, Jackson, that gets so Victorian about a man in his own hotel deciding to have breakfast in his own underwear, on a totally deserted Sunday morning?

  JACKSON

  Manners, sir. Manners.

  (He puts down the tray)

  HARRY

  Sit.

  JACKSON

  Sit? Sit where? How you mean, sit?

  HARRY

  Sit, and I’ll serve breakfast. You can teach me manners. There’s more manners in serving than in being served.

  JACKSON

  I ain’t know what it is eating you this Sunday morning, you hear, Mr. Trewe, but I don’t feel you have any right to mama-guy me, because I is a big man with three children, all outside. Now, being served by a white man ain’t no big deal for me. It happen to me every day in New York, so it’s not going to be any particularly thrilling experience. I would like to get breakfast finish with, wash up, finish my work, and go for my sea bath. Now I have worked here six months and never lost my temper, but it wouldn’t take much more for me to fling this whole fucking tray out in that sea and get somebody more to your sexual taste.