Difference between revisions of "Jonathan Ned Katz: "Comrades and Lovers," Act I"
Line 13: | Line 13: | ||
SPEAKER 1: love-juice, | SPEAKER 1: love-juice, | ||
+ | |||
SPEAKER 2: love-odor, | SPEAKER 2: love-odor, | ||
+ | |||
SPEAKER 3: love-yielding, | SPEAKER 3: love-yielding, | ||
+ | |||
SPEAKER 4: love-climbers, | SPEAKER 4: love-climbers, | ||
+ | |||
WHITMAN: and the climbing sap, | WHITMAN: and the climbing sap, | ||
+ | |||
SPEAKER 1: arms and hands of love, | SPEAKER 1: arms and hands of love, | ||
+ | |||
SPEAKER 2: lips of love, | SPEAKER 2: lips of love, | ||
+ | |||
SPEAKER 3: phallic thumb of love, | SPEAKER 3: phallic thumb of love, | ||
+ | |||
SPEAKER 4: breasts of love, | SPEAKER 4: breasts of love, | ||
+ | |||
WHITMAN: bellies pressed and glued together with love. | WHITMAN: bellies pressed and glued together with love. | ||
Line 40: | Line 49: | ||
BOY: The wet of woods through the early hours. | BOY: The wet of woods through the early hours. | ||
+ | |||
WHITMAN: Two sleepers at night lying close together as they sleep, | WHITMAN: Two sleepers at night lying close together as they sleep, | ||
+ | |||
BOY: One with an arm slanting down across and below the waist of the other. | BOY: One with an arm slanting down across and below the waist of the other. | ||
+ | |||
WHITMAN: The smell of apples, | WHITMAN: The smell of apples, | ||
+ | |||
BOY: aromas from crushed sage plant, | BOY: aromas from crushed sage plant, | ||
+ | |||
WHITMAN: mint, | WHITMAN: mint, | ||
+ | |||
BOY: birch bark. | BOY: birch bark. | ||
− | |||
− | BOY: The dead leaf tallings its spiral whirl, falling still and content to the ground. | + | WHITMAN: The boy's longings, |
+ | :::the glow and pressure | ||
+ | :::as he confides to me | ||
+ | :::what he was dreaming. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | BOY: The dead leaf tallings its spiral whirl, | ||
+ | :::falling still and content to the ground. | ||
− | WHITMAN: The sensitive, orbic, underlapped brothers, that only privileged feelers may be intimate where they are. | + | |
+ | WHITMAN: The sensitive, orbic, underlapped brothers, | ||
+ | :::that only privileged feelers | ||
+ | :::may be intimate where they are. | ||
+ | |||
BOY: The mystic amorous night. | BOY: The mystic amorous night. | ||
− | |||
− | BOY: the bashful withdrawing of flesh where the fingers soothingly pause and edge themselves. | + | WHITMAN: The curious roamer the hand, |
+ | :::roaming allover the body, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | BOY: the bashful withdrawing of flesh | ||
+ | :::where the fingers soothingly pause | ||
+ | :::and edge themselves. | ||
+ | |||
WHITMAN: The limpid liquid within the young man, | WHITMAN: The limpid liquid within the young man, | ||
− | BOY: the vex'd corrosion so pensive and painful, | + | |
+ | BOY: the vex'd corrosion | ||
+ | :::so pensive and painful, | ||
+ | |||
WHITMAN: the torment, | WHITMAN: the torment, | ||
− | |||
− | WHITMAN: the like of the same I feel, the like of the same in others. | + | BOY: the irritable tide |
+ | :::that will not be at rest, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | WHITMAN: the like of the same I feel, | ||
+ | :::the like of the same in others. | ||
Line 81: | Line 119: | ||
GRISWOLD: Once licentiousness | GRISWOLD: Once licentiousness | ||
− | |||
:::shunned the light; | :::shunned the light; | ||
− | |||
:::now it writes books | :::now it writes books | ||
− | |||
:::showing how grand and pure it is, | :::showing how grand and pure it is, | ||
− | |||
:::and prophecies | :::and prophecies | ||
− | |||
:::its own ultimate triumph. | :::its own ultimate triumph. | ||
Line 97: | Line 130: | ||
:::It is impossible to imagine | :::It is impossible to imagine | ||
− | |||
:::how any man's fancy | :::how any man's fancy | ||
− | |||
:::could have conceived | :::could have conceived | ||
− | |||
:::such a mass of stupid filth. | :::such a mass of stupid filth. | ||
− | |||
:::We leave this gathering of muck | :::We leave this gathering of muck | ||
− | |||
:::to the laws | :::to the laws | ||
− | |||
:::which have power to suppress | :::which have power to suppress | ||
− | |||
:::such gross obscenity. | :::such gross obscenity. | ||
Line 131: | Line 157: | ||
− | WHITMAN: Through me many long dumb voices, | + | WHITMAN: Through me many long dumb voices, |
+ | |||
SPEAKER 1: voices of the interminable generations of slaves, | SPEAKER 1: voices of the interminable generations of slaves, | ||
+ | |||
SPEAKER 2: voices of prostitutes and deformed persons, | SPEAKER 2: voices of prostitutes and deformed persons, | ||
+ | |||
SPEAKER 3: voices of the diseased and despairing, | SPEAKER 3: voices of the diseased and despairing, | ||
+ | |||
SPEAKER 4: voices of wombs and the fatherstuff, | SPEAKER 4: voices of wombs and the fatherstuff, | ||
+ | |||
SPEAKER 1: voices of the rights of them the others are down upon. | SPEAKER 1: voices of the rights of them the others are down upon. | ||
+ | |||
WHITMAN: Through me forbidden voices, | WHITMAN: Through me forbidden voices, | ||
+ | |||
SPEAKER 2: voices of sexes and lusts, | SPEAKER 2: voices of sexes and lusts, | ||
− | |||
− | SPEAKER 4: voices indecent by me clarified and transfigured. | + | SPEAKER 3: voices veiled |
+ | :::and I remove the veil, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 4: voices indecent | ||
+ | :::by me clarified and transfigured. | ||
+ | |||
WHITMAN: I do not press my finger across my mouth! | WHITMAN: I do not press my finger across my mouth! | ||
− | SPEAKER 1: keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart, | + | |
+ | SPEAKER 1: keep as delicate around the bowels | ||
+ | :::as around the head and heart, | ||
+ | |||
SPEAKER 2: copulation is no more rank to me than death is. | SPEAKER 2: copulation is no more rank to me than death is. | ||
+ | |||
SPEAKER 3: I believe in the flesh and the appetites, | SPEAKER 3: I believe in the flesh and the appetites, | ||
− | SPEAKER 4: seeing, hearing, and feeling are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle. | + | |
+ | SPEAKER 4: seeing, hearing, and feeling are miracles, | ||
+ | :::and each part and tag of me is a miracle. | ||
+ | |||
WHITMAN: [TO BRONSON ALCOTT AND HENRY DAVID THOREAU, WHO APPEAR IN THE NEXT SCENE] | WHITMAN: [TO BRONSON ALCOTT AND HENRY DAVID THOREAU, WHO APPEAR IN THE NEXT SCENE] | ||
:::If I worship any particular thing | :::If I worship any particular thing | ||
+ | :::it shall be some of the spread of my body; | ||
+ | |||
− | ::: | + | SPEAKER 1: You my rich blood, |
+ | :::your milky stream pale strippings of my life; | ||
− | |||
− | SPEAKER 2: Breast that presses against other breasts it shall be you, | + | SPEAKER 2: Breast that presses against other breasts |
+ | :::it shall be you, | ||
SPEAKER 3: Root of washed sweet-flag, | SPEAKER 3: Root of washed sweet-flag, | ||
:::timorous pond-snipe, | :::timorous pond-snipe, | ||
:::nest of guarded duplicate eggs, | :::nest of guarded duplicate eggs, | ||
− | ::: it shall be you, | + | :::it shall be you, |
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 4: Mixed tussled hay of head and beard and brawn | ||
+ | :::it shall be you, | ||
+ | |||
+ | WHITMAN: Trickling sap of maple, | ||
+ | :::fibre of manly wheat, | ||
+ | :::it shall be. you; | ||
− | |||
− | + | SPEAKER 1: Winds | |
+ | :::whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me | ||
+ | :::it shall be you, | ||
− | |||
SPEAKER 2: Broad muscular fields, | SPEAKER 2: Broad muscular fields, | ||
+ | |||
SPEAKER 3: branches of liveoak, | SPEAKER 3: branches of liveoak, | ||
− | SPEAKER 4: loving lounger in my winding paths, it shall be you, | + | |
+ | SPEAKER 4: loving lounger in my winding paths, | ||
+ | :::it shall be you, | ||
− | WHITMAN: Hands I have taken, face I have kissed, mortal I have ever touched, it shall be you. | + | |
+ | WHITMAN: Hands I have taken, | ||
+ | :::face I have kissed, | ||
+ | :::mortal I have ever touched, | ||
+ | :::it shall be you. | ||
Line 201: | Line 264: | ||
:::with Henry David Thoreau to Brooklyn, | :::with Henry David Thoreau to Brooklyn, | ||
:::to see Walt Whitman. | :::to see Walt Whitman. | ||
+ | |||
:::I find this Whitman | :::I find this Whitman | ||
:::likely to make his mark on Young America he affirming himself | :::likely to make his mark on Young America he affirming himself | ||
Line 211: | Line 275: | ||
:::Thoreau and Whitman | :::Thoreau and Whitman | ||
:::each seemed planted fast in reserve, | :::each seemed planted fast in reserve, | ||
− | :::surveying the | + | :::surveying the other curiously, |
− | :::like two beasts, each wondering | + | :::like two beasts, |
− | :::what the other would do, whether to snap | + | :::each wondering |
+ | :::what the other would do, | ||
+ | :::whether to snap | ||
:::or run. | :::or run. | ||
+ | |||
THOREAU: [TO ALCOTT, INDICATING WHITMAN] | THOREAU: [TO ALCOTT, INDICATING WHITMAN] | ||
Line 236: | Line 303: | ||
:::that is, | :::that is, | ||
:::without understanding them. | :::without understanding them. | ||
+ | |||
:::[TO HIMSELF; A NEW THOUGHT] | :::[TO HIMSELF; A NEW THOUGHT] | ||
+ | |||
:::Of course, | :::Of course, | ||
Line 308: | Line 377: | ||
:::SCENE TITLE: 6 John Addington Symonds, "Is it not strange?" | :::SCENE TITLE: 6 John Addington Symonds, "Is it not strange?" | ||
− | :::HERE, SYMONDS IS TWENTYSEVEN; HE HAS BEEN MARRIED THREE YEARS AND HAS TWO DAUGHTERS; HE'S WELL-EDUCATED, AND COMES FROM AN OLD, ENGLISH, ARISTOCRATIC FAMILY, BUT HE MUST WRITE LITERARY AND ART CRITICISM TO SUPPLEMENT HIS INHERITED INCOME. HE INTRODUCES HIMSELF TO THE AUDIENCE AS A CLOSE CONFIDANT, FULL OF INNER PASSION] | + | :::HERE, SYMONDS IS TWENTYSEVEN; HE HAS BEEN MARRIED THREE YEARS AND HAS TWO DAUGHTERS; HE'S WELL-EDUCATED, AND COMES FROM AN OLD, ENGLISH, ARISTOCRATIC FAMILY, BUT HE MUST WRITE LITERARY AND ART CRITICISM TO SUPPLEMENT HIS INHERITED INCOME. |
+ | |||
+ | :::HE INTRODUCES HIMSELF TO THE AUDIENCE AS A CLOSE CONFIDANT, FULL OF INNER PASSION] | ||
SYMONDS: Is it not strange I should have read | SYMONDS: Is it not strange I should have read |
Revision as of 19:31, 28 November 2009
ENTRY IN CONSTRUCTION
Jonathan Ned Katz: "Comrades and Lovers"
- ACT I, SCENE 1
- [LIGHTS OFF; WHITMAN'S FIRST WORDS ARE HEARD IN THE DARK.]
WHITMAN: Love thoughts
SPEAKER 1: love-juice,
SPEAKER 2: love-odor,
SPEAKER 3: love-yielding,
SPEAKER 4: love-climbers,
WHITMAN: and the climbing sap,
SPEAKER 1: arms and hands of love,
SPEAKER 2: lips of love,
SPEAKER 3: phallic thumb of love,
SPEAKER 4: breasts of love,
WHITMAN: bellies pressed and glued together with love.
- [LIGHTS ON, NIGHT.
- SCENE TITLE, PROJECTED OR PRINTED ON PLACARD:
- 1 Walt Whitman, "Love-thoughts"
- WHITMAN AND A "BOY" MOVE CLOSE TOGETHER, ADDRESS EACH OTHER.]
BOY: The wet of woods through the early hours.
WHITMAN: Two sleepers at night lying close together as they sleep,
BOY: One with an arm slanting down across and below the waist of the other.
WHITMAN: The smell of apples,
BOY: aromas from crushed sage plant,
WHITMAN: mint,
BOY: birch bark.
WHITMAN: The boy's longings,
- the glow and pressure
- as he confides to me
- what he was dreaming.
BOY: The dead leaf tallings its spiral whirl,
- falling still and content to the ground.
WHITMAN: The sensitive, orbic, underlapped brothers,
- that only privileged feelers
- may be intimate where they are.
BOY: The mystic amorous night.
WHITMAN: The curious roamer the hand,
- roaming allover the body,
BOY: the bashful withdrawing of flesh
- where the fingers soothingly pause
- and edge themselves.
WHITMAN: The limpid liquid within the young man,
BOY: the vex'd corrosion
- so pensive and painful,
WHITMAN: the torment,
BOY: the irritable tide
- that will not be at rest,
WHITMAN: the like of the same I feel,
- the like of the same in others.
- [SCENE TITLE: 2 Rufus Griswold, "Once licentiousness"
- RESPONDING TO THE EARLIER VERSE, GRISWOLD APPEARS WITH LEAVES OF GRASS, SPEAKS TO WHITMAN.]
GRISWOLD: Once licentiousness
- shunned the light;
- now it writes books
- showing how grand and pure it is,
- and prophecies
- its own ultimate triumph.
- [TO AUDIENCE, HOLDING UP LEAVES OF GRASS]
- It is impossible to imagine
- how any man's fancy
- could have conceived
- such a mass of stupid filth.
- We leave this gathering of muck
- to the laws
- which have power to suppress
- such gross obscenity.
- [FIRE AND BR1MSTONE PROPHECY]
- "Peccatum illud horribile,
- inter Christianos non nominandum."
- [WHISPERS TO WHITMAN]
- (That vile sin among Christians not to be named.)
- [WHITMAN AND SPEAKERS RESPOND TO GRISWOLD.
- SCENE TITLE: 3 Walt Whitman, "Through me"]
WHITMAN: Through me many long dumb voices,
SPEAKER 1: voices of the interminable generations of slaves,
SPEAKER 2: voices of prostitutes and deformed persons,
SPEAKER 3: voices of the diseased and despairing,
SPEAKER 4: voices of wombs and the fatherstuff,
SPEAKER 1: voices of the rights of them the others are down upon.
WHITMAN: Through me forbidden voices,
SPEAKER 2: voices of sexes and lusts,
SPEAKER 3: voices veiled
- and I remove the veil,
SPEAKER 4: voices indecent
- by me clarified and transfigured.
WHITMAN: I do not press my finger across my mouth!
SPEAKER 1: keep as delicate around the bowels
- as around the head and heart,
SPEAKER 2: copulation is no more rank to me than death is.
SPEAKER 3: I believe in the flesh and the appetites,
SPEAKER 4: seeing, hearing, and feeling are miracles,
- and each part and tag of me is a miracle.
WHITMAN: [TO BRONSON ALCOTT AND HENRY DAVID THOREAU, WHO APPEAR IN THE NEXT SCENE]
- If I worship any particular thing
- it shall be some of the spread of my body;
SPEAKER 1: You my rich blood,
- your milky stream pale strippings of my life;
SPEAKER 2: Breast that presses against other breasts
- it shall be you,
SPEAKER 3: Root of washed sweet-flag,
- timorous pond-snipe,
- nest of guarded duplicate eggs,
- it shall be you,
SPEAKER 4: Mixed tussled hay of head and beard and brawn
- it shall be you,
WHITMAN: Trickling sap of maple,
- fibre of manly wheat,
- it shall be. you;
SPEAKER 1: Winds
- whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me
- it shall be you,
SPEAKER 2: Broad muscular fields,
SPEAKER 3: branches of liveoak,
SPEAKER 4: loving lounger in my winding paths,
- it shall be you,
WHITMAN: Hands I have taken,
- face I have kissed,
- mortal I have ever touched,
- it shall be you.
- [ALCOTT AND HENRY DAVID THOREAU RESPOND TO WHITMAN
- SCENE TITLE: 4 Bronson Alcott: "This morning with Henry David Thoreau"
- ALCOTT ADDRESSES AUDIENCE; THOREAU ACCOMPANIES HIM, FOCUSING ON WHITMAN]
ALCOTT: This morning
- with Henry David Thoreau to Brooklyn,
- to see Walt Whitman.
- I find this Whitman
- likely to make his mark on Young America he affirming himself
- to be its representative man and poet.
- [WHITMAN AND THOREAU EYE EACH OTHER SUSPICIOUSLY; ALCOTT OBSERVES]
- Thoreau and Whitman
- each seemed planted fast in reserve,
- surveying the other curiously,
- like two beasts,
- each wondering
- what the other would do,
- whether to snap
- or run.
THOREAU: [TO ALCOTT, INDICATING WHITMAN]
- There are two or three pieces
- in his book
- which are disagreeable
- to say the least,
- simply sensual.
- He does not celebrate love at all.
- It is as if
- the beasts spoke.
- Men have been ashamed of themselves
- with reason.
- I do not wish
- his poems' sensual parts
- were not written
- but that men and women
- were so pure
- they could read them
- without harm,
- that is,
- without understanding them.
- [TO HIMSELF; A NEW THOUGHT]
- Of course,
- if we are shocked,
- whose experience are we reminded of?
- [TITLE: 5 Walt Whitman, "By silence"
- WHITMAN RESPONDS TO THOREAU]
WHITMAN: By silence
- the pens of poets
- have long connived
- at the filthy law
- that sex,
- desires,
- lusts,
- organs,
- acts
- are unmentionable,
- to be ashamed of,
- driven to skulk out of literature.
SPEAKER 1: This filthy law
- has to be repealed
- it stands in the way
- of great reforms.
SPEAKER 2: It is in the interest of women
- as well as men
- that there should be
- no infidelism about sex,
- but perfect faith.
SPEAKER 3: The present diluted deferential love
- is enough to make a man vomit;
SPEAKER 4: as to manly friendship,
- everywhere observed in the states,
- there is not the first breath of it
- to be observed in print.
WHITMAN: The body of a man or women
- is so far quite unexpressed in poems;
SPEAKER 1: that body is to be expressed,
- and sex is.
WHITMAN: [TO JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS, WHO APPEARS IN NEXT SCENE]
- All theories stagnate in their vitals,
- cowardly and rotten,
- if they cannot publicly accept, and publicly name,
- with specific words,
- the things on which all decency,
- all that is worth being here for
- depend.
- [SYMONDS, INSPIRED BY WHITMAN'S WORDS, STEPS INTO THE LIGHT.
- SCENE TITLE: 6 John Addington Symonds, "Is it not strange?"
- HERE, SYMONDS IS TWENTYSEVEN; HE HAS BEEN MARRIED THREE YEARS AND HAS TWO DAUGHTERS; HE'S WELL-EDUCATED, AND COMES FROM AN OLD, ENGLISH, ARISTOCRATIC FAMILY, BUT HE MUST WRITE LITERARY AND ART CRITICISM TO SUPPLEMENT HIS INHERITED INCOME.
- HE INTRODUCES HIMSELF TO THE AUDIENCE AS A CLOSE CONFIDANT, FULL OF INNER PASSION]
SYMONDS: Is it not strange I should have read