ACT 1

An artist’s studio. There is an easel with a large canvas on it facing away from us. There are prints of the Laughing Cavalier and Picasso’s Weeping Woman, and a large painting in Pre-Raphaelite style of a medieval maiden leaning over her knightly lover below. There is also a portrait of a young woman, whose eyes gaze out at us hauntingly.

There is a plinth stage left supporting a marble bust and a pair of gloves. There is a trolley stage right with various paint tubes and brushes on the lower tier and a vase of flowers, teapot and mug on the upper. An elderly lady enters stage left. She is tired.

She throws a white sheet over the portrait of the young woman. For a moment she stares at her work in progress. She then picks up a sketch book and puts the vase of flowers on the plinth. She takes out a box of chalk pastels. She blows chalk off the lid of the box. The marble bust starts to cough.

Gert:               Oh you’re up are you?

Buster:            (still spluttering) You miserable old crone!

Gert:               Oh stop your whinging.

Buster:            You promised you wouldn’t use them. You know my allergies. And what’s this? Flowers too! Are you trying to kill me?!

Gert:               When I want to do that I’ll turn this into a squash court. Then take up mosaic work.

Buster:            You would as well, vindictive cow.

She starts sketching with the chalk.

Buster:            I at least hope you’re drawing me.

She nods at the vase of flowers.

Buster:            You could move them to the other side of the room; it wouldn’t kill you. Like it might me.

Gert:               Light’s better here.

Buster:            Oh yet another item to add to the list of things that outrank me in this place. I barely have seniority over the tea cosy.

Gert:               If more woolly.

Buster:            Shush you. (Glancing to his right) Why did you cover her up?

Gert:               It’s my work; I can do what I want with it.

Buster:            Touched a nerve have I?

Gert:               What would you know about having a central nervous system?

Buster:            I’ll have you know great care was taken over the thread vein on my left temple for optimum authenticity.

Gert:               A lot of work for a glorified paperweight.

A pause while she sketches. She grimaces as she changes chalks.

Buster:            Anyway the lights not better here.

Gert:               Yes it is.

Buster:            No, it’s not, they’re too close to the window, it’s overexposed. So move them and save my throat from closing up, not that that’s a major consideration.

Gert:               It’s too dark.

Buster:            Nonsense. Light is streaming in from the doorway, you don’t need the window.

Gert:               Oh for – Look, I’ll prove it. Here.

She gets up and mimes pulling a curtain. There is sudden darkness across two-thirds of the stage.

Gert:               See? I can’t even see them now.

Buster:            That’s just your old eyes. It’s fine.

Gert:               My fingers may have threads for hinges, but my eyesight’s twenty

twenty.

Buster:            Have it your way.

She opens the curtain. Lights up. The Pre-Raphaelite painting that was in the corner is now portrayed by real motionless people in a frame.

Gert:               If I had it my way, I wouldn’t be in this mess.

Buster:            It’s just age, it happens to us all.

Gert:               Not what I meant.

The medieval pair spring into life and start kissing.

Buster:            Gert – they’re at it again!

Gert:               Alright you two.

Lady:              Just because he doesn’t have a romantic bone in his body, let alone bones! We weren’t doing anything wrong mummy honest!

Gert:               I told you not to call me that.

Lady:              (looking at her knight) It’s those eyes mummy. When I gaze into them I’m lost in a dream.

Buster:            Some of us are in a nightmare.

Lady:              Tell him to stop it mummy.

Gert:               Why are you two always bickering?

Lady:              It’s his fault. He makes it impossible to like him. Because he finds it impossible to like anyone else.

Buster:            I like Gert.

Lady:              That’s different. You don’t even talk to the sketch-books – you’re such a snob.

Buster:            I converse with many a medium. It’s you with all your airs and graces.

Gert:               Stop your yammering the pair of you. There are enough wars in the world.

Lady:              He’d blame that on me too if he could!

Buster:           I can and I do. It’s exaggerated art like you that’s just the kind of thing

to fuel the fires. Propaganda of the worst kind that’s what you are!

Lady:              Now you’re being absurd!

Gert:               No one’s blaming anyone for anything, now settle down. Besides, peace time’s far worse.

Lady:              What do you mean?

Gert:               Makes art more dangerous. It’s used more to keep the masses down than stir them up.

Buster:            There’s the abstract revolutionary we know and love.

Gert:               Your opinions can be revolutionary even if your art’s not.

Buster:            That’s as may be, but it’s about image isn’t it? You can’t play the revolutionary unless you look the part.

Gert:               Who’s playing?

Buster:            Most I imagine.

Gert:               Exactly! Obsessed with this idea of ‘image’, always ‘image’. ‘Public image’, ‘profile’, ‘look’, a pretentious twattery of nonsense.

Buster:            Worked for me. You think I’m just anybody? I’m somebody.

Lady:              You have no body.

Buster:            Only somebodies are given an ‘image’.

Gert:               No. Only images create somebodies. Wrong way round and always has been. (To Lady) See that brow (pointing at Buster), that jaw line. They may be his, but I bet they weren’t his.

Lady:              I’m lost.

Buster:            And therein lies power.

Gert:               But not truth.

Buster:            Oh how sweetly Bohemian of you. Art has never been truthful.

Lady:              Truth in art is everything. You capture a feeling that can’t be expressed in words –

Buster:            Utter tosh. How many paintings can you honestly say reflect that? The whole history of art is based on distortion, isn’t it Gert?

Gert:               I’m not getting dragged into this.

Buster:            Now, now, come on my shrinking violet. Spill the venom and let us all sup on your poisonous wisdom.

Gert:               Alright oik, listen. If you go back far enough, you can’t say ancient cave drawings were propaganda.

Buster:            But that wasn’t art, that was communication. If all you’ve got to rely on verbally is ‘ug’, you need illustration.

Gert:               Just communication? Dick-blistering rot!

Buster:            Prove me wrong.

She gives a dismissive wave.

Buster:            Because you can’t, that’s why.

Gert picks up a sketchbook and draws quickly.

Buster:            What are you doing, what’s that?

She opens up the sketchbook, showing him her work. It is a rushed sketch of a milk bottle with an arrow next to it.

Buster:            What are you doing?

Lady:              Oh is it a game? I love games!

She keeps showing it to him.

Buster:            Are you having a stroke woman? What are you trying to say?

Gert:               ‘Say’, exactly.

She puts the book down.

Gert:               Now tell me how that…

Gert picks up an art history book. The knight leans in for another kiss.

Lady:              Not now.

He sulks.

Gert:               Bears any relation to this.

She opens it on a page showing an ancient cave drawing.

Gert:               (pointing at her sketch) That was communication. That was basic. I’m going out to buy milk. But this. (the book) This is art.

Buster:            But would it have been so basic? You don’t think ancient woman would have added as much detail as that other picture? To show her man she’d gone in search of the biggest bottle she could find? Which would show what a good wife she was? How resourceful? It is propaganda. She would find the best bottle because she was better than all the other wives in the cul-de-sac. And by cul-de-sac I of course mean Neolithic period.

Gert gives another dismissive wave.

Lady:              Well I agree with mummy.

Gert:               I said don’t call me that.

Buster:            Look I’m not saying art can’t attempt to deal with truth, just that it does lying so much better. Like ‘found art’ – what a cheat!

Gert:               I won’t have that. There should be no hierarchy in art. There’s enough class nonsense as it is. As long as an artist actually believes in what they do, no matter how inept, they are an artist. (pause) I am a fraud.

Lady:              How can you say that?

Buster:            What?

Gert:               Just because an artist is ‘alternative’, doesn’t mean they can’t also be a sell-out.

Lady:              What can you mean?

She waves the question away.

Lady:              No, no, mum-

Gert throws her a look.

Lady:              – Gert. You can’t mean that.

Gert:               I’m sorry dear but I do. The irony being the world has become so corrupt that art is currently more obsessed with truth than ever. And I lied.

Lady:              But the critics – all that’s been said about your work –

Gert:               Yes, I never quite knew what they were squawking on about.

Buster:            Oh now you’re just being silly.

Gert:               I’m being honest. For once.

Buster:            A rather pessimistic view of your art, don’t you think?

Gert:               No. I don’t. And the truth of it is I’ve never been a pessimist.

Buster:            Oh yes, you’re a regular ray of sunshine. You see all of life through Claude glass.

Gert:               You don’t have to be cheery to be an optimist.

Buster:            The two do rather go hand in hand.

Gert:               No they don’t. Not if you’re an optimistic realist.

Buster:            Oh shut up.

Gert:               It may not yet be a recognised term, but that’s what I’ve come to the conclusion I am.

Buster:            ‘An optimistic realist’?

Gert:               Or a realistic optimist, whichever you like.

Buster:            We’ll go with the first. When you run the second together there’s an octopus in there somewhere.

Lady:              I’m confused.

Buster:            You surprise me.

Gert:               Life is hard. Full of harsh realities, and doomed to disappoint. But for all that I can’t silence this little voice telling me it won’t. I think this little voice very stupid, but I can’t shut it up.

Buster:            Then why try?

Gert:               I don’t know. Because it’s not fashionable?

Buster:            And you are an ardent follower of fashion.

Gert:               In one sense perhaps.

Lady:              But you work so hard.

Gert:               Only when it’s easy.

Lady:              Oh do stop talking in that way, it’s hurting my head.

The knight attempts another kiss.

Lady:              Not now!

The knight slinks off to sulk in private.

Gert:               Yes, that’s enough for one day.

Gert settles down and resumes drawing. Lady pokes her tongue out at Buster who does it back. Gert sighs and tries to ignore them. She picks up a sketch book again. A moment of calm.

Gert:               And now for some peace.

Picasso’s Weeping Woman (Dora) starts blubbing.

Gert:               Oh good grief.

Lady steps out of her frame

Lady:              Oh no, what’s wrong?

Buster:           Probably the flowers upsetting her. Plucked in their prime, a reminder that life is fleeting. Best chuck them out.

Gert:               Nice try.

Lady:              I think the light’s in her eyes

Gert:              Don’t be silly –

Lady pulls the ‘curtain’, again a portion of the stage is now in darkness.

Gert:               I said – urgh, don’t be ridiculous, it’s the same thing every week and you know it. Pay no attention.

Lady:              But she’s always so sad.

Gert:               Open that up.

The ‘curtain’ is pulled open. The Laughing Cavalier (LC) is now also a real person.

Gert:               (standing) I’ll sort it; get back in your frame.

LC:                 I heard a commotion, is all well?

Gert:               Yes, yes its nothing.

Gert goes over to the table and starts rummaging in the drawer.

LC:                 (to Dora) May we assist Madam? (to Gert) The maiden seems reluctant to answer.

Gert:               I got the print in Paris. She only speaks French.

LC:                 Marvellous. I have a little of the language. Might I be permitted to try?

Gert:               Knock yourself out.

LC:                 Excusez Madame.

Dora:              (sniffing) Oui?

LC:                 Er, quel de – quel de probleme?

Dora starts speaking in French very quickly without pause amid blubs of distress that disguise her speech.

LC:                 I see.

Buster:            You do?

LC:                 I’m not entirely confident, but I believe it involves an undeserving gentleman. And possibly a boat.

Gert:               For goodness sake, here.

Gert shoves something in Dora’s mouth and she starts chewing contentedly.

LC:                 What was that?

Gert:               Gum. Usually shuts her up.

LC:                 Oh my dear madam, forgive my impertinence, but it’s quite unbecoming in a lady to speak so frivolously of the (in a hushed tone) ‘afflicted’.

Buster:            I forget you’re new here.

Gert:               It’s not rocket science. She’s called the ‘weeping woman’. If I looked like that I think I’d cry as well.

LC:                 Oh madam, how can you be so heartless?

Gert:               She’s just playing the hand she was dealt. There’s the power of an artist who actually believed in what they did.

Buster:            (to LC) How about you LC, are you anything like the real thing?

LC:                 No-one knows. The identity of the sitter is a mystery. Adds an air of enigma, don’t it? (winks)

Buster:            Well, we know he had ridiculous taste in moustaches.

LC:                 Oh really? I think it rather marvellous.

Buster:            If you like looking smug and self-satisfied.

LC:                 Perhaps he had reason to be.

Buster:            Unlike some of us.

Dora starts to whimper again. Gert tops up her gum; she falls silent.