even the thought
by Douglas Messerli
Wallace Shawn A Thought in Three Parts / 1977 [reading of play]
If
sex is apparently behind the linking “thought” of the three parts of this play,
two of the play’s sections talk about it rather than representing it. In the
hilarious “Summer Evening,” a couple in a foreign hotel, speaking sometimes to
themselves and at other times simultaneously in a pace that the author
describes as “very fast, much faster than people really speak,” cautiously
tiptoe around the subject. David and Sarah at first appear to have a felicitous
relationship, as they carefully maneuver their attempted conversations by
trying to outguess each other’s feelings before they can be spoken:
David: —I just
thought we might go down to the— (Sarah
enters.)
Sarah: What?
David: —to the
restaurant and—Love dress, love—the—
Sarah: Well?
Don’t you think just our chocolates, maybe? Do
we really—
David: Well—it
might be nice—Some sort of a soup, or one
of those—
Sarah: I’d
rather—my skirt’s ripped—
David: Oh really,
darling? I was only thinking that maybe some
toast—
Sarah: Well then
why not go down—
David: I—
Sarah: You
probably—
David: —what?
Sarah: You could
still get some—
David: What? I
know, but I really rather would—what? Did you
want to
wash?
If this first part represents a permanently precoital sparring, the
second part is all about coitus itself, The five men and women of “The Youth
Hostel,” Dick, Helen, Judy, Bob, and Tom, move in and out the two rooms of the
set as they jump into bed with one another, seeking out any pleasurable
combination of sexual acts. Coitus transforms into masturbation, masturbation
into voyeurism—all peppered with obscenities about the other’s partners,
present and past. Despite the comic sexual posturings of these figures (and,
although I have never seen a production of the play, I presume they are
presented comically), they find cold comfort in one another:
Judy: “Here
we finally are, Judy.”
Tom: Do you
want to help me now. I could use a
a fuck.
Judy: “I
think I understand you, Judy.” (They sit
for a long time.
Both
feel cold. Judy shudders. Silence)
By comparison, Shawn’s last short monologue seems positively romantic,
as the dreamer “Mr. Frivolous” awakens to his morning breakfast, following the
flights of the birds outside his window and posting a comical put-down of all
the joys to be found in nature. But Mr. Frivolous’ post-coital conversation
soon becomes even colder than the sexual splendors of “The Youth Hostel”: “I
ask you to love. I ask you to love. I ask to be taken, out to the toilet. And
washed. And cleaned. And washed. And cleaned. I ask. I ask. I ask. I ask. I
ask. For your arms. To be there. And your shoulders. There. ….Our bodies
slippery. And cold. And cold. And cold. And cold.
Suddenly what has seemed a kind of prayer of heterosexual love shifts to
a paean to abusive love, to illicit love, the love of priests: “Then I speak,
to my priest, and I say, Priest, touch me. Priest, Father, I have asked you to
come here, to tell you, these clothes of yours have stayed here with me too
long. Lie down here beside me. (Pause.)
Precious are the priests who lie by the side of their lovers.”
But even the illicit love between priest and confessor, between Father
and son is insufficient to this desperate romantic, as he imagines a love with
holy beings themselves, a sexual interlude, with which he closes his monologue,
with angels: “With wings unfurled, our angels scattered light across the grass.
…You, the littlest angel, ran under my robe and held my legs.”
So is love, future, present, and past explored by the playwright in a
world where the sensual seems always allusive, never fully satisfying, seldom
fulfilling the desperate desires for bodily embracement. How such a dire
statement of sex might interrupted as societally immoral is incomprehensible.
But then, for some, just the word is enough. Even, as the title suggests, “a
thought.”
Los Angeles, January 11, 2003
Reprinted from USTheater, Opera, and Performance (January 2013).
