Art Beat
A one-act satire on arts funding
Developed in conjunction with Frontera@Hyde Park Theater
and the TCG/NEA Playwright Residency Program
Laurie Carlos, Playwright/Director/Artist
Winner, “Best of Fest” — FronteraFest, 1999″
Directed by Emily Cicchini
Featuring Jon Watson, Kristin Johnson, and David Gunderson
CHARACTERS:
TOM–An investor. 38. Well built.
TRIXIE–An architect. 40. Thin.
MERCE–Enough said.
(It’s 6:00 PM. TOM walks in, wearing rich casual, puts down his briefcase and cell phone, in quite-the-perfect open living area/kitchen. Free, lighthearted verbal sparring throughout:)
TOM: Honey? You home yet? Hmm.
(He goes to the fridge and pulls out a bottle and some strawberries dipped in creamy brown, pulls out a towel to cover the cork. He puts on some romantic music and does a little victory dance. TRIXIE enters in expensive work out clothes. She sneaks up behind him as he pulls the cork…)
TRIXIE: Gottcha!
TOM: (as cork pops) Whoah! You startled me…
TRIXIE: Consider how boring life would be without a little startle in it.
TOM: Come on. Give me a kiss…Were you working out?
TRIXIE: Dancing…
TOM: Didn’t the doctor tell you to cut back?
TRIXIE: I can’t help it. It makes me feel too good…
TOM: Mmm… And you look good, too… I’ve got news…
TRIXIE: Oh, the Dom…What are you doing? You know I don’t like to get woozy on weekdays…
TOM: I know, I know. But I couldn’t help it. Have a glass…
TRIXIE: No….
TOM: Come on. Just one…
TRIXIE: No, Tom…good news…?
TOM: Sure, good news.
TRIXIE: Okay, okay. Just one. (pause) Well. What is it?
TOM: And look (re: strawberries) Low fat, even…
TRIXIE: No, no no… (he makes her eat one) Mmmm. Must be something profitable.
TOM: What’s for dinner, anyway?
TRIXIE: John Cage. (changes music by remote to Cage)
TOM: I’m serious…
TRIXIE: We’ll just call up the moon and order a delux cheese spread…
TOM: I’ll call Hong’s. They deliver. (dials) Hello, this is Tom Warner, yes, right. How are you? Fine, fine. Give me, two mushu pork, and an order, no, make that two orders of spring rolls. (TRIXIE protests) We’re kinda, celebrating, thanks. (hangs up) I closed today. Quite a big deal.
TRIXIE: Oh, the merger, right? They’re going to get you with the capitol gains…
TOM: Well, that’s true…
TRIXIE: Too bad you can’t do something better than give it to the IRS…
TOM: Oh, I get it. You want something.
TRIXIE: Ah, how well you know me…
TOM: Well, just as long as it doesn’t involve one of your long lost causes…
TRIXIE: Why do you say that?
TOM: You know, like that theatre group back in Seattle. What a black hole…
TRIXIE: Actually, I was thinking more about a Jacuzzi. I just know it would help me relax. You know what a hard time I have relaxing…
TOM: Hey, hey, That’s my job…
TRIXIE: And there was this amazing set of silverware in the Times Magazine…With handles like heavy metal chains…
TOM: Didn’t we just buy silverware last spring…
TRIXIE: Oh, it wasn’t that expensive, something trendy, like, Calvin Kline, you know, for guests…
TOM: Calvin Kline doesn’t make silverware…
TRIXIE: Or Liz Claiborne, someone. I’ll get Pheobe to look it up. I should probably brush up on this Martha Stewart stuff. But it just bores me to no end–I’m only interested in the building. Our interior designer says I’m hopeless…But she’s a total victim of Santa Fe Style…I mean, it seems like its my duty since we moved West to introduce these people to real culture…Well. Listen to me talk about me, me, me. Now what about you?
TOM: Naw. I’ve got everything a man could want…
TRIXIE: Come on. There must be something…
TOM: Naw, not really. Hey. Didn’t you have an appointment today…
TRIXIE: Come on! I’ve seen the way you’ve been eyeing those BMW’s…
TOM: I know, I know. It doesn’t seem like me. I was always a Jag man,
TRIXIE: What!
TOM: You know, LandRover, be sensible…the mechanics…I mean, forget it.
TRIXIE: You were brainwashed. (She exits behind dressing divider)
TOM: I just loved that ad campaign. A woman drives through flooded streets, dodging big cruise ships with a pounding beat and low, low horns. She comes to a stop, looks up, there’s an old man fishing from the facade of a 30’s or 40’s office building, Chicago, maybe, Cleveland. She winks. She turns left in front of a huge ocean liner, arrives at some kind of theater with spotlights and huge crowds, and on the curb is a huge, red number five. For the new BMW Five. I mean, that is a real work of art.
TRIXIE: (off) It’s a commercial.
TOM: Yeah, but a good one. I can’t figure out why that stopped it so…cold. It ran incessantly for two weeks, than vanished. Saturation, then cut off. I guess that makes you want it even more…
(TRIXIE enters in a sexy Victoria’s Secret lounging outfit)
TRIXIE: I like a message a little more complex than buy a BMW.
TOM: So you think I should buy a BMW?
TRIXIE: Of course I do, if it makes you happy. So. That pretty much takes it all, right?
TOM: Yeah. Except for the other, let’s see, 70 for the BMW, 5 for the Jacuzzi, installed, silverware, what two grand? That leaves about 1.5 mil.
TRIXIE: 1.5….
TOM: Yep. Less the…
TRIXIE: Capitol Gains…oh, baby! (she kisses him) That is a deal! I had no idea!
TOM: I mean, 40 percent. That’s well, incorrigible. Makes you think about the tea party and seceding and all…
TRIXIE: Oh, you. We are in a time of total abundance, the sky is our only limit…
TOM: If we don’t run out of stamina first.
TRIXIE: Life is not about stamina. That’s so rustic. It is about love and devotion to what you are doing. That’s what it means to be a real artist.
TOM: You be whatever you want to be. (He changes music back to romantic, convinces her to dance. They do. After a beat) How was work today?
TRIXIE: Same old, same old. Drew a little, talked a lot, sent some e-mail, faxed something, had lunch with Tony from the winery, and confirmed the date to Melbourne.
TOM: Yeah, great, a whole two weeks…
TRIXIE: It’s not too late for you to come with me. I’m gonna be dying surrounded by architects when what I really want to do is shoot some kangaroos. With my camera, of course…
TOM: No, I can’t. Not now. Too many details to wrap up. These guys were very good to me. I don’t want to mess things up for them.
TRIXIE: Oh, you’re so generous. There’s still time to make reservations…
TOM: I don’t want to go. I don’t want you to go, either.
TRIXIE: I have to, Tom. I just have too…
TOM: Alright. Alright. (beat) What did the doctor say? It was today, right?
TRIXIE: Nothing.
TOM: He’s your third specialist. He has to have said something…
TRIXIE: They just, they don’t know…
TOM: Wasn’t there some new hormone treatment…
TRIXIE: I don’t know. I don’t know. (beat) I didn’t go. Okay? I just didn’t…feel like…bringing the whole thing up again…
TOM: You just didn’t feel like it.
TRIXIE: No. Can’t you just leave it at that? (pause. She puts away the strawberries and the champagne) I’ll go. Next week. I promise. Can you come with me to that dinner on the ninth–for the dance company?
TOM: What?
TRIXIE: Can you come with me to that dinner on the ninth–for the dance company?
TOM: Oh, well, I’ll have to check my calendar…
TRIXIE: It’s important. Deacon will be there, and he just absolutely adores you, you know…He thinks you’re his long lost son. We need him to do a table for the Cactus Gala. We’re trying to bring in Merce…
TOM: Who? Merce Cunningham? I thought he was dead…
TRIXIE: Oh no. He still has his company…
TOM: He must be older than…time itself…
TRIXIE: Oh, no. He’s still a vital contributor to the field. He doesn’t rely on a manipulative story with a climax. It’s like abstract painting, where movement, sound, light is in and of itself expressive. (beat) They’re talking about a residency. He’s actually going to work with our dancers…
TOM: Oh, that’s interesting.
TRIXIE: Commission a whole new piece. Wherever it travels, it will say our name…”Desert Dance Theatre…”
TOM: What’s with the ‘our…’
TRIXIE: It’s so exciting…
TOM: You just got on the board a few months ago. You’re not even President…Treasurer, even…
TRIXIE: They want me to be…I’m an officer…Acting Secretary….
TOM: But aren’t you doing that whole complex for the heart hospital…
TRIXIE: I know, I know…
TOM: I mean, Trix, you gotta look at your priorities here…what does the most good for the most people…I mean, we don’t have unlimited time…
TRIXIE: Another cardiac wing. So people will have a snappy place to recover from years of smoking and eating too much red meat. I’ll just have to resign from the hospital committee, that’s all…
TOM: What has gotten into you…
TRIXIE: Look, honey. Those old boys can take care of it themselves. They’ve got it under control, they don’t need me. They’re not interested in being beautiful or innovative, just in function and the bottom line…Life’s so short. I want to do something that makes people feel better, more alive. The arts do that, don’t you think?
TOM: Maybe. When I’m awake.
TRIXIE: You’re terrible.
TOM: I’m serious. I’m tired of being scolded and mystified by what they’re calling art these days. Like the last time we were in Houston, the Wilson Hamlet, I mean, what was that…I mean, he’s too old to play Hamlet, isn’t he? And then he played all the other parts! And why did he keep repeating the same things, over and over… To be to be to be to be to be…
TRIXIE: It was a tour de force, it was a deconstruction…
TOM: Well, it was boring. It made me want to get to the lobby for a big fat martini…
TRIXIE: But the images…the statements about ritual and relativity…
TOM: Images. If I want images, I’ll go to the movies. They’re more honest, more real.
TRIXIE: Movies aren’t real. They’re linear fabrications. Theatre has the logic of the soul.
TOM: Where did you hear that?
TRIXIE: It’s all in the eye of the observer. Stay here. I want to show you something.
(She exits. He picks up the remote and turns on the television: a ball game. Cheering crowds. TRIXIE enters with something under a napkin. She sets it on the table in front of him. She lifts off the cloth to reveal a winged, pastel washed piece of pottery)
TOM: What is it?
TRIXIE: What do you think it is?
TOM: Did you make this?
TRIXIE: Yes I did, down at Judy’s. She has a huge kiln. But that’s not the point…
TOM: Pretty colors…
TRIXIE: Thank you. But what do you think it is?
TOM: Um… a flower?
TRIXIE: Oh come on now.
TOM: What?
TRIXIE: That’s really what you think it looks like?
TOM: Yeah, an orchid or something, like Georgia O’Keffe…
TRIXIE: Well. Right. I can accept that. I’m actually very flattered…
TOM: But…
TRIXIE: But, it was supposed to be an eagle.
TOM: Of course, of course…I was going to say, eagle…
TRIXIE: It was ‘supposed to represent freedom.
TOM: I’m sorry, I see what you mean now…
TRIXIE: No, no. That’s the whole point, I mean, that’s what I’m saying. Art is what you want it to be…
TOM: But you wanted it to be an eagle…
TRIXIE: That doesn’t matter, that doesn’t matter…
TOM: But you’re disappointed…
TRIXIE: No, no. You have a right to respond how you want to…the true artist pays attention only to the calling of her vision, regardless of how it is received…
TOM: Good try. (gets more champagne) I’d rather have something you can really put something in. Functional. Useful. Something you could sell. I mean, it’s all well and good to follow your vision, or whatever, put people have to want to see the world your way, they have to want what you make.
TRIXIE: You can’t think about marketing when you’re making art…
TOM: Why not? Things done for commercial reasons are more—American…
TRIXIE: How can you say that? You’re the authority on what’s American…?
TOM: Well, my darling, I’m playing the game, and I’m winning…
TRIXIE: So artists are just not playing the game…
TOM: They haven’t taken the time to find out what the game is. You have to contribute something; give up your ego, read a little Dale Carnegie…
TRIXIE: Don’t you think they’re a little busy rehearsing for hours and hours and struggling with poverty so they can create performances that we consume? That’s why we have to support them…we, in particular, have a responsibility…
TOM: Aw, I don’t mind giving a little start up capital. But renewing contributions year after year–it’s like rewarding them for breaking the rules.
TRIXIE: That’s not fair. In this economy, they need subsidies to survive…
TOM: Don’t we all…? And I tell you, sometimes, they just give me the creeps, it’s like you can’t trust them. They act like they’re all interested in your life and what you do, but really, all they want is your money, and then they don’t want you to have any part of how they use it…
TRIXIE: We can’t censor…
TOM: It’s not censorship. I’m completely tolerant. They can go ahead and be profane, tasteless, boring, indecent. It’s not like we’re going to put them in jail for it. I believe in free speech. They can do whatever they want. Just not with my money.
TRIXIE: But, dissonance is vital to culture, it’s what makes us grow…we’re just shells of our true potential unless we challenge our boundaries…
TOM: Honey, art is only valuable because people like you make it so. If I want dissonance, I’ll watch Crossfire or Larry King. What’s that one foundation, always on NPR–art in everyday lives? Doesn’t that just make it–craft? Anybody can do it. So, what’s the point in elevating certain individuals to the status of near god-hood?
TRIXIE: Honey…
TOM: I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I work hard. Art is play. It just pisses me off that artists feel so, entitled…isn’t it supposed to be show business? I mean, Broadway doesn’t take hand-outs…Hollywood either…why does everyplace else have to…
TRIXIE: It’s because of the numbers honey. It’s so we can have this knock out view when we come home from a show. So…I guess now would be a bad time to ask for money for Merce…
TOM: What do you think.
TRIXIE: I’m going to put some in especially for this residency, and I thought maybe you could match it…
TOM: I think I’ll stay out of it this time. Besides. I’m thinking about investing in the basketball team.
TRIXIE: What! Like that’s any better…
TOM: It’s just, more sensible…A pro team could bring a lot to this area…
TRIXIE: You’ll pay someone to run up and down the court, but not to dance across a stage…
TOM: Hey, there’s a chance I’ll get my money back. A slim chance…
TRIXIE: But we’ll get so much more back by creating a work of art that could last for years and years, tour around the country, identify a new star dancer…
TOM: Don’t take it personally, Trix. It’s a matter of preference, personal tastes…
TRIXIE: For artists, it’s a matter of survival…
TOM: Come on. Merce isn’t hurting any.
TRIXIE: But the company, our company…We need this residency. It could open up all kinds of doors for us. Tom, I’m trying to be financially responsible, and it’s not really looking very good…
TOM: What do you mean, financially responsible? My god, Trixie, did you sign anything without consulting Pete first…
TRIXIE: Of course not, I just mean, ethically. Please??? (beat) A pledge…
TOM: How much.
TRIXIE: Not much.
TOM: How much?
TRIXIE: 50. Thousand.
TOM: My god! I can’t believe…I’m not that liquid right now. All my cash went to the contractors to finish the house the way you wanted…
TRIXIE: I’ve got money, too, honey. But we still need a match. I’ve tried all my heavy hitters, and I just can’t make them bite… We need the leverage for a foundation grant…plus, there’s a little from the NEA…
TOM: My tax dollars…Let’s not even go there. It’s simple economics. If there isn’t the need, it should stop.
TRIXIE: Stop. You think the company should just stop.
TOM: I said, if it can’t EARN it’s income…
TRIXIE: And you, sponsoring some sport team, or investing, it that EARNED?
TOM: They make a profit!
TRIXIE: I didn’t say profit. I said, what did they do to earn it, baby? Throw a ball through a hoop and advertise? How does that enrich our lives…
TOM: They make me relax! They don’t make me question my life! Life is hard enough with out all the negativity and doubting…
TRIXIE: So, art does impact you…
TOM: I said, they have every right…
TRIXIE: You don’t like how it impacts you, so you want to kill it…
TOM: Don’t go overboard, here…
TRIXIE: What are you so afraid of?
TOM: I’m trying to put some sanity in my life! I don’t want to know what those damn artists think about my choices. If I want to change my life I’ll go to a therapist. If I want humanity, I’ll go to a fucking church. You and I are supposed to be creating things that last…buildings and trusts, homes and babies…
TRIXIE: Nothing lasts forever, Tom…all we really have is right now, in right here. This very moment. This is all we really have. Things are always changing. Why can’t you?
TOM: I’m not listening anymore. Here. Have the last strawberry. I’m going up to bed. (starts for stairs. Beat)
TRIXIE: For the last time. Please. Help me out with Merce.
TOM: You know, I’ve waited a long time for a break like this. Thought we could celebrate, you know, for once, together…
TRIXIE: We still can. (beat: offstage) All right. You can come out now…
(A man, very tall, very thin, enters. He might actually be MERCE. He wears a black turtleneck and dance pants. His hair is curly and tight. He moves very gracefully, puts his arm into hers)
TRIXIE: I’m sorry to keep you waiting back there. He’s just not being reasonable.
MERCE: Did you tell him that we’re a 501 (c) 3 tax-exempt charitable and educational corporation?
TRIXIE: That’s right, Tom, it is tax-deductible!
MERCE: Actually, you’d have to consult your tax specialist for full eligibility.
TOM: Who are you? A professional fund raiser? Do you have a license for that?
TRIXIE: Come on, then, let’s go back to the hotel… Shall we?
(Brings MERCE with her to get her purse)
TOM: Trixie, please–you’re not even dressed!
MERCE: What’s up with him?
TRIXIE: (as they exit, To MERCE)
Don’t worry, darling. There are still a few stones to turn over. We’ll try again in the morning. And, thanks so much for the private lesson…
MERCE: It was my pleasure. One does not have to study in order to dance. It is given to all of us—but not for free.
TRIXIE: Goodbye, Tom. Don’t wait up.
TOM: Hold on just a minute! What are you doing? Where are you going? Who are you?
(They exit. A beat.)
TOM: (Cont.) Fucking MERCE?!?
(Quick blackout. End)
