The scene. A man in a cage. Bored. A woman prowling around him.
Woman
I'm sorry to have taken you prisoner but it was the only way. The only way to start. Afterwards we can work something out. I'll set you free. I promise.
Man
Then there is no danger. This is a temporary situation. One which won't be repeated. Can any good come of it? You want to make me talk, to create some kind of equilibrium. You want to hear me. I have been put here. We are not equal. That kind of excitement is now impossible because you are trying to be everything.
Woman
Somebody has to try to be everything. Somebody has to make a decision. Am I wrong to take what I want? When it is the only thing that matters to me, apart from the bilingual dialogue we could have, freely, in another place at another time, without all these people watching us.
Man
I think you're wrong. Nothing free can ever flow between us. You are a tyrant. By your act of tyranny you have destroyed the possibility of freedom between us. You did not seduce me. You were seduced. You are a prisoner of your desire which you have captured and you must start again, some other way.
Woman
You are too far away. I could never reach you, except by having you inside that cage, always.
Speak to me, the way you speak to other people. I can answer you the way no other woman has ever answered you before.
And in the end, I'll start again, another way.
Man
No. I, too, have a dream. And it is not a dream of being captured. This is much too violent. Too selfish. Too close to home. I know where home is. It is not a locked door.
Woman
But it's a question of life or death.
Man
Then what can I say to you? That your life and your death have nothing to do with mine. Our paths would not even have crossed if you hadn't decided to stick me in this cage, like a symbol for what we’re doing to animals by keeping them in zoos so that our children can see them. Our children would rather they were running free. Don’t expect them to like the zoo.
By putting me in this situation you have stifled the voice you want so much to hear. All I can talk about is you, and the situation you have put me in, and you want to hear what I have to say to myself, and to people you don't know.
Woman
You are coming to me. I'm so glad. So relieved. Now you know that we are speaking of the same thing and you don't care whether I took you by force or by some other means.
You need me just as much as I need you, now; we need each other here and now and the rest is only a question of time! Can't you see?
Man
A question of time and of language. Time and language. Yes, I'll be your little prisoner if you'll make me talk! Make me say something that I could not have said on my own, if you're sure you can find it. But will it leave an everlasting impression? Only if we do our utmost to make it last. To make it work. The question of time. Will it mean anything? The question of language.
Woman
It has that lasting quality about it. But would you rather speak French?
Man
Such politeness from a capturer is incongruous. Do you feel up to it? It isn't your language. You could easily make mistakes. But then, perhaps you don't mind making mistakes. Maybe you're prepared to take the risk. Is this the voice you want? Is this the voice you need? Or are you simply making do, to fill the time, to while away an hour, take your mind off your worries, for a bit. We have to get out more. Go to the theatre! Relieve ourselves of the silence.
Woman
I don't mind silence. I love silence.
Man
Then why do you force me to
talk?
To talk to you? Why weren't you content to go on admiring me from afar? Silence obviously wasn't enough for you.
Woman
Silence is only the edge, and this is another edge, or, rather, two edges touching. It won't go on forever. There will be silence again. Even here, there is silence, the silence of all the things we shall never say to one another. And the silence before, before I heard your voice, before you heard my voice.
Man
Your voice, remember, is the voice of a capturer. You must give your guests more room.
Let me hear it, then.
Let me hear what you have to say that I'll never forget.
Woman
I didn't capture you in order to be able to speak to you. I only wanted to listen to you, to hear you speaking my language, and to tell you, yes, I wanted to tell you that it is important for men and women to talk. Together. For us to talk. You and I. And it is important that you feel the same. About what I say, and how I say it, as I feel about what you say and how you say it.
Man
There's something wrong with the fact that you locked me up. Set me free.
Woman
If I set you free now I'll never know who you are, I'll never know if I was right about our voices, I'll never be what I want to be.
Man
Then you're using me. You know perfectly well that... in a way... I suppose it depends what you're using me for. What are you using me for?
Woman
I thought I had made it clear. Oh, the words are no good! Contact. Making contact. With someone. A contact other than self contact. An excitement.
A necessity. I need you. Without you I am empty noise
Man
And you think that I lend meaning to your emptiness? I thought we were on the same plane. That you wanted to be equal.
Woman
Without me, you wouldn't be speaking, here, now, in this way. We are equal. Horribly equal. Beautifully equal. In perfect harmony. We do not even know each other. But when your voice falls it traces a limit I cannot go beyond. When your voice falls I want to sing the highest note I can hit and to talk we must stay here in the middle where the words are still words and can be somehow screeched out, like modern music, as if the artist was being crucified by the society he or she was trying to emulate or refute.
Man
So that someone somewhere will hear them. If I knew you better... if I trusted you, I could talk to you but where would that get us? Time and language. We're using both. And that is all. Although not quite all. Not all at all, in fact. Isn't it funny?! Some woman likes the sound of my voice and here I am with a whole string of words I never asked for, never imagined, didn't expect. I'm unprepared. But not taken unawares.
Woman
(blank page)
Man
You know, in my job you have to be prepared for everything. Then everything happens and it somehow doesn't change anything. The questions remain the same, of time and of language. The answers transform themselves into new questions and talking becomes a game, a dance, when one no longer leaves these things to chance, I'm afraid I have gone over my share of the pages. Yours is blank.
Woman
Silence
Man
You don't mind. You're quite prepared to let me ramble on, waiting patiently. As soon as you feel that I've stopped - really stopped - you'll start again and so the ball will keep rolling, you listening to me, me listening to me and to you in the hope that you'll surprise me and create a new rhythm, or is it a new harmony or a melody, or simply more words, more of
Woman
Silence
Man
the same thing? I don't suppose it really matters. I know what you're trying to do. I can feel your necessity. It is not a necessity to speak but to be spoken to. And you can't find it within yourself, the voice that says everything to everybody, and you think that I have found it, but this is only the voice that says everything to you and we are alone. Woman. I have made a woman happy. She is ecstatic, whenever she
Woman
Silence
Man
hears my voice and she wants the world to stop there at the point where she feels that everything has been said when in fact there is no end and no beginning to time and to language even leaving aside considerations of intentionality, meaning, evaporation, essence and superfluousness not to mention politics and the state of the soul. Freedom to contemplate isn't enough for you, ma puce.
Woman
Nothing could ever be enough for me, my friend, short of paradise on earth. Peace and freedom.
Equity.
Man
Are you a member?
Woman
Je ne joue pas.
Part II (in French)
No comments:
Post a Comment