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| [The Prodigy practices the run up to a complicated cross-handed passage, stumbling at the same point each time. The Perfectionist comes back onstage, catching his breath as he brings his full attention to the Prodigy. The Prodigy struggles with his fingering error, increasingly frustrated. The Perfectionist cues the technician. The red light comes on. He addresses it.] | |
| PERFECTIONIST: | I have a profound distrust of pianos. What draws me to Bach is the fact that the music per se transcends the whole issue of instrumentation. |
| [The Performer wheels a vacuum cleaner onstage, sneaking up on the Perfectionist.] | |
| Bach shunned the outward disorder of musical appliance | |
| [The Performer turns on the vacuum cleaner. The Perfectionist must shout over the noise.] | |
| and focused inwardly on the musical image, which he heard exactly as he wanted to! There was an incident in Tel Aviv which I think admirably - | |
| [The Prodigy stops playing and glares. The Perfectionist does likewise.] | |
| PRODIGY: | Jessie! Can you turn that off? I'm trying to practice! |
| PERFORMER: | The Tel Aviv story belongs to me. |
| [The Perfectionist shuts off the vacuum cleaner.] | |
| PRODIGY: | Thank you! |
| PERFECTIONIST: | It's a canon. You are to play the game. If you were a bird which species would you be? |
| [He conducts himself, thinking. The Prodigy begins to play again, stumbling at the cross-handed passage.] | |
| PERFECTIONIST: | As I was saying - |
| PERFORMER: | [interrupting] A dodo, dodo. Excuse me - |
| [He steps in front of the Perfectionist and turns on the vacuum cleaner.] | |
| There was a peculiar episode in Tel Aviv which I think admirably demonstrates the point I'm trying to make about pianos. | |
| PERFECTIONIST: | If you were a four-wheeled vehicle? |
| PERFORMER: | A Mack truck! I was on tour in Israel which, as everyone kept telling me, is a desert country and as a result seems to have bred a bizarre species of desert piano. |
| PRODIGY: | Jessie, I'm stuck on a problem! Finish the vacuuming later, ok? |
| PERFECTIONIST: | This will not do. |
| PERFORMER: | I found myself forced to give a series of concerts on a very bad instrument - |
| PERFECTIONIST: | - a monstrous pig of a piano! |
| PRODIGY: | I can't hear myself think! |
| [Vacuuming continues] | |
| Fine! | |
| [He sings to drown out the vacuum cleaner as he digs deeper into the difficult passage.] | |
| PERFORMER: | This instrument had a terrible action, the equivalent of power steering, and it followed me along the rugged trail in its own special truck. |
| PERFECTIONIST: | There was no special truck! If you were an animal in a zoo? |
| [The Performer thinks while he vacuums. The Perfectionist moves to regain control of the story.] | |
| By the Tel Aviv engagement that piano was playing me! | |
| [The Prodigy races through the trouble spot again and again, singing the notes aloud. The Performer vacuums up the Perfectionist's leg toward his crotch, horrifying him.] | |
| PERFORMER: | An elephant ... looking for peanuts! |
| [The Perfectionist shuts off the vacuum cleaner. The Prodigy smiles and plays through the passage with ease.] | |
| I took a long walk along the seashore and ruminated on my predicament. | |
| PERFECTIONIST: | I sat on sand dunes! Play the game properly! If you were a machine in a science fiction movie? |
| [Sound: the piano music comes suddenly clear, soars.] | |
| PERFORMER: | Hm ... |
| PRODIGY: | [a major realization] I short-circuited the problem! |
| PERFECTIONIST: | I decided the only thing that could save me was to recreate the most admirable tactile circumstances I knew of. |
| PERFORMER: | A teleporter! I mentally transported myself to Lake Simcoe, sat down in our cottage at the old stubby-legged Chickering and played the whole concert through in my head! |
| PERFECTIONIST: | Right. Go on. They're all listening. |
| [He exits. The Performer is momentarily nonplussed.] | |
| PERFORMER: | Holding on desperately to the image of my performance at the Chickering I rushed to the auditorium, played the concert and for the first time on the entire tour I was absolutely free of commitment to that oinker of a piano! And the Beethoven that came out was really rather extraordinary. |
| [He indicates his story is over.] | |
| PERFECTIONIST: | [on monitor] Go on. Don't be afraid - the whole truth. |
| PERFORMER: | [wary] After the concert I'm in my dressing room and Max Brod - who is Franz Kafka's literary executor - comes backstage with a woman who wants to meet me. She says: [German accent] 'Mr Gould, I haf attended three of your concerts in Israel and tonight ... in some vay ... something vas different. It was like your being vas not with us, you were ... removed.' Somehow she'd miraculously tapped into the mind-set I'd brought into the concert hall! |
| PERFECTIONIST: | Get out the Ouija board, folks. |
| PERFORMER: | Which made a pretty strong case for the existence of a privileged communication between live audience and performer! |
| PERFECTIONIST: | - a doctrine I find highly suspect - |
| PERFORMER: | - nevertheless , she'd put her finger right on it. I was spooked! |
| PERFECTIONIST: | Until she looked me straight in the eye and, in all seriousness, said: 'It vas unquestionably ze finest Mozart I haf ever heard!' Of course, I'd been playing Beethoven! |
| PRODIGY: | I can't hear the music! Jessie! Turn the vacuum cleaner on! |
| [The Perfectionist turns and gestures grandly. The stage is bathed in red light. The other players go into a freeze. The Perfectionist snaps his fingers. Lights up on the hanging piano. Another note from the ground bass.] |