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| [Sound: New York city street noise. The Perfectionist strolls into the light, pondering a yellow legal-length pad. He does not acknowledge the Puritan and the Prodigy.] | |
| PERFECTIONIST: | '- superb waking nightmare.' Laughter. Right speaker fades. |
| [The Puritan moves into shadow.] | |
| Left speaker - | |
| PRODIGY: | I'm doing what I said I always wanted to do. Why can't she understand? |
| PERFECTIONIST: | [circling a word on his pad] Why can't? Why won't? Why doesn't? Wash from the Scherzo, and out. |
| [Lights fade on the Prodigy. The Perfectionist paces, looks up and down the street at the noisy traffic.] | |
| The driver from Columbia was supposed to be here twenty minutes ago. This is absurd ... taxi! | |
| [Sound: louder street noise. He waves his arm as the taxi drives by. The Prodigy stays onstage.] | |
| Five years since I quit performing, you'd think I'd never have to travel against my will again. But nooo, that would be too easy. Every time I want to record I must make a nightmare pilgrimage to this ... this colossus that grinds human souls to powder. Taxi! | |
| [He waves his arm again. Watches another cab go by. Lights up on the Performer who sits in the lazy-boy chair under the plaid wool throw, jotting schematics on a yellow legal-length pad.] | |
| PERFORMER: | The Central Conundrum: I give up public performance ... yet I still must perform for the public. [writing] The moment of infinite privacy surrendered naked to the scrutiny of strangers. |
| PERFECTIONIST: | One seeks perfection and is rewarded with the experience of mob rule. [looking around] It sifts down on you all day long in Manhattan. The spiritual soot of America. |
| PERFORMER: | [writing] The walls close in. The brain pressure is measured in tons-per-square-inch. [thinking] So, finally, the Performer must withdraw. He walks off the stage in Los Angeles and ends up in this chair at Uptergrove ... Question: What does the born performer do after he stops performing? |
| PERFECTIONIST: | Where is Theodore Slutz when I need him most? |
| PERFORMER: | [in recognition] Answer: He dons the disguise of the moment. |
| PERFECTIONIST: | Taxi! |
| [The Performer gets up from the chair.] | |
| PERFORMER: | Dressed as a guard ... I walk backwards out of the prison. [He puts on his 'Theodore Slutz hat'. Singing, New Jersey accent] 'The buildin's reach up to the sky / Traffic thunders on the busy streets / Pavement slips beneath my feet / I sit alone and wonder / Who am I?' |
| PERFECTIONIST: | [spotting the Performer] Finally, this fellow seems to have noticed me. Now all I have to do is cross six lanes of rush-hour traffic. |
| [Sound: traffic noise up. The Perfectionist heads across the six lanes of traffic. It's a harrowing journey. He just makes it. Lights shift to favour the Prodigy as he enters the action.] | |
| PRODIGY: | New York City! This time next month I'll be recording there. Got to get mentally prepared ... |
| [He closes his eyes, does the 'taking flight' gesture, thinks better of it, then hustles over to retrieve his piano stool, realizing he'll need it in New York.] | |
| ... imagine myself there in the best possible light. I swoop down on Central Park, the trees a nubbly lawn at my feet. Buildings bend around the bowl of the sky. I bank down Fifth Avenue ... come in for a landing at ... at Rockefeller Centre! | |
| [He 'lands' in Manhattan. Lights up on the Perfectionist and the Performer who are in mid-conversation. The Performer talks into his rear-view mirror.] | |
| PERFORMER: | [as Theodore Slutz, New Jersey accent] - and poof! there's a cloud of magic pixie dust and this teensy-weensy grand piano appears with a concert pianist yea-big standing beside it. The guy at the bar turns to the genie and says: 'Hey, bubba! I didn't ask for a ten inch pianist.' |
| [He cracks up. The Perfectionist smiles thinly. The Prodigy is gawking at the skyscrapers.] | |
| SLUTZ: | A ten-inch pianist. It's a-a word thing - |
| PERFECTIONIST: | Yes. I understand. Assonance. |
| SLUTZ: | [to rear-view mirror] Why do you think I told you that joke? |
| PERFECTIONIST: | Your reasoning, sir, is beyond me. The road, please. |
| SLUTZ: | Because you're Glenn Gould! I read your occasionals in High Fidelity Magazine. |
| PERFECTIONIST: | My-my, a subscriber - watch out! |
| [Sound: squealing tires. The Performer swerves to miss the Prodigy, who is startled out of his reverie by the commotion. Sound: street noise, traffic and pedestrians, continuing under.] | |
| SLUTZ: | A survivor, Mr Gould! |
| [The Perfectionist is transfixed by the sight of the Prodigy.] | |
| Theodore Slutz, taxi driver, avant garde musician - | |
| PERFECTIONIST: | [interrupting wearily] - and music editor of The Village Grass is Greener. Your reputation precedes you, sir. |
| SLUTZ: | That last piece you did about actuality and realism - very intense, Mr Gould, very personal, if you get what I mean. |
| PERFECTIONIST: | [interrupting] The distinction between actuality and realism is fundamental to the creative act in the modern era. And my train to Toronto leaves in less than ten minutes. |
| [He can't take his eyes off the Prodigy, who rubbernecks at the tall buildings.] | |
| SLUTZ: | [driving] If I understand you correctly, actuality is like the-the rush of pure event. |
| PERFECTIONIST: | Correct. |
| SLUTZ: | And realism ... |
| PERFECTIONIST: | Is an artificial event which can be infinitely manipulated by technology. |
| SLUTZ: | Which is where your personal life comes in. |
| [The Prodigy has caught up to them again. The Perfectionist is startled to see him.] | |
| PERFECTIONIST: | I think not. |
| SLUTZ: | [accelerating] You're a born performer, Mr Gould. The concert stage was your actuality and now you've withdrawn into this state of total realism. |
| PERFECTIONIST: | Never thought of it quite that way. |
| SLUTZ: | [accelerating further] You've disappeared into your own rule book, Mr Gould. [over his shoulder] What happens to the Performer? Huh? Do you keep that part of yourself chained to a dungeon wall, or what? |
| [He hammers the brakes. He and the Perfectionist rock forward as the cab squeals to a stop. The Prodigy makes a direct approach, aware of the cab for the first time. Opens the door.] | |
| PRODIGY: | Excuse me, I-I'm looking for Columbia Masterworks, two-hundred and seven east Thirty Street. |
| SLUTZ: | Get in, kid. [to Perfectionist] We can drop him on the way. |
| [The Prodigy gets in.] | |
| PRODIGY: | [offering his hand to the Perfectionist] I'm Glenn Gould. |
| [The Perfectionist looks at the kid in horror.] | |
| SLUTZ: | Check the gloves! Where you from kid, Greenland? |
| PRODIGY: | Toronto, actually. That's in Canada. Everybody up there dresses like this in June. |
| PERFECTIONIST: | That's very funny. [to the driver] What's going on here? |
| SLUTZ: | All of this is happening in my head! I'm improvising on a riff! |
| PERFECTIONIST: | I have a very limited appetite for improvisation. Like your little game here, it's mostly cliché. [to the Prodigy] What are you staring at? |
| PRODIGY: | I'm afraid I-I've lost my way. |
| SLUTZ: | [rear-view mirror] Remember? |
| PRODIGY: | I thought I was imagining all this. |
| PERFECTIONIST: | [to Performer] I have no idea what you're talking about. |
| SLUTZ: | Neither end nor beginning. Neither climax nor resolution. The composition, like Baudelaire's lovers - |
| PERFECTIONIST: | [interrupting] Utter gibberish! Stop this cab immediately! |
| SLUTZ: | Skippin' town, right? Never coming back here to record. |
| PERFECTIONIST: | That is the plan. |
| SLUTZ: | You're gonna set up some kind of basement recording studio. |
| PERFECTIONIST: | The Eaton Auditorium is hardly a basement. |
| SLUTZ: | Sorry, GG. Bunker mentality. |
| [The Prodigy has picked up on the negative energy between his cab mates.] | |
| PRODIGY: | [to the driver] This is not what I expected. |
| PERFORMER: | Larger than life! [rear-view mirror] Right, GG? |
| PERFECTIONIST: | [fed up] Indeed. We apparently transcend the laws of physics. My train leaves in eight minutes. Grand Central Station is ten blocks from here. I'll do better on foot. |
| [He clambers over the Prodigy's knees to get out of the taxi.] | |
| SLUTZ: | [after him] Wash from the Scherzo and out, bubba! |
| PRODIGY: | I'm a little ... lost. |
| SLUTZ: | Relax, kid. Trust what you know. [looking after the Perfectionist] And don't trust it when you know too much. I'm afraid we haven't heard the last from that guy ... |
| PRODIGY: | I-I was trying to get mentally prepared to record my first album - |
| SLUTZ: | Beautiful, kid! That's beautiful. Prepare to fall in love! |
| [He hands the Prodigy the album cover for his first recording of the Goldberg Variations. The kid is full of wonder. Lights shift. Another note from the ground bass.] |