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| PRODIGY: | [entering on phone] Jesse, sorry to call so early. Solitude makes one strangely convivial. It's like eating a pomegranate alone, one longs to turn to one's neighbour and compare notes. [pause] I know it's five in the morning, I've inverted my sleep cycle! I go to bed at dawn, wake up when the light is beautiful between the trees. [responding to her worry] I know, Jessie ... |
| PURITAN: | [entering on phone] I know, Susan, it's radical! I can be in two places at once! It's a whole new way of seeing myself! |
| PRODIGY: | Jessie, I called because I feel like I've finally found a way to see myself - |
| PURITAN: | That's right, conducting and playing at the same time, Susan, on Beethoven's Piano Concerto Number One. First, I conduct to the piano entry - |
| [He sings the orchestral part.] | |
| PRODIGY: | I was playing the Rondo from Beethoven's Concerto Number One on the Chickering - fishtailing through it at breakneck speed. |
| PURITAN: | And then - |
| PRODIGY: | [overlapping Puritan] Instead of - |
| [They both sing the opening bars of the piano entry at a stately tempo.] | |
| It was - | |
| [He speeds up, singing the Rondo at breakneck speed.] | |
| It started to come in such a rush that I stepped outside the playing! Uh-huh - | |
| PURITAN: | [finishing] Right! And then I go back to my conducting - two-two-two Goulds in one! Uh-huh. |
| PRODIGY: | I was hearing all the harmonics! I can't explain it, Jessie. The focus pulled way, way back. I was looking at myself across a great distance. I'm a person who makes sounds, Jessie. And by making sounds I show people how I hear. Isn't that a strange thing to do with your life? |
| [Sound: phone rings.] | |
| PURITAN: | [cupping receiver, calling off] Jessie? That's my private line in the kitchen, could you take a message? Except if it's that fellow from Juilliard [into phone] - sorry, Susan, I've been rambling on here. My question to you is, if I make this thing fly do you think Columbia will be interested? |
| PRODIGY: | No, I'll wait. Go to the kitchen and make tea. I'll go back to planning my novel. [reading his notes] Chapter Twenty-three. 'As he nears his fiftieth year the ageing virtuoso decides it's time to pass the torch to the next generation. He arranges for a prodigy to come and record with him, promising the lad he'll teach him everything he knows about playing the piano ...' |
| PURITAN: | [laughing] Von Karajan once told me: [German accent] You assume control by being in control. [normal] Oh, that it were so simple! [laughs again] I think I may have reached an age where I know too much, Susan - a perilous state! |
| PRODIGY: | 'The lad's name is Stephen Prince' - no, too direct - 'Stephen Price, the most promising student at Juilliard. With his heart in his mouth the boy telephones the great man to make the necessary arrangements - |
| PURITAN: | Susan, I love talking to you but I've got to go. My cousin Jessie has made tea. Right, mm-hm. [he hangs up, to Jessie] Juilliard? Drat. They have a volunteer for that little recording session I told you about. I've been waiting for his call. Hm? [a darkening mood] Jessie, I'm sorry, we've been over this. I've given it due consideration and I am not, repeat not, interested in any form of birthday celebration. [pause] It's not a question of health! I feel fine! I simply refuse to be trapped by that kind of chronology. The calendar is a tyrant! Once you submit to its relentless linearity you're ... you're finished. No cake. No candles. Understand? Go. Call my father. Tell him. |
| [Sound: telephone rings. The Prodigy reacts. His imagination has connected, lightly on the wings of the unchecked wind. The Puritan moves to answer the telephone.] | |
| Ah, Stephen Price. I've been waiting for your call. I'm thrilled that you've agreed to go along with my little experiment. Now, as to dates - | |
| PRODIGY: | [still turned away from Puritan] 'When the old man answers the boy is awestruck. He can hear himself babbling.' |
| PURITAN: | Nonsense, Stephen, you're helping me fulfill a lifelong dream to conduct. I'll make this promise to you - come to Toronto and I'll teach you everything you need to know about playing the piano in half an hour. The twenty-seventh Stephen. I'll have my people send you a ticket. |
| [He hangs up the phone, thinks, smiles, writes on his pad. The Prodigy writes on his pad. The lights fade on them.] | |
| PRODIGY: | [into phone] Jessie, you're back - what I'm trying to say is that I really think there's a way I can live! I'm starting to see myself in the future, and I like what I see ... I'm growing up, Jessie. I'm finally learning how to conduct myself! |
| [Another note from the ground bass. Lights fade. The Prodigy moves centre stage, poised in his command of an imaginary audience.] |