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| [The Perfectionist remains alone in his hospital bed under the covers. The Puritan makes a vaudeville entrance da-daing his way through 'Be Kind to Your Fine Feathered Friends / That duck may be somebody's brother'. He rolls the Perfectionist's bed around.] | |
| PURITAN: | Good evening, and welcome to another edition of 'Brain Peelers'! My name is Glenn Gould and my guest this evening is Dr Wolfgang von Krankmeister, the editor of Insight, the Journal of the North Dakota Psychiatric Association. Our subject this evening, that kooky Canadian virtuoso, Glenn Gould! |
| [He tries to pull off the Perfectionist's sheet.] | |
| PERFECTIONIST: | [as Krankmeister, German accent] Vat a pity. I come prepared to talk about Franz Kafka. |
| [The Arctic wind stops, replaced by violin schmaltz from a Prague café, circa 1920.] | |
| PURITAN: | Kafka is next week, Dr von Krankmeister. This is the twenty-sixth. |
| [The Arctic wind and the Prague violin music commingle and continue throughout, under.] | |
| What we're trying to understand here are Glenn Gould's career choices. | |
| KRANKMEISTER: | Da psychological sub-text - |
| PURITAN: | Precisely ... could we roll footage? |
| [He cues the Performer. The Performer plays out his dialogue with an ironic edge, he's delivering the Perfectionist's words back to him.] | |
| PERFORMER: | [on monitor] Proposition. Solitude is the prerequisite for ecstatic experience and the condition of heroism. Monastic seclusion works for me. |
| [He holds his binoculars to his ear and scans the horizon.] | |
| KRANKMEISTER: | Da typical schizoid dilemma! Desperate need for luf combines vis da equally desperate fear of da close involvement. Vhen Kafka enters his private prison in Prague he - |
| [He dives back under the covers. The Puritan tries to secure an arm or a leg.] | |
| PURITAN: | Forget Kafka! I want to get at the root of Gould's bravery. |
| [He cues the Performer on a television monitor, pulls the Perfectionist out of bed by the legs. The Perfectionist struggles heroically.] | |
| PERFORMER: | One can't feel oneself heroic without having first been cast off by the world, or better still, by having done the casting off oneself. |
| [The Perfectionist is on his back on the floor now.] | |
| KRANKMEISTER: | Vat's your point? |
| PURITAN: | Proust said: 'Everything great comes from neurotics. They alone have founded religions and produced our masterpieces.' |
| [He tries to pull the Perfectionist to his feet.] | |
| KRANKMEISTER: | Patent nonsense. [slithering under the bed] Gould retreats from da verlt zo to obey laws of his own personality vich in da 'normal context' threaten to tear him apart! |
| [The Puritan tows the Perfectionist across the floor, crashes offstage. Re-enters and makes another move on his adversary.] | |
| PURITAN: | I would maintain that Gould neutralized his neurosis by turning in into vaudeville. His gift was an act of extreme extroversion - he had an overpowering need to dramatize his dilemma. Witness his invention of you, Herr von Krankmeister. |
| KRANKMEISTER: | Behavioural disorganization and neurosis follows vhen introversion or extroversion gets out of whack - |
| PURITAN: | But what if Gould's need to distance himself from others was an aspect of his quest to make a coherent pattern of his inner life? |
| KRANKMEISTER: | You zound like one of my patients! Introvert-extrovert! Extrovert-introvert! Flip-flopping around like a fish on da dock! And da hypochondria - ! |
| PURITAN: | You think Gould was a hypochondriac? |
| [He begins to dress the Perfectionist in overcoat, hat, muffler, gloves.] | |
| KRANKMEISTER: | Hypochondria is an expression of his doubts about da validity of his own existence and fears dot others vill overwhelm and destroy him! Alienation from da body is characteristic of da schizoid personality. |
| PURITAN: | Surely environmental factors have something to do with it. The man is quintessentially Canadian. |
| [He cues the Performer.] | |
| PERFORMER: | That genius flourishes in isolation is a notion foreign to the Canadian psyche. We distrust our own solitude. We're not a nation of doers, we're a nation of evaluators. |
| KRANKMEISTER: | Zee? Gould hated evaluation! He vas estranged from his country! |
| PURITAN: | Like I say, quintessentially Canadian. But you're missing the point. Gould honestly believed it was possible for people to show their better natures to one another without - |
| KRANKMEISTER: | [interrupting] Keep da verlt at arm's length! Dis is Mr Control Freak again! |
| PURITAN: | [cueing the Performer] You're not listening! |
| PERFORMER: | Our benign neglect has left the north in something of a state of grace. Canada has never come to grips with the mental frontiers of its own geography. I, for one, feel whole in this empty landscape. I believe that all men who encounter it in solitude become, for want of a better word, philosophers. |
| [Lights fade on the Performer.] | |
| PURITAN: | You see, in Mr Gould's writings - |
| KRANKMEISTER: | [interrupting] The octopus squirts ink to hide himself! Dis is nothing but damage control! |
| PURITAN: | I guess you know a thing or two about that - |
| PERFECTIONIST: | [out of character] What's that supposed to mean? |
| PURITAN: | What happened there? Your accent - |
| PERFECTIONIST: | I'm afraid this little game of yours has become rather tiresome. If you'll excuse me - |
| [He starts his exit.] | |
| PURITAN: | [after him] The truth about your friend Mr Gould is that he lives in great psychological pain. |
| PERFECTIONIST: | [exiting] The truth about your Mr Gould is that he is about to die. |
| [The lights begin to fade. The schtick is over now. The Puritan is utterly alone in this moment. He looks at his hands. Lights fade further. Another note from the ground bass.] |