Anna falls in love. She falls in love with herself. She keeps on painting her portrait. She paints her pretty face, but she fails to paint the eyes. Anna somnambulates. In her dream she becomes Balzac's instrument. Speaking with a male voice, she dictates to herself Balzac's letters to his lover. Anna transforms herself. She becomes a man. She becomes Balzac. Has she ever fallen in love? Has someone ever fallen in love with her? Her mother commits suicide. Anna keeps on. She keeps on all by herself, blind, without eyes.
SCENE 1
BEACH
Two women 40-60 years old. The first one is drawing her face without eyes. During the whole play this painting exists somewher in the setting.
ANNE: Thank you for coming.
IRENE: {psychiatrist} Tell me, why all of this trouble.
ANNE: .......
IRENE: Please tell me, cause I don;t have much time.
ANNE: You have known me since I was a child....
Pause
You are not very fond of me.
Pause
I have acted in extreme ways.
IRENE: And it still goes on...
Pause
Your eyes are filled with shadows...
ANNE: ......
IRENE: People like you, they always choose the most extreme ways of
escaping. ANNE: Escaping?
IRENE: You lived like a black hole that devours the human meaning,
without rules, without thought, without any worries about anything...
ANNE: Go on.
IRENE: Please tell me why you called me.
ANNE: It’s weird, though, that you see me like this. I was just hasty and
frivolous... maybe with a more intense sense of ‘self-entertainment’, which
can also be referred to as ‘narcissism’, but I never had this massive impact
of fatality, as you make it sound like...
IRENE: I didn’t mean that, tell me, please...
ANNE: Maybe you are right, there was a hyperbole in me, that ended up
as an annoying and permanent confusion (she laughs). I want you to come
to my apartment one night, and sleep in the couch.
IRENE: What for?
ANNE: You’ll see, I’m expecting a visit and I want your opinion.
IRENE: Is it about some intense dream that you are having?
ANNE: You’ll see. When are you available?
Pause
IRENE: You tell me.
ANNE: On Saturday at 1am.
IRENE: Okay...
ANNE: I will open the door from the garden, I don’t want my mother to
see you. IRENE: She won’t. See you. (She leaves).
ANNE:
Goodbye!
Bitch.
SCENE 2
ANNE’S ROOM – NIGHT
Low lighting. The two women are sleeping. Anne gets up from the bed, and
moves forward. At the same time, a man dressed in 19th century clothing,
enters and sits on a chair.
ANNE: Mr. Balzac, a friend of mine is here as well.
BALZAC: ...
(Irene gets up, the light focusing on the man turns off and when it’s back,
the chair is empty. Anne sits in front of the computer. Then, Anne speaks in
male and female voice in turns, while typing).
ANNE: (To Irene) Sit down, my dear, I guess there are procedures that
you were ignorant of.
BALZAC: Are you ready?
ANNE: Yes...
BALZAC: Dear Hanska, I was telling you about the kind of contempt that
you chose during the time of our relationship. As I explained you, there
cannot be a relationship lacking the bacteria of competition. But when
does it turn to contempt? Imagine that you are living a life seriously
constrained, basing the bloom of your personality exclusively on others,
your personal expression is limited to small rebellions, that are rid of guilt,
as you get in the process of painting, but are also violent, as you are driven
to them after a long period of inertia. This temporary contrast of
recognizing some things that are important to you, cannot be dominant in
your life, because you are not doing anything about it. However, this small
fact during the length of your life is the cause for our connection, but also
the reason you feel a genuine respect towards me.
And at this point underlies that hidden and hated bacteria of your contempt
towards me.
You think that we undermine the inferior? The shabby and the worthless?
No, we undermine what we cannot have or do, what we can never be.
Human nature is so perverse that is able to transform any truth to
something despicable, only due to inability to comply with it.
You said you came to me because my spirit stimulated you. Precisely the
same spirit that stimuates you is the one averting you from truly loving me,
since it is not aligning with your personal feats thus far. You only respond
to the brutal nature of things, because it’s the only way your judgement
can work arbitrarily, avoiding the risk of verification. You scorn Balzac
because he doesn’t belong to any personal collection that your egoism and
beauty would like to possess. You construct inner Babylonian buildings
that do not meet any genuine need, but for the exaltation of ego and
something only fools refer to as “Divine element”.
And then you shall ask me, why do I love you?
(Abrupt darkness. Dawn. The two women get up from their sleep.)