Chagall: 12-Sided Hallway

by Kara Skye Smith

  [Beatrice is carried in, blood dripping with glass shards stuck to her hair and dress. She is crying. Mitriani holds Carmen’s hand and leads her into the garden. The sound of glass shards beneath their feet drift in through the window. Modi begins to wrap Beatrice in a blanket while Renee struggles to daub the blood drips with a towel. Zobrowski sweats and rubs his eyes, trying to focus on his work. Continually checking that the trio is not getting too close to him or the table; shaking his head occasionally as if he’d speak but there’s just nothing to say about it.

  Modi:

  [On the couch with Beatrice and Renee.

  Non mea culpa, non mea culpa…

  [He keeps pulling the blanket over a wound and Renee keeps pulling it back off, drunkenly trying to daub at the bleeding.

  Renee: For god sakes, Modi, let me get the blood stopped before you wrap her.

  [Beatrice weeps.

  Modi: Marevna? [Beatrice glares. Sobs.

  Do we have any coffee? For Beatrice?

  Marevna: I’ll get some. It will sober her up.

  Modi: Yes. [He attempts to wrap her in the blanket again.

  Renee: Modi!

  Modi: Non mea culpa. Do you know what the lion said to the leopard, Beatrice?

  Beatrice: [Sniffles. No. What?

  Modi: Get me some coffee, I’m seeing spots.

  Renee: [Laughs.

  Modi: Beatrice, do you know what the …

  [Marevna goes to the kitchen. She pulls a bottle of medicine from her coat pocket that lays over a chair. She swigs some, then pours some into a cup and fills it with coffee from a pot that sits among bottles of vodka and a plate full of sandwiches.

  [The party resumes. Another group of guests arrives. A group begins to sing a Russian song. Cut to hours later, near dawn. The last group of guests leave the apartment. Chagall glances back at the room as he nears the door. The place is wrecked. Bits of wall and wallpaper cover the floor, glass still litters the table and back of the sofa. Beatrice and Modi sit on the floor kissing passionately.

  Diego: To Café Rotunde?

  Setting Change: Back into the Garden at Beatrice’s Apartment Building.

  The group gathers in the garden where Mitriani stands in the garden fountain singing in Italian. Carmen laughs and undresses. Climbs into the fountain basin, bathed in moonlight, and drenches her long hair in the water, giggling as Mitriani sings and splashes those watching.

  Chagall: Venus.

  Cendrars: Long live beauty, art and love!

  [Modi runs out into the garden, puts his arm around Lhote and the 3 repeat the words.

  [Renee begins to climb into the fountain.

  [Group traipses through the garden and out the gate, the sound of splashing and singing dissipates as they walk toward Café Rotunde along streets where several early workers begin their journey to work.

  Marevna’s voice: ‘It was glorious to live through- wild and exhilarating. Much of the excitement stemmed from being young, from being part of a group that shared similar aims and ideals. And what a group it was!

  Our mere appearance on the street caused no end of commotion and no wonder. Diego in the lead with his Mexican walking stick, Modigliani with his gorgeous Renaissance hair, shirt open to the waist and dark, Italian eyes full of mystery, Chagall’s curly haired innocence and long lashed expression of amusement, Picasso and Max Jacob at the rear, on in an enormous checked overcoat, jockey cap and pipe, the other in his waist coat, black top hat, white gloves and spats. The amusement of the street urchins knew no bounds.’*

  Street Urchin: [Runs up ahead, turns to get a better view.

  Look it’s the Cirque Medrano!

  Act V, Scene 3: Breakfast Time

  (Painting Inspiration: A Cat’s View of Paris.)

  Setting: Interior. Café Rotunde

  Time: Morning. 7 am

  The Cirque Medrano group and others enter the Café Rotunde. Cameo: Lenin and Charlie Chaplin are seated having their breakfast at the famous cafe. The group finds a table and Diego Rivera adds another table, pulling it up to fit everyone together. They shift around, find a seat, and sit down. Some in booth seats, some in chairs. A server approaches and hands out menus.

  Server: Good morning!

  Marevna: Yes, it is. Almost. Cappuccinos? All around?

  Diego: Café au lait. [Others nod and agree.

  Server: Very well.

  [Marevna sneezes. The others read menus. Marevna takes out the bottle of medicine as the server distributes the cafes.

  Marevna: Can I have a spoon, please?

  Diego: Where did you get that? Don’t tell me you’ve been to the chemist… Don’t!

  Marevna: Picasso’s studio, I had a cold, a chill and he offered…

  Diego: You modeled?! For Picasso?! You’ve been whoring around, and now with this?!

  [He points to the bottle. He stands and raises his stick appears agitated. Picasso stands.

  Picasso: It was nothing, she’s a lovely model, and quite good conversation and it’s simply a cure for the common cold, Diego. I enjoyed having her… Diego!

  [Diego takes a swing at Picasso. Marevna cries out. Diego storms out. Max Jacob jumps up to have a look at Picasso’s face.

  Marevena: Oh my god, I am so sorry. [She follows Diego out.

  Max Jacob: [Almost crying. Oh god!

  Modi: Come, in back, we’ll see what the kitchen has to keep the swelling down.

  [Canudo enters with two women with wet hair, Carmen and Renee, one on each side of him. He raises his arms high.

  Canudo: Hey! [He looks at Modi and Max Jacob fussing over Picasso as they walk toward the kitchen.

  Fuck, man! What a night. [Looks up at the server.

  I’ll have the pancakes.

  [Smiles at Chagall. Chagall smiles back, then laughs and looks over the menu.

  Act V, Scene 6: Back to Work

  Setting: Interior. Chagall’s Studio.

  Time: Daytime. Two Days Later.

  Chagall paints on a canvas, Le Tower Eiffel, on to his painting, The Eiffel Tower on an the Back of an Ass.

  Setting Change: Interior. Marevna’s Studio. Same Day.

  Marevna paints. Diego enters the room. She looks up.

  Diego: Don’t stop. [He lights his pipe and watches her paint. Soon after she stops, and goes to him. He puts her on his lap. She takes the pipe from him and smokes.

  Diego: I have the most exciting news, Marevna.

  Marevna: Oh? You have an opening? A one man show?

  Diego: [Laughs. A son has been born, my son. Angelina has had the baby.

  Marevna: [Looks sad. He holds her tighter. She smokes the pipe again.

  Diego: Well? What do you have to say?

  Marevna: Congratulations, Diego, a son? She had a boy? I would have thought Angelina would have had a girl…

  Diego: Are you disappointed?

  Marevna: No. Certainly not. For your sake, Diego, I feel joy… When can I see the baby?

  Diego: I want you to go to her, at the convent, to see her and the baby. You must go at once. She will tell you everything. That she is aware I love you.

  Act V, Scene 4: In the Light of Disaster, the Truth Comes Out

  Setting: Interior. Closest Bomb Shelter Basement.

  Time: Day into Evening.

  A bomb raid alarm sounds. Diego grabs his walking stick and coat. They hurry out the door. Marevna pops back in the door. She grabs her medicine bottle and tucks it into her coat pocket. She runs out to catch up to Diego.

  Inside the bomb shelter. Diego sits, leaning against the wall and Marevna, shivering, reaches over and opens his huge coat. She snuggles in against him and tries to pull the rest of it over her.

  Marevna: Diego, [whispering Tell me about the baby… how large is he? What is his name?

  Diego: His name is Diego Rivera.

  Marevna: Little Diego.

  Diego: Yes. I’m not sure how large he is… How many pounds?

  Marevna: Yes.
>
  Diego: Um, normal size, I suppose.

  Marevna: Will she… be the same? You know.

  Diego: Oh, Marevna, I suppose so, I wonder how your mind works sometimes.

  Marevna: It’s a fair question. Will you, be with her more now? Or stay with me for weeks at a time, like you’ve done during her laying in? I feel so close to you now, Diego, these last 2 months.

  Diego: I’ll be over as much as I can. Stop worrying.

  Marevna: I was sometimes close to my father, and other times afraid of him. I didn’t ever know my mother.

  Diego: Why did he frighten you?

  Marevna: He had such a temper. But mostly because of the ones I loved, he took away. I had a nurse, when I was little… He’d be away on hunts or keeping the forests, making sure hunters did not make too many killings – the Tartars, Cheremiss and Chuvash – of game… She told me such wonderful, fanciful stories. I loved them, and her. I’d spend time drawing the things she taught me to imagine… but when I drew witches or beasts, my father thought my imagination was too wild. He sent her away. I was left in the big house, with its red carpets and dark furniture, gold decorations… all alone. Only a woman, a married woman, who I found out secretly loved my father, came to watch me. I had to call her my aunt. Her temper was wicked. She didn’t beat me, as she often did the other children, but she threw things at me: irons, books, and such.

  Diego: Poor bambina! He didn’t stop your Imagination as he planned. [Laughs.

  Marevna: No. No, the opposite. One day, when I felt very alone… he brought me a cub, from the woods. I named him Mishka. I fed him from a bottle and taught him to dance. I dressed him and ran with him, like a wild child, in the woods.

  Diego: [Laughs. My wild savage child.

  Marevna: One day, my aunt complained… I’d been eating like Mischka and tearing my dresses running in the woods. She was afraid of Mischka as he grew. The servants were afraid, she said.

  One day, I could not find Mischka. I called and called. I went looking for him, and found, in the old shed, his fur stretched across, nailed to the back wall. Imagine my terror. After that time, I was scared of my father. I was never quite sure, if I disappointed him, that he would not kill me or someone I loved, because of his anger and fearfulness.

  [Loud crashes - 3 in a row. Diego holds Marevna’s head in his arms, but does not cover his own.

  Scene Change: Back to Marevna’s Studio. Night of the Same Day.

  [Marevna and Diego re-enter the studio.

  Diego: I see you’ve been painting. This is very good Marevna. Hmmm, nice. How did you get the new paints and canvases?

  Marevna: I….

  Diego: You haven’t been at Picasso’s studio, again, have you? I thought I saw a nude of his that looks strangely like you…

  [He stands and starts to shake with anger, holds his stick high, his eyes roll back to show only whites.

  Marevna!! Where did you get these?!

  Where?

  [Marevna jumps up and begins to run. He tries to grab her. She darts out of the way. He finally grabs her against an open window and holds her. He ties her arms above her head to the center bar of the window with a belt or tie that had been laying over the chair.

  Marevna: [Out of breath. Diego… Diego… Please… you’re having one of your fits. Let me go…

  [Diego thrashes his stick and nearly hits her.

  Marevna: I have not betrayed you…

  [Tears fall.

  Modeling is…

  Diego: I told you to stay away from his studio!!

  Marevna: I had to have paints, canvas… you promised… it’s respectable work… Diego… You promised you’d bring paints, supplies, but the laying in fee, I didn’t want to ask you, the baby, too…. You needed the money, Diego, I…

  [Diego calms down. Puts his hand against the side of her face and roughly rubs her cheek with his thumb. He presses his lips against her hair. His face is sweaty, his eyes not white now, but heavy-lidded.

  Diego: Do you see? Do you see how mad

  I’d go if you were unfaithful to me? I cannot stand for you to model, Marevna… I cannot complete my thoughts on this, the mention of Pablo near you… I’ll go mad again. I’ll thrash you.

  Marevna: I won’t…

  [He touches his walking stick to her leg. He pulls her skirt up with it. Kisses her and then slides down, kissing her stomach, legs, between her legs…

  Marevna: I won’t…

  Act V, Scene 5: Farewell Old Friend

  (Painting Inspirations: To Paris With Love)

  Setting: Interior. Chagall’s Studio

  Time: Night. 10 pm. 1914.

  Chagall is packing up his paints. He packs brushes, wrapping them slowly in a canvas pouch in muslin strips. Cendrars enters without knocking. He has a folded magazine in his hand.

  Cendrars: Hey! You’re packing already. Did you read this? It’s from Der Sturm. [He reads from the magazine in his hand.

  “…art manifests itself primarily in the pictures of Kandinsky and Marc Chagall.” - Walden on New Painting.

  Chagall: Yeah, I know. I read it.

  Cendrars: Fabulous news! Wow! How did you get that review? You lucky cad. [Smiles.

  Chagall: No luck. He’s the man who helped me get this one man show in Berlin. That has such a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

  Cendrars: It does, man. It does. Seems your dedication, tuning out the call of the mistress lechery - and myself - well, most of the time, anyway, paid off, huh?

  Chagall: [Smiles. Yeah, I left her to you.

  Cendrars: No doubt, my man, no doubt. Although I’ve nearly completed that book with Sonia Delauney. I’ve written about you, in the book… somewhat like Walden’s review, I suppose, although I hadn’t read his review when I wrote this. It’s from the heart.

  Chagall: Let me hear it.

  Cendrars: I don’t have it with me. It’s essentially the same thing - you’re who you are… your own man amid the pressure to be this, that, Fauvist, Cubist… I’ll send it to you. Where will you be?

  Chagall: I’ll be in Berlin for the show, at least some of the time. And then to Russia, I suppose, Vitebsk, for my sister’s wedding, and to pick up Bella. Another year of this place and she would probably be spoken for, by the time I returned.

  Cendrars: Are you sure she won’t be?

  Chagall: I’m sure. Her love is strong, stronger than most, I believe.

  Cendrars: Will you marry?

  Chagall: If I don’t, I shall be flogged in the square by her mother and ten sisters.

  Cendrars: Ouch! You love her? Sorry. You do. Not the best time to talk about this. I don’t want you to leave, you know.

  Chagall: Yes, I’m feeling a little melancholy about leaving as well.

  Cendrars: You? That’s rare.

  Chagall: It’s Paris. I was so ready for a break, to get out of here, yesterday, but now… now I just… well, something’s got me wondering when it will be that I return. I was thinking it’ll only be a quick break, I’ll be right back, but today, I don’t know. I’m thinking it might be longer than I thought. I hope not. Anyway, it’s causing me to miss this place already, like I’m breaking up with Paris, and she’s not quite who I want to leave, you know? If Paris was a woman, she’s been the most exciting, sensual woman I’ve ever known.

  Cendrars: Like you had an affair…

  Chagall: Yes. Although yesterday I was hating her and frustrated that I couldn’t be already in Berlin, at the show, or with Bella, beautiful, lovely, Bella…

  Don’t forget me. Remind Canudo to mention my artwork occasionally? So the art patrons don’t forget me either, or worse yet, write me off as dead….

  Cendrars: Certainly. Don’t be gone long. [Hugs him. I’ll miss you. Miss you much, my friend.

  Chagall: Help me with these trunks, will you?

  Cendrars: Yeah…

  [He pulls one toward the door and opens it. The chambermaid in every day clothing is standing there.

 
Oh, um… Marc…

  [Steps aside, pulls the trunk through the doorway and out into the hall. The maid walks slowly in, looking shy and embarrassed that she has come. Chagall walks up to her. He touches her temple and her hair. She looks up, smiles, she has been crying. He hugs her for a long time.

  Setting Change: Out into the La Ruche Hallway.

  Out in the hallway, Delauney grabs the other end of the trunk.

  Delauney: Here, let me help you with that.

  [Cendrars and Delauney begin to descend the circular stairway. Marevna is slowly climbing the stairs. She looks weary and strung out.

  Marevna: Hi.

  [They nod, mutter hi. Marevna begins to whistle after they pass her. She looks up to the brightness of the ceiling, winces and whistles a little louder. Looks at her feet, standing around in the hallway whistling.

  [Cendrars and Delauney run back up the stairs. They bust in on Chagall hugging the maid.

  Setting Change: Back Inside Chagall’s Studio.

  Cendrars: Don’t mind us.

  [They grab the other trunk, carrying it to the hallway, past Marevna.

  No newspaper? No towel?

  Marevna: No.

  [Looks down, kicks her foot. Stops whistling, until they’ve gone down the stairs several yards. Starts whistling again.

  Act VI, Scene 1: La Ruche Without Chagall

  (Painting Inspiration: La Poete.)

  Setting: Exterior. Chagall’s Vacant Studio – bird’s eye view or camera view

  Time: Late Day - Early Evening

  As looking out the window down toward the Metro Station - Outside La Ruche. Seen from a top floor window - Chagall’s empty studio window.

  Marevna stands on the corner amid a sea of grey – the sidewalk, the building behind her, the sky overhead, and the clouds. She stands near a sign for the Metro Station. Her breath makes a fog as she sighs. She holds her arms and looks up at the next door window. She looks and looks. Winces.

  Cendrars is seen from the back looking out the window of the empty barren room with only an easel, small table and bare bed left in it. Words and silly sketches adorn the walls. Cendrars turns and looks around the room, arms out wide. Then he sits on the floor. Lights a cigarette, then lays down, one arm behind his head and lets out a smoke ring. Turning his head to the side, he glances under the bed. There are stacks of paintings and a notebook. Cendrars reaches in and pulls out the notebook. He smokes and flips through some pages.