Dear diary,
Text is the medium preferred by vampires because it abides. I like the feeling I get from enjoying an old book: it’s as tho time itself has been slain — or refashioned, redeemed: like we found a superior procession of events outside of clocktime. But, by saying this, I’m merely suspending my science-faculty: I’m only outsmarting it, I’m not wholly duped: I know that time is still ticking when I read an old book, however, the fact pleases me greatly that the words of, say, Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady, did not expire one age after 1748 but throve past now to infest the ever-living mind. Thus do writers nurture the future.
And anyone can participate in text; all you need is being — you don’t really even need a body, because you can always send your message thru a medium — that is: a channel (not exclusive to seances) — who’s less like a ghostwriter than a semi-conscious keyboard or carrier pigeon. Come to think of it, this type of medium is practically the opposite of a ghostwriter, because (or rather in spite of the fact that) the ghost is doing the writing.
I just thrill to that concept: that time has lost its edge. It can no longer say “Here is your limit, O mortal: sixscore years. Beyond this point you may not pass, thus say I.” Via the magic of text, we defy this commandment. And there is no greater bliss than breaking one of God’s rules, to assist one’s fellowsufferers.
And think about how playacting first came about. What was the first dramatic scene ever performed by early ape-women? Did they stage it in a cave? And when was the first teleplay written down; and was it on papyrus or wax tablets? Maybe wooden puppets were substituted for human thespians, in the olden days, in order to circumvent union regulations.
But seriously, I bet that it can’t be done: I bet that you could not pinpoint the very first playact, even if you obtained access to all the secret governmental records. Cuz pretty much every time one speaks, one is playacting. Tho I admit, to reason this way is maybe a little too accurate — in other words, square — so let us once again dally with false surmise:
Say we find the security-cam footage of the very first playact performed by one individual for another, in those secret files from the government that I mentioned above. So you got Ape-Woman 1 approaching Ape-Woman 2, to tell her about her evening encounter with the Tyger; and while explaining, she acts out each part of the confrontation. In other words, she has a dual-role in the comedy: she plays herself; then she plays the Tyger:
“Mr. Tyger,” says Ape-Woman 1, standing at the back of the cave, near the goat that has died, “hello! You sure are burning bright tonight, in this scary jungle!”
And now Ape-Woman 1 quickly shifts her position to the mouth of the cave, so as to play the Tyger’s part in the encounter, thus causing Ape-Woman 2 to step aside to make room (for it’s a small cave). And Ape-Woman 1, doing her best Tyger impression, exclaims as follows:
“Greetings, dear Sarah. Yes, I am always lighting the way for my fellowsuffers who were cast hither into this nighttime forest with me, for I am the truth. But you look anhungered — here, accept this little Lamb that I just slaughtered: take, eat. It will help you live for many more days. Who knows but, by taking strength from its flesh and blood, together we may outdo our common foeman the Vampyre.”
Then Ape-Woman 1 dashes back to the rear of the cave to play the part of her own self again: “O Mr. Tyger, thank you kindly. Yet, behold, this game that you won looks like Mary’s little Lamb!”
And now Ape-Woman 2 interrupts the performance, in excitement at the story, and whispers hoarsely to her friend:
“Sarah, wait; are you in earnest? . . . & are you talking about the Magdalene — or Christ’s Mother?”
Here, Ape-Woman 1, breaking character to answer her heckler’s inquiry, quotes a line from Blake’s “To the Accuser” — “O Nan,” she says: “Every Harlot was a Virgin once.”
That’s it: FINIS. So that was the first playact in recorded history, according to the CIA files.
But what I actually wanted to wonder about is how this first impromptu, unwritten, non-televised miniseries ever became what we think of as theater. So let me try to trace the imaginary evolution:
First we have the cavewomen relaying a common afternoon event. Then we have the appropriating of a prop from the vicinity — still an extemporaneous act, but this intensifies the dimension of symbolic representation, if I’m not incorrect. Next we have the idea of pre-planning one’s performance: stylizing & memorizing one’s actions & speeches — When did THAT first happen, I demand of you!
And when did the first libretto get xeroxed in multiples for the entire company, with each script having a different respective player’s lines highlighted?
Or, back up a step: When was the initial instance of an additional actor being added to help con the audience?
And why did so many churchgoers from the distant past consider playacting anathema? Could it be something about representation: like when one carves an idol out of wood and worships it — does that explain the prohibition of graven images and representative art in general; and therefore does a Christmas pageant fit into the genre of idolatry?
& when was the first nude scene allowed to captivate an audience? When was the first dramatic representation of an act of cuckoldry performed by a wife and her lover playing the roles of a wife and her lover (thus almost literally playing themselves), with that wife’s actual husband playing the role of cuckold not only onstage but in actual life (albeit unawares), because, under the covers of the stage-bed, during that portion of the farce, the actors were truly and physically committing the sacrament of adultery?
Again, I hover around the question: When was the first time that the acts and speeches constituting a play were inscribed upon some savable substance? Whether it was paper or stone tablets that the actors hefted around till they learned their lines, this decision to COMPOSE so exactly the stuff to be done during the show is a major step somewhere. I can’t tell if it’s good or bad. Yes I can: it is good. Because it made the text itself the heart of the stage; and it made the heart itself the text of the stage. That’s why Shakespeare is still the chef d’oeuvre of our species. In his time, a playwright couldn’t wow his audience with special effects or dazzling landscapes — I mean, they could try to do these things (thru costumes & backdrops), but they were probably more trouble than they were worth and not very impressive. Shakespeare had to rely on speech alone to do the lion’s share of the wowwing. And even the so-called peanut gallery — the feral masses; the rabblement — had neither radio nor TV nor films nor video games nor virtual reality with interactive online erotic entertainment to distract their attention from the glory of language; so not only the noblest but also the humblest members of society were thrilled with developments in character, and with the majesty of utterance. And they could even grasp irony.
Yet then audiovisual recording rendered the merely aural portion of playwriting antiquated. When you add the visual element (I mean the glowing screen; for live plays do also possess a visual element, but it is healthily slight), the words spoken by the actors now must remain in harmony with an extra dimension: MEGASPECTACLE — and that’s why, compared to those filmless days of Shakespeare, the lingual content of teleplays is unprepossessing.
Yet what about radio? That’s a purely aural medium. So, if I’m right about what I said above, then we should expect radio to have brought forth even greater masterpieces than Elizabethan England. The thing about this medium (pre-postmodern radio) is that its works are hard to procure. For how does one attend a screening of an ancient radio program? (I misused the word “screening” there, just for kicks; forgive me.) My point is that there are ample archives easily available for older movies, even shorts and silents; but I don’t know anyone who routinely watches programs on the radio — least of all from its golden era. Perhaps I’m not mingling with the right crowd.
And what about silent film? That’s a medium that’s wholly inaudible. It’s like paintings that move. And most of them are monochromatic, or only moderately tinted with a color: slightly lime or sapphire. So if words are good and visuals are bad, then silent films should be the most sinful thing ever. And I say that they are. And I love them to death. I think they’re as interesting as Hell. So let me just pass over this excellent invention of silent film by saying, after Whitman: “Do I contradict myself? — Very well then I contradict myself.”
I just wish that someone would figure out how to summon a Renoir painting to life, so that its subject could converse with us in a voice as soft & beautiful as her image. If that can be done, it will make me very happy.
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