from Nureyev’s Eyes

from Nureyev’s Eyes

(This scene occurs in the middle of the play. Jamie Wyeth and Rudolf Nureyev are still cautiously getting to know each other. Jamie has invited Rudolf to spend a weekend at the family farm in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. They are sitting on a deck in the autumn evening, drinking and talking. For fun, they have each dressed up in a fanciful costume—a regular custom of the Wyeth family when at home. The woman who is mentioned, Phyllis, is Jamie’s wife.

Earlier in the play, we have learned that Nureyev is hoping to convince Lincoln Kirstein (then head of the New York City Ballet) to hire him as ballet master. He knows that Jamie and Kirstein are good friends; Jamie has used this leverage to convince Rudolf to agree to sit for him.

In the play, each scene is prefaced by a title which Jamie announces to the audience. Thus . . . )

Movement Five: Bourrée to an Autumn evening. Gently with elegance .

(Scene shifts as WYETH moves into a place outdoors, a yard or patio. NUREYEV is wearing, over his regular clothes, a long seventeenth century coat and plumed hat. As WYETH moves into the scene, he puts on a World War I soldier jacket and hat. The two men have been drinking and talking for a while. NUREYEV is in the middle of a funny story. WYETH starts to sketch. The scene starts with laughter.)

NUREYEV So we smoked it. Why not? It was ’60s, stay with the times. Should have seen Fonteyn. After while, she starts giggling. “I should get high like this when I dance Juliet,” she says. “I could lift myself.”

(Laughter.)

“Or better,” I say, “You dance Romeo and I do Juliet.” “Oh, maaahrvelous ,” she say, like she always say “Oh, maahrvelous . Only one problem,” she say. “What? Is no problem. We are Fonteyn and Nureyev. Oceans stand still for us!” “Well,” she say, “How do I fill out dance belt?”

(Big laugh.)

By then police are called. Big news. King and queen of ballet arrested smoking pot. Somewhere is news film. You see me flirt with reporters. Always flirt with reporters, especially ugly ones. They give you better coverage. Next week, we add performance, sold out in first hour. People like their gods to have dirty feet.

WYETH Mine is when I was ten. I was still having lessons with Aunt Carolyn, drawing pigs at the time; she had it in her head that I should study animals before people. She’d say “the heart of every person is some animal. Know nature, know the heart of the beast and then dress him up.” So I did cattle, and then pigs. Pig after pig, but none of them were right. Something was missing. So one day, she takes me over to Kuerner’s, the farm down the road. She sits me on a chair in the barn. She brings in a young juicy sow and puts her in the pen. Then she goes and gets Henry, this big boar, king of the world, and puts him in with the sow. “Just watch,” she says. “Don’t sketch, I don’t want you to miss this.” Well, I didn’t miss a thing and needless to say, my pigs got a whole lot better after that.

NUREYEV Maybe you should come one night and watch me fuck somebody. I could fuck Kirstein if it would help.

WYETH Oh, God; please. Don’t put that image in my head.

(They laugh. Quiet down. A short moment.)

NUREYEV It is good I come here. Makes things go away. Fonteyn, Balanchine, Kirstein, don’t exist. Only sweetness.

WYETH Tell me, Rudi, you could have almost any job in the world. You were offered the Paris Opera. The Royal Ballet. You had your own company for a while. Your calendar is booked two years ahead. What’s the bug up your ass about the NYC?

NUREYEV You always want more. Is American way of life. What good is having only pieces. Why not everything?

WYETH He won’t have you.

NUREYEV You talked to him?

WYETH He’s thinking about Pulcinella next season, with Baryshnikov.

NUREYEV That small squirrel? Dances like elephant in heat.

WYETH It’s your ego. He says you’re insatiable. He doesn’t want stars, he wants a company.

NUREYEV He’s afraid of me. He thinks I take control away from him.

WYETH And wouldn’t you?

NUREYEV He runs all over Balanchine. Balanchine lets him because he brought him from Russia; thinks he owes him. He knows I owe him nothing.

WYETH Plus, he’s seen your temper. He doesn’t want to have to put up with that.

NUREYEV Is not temper. I don’t have temper, goddamn it!

WYETH Clearly my mistake.

NUREYEV He’s afraid of me. Well. Things will change. Balanchine don’t live forever. Nureyev becomes . . . what is the word? Inev . . . inev-something?

WYETH Inevitable.

NUREYEV Yes. Who else is there? Besides, you don’t see anyone painting Balanchine, do you?

WYETH Ah. God bless Phyllis. She was right.

NUREYEV About what?

WYETH Last year, when I wasn’t sure you’d let me do this, she made me a bet you would. I couldn’t see it. But she said “Of course he will. You’re a medal of honor. You don’t see Warhol painting Erik Bruhn or Lichtenstein painting Margot Fonteyn.” It cost me a hundred dollars.

NUREYEV You make it back when you sell painting of me. That is, maybe, someday, if you ever finish one.

WYETH Here, let’s finish off the brandy.

NUREYEV No. I save room for apple pie.

WYETH Brandy won’t fill you up.

NUREYEV But it kills taste of pie. I wait til after, respect for Phyllis.

WYETH Phyllis doesn’t bake the pies, she buys them.

NUREYEV No matter; she serves them. Is same thing.

WYETH Ah. Never thought of it that way.

NUREYEV Because you are straight.

WYETH Really?

NUREYEV Is no sin to be straight, is only limiting.

WYETH Ah.

(NUREYEV watches as WYETH continues to sketch.)

NUREYEV You are still doing it. Always. Why?

WYETH What?

NUREYEV Sketch. You disappear into your little book. Very rude. Put it down. Talk to me.

WYETH I am talking to you.

NUREYEV No. You are talking to paper. Only making words to me.

WYETH . . . I know. You were right, the other day, to get pissed. Phyllis sometimes does too. We’re talking and zap! I stop, reach for my pad. It’s the worst at dinner. I wind up sketching the pork roast while the real one gets cold, and meantime Phyllis is glaring at me to come back to the planet.

NUREYEV So why? So much sketch is necessary?

WYETH I told you. It’s how I get ready to paint. It’s fixing the image in my head before I stretch the canvas.

NUREYEV . . . Is lie, Jamie. Is not fixing. I think is something else.

WYETH Oh, really, Mr. Freud? And what exactly would that be?

NUREYEV How is Jamie like Hamet Nureyev?

WYETH Not fair. I don’t know anything about your father.

NUREYEV He was a drunkard.

WYETH I’m a drunkard?

NUREYEV I see my father and men in my village. The war is over, the army has no place for them. What do they do? The village is poor, no jobs except far away. Stalin is the devil: nobody safe, nobody happy. So they drink. Drink is escape. You don’t drink, you escape in sketches.

WYETH What am I escaping from?

NUREYEV From painting.

WYETH No. You just don’t understand my world. Sketching is like barre work in its way. Keeping in shape, trying things out—

NUREYEV Soon or late, Jamie, barre work has to stop. Soon or late, must start ballet or else is a lie; is all dead. Either sketch life or live life. Can’t do both.

WYETH What about you? Don’t you constantly think about dance?

NUREYEV Yes, but is because I am always dancing.

WYETH Only when you perform you mean. When the music shuts off, you stop.

NUREYEV No. When curtain is up is only one kind of dancing. But all life is dancing. Moving, only more so. Even before you stand on two feet, you wave arms, kick legs, you dance.

WYETH But that doesn’t mean anything. Movement has to mean something before it’s dance.

NUREYEV All movement means something, maybe you just don’t understand it. To baby, it means “I am hungry,” or “afraid.” When you grow up, you try on different dances; to find right one. Some are for work. Some are for fun, or for fucking, or walking, praying, dying. Some, the best ones, are for love. Or for art.

WYETH So my dance is painting.

NUREYEV Maybe some time. Right now is running away.

WYETH From what? This is my home, Rudi. It’s the safest place in the world.

NUREYEV Then put it down, I dare you.

WYETH What?

NUREYEV Sketchbook. For one hour.

WYETH . . . Alright.

(He folds it shut, puts it in his lap.)

NUREYEV No. I hold it.

(WYETH hesitates.)

What? Is not dark here, Jamie. Is plenty of light.

WYETH . . . Yes. You’re right. It’s that . . . I don’t know . . . I’m after something I’ve never tried before, bigger, more . . . inexplicable. As though when I saw you at Ashton’s, something challenged me; whatever demon who is making my life a living hell of paint and turpentine—this bastard came up with a doozy. “Capture motion in paint? Try if you dare.” “Pin down those fucking eyes? Go ahead, make my day.” It’s a little daunting. Don’t tell Phyllis I said that.

NUREYEV She probably already knows.

(NUREYEV holds out his hand. WYETH gives him the sketchbook.)

WYETH We should go back in. It’s getting a little chilly.

NUREYEV To me, feels like home. Nights like this, I sit by railroad tracks, listen to silence and wait for train. Every night, eleven o’clock. You hear first from far away, then closer and louder, rattles and roars, blows big bass whistle, feels like end of world coming. Then passes, goes away, softer and softer again, and when the silence comes, is louder than ever.

WYETH I can see it. Crimson madder sunset, tracks bisecting in a diagonal to upper right, threads of cinereous gray echoing the line, steel black train retreating like a long sinuous snake, young lad on a silvereen moonlit rock lower right, in azurean coat, yellow cap, facing away, watching the train. And in the upper left, balancing, a timber wolf staring at the boy.

NUREYEV Why the wolf?

WYETH Because dreams are dangerous. That is you, of course, dreaming about being a famous dancer.

NUREYEV Getting out of Ufa. Free of Russia. Come to America and be like Henry the pig: king of ballet.

WYETH You miss Russia much?

NUREYEV I miss my mother and my sisters, and my first and best ballet teacher still there.

NUREYEV When I defect, they put me on absent trial. Seven years hard labor. But I think one day they will see it’s good for some reason to let me come home. This is why I work to become important. Only way I get to go back now is if KGB catches.

WYETH You still think they’re after you, Rudi, really?

NUREYEV One time, I fly back from London. Plane lands. I look out window and see black car, two men waiting. I know what it is. Plane is emptying, I beg stewardess to hide me in bathroom, say it’s broken. I sit there; I hear them clump up and down aisle. Then they are gone, but all the way home, in cab, on street, I still keep looking behind to see. Understand, Jamie? I am always captive. Only place where really free is onstage. Now change subject. Is bad luck to talk about KGB.

WYETH It is strange when you come to think of it. You defected to the west to be free, and yet you dance. Which has got to be one of the most un-free things to do: you’re trapped on all sides. The music, the steps—even gravity.

NUREYEV Is not same with painting? Trapped by size of canvas?

WYETH Worse. Once you start, the very first brush stroke absolutely demands what the last has to be.

NUREYEV No wonder we are mad. Art is Siberia.

(They laugh a little at this.)

. . . You know what I do when I take over NYC? I create brand new epic ballet. Something I dream about ever since days with Kirov. I hire you for scenery of course.

WYETH And yourself to star.

NUREYEV Why is that crime? I am best dancer available. I start making it when I was student. My poppa forbid me to dance. Hated my lessons, my friends. I don’t understand. What is he afraid of? And that makes me think about first man to dance. He is caveman. Tartar like me. During day, he joins other men hunting. Find bears, surround them, kill them, chop them in pieces and bring back to tribe. Tribe is happy, man is hero. Everybody eats and laughs and then is dark and everybody finds place to sleep. But this man, not able to sleep.

(At this point, NUREYEV stands, puts down his glass, takes a few steps into the space.)

He goes alone, away from others, in quiet moonlight. He thinks about killing. Remembers how it felt when he lifted spear, when he threw it. He remembers so strong he pretends to do it again.

(NUREYEV begins a pantomime of throwing a spear.)

It feels . . . different . . . to him. Somehow real and unreal at same time. Pleasant. To move feels . . . pleasant. He does again, and this time . . .

(NUREYEV pantomimes throwing the spear and also steps forward a few steps.)

He takes steps. Steps and spear. And it excites him, the memory and the feeling when he moves. He moves more.

(NUREYEV begins to dance a lovely series of movements. The dance should be powerful, strong, primitive.)

He tries things. A turn. Another. A leap. He explores more with his body. What feelings make him do and what doing makes him feel, like being wind and stars and bear all mixed up and flying.

(His movements become more graceful and balletic.)

Then he feels something missing. He starts making sounds to help.

(He starts to mutter to himself as he moves; the muttering becomes a hum and a melody and then a more coherent piece of music.)

It becomes better. Makes him feel bigger, more lovely. After while, he goes back to tribe, wake up his friend to show what he is doing.

(He motions for WYETH to join him.)

You be friend. I show you.

WYETH Thank you, no. It’s bad enough I can’t sketch, you’re not making a total ass out of me.

NUREYEV You are afraid to dance, Jamie?

WYETH In front of you? Are you kidding?

NUREYEV Same thing with man; others afraid. All of them afraid. Is dark and frightening, never done before, can’t be good.

(He stops.)

WYETH What? Then what?

NUREYEV I don’t know. That’s part I don’t finish yet. I am hungry. Do you suppose pie is ready?

(He starts to exit.)

WYETH Rudi . . .

NUREYEV What?

WYETH My sketchbook.

NUREYEV I keep it until after pie. For Phyllis.

(He exits.)