The Ride Across Lake Constance and Other Plays

Quodlibet

More than any of Handke’s plays to date, Quodlibet (written in 1969, between Kaspar and The Ride Across Lake Constance) requires fairly extensive adaptation to an American linguistic, cultural, and historical environment. Why this is necessary is made apparent by the play itself. What finally surprised me, though, was the comparative ease with which indigenously German allusions — allusions to the various manifestations, public and private, of fascism — can be replaced by American equivalents. In further adaptations, which a cast may want to make, it would be worthwhile to consult the invectives at the end of Handke’s Offending the Audience (Publikumsbeschimpfung) simply to see how “not to overdo it.” This translation is meant as a basic model for American productions.

M.R.

The curtain rises. On the bare stage, one by one, talking quietly to each other, appear the figures of the “world theater”: a general in uniform, a bishop in his vestments, a dean in his gown; a Maltese knight in the coat of his order; a member of a German student corps with his little cap and sash; a Chicago gangster with his fedora and pin-striped double-breasted suit, a politician with two heavily armed CIA bodyguards; a dance-contest couple — he in a dark suit and white turtleneck sweater, she in a short, pert dress; a grande dame in a long evening gown, carrying a fan; another female figure in a pants suit, a poodle on the leash.

These figures come on stage in no particular order, separately or in pairs, arm in arm or not. Chatting, they slowly walk about the stage, step here and there, laugh softly at some remark or other, walk on again, not that one hears them walking of course. Each chats with the others at some point; every so often one of them stands apart alone as though struck suddenly by some thought before starting a new conversation; only the bodyguards take no part in the conversations; they nod to each other occasionally, that’s all; otherwise they keep peering away from the figures on stage into the surrounding area, once up into the rigging loft, then — this without bending down — into the prompter’s box, then into the vault of the theater as though up into the fifth tier of an opera house — at any event, never at the audience itself: the audience does not exist for the figures on the stage. One notices that all the figures briefly come to a complete stop, but the next moment one or two are walking again. At moments the general conversation almost lapses into complete silence; there are also moments during which only the rustling of garments on the floor is audible, whereafter the conversation resumes more vociferously and insistently than before.

The figures walk about making almost no sound, lost in themselves, stand still, are still, chat: that’s actually all there is to it. It’s entirely up to the actors what they want to say. They can talk about what they’ve just read in the papers, what they’ve experienced that day, what they want to experience, about what just occurred to them, or about something that gives the impression of having just occurred to them … a few times one thinks one hears them speaking a foreign language, probably French: C’est très simple, Monsieur. — Ah merci … oh! ma coiffure! … Ah! Ce vent! … Cette pluie! … Or something of that kind, invariably uttered by the women. The audience of course strains to listen, but only occasionally gets a few words, or snatches of sentences.

Among the words and sentences that the audience does understand — besides the irrelevant and meaningless ones like “Do you understand?” “Not that I know,” “Why not?” “As I said,” “And you?”—are some which the audience merely thinks it understands. These are words and expressions which in the theater act like bugle calls: political expressions, expressions relating to sex, the anal sphere, violence. Of course the audience does not really hear the actual expressions but only similar ones; the latter are the signal for the former; the audience is bound to hear the right ones. For example, instead of napalm they mention no palms onstage; instead of Hiroshima they speak of a hero sandwich; instead of cunnilingus of cunning fingers; instead of psychopath of bicycle path; instead of leathernecks of leather next; instead of Auschwitz of house wits; instead of dirty niggers of dirty knickers... Or the actors use double-edged words in sentences with invariably harmless connotations, but in such quick succession that one listens to the ambiguous words instead of the sentences, for example: thigh, pick, member, spread, panties, tear, pant, cancer, victim, fag, rag, paralysis, stroke, frag … Many sentences, which appear to be quite harmless, are also uttered in quick succession; however, they contain words which, when they appear in clusters, begin to give the illusion of an allusion: A sentence with the words tiger cage (“I didn’t want to put my tiger in the cage but the cops insisted.”) is followed by a sentence containing the word gook (“I wasn’t completely satisfied until I had wiped the gook off the wall.”), which is followed by a sentence with the word waste (“Sad to say, but we had to waste a lot of … time”), which is followed by a sentence containing the words anti-personnel weapon (“Anti-Americanism is a weapon I personally refuse to use.”), which is followed by a sentence with the word infrastructure (“The infrastructure of the organization, if I may say so, consists of living bodies, all you have to do is count them”), which of course also contains the words body count in slightly different form, and which is followed by a sentence containing a distorted form of the words Tonkin Gulf & Saigon (“Tom’s kinfolk made a resolution not to take the Gulf Line steamer to Saigon.”) and finally a sentence containing the proper name My Lai, also in distorted form because of the proximity of the event (“As the old bastard of an Irishman used to say to me about Dora: ‘She was me last lay before me prostate operation, and she was me very best lay.’”).

The hit turns out to be a two-run hit, the beating is a beating around the bush, the bomb turns out to be what a bomb this play was, the smashed brain on the stone turns into mashed potatoes alone, where someone spread blood it turns out that the old beer-belly actually sweated Bud; when shot is mentioned it only refers to a shot of whiskey; and what shot through his head were only thoughts; “Shot through the head!”—“Shot through the head?”—“Yes, thoughts shot through my head.” Syphilis is Sisyphus & the clap is a thunderclap & a dildo becomes dill does it too.

“Cashes in!”—“Cashes in pretty good!”—“The cops?”— “By the cops!”—“Cashed in?”

“ … broken!”—“with grief …”—“The neck?”—“A bottle!” —“ … the neck!”—“Broken …”—“ … and stuck the finger in …”—“Good!”—“Cut off!”—“What kind of head?”— “The conversation?”—“What?”—“He’s one good head shorter.”—“Off.”—“What kind of head?”—“Good, good.”

“ … three, four:”-“One, two, three — go!”—“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven …”—“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven (pause) eight (pause) nine (pause) ten — finished!” “Once, once more, a third time, four times, five times, and once more …”—“And then it was already getting bright outside …”—“Twenty-one, twenty-two-it’s uncanny, uncanny.” —“And then I stopped counting …”

“Corpses in quiet waters …”—“Oh, what a pretty title”—“Like an O?”—“ … laying their eggs there:”—“Like Story of O?”—“As though it were nothing …”—“Shame!”—“ … ‘and didn’t say a single word!’”—“What a beautiful title!”— “Oh!”—“ … the carps lay their eggs in quiet waters …”—“In Lake Erie?”—“Shame! shame! and shame once more!”—“Let’s say it was nothing!”—“According to the Geneva convention, o.k.?”

“The project died …”—“‘Dying’ is a typo, actually it should say ‘dried’!”—“Of fear?”—“A projectile with a cross-notch at the tip …”—“Quietly!”—“Died?”—“Very quietly!” —“I’m dying.”—“What was the name of that bar?”—“DumDum!” —“Of laughter?”—“I can’t go on!”—“Blood?”—“Into the blood!”—“As for me, he died!”—“Died for all of us …”—“Quiet!”-“Psst!”—“Silence!”—(silence)—“An angel walked through the room!”—“Oh, Harlem …!”—“Yes.” —“Unforgettable those tulip fields!”—“Haarlem …”—“Yeasz …”

“ … shaking with fear!”—“Pardon the question: ‘Shaking with fear’?”—Someone else in the background: “ … shake well before use!”—“Excuse me!”

“ … could be seen from far away: fucked the cows …” —“Fucked?”—“Forgot the cows, John Wayne. I believe, I forgot the name of the film.”—Someone farther away: “Knocked out her teeth!”—“Who knocked her up?”-And someone even farther away: “Knocked them down with bombs.”

Continuing at once: “Rammed a rod up his ass!”—Louder: “Ramrods have passed.”—Quite comprehensible but not too loud, recited negligently like verse: “ … rambling through the brambles of glass … / … roaring through the riptide of grass …” To his partner: “Do you still remember?” The partner lowers his or her head, smiles, and walks on: “Whether W. C. Fields slipping freely …” The first one, more softly: “Sipping.”—Even more softly: “What simpering?” The sound of someone becoming louder emanates from an altogether different spot: “ …. chalice of sorrow …” Now the first of the two partners walks on smiling. And on: “And a bit of spit on the fly which …” The lady with the fan in the background. — “Yes, the tits of my girl Friday.” One thereupon thinks one hears one of the two partners saying. — “No, a dog that bit off my clitoris(?) …”

While stepping-slowly-forward: “ … and I tasted …” Correcting himself while approaching: “ … which tasted me …”—“ … tasted the soft inside of a … cyst …”—In front by the footlights, humming elatedly with lowered head: “ … a foretaste of heaven …”—A character who is just walking past the lady with the fan says: “Tested me to the utmost,” and one thinks one can still hear the lady with the fan’s partner say — one can’t really make out who is speaking-while the two are edging into the background: “ … cash his cut … taste buds … spit and polish … soft insides got sick … fucked watery corpses at Easter …” while all around on the stage many other characters are walking around chatting, though more softly, and smiling.

Then they recount: “‘Cold,‘he said, ’cold, completely cold.‘”—“‘Ice,’ as she used to say then.”—“‘Like a glance out of a ranch house in Nebraska,’ they told us.”—“‘Where the train got stuck in the snow,’ she wrote back to me.”—“‘Indescribably white!’ she exclaimed.”—“‘No!’ he screamed.”—“‘Light, nothing but light!’ she squealed like a pig on a spit.”—“He cabled: ‘In the chest-high snow where the two, who had become snowblind in the meantime, were surrounded by St. Bernards …’”—“And I replied: ‘And what are you?’”—“‘Put in cold storage,’ I still understood, then the line went dead.”—“‘A mouse?’ I couldn’t resist asking.”—“‘For New Year’s Eve in the fridge!’ he wrote in so many words though the stamp allowed room for one more.”—“The note said in Gothic script: ‘Born dead …’”—“‘The ice pick already lodged in his head,’ I read, ‘he still bit his murderer’s hand.’”—Someone then produces a poor imitation of the sound of “croaking,” a chocking noise with the gums—kch—and his female partner emits a quick light laugh.

For a short while one hears the characters leave out one word in their sentences and sees them casting significant and conspiratorial glances at each other: “You remember how (smirking and nodding of heads) … used take lonely walks with his dog?”—“I don’t need to tell you that … held different opinions on the matter.”—“I often thought of … when I sat in my deck chair.”—“When the radio announcer says … I drop everything at once.”—“For days after … had squeezed my hand my whole body would break out in hives.”—“I can’t forget how … dangled on his suspenders on the hotel room door.”—“It’s unthinkable that … would have gone out on the street without his umbrella.” —“What would have been different if … had succeeded in getting a hit at that time?”—“Not only when I sat on Plymouth Rock did I have to cry about what … told me about death.”—“I often worry myself nearly to death whether Paraguay is really the right place for …”—“Usually one glance by a dark-eyed foreigner in an Indonesian restaurant is enough and I can’t breathe any more and only see … (outraged recollection) in front of me — how he suddenly stepped out from behind the column toward (melancholy recollection) …”

Or they use the wrong instead of the correct word under the assumption that they understand each other anyway. “One should herd them together and then—‘treat them to a good meal!’” (Smirking and gentle laughter.)-“Go after them—‘and slap them on the shoulder!’”—“ … because his ‘shirt tail’ hung out of his ‘door’ …”—“ … When she came up to me and told me that I could ‘visit’ her.”—“All I had to do was ‘smile’ at him and blood began pouring from his nose.”—“ … grabbed between his legs to help him ‘get upstairs.’”—“His dentures fell out of his mouth even before I’d ‘said a single word.’”—“The ‘slight draft’ when we entered the room was enough for him to catch his death of cold.”—“Up on the platform ‘I kissed him on the forehead,’ so that he suddenly lost his balance.”—“Drove him, ‘drove him out of his wits.’”—“Got caught in the fan belt and—‘woke up!’”—“I sent him a ‘get-well card’ registered mail and the man thanked me and dropped dead!”—“He aimed at—‘progress and change!’”—“ … I tried putting the ‘cookie’ in his mouth!!”—“Across the barbed wire—‘into the soft moss of the Okefenokee, …’”—“Cut a ‘piece of bread’ off for him!”—“ … will give her a teaspoonful of ‘cinnamon,’ ‘to taste!’”—“ … so that these bastards will let her ‘come.’”

Then one of the figures in the background tells a joke of which again one only hears the key words, such as “then he said,” “the second time,” “again nothing”; all the other characters except maybe for two or three and the bodyguards are assembled around the narrator at this point. They listen quietly and finally, each in his own way, smile quietly to themselves, scream with laughter, shake their heads in puzzlement, inhale deeply (one of them perhaps out of turn), and then continue to circle about the stage.

From the conversations one has also managed to pick out with increasing frequency sentences which a figure speaks with a slightly raised though not overly excited voice: sentences from the repertoire of politicians when they are forced to defend themselves against catcalls from the audience, and which are useful to them as defense against interjections from the audience but are employed even when there are no interjections. For example: “Anyone who shouts shows that he doesn’t have anything to say.” “I would die to defend your right to speak, but would you do the same for me?” “What you don’t have in your head gets stuck in your throat.” “Your parents don’t seem to have brought you up to let other people finish what they are saying.” “Take one look at these characters and you get a permanent itch in your trigger finger.” “I won’t take back one iota of what I said.” “Our economic accomplishments give us the right not to be constantly reminded of the past.” “Oh, I see the lady is a gentleman!” “Those people with their caveman feelings and their Stone Age laughter want to set back our discussion by a thousand years.” “You don’t even notice how useful you are to us!” “Long hair and dirty fingernails are no proof that you’re right!” “Just take one look at them, that’s what they all look like!” “All I say is: Stalin, Stalin, Stalin!” “There’s only one weapon against radicalism, and that’s the vote.” “They should first condemn the torture of the prisoners in North Vietnam.” “We are controlled by the iron law of history.” Plus what other set rejoinders of this kind exist [campaign speeches contain some rich pickings. — Trans.]. Not that the characters exaggerate them or address them directly to the audience or someone particular in the audience — rather, they speak them as asides, almost in a monologue, quietly and with finality, while they walk about the stage in their state of extraordinarily malicious and melancholy solitude. If someone fails to recognize this, and wants to join them on the stage, the bodyguards gently and without hurting him or her should lead the person off. To let the person remain on stage would only be a show of disdain.

While all characters begin to busy themselves more and more with themselves — stroking their hair, forehead, cheeks, lips; cracking their joints, picking lint off their clothes, slapping themselves on their arms, stomach, neck, and throat, stopping occasionally to tug at their earlobes — one also hears fragments of monologues which keep breaking off or become inaudible, as though the speakers were ashamed of what they were saying: “ … I decided to join the company as a silent partner …”—“Last night I dreamed of Arizona …”—“ … I saw the people’s faces change color in the completely sold-out stadium …”—“ … I wrapped the boa around my neck and winked at him like Jane …”—“ … I suddenly saw a landscape as quiet and dreamlike as the transparent wing of a butterfly …”—“ … I kept the option of taking further steps …”—“ … at that time when I slipped off a pile of logs in my dream …”—(A lady slowly raises her dress, beneath which she is completely. naked, and slowly lets it fall again.) “ … and I heard my baby sister sighing in the kitchen …”—As though remembering, a few characters shake their heads one after the other and walk on. And while they are already walking again one of them says: “ … while I was about to fall asleep I saw two hanged men dangling from one noose …”

For some time, that is, at least until the audience begins to pay attention, the characters move quietly around the stage like this, with their belt buckles, their collar patches, brooches and rings glinting in the muted light. Then while the chatter gradually subsides, because more and more characters stop talking, one can still hear one of them say: “What, when the pain becomes unbearable you want to simply waste them like animals?” And another replies: “Yes, should animals be any worse off than human beings?” And a little later someone else: “Yes, if I’d defended him at the trial, he might even have been able to wriggle his way out.” And after the chatter has even further subsided — only now does one notice how heavily made up the characters are — the lady with the fan says softly but distinctly: “Even before he touched me I began to cream.” And the two bodyguards, who stand quite far away, exchange obscene gestures. One pushes his thumb out between the middle and index finger of a closed fist; the other immediately replies by making a fist and whopping quickly up and down on the other fist. From the lady with the lapdog one hears, already as a memory, a pretty, long-drawn-out “Ahh …” and at this point it becomes gradually dark on stage and the curtain drops.

Translated by Michael Roloff