Int. – A spotless Chelsea Gallery – Dusk

 

3 well-dressed curators – Anton, Magda and Brecht – sip pousse-cafés at a massive, slightly pyramidal table fashioned out of the welded-together hoods of early 1970’s Chevy Impalas. Soft trance music plays in the background.

A pause and then Monty – the owner of the gallery enters.

 

Monty: Where’s mine?

Magda: Anton?!

Anton: Brecht!!? Where’s Monty’s pousse-café?!

 

Brecht hurries to a sideboard and feverishly begins measuring out liqueurs according to specific density.

 

Monty: (settling into a chair) Everyone like the new work table?

Magda: (laconically) My laptop keeps sliding off the top.

 

She takes her hands off her laptop and they all watch it slowly begin to slide toward the edge of the curved surface. With a lazy reach she stops it just in time.

 

Magda:…see…?

Monty: Goddamit I asked them to check that.

 

Brecht (from his position at the side table): Fuck. Fucking fuck.

 

Monty and Magda (in unison): What?

Brecht: I put the Cointreau in after the Cerise… it’s ruined.

 

A long pause…

 

Monty: Don’t worry about it… just bring me what you have.

 

Brecht brings Monty’s drink to the table in a tall, slim glass. Puts it down. After a beat it teeters on the uneven surface and crashes to the floor.

 

Another pause…

 

Monty: Never mind. (he pulls a sheaf of papers from his bag) New business… let’s get to it.

 

Everyone sits around the table.

 

Monty: So, Nicolas called…

Anton: Nicolas Favreaux?

Monty: No, Guagnini.

All: Ah…

Monty: He has a new show he’s working on… he sent some samples…

 

Monty passes the papers around to the others. Some slide to the floor off the edges of the ungainly table. Most are secured in hand, passed around, studied during the following…

 

Anton: (mumbling, considering)… nice use of color… very spare…

Magda: Not like any of his previous work.

Monty: Well he’s been going in a new direction since Hellatia left him.

Anton and Magda: Ah…

Brecht: Almost Fauve I’d say.

A pregnant beat

Monty: Really Brecht? Is that what you’d say? Is that what they taught you to say at RISDI? Remind me again just how long ago you graduated from RISDI?

Brecht: (mumbling) 4 months..

Monty: (needling. mocking) Sorry, speak up – I can’t hear you. How long?

Brecht: (louder) FOUR months.

Magda and Anton snicker a bit – not too much… just the correct amount…

Monty: Quite right. Four months. Four months only. Four months which, if I haven’t been clear, allow you to listen and learn and not much more. Four months in which I have tried… God knows I’ve tried – to be a good mentor to you….

Sympathetic nods and murmurings from Anton and Magda

Monty (continuing):… but Four months in Chelsea, Brecht – do not allow you to go tossing around Grad-school buzzwords like “Fauve” any time they cross the transom of your amygdala. Magda. Anton. Why don’t you tell young Brecht here what sort of reaction he’d get if he described Nicolas’ work as “fauve” to Nicolas himself.

The following in rapidly building succession

Magda: He’d be insulted…

Anton: He’d hate you…

Magda: He’d go to another gallery..

Anton: He’d rip your fucking face off.

Magda: He’s a very important artist!

Anton: VERY important!

Magda: A VERY VERY Important artist!

Anton: He’d kill you… he’d kill you and… and…

Magda: (with necessary rage) …Eat you! He’d EAT you after he killed you if you said something like that Unto Him! (a pause) To him, I mean!

Monty intercedes paternally – waving his hands

Monty: OK, OK – I think the boy gets it. (To Brecht) Now you don’t want to be killed and eaten by one of New York’s most promising emerging artists, do you?

Brecht just shakes his head

Monty: Good – I didn’t think so. Not much to eat on your bones anyway… so skinny. Am I not paying you enough? (beat) Of course I’m not! Ha ha ha

Ha ha

Ha ha ha.

Anton and Magda titter along titterishly.

Monty: Ok – back to business. So Nicolas has 77 of these ready to go. Or he will have them after another run to the paint store next week.

Magda: 77?

Anton: 77 separate works? Is that…

Monty: Good? Yes, Anton! – it’s very good! It’s a powerhouse of a show – it can take up the whole gallery AND he wants to do a 2 volume catalogue!

Anton: (resigned) OK.

Monty: He’s calling it ’77 Testicular Imprints’

Magda: (without thinking, which she can’t) I love it… GOD I love it. Genius!

Anton: Testicular…?

Monty: Imprints… yes. Testicular Imprints.

Anton: So these are…?

Monty: Yes.

Magda: They’re what?

Anton: So he…?

Monty: Yes.

Magda: They’re imprints right?

Brecht: (dawning) No fucking way!

Anton: He actually… I mean. These are…?

Monty: (with slight exasperation) Testicular Imprints, Anton. Yes. 77 of them.

Brecht: (aside) Shouldn’t there be 78?

Magda: So they’re..? Oh! (with realization – squinting at the print in her hand) Ooooohhhhhh….!!

A pause as everyone studies the prints. Brecht giggles.

Monty: Am I running a fucking kindergarten here?

Anton: No – it’s just… It’s a VERY new direction for him.

Magda: (studying the paper) I kind of see it now…

Anton: And he wants to call the show just that?

Magda: (lost in her own head) It’s like a little nativity scene…

Monty: Well it’s a straightforward show title. What’s wrong with it?

Anton: (thinking about his job) Well… nothing… I guess.

Magda:(still lost in her head) How does he… I mean… you dip… but then the canvas…?

She gets up out of her chair and tries to squat as if pressing her non-existent testicles against a canvas.

Magda (giving up): He must do yoga.

Brecht can’t take it anymore. Leaps out of his chair. The others recoil as he shouts.

Brecht: You’re nuts! You’re all nuts! You’re talking about nuts! (pointing furiously at the prints). Those are nuts!!

A beat. And then an enormous banner unfurls from the ceiling bearing the message: The Moral Art League of Midtown Manhattan Summer-Funner Passion Play Thanks You! All the actors turn to the audience and bow deeply as we hear rising music coming from the wings. After a pause a 6 piece Oompah band marches onto the stage led by a naked, male Majorette with yellow paint dripping from his balls. The band circles the stage once and then joins the actors for a final bow.

Confetti and balloons fall from the ceiling.

Lights out.