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ALMA PACONK


ALMA PHOENIX
A Play for Two
Maurice Rowdon


CHARACTERS
(in the order of his appearances)
SIGMUND FREUD
GUSTAV MAHLER
OSKAR KOKOSCHKA
SHE
(in the order of her appearances)
ALMA MAHLER
ANNA FREUD
A WAR NURSE


ACT ONE
This is a various purpose set. There is an
arch, at the top of three or four steps,
upstage right (from the actor's point of view).
It has lilac colored curtains which are closed
at the moment.
Downstage of the arch is a chaiselongue, with
a coffee table. Left and also upstage stands
a desk with an armchair and perhaps one or
two upright chairs. Behind it is the back wall
which is set at a slight angle, disappearing
behind the raised archway. There is a large
window more or less behind the desk which
we will be using as a frame into which to
insert various messages, mostly to locate the
scene---"LONDON', VIENNA'etc. If lights
are used for these they should be made to
resemble Broadway theatre signs.
Under the window is a group of canvases
which lean against the wall.
On the wall by the window is a telephone of
the earliest hook-up type. At the moment it
is hanging off the hook.
A doorway leads off upstage left, that is left
of the desk from the actor's point of view.
There are two other entrances---one upstage
center between the wall and the raised arch,
the other downstage right between the
extremity of the raised area and the
proscenium arch.
On the desk there is a pile of musical scores,
and on one of the upright chairs a pile of
women's clothes.


At curtainrise the chaiselongue is downstage,
withits back-rest toward actor's left. ALMA
MAHLER is lying on it.
A banner has been lowered from the flies
downstage just left of her head, and its base
sits on the floor. Printed on it in somewhat
Gothic script is a message: SIGMUND
FREUD'S CONSULTING ROOM,
VIENNA. This banner is used only for the
'analytical' scenes.
SIGMUND FREUD is sitting concealed just
behind this banner but we see the top of his
head, which is covered with a Tyrolean hat
and feather. The actor underneath this hat
is also going to play MAHLER and
KOKOSCHKA.
ALMA is a striking blonde woman magically
equipped with the ability to combine the
sweet, wild and arrogant in her features and
behavior without disharmony.
At curtainrise the set is in darkness except
for a single spot that picks out the banner
with its message. We hear the MERRY
WIDOW waltz in the distance. The spot
grows in intensity, holds SO that the message
may be read, then dims: as it does SO the
other lights come up, though they are
maintained dim throughout the scene. The
music too dims into silence.
ALMA:
Not one of them was a good lover.
FREUD:
Forgive me, did I hear you right? Not one of your many husbands
and lovers--architects, painters, composers, novelists, army
officers---ever satisfied you?
ALMA:
You needn't pluralize like that, Dr Freud. An architect, a
painter, a novelist, a composer. And every one of them a genius.
FREUD:
Forgive me, I thought you always described Oskar Kokoschka as


The Perfect Lover.
ALMA:
He was. But none of them gave me whatIwanted.
A pause.
FREUD:
What you wanted for your genius.
ALMA:
Exactly. Iwas too busy looking after theirs.
FREUD:
Is it the nature of genius to look after other people's all the time?
ALMA (defensively) So really I had no genius Dr Freud?
FREUD:
A little thought will show you that I'm saying the opposite. You
think those outstanding men found nothing in you---Gustav
Mahler, Gropius, Werfel, Kokoschka? You weren't the notes in
Mahler's music, the paint on Kokoschka's canvases?
ALMA:
That sounds a little corny to me.
FREUD:
I'm Viennese my dear.
ALMA:
Il had a certain power I suppose.
FREUD:
A certain power! Alma Mahler could turn their heads with a
glance-- -corny but true and how Viennese! But she only turned
artist's heads. Doesn't that say something to you?
ALMA:
The priest wasn't an artist. He was a visionary, I suppose.
FREUD:
Good God, you had a priest?
ALMA:
A Catholic one at that.
Silence as the Tyrolean hat shakes from side
to side.
ALMA (cont.) Canyou make this comprehensible for me, doctor: why should
Mahler'sfalling in love with me after ten years of marriage be the
signal for me to leave him and for him to die?
FREUD:
What we desire unconsciously can't be comprehensible. It
belongs to ancestors, gods!


ALMA:
I thought you hated any mention of God?
FREUD:
I said gods. They belong to the imagination, in which I'm very
interested.
ALMA:
Ah, you men! How precisely you settle on your mode of
expression, make it your lifelong quest, how early you prepare for
FREUD:
But what stood in your way in that respect? what stands in a
woman's way?
ALMA:
Iwanted to become them. I thought, let me enclose myself in
their genius and I shall grow in that male womb and be born one
day. When Gustav Mahler conducted Ifelt inside him! Musicis
my medium you see, SO I could sacrifice myself to him without
effort. In the case of Walter Gropius I wanted to embryonize
inside his Prussian aristocracy, SO upright and unyielding, SO
proud and passionate and truthful! But they always concentrated
on me, you see. Fell in love with me. They looked at me, even
looked up to me! I was stranded again, aching for a womb to be
quiet and grow in.
FREUD:
So you betrayed them in proportion to their love for you. A kind
of pro rata arrangement. When they were no longer masters of
themselvesyou looked for a new master, to the degree of their
love. Horrible forces play in your blood, Alma Mahler---too deep
a love for masters, too deep a horror of being mastered! How the
father-complex weaves its lifelong spell!
No reply.
FREUD (cont.,) Do you feel sleepy?
ALMA (almost asleep) I was always hoping that the next one... I was always
ready for him...
FREUD (his voice hushed) Is that why you never wore panties?
The lights fade to BLACKOUT as the
MERRY WIDOW waltz comes up, though
still faint.


The spot picks out a new banner, also printed
in Gothic characters: GUSTAV MAHLER
IN CONSULTATION WITH ANNA
FREUD, LONDON.
ANNA FREUD (formerly ALMA) is sitting
behind this banner and we can only see the
top of her head, which is covered with a
cloche hat.
As the spoti fades the other lights come up
slowly. GUSTAV MAHLER (formerly
FREUD) is now lying on the chaiselongue.
GUSTAV MAHLER is dressed for a concert
and holds a conductor's baton. His eyes are
closed.
He is small, rather pale and slight, with a
longish face and an unusually steep forehead.
His hair is intensely black, his eyes sharply
aware and penetrating behind their gold-
rimmed spectacles. As we shall see later, he
has an irregular way of walking, tending to
stamp his feet, to stop suddenly and then rush
forward headlong; something is always
pulling or halting him, it seems. His
shoulders are rather hunched.
ANNA:
Of course you realize, don'tyou, thatyou've been sleeping with
your mother, while she's been sleeping with her father?
MAHLER:
Indeed, yes, Dr Freud. Yourfather---I mean your real actual
registered father Sigmund---told me as much. My mother was a
sickly woman and it excited me to see my wife Alma drawn and
wan and tired, as of course she often was, looking after my
musical temperament and two children and two houses, and
servants who had to produce my meals on the dot.
He conducts, his eyes still closed, his lips
pouted in silent whistling.
ANNA:
Forgive me, she, the mother, causedyou great sexual excitement
by betraying the father, despite the fact, or rather because of the


fact, that you were the father.
MAHLER:
Good lord! Could you explain that?
ANNA:
Alma was the daughter of a famous painter,y yes?---her Viennese
home was the scene of many artistic events-- -concerts, dinner
parties, soirées. She no doubt witnessed her artist father
betraying her non-artist mother, and vice versa perhaps, in that
heady atmosphere of nocturnal adventure in which Nietzsche and
nude models and Schubert quartets were mixed together, making
sexual betrayal a stimulus for new ideas. The child is terrified by
parental dalliance!
MAHLER (with a little giggle) What a rhetorical flourish! Butyes, I agree, I
agree! My childhood was a prolonged horror of possible,
threatened, looming, imminent abandonment. A fearful parental
row would be followed by copulation!
ANNA:
We call it the primal scene. You witnessed the primal scene?
MAHLER:
Oh indeed!
ANNA:
You think you witnessed the primal scene. But then it'syour
thoughtswe're after. Since, for you, abandonment was bitterly
painful, in fact it created distress bordering on total breakdown,
you were naturally less inclined to betray Alma than she, full of
artistic memories, was inclined to betray you.
MAHLER:
Well I had my little peccadilloes. Singers, you know. It was
awfully easy in the sweat and push of rehearsals. SoIwouldn't
underestimate my power of betrayal, Dr Freud.
ANNA:
But Alma, likewise, though nurtured in the Viennese atmosphere
we both know--flirtations by candlelight, snatched fruits, sudden
calamitous liaisons which provided hot talk for weeks---she too
was terrified of parental divisions, and in such a way that it
became, this terror, the very kernel of her sexual behavior.
MAHLER:
Very nicely put. Ilove 'snatched fruits'.
ANNA:
It put her on a lifelong search for genius.
MAHLER:
You call Gropius a genius? The only real genius she had apart
from me was Oskar Kokoschka. And she ran away from him as


she did from me---like water: from fire! He loved her,you see.
She recognized the same scorching heat she got from me---in a
boy! He loved her with my heat as I lay dying!
ANNA (alarmed) When you lay what?
MAHLER (animated, shouting, half rising from the couch) Dying,dying!
I'm dead, woman, don'tyou realize that?
Silence as he relapses into his former
position.
MAHLER (cont., quietly) Imean, shit,you were a little girl when all this was
going on. Are you there? (No reply) Isn'tthis 1938?
ANNA (hushed) Yes.
MAHLER:
Well I died precisely twenty seven years ago. She'sstill alive.
In Hollywood, isn't it?
ANNA (the cloche hat trembling) Ithink sO.
MAHLER:
And this is London? Ah, buty you can'tspeak! You're just like
your father, your actual registered one, he passed out whenever
the word death was mentioned. Just slid under the table.
ANNA (girlishly) I must be dreaming!
MAHLER:
Corn, corn! The kind of thing old Werfelwould say in one of his
novels. Wasn't that a funny marriage? Alma brimming over
with fascism and he a Jew brimming over with bolshevism.
Aren'tyou on a bus at the moment, Dr Freud?
ANNA:
I believe I am!
MAHLER:
Travelling to StJohn's Wood, haunt of prominent men and
women on Hitler's hit list?
ANNA:
Yes.
MAHLER:
And this is only happening in your head?
ANNA:
I sincerely hope so!


He conducts something in the silence.
MAHLER (stopping) Isn't Kokoschka coming to London soon?
ANNA:
Is he?
MAHLER:
Ohyes. With no possessions in the world.
The MERRY WIDOW waltz is heard again
in the distance.
MAHLER (cont.) There was a dark understanding between thatyoung painter
and me, not that he knew it. You see, I had to put my love
somewhere, pass it on to a likely soul. It was burning me even in
death.
He conducts again.
MAHLER (cont.) A little irresponsible of me perhaps, in view of the fact that
he was a child of nineteen and Alma had enough experience for a
grandmother, despite being only at the end of her twenties. Isaw
they were an equal match. Nothing could kill him, not even a
bayonet twisted in his lung.
At these words the opening of Mahler's
Tenth Symphony comes up loud and strong.
The lights fade to BLACKOUT. The banner
is flown up and a new message is shown in the
window: PAINTER'S STUDIO, VIENNA,
The music dies as the light grows on the
empty scene.
The silence is broken by the sound of water
being poured into a bowl behind the curtains.
Someone is washing, softly. The phone is
hanging off its hook.
Together with paints and brushes there are
newspaper cuttings all over the desk.
The arch-curtains open slightly and ALMA


emerges, rather tussled and in a lilac
petticoat. She is holding a towel, with which
she has just been drying her face. She closes
the curtains carefully behind her and tiptoes
across to the desk area. Then she begins
dressing from the pile of clothes on the chair.
She puts on a bracelet, a necklace of pearls
and two rings, gazing at the rings with
pleasure for a moment.
She sits and combs out and dresses her hair.
Then she goes to the arch and pulls the
curtains open. OSKAR KOKOSCHKA is
lying in the bed, which is enormously
disordered under a pile of brightly colored
cushions---red, green, yellow, blue (his first
favorite colors).
He is fairly tall, blond, slim, his hair cut short
and his head held rather high. The deep
blue of his eyes is, according to a friend,
'unbelievable'. He is given to brief outbursts
of anger or enthusiasm. He continually
springs surprises of tone, phrasing,
movement.
He appears asleep. He has a carnival cloak
on, and a mask is pulled up to his brow.
She wakes him gently---a hand on his
shoulder.
ALMA (softly) Ko-ko.
He raises himself, blinking. She glances at
her watch (on a gold chain) and returns to
the desk area.
ALMA (taking up her bag) I'm going back to Semmering. Where I shall have a
bath. And a change of clothes. There'll be fresh coffee waiting
for me with the morning letters.
KOKOSCHKA: Very funny.


ALMA (preparing to leave) I'll pick you up at the art-school Friday evening.
She goes left.
KOKOSCHKA: Alma.
She stops.
KOKOSCHKA: You go for an eternity of three days and don't even kiss me?
ALMA (delighted) What a child you are!
She runs back to the bed and they embrace,
kiss, laugh together.
KOKOSCHKA: You know what a student said to me yesterday---he said your
name Kokoschka reminds me of ko-ko-ko-ko-ko! (he tickles her
as he does a cock crow).
They roll on the bed and he begins piling
bedclothes on top of her. She throws
cushions at him and he stands up in the bed,
leaping about, dancing and crying Ko-ko-
She breaks away from him and runs down the
steps.
KOKOSCHKA (clasping his hands together imploringly and falling on his
knees) Alma! My life! My work! My self!
He walks on his knees after her, scrambling
down the steps.
ALMA:
Get upyou fool! Up!
He catches her and they laugh together. He
points to his canvas THE TEMPEST.
KOKOSCHKA: Look at our picture! I'm going to change it from red to steel
blue, how about that? Look how we float in the universe!
ALMA:
What's the phone doing off the hook? (replacing it).


KOKOSCHKA: Iwas talking to Adolf Loos last night before the ball. We're no
longer friends.
ALMA:
Why?
KOKOSCHKA: I told him I shall never leave you. He thinks I should, must.
Before that my mother called. She said I've become very short-
tempered since I metyou---also very reserved---as I never was
before. Of course she's scared of you.
ALMA:
She thinks I'm too old for you---too important.
KOKOSCHKA: That's correct.
He watches her as she moves about the desk.
ALMA (taking upsome of the nev wspaper cuttings) Why do you take these
seriously?
KOKOSCHKA: Read them for God's sake! (Grabbing a couple of them)
This Oskar Kokoschka, using his ko-ko rays on people who have
the misfortune to fall under his brush, is qualified to decorate
brothels with harrowing pictures of syphilitics and paralytics.
These paintings are disgusting plague sores and puddles that emit
a foul stench.' And this is Mr Arthur Rossler on my Hagenbund
exhibition---"He boils up his paints from lethally poisonous
putridity, from juices that have been fermented out of diseases!
Here are shimmering gall-yellows, fever-greens, frostbite-blues,
hysteria-reds, and the chemicals binding them all together seem
to be iodide of formyl, carbolic and asafoetida!" Do you hear
that? Asafoetida, Alma---a horrible stink again! When he
smears them on they set like scars. Perhaps this gauche portrayal
of sick bodies in states of disgusting uncleanness, spongy, porous,
leathery, flabby, dotted and spotted---'!
ALMA:
Don'tyou see they're paying you compliments? You never
wanted to paint pretty pictures like the French---So you have to
take the rap!
KOKOSCHKA: Don't talk like that---it makes you look hard! (Glaring at her)
Is it true you lost your virginity to Gustav Klimt, the pope of
Viennese art and the most lascivious bastard in the city?
ALMA (roused) He fell in love with me!


KOKOSCHKA: I didn't ask you that. Ican'timagine a man like Klimt not getting
his way---Gustav Mahler did after two days flat.
ALMA:
Iwon't have you talk like that! And I shan't be here tonight!
KOKOSCHKA: What?
ALMA:
I promised my child. And my mother too. They've a right to see
me alone sometimes.
KOKOSCHKA (finding difficulty in speech) Butyou leave them all the time!
ALMA:
All the more reason to stay with them now!
KOKOSCHKA (savagely) It's that damned biologist Kammerer---he's got his
water tanks and his toads all over your house copulating toads!
ALMA:
Don't be stupid. He has a wife!
KOKOSCHKA: But she says it too! Everybody says it! It'syour
reputation--flirting--ddecoying!
ALMA (gathering up her bag again) Iwon't hear any more of it!
KOKOSCHKA (visibly trembling) You slept with me after a couple of days
tool--Mahleryou married in a month with his child inside
you---you've been hanging round that Viennese organ-grinder
Franz Schreker---and how many others? (Half to himself)
Even when we travel together you take a separate room.
ALMA:
I'm Mrs Mahler---Mrs Gustav Mahlerl---and I always will be!
KOKOSCHKA (grabbing her) You mustn't say it!
ALMA:
Ever since his death-mask came to the house you've behaved like
a fool!
KOKOSCHKA: Iforbid you to think of him alive or dead! He was foreign to
you---he robbed you of your body!
She tries to fight him off. Finally she
manages to tear herself away and runs off,
right.


KOKOSCHKA (cont., shrieking after her) Mrs Mahler---Mrs
Kammerer---Mrs Schreker---Mrs Klimt---Mrs Zemlinsky---Mrs
Gabrilovitch!
BLACKOUT
The MERRY WIDOW waltz comes overin
the distance. A banner is lowered again and
this time it reads: GUSTAV MAHLER
STILL IN POST MORTEM
CONSULTATION WITH ANNA FREUD.
As the lights come up to dimness we see
MAHLER in concert clothes again lying on
the couch, holding his baton. And again we
see ANNA FREUD's cloche hat.
MAHLER:
She had learned to betray by that time, you see. I don't mean she
wasn't capable of betraying even at the age of eighteen. But now
she'd learned the art of betrayal. A subtle sleight of hand is now
at work which enhances her desperately in the eyes of her lover,
the more she draws away from him while still protesting love. It
enhances her to the degree that he worships her---enhances her
beyond his safety, his sanity!
ANNA:
Has a man never employed such sleight of hand?
MAHLER:
Oh indeed indeed. But to my mind the mastery of it lies with the
woman because after all he was born within her.
ANNA:
You are saying that the maternal role is the key one?
MAHLER:
The key one both in the sense that she is a mother and that she
has learned from her mother, as at an early dancing school. You
see, the mother observes the terror of abandonment in her child,
even in the baby---the faintest flicker of the eyes, a hint of a pout
on lips that cannot yet speak. Of course she could never inflict
such a hurt on the child she loves, the child that is her, but she is
heaping up wisdom for herself which increases her deposit, SO to
speak, in the central bank of betrayal year by year as the race
grows older.
ANNA:
But, Mr Mahler, let us investigate the role you, the male, play in


all this! You are simply describing your mother complex as they
are fulfilling the terms of their father complex! You have made a
great study of the mother in all her disguises---
MAHLER:
How rightly you use the word disguisesl--singer after singer
twisted my baton into a knife that entered my heart while I
thought it could never bend to anything but my will! The only
ones who left me with a straight baton were those who didn't
make a great career, I broke them!
ANNA:
Alma never made a great career because of your demands on her!
MAHLER:
Indeed, indeed! Only when I fell in love with her at the end---I
regard my love for her when we married as an infatuation--only
then did she get her freedom and became the femme fatale, which
killed me.
ANNA (with a sigh) Thank God these are only thoughts in my head, on a bus, in
1938, with me wearing an out of date cloche hat and my father
Sigmund waiting for me at home, to console us about this war that
is looming and which seems to leave him quite unmoved and
unafraid.
MAHLER:
I thought when incited Kokoschka to love her that she would get
more than she could chew. But alas---!
ANNA:
You are telling me you incited him to love her? Had he no eyes
of his own?
MAHLER:
Well of course he did! That's why I incited him and not
somebody else.
ANNA:
Allowing for the fact that this is all on a bus, and I'm nearly at St
John's Wood, can the dead do that sort of thing?
MAHLER:
If the dead can'twho can, my dear? Consider the fact that most
of the people who have ever been alive are dead---they represent
the mass of humanity, numbers infinite, and you, the living ones,
are a pitiable minority indeed. You eat and drink on mountains
of corpses!
ANNA:
Oh dear!
MAHLER:
Your cities, thoughts, books, music, expressions of face, of walk


and talk and flirtation, your most intimate habits from the way
you blow your noses to how your egg must be done, not to say the
language you talk in, the forms and imagesyou think in---they are
all the work of the dead, my dear, yet you tell me that this tiny
morsel of life in the rapidly expiring year of 1938 which will in not
many years be unknown history to most of the next tiny minority,
you mean to say that the creaking, croaking bus and the clatter of
plates in St John's Wood in preparation for one more (which is
also one less) meal, you tell me that all this is the only thing
alive, in anything but a most perilously tenuous sense? You
believe that all the power and meaning lies there and thatin my
dying hour I was unable to find the perfect heart to put my love
in---a heart SO strong that even on the battlefield, even with a
bayonet turning not a centimeter away, that heart continued to
beat triumphantly-you tell me that a living individual could do
that? With what would a living individual do it---with his walking
stick, or an inflatable cushion perhaps? Don'tyou see that
nothing short of an enfant terrible would do for Alma, both to
bring her back to life after my disappearance and to get her away
from that damned architect who used to haunt me everywhere I
went, send her telegrams, spy on her (growing frantic and
shouting and sitting up as before): from my own garden,yes,
he came to Maiernigg, he came to the Carinthian lakes to smell
her out and cause my heart to fail!
A harrowing passage from his Sixth
Symphony comes up as the lights quickly die
to BLACKOUT.
The message at the window is: THE
PAINTER'S STUDIO, VIENNA, 1914.
As the lights come up we see ALMA in the
chaiselongue, sleeping.
KOKOSCHKA is singing to himself, off, Ach
du lieberAugustin, in a burlesque manner,
like a drunkard.
He enters from the left with a tray of coffee
things, swaying and playing the fool.
KOKOSCHKA (indicating the desk as he puts the tray down) You leave his
scores everywhere--your little babies (pouring her coffee)!


They cry to you all day (hooing and booing like a baby).
She smiles sleepily.
KOKOSCHKA (cont., grasping her hand) You came to tell me I'm a king,
didn'tyou? That the prince and heir is on his way! And lyou're
feeling well! You saw the doctor?
ALMA:
Yes.
KOKOSCHKA: We'll marry at once- a full cathedral wedding, I'll paint the Dom
throughout, a new reredos, a dozen ravishing tryptychs and a
cycle of frescoes that are going to plunge the chancel into a sea of
Hellenic light!
She places a hand softly over his mouth.
ALMA:
I'm tired and not quite healthy, Ko-ko. The doctor noticed that.
I don't know how I can face a child!
Silence.
KOKOSCHKA draws back.
ALMA (cont., speaking in little staccato bursts) A connection like
ours---it's too powerful! Such connections drive people apart.
Much more often than you think. Whenit'ss SO deep---deeper
than anythingyou've ever thought possible. Canyou imagine
that it makes the woman afraid?
KOKOSCHKA: Of what?
ALMA:
I don't know, of stagnating.
KOKOSCHKA: It's barely human what you say!
ALMA:
Perhaps I don't mean it.
KOKOSCHKA: I almost hope you love someone else---rather than say such
barbarous things!
ALMA:
Perhaps men love more than we do--it provokes you all to
wonderful work---makes you great---but the woman feels
diminished.


KOKOSCHKA: So, feeling diminished, she must look for another man to
undiminish her and SO it goes on and on!
ALMA (rising briskly) Iwon't hear that discussion any more!
KOKOSCHKA: Allyour friends are telling you to leave me! It's because Mrs
Gustav Mahler can't be seen with a man who lacks poise!
She walks, left.
KOKOSCHKA (cont., feebly) You're going the wrong way.
ALMA:
I left the car at the back.
KOKOSCHKA (afflicted with difficulty of speech) To conceal your visit.
(Quietly) Yetyou allow Hans Pfiztner in your apartment. For
the night! (Seizing her hands) Alma, he got into your
cells---you say it yourself---everything for his music, music, music,
neveryou! You say ityourself! And you're trying to bring
yourself back to life with all these men---but only I can do that!
ALMA (quietly) If Gustav Mahler killed me, is my body dead---does it feel dead
to you?
KOKOSCHKA: No.
ALMA:
In make love like someone dead?
KOKOSCHKA: No.
ALMA:
So how did Gustav Mahler kill me? And who brought me to life?
He did!
KOKOSCHKA (humbled) He wore you out---!
ALMA:
He burned me alive---he fed the flame that I gave to you!
KOKOSCHKA: You say it now. But I had to hold you like a corpse after his
death, you were cold, in my arms the life came back to you!
ALMA:
Iwas grieving! Don'tyou understand that? I had myfeelings,
not yours!


KOKOSCHKA (almost in a whisper) So he's back again. Ifeel him with you
all the time. In your clothes. He watches us.
ALMA (still very quiet) What's wrong with death watching us?
She turns away and hums the MERRY
WIDOW waltz.
ALMA (cont.) Do you hear it?
KOKOSCHKA (weakly) No I don't hear it!
She laughs as she goes, quickly now.
BLACKOUT
A banner is lowered and it bears the
following message: ALMA WITH
SIGMUND FREUD, VIENNA.
As before, ALMA is lying on the
chaiselongue and FREUD again has his
Tyrolean hat on.
ALMA:
You see, at that time Walter Gropius was slowly being killed by
the thought that I might not marry him. He was all I could wish
for. He could give me all I needed. - needed a stable home once
more.
FREUD:
But you had a stable home at Semmering. Your mother and child
were there.
ALMA:
It had no man.
FREUD:
It had no father.
ALMA:
Yes, I suppose.
FREUD:
The moment Mahler laid himself at your feet as a dying man he
could no longer fulfil that role. He became a lover, that is
abhorrent to you! You said SO yourself---you complained that he
woke you upin the middle of the night and made love to you---he
disturbed your sleep, no less! And the new aristocratic, non-
Jewish father could be depended on at least to observe the


proprieties---even perhaps to the extent of giving you a bedroom
of your own, even a suite in his Berlin mansion.
ALMA:
Gropius bored me you see!
FREUD (with a chuckle) The nature of fathers, my dear, once they have been
conquered! A poor, gentle creature like Gropius you transform
into God knows what lumpen mediocrity! (After a pause) I
imagine Kokoschka never bored you.
ALMA:
There was never any time, he was always making a scene.
FREUD:
Lucky for you he knew nothing of your architect, much less of
your proposed marriage to him. Otherwise the scene might have
been your last.
ALMA:
You know, in a funny way, Iwouldn't have minded dying at Ko-
ko's hands. I wanted him too late. I searched for him
everywhere. I couldn'tfind him.
FREUD:
Yet he's still alive.
ALMA:
Yes.
FREUD:
We look everywhere, frantically, but the lover has gone! My
unconscious is hiding him from me! (He chuckles) Eros finds,
Thanatos veils.
A theme from Mahler's Fifth steals over as
the light dims.
The following message is seen in the window:
THE PAINTER'S STUDIO, 1914.
As the lights come up we see KOKOSCHKA
putting his picture THE TEMPEST on the
easel in the area by the window.
He sits, gazing at it. He rubs his thumb in his
oils and thumbs in a line (a painting habit of
his). There is silence. He paints on.
Suddenly we hear ALMA's voice from behind
the arch curtain.


ALMA (off, behind the curtains) I'm ready.
He jumps, looking this way and that.
ALMA (cont., off) I'm ready Ko-Ko.
KOKOSCHKA (galvanized into action) Oh my God!
He dashes to the arch and, after a moment's
renewed hesitation, pulls the curtains aside.
The canopy bed is now tidy, and ALMA is
seated on a corner of it, a laurel wreath
round her head.
KOKOSCHKA (cont., gazing at her) Splendid! (Stepping back) Splendid!
ALMA (laughing at his nervousness) What's the matter? What were you
doing?
KOKOSCHKA: I---forgot you were here!
ALMA:
Forgot?
KOKOSCHKA (hurriedly going back to the easel) My head spins sometimes!
Ifeel I'm somewhere else!
ALMA:
Does it frightenyou?
KOKOSCHKA: Not at all! Not at all! It excites me. It excites me greatly. You
remember when we were out walking round the Prater and I
pointed out a boy at one of the stalls and said he would murder
his father one day and he did a week later?
ALMA (calmingly) Yes Ko-Ko.
KOKOSCHKA: Well, that excited me.
He pulls out his portrait of her and takes
away THE TEMPEST. At last he settles
himself, gradually recovering his calm,
making bold strokes with his brush.
KOKOSCHKA (cont.) They deny I have a god's eyes but I have. That's why they


call my portraits horrific. For instance, the moment I set eyes on
that Ludwig von Janikowsky I knew he was round the bend.
A regimental band passes below the window,
accompanied by the sound of horses' hoofs
and marching feet.
ALMA:
Orisi it the war that frightens you?
KOKOSCHKA: Declarations don't scare me. The actual fighting might.
They listen to the band, and the sounds
gradually fade.
ALMA:
Iwas twenty minutes behind this curtain before you came to.
Where doyou go?
KOKOSCHKA: All over the universe as a matter of fact.
ALMA:
Will you take me with you?
KOKOSCHKA: They wouldn't trecognize your social position, they don't speak
Viennese.
ALMA;
Who's they?
KOKOSCHKA: All those beings that play inside you and me and all around us.
ALMA:
If they're beings in that sense they should speak every language.
KOKOSCHKA: Let's put it this way---they could but they don't want to waste
their time. I mean what would they want to hear Max Burkhart
talking balls for?
ALMA:
Is that what you think of one of Vienna's most brilliant men?
KOKOSCHKA: Oh you and your Viennese tittle tattle!
He paints on.
ALMA:
When we lost our little one I saw her many times afterwards, in
New York. She helped us through a difficult period. Gustav had
just been to the doctor in Maiernigg and been given his death
sentence, as he called it---a throat full of streptococci. He had


everybody intriguing against him in New York---including
Toscanini--- -can you believe it? Toscanini actually wanted to do
a version of Tristan and Isolde a few weeks after Mahler's, which
was the best ever heard. It really was an insult!
KOKOSCHKA: The streptococci came from being in love with you.
ALMA (without resentment) Yes, I'm aware that's whatyou think.
KOKOSCHKA: But my throat's all right.
He paints on.
She hums the waltz.
ALMA:
He said he breathed for me, at the end. You're right---he got
sick for me---he actually said it. He said 'It's because you're no
longer with me'. Those were his words.
KOKOSCHKA: Don't start crying for christ's sake, I've got a difficult bit here.
ALMA:
Not at all. Irealize perfectly well that if he'd been in love with
me all those years he'd never have done those symphonies.
(After a pause) He was everyone for me---father, family,
Vienna.
KOKOSCHKA: And what am I?
ALMA:
I simply love you.
He gazes at her for some time, stopping his
work.
ALMA (cont.) I was twenty when we met---do you expect me to have held my
own against the most famous man in Vienna, and twice my age?
KOKOSCHKA: Vienna's most famous man with Vienna's most famous woman. It
ought to have been a thoroughly idiotic match oughtn'tit?--but
somehow wasn't.
ALMA:
Isn't that a little to my credit?
KOKOSCHKA: A lot to your credit.


He goes on painting.
KOKOSCHKA (cont.) Iwas at the station today. I heard a woman say to her
husband with a laugh Don't kill too many Serbians!". He was
drunk. He told her quietly to go, he couldn't bear to say
goodbye. (Watching her) These are the fiercest partings of all
aren'tt they Alma---the war ones?
ALMA:
I don't know.
KOKOSCHKA: He looked frightened as he walked to the train. Not of death but
separation. What are you thinking?
ALMA:
Nothing.
He sits back, puts his brush aside.
KOKOSCHKA: I can'tstand to see all this tragedy and just flit around it, I mean
my old life can't go on anyway.
ALMA (furtively) Do you want to go?
KOKOSCHKA: Do you want me to go?
ALMA:
Iwant what you want.
KOKOSCHKA: I'll join the cavalry.
She watches him.
ALMA:
People say it'll be over by 1915. Russia's not strong enough for
KOKOSCHKA: There are forces at work people know nothing about.
He sits doing nothing, brooding, his head
lowered. Suddenly he spits at her portrait
and throws it to the ground. She jumps up
terrorized.
KOKOSCHKA (cont., throwing himself into the air) You aborted my child!
You damned she-devil! (advancing on her) Why don'tyou
fight on the Russian front---they need baby-killers!


She tears off her laurel wreath and flees
behind the bed. He dashes up the steps after
her. She is nowhere to be found. He even
looks under the bed. But he finds something
else---a bottle of Benedictine and a glass.
He takes the bottle and glass and gazes at
them for some time with resignation before
going off left.
KOKOSCHKA (off) BABY KILLER! DRUNKARD!
We hear him smashing the bottle etc to
pieces. But the smashing doesn't stop at a
bottle. It seems to extend to his crockery,
even, apparently, to all of it.
ALMA steals onto the scene from behind the
bed, staring toward the kitchen area,
watching KOKOSCHKA destroy his
plateware, off.
She becomes more and more frightened as
the sounds of fury increase. She wants to go
into the kitchen and stop him and nearly does
but as the fury increases she begins
withdrawing.
Silently and slidingly MAHLER appears
center, to one side of the archway. She has
her back to him, and is still retreating from
the kitchen.
MAHLER is frail, hunched, pale. He sits on
the arch-steps softly and slowly, perfectly
collected, remote, as she retreats towards
him. He appears not to hear, or at least not
to be in the smallest manner troubled by the
sounds of destruction from the kitchen.
Suddenly she walks into him, turns and,
seeing him, screams.
The smashing sounds cease abruptly.


MAHLER (very quietly) Sit down.
Staring at him, she sits on the chaiselongue.
ALMA (almost inaudible) Gustl, I'm SO frightened!
MAHLER:
You have help.
ALMA:
Where?
MAHLER:
In the architect.
ALMA:
I only wantyou!
MAHLER (without emotion) You slept with him on the night of my Eighth
symphony, in Munich. You slept with him again on your way to
join me in Paris for our trip to America, when I was dying.
ALMA:
You knew!
MAHLER:
ALMA:
You think I'm selfish and stupid.
MAHLER:
First you'll want his child. Then you'll want to marry him.
ALMA:
MAHLER:
He'll be away many months, fighting in the war. It'll last four
years.
ALMA:
Fouryears! That's impossible! How can people fight about
anything for four years? Will we all die?
MAHLER:
Your husband won't. But by the time the war ends you won't
much care whether he's alive or dead. In all you'll live with him a
couple of weeks.
ALMA:
Then I shan't marry him. Help me resist!
MAHLER:
Oh, by the way, an interim matter---your stepfather will be
inviting a young painter to dinner. Tonight. Sit for him. Take
him to the piano after dinner and sing something that mixes death
and love. He flinches at nothing. Thanatos and Eros are the twin


poles of his life. And he'll give you your body back, SO it's no
mean bargain.
ALMA:
But---Gustav! A young painter! Not another one?
MAHLER:
Another one?
ALMA:
I already know an Oskar Kokoschka.
MAHLER:
Then it's happened already? You know, it's the most confusing
thing, getting the dates right. You followed directions then?
ALMA:
Is sang the Liebestod.
MAHLER:
Theny you did follow directions. The Lieberstod!
He closes his eyes and begins conducting with
his fingers, hardly moving, as if conjuring the
music up.
The music steals over and they begin singing
together from Act Two, Scene Two. They
move about in a ghostly fashion under
following spots.
MAHLER (cont., as TRISTAN) Must I awaken'?
ALMA (as ISOLDE) I shall not wake!'
MAHLER:
Must the dawn awaken Tristan?
ALMA:
Let the day be given to death!"
MAHLER:
'Can daylight's menaces be met SO lightly?'
ALMA:
If only we could fly from its lies!"
MAHLER:
Then the glimmer of morning would frighten us no more!'
ALMA:
'If only the night were for ever!'
The musicfades. He continues conducting
in the silence. The spots fade.


ALMA:
Gustl, a little question. How will the world see his art?
MAHLER (surfacing gently) Whose?
ALMA:
The painter's.
MAHLER (after a pause) Well, they have to acknowledge the great
somehow---even the small have to do that, somehow.
ALMA:
Great,you say!
MAHLER:
But he'll never have a social position. It's the one thing he's
dead set against. At the age of sixty he'll own no more than the
painting under his arm. (Gazing at her as she goest through a
complexity of feelings) It's difficult isn'tit?
ALMA:
Ifeel SO isolated Gustl! (As MAHLER continuesto gaze at
her---rather ironically) But tit's 1 true---!
MAHLER:
Did I say it wasn't?
ALMA:
He isolates me Gustl!
MAHLER:
Which one? Not the architect, for god's sake, with all his
forbears and retainers!
ALMA:
The painter!
MAHLER:
With armies of musicians round me and receptions and opening
nights and hectic rehearsals, contracts, appointments, with all
Vienna watching you you were isolated my child!
ALMA:
Yes! You isolated me too! Who was I compared to the great
Mahler? Isimply got his meals on time!
MAHLER:
And the painter? He's a nobody! A Czech! Vienna fails to
watch him, except to scorn him! He too isolatesyou!
ALMA:
Yes!
MAHLER:
Whenyou've finished with the architect you'll look for the
painter again---mark my wordsl--he'syour body, your life!
ALMA (urgently) Will I find him? (He doesn'treply) Oh Gustl put a good


spell on me---let me perform the role Ifeel waiting for me, if only
I knew what it was!
MAHLER rises and is about to go.
MAHLER:
Do things in their proper order. Go to your architect.
ALMA:
But he's an ordinary man, bless him, a wonderful, ordinary man
and you know I can't stand ordinary men!
MAHLER:
They don't exist if you did but know.
ALMA:
Oh Gustl I want art to come true, I ached for your music to draw
me into its life and change me, and this young man's paintings are
the same, his hands color me and touch me into life and I wish to
be changed, I don'twant the smell of coffee in the morning and
the rumbling of carriages outside, all the ordinary things of
MAHLER (with scorn) You call them ordinary---the miracles, the daily
miracles?
He begins walking off.
ALMA:
Tell me Gustl! You believe in the painter?
MAHLER (leaving, right) Ko-ko-ko-ko-ko.
She walks slowly left, off into the kitchen.
We hear her treading through the smashed
glass and crockery. A door closes. Silence.
BLACKOUT.
The sound of the bugle at the beginning of
Mahler's Fifth symphony.
We hear horses' hoofs and the rumble of a
cartfrom the street below, then the sound of
a car. And again there is silence.
The sound of a steady bombardment comes
over, accompanied by MAHLER's bugle


theme.
A terrible scream from KOKOSCHKA is
heard, off.
The light grows on the scene but remains very
dim.
KOKOSCHKA's screams turns into laughter.
He literally screams with laughter.
A WAR NURSE (played by ALMA) flits
across the scene huddled in a greatcoat with
a red cross. She goes straight to the phone
with hushed steps. The distant rumble of
gunfire continues.
NURSE:
Get me district headquarters. Hullo.
KOKOSCHKA's scream of laughter again.
NURSE (cont.) Didyou hear that? He's dying.. What?. Crying? No he's
laughing. He's been doing it all day. Yes Ifound some
champagne. Don'ttell that new girl, she gives me the pip. I've
hadfifteen dead already, I don't need her as well.
(KOKOSCHKA'slaugh again) I wish somebody would do
him in. I mean he can'treally be enjoying it.
The guns continue to rumble.
NURSE (cont, raising her voice) Is your line all right?.... There's a new
lipstick, matron was telling me, made of blood, she said, Satan's
Rouge, they're marketing it, I don't believe a word do you? I
think the old cow says these things to make us shiver.... .That's
right! And the dance orchestra, she said, the one that's coming
tonight, she said they're called the Royal Canon Fodder because
the Russians find out where they are and drop a shell right on
'em! That's why they have to be reinforced every few days, new
violins, lots of woodwind, clarinets and piccoloes.. I dreamed last
night, it made me feel very black this morning, I made love to my
father....Isaid MY FATHER, I wouldn't have minded if I'd been
underneath but I was on top and giving all the orders, it was that
officer upstairs in Ward 3, the one on the mend, I pulled the
sheets back and sat on him... What's that?... .No, in the dream!


You know, that lieutenant colonel up there who looks like my
father but this one in the dream was my father!
(KOKOSCHKA'slaugh again) Oh do shut up and die! It
shows you where my desires really lie doesn't it, and why I go for
certain men, I mean why leave home and look around if it's there
on the spot? Sometimes I wonder how anything can turn out
right if we've got these funny things going on inside us that we
know nothing about until they come up in the dead of the night, I
mean do you think it would be a thrill to sleep with yourfather or
would you feel too bad afterwards?. What's that?.... Your
father's dead? Well, that settles one of your problems, doesn't
it? Yet my mother's never been really happy with him, she never
desired him, she told me SO herself, she said she married him
because she had no choice, she said her desire to marry him was
what left her no choice, isn't that grim whenyou've got no desire
for a man? It's the same thing all over again isn'tit, funny things
happening insideyou?.. What's that?. Perhaps she wants to
sleep with herfather? Well, yes, I suppose it's a possibility
though I never thought that about my own mum. I mean Ilike to
think of her as not having any desires. But I bet she loves her
dad like I do mine, only secret. I love daddy's eyebrows though I
hate the way he slaps his hand down on the kitchen table when he
wants something, I mean I'd like to do what I did in my sleep plus
slap him hard, I'd like to whip him with his riding crop, I mean
with the lieutenant colonel's riding crop upstairs, I wouldn't mind
flaying his bare ass with it!
KOKOSCHKA appears wrapped in white,
left, at the very edge of the scene.
KOKOSCHKA (in an urgent whisper) Make love to me quick!
NURSE (screaming) He's talking! It's a ghost!
She flees, right, leaving the phone hanging.
KOKOSCHKA drifts across the scene in a
white sheet, his head streaming with blood.
We hear him singing, off, Ach du lieber
Augustin in a mournful-grotesque manner.


ACT TWO
Silence. The message is: 1918. KOKO IS
CONVALESCING FROM ALMOST FATAL
WOUNDS SOMEWHERE IN GERMANY.
It is followed by a second message: BY THE
A third massage: -ALMA DID MARRY
GROPIUS THE ARCHITECT.
The spot dies and the lights come up to
reveal KOKOSCHKA seated stage left,
facing what appears to be ALMA MAHLER
(the light is dim), who is sprawled on the
chaiselongue.
The curtains at the arch are open, revealing
the double bed.
KOKOSCHKA (quietly, watching her) Ko-ko-ko-ko-ko.
No response or movement from ALMA.
KOKOSCHKA (cont.) Ko-ko-ko.
He chuckles.
KOKOSCHKA (cont.) Nothing's easier than dying. You just lety yourself go,
like turning overin bed. Ko-ko-ko-ko-ko. ((Rising and putting
his hand on her leg, then her hip). Come my lady! Enough of
this silence! Asleep or sulking-- - -which is it?


He holds her carefully but seems none too
steady on his feet.
KOKOSCHKA (cont., reeling) Easy does it!
We see that it is A LIFESIZE DOLL OF
ALMA. Its head lolls on his shoulder.
KOKOSCHKA (cont., gazing into the doll'sface) What a
personality-- -emanating divine right wherever she goes (as they
walk to the double bed), the divine right of ever-open legs,
beautifully formed asses. Eveny your farts are a blow to the
democratic principle!
He bears THE DOLL to bed, mumbling
excitedly to himself. Then, with her on the
bed, he pulls the curtains of the arch sharply
closed.
KOKOSCHKA (off, talking to THE DOLL) There! Damn, asleep again!
He COOS to her, makes caressing noises.
Meanwhile the lights die to BLACKOUT.
His cooing noises continue, together with
sudden laughter, excited gasps, giggles.
These giggles are joined by ALMA's. We
hear them romping about on the bed, kissing,
gasping.
As they make love noisily new messages are
seen in the window.
The first message is: HE HAD THE DOLL
MADE WITH AN EYE-
The second message: TO THE UTMOST
DETAIL. IT WAS DIFFICULT--
The third message: FOR A SEAMSTRESS
TO FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS LIKE-
The fourth message: THIGHS SOFT AND


YIELDING YET RESISTANT-
The fifth message: WITHOUT BEING
The telephone rings, interrupting the love
noises.
Silence. It rings again. THE DOLL'S
HEAD appears between the curtains and
withdraws again.
KOKOSCHKA (imitating ALMA) Answer it like an angel Ko-Ko!
(In his own voice) Yes darling.
He appears, closing the curtains carefully
behind him. He limps down the steps to the
phone.
KOKOSCHKA (cont.) Hello... Yes doctor!... Quite well. A little giddy
sometimes....A tendency to stagger,yes.... What's that?
Alcohol? (Tearing open a drawer of the desk and pulling
out a bottle of wine and a glass) Well of course not
(pouring himself a glass)! Never touch it (drinking it in one
go andsmacking his lips noisily)! In fact I hate the
taste--especially wine. Iwouldn't mind a schnapps but
wine---ucch (as he pours himself another glass)!.. What's
that?...Listen, if people find it funny to see me with her at the
theatre that's their lookout isn'tit?.. .Alma Schindler..
Yes....No not Alma Mahler, she's dead....I mean, he's dead...No,
not Alma, Gustav...No, I haven'tseen her since 1915, men were
killing each other on the Russian front you remember and she
thought it an excellent occasion to get rid of me by demonstrating
patriotism for the first and last time in her life... Butyou don't
understand! She's a thousand mothers for me, a thousand sisters
and angels! Our love was an offence against nature, it broke all
laws! There'd been nothing like it since the Middle Ages... Find
my balance doctor? But she is my balance! You see I chose
the cavalry because I thought she might prefer me on a horse.
Women prefer to think of their lovers on horseback on the whole
don't they? Do you remember that painting of Alma and me
called The Tempest...Yes that's Alma and me. Well, I sold it in
the spring of 1914 and bought a horse with the money. To join
the cavalry in those days you had to have your own horse.... What?


Oh do get off that subject, it's only a totem after all.I said a
(pronouncing it in a burlesque manner) to-tem... I carry it
round as a to-tem and if people think I'm mad because I have a
hole in my head I can assure them that western civilization has a
hole far bigger than mine!
ALMA screams, off.
He drops the phone, leaving it hanging, and
stares at the arch.
Silence.
KOKOSCHKA (cont., rushing to the arch and throwing the curtains back)
Alma! Alma!
THE DOLL is lying on the bed. He rushes to
it and promptly lifts the skirt up and tries to
bend the knees. He looks round in a panic-
stricken way.
KOKOSCHKA (in a soft, rushed voice) Don'tworry! Just push darling!
Push!
He dashes back to the hanging phone.
KOKOSCHKA (cont.) Doctor, doctor, it's a delivery---I'm doing my best!
He replaces the phone and dashes here and
there in his panic. He makes a scream as if it
were ALMA's. At last he finds what he's
looking for. He pulls two small blank
canvases from the pile under the window and
rushes with them to the bed. He uses them
as supports for the doll's legs, SO that they
are bent and raised in the manner of
stirruped legs during delivery. He puts
cushions under the feet, and we are now
staring into THE DOLL's procreative area,
which is simulated with accuracy.
KOKOSCHKA (cont.) Calmly my angel, calmly! Grip the bed--here!
(Rushing to pull back her arms SO that she can hold onto
the head of the bed while pushing) There! Push! (He


screams in imitation of ALMA'sscream and at once grabs
THE DOLL'shand to comfort her) Only a moment more---a
moment! (Putting his head between her legs) I can see the
head, Alma! Only a little more! A little more and dawn will
come! (Shouting with triumph) IT'S A BOY! IT'S A BOY
and all heaven will sing in choirs---a light will fall on earth such
as men have never seen!
He comes to the top of the steps radiant.
KOKOSCHKA (cont., announcing) Oskar Kokoschka has a prince and heir!
A triumphant passage from MAHLER's
Second Symphony crashes out.
BLACKOUT. The music dies. A light grows
beyond the curtains, leaving the rest of the
set in a mellow, unreal dimness.
ALMA enters in an evening gown. She looks
everywhere. She pulls the curtains of the
arch aside. There is now no bed.
ALMA (hushed) Gustl! Gustl!
The Merry Widow waltz comes up. She
dances alone. Then MAHLER enters. They
dance together, up and down the steps of the
arch and beyond it, disappearing and then
reappearing center. It is all much like a
dream.
When the music ceases they come to a halt
center, happily out of breath. They begin
singing a snatch from the M erry Widow, he
taking the part of Danilo and she answering
him as Hanna. Here, as in the Liebestod
scene, they move about the stage and are
followed by spots.
They break off the duet with a laugh, unable
to remember any more.
ALMA (cont.) Look it up.


MAHLER:
You don't imagine I've any Franz Lehar in the house do you?
ALMA (putting her arms round him and half-dancing again) Our one
night out in fiveyears! There ought to be articles in the paper
about it. The Mahlers went to the Merry Widow, not Lohengrin
or Parsifal!
MAHLER (cont.,striding about) What an evening, eh? Iimagine it's the kind
of evening Richard Strauss has all the time. Doyou notice how
smooth everything is with him? Just two rehearsals and he gets a
marvelous performance. Rosy-cheeked relatives bustling round
him! And that happy way he has of worrying over his accounts, SO
many marks from this production, SO many schillings from that.
Then look at me---God knows how many rehearsals, all of them a
fearful tussle, the orchestras hating me, tears and calamities and
upsets! Born in a family of thirteen children---so many
deaths---having to look after the brothers and sisters who
managed to survive! Sending them money all the time
(shrugging quite gaily)!
He goes to his music at the desk. A phrase
from the Seventh Symphony comes over. He
begins composing. ALMA tiptoes off, right.
The lights fade as the music comes up strong.
There is the sound of children playing, a dog
barking in the distance.
A distant clock strikes seven. The music
fades.
MAHLER (withoutlooking up) Alma! (Noreply) Alma!
She appears, left.
MAHLER:
Is dinner ready?
ALMA:
Has it ever not been ready in this house?
He looks up, on guard.
MAHLER:
What's wrong?


She considers this in silence, gazing at him
with a certain diffidence.
ALMA:
I suppose it's the way music pours out of you. It never stops!
MAHLER:
Jealous?
ALMA (infullfury) You told me to stop composing my songs before we got
married, you said there couldn't be two composers in the house!
So your flow is stopping mine!
MAHLER (also roused) Yourflow be buggered! Doyou think I like never
being free---always some bloody theme squeezing its way into my
brain, pushing against all the others, shrieking Write me down!
Write me down quick!", night and day. at meals, at coffee, at play!
Do you think I don'tfeel dragged along by the flow until I'm
drowned and lifeless? You dare to claim thatyour bloody little
songs compare with my massive obsession? Flow indeed! It's
the trickle of a drainpipe!
ALMA (as she advances on him and he flinches back) Butyour obsession's
killing me! as well as you! (Grabbing a score from the desk)
Look at that! Songs on the death of children! What death?
What children?
A harrowing passage from the
Kindertotenlieder comes over. They
speak almost in rhythm to it.
MAHLER (shouting above the music) It's a setting on Ruckert! He lost his
child---and his child's name was Ernst---and that was my brother's
name---he died of heart disease! And Ilost nearly all the
others---eight in all! Haven'tIa right to lament?
ALMA (also shouting over the music) What about our children? Don'tyou
seeyou're tempting fate?
MAHLER (savagely, still with the music over) What do you mean?
Children die all the time! Aren't they dying while they're alive,
can'tyou see it in their eyes, the world's unfit for children, they
die I tell you, die, die, die on their feet! My children were alive
once, before they were born, but they've death in their eyes now,
like you and me! The best children go, they get out! They can't
bearacquaintance with the earth any more!


The music fades quickly.
ALMA:
That Siegfried Lipiner put you against me, didn't he? He told you
I flirted with the president of the Society of the Friends of Music
all through your Fourth symphony!
MAHLER (with a tired shrug, half looking at his scores) Why do you hate
Lipiner?
ALMA:
I admire him tremendously as a matter of fact.
MAHLER:
He doesn't think SO.
ALMA:
He never thinks. Nietzsche does it for him. He gets all his talk
out of books.
MAHLER:
It's marvelous talk though, the best in Vienna!
ALMA (turning away rather sulkily) Iflirt with everybody, not just the
president. It's a habit I have. (Bearing down on him again)
Your disgusting friends have started a campaign against me! I
still don't like your First or your Fourth, and your Third isn't all
that much better! Your music has to win me---not plough me
over!
MAHLER (in full fury again) You don't even like Verdi! Anybody who
claims to have an earand doesn't like Giuseppe Verdi has to have
his ear examined! All this stuff about 'German' music! You're
just like Cosima Wagner! Won't have me near Bayreuth because
I'm a. Jew---won't even look at my production of Tristan and
Isolde! Another Christian! What's the matter with you all?
Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists bow their heads in wonder to
Christ but not you lot!
ALMA (through pursed lips) I hope you never get to Bayreuth.
MAHLER:
Most likely Iwon't. For fifteen years I put my music in a drawer
and nobody looked at it! Isent my songs to Liszt and he returned
them with the remark that they were quite pretty in parts! And
Brahms---called my music'conductor's music'! So even the great
are deaf! Even you! You don't like my First and you don't like
my Fourth---you said it at dinner with Siegfried Lipiner there and
you made an enemy of all my closest friends---they hate you


because they love the First and they love the Fourth, and until
you understand my work you daren't callyourself a musician,
much less a composer!
She has her head bowed. He relents and
approaches her.
MAHLER (cont.) I used to rage at my mother like that.
ALMA:
I've nothing to wear, Gustl, that's why I turn down invitations!
MAHLER:
You look SO beautiful! Everybody says so!
ALMA:
But it's always the same dress!
MAHLER (returning to his work) Who are you going to marry if I die? Hans
Pfitzner, Ossip, Charpentier? There's not one of them wouldn't
drive you mad in a day. Aren'tI the safest bet in the end?
ALMA:
Not if you die! (With a sigh) What a night that was, when we
danced I had the impression we floated---you held me up---you---!
A child's cry---disturbed sleep---in the
distance.
MAHLER stares at her.
Silence.
MAHLER:
Who's that for God's sake?
ALMA:
It's Anna.
MAHLER:
It's Putzerl!
ALMA:
It's Anna I tell you! She scalded her fingers this morning.
MAHLER:
For God's sake go and see!
She leaves, left, while he watches her.
The savage phrase from the
Kindertotenlieder is repeated.


He continues to stand there, waiting tensely.
The music dies.
ALMA reappears.
ALMA:
She has a slight fever. Mummy's looking after her.
MAHLER:
Tell me about Putzerl! (Gripping her and staring close into
her eyes) The truth damn you!
ALMA:
Putzerl has a fever too.
MAHLER:
It's diphtheria.
ALMA:
Yes!
MAHLER:
And she must have a tracheotomy.
ALMA:
Yes!
She rushes off, left.
The savage passage from the
Kindertotenlieder comes over once more.
ALMA (cont., screaming, off) Gustav!
He stands trembling.
BLACKOUT as the passage from the
Kindertotenlieder dies away.
A banner is flown down again, with the words
SIGMUND FREUD'S STUDY, VIENNA,
EARLY THIRTIES.
ALMA is lying on the chaiselongue and
FREUD is behind the banner with his
Tyrolean hat.
FREUD:
In New York he was failing, you tell me?
ALMA:
Ohyes. Do you remember the Gibson girl, Dr Freud? You
would have been fascinated. Stank of money---no brains at all


but very beautiful, if that's possible. The whole of New York was
talking about her. She asked me in her limousine one day on
Fifth Avenue, what made a lovely young woman like you marry
that hideous and impossible old man? I sat in the car and talked
and talked---I tried to say all of his music as my reason for
marrying him but of course it didn't mean a thing to her. And he
wasn'told. Hardly fifty-one. He was worried I might be
yearning for a younger man. I believe he came to you with that
question, doctor.
FREUD:
It told him rubbish, she's SO much in love with her father she'll
never leave you.
A sound of rifle fire in the distance.
ALMA:
Where will you go?
FREUD:
London.
ALMA:
I have it on good authority---by the end of the year he'll be here in
Vienna.
FREUD:
Does it excite you somewhat, the settlement of arguments with
guns?
ALMA:
I think perhaps once he has what he wants he'll calm down,
become accessible to advice.
FREUD:
Is that what your priest says?
ALMA:
It'swhat Mussolini hopes.
FREUD:
You speak to Mussolini then?
ALMA:
Through his woman, yes.
A silence.
ALMA (cont.) Your way of speaking comforts me, doctor. Artists are different.
They speak with a rush, like men tossed about by waves. But
their voices go on working in people's minds after they're dead!
Aren'tyou envious? For all your world fame you can't hold a
candle to them!


FREUD:
My voice is going to die, is it? My voice but not my work. How
many people will read me? Almost no one! Take my work on
the oedipus complex--they'll prefer Hamlet because he's all of
my theory, before their eyes! You see, I had to find my way into
the market place, I had to be sure that at least my terminology
will one day enter daily speech, if not my voice, my work!
ALMA:
And how did you do it?
FREUD:
Ibecame a doctor, my dear. I declared that my work was
medical. That was a clever move don'tyou think?
ALMA:
But it is medical isn't it?
FREUD:
Exactly, exactly, a measure of my success already! (His
Tyrolean hat bobbing up and down with excitement) My
dear lady, I wrote my Hamlet in analytical terms and---well, what
theatrical management would act my work? I had to find
suitable theatres, impresarios, directors. Ifound them in
hospitals! I knew that only there would my work be given an
untouchable status SO that even people who can't read a
newspaper let alone a book would be using the words father
complex. I shall be endowed with a far more fearful authority
than Shakespeare! Happily for him, his work is still performed
by cranks and rebels and iconoclasts! Mine is going to be starved
of new and brilliant people as it becomes embalmed into a sort of
first-aid kit for the nervous! Right-wing governments will
espouse me, politicians will give me their kiss of death!
ALMA (with a thrill) Soyou have your passions---a doctor!
FREUD:
You see?---ordinary brainless people like you think of us as
scientists! You will call me a scientist one day too! And look at
medical theory. For most people it isn't theory at all, it's
absolute fact. The idea of infection having happened as a theory
in Harvey's head is the grossest absurdity for most people. This
is how my terminology is going to be---so unchallenged and
undiscussed that no one will think any more of the man who first
used it, or even realize that a man invented it at all. Even when
they debunk and attack me they will still use the terminology, the
bitterness of their attack will only prove my stature. Talking of
the father complex, I shall become the sternest father of the
century. Do you notice how the journalists photograph me
already? They will say 'those cold eyes', 'that penetrating gaze'!


They will make up stories that one look from me used to paralyze
my grandchildren with inhibitions! Imagine trying to inhibit a
Viennese, even at the age of three---in the old days not a
chambermaid in the house was safe when nurse had her day off!
ALMA:
So in the hands of doctors and hospitals your ideas are going to
be popularized, which means pulled down. Now that can't
happen to Shakespeare. You can't pull him down whateveryou
FREUD:
Wicked creature, you think of everything! I dread the
day---which is surely on its way---when a glance from a Freudian
analyst is going to be that of an inquisitor. All I can hope is that
people will return to my work for its style---which is all, in the
end, an artist has. But what a hope! (with a sigh) The
revolutionary of today becomes tomorrow's mediocrity!
ALMA:
And the whole world starts analyzing itself!
FREUD (nodding mournfully) They'll all be going on about paranoia and
repression.
ALMA:
Thank God we Viennese escaped youl---the last bearers of the
libido, free and unashamed! Doy you wonder I have SO many
lovers? When I'm dead and gone they won't know what a libido
FREUD:
They'll have to look it up in my books.
ALMA:
Or read my memoirs.
FREUD:
Except that in your memoirs you won't be honest.
ALMA:
Why ever not?
FREUD:
Because you aren'tfree and unashamed, no human libido ever
ALMA (artfully) Are you honest, doctor?
FREUD:
Iwrote my Hamlet in analytical thoughts---which is dishonest! I
put my autobiography down in the form of shamelessly objective
and impartial theory---a hundred times dishonest!


ALMA:
Analysis isn't going to be a patch on Hamlet, is it? It won't move
men to any strange thoughts.
FREUD:
Damnable woman! But I shall have my revenge! For all your
libido how you all delight in piercing each other with your knives!
And leaving the other prostrate! A kiss and a knife wound, an
embrace and blood! All in the service of the mother and father
you invented! Let an element of sex come in and there you will
find a worm nourishing itself on the death of the beloved! But
there won't be beloveds because, bowed low by ghosts, the human
mind will know no love. How exorcise ghosts when ghosts are the
exorcisers? Only my analysis will give a true picture!
ALMA:
Soyou came to witness and record the death of the human libido.
FREUD (with radiance) Wait a few years and you will see Nietzsche's
prophecies fulfilled--blood and carnage will have taken the
place of sex in man's libidinous satisfactions! That's how the
libido will roar---not in kisses and playful slaps and naughty
stares but torture and screams and houses laid flat until every
thought is criminal, every imagining cruel and bloody and bent on
harm as a ghostly game! The derelict creature will even glorify
war but in somebody else's land SO that he can read the ghostly
news of it and gloat on the pictures and terrified testimonies of it
because these will send him more secure to bed! His mind will
be drunk with every form of gleeful punishment and hate---but do
you think there will be a single creature in the world to tell them
it is due to premature ejaculation? Even the analyst won't
dare, for fear of ridicule, supposing that even he, himself a ghost,
can recall to mind the Freudian fact that a ghost can't hold it, the
sperm runs out because it takes no account of the mate at all, it
runs on its own ghostly steam in its own lurid drama which simply
requires the mate's body as a reminder to the nerves to prepare
the seminal flow. Or there is no flow at all, not a trace of life-
giving moisture! The ghost has lost all trace of body and,
yearning to find it again, dreams of drinking blood!
ALMA:
But I tasted love not blood. For a time.
A pause.
FREUD:
Are you crying?
ALMA:
You paint such a terrible picture!


FREUD (in a most mournfulmanner) You see, I looked into his eyes.
ALMA:
Whose?
FREUD:
Man's, fool.
They are silent. In the very distance a
soprano sings.
ALMA:
Oh Gustl!
FREUD:
Gustl' you say with such love! You a Christian entered the
Jewish mystery of the loins, my dear. With each kiss an ancestor
stirs, the race is born again---a solemn self-immolating sex of
sorrows begins, feasting in a place where there is no longer self or
individuality. You came among us, daughter of Rome, and tasted
ancient things, more ancient even than Rome. Render thanks for
that!
ALMA:
Isn't that a song of mine?
The singing comes up. It is a passage from
one of ALMA MAHLER's songs. As the
light fades ALMA mouths the words.
BLACKOUT. This is simultaneous with the
sound of London air-raid sirens and anti-
aircraft guns and the hum of German
bombers. The singing has gone.
A new message is revealed: ANOTHER
BLOODY WAR.
The second message: LONDON IN THE
BLITZ, 1942.
In the darkness we see a shaky flashlight
coming from the left. It is held by
KOKOSCHKA. He shines it on the easel.
He begins clearing up paints that have fallen
to the floor.
Hearing a movement, he searches round the


room with his flashlight until he finds ALMA.
She is sitting on the chaiselongue in outdoor
clothes (winter) and she has a large bag of
American Indian weave.
KOKOSCHKA (mildly) Who are you?
ALMA:
You don't recognize me?
KOKOSCHKA (peering at her, his torch still trained on her) Have you
been bombed out? Are you from the Dorchester Hotel?
(Approaching her with the flashlight still trained on her)
My wife and I can put you up. It's dangerous here, we should go.
He stands close to her.
KOKOSCHKA (cont.) How did you get in? By the roof?
ALMA:
Not even my voice do you recognize!
KOKOSCHKA (recognizing her) Good god! An old lady at last! What made
you come here?
ALMA:
They told me this was where you lived.
KOKOSCHKA: Wrong. Ionly paint here. What are you doing in London for
God's sake? You're not the type to risk your life!
ALMA:
A quick, secret visit.
KOKOSCHKA: To see me? That's impossible!
ALMA:
You know, at my age, one may as well be an enigma---it's a way of
creating interest.
KOKOSCHKA (going to the window) I'll fix the blackout.
ALMA:
And when there's light I'll ask you not to look too closely.
KOKOSCHKA: Are you SO hideous?
ALMA:
Age is. It could give you a shock to think that---
KOKOSCHKA: I see inside.


ALMA:
Oh don't do that---it's even worse! (As KOKOSCHKA works
at the curtains) What were you grovelling about on the floor
for?
KOKOSCHKA: Picking my paints up. It happens all the time. Last week the
windows blew in.
Having fixed the blackout he turns on a dim
desk light. Even against this degree of light
she hides her face.
KOKOSCHKA (cont.) We'll give you some dinner by the way. My wife loves
legends. Any news of Vienna?
ALMA:
None. I close my ears to it.
KOKOSCHKA (sitting at his easel) Karl Kraus always said the Viennese
would never take to Nazism, I told him they'd take to it like
leeches. Weren'tyou a Nazi too, under the influence of that
damned priestyou fell in love with?
ALMA:
He's in a concentration camp. Also I was more of a fascist. I
had long idealist discussions with Mussolini's mistress.
KOKOSCHKA: While your husband dreamed about world bolshevism.
ALMA:
That's right.
KOKOSCHKA: A darling man, though.
ALMA:
Who---Mussolini?
KOKOSCHKA: Your husband, the novelist.
She makes no reply.
KOKOSCHKA (cont.) You don't mean to say you've left him as well!
ALMA:
Ihappen to love him. That's another thing one is obliged to do at
my age.
A bomb falls in the distance and shakes the


building.
KOKOSCHKA (cont.) Iwas really fighting for you on that dear horse of mine.
While you were screwing Gropius.
ALMA:
While my young self was screwing him.
KOKOSCHKA: Oh do get off your age.
They sit in silence. There is sporadic anti-
aircraft fire.
KOKOSCHKA (cont.) Now we have the holy trinity of Churchill, Roosevelt and
Stalin. Would you tell me how a good world could grow out of
that trio?
ALMA:
They think they're fighting the devil.
KOKOSCHKA: You can't beat the devil. I'm a catholic, not a Christian, SO I
know about the devil.
ALMA:
Iti figures. You used to be one.
She is rummaging in her bag.
KOKOSCHKA (cont., watching her) Shall I get you something to drink?
ALMA:
I've brought my own.
She pulls a bottle of Benedictine and a glass
out of her bag and sets them on the coffee
table.
KOKOSCHKA: How can you bear that sickly stuff?
ALMA (pouring herself a glass) Ithink it must be the color.
She drinks with satisfaction.
KOKOSCHKA (cont.) Talking of Benedictine, there'sa Benedictine monk
called Macnab who lives round the corner. He goes wherever a
bomb falls and he comforts the people and always has a kindly
peaceful smile. These Londoners adore him. Ilearned the
other day he's dying of cancer of the tongue. So he can't


eat---starving to death. So I count myself lucky.
She drinks again, having absorbed little of
what he has said.
KOKOSCHKA (cont.) Thanks for sending the food parcel to my brother by the
way.
ALMA:
Is he alright?
KOKOSCHKA: He's not in Hitler's army, anyway. (With a suddensharp look
at her) Do they haunt you? your dead?
ALMA:
Ikeep off the subject. Death's contagious, even the mention of
it. (Drinking) I never went to theirf funerals, you know---not to
Mahler's or any of the children's.
KOKOSCHKA: You lost two?
ALMA:
Three.
KOKOSCHKA: When we met by accident in Venice in 1926 I told myself your
figure had gone and that helped me a lot.
ALMA:
Everybody in Hollywood's asking why don'tyou come to the
States instead of this doomed country? They'll be finished even
if they win. Anyway, they're philistines. They exhibited your
finest oils in 1928 and didn'ts sell a single one!
KOKOSCHKA: I came here with a half a painting under my arm and ten pounds
sterling in my pocket and above all my beloved wife. Socrates
said 'integrity of mind is all that counts'. I haven't turned my
back on the Germans either. I did well in Germany. They were
the first to recognize me. They were starved and degraded and
humiliated after the first war more than any people should be,
and the result was that goose-stepping clown---a Viennese one at
that!
ALMA is watching KOKOSCHKA with
interest.
ALMA:
Irememberyour mother threatened to kill me if I didn't give you
up---she got hold of a revolver---do you remember how frightened
Iwas?


KOKOSCHKA: I think she was the more frightened.
ALMA:
Rubbish. She thought I was corrupting you.
KOKOSCHKA: So you were.
ALMA (busy with her drink) How do you keep your youthful look? When we
met in Venice that time you looked like a boy, and you were forty.
I thought who's he sweating out his vices onto now?
The all-clear sounds.
ALMA:
What's that?
KOKOSCHKA: The air raid's over.
They sit musing in the silence.
KOKOSCHKA (cont.) Do you remember how the horses' hoofs sounded on the
cobbles, and footsteps in the courtyards, and snatches of
conversation echoing between the windows on a lazy summer
night? And the wells with their ropes and buckets, and the way
all our drinking water came to the house in great barrels on carts
drawn by huge Pinzgauers? And the muslin nets across the
windows against insects. The horsedung gyou could smell from
inside the cafés..
ALMA:
We were happy in Semmering. Do you remember the fresco you
did over the fireplace? Butyou horrified us with your behavior
over Gustav's death mask. The moment it came in the house you
were the devil incarnate. You said Gustav was foreign' to me
and all that silliness.
KOKOSCHKA: Do you expect good sense from a lover?
ALMA:
I hope you learned something.
KOKOSCHKA: I did.
ALMA:
What?
KOKOSCHKA: That a modern woman won't fight for the love of her life if the
going gets hard.


She seems not to hear this, gazing upward.
KOKOSCHKA (cont., rising) I'll get you some tea. You drink it?
ALMA:
I think I did once.
KOKOSCHKA (going left to the kitchen) My wife's expecting me for dinner.
I'll take you along in a few minutes. (Stopping) He won'tl live
long.
ALMA:
Who?
KOKOSCHKA (leaving, left) Your husband.
ALMA:
He'svery sick.
KOKOSCHKA (off) Weak as Mahlerwas! Do you notice a theme?
ALMA (handkerchief to eyes, hardly audible) Oh do be quiet!
We hear KOKOSCHKA moving about in the
kitchen, getting cups and saucers, putting the
kettle on etc.
ALMA looks round her, drinks.
ALMA (cont.) You never went in for studios did you Ko-ko? None of that
rubbish about the northern light and a room upstairs to fornicate
KOKOSCHKA (off) I call it my library.
She gets up and walks a little.
ALMA (turning toward the kitchen to address him) You used to make love
like you paint (with a satisfied little laugh)---such close
attention to detail!
KOKOSCHKA (off) Do you like it weak or strong?
Again her mind seems concentrated on
something else.


ALMA (surfacing) Ratherweak! I'm used to American coffee now.
KOKOSCHKA (off) This is tea!
ALMA:
KOKOSCHKA (off) You aren't going gaga already are you?
She makes no reply, still thinking of other
things.
ALMA:
Ib burned all the letters I ever wrote---to Gropius, Mahler, you,
Werfel.
KOKOSCHKA (off) Idiot!
ALMA:
Far too incriminating for a woman! I wasn't prepared either to
expose myself or pass on my secrets, if you see what I mean.
KOKOSCHKA (off, moving about) You sound like a dowager!
ALMA:
Did you know I went to Berlin while I was still married to the
second one---looked for you everywhere and couldn'tfindyou?
Doyou remember how you used to sign yourself 'Alma Oskar
Kokoschka' when you wrote to me? (Chuckling) What a fool!
She walks about restlessly.
ALMA (cont.) People say I have diabetes. But I always remind them that
diabetes is a Jewish disease SO it's out of the question. (Holding
up her glass) I wonder if it's the name that attracts me?
Perhaps I should have married a monk. That priest you
mentioned didn't turn out very well. He left the priesthood and
started a family---after telling me I was the first and last woman
of his life. Iseem to have started a taste in him, don'tl?
She sits again, sighs and closes her eyes.
ALMA (cont.) Do you remember that telegram you sent me saying we would
always be together in that picture of yours? A little
uncomfortable, I thought.
The kitchen noises continue.


MAHLER puts his head between the arch-
curtains, behind her, right.
MAHLER (quietly, a little apologetically) Alma.
ALMA looks round and gazes at him for
some time.
ALMA (also quietly) Gustl---can you believe it? I've just been talking to the
Prince Rudolph--you remember Prince Rudolph?---and he wants
a child by me.
MAHLER (still largely behind the curtains) And what did you say?
ALMA:
I said that's asking a lot at the age of eighty-five isn't it?
MAHLER (walking softly down the steps) I don't agree. Not at all. Infact
P'll take you straight to him.
ALMA (delighted) You will?
MAHLER:
He's been a neighbor of mine for some time.
ALMA rises to greet him.
ALMA (suddenly almost in tears) Gustav!
MAHLER (taking her hand gently) Courage.
The kitchen noises cease.
She quietens with his touch. They both look
out right, waiting, she with great anguish,
trembling.
She gasps, trying to withdraw, as a trolley
slides into view from the right with THE
DOLL on it, its head appearing first. It
comes to a halt before them as they face
downstage.
He holds ALMA firmly.
They gaze down at THE DOLL, standing


close together.
MAHLER (cont.) It was diabetes by the way.
The sound of flames licking into the air
comes from the right, simultaneously with a
burst of bright red and yellow light. It is a
roaring furnace and ALMA, but not
MAHLER, is inclined to turn away from the
brightness.
MAHLER (cont., indicating THE DOLL) Doyou remember that photo
when she was a child---with her mother and sister---she had to
bend over sideways and peer into the lens and spoil the picture
didn'tshe? Had to investigate everything! Perhaps these will
help her now.
He takes off his glasses and puts them on
THE DOLL's face. The trolley slides
noiselessly off right into the flames.
The flames die. Silence.
MAHLER (cont.) Shall we go?
ALMA:
He leads her to the steps. They walk with
incredible lightness.
MAHLER (as he leads her up the steps) Alma Mahler-Kokoschka would have
sounded quite dramaticwouldn'tit? But---(with a shrug)!
He stops.
MAHLER (cont.) And what a funny coincidence that Mahler should be the
German for painter.
He pulls the arch-curtains briskly aside.
The bed has gone. Instead there is a banner,
colorfully designed, with the words
LIBERTE EGALITE FRATRICIDE in bold
block capitals across it, with bright red


flames round it in the KOKOSCHKA
manner.
She stops when she sees it.
ALMA:
What's that?
MAHLER:
It's Koko's motto for modern life.
ALMA:
When will he die?
MAHLER:
1980. He'll be ninety-six. It's his smoking you see. Otherwise
he'd live his full span.
She stops again.
ALMA:
And whatever happened to Dr Freud?
MAHLER:
He was saying to me only the other day, What I now realize about
my not believing in God is that it simply expressed my father
complex'. Rather neatly put, don'tyou think?
ALMA:
I don'tunderstand.
MAHLER:
Hating his father SO much he denied his existence.
ALMA:
Ahyes! And where is the father?
MAHLER:
Oh. He doesn't exist.
They walk on, holding each other close,
passing slowly under the banner. The Merry
Widow waltz comes up.
The lights dim and the banner is the last
message to be seen (under the spot):
LIBERTE, EGALITE, FRATRICIDE.
Just before BLACKOUT a spot remains on
the one word FRATRICIDE.