Herzl Comedy Therapy by Dr. Meshiah
/Edited by Geo Cosmos Kex-Qu’emetti/
Cast (played by 2 real actors and they are also giving their voice to two puppets)
Mr. Hans Israel male 45 -65. Estranged Husband of Mme Palestina. Project Manager. /Only a Head/Mask/
Madame Palestina female 45 – 65. Lady. Estranged wife of Mr. I. Intellectual. Introverted. /Only a Head Mask/
Miss America female 25 -45. Gouvernante. BusINAss manager. Extroverted. Real actress
Rudi Europe male 25 -45. Tourist. Challenged. Real actor.
(This text stems from „Karoly Drugeth” a pseudonyme from 1902…it is beginning with the scene leading up to the „Fugitive” of Herzl. Edited by a descendant, Geo Cosmos Kex-Qu’emetti)
Scene: a therapy Institute – on the balcony. Palms, mirrors, canapés.
Two ladies and two young men sleeping…
On the beds or chairs on the Institute terrace we see three jackets with Red X-letters on their back (like the Sonderkommando jackets in the Son of Saul...hinting at the fact that ressurection happens in Auschwitz=Hell and also a hint to our gesture of „Hommage á Saul/Röhrig”
Messiah Rabbi (only his Voice):
Ladies and Gentlemen in the name of the Doctor Messiah Rehabilitation Therapy Institute I am welcoming you on board! As I am perusing our Client’s List…You are Frederic the Great from Prussia, ressurected…and you…Madame, yes, Queen Christina from before hundred years …welcome, Sire…and my best wishes to you too, Empress Elisabeth!
Frederic:
I protest! I do no want to be ressurected! And certainly not by a Jew!
Messiah Rabbi:
This inner struggle has been overcome in the last centuries – everyone loves everyone…They have invented the technique of the saving on nano-computer of the brain and so Eternal Life is here…willy-nilly…That is why you are here…You will be asked to participate in a small theatrical play in which you will be informed about the most important event: namely that Jews have created a state for themselves…Because the coming of the Meshiah (myself) has a precondition: the other people must accept the Jews. And they must accept themselves to live an Eternal life. …
Christian. i do not want to live forever! I do not want to change!
Rabbi:
This musical comedy will have hopefully some healing effect.
Frederic:
I do not want to heal.
Rabbi:
It was written by a journalist called Theodor Herzl, who while writing this comedy was told by a friend , that the protagonists should be given names by calling them the name of the great powers - the area of their ancestors.
Frederic:
I was always told that the problem with them – or with you, Rabbi, I am sorry – is that you do not even believe there exists a Massiah or Christ in Greek! You even killed him!
Christina:
Oh, but this is just a lie that has been diffused everywhere like the blood libel…Those who were Candidate Messiahs were many times killed by the wordly authorities, yes…But a t the Real Coming – like now – everyone loves everybody else, so there is no Jew-hatred any more ..and this is the period when the Dead are Ressurected..Like us here…If these two preconditions are not present – then the Age is not yet ripe for the Coming of the Messiah.
Frederic (wants to embrace the Messiah): Okay, I…I am able to… I feel that…I am sorry, I am in love with you.
Messiah Rabbi: (tries to stay away)
Unfortunately you are
unable to embrace me as I do not have a body as yet!
Frederic: ( tries to hug him harder)
No! Impossible!
Messiah Rabbi: (pulling away his head /a mask depicting messianic figures,
like actor Geza Röhrig from the movie Son of Saul or Herzl himself and the
Rebbe of Lubavich/ )
Well, we will have to
discuss in what way you may be able to help me in my building up a body so that
I indeed may appear to people!
Frederic: ( crying in pain)
You do not have a body? (he sits down on the canapé/couch)
Christina:
Ah, it will not be an easy task…I doubt I will be good for my role…I am not any more that demonic woman who would be needed here…Would it not be possible to bring to life another ancestress of ours? Or a descendante? Like Sissy, The Empress of Austria?
Frederic
Yes, I believe in Sissy too…A decendante of ours…She had such beautiful hair…She broke down after the suicide of her son…although she did not care for him before…Christina, we had common ancestors, I remember your legends…you did kill your lover, is that true? I was worried about that to tell you the truth.
Christina:
Anyway I hear you are attracted by other men…or father figure. That is why you were worried when hearing about me executing that traitor Monaldeschi.
Sissy (waking up on the couch):
What is happening …Where are we now?...So Eternal Life exists ? I never believed in this…
Christina:
This is the Ressurection Institute. The Messiah is in the process of ressurrecting us, because we are the Three Kings who Speak Hebrew…Obviously, he is using this language. It is just logical that he needs us, when he tries to ressurect everyone else, and we will be the Hebrew teachers of those coming after us.
Sissy:
Oh…But I only knew one word…
Rabbi:
But that is the most important word…the Verb To be! Yeah-How-We …it rhymes to these words and means Futurator!
Frederic:
Oh I am quite astonished…in my former life…I mean before I got ressurrected…I was unable to even look at the women around me…And now this Rabbi here says I will have to go to therapy…So I better say I do see your beauty now…
Sissy: Therapy? What kind of therapy? They want to change me? There was only one person I could love…Catherine Schratt…I organized everything so as to everyone should believe she is the mistress of Franz Joseph…
Frederic:
I remember, my father was a Jew-hater…and my best friend, Voltaire also…But in spite of this, I do not know anything real about Jews…But I do hear that you, Sissy, you even went to visit them in their Synagogues…And you, Christina, you had as teacher the master of the great philosophe, Spinoza, who was thaught also by your teacher, Menashe ben Israel…
Sissy:
I only know about Spinoza, that he claimed that the Creator is none other than Nature…He was the favorite of Heine, whom I loved so much…We should help to ressurrect them too…But I wonder if the fact of his family’s conversion to Christianity will be a stumbling block in his ressurrection?
Christina:
Oh I read in this brochure about our Institute that they will try to ressurect those Rabbis, who were our contemporaries back in our lifetime, the one who could have been the Messiah then, if we – people living back then – would have been doing everything to make peace among us…between the Jews and other people…The Yeah-Holders (to give them this rhyming name ) their Rabbis are able to see the Future…Maybe my Rabbi will tell me something about my future…They do have a weekly melody that can be found in the contemporary Operas…which we Kings have sung too…
Rabbi:
And the rule is that the Messiah will be given the Body Parts of that contemporary Rabbi of yours in order to appear before the people…And those Body Parts appear in the text of the Operas that are found coincidental with the Weekly Bible Melody…You must know that the Bible has a special Code that uses Body Part Images…Some scientists have discovered that infants in their first months make correspondances between Body Parts and Parents…If they see the earth they think it is the Back of Daddy…or seeing the sky they imagINA that it is the Breast of Mummy…
Sissy:
So the goal of our Ressurection is to make peace with our forgotten unknown contemporary Rabbi?
Christina:
My rabbi was Menashe ben Israel, who has persuaded Cromwell to let the Jews return to England…as they are the Holders of the Future…
Sissy
My contemporary Wonder Rabbi was called Yosef Yitzhak, he was the son of the Lubavitcher Rebbe – and he was accompanying his father to Professor Freud the inventor of Psycho-Analysis, because he had doubts. Just having a Midlife Crisis.
Frederic:
That is a kind idea that he will introduce me to a rabbi Contemporary of mine…I wonder…I think he was called the Baal Shem Tov…The Owner of the Good Name…As the name of God Yeah-How-We means Future and the only word rhyming to it is Love – Yohev…Anyone having this knowledge is able to create love in his heart…from nothing..without any cause…As the name of the Creator is then following his desires…
Rabbi:
You seem to be a bit worried, Sire…to meet a few Rabbis…They are not yet present in our Institute…If he would be here he would maybe be too afraid from Ressurected Past Kings…who used to be rather cruel with Jews sometimes…First of all we should see which Body Part of my Rabbi Ancestors I should be asking from them…To choose those Body Parts we have to listen to some melodies…For this we need a play in which music has a crucial role…The Fugitive – this comedy of Herzl, the founder of the State of Israel is just such a play.
Christina:
Oh yes…Another Melody each week…And we do know now that we inherit hormonally some of the emotions of our ancestors…And during the yearly Bible reading the weekly melodies are always repeated each year around the same date…So we just have to search for important historic dates….Am I mistaken?
Rabbi /Voice/:
No, You are right Madame..or Sire? But you have abandoned your Throne…So yes, each weekly melody can be coupled with a stress constellation in different historical situations: and we will use the 50-years cycles of the so called Jubilee or Yovel Years…These cycles help us to filter the endless flow of data… Obviously my great grandfather used this technique to imagine the Past – as Past Kings decisions influence whole generations, it is enough to see the constellations in each 50 years
We know that the Jews must pray each day that the Messiah should arrive that very day…And so in each generations they do have a family traditionally stemming from the Davidic House, and one of their rabbis are regarded as a Potential or Candidate Messiah. I think today it is the Lubavitcher Schneerson family who is considered to be this messianic family. And this Legend is getting ever stronger sincet he Eighteenth Century.
Christina:
Yes, the Rabbi Yeshuah – called also Jesus - was also a well-meaning Potential Meshiah, like all the others in each generation. But heir presence is not a fantasy, it is a physical presence. In all generations. We only keep it fantasy as the Eternal Life will be a future age when dead people get ressurected.
Frederic:
But this is just a-changing…I hear scientists are working on it. They have invented the principle of some technique to deep-freeze the brain. So it will not be so difficult to imagine something that is acceptable for Jews and Christians and Muslims too. To accept that the Saviour, or Soter in Greek, Jesus in Latin, or Yeshuah in Hebrew, the Mahdi of the Muslims…The Maytriah Buddha is always present…It may be the most famous appearance in the legend about Pilate…but he is present in each generation. Is that true?
Rabbi / Messiah:
Yes, we must imagine this very concretely, realistically.
My great grandfather thought that he is able to reconstruct what each generations’ Messhiah Candidate Rabbi has heard as a child about the historic stresses caused by the Kings in his age…and to what Body Parts these stresses were joined to…and what were the melodies to heal those wounds in the soul.
Sissy:
Oh, this is almost like looking into the heads of people in the past! Freud has been speaking about that too…that a child always joins in fantasy each object with a Body Part and with a Family Member…So the Way of Healing, Therapy as they called it, comes about when we close our eyes and in our dreams we see a certain body part and as we are talking about our dream and we are moving our eyes…our stress is diminishing for some unknown reason.
Rabbi:
My great grandfather gave us the task when we were little children, to play a game in which he mentioned two historical figures and we had to tell what binds them together. Generally not many people know that an ancestor of the Hungarian family Szapolyai was (through the Polish-Lithanian Yagellos) an ancestress of all the European Kingly families: the English Windsors, the French Bourbons, the Habsburgs and the Swedish Wasa family and the German Hohenzollerns (and their relatives the Russian Romanovs) all are related to this Barbara Szapolyai, the daughter of the PalatINA of King Matthias of Hunyadi…the sister of King John of Zapolya.
Christina:
In essence you are claiming that each family is related to each other’s ancestral family? As these Kings are stemming all from the Biblical Davidic House as legend says…And the leading wonder Rabbis also …whom the belivers are considering to be the Messiah…they are all related…And they all have an influence reaching all their subjets…So we all inherit certain historical constellations…which are regularly quoted in melodies that are repeated year in year out…and if we close our eyes…we see Body Parts appearing…which come from those Biblical melodies that are coinciding with Opera Songs. So it seems we all survive twice in each century a Potential Messianic Coming…?
Rabbi:
Yes, and my great grandfather told me, that this 50 years Cycle List of the Yobel Years (or Jubilees) is important because when the Messiah will be really arriving after the Ressurection will be possible…then obviously he will use this List to elect the very first Resurrecting Kings. They will ressurect together with their mistakes…so they will be healed by his hands’ touching. This is why the Meshi Ah means in Hebrew: Touch Me Bro…
Christina:
How interesting! So our ancestors are kind of sleeping in us…and they may be awaken as we encounter an image or a vision or a sound…or a touching. These ancestral hormones are awaken by our present environment.
Frederic:
These hormones were called secretions in my age…I think. But then it is a great question which secreted hormone will dictate me at a given situation, like a demon? Or dibook.
Rabbi:
Our Jewish ancestors were impacted by the Non-Jewish Kingly ancestors, their contemporaries…Their tragedies, traumatic stresses are the ones that are a hindrance to the Coming of the Eternal Age of Love arriving as the messianic Age. The cousins of Queen Christina’s descendant was Frederic the Great – all stemming from this Polish-Hungarian aristocratic family / the Szapolyai-Báthory-Rákóczy-cfamily/, who were all very impulsive and anger-prone soldiers. So when the Messiah will ressurect them, he must first hel their souls.
Christina:
Now I wonder…Maybe that is why I am feeling sudden surges of anger at the sight of trivial things?
It is such a shame how angry and venomous I was against men…Maybe I was angry at my Father really who left me home and went to war…maybe I converted to Catholicism, because there is a heavenly Mother image there…in contrast to the Lutheran view of only a stern Father. I feel sorry now for what I did with that poor Monaldeschi, imagining he was a traitor and Iet him executed… Am I right, you claim that for these mistaken deeds and feelings I have to stay here in your Therapy Institute?
Sissy:
Oh…and me…Always idolizing women…without real reciprocated love! That I could feel only for a woman…
Frederic:
I believe we are in soul brotherhood. I did the same with men. I am full of shame for this. But I do not want any therapy for this. It does not work anyway. I have heard that after the Meshiah has arrived the old taboos and forbidden thing will not stay valid. Why cannot I just love you…we were always encouraged to love Jesus, the Meshiah. Please I want to embrace you.
Rabbi:
As for me I come from a mixed heritage family. So I do feel this wild greed and demanding coveting wants…not only the calm balanced Rabbi ancestors are inherited in my hormone stucture. …But…I do not have body as yet…so how could I heal your compulsive demands?
Christina:
Sure, if we regard the past we all have evidently mixed ancestors from many different people.
And it gets decided in a concrete situation whether our peaceful or warrior ancestors get the majority in the inner voting machine.
On the level of secretions. If men or women will become important in our life.
Sissy:
We cannot know for sure, who tries to influence us this way and when. Maybe for the infant level it is the vision of Body Parts that counts – or touch which means parental acceptance. I heard that had clapping also secretes oxytocsin which denotes acceptance. And this is also causing hormone level changes of feelings and outlook.
Rabbi:
Well, if it is like this, then we should perform a theatrical play in order to get some hand clappings.
My great grandfather told me, that there are statistics about how many body part images are depicted prevalently in a specific historical period. He was looking for the melodies of each 50 year cycle , generally in operas because they were always watched by the Kings. They knew those melodies. The Body Parts are the Breast, the Back or Behind…Ear and Eye…these are mentioned most frequently…both in the Bible and in Operas. The Biblical and the Operatic songs are melting together in the air and they are influencing in a pacifying way on a hypnotic level the particular genaration in eah cycle.…That is how we are progressing step by step from Barbarism to Civilization.
And as you see, I do not have a body as yet. So when we find a Biblical Weekly Melody coinciding with an Opera Melody we can look at the period and the contemporary Kings and the Messianic Rabbi…And I must ask him to borrow my a Body Part of him – whith the cloning techniques available this will not cause pain for him after ressurection.
Frederic:
I really would like to play in that comedy you were mentioning. After all we must get acquainted with the great changes in the feelings of our people since we have departed…
Christina:
The biggest single change is that Christians have come to the insight that they are the Younger Brother of Jews. And they have helped to implement the prophetic dream of a man called Theodore Herzl, who has foreseen the establishment of a State of Israel in the ancient sites of the Bible.
Sissy :
Oh I have met him! It was at the marriage of the Rotschild of London in Vienna with a Hungarian Jewish gentry lady , a friend of mine ! Such a beautiful Jewish ceremony, performed by the Rabbi of Oradea, or Várad! I think his name was Kexkemett or something like that… And this Rabbi has told me there is a circle of people who think that this Herzl is a prophet and his comedies are coded messages about the fate of Mister Madame Palestine, and Mister Europe and Madame America….
Rabbi:
Yes, he does have a play with these four people having coded names…It is intituled „The Fugitive”. So as we will perform it we will have an inner transformation, that is why theatre has a therapeutical effect both on the performers and the viewers.
Christina:
Oh yes, I have heard about that… It was called psychodrama by Moreno in Paris in the XXth century…
Sissy:
Yes…and in Berlin it was called Family Setup…by someone called Hellinger. Because our ancestral stresses have an impact But in this version we only look at the Leaders – because our ancestors stresses are partly caused by the contemporary evil leaders…Like the Kings having a common Zapolya ancestor…and the all having a legendary Davidic ancestor who are related to the imagined Meshiah of the Future.
Rabbi:
Yes. People belong to clusters – the subjects of the Leaders of course are related in fantasy with their Kings and also with their Rabbis…
Frederic:
I remember my childhood when I wanted to escape from home from the Kingly Palace with one of my best friend servants, Hans…And my kingly father’s soldiers… they have killed him…and I was put into this prison …My father never accepted me…he was only interested in playing around war games with his chosen Two meter long body guards. I felt like a prisoner. And I always have felt this demand of closeness with a Father Figure…You, Herr Rabbi, you also give me this feeling, I so wish to be embraced…
Rabbi:
So we have to build up my body…For that goal we are fortunate to have Herzl’s play a musical element. Mr Israel and Madame Palestina and the other pair Mr Europe and Miss America want to hide their love affair from before the others. So the men are hiding in the rooms of Madame Palestine behind the curtains or in the neighbouring flat…And the only way to call them (when the other woman is not at home) is by the sound of playing on the piano. And they play popular arias of Operas…So we have our tool of Time Travel by the List of Rabbi Kexquemetti…of the Coincidental Melody List Constellations of Kings and Rabbis…and the opera texts have hints of Body Parts of the contemporary Rabbis we will have to ressurect after the play.
Here we begin to read from the text of Herzl’s „The Fugitive”.
Mr. Israel is the name that was in the original a Mr. Gedits (which means in Hungarian the Glory of the Jews). He is the not-yet-divorced but chased-away husband of Mrs. Palestine, /played by Queen Christina/ whose rooms we are seing on scene. Mr Israel (seeing Mrs Palestine depart for a ball secretly enters the room and hides behind a carpet – we always only see his head…/he is played by the Messhianic Rabbi./ Her maid servant, Miss America /played by Empress Sissy/ is secretly awaiting Mr. Europe (in the original Baumann)/played by King Frederic/ , from the neighbouring flat.
They are using the piano to signal their respective secret partners…They play parts of Operas – from Aida and Fidelio and Admetos of Haendel. Belonging to the ages of Sissy, Frederic and Christina.
We are following the scenes in which Madame Palestine leaves for a Ball. (But she feels mistrust toard the servant Miss America and wants to return early to see her with her supposed suitor, Mr. Europe, who indeed comes /played by Frederic the Great./
(In the opening scene we see the landlady, Madame Palestine who prepares with the help of her parlor maid – Miss America - to depart to a fancy Ball…
But we see America feigning a headache to pressure her to depart quickly. She expects someone and when her landlady goes out she quickly plays a signal on t,he piano to her lover who is in the neighbouring flat…but it prompts the landlady to also want to play a short melody…Which would be a false signal- the servante wants to keep her visits a secret.)
The Players are told like by the Rabbi like a Presenter :
You, Queen Christina you will be playing Palestine von Gerdits – take this Muslim garb…
And you, dear Sissy, your name is America Baumann, the parlor maid (USA-clothing)
Frederic the Great you will play the role of Rudi von Europe ( with European symbols, like a Nazi arrow cross and a Soviet star)
I myself will play the former husband of Ms. Palestine , Israel Hans von Gerditz-et (with some Jewish clothing, like a taless, a prayer shawl)
First scene.
A room in the flat of Mrs. Gerdits, Palestina
(Gerdits in Hungarian means the Honor of Jews.)
America (played by Sissy, ont he left in the forefront, with a wet cloth on her front, talking to herself):
Sge still does not want to depart. Please,go, I am awaiting my secret friend. (Loudly:) Mylady!
As Sissy she is asking: Really, I am called America, the parlor maid of Mrs. Palestina?
PALESTINA: (Christina is sitting, glaring at the window.):
What do you wish, Miss America?
As Christina, aside: So, I have to play a Muslim, Mrs Palestina.
AMERICA:
Seven is past. If you do not want to be too late at that party, Mylady…
PALESTINA: (standing up, comes to the forefront to the right.)
Party! As if it would not be completely all the same for me! I really woul prefer to just stay at home. This is my home. hy should i not stay? Do you have anything against it?
(As Christina: So I am having some doubts…Maybe they want to send me away? )
AMERICA:
(Aside) Yes. I need this place for me and my friend.
I only wanted to say: due to my migraINA you should not miss that wonderful party, mylady! Oh…It really is painful now. (She sighs). i will put some cold water cloth on it when you went away, mylady!
/We her from a loudspeaker seeing the incription/: Woodrow Wilson: “America has the endless prerogative to fulfill its Fate by Saving the World.
Sissy: So I want to occupy this place?
PALESTINA
It seems almost as if you would want to send me away from my home?
AMERICA
What an idea! (Aside:) She might somehow feel my goal? How I would want to own her place? (Loud: ) I just thought you never go to parties.
PALESTINA:
NeverI never go to such entertaining places. (Sits down.)
AMERICA
You never go away you never meet anyone! But you are hurting yourself by this.
PALESTINA:
What could I do in my situation? For Him..for him it is easier. But he made the mistakes. And I am angry at him, because I chased him away.
AMERICA
You mean your husband, Mylady?
PALESTINA
No he is not my husband anymore. For me he does not exist any more.
AMERICA:
And your husband…was he a kind gentleman? Mr. Israel Von Gerditz?
PALESTINA:
Yes. he had such a well-meaning, sonsorous voice, and such warm eyes and such illoyal heart, that criminal! Once upon a time we even loved eah other.
Christina: Is it true that Muslims were on good terms with Jews. Interesting…Maybe once in Andalus.
AMERICA:
And now? Where does he live?
PALESTINA:
I think he is traveling around in Europe and America. Oh, he still goes to parties like before…My only consolation is that cannot settle with me here, and cannot marry either, he cannot make another girl unhappy. So I do not let him divorce me. I just send back his letters without opening them. To me there is no way back for him. I am not forgiving and he knows that too well. I am among those, who never commit any crime, and never forgive others for it.
As Christina: Cerainly not to Jews.
AMERICA:
And you are grieving all along your life?
(From the neighbour’s flat we hear the sound of a piano.) /Verdi: Aida /
(Nervously aside:)
My partner has given me the signaling tone (She pretends to have an acute headache.) Oh, my!
PALESTINA:
(Standing up slowly.) Do you hear it? In the neighbouring flat someone is playing the piano. It was a melody from the Aida...Maybe a young couple? The man is gazing into the blue cloud of a cigar as the woman plays the piano. Where have all those time gone, when I could be happy with my partner too? The woman is playing along.
AMERICA:
What woman?
PALESTINA:
Obviously his wife.
AMERICA: (smiling)
Really?
PALESTINA: (out, left, steps to the pianino.)
AMERICA: (tries to block her.) Oh, please, do not play just now, your Ladyship, I am begging you…Excuse me, but I do have a terrible headahe….(Aside) I want her to go away and so we can own this territory..(Loud) But you were prepared to go to the Ball, Madam! it will be so nice ! And we hear the Aida just now from over the wall!
You know it was first performed in 1871. Emperor Franz Josef and his wife met just then on t he Riviera in the Villa of the Rotschilds, their friends. They probably had some quarrel…because they did not particpate at the festivities in Cairo. The premiere was postponed several times, as in France there was the uprising of the workers called „Commune”. They have chased Napoleon the Third. And the great-great-nephew of Frederic the Great, William the First became Emperor in Germany, with Bismarck as his Chancellor. It was the 16th birthday of Rimbeaud the poet, who was invited to live with the family of VerlaINA, his mentor in Paris. And this was the year when Marcel Proust the writer was born. And we can now listen to this Aria: „the Road of Napata”
PALESTINA: (aside) There is something behind this.
The Road of Napata from the Aida…But is is the very same melody that…
Thrugh the window we see the head of Mr. Israel (Von Gedits) /payed by the Messiah Rabbi – we always only see his head consisting of several portaits of different messianic rabbis or figures, among them Herzl and Röhrig/
Rabbi:
Yes! The „Vaera” portion in the Bible! Identical with some melodies from the Aida….It is talking about the minute when the Eternal is first showing Himself to Moshe in his new name, as Futurato or Yeah-How-We…a meaning ful name…not just „God”…Rabbi Sholom Dovber is 11 years old …
PALESTINA (Aside) I want to know what she hides from me. What do they want with this stranger? (Loudly:) God, I am listening to you and I do not respond with our pianino. Gibe me my hat and coat.
RABBI (through the window)
1871. It is a decade of the Mother…actually it is the Ear but the Ear is listening to the Breast…as the Kabbalah uses these Body Part symbols…(We see a picture of a Breast in a Heebrew letter) …Yes, because in the text of the Aida, Radames is singing: „ In my breast I feel the proud desire of fame! And Aida responding: I hear the sound of battle! ( The head of the Rabbi is pulled back, no one saw him.) /We see the picture of a Breats foating around./
AMERICA
I am running away. (Exits to the left.)
PALESTINA: (alone) Evidently she wants that I should be going away. Hm, I wonder if she expects an intruder ? But she looks so honest. If my trust will be broken, she must leave my home. (She leaves toward the right side.)
I will come back suddenly.
AMERICA: (brings a hat and a theatre telescope from left.)
PALESTINA: (watching the window) Today there is no foreign man standing over there.
AMERICA: (helping her) Who, Madam?
PALESTINA: (turns to her and watching her keenly. ) There is a foreigner , I saw him first a few days ago over at the roadside. He always wears a huge black coat, always arrives at dusk and watches my windows. (Putting on her hat.) As if he would want something from someone here.
AMERICA:
Trying to court someone? I did not see him.
Really?
AMERICA: (lightly)
No.
PALESTINA:
You are staying all alone in the flat, America. (takes her coat) No one may enter here! (pulls some gants.)
I hope your headache will pass…!
/An inscription and a voice: / We read in the Holy Quran: Allah will change those He is angered by into an ape or a pig. (5:60) Those who are against the Shabbat their judgement is „be like the apes, despised!
Christina (steps out of her role): I am angry at America and Israel.
AMERICA:
(accompanies her to the door)
Thank you! Have a nice evening, Mylady!
(A short pause.)
America is all alone.
AMERICA: (coming back, she takes off the shawl from her forehead. Stepping to the window, we har a coach depart. She begins to dance merrily and steps over to the pianino and palys a few segments from the „Fidelio” of Beethoven.)
Oh I was afraid she is staying home with me. She was watching me so strangely as she departed. No, she cannot have any inkling about my intentions towards her; otherwise she would not have been speaking about a foreigner who might not even exist. Hahaha, this was kind of a testing…But where is my Mr. Rüdiger von Europe hiding? (She plas more loudly) May it be possible that he does not hear this melody from the Fidelio? Beethoven has composed it in 1799 …when Napoleon has grabbed the power after the Putch of Brumaire 19
Strange. Maybe he had to wait too long and went away? (Goes out) I will watch on his door if the key is inside the door. (Exists left. )
(Hans von Gerditz,- the Rabbi - Israel appears in the window. We only see his head. /note of translator: „Ditz” means „Glory” in Hungarian, Herzl’s native tongue.)
Hans-Israel: (quickly) As if I had ordered her leaving! /enters behind the curtain, he has no body/ This is the bedroom…Oh, my earstwhile home! This is my site! I hear steps…I will hide myself! (pulls the curtain over his head/mask.)
/Inscription - Voice: / Moses II 19:12: „and the people should be hidden behind fence, no one should be going up to the mountain, not even touching its border. Whoever touches the mountain will die…man or animal shuld die...”
Oh, someone listens to the Fidelio! „Mein Brust voll mit Hoffnung!” My breast is full with Hope…From 1799. When my ancestors were reading the portion called by the first words of it „ Lech Lecha”! It is telling how Abraham was sent by the Lord from Babylon to Egypt through the Land of Canaan. This is read by the small child, the future Rabbi of Lubavich , called Tzemach Tzedek, The True Sprout..he was ten years old…He knew the whole text of Torah and Talmud by heart.
(Miss America arrives from left, Mr. Europe is following her.)
AMERICA: (to the right) I am very angry with you.
EUROPE:
Because I did not appear at one at the sound of the piano?
AMERICA: Yes…You must kiss me now…
(America arrives from the left and Mr. Europe follows her.)
AMERICA: (To the right.)
I am so angry at you.
EUROPE:
Becase I did not come at one, my sweetherat?
AMERICA:
When I give you the signal ont he piano, you are supposed to arrive at once. We are a couple. We are secret intrzders.
Mr. EUROPE:
But we have some conflicts too. You make me wait so I make you wait too. Tooth for a tooth! (Wants to kiss her.)
AMERICA: (defends herself.) No kissing now!
/Sound, inscription:/ 1961, John Kennedy: "All nations should knwo that we are accepting all the price to counter all enemies to secure the success of our liberty. If the free society cannot defend the multitude of poor then we cóannot defend those who are rich either. we must follow the precept of Ishaiah the prophet: liberate those who are oppressed! „
EUROPE:
No kisses? Ah, I thought it is my duty to kiss you…Why are you so undriendly, America?
AMERICA:
Because I am unsatisfied with myself.
EUROPE:
With yourself? I am also unsatisfied with myself. It is because we have no important cause in our lifes.Only to influence each other.
/Inscritpion, sound:/ Augustinus : 2jews are blind to the Holy Writ, they have hanged the Saviour, killed him and so they prepared for us the supper.”
As Frederic aside: So as Mr. Europe I am angry at Jews.
AMERICA:
Mrs. Von Gerditz regards me like if I would be her girlfriend and I accept that game. Rudi, I feel I am cheating here. And she is such angel like creature! And she does not know I am cheating her.
EUROPE:
I have smething..something sweet on my lips…Do you want to feel it?
AMERICA:
Yes!
EUROPE: (kisses her.)
AMERICA (kicks him away.) Oh, men are so evil! So what was it on your lips?
EUROPE:
A kiss. We belong to each other.
AMERICA:
Psst, silence! (Runds to the window.)
EUROPE:
Nu? It was the sound of coach.
AMERICA:
Oh. It stopped here. This is Mylady coming back! She should not see that we have occupied her hall…!
After Madame Palestina went away they step out of their Herzl role and talk to each other about their feelings in spite of they hearing of the coach returning before the house.
Sissy:
Oh, when I say this I
must act like someone who is white from being afraid…Is it correct?
Frederic:
(jumps up and watches her perplexed)
Sissy…
Sissy :
(coming closer a
step) Frederic…
Frederic:
(leads her to a chair
and lets her si down Frederic also sitting)
Sissy : (just sits without eye con tact then she looks into the eyes of
Frederic)
So many doubts, so many old doubts have tormented my soul…I did not even
recognize myself…Buti f we are here – let us talk at least…What is going on
with us? There is this Voice, who has no body…that he is the Meshiah
himself…that if we are reading out loud this comedy written by this Herzl…then
we may eventually see everything more clearly…
Frederic:
Oh Sissy, you seem to
be on t he verge of fainting! Do you feel unwell?
Sissy: (wondering)
I do not know. – a
pause –
Frederic:
Look, tak off that
coat and calm down (Kindly)
And yes, le tus talk about this comedy. (Helping her to take off her jacket
and putting it on t he couch and then watching her face) How white you are…I
am so happy to see you, I have heard about your family so many times…We both
have some common Hohenzollern ancestors. And they have ancestors from the
Szapolyai family…
Sissy: ( reacting to the kindness with some harshness)
Let us sit down, yes.
To tell you the truth, no male person has ever had this kind of magnetic effect upon me, ever. Frederic: (passionately)
Your Royal Higness! Me
too I never have had such strong feelings for a woman…It is impossible…We must
be under some weird spell.
Sissy: (waving with her hand toward Frederic, who then sits back.)
If only I would be able to cry and could just suffer with my desires and I would just lay down silently in my darkened room. My feeling is as if the hot Earth would have a consciousness and would feel how the hard rocks of the mountains are ploughing her…Do not laugh at me for this strange metaphor. I have tormented myself and examINAd myself and then, not like a moth blindly following the light, but with determination I came to you here. As you are suffering yourself, when no one should be suffering any more…I have a husband and you have a wife. We both respect our partners in marriage. So what kind of passion is binding us now? We should be working through this, I feel that but I do not understand it.
Frederic:
But do you think I am in love with my wife? Oh, but we did live in two different palaces. I feel myself, like the seventeen year old Prince Frederic who fainted when his father has executed his best friend…Oh, Hans! I was unable to love anyone ever since. I still think a lot about my servant friend, Von Kotte! Hans!...Killed by my father. Because we escaped from our cold and frightening kingly home.
Sissy :
Here I am too, Empress Elisabeth called just Sissy… Like a little girl…They never ever allowed me to meet my friend, the Foreign Minister of Austria, Count Andrassy … Gossip had it that we were in love secretly…In reality the only person who I was interested in was CatherINA Schratt…I was unable to feel anything for my husband….When I was 16 year old, I was unable to enjoy as he made love to me…I did not like to be an Empress. I escaped the Palace. I left my children to the gouvernantes. I was spending my time learning languages, Hungarian, Hebrew, Arabic…I read Kabbalists and Sufi wisdom…
Frederic: (lively:)
I also am in love and suffer from it, as I was tormented by not loving my wife and now I am tormented because I do feel love for you…But you seem to be so far away…Things change, because we are now in Therapy…Now you are here with me. I feel my heart is in a tremor…I would like to embrace you and never again abandon you. When I first saw you my heart almost stopped in bewonderment. Sissy – she came to offer herself to me. The first ever woman I am able to love…Is it possible that this Therapy here is working? I felt hatred towards Jews..but now I respect them. We even hd Jewish ancestors in the Twelfth Century, from the House of King David….Like most Christian Kings we also stem from them. And Jewish tradition teaches that we should practice self restraint. In spite of having these murderer ancestors like King David.
Sissy:
And in spite of being related… I still feel I am unable to offer myself. Like my heart would be closed by iron locks.
Frederic:
You pretend to be unable to love? You want to make me unhappy with psychology and logic? Why did you come here?
Sissy:
Oh, my doubts dictated me to come here. I think we better stay just good friends, Frederic, because after these loving fervors we always set down to melaancholic distance…Frederic, I am afraid of melancholy. Le t us not allow our hearts to dictate each other. Le tus decide in the right way. I cannot offer any love, only friendship…I believe in real friendship. You know, the body’s passions are not being processed by our inner child hormones..as they are not yet mature…So I am afraid from my body. Le t us just stay friends. I am afraid that is all I may offer to you. And a motherly hug or caressing.
Frederic:
(jumps up
passionately) No! We must not be afraid of sexuality any more!
Sissy :
(grabs his hands) Sire, Frédéric! Sexuality is for mature adults. But touch and closeness expresses acceptance, parental acceptance. Passion does not help us. And we are both married.
Frederic:
(sits again) I must be frank. I still only have desires to be close to male friends. No, not sexuality with them. Not any more. That has changed. And some positive feelings begin to stir towards maternal figures…It is a new way for me to feel.
Sissy: (a movement almost caressing him)
Of course…You have
been betrayed by your father- hurting you by that. I felt similarly towards my
mother.
Frederic: (in a passionate low voice)
Sissy, but I feel
that you want to offer yourself…from yourself ..to a male!
Sissy: (stuttering)
Offering? ( head
bent) No, I do not have any power for that…
Frederic: (watching her and jumping up…trying to caress her hair…her neck…) I
think it the Messhiah…who looks at me kindly…and he works on obtaining a real
boy..in order to be able to carress me…That sure changes the inner landscape.
Sissy: (she lets him, but then she slowly stands up, takes her jacket and gives
both her hands to Frederic)
I must leave now. It
is not right to behave this way…We do not know why Rabbis and Wise Muftis and
Hermits all preach that sexuality must be respected. Self disciplINA breeds
self respect…Frederic…
Frederic: (crying passionately with his hands grasping her hands)
Oh, we must not
understand everything!
Sissy:
No I must go. All our
movements count, believe me. All those forbidden movements in the Bible…No, a
man and a woman cannot even be in the same room before marriage…Not even if I
have desires of vicarious mothering and you demand vicarious fathering, by
being close to other men…We cannot trust our bodies.
Frederic: (tries to hug her)
Nothing counts of the past taboos…We love each other. Yes, touch and hugging is important. That is how we can feel the parental acceptance that has been withdrawn from us when we were children….That is why we are here, playing the role of a couple.
RABBI:
Now you Sissy , you are stepping back into the role of AMERICA and you, Frederic into that of EUROPE It is impossible that she (Madame PALESTINA) returns already. The Ball must still be going on.
And the comedy called „The Fugitive” by Herzl is continuing till the very end of it. Until all the misunderstandings will be cleared between Mr. Israel and Madame Palestina – almost all caused by Miss America and Mr. Europe and Madame Palestina’s reluctance of trusting in Mr. Israel.
Fifth Scene.
(Palestina, America from behind.)
PALESTINA: (quickly from left.) If he intruded here that stranger, he must be still here. America! (taking her coat off.) There was no one here?
AMERICA: (perplexed.) No one. (aside) She imagINAs that I was with someone in her halls…
PALESTINA: (to herself) She is lying. (Loudly:) Your headache is still painful?
AMERICA (whining suddenly) :
Oh, and how.
PALESTINA:
But you took off the bandage.
AMERICA: (aside)
She does not trust me. I was just in the process of refreshing it with cold water.
PALESTINA:
And the piano is open.(aside) I feel there was a stranger here.
AMERICA:
I just tarted to clean up a bit. We forget pain if we are busy working.…Madam did not feel good at the Ball?
(She opens the cover of the pianino and swiftly plays a short sequence from the opera of Haendel - the "Admetos"…)
PALESTINA:
I really do not need this sequence from Admetos…It is from 1754, from Haendel…
RABBI (showing his head from behind the curtain but they do not see him)
The period when the generation’s Meshianic Rabbi was the Lubavitcher Shneur Salman. “Only your muscled back may save my wife, Alkestis!” King Admetos tells Heracles after his wife’s demise. (We see the pictore of a muscled back from behind)
PALESTINA:
Now bring me a candle to light me. I did talk with our doorman. He told me he did see a stranger entering the gate. That Monsieur has probably found a hiding place in my apartment.
AMERICA:
A thief? Or a criminal who has no right to be present here?
PALESTINA:
No, I have the feeling that he is not a simple thief. Otherwise I would have told the doorman to come with me as a defence . Now get me some light!
AMERICA: (whingingly she switches on a pocket lighter.) You are so unjust toward me, Mylady. No intrusion by any stranger could happen here. (Aside:) We are not strangers here.
PALESTINA:
We’ll see promptly. ( leading the was to the right and returning at once. )
AMERICA:
Well, now you saw it, Mylady!
PALESTINA: (leading the way to the left ) Let us con tinue there! (She disappears to the left when we hear a loud cry behind America )
(America, Palestina watching, as Israel pulls off the curtain and shows his head/mask.)
AMERICA (steps forward , looks astonished at the right.):
Mylady, I am innocent. I do not know what happened. I never saw this stranger.
ISRAEL: (his head behind the curtain)
Maybe my gentleman’s word of honor will be sufficient that Mademoiselle had not the slightest idea of my intrusion and settling here…
AMERICA: (almost crying)
What a gentleman-like gesture it is to intrude to strange rooms during the night ! – Mylady I swear you on everything we hold holy, that I never knew this strange man.
PALESTINA: (regaINAd composure)
Very well, then. Me, I happen to know him.
AMERICA: (astonished)
You do know him?
PALESTINA:
Well, you may go up to your little room and put up a rag cold water rag…It looks like I was really unjust toward You. (offers a hand to shake hands.)
AMERICALaccepts her hand)
Looks like. (aside): You are so strict – to everyone else.
Seventh scene.
(Madame Palestina - played by Queen Christina – to the right. Mr. Israel - the Rabbi’s Head - behind the curtain.)
PALESTINA:
( Closing the door behind the departing America and coldly in the posture of a stranger she turns to Hans Israel, pointing toward the entrance door to the left).
Adieu! You may leave at once!
ISRAEL:
I am grateful to you to have accepted trustingly my words, Palestina.
PALESTINA:
Enough. Nothing to talk about with you for me any more. I do see your intentions. (Aside) He wants to stay to live here in my place. Never tire yourself. There is no way for you to be excused by me.
ISRAEL:
Who has old you that I am here to beg for conciliation? No, no, I am not here in this hour to achieve that.
PALESTINA (turns to the right.) So it is an affair of the heart? That other lady surely is very kindhearted – this parlor maid should have been fired at once.
ISRAEL:
Seem like you are jealous.
PALESTINA: (laughing proudly.)
You are not serious. Your love life does not pertain to me. But I cannot tolerate improper ways in my house. (Steps to the right.)
/Inscription, loudspeaker / Secretary of the Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah : „Le tus con tinue the struggle against the Great Satan, death to America, the the murderers of our prophets, to the grandchildren of apes and pigs, Israel.”
ISRAEL:
I gave you my word of honor. This girl has had no inkling about my presence here. You may believe me.
PALESTINA: (sits to the couch at the right.)
So if you were not visiting my parlor maid and you do not want to achieve a hopeless conciliation either, – so what can your presence mean ? Do you plan to settle here ? ( worriedly) Ah, I got it: you demand the legal divorce – and I do accept it.
ISRAEL:
You certainly may suppose some minimal taste to suppose that I will not secretly enter here to ksurprise you with a demand of divorce. This can be done correctly through my lawyers. In writing.
PALESTINA:
That is true. – So what brought you to me?
ISRAEL:
I would like to beg of you tol et me stay here just this one night.
PALESTINA: (standing up.)
You are crazy. My flat is not a tourist hostel. I must ask for help from the neighbouring gentleman. I will throw you out.
ISRAEL:
But I will tell hi at once that we are related.
PALESTINA:
No, you cannot provoke a scandal.
ISRAEL:
Yes, it would by highly inconvenient for me too – because I happen to be a fugitive.
PALESTINA:
Mylord! A Fugitive?!
ISRAEL:
If your heart has ever felt anything for me, Madame PalestINA I beg you -, do defend me as I am on t he run!
PALESTINA:
What crime did you commit?
ISRAEL:
Nothing I should redden my face for – except before you. You have chased me away because you had a dislike for my behaviors and now I am chased away again..I will explain it, but first promise me please that I may spend the night here under your protection.
/Inscription, voice:/ Moses IV 15:37: „Make yourself Tzitziot…”
"All the people and all language will send ten sons to grasp one Jew at the Tzizit – the show-fringes of their garment to beg from him: „Please do allow us to follow you from now on as the Futurator is with you...”
/We see picturs of praying Jews in Tzitzit and other paraphernalia – the text on tzitzit is part of the everyday prayer liturgy three times a day./ (The players are bending themseves rhytmically as if praying together with the Jews on t he video. Just a few seconds.
PALESTINA:
I see. You may stay now. And please do explain me. (Sits down to the left.)
ISRAEL: (from behind the curtain.) I only am begging for your staying neutral.
I am on t he run – from a husband, who is chasing me.
PALESTINA:
Ah, it sounds quite tough! And you run around the Globe, to intrude to my territory and ask me to defend you?
ISRAEL:
I had no other choice. The gate was already closed when I wanted to go out. I was threatened by a disclosure. It was imperative to find a hiding place. I had no idea that you are the one living here. And with you we were living together so peacefully for such a long period…belive me: it is highly unpleasant for me too.
PALESTINA:
So, you mean it happened in this very house?
ISRAEL:
It is the neighbour. The husband has arrived suddenly, we have not awaited him. Threatening me. Where else could I hide?
PALESTINA:
Well, just once, lastly I want to show you who is really this Madame PalestINA von Greditz How welcoming I am con trary to all semblance. (stepping backward.) May I prepare a cup of tea for you? (She finds the prepared set of tea from a cupboard and puts it on a small side table.) I regard you as my guest. In spite of arriving without my calling you.
ISRAEL:
No, we cartainly are not a fitting couple. You are cool, and I am hot. A glacier and a volcano. And the unawaited has happened: the glacier did not melt –
PALESTINA:
But the volcano erupts time and again carelessly.
ISRAEL:
No, do not look at me with that threatening look. Mylady do not hurt me again , You too. .
/Inscription, Voice:/ The Maharal of Prague (in Tiferet Israel, in Theodore Dreyfuss, Benjamin Gross: L’éternité d’Israel du Maharal, 1969):
„Seemingly the Mitzvot – prescriptions – are lowly actions, but indeed they belong to an abstract timeless world as Maimonides tells us, they are leading us to Eternity: accepting the Teaching, the Torah is always an ntrance to timelessness, created in the eternal Presence. „
PALESTINA:
This neighbour woman, your …well…acqaintance…I never ever saw her. It is true, I am so engrossed in myself that I do not care about my neighbours. Is she beautiful? And so you are being hurt ver there? I think his name is Europe…
ISRAEL:
Now I see some new sotness on your face…your strict coldness has diminished a bit. Yes, one may realize that we owned these treasures and lost it – and not only from the fault of one side –
PALESTINA:
Over there you got sugar. Fort he salad, you see the oil. I suggest we chat about different things but not about our common past. That will cause your ousting from here ! I do not want to be forced to welcome you here just because they are chasing you over there.
ISRAEL:
Well, what can we have as a subject then? We have not seen each other since long yeras. Mylady! You see that Wall of t Past Times? What an enchanting, Golden Age it was. You have chasen me away, Madame Palestina and everything became so cold and depressing, I could not console myself.
/Inscription, Loudspeaker/: Abraham Jehoshua Heschel (Jewish Reflections on Death, Schocken, N.Y. 1974):
„ The meaning of Existence is by introducing the abstracted Eternity into the seconds of the Present. Space disappears. But the seconds of Time are Eternal. „
PALESTINA:
But you did find some vicarious Mommy figure quickly, n’est-ce pas?
ISRAEL:
Oh, you mean…well, there were thousands. But I did not even look at them. I had had enough of them.
PALESTINA:
And you were so happy at last finding your present lover?
ISRAEL:
My present lover?
PALESTINA:
What a memory for a fugitive! How about the Lady of the Neighbouring flat? !
ISRAEL:
Oh, of course . (Aside) I canot tell her the truth: that i cannot live without her.
PALESTINA:
I am disappointed in You. I imagINAd that a powerful man like you has a more movemented way of life. I imagINAd a heap of broken hearts around you.
ISRAEL:
Oh, when I reflect on our Past, Madame Palestina …Such a glittering Gilded Age we have had together. What I found painfl was only that – pardon me the expression – Mylady was so frugally dispensing our kindness.
PALESTINA:
(in a dremay voice)
Not everyone is able to express her feelings in words.
ISRAEL:
Do I get it clearly?
PALESTINA: (coldly)
There are cold characters , maybe they have some eraly hurt – but for them the tiny unwise loving gestures are alien – maybe they are simply unable to reciprocate real loving feelings.
/Inscripion, Loudspeaker/: Al-Sudajis told us: We know that the evil Jews were unbelievers…idolizing calves, killing Prophets…the trash of humanity, who are achanged into apes and pigs by Allah. „
ISRAEL:
I remember before my marriage, a friend of mINA has told me about his newfound married life. His wife used to call him „my dumb little Fritzi”…He was so touched by this kind gesture. And he was not dumb a t all. Even when someone is kindly disapproving of you, it is still a real feeling. – But You, Mylady, you have never called me „dumb little Hans” – and still I turned out to be so dumb : someone who cannot cherish his luck. Yes, those cold and restraINAd characters, PalestINA! Instead you should chastise me! At once I would feel accepted after all!
/Inscription, Voice:/ Rabbi Hiyya and Rabbi Yannai discussing Moses I 28-12:
Angels were going up and down the ladder. The other one aid, they went up and down on Yakov. Meaning they were praising and chastising Yakov. (Midrash, Bereshit rabba 68,12)
PALESTINA: (wonderingly going up and down.) What do you want from me?
ISRAEL:
Please do tell it to me, Palestina : did we not have a Golden Age together? We loved each other. Or at least: I was in love with you! And you could have forgiven me my one and only mistaken step if you could feel love toward me. Love is forgiving. The warmth of just one of us ccould have warmed as both. And if now, as I had tor un to you as a fugitive you could be able tol et me dwell longer in your enchanting gardens, and you would play me that ancient melody on your pianino… – (he closes his eyes.)
PALESTINA: (sits to the pianíno and plays from Monteverdi "Orfeo" .)
/Inscription, loudspeaker:/ The Lubavitcher Rabbi Dov Baer:
„All souls may raise to the roots of the Source from which they were taken if the soul starts to sing a song.” (Schachter-Hoffmann: Sparks of Light, Shambala Boulder London, 1983)
Jeremiah 13:17
„My eyes are full of tears as the herd of the Creator is captive!”
(in: Moshe Idel, Studies in Kabbalah, State Univ. Of N.Y. Albany, 1988)
ISRAEL:
Yes, yes…That is it…Oh, such a sweet melody…It is from the Orfeo of Mon teverdi I suppose…He composed it in 1619…The French King, Louis XIII. had just his 18-th birthday…”Other women are infidels…so they don’t hurt my soul” – (We are seeing a picture of a Breast …Slowly the Head of the Rabbi is turning closer to the woman and sighs a kiss on her hair from behind.) I will tell you a tale – arabbi who was the contemporary of Mon teverdi : Yishayah Horowitz… from Prague…a follower of the great golem-maker Maharal has decided to leave Europe and move over to Palestina…where he was imprisoned for ransom by the Muslim Caliph. It was the week when they are reading Metzora before Passover…It describes how leprosy attacks someone who says unkind words about anyone…so that he must shave himself and leave the Holy Camp for seven days.
(someone is ringing the bell outside to the left .)
PALESTINA:
What an impertinence! Depart from my precincts or I will call to others to throw you out
ISRAEL:
So you do not feel any mercy for a fugitive?
PALESTINA:
(the bell rings again.) What can it mean? Someone rings the bell?
No, stay there! – I will deal with it myself – (goes to the back the main entrance. The door stays open) Who is that?
EUROPE: ( from outside.)
I am your neighbur, Madame. My name is Rudi from Europe…
PALESTINA:
(worried.) Some Rude European…The neighbour. The husband…Hide behind that curtain quickly. Here he must be searching for you! Found your trace somehow! Stay there (showing him) behind that curtain. (Hiding him.)
ISRAEL:
Thank you.
(Israel hidden behind the curtain. Miss Palestina and Mr. Europe arive from behind.)
EUROPE: (excited from left)
Excuse me. (He sneezes) Mylady pardon me to burst in at such a late hour to your salon…(sneezes). I am your neighbour, my name is Rudi von Europe. (looks searchingly around.)
PALESTINA: (composed at right.) Enchantée!
EUROPE:
I must explain it– (sneezing) NoI am feeling unhappy. (sneezing) I got this cold in the staircase when I was hiding there and almost arrived to catch this alien intruder.
PALESTINA: (catches a foteuil in a cramped movement.)
I do not follw you.
EUROPE:
At once. (Sneezes.) A wondrous being I fell in love with – more than myself– and this si something already…This being has shamefully tricked me. So I implore you to give an answer to just one question: hasanyone visited you today? Please excuse me my impertINAnce – but the happyness of my whole life depends from this answer, as the two of us are one together – Is anyone as guest in your salon, mylady? How I did believe that this sweet being is my better self and now it will turn out that a stranger who has intruded to your precincts is somehow related to her…Oh…(sneezes)
PALESTINA: (perplexed)
I do not receive guests at this late time.
EUROPE: (wheezing, swallowing his tears)
I thought so…On t he staircase – (sneezingThe doorman told me that a stranger did enter indeed earlier. We only have three apartment and one belongs to the doorman. The stranger did not enter my flat. It follows – that I wanted to catch him at the corridor. And so I was waiting and waiting…It is quite cold outside. (Sneezes.) Oh it is a hard blow for me, Mylady – I will kill him.
/Inscription, Voice:/ Rabbi Yaqov has told us: This world is just the corridor for the next world. Prepare yourself for the Ball in the corridor. prapere by truning back from your mistakes. (Mishna Abot 4. 16.)
PALESTINA: (frightened)
No one is here.
EUROPE:
But when I have heard you playing the piano, I was thinking – (sneezes) to ask you if he is here he might be a hiding fugitive.
PALESTINA:
Buta s I have already told you–
EUROPE:
Maybe you do not know about him here ! An intruder may be hidden here! (By chance he steps towards the curtain.)
ISRAEL (his head apperas):
Too hot …it becomes here for me too hot.
EUROPE:
Ah! (whhezing.)
PALESTINA: (crying she jumps between the two men and covers the head of Israel.)
EUROPE:
Mylord, what are you doing here?
ISRAEL:
It is none of your business!
EUROPE:
Really? So you have no idea, who I might be? I am Rudi von Europe, the neighbor. (sneezes.)
ISRAEL:
You should drink some tea, you seem to have caught a cold.
/Inscription, Sound: / Jeremiah 8: 23
„Oh, if only my eyes would turn into a source of tears, to wheep day and night for the murdered daughtersof my people!”
PALESTINA: ( whispering to Israel) Do not provoke him! Maybe he wants to kill you.
EUROPE:
Mylady has had no hint about your presence here. I recognize you. You are the one standing in guard here on t he pavement at the other side when dusk falls. You are either a common criminal, or else – you want something from my fiancée. (sneezes)
Inscription, loudspeaker: / Saint John of Golden Mouth Chrysostom (344-407 C.E.) :"Jews are offering their childen to Satan, like wild animals. Synagohgues are the encampments of demons and idol worshippers, where the Murderers of the Meshiah gather…they are drunkards like the lusting goat and pigs…for having killed the Meshiah they will be esclaves forever as God hates them and abandonned them. „
ISRAEL:
To your health. No I am not a common criminal.
EUROPE:
So..you have been visiting a lady?
ISRAEL:
How clearsighted you are.
EUROPE:
So you are not even denying it? It could not have been Mylady. Who else then?
ISRAEL:
Well, try to find out!
PALESTINA: (suddenly she feels enlightened.) No I see ! My parlor maid!
EUROPE: (angrily) I want to see her eye to eye!
PALESTINA: (quickly stepping to the side door, crying outwards )
Miss America! Could you mind coming in please, Miss America!
RABBI:
(And here we will have a last scene in which Madame Palestine pressures Miss America to say that indeed she was receiving Mr. Israel, because she fears that otherwise Mr. Europe will hirt Israel…But when Europe asks for the engagement ring he gave to America – everything becomes clear…and Palestine accepts her fugitive straying husband, Israel, back. She is calling him „my sweet dumb Hans”)
America enters. Europe stands in the right corner ont he let side of Mrs. palestine, the Head of israel in the left corner behind a curtain, America stands ont he right side of the room.
PALESTINA: (at the door, quickly to America) I want to dictate the negotiations. Just say yes to everything.
EUROPE:
Oh, so she is here!
PALESTINA:
America! This gentleman (points at Hans-Israel) was visiting yout?
AMERICA:
Me? (aside to Americanak) This is too much what you ask from me, mylady… How could I say that the intruder belongs to me.
PALESTINA: (aside to America) Er…it is a life or death question.
AMERICA: (loudly.) Yes. Well, i will do as instructed.
EUROPE:
This stranger was visiting you?
AMERICA:
Yes. Er…now the one I love will be angered – but i want to follow my lady’s orders.
EUROPE: ( his face covered by his hands in despair) (wakes up, to Israel)
If we were not in the flat of a stranger, at once I would kill you.
PALESTINA: (astonished)
After this clearing? How come it disturbs you that they belong to each otehr?
EUROPE:
Oh, now it does disturb me really (wheezes.) Life and death.
(To America.) Oh, i am grateful to the Lord, that I received this knowledge. So you are not loving me. (He steps between the to women.) here you are our engagemnet ring. Now give back mine!
AMERICA: (crying she pulls off her ring.)
PALESTINA:
Engagement ring? In reality you two..you belong to each other?
EUROPE:
Oh, i was such a fool, I wanted to marry her…But she has attached herself to this alien.…(sneezes.)
PALESTINA:
And your present wife? Who is causing your chasing him?
EUROPE:
How come? I am not married at all. He is not running away from me-
AMERICA:
(astonishedlya lookingt Israel.) You– are – not married? But I was led t understand…So you are runnin g from before someone else?
ISRAEL:
I must clear this up. better to hear it from myself. (He turns toward Palestina and Europe.) Mylady please listen to my commentsTo Mr. Europe) Hans von Gerditz, Israel is my name. Mylady, what joins me to you?
PALESTINA:
Er..he is – my husband. We have lived together for a long time, but I chased him away.
/Sound, inscription:/ Sheyk Ibrahim Madhi, Paleisten Official, imam in the Mosque shiq Idjlin in the main temple of Gaza City: „We should be turning our rmaments againts Jews, who are the enemies of God, the cursed nation in the Book of Allah. allah describes them as the descendents of pigs and monkeys as idol worshippers.”
EUROPE:
What? You are running away from me? But why?
ISRAEL:
There are strange coincidences. Mrs. – Palestine von Gedits has decided to punish me by living separately…She has sent back my letters which tried to pacify her…So I was afraid that she may divoreóce me forever… But I cannot live without her, I cannot live without her, so I I tried a ruse…So I sneaked in here, and I lied that I am running away from the neighbour – from you, my respected gentleman –
EUROPE:
Why?
ISRAEL:
Because this way I hope to stay here until morning, and so before the jury I could prove that she forgave me my once upon a time mistake – so from the divorce there would not be anything. That is all! Well, in reality I became a Fugitive because of Herself, with whom we were n love once upon a time…and I had to invent some gossip about you, in order to reconcile with Her!
EUROPE:
Oh my beloved! And you have let yourself be accused so harshly, to help them scome together again? (Sneezing.)
AMERICA:
I wanted to save the renomé of Mylady.
/Sound, inscription:/ Ronald Reagan: The Prophet Ezekiel has talked about a new age: when the Earth , an empty desert will become like the garden of Eden, where ruined ciies will be lively cities again. Our dream and our challenge, and yes,our calling is to create the Golden Age of peace and brotherhood in all countries of the Middle East. Christians, Jews, Muslims, we are all the children of abraham, the children of the same creator. If ou take away this drea, you take away the strength of spirit. If we do not believe in a better future – we do not understand America…that we did believe in the Land of promises, that we are the Chosen People of the Creator.”
EUROPE:
Such magnanimity! Give me my ring of engagement, here is mine (sneezing). We belong to each other. I am going away now. I beg our pardon a thousand times.
PALESTINA: (To America)
Please do accmpany your future bride! and leave us alone!
EUROPE: (aside to America.)
But we will not be kissing now. I caught a cold.
AMERICA (ont he same tone):
That is not painful at least. (Both exit behind.)
ISRAEL:
After my shameful confession I can only depart now. But where to? The neighbour is angyra t me, and the maid goes with him. Now you may see, Paletina, I am using a brutal tool: I was an intruder in your place, to chain you to myself…But I should have accepted a compassionate gesture from your free will only…So you are free, I leave you now, we may separate. be happy, dear Palestine… (starts to exit.)
/Sound, inscription:/ Prophet Amos (Amosz 9:11-12) said: „Ont hat day I will raise the tent of David that has fallen and whose fence there were splits and I reconstruct it, liek in olden time, so that those who are called after my Name, should inherit the remnants of all the nations…”
PALESTINA:
Israel ! My sweet dumb little Israel!
ISRAEL: (turns around, hugs her.) Palestina! You are hurting me so you love me!
PALESTINA:
Now I do know how to make you stay with me – oh you..you, migrant!
(Curtain.)
(The scene changes. Sunset. We see purple clouds and the sea becoming gre…The
sun is mirrored in the water)
LAST
SCENE
Sissy:
Look, Frederic, I am
not a flower created for love….My soul is struggling, darkness above and
clearness down under… Maybe a special, grat soul is living in me…Who could say
such a thing about herself? Maybe it is a soul that is unable to live…Poor
Frederic, what a pity you are discovering woman just though me…Mayve if we are
arranging that dancing evening, our ancetral demons will find their due
places…Maybe we could sing a few Villon poems too.
Frederic:
And a Petrarca, Dante, Shakespeare, yes! Sure, our ancestral hormones will become peaceful if the hear their contemporary poems…That is wh Jews are always reciting their ancetral poems in their temples…I will bind my soul to you, and I will follow you like a ship follows the green ray of the North pole…
Sissy: (her hat in her hands)
Well, i must slowly
depart…Good night, Frederic.
Frederic:
Good night.
My dear, le tus wait a bit..They will be lending us a few costumes from our
ancestral ages…Le t us dress up in them and go to the sea in those boats…After
dinner.
Sissy:
Yes? ( They hold each
others hand)
Frederic:
I see you do not want
to stay alone with me. You feel some doubt if it was alright to be honest with
me? (pasionately) But i do want to talk with you…You must listen to me. I was
abandoned so many times. If you had seen me as I cried , falling on my face…i
felt like I was robbed. I am talking to you, because you are a woman who can
feel empathy…I was hurt. And then , now that I was healed by our friend , the
Rabbi here…who has touched me…and my disharmony has disappeared from my soul…I
found you..and you are running away – like a phantom.
(The sun disappeared, the sky is slightly reddish.)
Sissy:
Why do you talk about this, Frederic? Why do you say I am a phantom to you? All the grayness of this sea is in my soul now. I have so many conflicting feelings in my soul…Do you see that small purple cloud behind the mountain? I know it is just a bay – but i think it is Nirvana itself, full resting place, no memory of struggles, where greyness swallows all light and it just covers my soul…I want to walk ont he surface of the sea…walking under the skay and to stop all desires…and disappear forever!
Frederic:
But Sissy, remember
when you told me you want to live! Live and live!
Sissy:
I have lived enough.
Frederic:
No Sissy, you must
try this …try to embrace the new body of the Rabbi…of Dr. Meshiah…Maybe it is
true touch has a healing power…You must be able to love as I am able to love
now!
Sissy:
To be able to love? Frederic,
you forgot who I am? I have only my intellect, I can only feel what I can think
about…My ancesors could not love either. They were kings, you know in all those
rich lord’s marraiges. I was suffering so much, I could not even listen to any
music…Harmony has frightened me and I wanted tor un away from any melody…But
your friendship…well, it reminds me of those frightening melodies…I am deaf to
my inner melody too. Look at the sea…I want to depart…---
Frederic:
Yes, I see what you mean…You need healing. First you must be close to a woman. Your mother deserted you in your childhood. So you did not become a woman. The dance we planned…Where woman are embracing women and men are touching other men…That is what will heal the hurt part of our ancestors…You must get maternal acceptance and I have to receive paternal acceptance in thsoe embraces.
We can ask Queen
Christina to act as a vicarious mother for you…
Sissy:
Yes, maybe… I just do not believe in therapy you know…I would try If that could restore my capacity to love…But I think you want to embrace me with your passionately hot lips…But I am not yet ready to accept that….You have found acceptance in the embrace of the Rabbi Meshiah….he is a real father figure for you. You might feel healed by him. But I am not yet healed.
Frederic:
Yes..Now that he has
found a body after all (he tries to embrace the Meshiah) Yes, Eternal Life
can be accepted only if it is filled with Eternal Love…
Sissy: (caressing her hairdo)
See how darkness swallows the light
(Dr Messhiah has
recieved the Body Parts that were until now flying around….Slowly both Frederic
and Sissy is embraced by him.)
Frederic: (happy) My sweetheart! (hugging the Rabbi)
Yes, now I recieved
what was lacking until now…The touching of a man has healed me…
Sissy: (standing up slowly)
Yes I feel this too…Thank
you (turns away).
Frederic: ( in pain)
Sissy, you want to
go away?
Sissy: (does a few steps and returns)
Frederic: (disurbed)
Sissy, I think I am
able to love you now.
Sissy: (darkly)
No, no, no, I do not
want to believe this. It msut be some ancestral voice in you, lusting after me.
Frederic: (reaching out with both hands)
No it is not lusting.
First time ever I feel attired to a woman!
Sissy: (aside)
It will pass too.
(Starts toward the sea)
Frederic: (stops)
Sissy: (she steps into a boat and kicks herself away from the shore
Frederic: (looks after her and sees how Queen Christina sits up in the boat – she was hiding in it till now. )
Hey, wait for me!!
Sissy: (they sit back to back with Christina)
Frederic: (falls painfully on t he shore. The Rabbi enters and pulls him up,
shows him another boat. They also sit down back to back. They follow the other
boat – disappear slowly behind… )
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