Genealogy of an Absurd Jew – Part 1
The son’s myth of the mother’s myth of herself
Scenography (Sc.)
You hear the hum of the universe – the echo of the big bang
You are six years old
You crawl under your mother’s closed bedroom door
She sits at her desk typing on her modified IBM Selectric
She types, smokes and drinks coffee
We hear what she types – as if from a radio
The typewriter produces cigarette papers
We see typed onto the papers: Five thousand years of civilisation
The typeball engraves the paper with channels
The ink is pharmacological, composed of gold nanoparticles
She finishes a cigarette and lights a new one
Germantown, 1945
Sc.
A New York Times article
Nazi extermination policies
Systematic mass murder of Jews
While too young in ’42, she is old enough in ‘45
(At that age, three years makes a huge difference)
1 May, Hitler’s death is announced
7 May, Germany surrenders
13 May, Life Magazine publishes concentration camp photos
Mother is writing in the café while imaging herself at 10 years old
Mother:
(Type-speaking)
On Mondays father brings home Life Magazine
And places it on the coffee table
I overhear mother and father
Should I see this?
But it appears on the coffee table, as usual
Sc.
Cover of magazine: “The German People”
Ten year old Mother looks at photo layouts
We see the images – they fill the screen behind the stage
30ish-year old Mother types, smokes, drinks coffee
We hear news reports of the German surrender
We hear the mother narrating what she is typing
Mother:
On this beautiful spring day in May
Germantown, Philadelphia
Pennsylvania, America
The New World
I am daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter
Of doctors, lawyers, rabbis and businessmen
Of wives and mothers who helped to civilise them
They escaped the Pale of Settlement
Before Europe became ravenous
Landing between the Civil War and the Great War
And so I sit quite comfortably here
Germantown, Philadelphia
Pennsylvania, America
The New World
The enlightenment, scientific and industrial revolutions
Progress means that I can hear of the horrors in real-time
And I can see the horrors shortly after they happen
After five thousand years of civilisation
We’re getting clever
Five thousand years!
Sc.
There are others in the café – her Council of influences
Dostoyevsky
Virginia Woolf
Jacques Brel
Marilyn French
Oliver LaGrone
Her Father
Her Mother
Her Rabbi
Edmund Burke Feldman
Picasso
Gauguin
Henry Moore
Frank Lloyd Wright
Martin Luther King
Gandhi
George Tooker
Elmer Rice
Council Members:
(Laughter, drinking, drunkenly spoken by Council members)
We’re civilised!
Civilised!
What’s her problem?
Her problem is the problem
She wants to solve this
Solve what?
Solve everything
To find meaning
What meaning?
Exactly – meaning is an illusion
Meaning is a decision
Meaning is a creation
Like a fairy-tale
Or a painting
Sc.
Courtroom setting
Adult Mother is attorney and defendant
Ten year old Mother is next to her browsing Life Magazine
Her mother, father and rabbi sit as judges
The Council is in the jury box
The Son is playing in the witness chair
Holocaust images fill the screen behind the judges bench
Mother:
What is to be done about this?
Sc.
The Master of Scenarios morphs into each character as they speak
Her Father:
How about being a good Jewish wife?
Her Mother:
And Jewish mother?
Her Rabbi:
And Jewish homemaker?
How about starting there?
Ten year old Mother:
(Advising adult mother)
Fuck that
Her Mother:
(Disdain, sarcastically)
That’s what higher education has taught you
Wonderful!
Mother:
What I meant to say was
How does that prevent the next Holocaust?
Sc.
She looks over at the son watching from under the bedroom door
Son:
The next Holocaust?
Mother:
Everything that can happen does happen
And will happen again
Council Members:
Who said that?
She said that
No, who said it first?
First? Who cares?
You said it first, how’s that?
Congratulations
Mother:
What should we do between Holocausts?
Son:
Between Holocausts
Before the next Holocaust
Mother:
I’m not rebelling against Judaism
Judaism is beautiful
Religions inspire virtue
But they sow seeds of derision toward others
Very clever and adaptive
Ruthlessly Darwinian
Sc.
The Master of Scenarios continues to perform these roles
Her Mother:
There she goes again
Her Father:
Darwin, Nietzsche and Freud
Her Rabbi:
Next, it’ll be Marx
Son:
I thought Judaism was supposed to be different
Mother:
Different – but not immune to human nature
People who ritual together rarely eat each other
But they find scapegoats
And they eat the scapegoats
Sc.
Close-up of Holocaust images
And other genocides – including Gaza
We see Levites killing golden calf celebrants
Master of Scenarios:
(To the son)
You are equating Nazi murderers of Jews
With Levites killing their family members
Does that feel truthful?
Council Members:
Human nature
What’s to be done?
Mother:
Transform or transcend human nature
Change the story
Look for bits of wisdom everywhere
In the humanities
Art can be transformative and transgressive
Make things and make things happen
Ritual realises what you intend
Sc.
Audio-visual interlude of 20th century humanities
Music: "The Painting"
Paintings by George Tooker
Sculptures by Henry Moore
Buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright
Plays by Elmer Rice
Films by DeMille
Novels by Dostoyevsky
Musical scores by Ravel
Dances by Martha Graham
Council Members:
(Drunkenly, laughing)
Ah, that’s what we’re doing
You don’t know what the fuck you’re doing!
A perfect example of positive illusion
To positive illusions!
(Laughter, drink, tapping glasses)
Mother:
(To the son)
Don’t listen to them
Artists are the last people to understand their art
They’re of their times
Unique experiments of the universe
As – are – you
Son:
So were the Nazis
Sc.
An installation exhibit entitled: Salon des Refuses
A gallery of artists working
Mother working on a sculpture
Son:
I watch you experiment with media
Paint, clay, plaster, wood
A “Russian Peasant” sculpted in clay and cast in plaster
A hole chiselled through a log, called “Persistence”
Small plaster figures – headless, armless
Sc.
One of Mother’s art professors looks at her work
A sailboat on the Mediterranean with majestic mountains
Professor:
I can’t do anything for you
Mother:
(To the son)
Fuck’em
Harrisburg, 1965
Assimilation, consumption and starting over
Sc.
Mother looks at the concentration camp photos
Mother looks out the window at the neighbourhood
Children riding bikes and playing in the street
Jump rope and bouncing balls
A safe cul-de-sac
A sunny afternoon
An idyllic image
Mother:
Middle-class ghetto
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
America, The New World
We assimilate
We’re American
Yet, evidently we are different
We’re excluded from their clubs
So we build our own
At the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountain
Our own neighbourhoods and schools
Our own law firms and medical practices
And we thrive
Raised in exile, history fades
But Judaism holds on to history and memory
To be Jewish is to remember
To collaborate with memory
And memory is creative
What is important?
What ought one do?
Now that we are between the Holocausts?
Sc.
A myth of evolutionary biology and psychology
From the need to eat comes the hunt
From the need to hunt comes the thrill of the hunt
From the need to assuage guilt comes the joy of power
From the joy of power comes indifference to suffering
From survival comes dehumanisation
Mother places a new piece of paper in the typewriter
She glances at the boy under the door
We hear the typewriter capturing what she’s saying
She is building her prototype that the son will find
Mother sees a photograph of an SS officer
Speaking to assembled prisoners in a concentration camp
SS Officer:
Bullets cost money
You are not worth a bullet
Throw yourself onto the wire
Sc.
Transforming the worst of human thought and behaviour
Into something aspirational
Mother:
We must free ourselves and start over
Rebuild ourselves from a blank slate
No – not blank – Jewish
Neither etched in stone
Nor easily erased
Something between
If I throw myself onto the wire
Perhaps reincarnate
Or induce amnesia
Master of Scenarios:
Return as a good Jewish wife and mother?
Stepford Jew
Mother:
(To son)
Remember what your father left behind
The one thing we agreed on
Sc.
Master of Scenarios morphs into a synthesis of father and mother
Father/Mother:
Sometimes you have to fight for your freedom
Israel
Sometimes you have to wrestle with the very fabric of the universe
Israel
You:
And what might I do with this freedom?
And why are you calling me Israel?
Rabbi Wahlberg:
God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son
To kill his beloved son, Isaac
You:
Isaac passes this trauma to Jacob
Who wrestles with God – the adversary
Jacob, now Israel, in perpetual struggle
Mother:
Your struggle begins here
Take sword on thigh
And go from gate to gate
Throughout the hippocampus
You:
And do what?
Mother:
Make an offering
You:
What offering?
Mother:
You are a unique experiment of the cosmos – as are we all
Be fearless
Drop into the confusion
Son:
Perhaps that will delay the next coming?
The next Holocaust?
By changing the story?
Perhaps that might help transform human nature?
You and Mother:
(together, both typing furiously, speaking while typing)
What is important?
What ought one do?
And what the fuck is going on here?
What is important?
What ought one do?
And what the fuck is going on here?
Sc.
They repeat this sequence, typing faster and more determined
And more joyfully and ecstatic with each repetition
