Dress Rehearsal

PERFORMANCE

in collaboration with writer Michael Turner, transcipting and restaging the improvized dialogues between the two protagonists of Antonioni’s Zabriskie Points, curated by Danielle Lafrance for the STAG Strathcona Art Gallery, Septembrer 2012.

About the idea of Revolution as a forever ongoing Rehearsal.

A piece dedicated to poet Mark Dahl

zabriskie+point+1970+Michelangelo+Antoni

DARIA

Hey, guy, you want a smoke?

 

MARK

You know, you're talking to a guy under discipline.

 

DARIA
What's that?

 

MARK

This group I was in had rules against smoking. They were into a reality trip.

 

DARIA
What a drag. Lets go find some shade

What do you mean, a Reality Trip? Oh yeah, they can't imagine things.

Were you in with that group? Why did you get out?

 

MARK

I was not really in a group

I was not really in that group. I just could not stand their bullshit talk. They bored the hell out of me. 

But when it gets down to it, you have to chose one side or the other.

 

DARIA

There is a thousand sides. Not just heroes and villains.

 

MARK

What's your name?

 

DARIA

DARIA

 

MARK

The thing is if you don’t see them as villains, you can't get rid of them.

 

DARIA

You think that if you get rid of them, we will have a Whole New Scene?

 

MARK

Why not? Can't you think of another way we can go about it?

 

DARIA

Whose we? Your Group?

 

 

MARK

You and me babe !

 

DARIA

Ha ! ha ! You and me?

 

Don’t you feel at home here?

It's peaceful

 

MARK

It's dead

 

DARIA

OK. It's dead. So let's play a death game. You start at one end of the Valley, and I'll start at the other, and we'll see who can kill the most. We'll start on Lizards and snakes, and then we'll move on to mice and rabbits. At the end, we will count how many deaths each of us has. And the winner will get to kill the loser.

 

Oh. Did I make a mistake? You don’t want to play that game?

 

MARK

I don’t want to play any games at all.

It was nice of you to come with a guy who does not turn on

 

DARIA

I am pretty tolerant

 

MARK

What are you doing out here? Phoenix, is that for Real?

 

DARIA

My boss wants me there. Some conference.

 

MARK

You ARE, pretty tolerant.

 

DARIA

(…) plants!…Close your eyes and tell me what kind of plants you see?

 

MARK

OK

 

DARIA

What do you see? Roses,  like a garden? Or wild things like fern or weeds and vines?

 

MARK

I see (…) sort of a jungle

 

DARIA

It could be nice if they could plant thoughts in our heads, so nobody would have bad memories. They could plant, you know, wonderful things, like a Happy Childhood, Real Groovy Parents, Only Good Things,

 

MARK

And then they could really forget how terrible it really was !

 

DARIA

That is my point! Nothing IS, terrible.

 

MARK

Wow!

 

DARIA

Sometimes I feel like spinning my head off.

 

MARK

Go ahead. There is no body around. No man's land. Nothing.

 

DARIA

There IS, someone.

 

MARK

What? Ghosts? Dead pioneers?

(…)

 

DARIA

So anyway. So anyway.

So anyway… got to be one word.

The name of some place.

Or a river. So-Many-Way River.

 

DARIA

Is that gypsum

 

MARK

It ain't table salt

 

Would you like to go with me?

 

 

DARIA

Where?

 

MARK

Wherever I am going

 

DARIA

Are you really asking?

 

MARK

Is that your real answer?

 

MARK

I always dreamed of being like that

 

DARIA

Of?

 

MARK

The desert

 

(…)

 

DARIA

Man, you are really crazy. Is it loaded?

 

MARK

No

I am going to burry it

 

DARIA

Why did you ask me about the strike?

Were you there?

 

MARK

Yeah

 

DARIA

The guy who killed the cop…

 

MARK

No. I wanted to, but someone else's was there

 

DARIA

But they said that…

 

MARK

Whose they?

 

DARIA

On the radio…

 

MARK

I've never gone (???)

 

DARIA

You'll need them (The bullets on the ground)

You are going to have a hard time make them believe you.

 

MARK

I ain't going to try

 

DARIA

Why? I believe you.

Let's go back to the car.

We can drive out of here.

If you cut your hair, they'll never recognize you.

 

MARK

I need a hair cut?

 

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