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
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?
