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Bolsheviki: A Dead Serious Comedy
Bolsheviki: A Dead Serious Comedy Read online
Contents
Production History
Playwright’s Note
Performance Notes
Bolsheviki
Source Notes
Canadian Volunteers Executed During the First World War
About the Playwright
Disclaimer
Copyright Information
Bolsheviki by David Fennario was first produced November 9 to December 5, 2010, by Infinithéâtre at Le Bain St-Michel in Montreal.
Cast: Robert King
Director: Guy Sprung
Costume and Set Designer: Veronica Classen
Lighting Designer: Eric Mongerson
Sound Designer: Julien St. Pierre
Video: Brian Morel
Stage Manager: Jen Jones
A second production by Alternative Theatre Works ran February 8 to 12, 2011, at Factory 163 in Stratford, Ontario.
Cast: Robert King
Director: Guy Sprung
Alternative Theatre Works Producer: Peggy Coffey
Stage and Lighting Design Adaptation: Stephen Degenstein
Technical Director: Stephen Degenstein
Stage Manager: Peggy Coffey
Sound and Lighting Designer: Kody LeSouder
Bolsheviki was first produced in the United States on January 20 and 21, 2012, at the Mary Gray Munroe Theater of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
Cast: Donald McManus
Scenic and Light Designer: Zoe Gopnik-McManus
Projections: Hilary Gopnik
Dramaturge: Lisa Paulsen, Director of the Playwriting Center
Stage Manager: Maureen Downs
Master Electrician: Rob Turner
Managing Director of Theater Emory: Rosalind Staib
Artistic Director: John Ammerman
Playwright’s Note
The character Rosie Rollins in Bolsheviki is based on Harry “Rosie” Rowbottom, a First World War veteran who lost a little finger in the Battle of Loos and was wounded at Vimy Ridge. I interviewed him on tape in 1979 in the old “King Eddie” Hotel in Toronto over a bottle of Bushmills.
“And the longer the war lasted, the more we realized that the real enemy was the people who were ordering us to shoot the other people who didn’t want to shoot us any more than we wanted to get shot at … ”
Rosie was in a military hospital in November 1917 when news broke out about the revolution in Russia. He said he could see the news spreading from bed to bed along the ward like an electric shock − that Russian soldiers were deserting en masse in their millions: “And we knew then what we had to do … put an end to the war before it put an end to us.”
Performance Notes
The actor performing Bolsheviki should never at any time pretend that what is being demonstrated is actually happening.
Do not create “funny voices” for the characters.
You are telling the story.
Do not act as if you are on camera.
You are the person on stage.
Do not act as if there is an invisible wall up in front of you.
Be there in the moment, sharing the creation of the characters with the audience.
Show what you are showing.
Bolsheviki
PERFORMER enters and helps set up the stage with the stage manager, then sits down at a table. He opens his notebook and gestures into the character of JERRY NINES.
So it’s 1977 on Remembrance Day and I’m a skinny-ass, twenty-three-year-old, freelance reporter working on a “human interest” story for the Montreal Gazoo-Gazoo-Gazette. I’m taking in the ceremonies at the cenotaph memorial in Dominion Square on the sixtieth anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge …
“Make sure ya get their address, kid … and the phone number … ”
“Yeah yeah … ” So I’m working the crowd trying to get some quotes here and there from these old farts drooling in wheelchairs …
Mimes old vet.
“Vimy Ridge? … Dunno? … Is it time to go now?”
So I cross the street over to Mother Martin’s − before it got gentrified? Great old place, been there forever, with the pickled eggs in this big glass jar getting more and more petrified along with the customers and Claude the waiter – “Hein?” − getting more and more deaf and me not yet knowing I’d still be with the Gazoo shovelling semicolons thirty years later, but then sitting there with this notebook and a quart of Molson − Claude brought everyone a quart of Molson, didn’t matter what you ordered. Skinny-ass, twenty-three-year-old, soon-to-be-international-media-star me … thinking, well, don’t look like I’m gonna get much from the old farts out there … so, maybe I can just do a … background piece? … yeah … on … on? … The cenotaph? … Do you know what “cenotaph” means? I looked it up … got my old notebook −
Reads from the notebook.
It means, “A monument to one who is buried elsewhere.” Sixty-six thousand of them they’re talking about. How many Canadian soldiers been killed in Afghanistan?
Waits for audience response.
Yeah, too many.
So, yeah, use that as my angle … buried elsewhere … scribbling this down in my notebook in the bar, with Pierre Elliot Trudeau on the TV up there at the Remembrance Day ceremonies in Ottawa pontificating − “Honoured for Their Supreme Sacrifice.”
“Honoured?” says this older guy − big busha white hair at the table next to me – “Honoured for what?”
“Lest We Forget … ”
“Forget? How can he forget when he wasn’t even there to remember?”
“Glorious Dead … ”
“What’s so fucking glorious about being dead? Snooty-nosed son of a bitch … ”
And then he looks at me …
“You like Trudeau?”
“I think his mother dresses him funny.”
“Oh, yeah?”
And I could tell he’s the kinda guy that never cracks a smile but if he could smile it woulda counted as a (smile) and then he sticks up his hand. “Hey, Doctor!” he says. “Hey, Doctor!” And when a guy calls a waiter “Doctor”? Hmmm-mmm?
Sticks up his hand.
“Hey, Doctor − docteur − même chose icitte pour mon ami et un autre Bushmills and cream soda – no, pas Molson − CREAM SODA … ”
“Molson makes me burp,” he says.
Yeah, yeah, okay, ya drink cream soda cuz Molson makes ya burp … makes perfect sense to me and … what am I drinking? Well, I’m drinking whatever he’s drinking, right? … pass on the cream soda … and, yeah, says he’s −
“Staying at the Elbow Tourist Rooms … just around the corner from the One Minute Lunch – yeah – best place in town, if ya don’t want anyone to know where yer staying, when ya know people ya don’t wanna know, if ya know what I mean. Ya know? Come here for the occasion – yeah yeah – Remembrance Day ceremonies …
“Yeah … I was there in what they used to call the Great War … but then they had that Second World War and decided it wasn’t so great any more … ”
Right-tt …
Okay, so he’s la-la-lune crazy, but he’s a vet, so okay, I tell him – skinny-ass, twenty-three-year-old, ace-reporter, soon-to-be-international-media-celebrity me – “Hey, uh, can I ask you a few questions cuz – yeah – newspaper … wants to put what you say in the newspaper … ”
“Newspaper? Let me think about this … and drink about it … ”
And he picks up his Bushmills and cream soda … mixes them … god forbid … and … takes a shot …
“Well, supposing I was to do this, what would you want me to say?”
“Whatever you want to say, starting with your name … ”
“My name? You want me to
say on the tape recorder what my name is when I just told you I’m staying at the best place in town, when ya know people ya don’t want to know, if ya know what I mean? You want my fucking address and social security number, too?” … “Okay, forget it … ” “Forget what? … eh? … Where’d ya say you were from, kid? … You’re … from dah Point … I can tell by the way you say ‘Fack’ … Fack, okay …
“I’ll give ya my name, all right? … Rosie … That’s what they called me, Rosie Rollins … Harry to everybody else, but it’s Rosie whenever I meet any of my old army pals, which is not too often cuz I never go to the Legion or any of those things, cuz who the hell wants to listen to all those old farts talk about things they don’t really remember, or think they do remember but they’re not really remembering, they’re just repeating the bullshit they keep hearing about what they want us to think we remember? … If they can remember at all −
“Is this too complicated for ya? … I mean we can just stop right now and just sit and just drink? … Ya wanna hear this? …
Knocks on table.
“Hey, tapecorder, ya wanna hear this?”
Wish he hadn’t done that, ya know – bang bang – listening to this next morning with a hangover – bang bang –
Bang bang.
Anyhow, he says, “I can’t join the Legion even if I wanted to because you can’t join the Legion if you’ve ever been a member of the Communist Party.
“Yeah, yeah, I was a regular Bosh-shev-iki even if I was never very good at it. Always telling me I’m out of order – ‘Comrade, you’re out of order.’ – Of course I’m fucking out of order, otherwise I wouldn’t be a fucking Bosh-sheviki, right? …
Suddenly sticks a finger in his mouth.
“Wait a minute – ahh – see that back there – ahh – see it? Black Watch did that last time I was here cuz he didn’t like what I had to say about the Royal Canad-dee-yan Legion – ouaai, ’ostie – H’I don’ speak duh good h’English, h’okay? … Facking Black Watch assholes …
Yells.
“Hey, Claude, know if the Black Watch is coming here later? – HEH? – Claude? No, no, don’t want a Molson …
Takes drink.
“Sure ya don’t wanna try the cream soda? …
“Yeah –Bosha-viki – that’s what they called us when we came back after the war and found ourselves on the streets outta work and started rioting cuz we’re pissed off – yeah, sure – pissed off after all that bullshit Mr. Face-on-the-Hundred-Dollar-Bill, that prime minister there, that Robert Borden promised us … Gonna do this for us, gonna do that, make the whole wide world better for all of us by getting rid of the … Kaiser? … was that the bad guy or was it Kitchener?
“Yeah, Kaiser – ooo – spike on the helmet – ooo – spikes on that moustache – ooo – he made a good bad guy, Kaiser – ooo – and that other guy, Ku-Ku-K-Kitchener (singing “K-K-K-Katy” tune) on the p-p-p-poster with the f-f-f-finger …
Pointing.
“ ‘You-You-You-and-You? … England Expects All of Youse? … To Do Your – uh – Double D-D-D-Duty Overtime Anytime Sometime – or somewhere like that … ’
“But, uh, not everybody went for it … I mean the peasoups here in Quebec? They don’t go for that ‘God Save the King’ stuff … ‘Mange la marde’ … ’ostie …
“But, uh, all the maudit blokes down in the Point? We’re already all signing up to march in the big parades in these brand new uniforms and brand new three-oh-threes on our shoulders … brand new boots spit and polish … ‘Heroes of the night, we’d rather fuck than fight … ’
“Even though I did ask myself … why would ya wanna kill somebody ya don’t even know in somewhere called Germany when ya never even been off the Island of Montreal?
“Christ, we only went uptown once a year for the Saint Patrick’s Day parade. But – hey – everybody and everything in a goddamn suit and tie, the educated people – yeah – educated people all telling us that we’re all in this together, boys, doing the best we can for everybody, boys, altogether, boys … God, King, and country, boys … and … make the world safe for … safe for? … for? – yeah – Dem-oc-cracy … Democracy, boys, cuz −
Sings in a drunkard’s drawl.
Sorry, Joe, I got to go.
I got a job to do.
Was advertised in ’ninety-eight.
If I’m not there I’ll be too late.
“Yeah, yeah, not that I ever gave a shit about that bullshit, cuz I knew it was bullshit, cuz anything anybody in a suit and tie tells you is bullshit but, truth is, I never minded the army life that much … was better than what I had … better than what I knew back in the Binnery …
“That’s what everyone called St. Bridget’s Home for Catholic Orphans … bin de bean the Binnery cuz all streets around the place in Griffintown stunk of beans for breakfast, beans for lunch, beans for supper … I mean at least in the army I’m getting bully beef with the colin de bin de beans and a daily tote of that Jamaican rum, navy rum, the real stuff, so thick you could pour it into your hand …
Swirls the rum in the palm of his hand.
“And … it stays there …
“Yeah, got it made, I’m thinking, over there in England in this training camp getting pissed as much as I can on those big pints of bitters …
“Yeah, mmm, those British bitters … miss them … all being paid for by the guys I’m with just to hear me shoot the shit cuz I can make ’em laugh …
“Never laugh myself – haw haw – but they think I’m funny …
“ ‘Come on, Rosie, give us that song there. Come on, Rosie, and … ’ Okay, so I give them one I’ve been doing since I was a kid … there in the Parker House with my maw upstairs in a room banging some john for the rent and me down in the tavern, top of a table, five years old singing for change in French and English …
“That’s why my French is so good …
“ ‘Away ti-cul fais la chanson pour ta mère, twee?’
“ ‘Do the one about yer mudder … ’ Big on mothers back then … used to do this one …
Stands up with hand to heart.
“It’s called ‘Mother’ –
m is for the million things she gave me – slaps in the head.
o is only that she’s growing old – and falling drunk down the stairs.
t is for the tears she shed to save me – shut the door, ya little bastard.
h is for her heart as pure as gold – sold it to Honest Harry for ten bucks.
e is for her eyes with lovelight shining – forty proof.
r is right and right she’ll always be – inside your wallet.
‘Put them altogether they spell? – Didn’t ya go to school? – Spells … MOTTHHHEEE-RRRR-RR!!’
Rosie sits back down.
“And they’d throw nickels, dimes, pennies, sometimes even a quarter and my maw, ‘How much did ya make? Dollar eighty-five? No, that’s a dollar fifty cuz ya see that? You looking? – whack – You looking? That’s a slug, and when they throw that at ya, ya throw it back at them!’
Throws it.
“ ‘And now get back up on that fucking table … go on, ya little bastard … need two bucks for the room … ’
“Room 36, that’s the one I remember best … don’t know why … had two windows … Well, the truth of it is … we never liked each other much … took off on me when I was ten with the Wild West show and this bar-room guy she was banging …
“Buffalow Bill I called him … He’s the one that taught me how to do kip-ups … Used to do kip-ups, too – ya know? – like Charlie Chaplin does straight up from the floor? Wrestlers do it now straight from the mat?
“Yeah, yeah, Little Beaver used to do it all the time … must be someone out there remembers Little Beaver? That midget French guy wore his hair in a Mohawk? … Jay-sus, who am I talking to? Buncha people from Ontario?
“Well, wasn’t much to write home to mother once we get transferred over to France where the ladies wear no pants …
“Anyhow, it rained all the fucking time we were marching near that town the Alleymans blew all to shit – Ypres, yeah – nothing there but a pile of bricks they called Ypres, not too far from ‘Mademoiselle from Armentières’ who left us all with souvenirs – crabs and cooties – march in there looking like this and march out looking that –
“Left …
Scratches crotch with right hand.
“Right …
Scratching head with left hand.
“Marching along …
Scratching with both hands.
“Left … Right … Left … Right …
“ ‘Heroes of the night rather fuck than fight … ’
Salutes officer while scratching cooties and crabs.
“ ‘Yes, sir! … ’ ‘Into these trenches … ’ ‘That’s a trench?’ … looks like ditches like the kind ya dug for a sewer pipe only there was no pipe, just the sewer up to the knees and – move on – Move On – MOVE ON – ON – ’ … With sergeant-majors yelling out your name your name your name your name your number number number and – shells – whee-wump – keep in line keep in line – whee-wump – cartloads of muck in the air – pieces of duckboard – arms and legs and – rifle – and a boot with a fucking foot in it – there it goes …
Shows foot spinning in air.
“Pa-a-lump-p-p – with lots of guys tossing up that navy with the beans they had fer breakfast – back in line back in line – number number number – into – uh – think it was the Battle of Loos spelt L-o-o-s – loop de Loos with – swwiisshh-h − bullets – swish – swishhh – swiisshh – and these five-point-niners schh-wanging away …
Shows the looping.
“Shh-shwwanngg – sh-wwanngg – and sh-wanngg – and – pp-wingg-ggggg – ricochet – ppwwiinngg-gggg – bullets hitting the wire – ppwwiinnngg-ggg and –
Stands up and points rifle.
“Ping –
Bolsheviki: A Dead Serious Comedy