The Dazzling Night
A Noh play in English about Katherine Mansfield
by Rachel McAlpine
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First performed 1998
This edition copyright © Rachel McAlpine Trust 2010
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CHARACTERS
Waki [secondary actor]: Sir Harold Beauchamp (Katherine Mansfield’s father)
Shite [primary actor]: the ghost of Katherine Mansfield.
Kyogen [interlude actor]: an elderly member of the Gurdjieff community
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ABOUT KATHERINE MANSFIELD
Katherine Mansfield was born in Wellington and spent her childhood there. Her parents, grandmother, three sisters, one brother, an aunt and various servants lived in the same household. She spent two years at school in London, and when she came home, she could not tolerate the provincial simplicity of life in New Zealand. So she left New Zealand at the age of 19, never to return.
Twenty-four tempestuous years in England and France followed. She married John Middleton Murry, and mixed with intellectuals and writers including Virginia Woolf, Bertrand Russell, Clive Bell, Aldous Huxley, T S Eliot and D H and Freida Lawrence. Her short stories quickly made her famous.
At the age of 35, terminally ill with tuberculosis, Katherine Mansfield joined the commune of spiritual leader Gurdjieff in Fontainebleau, France. About 50 people, mostly Russians, lived there together in a rustic community, sharing practical, earthy tasks. Katherine Mansfield lived joyfully with Gurdjieff and his followers until her death a few months later.
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ABOUT NOH THEATRE
Noh is an ancient Japanese Buddhist dramatic form, still practised in Japan today. Noh plays have simple plots that concern spiritual redemption rather than action and conflict. The performance, like the script, is not naturalistic but slow, stylized and ceremonial. The style is predominantly lyrical poetry with interludes of prose. It’s normal to quote freely from original sources in Noh, so The Dazzling Night includes numerous quotes from Katherine Mansfield’s writings.
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THE DAZZLING NIGHT
ACT ONE
SCENE: In the grounds of the Gurdjieff Institute in Fontainebleau.
[SIR HAROLD BEAUCHAMP ENTERS]
SIR HAROLD BEAUCHAMP
It is January the ninth.
The stars are a sheet of ice across the sky.
The fields are brown and cut to the quick.
The trees are bare.
Dead leaves shuffle over bare soil.
The earth is cold to its very core.
They say this is normal, here—
but it doesn’t seem normal to me.
In the southern hemisphere
holiday and sunshine start the year.
In winter, trees don’t lose their leaves.
At New Year, all resolve
to turn a new leaf, and mend our lives.
I am Sir Harold Beauchamp from New Zealand. I am Chairman of the Bank of New Zealand. I have travelled twelve thousand miles to see this place, the Gurdjieff Institute in Fontainebleau, near Paris. My daughter died here, many years ago.
This is the second sad pilgrimage I have made to France. My son died here in the Great War, and I came to see his grave. Seven years later, on this very day, in this very place, my daughter Katherine died of tuberculosis. It is a long journey from Wellington to Fontainebleau. Again I have travelled as far as a person can travel without starting back towards home. The world is round. You can travel far from home. Then you reach a point where you must stop, or else you are on the way back home again.
It is bitter when a daughter dies before her father.
It is bitter to stand by a daughter’s grave.
Katherine was only thirty-five.
This morning I reached the community where she died,
the Gurdjieff Institute.
I did not tell them who I was. I was too ashamed.
Today they kindly gave me a tour.
I have seen the room where she died.
This Institute has stables and pigpens and barns,
a dormitory, a hall, and a holy space.
Everything is crude and plain.
Bare boards, red rugs, thick drapes.
How sad to think my daughter died
so far from home, in such a strange and simple place.
The leaves move in the garden.
The sky is pale.
It is cold, very cold.
But I cannot bear to leave this place.
This was her reality.
I will sleep tonight in the cowshed.
It’s a way of feeling close
to Katherine Mansfield.
[THE GHOST OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD ENTERS IN THE GUISE OF A SIMPLE WOMAN COME TO CHECK ON THE COWS.]
THE GHOST OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD
On a cold winter night it is good
to be with animals,
warm cows that willingly give
their sweet frothy milk.
On a cold winter night it is good
to breathe the breath of cows,
to live with a group of people
who are busy and kind.
I remember a warmer place,
my place in the sun,
my Paradise lost
in the South.
At New Year we went swimming
in the clear blue sea.
A little girl at home
with people,
warm and quick and kind.
I was never alone for long.
CHORUS
She was never alone for long.
People and cows and dogs and sheep
can make a cold place warm.
She was never alone for long.
SIR HAROLD BEAUCHAMP
I wonder who this woman is. I don’t remember seeing her today at the Institute. Is she here to milk the cows? Surely it is too late at night for that?
[SHITE STROKES A COW]
THE GHOST OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD
Daisy, you are my favourite cow. I love your big brown eyes, your twisty horns, your brown coat, your white eyelashes, your vigorous tongue! You remind me of my home.
SIR HAROLD BEAUCHAMP
Excuse me! May I talk with you a moment?
THE GHOST OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD
You startled me. Why are you here in the cowshed?
SIR HAROLD BEAUCHAMP
I am a visitor at the Gurdjieff Institute. They told me I could sleep here tonight. I met many people today.
THE GHOST OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD
What joy it is to be with living people
who are workers all together,
strange and quick and not ashamed to be themselves!
SIR HAROLD BEAUCHAMP
I don’t believe we’ve met. Are you a member of the Gurdjieff community?
THE GHOST OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD
Long ago, I lived here. It is a kindly place. Why have you come?
SIR HAROLD BEAUCHAMP
I am on a pilgrimage, for here my daughter died,
and her grave is close.
When I think about her tragic death I feel emotional.
We had many foolish misunderstandings.
I’m a happy man, but still there’s something wrong.
I wish that I could tell her I am sorry.
THE GHOST OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD
If you are troubled, it is good you are here. This is a holy place, a healing place. Who are you, and who was your daughter?
SIR HAROLD BEAUCHAMP
I am here incognito. I’m proud of who I am; yet here, where she died, I’m ashamed to say my name.
THE GHOST OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD
No one can help you if you won’t admit your name.
SIR HAROLD BEAUCHAMP
To you I’ll say my name. For truly, I feel no better for my pilgrimage. Indeed, I feel worse. Perhaps it will relieve me to open my heart to a stranger. I am Sir Harold Beauchamp, father of Katherine Mansfield.
THE GHOST OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD
Father of Katherine Mansfield, the famous writer who died here years ago?
SIR HAROLD BEAUCHAMP
Did you know my daughter? If so, please tell me about the last days of her life. I have not dared to ask the other people.
THE GHOST OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD
Indeed, I knew her slightly.
Her words are always in my mind.
SIR HAROLD BEAUCHAMP
Please tell me what she said in the months before she died!
CHORUS
I wish it were not so cold.
The taste of blood in my mouth is strange.
Last night I felt my body breaking up like glass.
How easy it is to die.
I’m a dead woman even now.
Can I walk? I can only creep.
I am a parasite, a cripple.
That is what she said in the months before she died.
SIR HAROLD BEAUCHAMP
My poor daughter! My poor daughter!
Such a dreadful way to die!
THE GHOST OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD
My spring of life is starved, she said.
I want a home! I want a real life.
I’m a woman, not a girl.
All this love and joy that fights
for outlet, all this life
that’s drying up like milk in an old
breast. Oh, I want life!
CHORUS
She wanted life, she wanted life,
she wanted to be real!
THE GHOST OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD
I dream of New Zealand again and again.
I dream it is delightful,
and there is no escape.
I want a home. I want some friends
and people and a house.
If I were allowed a single cry to God
it would be,
‘I want to be real.’
CHORUS
She wanted life, she wanted life!
She wanted to be real!
THE GHOST OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD
Fire is sunlight,
fire returns
to the sun
in a cycle.
Everything
has its shadow.
The leaves move
in the garden.
The sky is pale,
and I catch myself weeping.
It is hard, oh it is hard
to make a good death.
CHORUS
It is hard, oh it is hard
to make a good death.
SIR HAROLD BEAUCHAMP
Do not leave me with these dreadful words!
Tell me something good before you go!
Did she ever speak about her family?
Did she speak sweetly of New Zealand?
CHORUS
Again and again
she dreamed about New Zealand.
New Zealand and her family filled her mind.
Her dear little mother, her jovial father,
her sisters and cousins and uncles and aunts,
the dogs and ducks and cabbages
and cows of dear Karori —
these were always on her mind.
SIR HAROLD BEAUCHAMP
Tell me a happy memory of my daughter’s
or I fear I’ll never go to sleep.
[SHITE DANCES MINIMALLY]
THE GHOST OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD
She spoke about her birthday ball,
dancing with handsome partners
on a beautiful golden floor.
CHORUS
Round and round and round she danced.
How heavenly! The coloured flags,
the gleaming floor, the pink and white
azaleas, the golden chairs,
the lanterns—round and round and round—
how heavenly, how heavenly!
THE GHOST OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD
But then a fat man made this young girl
want to run away and cry.
He said one day she would be old,
old, old, in an ugly dress,
and no-one would want to kiss her
any more. She wanted
happiness to last forever.
Things can change so quickly!
CHORUS
She wanted to leave the ball and be at home.
The moment you leave home,
you start a journey that
will lead you home again.
Beautiful things can vanish overnight.
The first ball is the beginning of the last.
SIR HAROLD BEAUCHAMP
There is something very strange here. You know too much about my daughter and New Zealand. Who are you? Please tell me your name!
[THE GHOST OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD LEAVES THE STAGE]
*****
INTERLUDE
[KYOGEN, A MAN OF THE GURDJIEFF INSTITUTE, ENTERS]
KYOGEN
Are you comfortable in here? Is there anything you want before you go to bed?
SIR HAROLD BEAUCHAMP
Well, I do have a question I’d like to ask, if you don’t mind.
KYOGEN
All right. What do you want to know?
SIR HAROLD BEAUCHAMP
I am very curious about Katherine Mansfield, who died in this place. Were you here at that time? If so, please tell me everything you know.