CUT
Kevin Killian

for Mary Gaitskill

(Part 2 of 3)

Poor Douglas Devlin of the UC Berkeley Film Department! About to launch a scholarly conference on the films of Alfred Hitchcock, he is unaware that his wife, Marcella, is using the conference (and her affair with "Berkeley Times" reporter Steve Poitrine) to further her Sapphic passion for the eternal starlet Melanie Griffith. He's equally unaware that his son and right-hand man, the wayward, ambitious and Bard-educated Billy Hammer, has failed to invite the theorists he wanted (Judith Butler, Julia Kristeva, Avital Ronell et al) and instead invited the daughters of the great Hitchcock stars. From around the globe they (Melanie, Stephanie of Monaco, Isabella Rossellini, Jamie Lee Curtis) prepare to descend upon Berkeley...

[Enter ANDY GRIFFITH.]

ANDY GRIFFITH. Hello, little lady.

TIPPI. Who are you?

ANDY GRIFFITH. Why, I'm Andy—Andy of Mayberry. Mayberry, RFD.

TIPPI. I'm bleeding like a stuffed pig.

ANDY GRIFFITH. So you are! But down South we have a saying, "Have no fear, Andy's here." I cure post-partum trauma by applying loam and dead leaves to the ruptured private pelvic parts.

CHITA. He was a saint.

ANDY GRIFFITH. Let me take this little one home with me to Mayberry. Aunt Bee will make her a big breakfast of whiskey and grits.

[Enter "ALFRED HITCHCOCK."]

ALFRED HITCHCOCK. Is there a problem on the set?

TIPPI. Hitchcock! You put steak sauce on my face so those birds would mar my beauty! You've got a camera where most men have a heart.

ALFRED HITCHCOCK. You did not perform the trailer strip tease I demanded!

TIPPI. Mr. Griffith—Sheriff Andy—take this baby away before I scream. Bring her up in the rural pine woods, where coons and skunks shall be her sole companions.

ANDY. And Opie. C'mon, sweet thing.

TIPPI. I don't want her soiled by Hollywood.

ALFRED HITCHCOCK. Meanwhile, dear, the cameras keep rolling! Cut!

[Enter BILLY and ISABELLA ROSSELLINI. Exit ANDY, TIPPI, and "ALFRED HITCHCOCK."]

BILLY. Now, Bella dear, welcome to Berkeley!

ISABELLA. I love the little houses and students. I love the hills, even the street, how do you say, people. But where are the trees, the famous pine trees of Berkeley?

BILLY. Mother had the trees cut down. Chita, have you met Isabella Rossellini?

CHITA (smouldering with hatred). I hate her. We went to Bard together.

ISABELLA. That's right, and Chita majored in threat. A simple "Hello" would have sufficed.

BILLY. Bella dear, in this film you're playing an American woman, Jane Gallop, come to Berkeley to make new Amazon friends and give your own take on the oeuvre of Alfred Hitchcock. Got that?

ISABELLA. Do I have a script?

BILLY. No, we're doing everything in this really fab Cassavetes mix and match string quartet! You'll be wonderful! Oscar—Oscar! Oh, God, here comes Tippi Hedren—

[Exit BILLY. An awkward silence.]

CHITA. Heard Lancome fired you, Bella,

ISABELLA. Oh? It's a jungle in there.

CHITA. Even in Equatorial Africa, where I live with my two blonde ladies, we hear the news on the drums—Isabella Rossellini, too old to wear makeup.

ISABELLA. Shatter my composure? Never! David Lynch tried—Gary Oldman tried, as did Gary Coleman from TV's Different Strokes. I was married to Martin Scorcese for four long years and, always, always, came I out the other end the ethereal Isabella. That's Italian for "lovely," you fiend.

CHITA. It's now Italian for "over." Wake up, Bella, smell the coffee. It's hot.

ISABELLA. Is there coffee? Bella!—that means "lovely," in Italian.

CHITA. I used to bring you flowers and money, every day at Bard. Long, cool roses and lilies of worship, with the Bard Gazette propped up on your breakfast tray in bed. And the steam of coffee ringed your face.

ISABELLA. You kept me beautiful, Chita. But you haven't spoken to me in years.

CHITA (drawn to her). It's not an exact silence.

ISABELLA. Honestly, Chita, I thought when you gave me the cobra jewel, you gave it to me for keeps. No strings attached. It was your way of saying, "I'm mad about you," without the English.

CHITA. Geef me the cobarah chewel.

[Enter TIPPI HEDREN.]

TIPPI. My birds brought me here, my birds, here to Berkeley. My birds, and my Chita!

ISABELLA. We will discuss the cobra jewel, but later.

[Enter DEVLIN and BILLY.]

DEVLIN. Ah, here she is—

BILLY (indicating TIPPI HEDREN). This is Laura Mulvey, Dad. And this [he points to ISABELLA) is Jane Gallup—

ISABELLA (shaking hands with DEVLIN). I know who I am, no matter who fires me from what job! I am a supermodel—

BILLY. A super theorist, one of our best and one of Sweden's best! [Aside to ISABELLA.] Run now, Bella dear, Gary Coleman is waiting for you upstairs next to the Tchelitchev.

CHITA. Geef me the cobarah chewel!

ISABELLA. Arrivederci, wonderful men!

[Exit ROSSELLINI.]

DEVLIN. How long have I wanted to gaze on your refulgent form, Laura Mulvey, and to ask you from this podium, in front of all these people, how you came up with the revolutionary idea of the "male gaze."

TIPPI (nervously). Male gays? I don't know—maybe Melanie knows. In my day, most of the gays were in the closet, like Rock Hudson. But Melanie's worked with all of them, she's always on the go, and of course living in Aspen she knows David Geffen and Keanu Reeves.

BILLY (hastily). Chita, why don't you take Miss Mulvey down to her trailer and give her some Mandrax and herbal lotion? [To DEVLIN.] The great avatars of film theory require special handling.

TIPPI. Tell everyone . . . not to wear red.

CHITA. No red dresses! No red scarves or pins for my little blonde lady!

TIPPI. Thank you, Chita.

[Exit CHITA and TIPPI.]

DEVLIN. Why certainly, Ms. Mulvey. Billy, did you hear that? No red!

BILLY. I heard, Dad. At Bard I got straight A's in listening.

DEVLIN. Well, son, you've done a fine job for me. Laura Mulvey's a distinguished thinker, neurotic about red, I suppose, and Jane Gallup's a bit imperious. But I can handle them both. The only thing that bothers me is—where's Julia Kristeva?

BILLY. Mom's picking her up at the airport.

DEVLIN. Oh, good—hope she takes the short cut.

BILLY. You said, "Cut!"

[DEVLIN and BILLY are now smoking cigarettes.]

BILLY. That was great . . . oh, Dad, I had all these unrealized Oedipal longings in me, paralyzed by frost and apathy, but one touch of your hand would have been enough! Instead we had the ultimate father-son je ne sais quoi.

DEVLIN. That precious mousy brown and gray hair—I remember fondling it in your cradle, the last time I thought of family life.

BILLY. Ah, well, let's not make too big a deal out of it, shall we? I'm ready to go on with life, how about you?

DEVLIN. Inetead I turned to Godard and his dictum that truth is 24 frames a second. Oh what a fool I was! You're beautiful, Billy.

BILLY. If only I could turn my beauty into respect! Dad—now that we're close, can I confess my ruse to you?

DEVLIN. Billy—Billy—cut—cut—cut, cut, cut!

[Exit DEVLIN and BILLY. Enter MARCELLA and MELANIE.]

MARCELLA. Where are you staying? Don't even answer. You're coming with us. My husband's bungalow, at 2527 College, is a Maybeck, perfect as an ark. Who knows, it may rain; and you and I will start a whole new race of blondes.

The only thing is, you have to pretend that you're Julia Kristeva.

MELANIE. Who?

MARCELLA. I'll tell you later. The important thing, Miss Griffith, is—I love you. Earnestly, honestly, from the time I was a young girl, I've lived my whole life for you. Sweetly, tenderly, I long for you. Take me, Miss Griffith. You with the mind of a CPA and the bod made for sin. Take me away from this humdrum Berkeley Chez Panisse-UAM-David Lance Goines merry go round and make love to me.

MELANIE. But I'm married! To Don Johnson—I think. No! Antonio Banderas!

MARCELLA. I'm married, too—to Douglas Devlin, need I say more?

MELANIE. This is all happening too fast for a girl from Mayberry, RFD.

MARCELLA. I know you want a drink.

MELANIE. I don't drink. [Panicking.] Wine.

MARCELLA. For you I have cut down all the famous Berkeley pines, and gathered their cones, and made you a heaping jug full of pine cognac.

MELANIE. Oh, my favorite . . . from Mayberry. I took my first drink at age four, with Opie, down in the shadow of the pines, and he turned over a rock and pointed out a little pool of pine cognac. [Giggles.] We went skinny-dipping. But I don't drink any more. I'm in a twelve-step program.

MARCELLA. Melanie dear, forget about AA and Betty Ford, forget about your endless war with your mother and being born in a phone booth, forget Don and Antonio and just concentrate on cognac, drinking, and me, me, Marcella Devlin. Cut!

[Enter DEVLIN and STEPHANIE.]

DEVLIN. Princess, help me. I'm confused. Torn by the irrevocable violence of the text of this film, yet haunted by what lies behind the screen.

MELANIE. I'm confused. You confuse me, Marcella.

MARCELLA. I'll take you to the barrel.

[Exit MARCELLA and MELANIE.]

DEVLIN. Is the film experience an allegory for the myth of Abraham and Isaac? Or what's the famous tale where a father makes love to his own son, then wakes up realizing maybe it was all a dream?

STEPHANIE. If you stood where I stand, you would see yourself, Douglas Devlin, alone, a man with no friends, facing a woman with a heart torn apart, formerly a piece of Eurotrash, now a nothing.

[Enter JAMIE LEE CURTIS.]

I'm seeing double and I haven't had a drink since the crash.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS. I am Jamie Lee Curtis.

STEPHANIE. Ah, bon jour! C'est vrai—you were born in the shower in Psycho, and shortly afterwards developed a strong male and strong female side of your character.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS (male). There is no "strong male" side to Jamie Lee Curtis.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS (female). Am I a strong woman? Hear me roar.

DEVLIN. I told Billy Hammer, no stars at this conference! But you—Miss Curtis—interest me more than I should.

JAMIE LEE (male). We have that effect—

JAMIE LEE (female). —On men and women of all sexes. Come to me,—

JAMIE LEE (male). —come to me, Douglas Devlin.

JAMIE LEE (both). Tell me all your cares and woes.

STEPHANIE (to audience). I have been asked to talk about Alfred Hitchcock and the collapse of meaning. The narratological desire of the—steep Riviera slopes—I with my walkman blaring my hit Euro-single "Hurricane"—and my mother's fat drunken face screaming—and my foot, that pesky, heavy foot—

DEVLIN. Oh, get out of here, you're the pesky one. Stop blaming everything on your foot! It's you! You're the problem, not your foot!

STEPHANIE. Welcome! Bienvenue! In tears I hereby open this festival.

JAMIE LEE (both). You want to talk to a woman so big she inhabits the bodies of all genders.

STEPHANIE. I'll take my foot out of the way. My foot, that you don't like!

[Exit STEPHANIE.]

DEVLIN. I'm so afraid of the conference! I'm afraid Avital Ronell won't show up, I'll be laughed out of the MLA.

JAMIE LEE (female). I used to be frightened, too. After all,—

JAMIE LEE (male). —I was born during the shower scene in Psycho.

JAMIE LEE (female). My first memories were blood—rushing water—

JAMIE LEE (male). And a big knife!

DEVLIN (shivering). Mine too.

[Enter STEVE.]

STEVE (to audience). Shall I?

DEVLIN. Ah, Jamie Lee Curtis . . .

STEVE. Cut.

DEVLIN. I'm sorry.

JAMIE LEE (female). Don't worry about it.

JAMIE LEE (male). It's the stress. Don't blame yourself.

DEVLIN. No—I'm never like this—ask Marcella.

JAMIE LEE (both). We have much to ask Marcella.

STEVE. Cut. [To audience.] So what would you do? Marcella Devlin had me pinned down to her wall like a pet in a movie, stuffed with my own lust and deceit.

[Exit DEVLIN and JAMIE LEE.]

How could I let her get away with what amounted to murder? I'm an ordinary guy, with ordinary hands and feet. I'm not an angel or a monster. I'm me—me, Steve Poitrine. I'm gonna find Marcella Devlin and tell her—it's Melanie Griffith or me, or your husband!

[Enter BILLY.]

BILLY. I wasn't always like this—wasn't always the magnet for fun and excitement. My celullar phone drips numbers like honey, but once I was dull, a Berkeley frump. Then I went to Bard and learned a little bit about computer science and Jheri curls. I realized, "Hey! Language comes in a one and a zero. The world is digital." From then on life assumed a binary purpose and a sense of meaning. Now I'm representing clients.

[Enter KARL LAGERFELD.]

KARL (claps hands above his head). I am here!

STEVE. That bozo looks familiar. Isn't he in Vogue?

BILLY (to STEVE). Actually—you look familiar. Didn't you go to Bard?

KARL. Where are the festival servants?

BILLY. I'm going to check my yearbook. Or did you have a twin, who had sex with the whole lacrosse team?

[Exit BILLY.]

STEVE. I shouldn't have gone out for lacrosse. I fell asleep in the locker room, woke up in a sling, my rosy medallions slithered with grease.

KARL (claps hands above his head). I am here!

STEVE. He was in Pret-a-Porter... and Marcella's hands came up through my popcorn. It's Oscar de la Renta—no! I, Steve, say no.

KARL. Is no one here to wipe the boots of the great Karl Lagerfeld? No one in all of Berkeley is fit to remove mud from my fez. Strange mud, as though the bulldozers had ripped up every pine in the city—perhaps to make pine cognac to celebrate my arrival. You—young man with the black hair—handsome as Alain Delon or Vincent Perez. Come and kiss my lips, the torrid lips of the ageless designer of Lancome.

STEVE. I was hungry—and you came with a whole German army of schnitzel.

KARL. After we endure our love, you will help me crown the new Lancome woman and inaugurate fashion here in Berkeley.

STEVE. New Lancome woman? What's wrong with Isabella Rossellini?

[Enter ANDY GRIFFITH.]

KARL. I shudder when I think of her. No, she has kept the cobra jewel too long, that one. You—you, Andy Griffith—you are here, good! You will be playing "me" at this fete. I am too well known to go in public to perform the cobra ritual. Who knows what Valerie Solanases lurk among the tree stumps of this ugly city by the bay.

ANDY. Well shucks, Karl, I'm straight off the set of Matlock, still wearin' my seersucker with mah good luck Hush Puppies.

KARL. Straight? Puppies? I do not care. This [indicating STEVE] is my—how do you say—inspiration. He—Steve Poitrine—cub reporter, acting student, now supermodel for Lagerfeld, Chloe, Lancome. He—Andy Griffith—father of Melanie Griffith.

STEVE. Hi.

ANDY. Nice to meet you, son. You know Goober? Goober would like you, I don't.

KARL. Play me to a T, Mr. Andy.

STEVE. But hurry! The conference is about to start!

[Here ends the second of three parts.

The third part will appear in next month's Transcendental Friend;

for the first part, click here.]