CUT
Kevin Killian

for Mary Gaitskill

(Part 3 of 3)

As the Hitchcock conference he's devised begins, Douglas Devlin of UC Berkeley's film department is going to pieces. Inadvertently he's had sex with his son, the enterprising, Bard-educated Billy Hammer. His wife, Marcella, has left him (and her sometime boyfriend, Hitchcock-lookalike Steve Poitrine) for the eternal Hollywood starlet Melanie Griffith. To save his father's sanity, Billy persuades the conference guests he's invited-Griffith, Isabella Rossellini, Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie de Monaco-to assume the identities of the high theorists Douglas Devlin wanted to appear-Avital Ronell, Julia Kristeva, Jane Gallop. Lurking in the background is the eminence grise Karl Lagerfeld who has determined to take away the Lancome crown from Rossellini and give it to someone younger, prettier. Tippi Hedren, star of Hitchcock's Marnie and The Birds, confides in Andy Griffith, the putative father of Melanie, the difficult circumstances of Melanie's birth, while she (Hedren) was being attacked by birds inside a phone booth in Bodega Bay. Chita du Sumatra, her Bard-educated maid from the ruling caste of Sumatra, reminsces fondly about her long-ago college love affair with Rossellini, when both were LUGs (Lesbians Until Graduation).

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

[Exit STEVE and KARL.]

ANDY. It was a cold rainy night in Bodega Bay when I first met Tippi Hedren. She was covered with birds and I took her into a nearby diner to clean the mud off her.

[Enter KARL LAGERFELD.]

KARL (waving a finger). Andy, Andy, you are not being me very nicely!

ANDY. Fashion is fun! Fashion is the now! Fashion is excitement, chocolate bonbons on a cake de la wedding! Fashion is what I mandate for the future and ze president!

KARL (mollified). Better, Andy!

ANDY (under his breath). Sprecken zie fuckez-vous, Mr. German know it all. [Aloud:] Fashion makes the man live like ze emperor of cream!

KARL. I thought Andie McDowell was a prettier woman than that. Zut alors. No matter.

[Exit KARL LAGERFELD. Enter TIPPI HEDREN.]

ANDY. My, she was a pretty little sight, a dumpling of plenty.

TIPPI. My baby—where's my baby?

ANDY. Remember, sugar plum? Your baby's in Mayberry. I just fed exed the poor, squawling thing to Aunt Bee not thirty minutes ago.

TIPPI. He came to me in the guise of a bird . . . a big bird, horrid . . . pecking away, pecking the tender spots of my scrap. In my trailer. A trailer, the last safe place left in America, that's why I left and set up my wild animal preserve in Africa. If even a trailer isn't safe from your director, why live in the States? A big bird, with black eyes, round in the middle, like a robin fat with worms . . . Robin Redbreast . . .

ANDY GRIFFITH. Shucks, that was no bird, that was just me, Andy of Mayberry.

[Enter DEVLIN.]

DEVLIN. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Douglas Devlin, and welcome to the Berkeley Film Commission and our first annual Hitchcock deconstruction. First, I'd like to introduce you to—my God, Devlin—what have you done? Had sex with your own son, like Mrs. Norman Bates! And with Jamie Lee Curtis, kind of!

[Enter BILLY.]

BILLY HAMMER. Dad—Dad—it's all right. Excuse me, audience, my father's had a great shock.

TIPPI. Now he wants me to go on and tell the world I'm Laura Mulvey. Whoever that is. Something to do with gays.

ANDY. Well, you're an actress, hon!

TIPPI. Tell me, Andy, why does Melanie hate me so?

BILLY. What my father's trying to say is—he's signed up a great bill of talent for you this afternoon, so hold on to your hats, because here they come now—Julia Kristeva . . . Laura Mulvey . . . Jane Gallup, ladies and gentlemen.

[MELANIE and ISABELLA shuffle on stage, disgruntled. MELANIE is drunk and wearing a spectacular red dress. Lastly, JAMIE LEE CURTIS enters the stage.]

And who's this? I forget.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS. We are Avital Ronell.

BILLY. Give them a great round of applause.

[ISABELLA, TIPPI and MELANIE take their seats.]

DEVLIN. In my moment of triumph I feel sick. Up on the mountain of Everest, plunged to hell by my guilt and pain.

BILLY. Well—why don't you lie down?

JAMIE LEE CURTIS (male). We will help you—

JAMIE LEE CURTIS (female). —drag the exquisite corpse of your father off the stage.

BILLY. Oh my God, it's Karl Lagerfeld. Dad, I tried to get Lacan, but he must be dead or something, and Lagerfeld's right under Lacan in the phone books of Paris, so—shrug!

DEVLIN (faintly). Where is Marcella?

JAMIE LEE CURTIS (both). She has found her niche.

DEVLIN. While I have found the awful nothing in the eye of narratology.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS (male). Come—

JAMIE LEE CURTIS (female). —Come with us, Douglas Devlin.

[They lift an arm over their shoulders and carry DEVLIN off stage.]

ANDY GRIFFITH (as "KARL LAGERFELD"). I am Karl Lagerfeld, come to Berkeley to crown new Lancome frau—I mean, woman. First, I must strip the crown off tired, selfish frau who has held it too long—Isabella Rossellini?

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI. I'm listening, but I am Jane Gallup, playing the part of a woman, listening, suspiciously, thinking to herself, that man's a snake!

ANDY GRIFFITH (as "KARL LAGERFELD"). Give me the cobra jewel.

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI. Karl, Karl, how cruel. Jane Gallup, calling Karl Lagerfeld cruel, calling the man playing Lagerfeld cruel. None of this is real, none sinks into the bewildered mind of Jane Gallup, which twitches with every word like snakes writhing in one of those metal baskets, poised above the sizzling grease, in the McDonalds of Berkeley, where they make the french fries.

[Enter CHITA.]

CHITA. Geef me the cobarah chewel!

ISABELLA. I would, but I don't have it!

BILLY. I love you both, but let's not get sticky about it.

CHITA. Two things I can smell within a hundred feet—burning hamburger, and the lies of Rossellini.

ISABELLA. I was napping atop Gary Coleman, when I felt a sharp tug at my neck.

MELANIE (after a beat). Mother!

TIPPI HEDREN. You wore that red dress!

MELANIE. You're wearing one too! I'm not the only "co" here.

TIPPI HEDREN. Okay, okay. I took the cobra jewel. I left it in my trailer, next to the bird cage.

CHITA. I will fetch it and return it to print ads and Sumatra.

ISABELLA. I go with you.

CHITA. You know I have loved you since Bard. Will you take from me the symbol of my only advantage, my beauty?

ISABELLA. I haven't decided. You're going to find it easy to take back my tray. Oh, Chita, I love your hair.

CHITA. But do you like its—cut?

[Exit CHITA and ISABELLA.]

BILLY. Now—the showdown! Melanie Griffith?

MELANIE. Am I still supposed to be Julia Kristeva?

TIPPI HEDREN. Drop the pretense! No one believed you for a minute playing that cop infiltrating the Hasidic Jews of Brooklyn! Or how about you as the top Allied resistance agent in Shining Through with Michael Douglas!

MELANIE. Oh, wow! Look who's talking! America's greatest actress Tippi Hedren! Hitchcock couldn't get Grace Kelly, so he found you in some Swedish meatball joint!

TIPPI. I never made meatballs. I'm a vegan.

MELANIE. You were never an actress. Or a mother! Or a vegan.

TIPPI. I don't know how that Swedish thing got started anyhow.

MELANIE. Because you're so weird, Mother! People had to blame it on something!

ANDY GRIFFITH. Whoa, whoa—ladies, please!

MELANIE. If she hates those birds so much, why does she always travel with them? Why the seclusion? Why the bird preserve in Africa?

TIPPI HEDREN. I never worked with meatballs, nor have I been to Sweden. People say terrible things about a star just because she's difficult and cold. Andy—I mean, Mr. Karl Lagerfeld—do me a favor? Get me a heating pad from my trailer.

ANDY GRIFFITH. Will do!

[Exit ANDY GRIFFITH.]

TIPPI HEDREN. Okay, I have my problems. When I see the color red I grow dizzy, faint, I steal things—little things—valuable things. And I'm a bit frigid. I lied to the world about the father of my baby, but wouldn't you? Who says we have to tell the truth to the world? Where is that written? Has the world ever told the truth to us?

MELANIE. When it was my birthday all the other kids got parties in Mayberry, and all I got from Hollywood was these little dollsize coffins, with a little doll of you in it, dead, dressed like you were in Marnie!

TIPPI. That wasn't me’ I had no time for presents! I was too busy combatting the rumors about me being from Sweden!

MELANIE. And why are you so against me drinking? What was there to do, in Mayberry, except drink pine cognac and meet Don Johnson?

[Enter MARCELLA, with a glass of cognac.]

MARCELLA. I'll take your side, silvergirl. Ah, your lips are dry!—which is like saying, my lips are dry. Drink—drink—feel good. Try not to turn onto problems that upset you, cause it's cool and the unguent's sweet, there's a fire in your hands and feet—

MELANIE. You're telling me!

MARCELLA. I'll sit here by your side, and after you've resigned from Tippi Hedren, you will join me at my new clinic, the Marcella Devlin clinic.

MELANIE. Fine.

TIPPI HEDREN. It's true, I have a complex relation to my birds. It's a love-hate relationship. [To an invisible bird.] Hi there! Do you love me? I had a girl, a girl who doesn't love me back! I see a bird, and I feel—antsy inside, as though some grand part of me had been crumpled up, then flown away!

BILLY. Mother, I've been meaning to ask you, are you a lesbian?

MELANIE. I can't sit here and make comments. I am Julia Kristeva.

[A STUDENT stands up from the audience, waving.]

STUDENT. Miss Kristeva?

MELANIE. Who?

STUDENT. Julia Kristeva?

MELANIE. I don't understand the question. Marcella? Where's my pine cognac?

MARCELLA. Here, dear. Miss Kristeva's off right now, she'll be investigating the power of horror at the Marcella Devlin clinic. Miss Hedren—vicious, obstinate, Miss Hedren? I have a telegram for you.

BILLY. I'll read it as her representative. [Rips open telegram.] Oh my God! Your performance as Laura Mulvey has won you the Academy Award! Melanie's been kicked out of Hollywood, and you'll be starring in all her future roles!

MARCELLA (to MELANIE). Come dear, I have your dose in the Maybeck.

TIPPI (breathless). Vindicated!

MARCELLA. Goodbye, Billy. Goodbye Berkeley.

MELANIE. Occasionally I always drink too much.

[MELANIE stumbles off stage. MARCELLA is confronted by STEVE.]

STEVE. Okay, Marcella, who's it gonna be, me, him or her?

MARCELLA. What kind of dish am I, Steve? I'm the sixty-cent special—cheap, flashy, strictly poison under the gravy.

STEVE. Why'd you lie to me?

MARCELLA. Why'd I put on these shoes? Some things you do, some things you don't.

STEVE. Just don't leave me in a minor key.

MARCELLA. That's what they all say.

STEVE. You're a bitter little lady.

MARCELLA. It's a bitter little world. I've got something on my conscience, but what woman hasn't?

[Exit MARCELLA.]

BILLY. Go ahead, cry on my shoulder.

[Enter CHITA.]

CHITA. Or mine, big-faced man.

BILLY. Here she is, my Lancome girl. I'm poised to become the Matthew Marks of show business, if that's not an oxymoron,—boosting the Old Masters with one hand—[grabs TIPPI's hand and raises it high]—but also [drops her hand—she sinks into a chair] giving a boost to the new young promising stars of tomorrow, like my other properties, Chita du Sumatra and Steve Lacrosse. What a day it's been—first, I brought fun to Berkeley, then, I got to fuck my own father, and now I'm representing clients!

[Exit BILLY.]

STEVE. What's money, just a piece of paper crawling with germs. Without Marcella Devlin, I'm like a man set free from a Turkish prison.

TIPPI. I'm no ordinary girl, in a red dress and a French twist, I steal, I cheat, people laugh at my wooden patrician face. Yet here I am, still, without motion or a clue, rushing secret harmonies with all kinds of things I can't explain. I'd coil my fingers round your neck, push the cloth from your heart, Robin Redbreast. Ever hear the one about the two circumcisionists? "The first cut is the deepest."

CHITA. I should be happy, with my cobra jewel, but what about the love I denied? From Bard, to Sumatra, to now, I wanted a woman made of tears, for which all the jungles of my country have been stripped of rubber. I would call it to your memory now—

TIPPI. Robin Redbreast, a bird so sorrowful the quiet forester gives a low moan.

STEVE. Ferret teeth in the breast of a red bird.

CHITA. —that a phantasmal fog of love had enthralled me to her, then, but not only then, in these my words, I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks—while she loved me.

TIPPI. The quiet forester gives a low moan. Wake up!

ALL. Let's go see Bava's final masterpiece, Red High Heels of Death!

[Here ends the third of three parts.

The first part appeard in the October 1998 issue of

The Transcendental Friend; the second part appeard

in the November issue.]

CUT, by Kevin Killian, first produced at the University Art Museum, UC Berkeley, April 2, 1995 with the following cast:

"Alfred Hitchcock"/Steve Poitrine	Clifford Hengst
Billy Hammer	Jonathan Hammer
Marcella Devlin	Margaret Crane
Chita du Sumatra	Phoebe Gloeckner
Douglas Devlin	Wayne Smith
Stephanie, Princess of Monaco	Eleni Sikelianos
Tippi Hedren	Mary Gaitskill
Melanie Griffith	Andrea Juno
Andy Griffith	Rex Ray
Isabella Rossellini	Caroline Azar
Jamie Lee Curtis	Scott Hewicker
Jamie Lee Curtis	Michelle Rollman
Karl Lagerfeld	D-L Alvarez

And revived at the Poetry Project at St. Mark's, NYC on April 29, 1998 with the following cast:

"Alfred Hitchcock"/Steve Poitrine	Tim Davis
Billy Hammer	Kevin Killian
Marcella Devlin	Eileen Myles
Chita du Sumatra	Michelle Rollman
Douglas Devlin	Kenward Elmslie
Stephanie, Princess of Monaco	Eleni Sikelianos
Tippi Hedren	Laurie Weeks
Melanie Griffith	Lee Ann Brown
Andy Griffith	D-L Alvarez
Isabella Rossellini	Lynne Tillman
Jamie Lee Curtis	Joe Westmoreland
Jamie Lee Curtis	Sianne Ngai
Karl Lagerfeld	Bruce Andrews