Barker: Plays Five

HELEN: Don’t die…! Don’t die, Dancer!

DANCER: Oh, how they hate me, Jane…in this, these arch-opponents are of one accord…for I am the antithesis of History, which has manacled their souls…

The world revolves and dynasties can come and go but that diabolical and cynical parcel of depravity

She sleeps because she cannot tolerate a world whose poverty of spirit includes even her…

DANCER: (Hacking another slice.) LET THEM EAT CAKE! (He tosses it wildly over his shoulder.) She was not cruel…she was struggling with incomprehension, Marie Antoinette…

You because you believe in nothing.
And me, because I represent everything.
The cynic.
The symbol.
Lucidity.
And illusion.
Take me to a foreign city and we can live as poor as beggars in a room…
I will be a mystery to you.
Naked.
On a mattress.
Poverty
Exile
And
Desire… (DANCER looks at her…)
My body is not perfect –
DANCER: I’ve seen it –
CAROLINE: Three children leave their mark –
DANCER: Seen it I said –
CAROLINE: But an empress is an empress and – (Pause.)
Seen it, how? (DANCER shrugs…)
DANCER: All night on a balcony

DANCER: (Looking into the night.)
Hated nightfall
As long as there was day
I sensed the power to distinguish
Will from appetite
What thrilled me in the sun
Is threatening by night
Hated nightfall
I’ll lie awake all hours
Plotting injury to those I love
And you will pass an unclean hand
Over the eyes of malcontents
The senile dissidents
And those
Who find a recompense in cruelty…
(CAROLINE, steering her SON into the direction of his SISTERS, goes towards DANCER, who gazes into the evening

Sophisticated! (ROMANOFF steps forward.)
ROMANOFF: I’ll give the bride away…
(DANCER is puzzled. The telephone rings. He is still. It rings and rings.)
Shall I?
Wouldn’t you like that?
(Ignoring him, DANCER walks out of the room. They speak at once.)
It’s all right, I know what I’m doing
HELEN: (To CAROLINE.) Don’t quarrel with him –
ROMANOFF: I know his type –
HELEN: Whatever he says, do it –
ROMANOFF: Humour him –
HELEN: Things that horrify or possibly disgust you, still –
ROMANOFF: Grit your teeth and –
HELEN: Crawl, Mother –
ROMANOFF: I never thought I’d say this but –
HELEN: Creep, Mother –
ROMANOFF: The lives of our children depend on the denial of our feelings –
HELEN: Submit –
ROMANOFF: Caroline –
HELEN: Submit –
ROMANOFF: Caroline…! (He stretches out an imploring hand.) I shall suffer every second of your degradation…!
Every second…!

The beautiful exists…but only because the hideous exists… I am the hideous, and the agent of the hideous… I have never concealed it from myself.

DANCER
A Tutor
ROMANOFF
An Emperor
CAROLINE
An Empress
CHRISTOPHE
HELEN
GRISELDA
Their Child