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Vexations
A Radio Play
Cast Of Characters
[An appendix that follows the text of the play provides additional biographical, geographical, and pronunciation information for all the characters in the play as well as for all the names and places mentioned in the text that are followed by a small, raised “o”, thus: Sauguetº.]
ERIK SATIE, 27, composer considered by some the “father of modern music”
CLAUDE DEBUSSY, 31, Impressionist composer and pianist
DARIUS MILHAUD, 33, composer and protégé of Satie
ROBERT CABY, 20, composer and protégé of Satie
CONRAD SATIE, 55, Erik Satie’s younger brother
SUZANNE VALADON, 27, artist, Satie’s former and only girlfriend
MAURICE UTRILLO, 9, Valadon’s illegitimate son, an artist later in life
PATRICE Contamine, 26, writer who collaborated with Satie
GABY DUPONT, Debussy’s lover
LILY TEXIER, Gaby’s friend, later Debussy’s first wife
RODOLFE SALIS, proprietor of the Black Cat cabaret
LOUIS POLTEVEQUE, waiter at the Black Cat
CONCIERGE at Satie’s apartment in Arcueil
DOORMAN at the Black Cat
THEME GYMNOPEDIE NO. 1, ERIK SATIE, PIANO ONLY. IN AND UNDER.
ANNOUNCER The KCME Radio Theater presents Vexations, a play by Tom Bishop. It’s the story of Erik Satie, considered by some to be the father of modern music, and the only love of his life, Suzanne Valadon. The play begins July 7, 1925, the day after Satie’s funeral. Standing on the street outside Satie’s apartment in the dingy Paris suburb of Arcueil are two of Satie’s young composer protégés, Robert Caby and Darius Milhaud.
SCENE 1
[A QUIET STREET WITH THE OCCASIONAL PASSING MODEL-T WITH ITS CHARACTERISTIC HORN, A BICYCLE BELL, SUMMER BIRDSONG, MAYBE A FRENCH AMBULANCE IN THE DISTANCE. FROM A NEARBY CAFE COMES THE SOUND OF AN ACCORDION.]
CABY What time did Satie’s brother say he would meet us here?
MILHAUD He said around two, and it’s just two now. Can you believe we’re actually doing this?
CABY Words cannot express, Darius. On the one hand, I can’t quite get my mind to accept the fact that just over a week ago we lost the great and enigmatic Maestro Satie. On the other hand, I never dreamed that I would be privileged to see this legendary place where he lived nearly half his life. Did he tell you that I came out here once?
MILHAUD [SHOCKED] All the way out here to Arcueil? And lived to tell about it?
CABY I know. And I was naïve enough to tell him about it. I fully expected to be excommunicated like so many of his other friends.
MILHAUD You’re a brave man, Robert.
CABY Not as brave as Satie. He used to walk six miles nearly every night from here to his old haunts in Montmartreº.
MILHAUD I asked him once about walking through these rough neighborhoods. You know what he said? “If I spot some evil-looking type, I lie down in the gutter and pretend to be drunk.” Which seems ironic, considering he died of cirrhosis of the liver.
CABY We’re a long way from the Champs-Elyséesº out here, aren’t we? But I think this bleak setting suits his memory more than some ostentatious monument would. The humble country church, the non-descript cemetery, the pine coffin placed almost at ground level in a shallow grave—everything was in keeping with Satie’s legendary poverty, with the simplicity of his music, with the humility of his death.
MILHAUD I heard he requested a priest for his last rites.
CABY That seemed a bit out of character. Satie never had much truck with organized religion, unless you count that Metropolitan Church of Art, of which he was the only member. But I think at the end he found the peace humility brings.
MILHAUD “I have great confidence in the good Lord,” he once told me. “When I’m dead, He will do with me absolutely whatever He likes.”
CABY I think some of his more outrageous behavior caused him to repent, though. Just a couple of days before he died, he looked at me and said: “Have I been too wicked with some of my old friends? With Ravelº, Cocteauº, and Debussy?” And he cried. Can you imagine? Me, barely in my twenties, almost a complete unknown…and Satie cried in front of me!
MILHAUD I think he knew his time was nigh. When his publisher’s secretary brought him a bunch of flowers, Satie exclaimed “Already?” He gave them to me, like they were an ill omen.
CABY His publisher came? So they’re publishing the music for his ballet called Closed?
MILHAUD Yes, finally. And Satie insisted on being paid in cash. “You never need money so much as when you’re in hospital,” he said with that mischievous grin. He no sooner got the bank notes than he hid them between the sheets of old newspapers piled up on his suitcase, along with his usual crazy assortment of papers and bits of string.
CABY He did have some quirky habits.
MILHAUD But quirky in a delightful way. Madeleine and I thought the world of him. We went to see him every day for months. When we left at the end of April to get married, we weren’t sure we’d ever see him again. So as soon as we got back last week, Madeleine had to see Satie in St. Joseph’s. She came away so concerned about his condition that she insisted we return the very next day. But we found only an empty bed.
CABY [REFLECTING] You know what his last words were?
MILHAUD I can’t imagine.
CABY Brace yourself. He said, and I quote: “Ah, the cows…”
MILHAUD [AFTER A PAUSE] Any idea…?
CABY Not a clue. But who could ever tell just what Satie meant?
MILHAUD Perhaps his brother, who I believe approaches in true Satie style, umbrella under arm—Mister Satie!
CONRAD Ah, there you are. I had a little trouble finding the place. You must be Milhaud.
MILHAUD Yes, sir, Darius Milhaud, and this is my friend Robert Caby.
CONRAD Nice to meet you, and thanks for joining me for this awkward duty.
CABY Glad to do it. We’re so sorry for the loss of your brother. Were you close?
CONRAD Unfortunately, no. You know how I found out about his death? A friend at my job asked if I were related to the Satie in a death notice in the paper. Erik and I quarreled some time ago over some family issues—quite unimportant, really—and, well, you know how he was. I was quite grieved, though, that I couldn’t look after him in his last days. I loved him dearly.
MILHAUD As did we.
CONRAD Well, I told the concierge I would meet her here at two, and now it’s nearly quarter past. Shall we?
CABY His room is around the side here and up these rickety stairs.
[THE STREET SOUNDS FADE AS THEY CLIMB THE STAIRS. SATIE’S GNOSSIENNES CAN BE HEARD PLAYING ON A DISTANT GRAMOPHONE.]
MILHAUD It’s hard to believe that someone as influential and socially prominent as your brother spent nearly half his life in someplace as…unostentatious as this.
CONRAD “Unostentatious” is putting it nicely. He wrote me years ago that “Poverty entered my room one day like a miserable little girl with large green eyes.” Ah, this must be the concierge. Good day, Madame.
CONCIERGE Mister Satie, me and all the tenants here wanted to tell you how sorry we were when we heard about your brother. He was a good man and a fine neighbor.
MILHAUD Did you know him, then?
CONCIERGE Oh, no, sir, we wouldn’t presume. [JINGLES KEYS] Now which key is it?
CABY But you knew he was a composer. Did you ever hear him play?
CONCIERGE Maybe it’s this one—Sometimes the maestro worked at night at the piano, especially just this past year, but he didn’t play loud. No one said anything, because it was Maestro Satie, after all. We all had great respect for him. That’s a recording of one of his pieces you can hear on my gramophone.
CONRAD Is there a problem, Madame?
CONCIERGE [JINGLING KEYS] I’m so sorry! I can’t remember which key it is. I never used it.
CONRAD You never went into his room?
CONCIERGE Oh, heavens, no! No one but Maestro Satie ever set foot inside his room in the twenty-seven years he lived here. One time years ago I knew he was poorly and hadn’t come out in days. I got worried and tried to force the door. Oh, it made him so angry!
CABY Surely in all that time he must have had some sort of liaison with a woman, or a second home perhaps.
CONCIERGE Oh, no, sir, not to my knowledge. He came home every night here to Arcueil.
CONRAD Besides, I never knew him to look at a woman.
CABY Was he a misogynist?
CONRAD No, he was simply very shy and frightened of the opposite sex. He told me that he didn’t have any lasting relationships because he was afraid of being cuckolded. In fact, as far as I know he had only one liaison in his life, and that was back in 1893.
MILHAUD That’s right. I heard rumors about a stormy affair with Suzanne Valadon, the artist.
CABY Suzanne Valadon? I’ve heard of her. She’s Maurice Utrillo’s mother, isn’t she?
CONRAD Yes. Erik seemed quite vexed when he spoke of her. From what I gathered, the affair ended quite bitterly.
MILHAUD What I wouldn’t give to know what went on between them.
CONRAD Perhaps we’ll never know. Besides Valadon, only Claude Debussy could shed any light on it, and Satie lost his best friend at the end of the Great War.
CABY Those must have been some interesting days when Satie and Debussy played and drank in the cabarets of Montmartre.
[FADE GNOSSIENNE.]
Scene 2: The street outside the famous Montmartre nightclub, the Black Cat; July 7, 1893.
[SOUNDS: HORSE'S HOOVES AND CARRIAGE WHEELS. RAIN FALLS ON THE PAVEMENT. DISTANT PIANO MUSIC, PERHAPS SOME LIVELIER CUTS FROM SATIE’S SPORTS AND DIVERTISEMENTS, LIKE LE CHASE, LE PICNIC, OR GOLF. A LOUD CLAP OF THUNDER.]
GABY Oh, Claude! My new dress!
DEBUSSY Not to worry, Gaby. We’ll duck into the Black Cat.
GABY Say, isn’t that your friend Satie across the street? Why is he out walking on a night like this?
DEBUSSY Didn’t I tell you? He and Suzanne broke up a couple of weeks ago. He’s pretty upset. But Satie prefers rain to sunlight anyway. He does most of his writing at night, putting one foot in front of the other, stopping beneath the street lamps to jot down ideas in that little notebook. He says walking helps synchronize his mind to his heart-beat and to the universe.—Erik! How are you?
SATIE [FORMALLY] My respects, good lady. And my dear sir, may the Lord keep you under his high and holy protection.
GABY Claude tells me you like composing on terrible nights like this.
SATIE I hate the sun! If only my legs were long enough, I’d give him a good kick in the eye!
DEBUSSY Could we persuade you to abandon your darkness for a spot of refreshment here at the Black Cat?
SATIE Oh, by all means. There’s nothing I’d rather be in than an inn. After you, milord, milady.
[THE STREET SOUNDS FADE AND THE MUSIC AND RESTAURANT NOISES BECOME LOUDER AS THEY ENTER]
DOORMAN [AFTER THREE THUMPS OF HIS HALBERD, ANNOUNCES IN A GRAND, GERMAN-ACCENTED VOICE] Ladies and gentlemen, winner of the Prix de Rome, Claude Debussy! The fabulous Miss Gabrielle Dupont! And Erik Satie, exotic dancer!
[A SMATTERING OF APPLAUSE, SOME LAUGHTER, PLUS A FEW SHOUTS, AS AT A SPORTING MATCH, OF “DEBUSSY! DEBUSSY!”]
SALIS Honored lords, fair damsel, welcome!
DEBUSSY Evening, Salis.
LILY [OFF-MIKE] Gaby! Claude! Over here!
SALIS Wilt thou be joining Sir Contamine and Miss Texier, sir?
DEBUSSY Indeed we will, Rodolfe.
SATIE [ASIDE] Pompous ass!
DEBUSSY [TO SATIE] Gee, I wonder why you’re playing the Nail Inn instead of here.—Patrice! Good to see you! And Lily, you’re looking lovely as ever.
LILY What a beautiful shawl, Gaby! It goes perfectly with your green eyes. Where did you get it?
GABY La Belle Jardinière. [TO SATIE] You should go there yourself, Erik. They had some lovely grey velvet suits. Your clothes look like you slept in them.
CONTAMINE How was Bayreuth, Claude? Did you get your fill of Wagnerº?
DEBUSSY His operas are beautiful, but I’m not tempted to imitate him.
SATIE Wagner, Wagner, Wagner! Claude, we Frenchmen have to break away from those syrupy leitmotifs. Not that I’m anti-Wagnerian, but we need our own music—without sauerkraut if possible. Why not make use of the representational methods of Claude Monet, Cézanne, Toulouse-Latrec? Why not make a musical transposition of them? Are they not expressions too?
DEBUSSY I agree, Erik. Music expresses the inexpressible. Discreetly she emerges from the shadows and discreetly she returns there.
[THE MUSIC ENDS, BUT THE RESTAURANT NOISES CONTINUE.]
LILY See, Gaby? I told you. He likes to keep his women in the shadows. What’s the matter, Claude? Afraid to declare your love in front of a harmless old priest?
CONTAMINE Don’t let them snow you, Claude. To quote one of France’s great—and now departed—writers, Guy de Maupassant, “marriage is nothing but an exchange of bad tempers during the day and bad smells during the night.”
GABY, LILY Untrue! Low blow!
DEBUSSY Maupassant departed? When?
CONTAMINE Just last night. I read it in the paper this morning. Died of the “English disease.” Poor devil. His mind was completely gone.
DEBUSSY Loving women will do that to you.
GABY [HITTING DEBUSSY ON THE ARM] You pig!
LILY By the way, Erik, what was your introduction as an “exotic dancer” supposed to mean?
SATIE [SNICKERING] One of my first pieces was called “Three Naked Dances,” so Salis introduced me once as an exotic dancer. I got the title from a poem Contamine wrote called “The Ancient Ones.” To the musician belongs the sublime art of ruining poetry. Give us some, Patrice.
CONTAMINE [RECITING] “Slicing obliquely through the shadows, a raging torrent rushed in waves of gold over the polished flagstone, where atoms of amber, glistening in the firelight, joined their languid Spanish waltz to the naked dance.”
GABY That’s lovely.
CONTAMINE Erik’s music is at least as good.
LILY Have you published it, Erik?
SATIE Well, I brought it out myself, through my father’s publisher. I have an advantage over Claude in one respect: no prizes from Rome, or any other town, weigh down my steps. I do as I please. All I ask, Claude, is that you allow me a very small place in your shadow. After all, I have no use for the sun.
DEBUSSY Here’s your chance. The orchestra quit. Go up and play one of your “Naked Dances” for us. Salis won’t mind. What do you want to drink?
SATIE [GLOOMILY] I don’t know. Just calvados, I guess.
DEBUSSY It’s on me this time, friend.
SATIE [BRIGHTENING] Oh, well, in that case, make it absinthe. I’m feeling bitter tonight anyway.
GABY Claude mentioned that you and Suzanne broke up.
SATIE Broke up?! We exploded! My sweet Biqui left me with nothing but an icy loneliness that fills my head with emptiness and my heart with sadness.
DEBUSSY Your heart will inspire your fingers. I’ll have the waiter set your absinthe on the piano.
[SATIE GOES TO THE PIANO AND PLAYS GYMNOPEDIE NO. 2 AND/OR 3, PIANO ONLY]
GABY What’s Suzanne like? I’ve never met her.
CONTAMINE To quote Maupassant again, Satie’s sweet Biqui has “one of those silhouettes which artists draw in three strokes on the tablecloth in a café after dinner, between a glass of brandy and a cigarette.”
DEBUSSY Valadon’s inspired more than silhouettes. She’s been painted by Renoir, Degas, and Toulouse-Lautrec.
CONTAMINE [CONTEMPTUOUSLY] “Painted”—I guess that’s one way to put it. Even she doesn’t know who fathered her son. Poor kid had to borrow a last name.
LILY What does that mean?
DEBUSSY A friend of hers—Miguel Utrillo, who does the shadow box theater over at the Nail—was good enough to give little Maurice a last name.
CONTAMINE But Eric, fool that he is, fell hard for Suzanne. When she told him a couple of weeks ago that they were through, he rolled his clothes into a ball, dragged them across the floor, and drenched them with all kinds of liquid until he’d turned them into complete rags. Then he dented his hat, broke his shoes, and tore his tie to ribbons. He tells me he’s stopped trimming his beard and is letting his hair grow.
LOUIS Sorry about the wait, folks. My name in Louis. What can I bring you this evening?
DEBUSSY Before anything else, bring an absinthe to my sad friend at the piano. Then a couple of chartreuses for the ladies. Patrice, another beer? And one for me too, that Strasbourg, and your famous Welsh rarebit. Oh, and you better bring a couple dozen oysters.
GABY Oh, Claude!
DEBUSSY They’re for Satie, my love. Though a couple dozen won’t be enough, I suspect. I’ve seen him eat a hundred and fifty in one sitting.
LILY He’s an odd little man, isn’t he?
CONTAMINE He’s truly living the life of the artist, though. He’s one of those who, heedless of the present or the future, with head held high, with empty pockets and a swooning soul, plunge joyfully and wildly in pursuit of their ideal.
GABY You know him pretty well, then.
CONTAMINE Put it this way. At one time, Erik and I owned just one pair of decent trousers between us. One night when he was still working here, just as a joke, he stayed out all night. I couldn’t go to work without pants, so I got fired. He and I still collaborate sometimes. Last fall we wrote a peculiar little ballet called Uspud, a conglomeration of every extravagance we could contrive to astonish the public. Satie composed half a dozen musical phrases, which he called grandly “his score.” He had it printed and for the cover Suzanne designed an inset of our two profiles juxtaposed.
GABY So he’s known her awhile?
CONTAMINE Just since January. They met at the Nail and Satie, impetuous as ever, proposed marriage that night. He talked her into moving with her son into the room next to his.
GABY Where’s that?
CONTAMINE He has this tiny room no larger than a cupboard up on the Butte, far from the uproar and complications of Paris. Up there you feel, as Satie puts it, above your creditors. This cupboard—you have to crawl over the bed to go through the door—is in one of those twisting alleyways too narrow for even a horse-drawn cab. But everything is rustic and peaceful. Streams run down the middle of the streets. Half-naked children play around in a gaggle of dogs, cats, chickens, sheep and goats. Birds twitter in the luxuriant greenery that covers the old, ruined walls. It’s becoming quite the colony of artists, models and writers.
LILY Does Suzanne do anything other than model?
CONTAMINE She was a trapeze artist until she hurt her back. Lately she’s been making these enormous pieces of furniture out of old lumps of wood. And learning to “paint,” of course, from her artist friends.
DEBUSSY She’s actually a pretty good artist. That portrait she did of Eric really captures his intensity.
LOUIS There you go folks, chartreuse for the ladies, beer and Welsh rarebit for the gentlemen, oysters for the next generation. Speaking of which, there’s a young gentleman at the door asking to speak to the pianist.
GABY Oh, he’s darling! Send him over here, will you please?
DEBUSSY Now, don’t be getting any ideas about children, love.
[SATIE STOPS PLAYING THE PIANO.]
LILY How did Erik feel about Suzanne having a child?
DEBUSSY I’m not sure Satie ever really grew up himself. He still loves those delightful, tender stories of Hans Christian Andersen—Hey, it sounds great, Erik! If you don’t orchestrate that piece someday, then I guess I’ll have to.
SATIE [GLOOMILY] No one listened. I hate playing these stupid, dirty cabarets. I should just get a regular job. But thanks for the absinthe. Why, Maurice! What are you doing here?
UTRILLO [SLEEPILY AND SULLENLY] Couldn’t sleep.
SATIE Where’s your mother?
UTRILLO Don’t know. Out somewhere. I don’t care. I hate her anyway.
SATIE Now you don’t mean that. Your mother’s got a lot of wonderful qualities.
UTRILLO Like what?
SATIE Oh, her whole being: her lovely eyes, her fragrant hair, her gentle hands, her tiny feet.
DEBUSSY You told me some pretty bitter things about her last week, Erik. Now it sounds like you’re carrying that torch awfully close to the flame.
SATIE I’m abandoning, just for today, my habitual irony. Besides, absinthe makes the heart grow fonder. So what do you want me to do, Maurice?
UTRILLO Tell me one of your stories.
SATIE Oh, I don’t know.
GABY, LILY Come on, Erik! Tell one!
CONTAMINE We could use the shadow theater upstairs. Rodolfe! Can we use the shadow box?
SALIS You want me to do “The Elephant”?º
UTRILLO [PLEADING TO SATIE] I’ve seen that one a bunch of times. Make up one of your stories, Erik!
SALIS [GLOOMILY] Oh, go ahead. The kid’s bringing everyone down anyway.
DEBUSSY Louis! We’re going upstairs. Bring us another round, and a toddy for the boy.
LOUIS Very good, sir.
[THE RESTAURANT SOUNDS FADE. SATIE TINKLES A FEW NOTES ON THE PIANO IN THE QUIET ROOM UPSTAIRS.]
LILY It’s chilly up here, isn’t it, Maurice? You just snuggle up next to Aunt Lily, okay?
CONTAMINE [OFF-MIKE] I’ve never been back here behind the shadow box before. How does this thing work?
SATIE First, switch on the light. Then find some of those cut-outs and hold them up to the screen.
CONTAMINE Which ones do you want?
SATIE [PLAYING THE FIRST FEW BARS OF VEXATIONS] We’ll need, let’s see…a damsel, a knight on a horse, and…oh, yeah, that castle with the stairs leading up to it.
GABY That’s an odd little melody, isn’t it, Claude?
DEBUSSY Yes, but Satie is Satie to the depths of his soul. What’s that piece called, Erik?
SATIE It’s something Biqui inspired. I call it Vexations.
DEBUSSY But can you play that and tell Maurice a story at the same time?
SATIE God knows, I should have it memorized by now. I’ll bet I played it for fourteen hours straight the other day.
LILY Isn’t that boring?
SATIE [STARTS VEXATIONS AGAIN, AND CONTINUES] For me, boredom is mysterious and profound. Besides, music should just be furniture, to support the story. Okay, Patrice, put up the castle.
CONTAMINE How’s that?
SATIE Perfect. Now, enter the damsel. Our story begins on Maurice’s birthday, who was born the same day as Our Savior, Jesus Christ. The damsel, whose name is Hermosina, is besieged by suitors for her hand and, well, for the rest of her too, but she yearns for Mario, the perfect crusader from the mystical order of Nazarenes. Combing the celestial filaments of her perfumed hair, she waits like Medusa at the top of the ivory stairs at the entrance to the castle, hoping to trap the unwary, but alas, she waits in vain. No, wait! Here comes Mario now, like Christ in His second coming, riding his trusty dadaº, his painted wooden horse, right up the stairs! Swooning with joy and remorse, Hermosina falls at his feet, her hair twining about his broken boots like Mary Magdelene before her Savior. But Mario spurns her, saying, “Contempt for love is the reason behind the strength of we Nazarenes, the successors of the Knights of the Round Table, and guardians of the sacred Grail.” “But Mario,” she pleads, “forgive my sins and take me back!” “Never,” Mario asserts. “I walk in solitude, all-powerful but sad. Before me the wild and wicked hide in the depths of the forests and even the good turn aside in terror. And in my true evenings of victory, I surprise myself by sobbing with rage behind the rose and cross on my shield.” Then Mario picks up stones and throws them at the false church of Hermosina’s castle. The stones change into balls of fire that consume the castle. Flames rise up and from their bosom the stars escape. Despairing at the loss of her heroic gateway to the heavens, the fallen angel spits out her teeth and expires.
[THE MUSIC ENDS.
IN THE PAUSE THAT FOLLOWS, WE HEAR THE SLOW CLAPPING OF A
SOLITARY WOMAN’S HANDS]
VALADON
[SARCASTICALLY] Oh, very nice, Erik! I should have
known.
SATIE Suzanne! How long have you—
VALADON Long enough. Come on, Maurice, let’s go home.
LILY Shh. He’s asleep.
VALADON And no wonder. You’ve been letting him drink, haven’t you? I don’t want him turning into a barfly like you, Erik. And what’s the big idea of this? [RATTLES A PAPER]
DEBUSSY What is it?
VALADON I found it stuck to his window. He drew a big heart and inside are my initials and then the initials P.A.R., P.D.C., H.G.E.D., and H.T.L.º, each one crossed out. Very funny.
SATIE I thought it only fair to warn the next unwary soul.
VALADON Well, you forgot to add and cross out the initials E.A.S., Erik. I don’t ever want to see you again.
SATIE What about that portrait you made of me? Don’t you want it back?
VALADON No. You keep it. Hang it next to that stupid sketch you made of me. That’s the only way we’ll ever be together. Come on, Maurice.
UTRILLO [SLEEPILY] Aw, mom!
SATIE But, Biqui—
VALADON Don’t “Biqui” me! It’s over, Eric! Live with it!
UTRILLO [HIS VOICE TRAILING OFF AS THEY LEAVE] Let go! I can walk!
[AN AWKWARD SILENCE .]
DEBUSSY Wow, Erik. That torch you were carrying kind of flared up, didn’t it?
SATIE In great balls of fire. Oh, well. In any case, I’m far superior to her, but my well-known modesty prevents me from saying so.
GABY What are you going to do?
SATIE [DESPONDENTLY] Beats me. Take the long way home, I guess. Warm myself by the corner of my cold when I get there. Maybe work out my Vexations on the piano. That’s life, my friend. It’s total nonsense.
DEBUSSY Are you going to be all right?
SATIE I’ll survive. But I’ll tell you this: from now on, I’ll keep my hell to myself.
Scene 3. Back at Satie’s apartment in Arcueil.
[GNOSSIENNES FADES BACK IN. THE CONCIERGE IS STILL JINGLING HER KEYS.]
CABY Just think. We’re the first to enter here. This door may be a portal to the past.
MILHAUD I wonder if we’ll find clues here in his room about what happened thirty-two years ago between Satie and Valadon.
CONCIERGE Ah, here it is! I’ve found the key. [TURNS THE KEY IN THE LOCK AND OPENS THE CREAKY DOOR.] There you are.
[SEVERAL OF THEM GASP AND THERE IS A MOMENT OF STUNNED SILENCE.]
CONCIERGE Saints preserve us!
MILHAUD If I didn’t see it with my own eyes…
CABY How could Satie live in a slum like this? He always looked faultlessly clean, wearing that bowler hat and smoking jacket and gloves. With his pince-nez, he looked more like a church deacon than a musician.
CONRAD This stuff isn’t worth a dime. Look at this metal cot! It’s just bare planks without so much as a sheet. And no running water.
MILHAUD How could he see in here? There’s not even a gas jet.
CABY Open the window.
MILHAUD [STRUGGLING WITH IT] I don’t know if I can. This probably hasn’t been opened in decades. [GRUNTS AS THE WINDOW SLIDES UP] There. No wonder. Just a view of a wall. What does that graffiti say?
CABY [READING] “This house is haunted by the devil.” He told me once that he dreamt sometimes that the devil was a generous philanthropist. If so, the Prince of Darkness sure wasn’t kind to Satie.
CONRAD Look at this. All these clothes stacked on top of the wardrobe and nothing inside. Oh, my Lord, look what they are! His grey velvet suits!
MILHAUD That’s right, I heard he used to be known as the Man in the Grey Velvet Suit. But I never saw him wear one.
CONRAD He bought these thirty years ago with an inheritance. Look. They’re covered with cobwebs, but most of these have never been worn. And all these umbrellas! They’re still wrapped like new.
CABY How could he play that wreck of a piano? You’d have to balance on those piles of newspapers. And the pedals are just attached with string.
MILHAUD And why on earth would he push this other piano against the wall like this? He couldn’t possibly play it this way. [TRIES PLAYING A FEW NOTES, BUT THE STRINGS ARE COMPLETELY DEAD] What’s in here? My God! Mail! Stacks of it! Everything anybody ever sent him must be in here. Here’s one he wrote to himself!
CABY Look at these deluxe editions of music I found behind the piano! An autographed copy of Debussy’s orchestration of his Gymnopedies! That’s the only piece by another composer he ever orchestrated. “To Erik Satie, the gently medieval musician.” And here’s that exercise book containing Diablotinº and Genevieve de Brabant that Satie thought he lost on a bus!
CONRAD He certainly had a large stock of cigars.
CABY Those smelly little things he called crapoulos?
CONRAD No, wait! These boxes don’t have cigars in them. They’re filled with tiny sheets of paper, all written in that black and red ink he used. There must be thousands!
MILHAUD What do they say?
CONRAD It’s hard to make out. Let’s see. Here’s a description of a cast-iron Gothic castle on an enchanted shore in the time of Charlemagne. Hmm. Rules for a religious order I’ve never heard of. Plans for some strange musical instrument. He even drew a tiny map of Arcueil, but the rue du Diable runs next to the Place Notre-Dame.
MILHAUD You’re both welcome to take a bath at my place when we’re finished here. We’re all getting completely black in this filthy place.
CABY I wonder what other gems I can find in this exercise book.
MILHAUD These portraits of him are wonderful! And he must have treasured them, because he tried to protect them with little strips of newspaper.
CABY They must be better than the drawings I did of him in St. Joseph’s.
MILHAUD This one is rather striking: the strong outlines, the intense expression on his young face. Oh, and guess who painted it! Suzanne Valadon! That makes it kind of a rarity. She dropped portraiture for twenty years, from what I hear. Is she still in town, do you know?
CABY I guess just last year she moved with Maurice out to Lyon to keep him out of the bars of Montmartre. Rumor has it that only painting keeps him out of the sanatorium.
MILHAUD Wow! Look at this simple sketch next to Valadon’s portrait of Satie. I’m sure Satie must have done it himself. I recognize his style. I’ll bet this pretty girl he drew is Suzanne.
CABY I wonder if he wrote this piece with her in mind. It’s called Vexations, so that would certainly fit a break-up. And listen to the instruction he wrote above the staff: “To play this motif eight hundred and forty times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities.”
THEME GYMNOPEDIE NO. 3, THE VERSION ORCHESTRATED BY DEBUSSY. IN AND UNDER.
ANNOUNCER Satie’s Vexations wasn’t performed in its entirety until seventy years after it was written. In September, 1963, at the Pocket Theater in New York, the avant-garde American composer John Cage, with a team of ten pianists working in shifts, played all eight hundred and forty repetitions of Vexations without a break. The performance lasted eighteen hours and forty minutes. Cage once said, “It’s not a question of Satie’s relevance. He’s indispensable.”
Appendix
Biographical, Geographical, and Pronunciation Guide
[Note: The play takes place in Paris and almost all the speaking characters are French. In order to place the listener in the scene, I have tried to translate into English whatever is translatable. While it would be distracting for the characters to speak with French accents, their names should be pronounced correctly for the sake of accuracy and in order to provide some French flavor. I have included, as a guide, my own best guesses at phonetic pronunciation from my very imperfect knowledge of French. But often, another’s guess may be at least as good as mine.]
Principal Characters
Robert Caby (Ro-bear Cah-bee) (1905-1992)
Caby was a French composer and a lifelong admirer of Satie’s music who first met him, at age 19, just a year before Satie’s death. Caby visited him often during his difficult final illness in 1925. In the 1960s Caby orchestrated some of Satie’s piano pieces and edited many of his unpublished sketches and drafts. He created a bust and a painting of Satie while Satie was on his deathbed.
Concierge (Cone-see-airzh)
The lady concierge at Satie’s small apartment in Arcueil performed some small tasks like sending out his laundry for him, but neither she nor her predecessors ever entered his room in 27 years. She, like all of Satie’s neighbors, had great respect for the Maestro of Arcueil. Caby describes her as “a large and splendid woman.”
Patrice Contamine (Pah-trece Cone-tah-mean) (born José Maria Vicente Ferrer, Francisco de Paula, Patricio Manuel Contamine) (1867-1926)
A prolific writer of poems, plays, short stories and newspaper articles, which he signed “J. P. Contamine de Latour” or, around the turn of the century, “Lord Cheminot.” He claimed to be related to Napoleon, but in the 1880s when they frequented the Black Cat Contamine was as poor as Satie. They collaborated on many interesting projects, including the bizarre “Christian ballet” Uspud, some of which I incorporated into Satie’s fairy tale in the play. Satie could only get the Paris Opera to consider Uspud by challenging the director to a duel. Satie published the ballet privately in 1893, with the text printed entirely in lower case, a visual effect Satie devised decades before e.e.cummings. Satie and Contamine collaborated until about 1905 and shared a love of provocative practical jokes, esoteric sects, mysticism, and deliberate eccentricity. Born in Spain, Contamine may have had a Spanish accent.
Claude Debussy (Clôd Deb-oo-see) (1862-1918)
Legendary pianist and composer whose innovative use of the instrument and of composition helped define the French Impressionist style. In 1893, however, he was struggling as much as Satie, and his first true success as a composer had come just months before with the first performance of his String Quartet. He was Satie’s closest friend and they influenced each other’s music; the only orchestration of another composer’s music that Debussy ever did was of Satie’s Gymnopedies 1 and 3 (1896). Their only falling out came during Debussy’s final illness when he was less than enthusiastic about Parade [see “Erik Satie”].
Debussy’s voice is variously described as “low, with a nasal, perhaps sepulchral, quality,” and “soft and melodious with a slight lisp.” He is described as sleep-heavy and generally taciturn.
Doorman
The Black Cat, irreverent in tone as it was, observed a curious etiquette, including a magnificent Swiss guard at the door who announced the patrons with three thumps of his gleaming halberd.
Gabrielle “Gaby” Dupont (Gah-bee Doo-pon’)
Debussy’s lover in 1893 who kept his unkempt house in order. Known to her friends as “Gaby of the Green Eyes,” she attempted suicide in 1897 when Lily Texier won over Debussy’s affections.
Darius Milhaud (Dare-ius Mee-loh) (1892-1974)
A member of both Nouveaux Jeunes and Les Six, the renowned avant-garde of music in the late teens and early ’20s, Milhaud was the only one of the young composers with whom Satie never quarreled. Milhaud often assisted Satie financially and in introducing him to patrons. He and his wife Madeleine were particularly helpful to Satie during his final illness, and Conrad Satie entrusted Milhaud to act as his brother’s artistic executor.
Louis Polteveque (Loo-ee Pole-teh-vek) (1871-1902?)
While he was almost undoubtedly not part of the Montmartre scene, Louis Polteveque was definitely my great-grandfather. Including him may be nepotism (or necrotism?), but I like to keep my family working whenever possible, even if they are long dead. Born in the Alsace region of France, which had been lost to Germany in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, Louie dodged the German draft by joining the French Foreign Legion, where he learned to cook. Sometime in the mid-1890s he emigrated to America and became a chef in a Chicago hotel.
Rodolfe Salis (Ro-dolf Sah-lee)
The proprietor of the legendary Black Cat (Chat Noir) cabaret in Montmartre, who sometimes narrated the shadow plays performed on the third floor. (Salis’s claim to fame was a shadow play he is said to have performed 4000 times, called “L’Elephant,” described thus: No set; a lighted screen. A Negro, his hands behind his back, is tugging on a rope. He advances, disappears—the rope stretches horizontally. Then, a knot in the rope. The rope continues to stretch, eternally… Then, at one end, there appears an Elephant who drops “an odoriferous pearl” [Salis’s words] from which a flower springs up—then: Curtain!) The domineering nature of Salis often drove the Black Cat’s habitués, including Satie, to other locales, particularly a nearby tavern, the Nail Inn (Auberge du Clou). It was while playing at the Nail Inn that Satie met both Debussy and Valadon.
Conrad Satie (Con-rad Sah-tee) (1869-1938)
Erik Satie’s younger brother Conrad trained as a chemical engineer who specialized in perfumes and, apart from a few periods when Erik broke off relations, they were extremely close. Their relationship resembles that of Vincent and Theo Van Gogh, for Conrad both supported Erik financially and acted as his closest artistic confidant.
Erik Satie (Air-ic Sah-tee) (1866-1925)
Born to a French father and a Scottish mother, Satie worked much of his early life as a café pianist. About 1890 he became associated with the Rosicrucian movement, for which he wrote Le Fils des étoiles (“Star Threads” or “Celestial Filaments”), Préludes du Nazaréen, and La Porte héroïque du ciel (“The Heroic Gateway In The Sky”). In 1893, when he was 27, Satie had a stormy affair with the painter Suzanne Valadon. Soon afterwards he formed his own church, the Eglise Metropolitaine d'Art de Jesus Conducteur (“Metropolitan Church of Art, Jesus, Conductor”), of which he was the only member. From 1898 until his death he lived alone in Arcueil, a Paris suburb, permitting no one to enter his apartment. After his rediscovery by Ravel and Cocteau, Satie enjoyed the company of many of the world’s most prominent artists, musicians, and bon vivants, and during his last 10 years Satie’s best friends were painters, many of whom he met while performing as a café pianist.
Satie epitomized the avant-garde ideal of the fusion of art and life. His early piano pieces reveal him as a pioneer in harmony. His iconoclastic career bypassed Impressionism and foreshadowed organized total chromaticism (in Vexations), Surrealism and the prepared piano, neo-classicism, minimalism, and even muzak (repeating, nondescript incidental music which he dubbed, referring to a quote by Matisse, musique d’ameublement, “furniture music”). Indeed, the word Surrealism was used for the first time in Guillaume Apollinaire’s program notes for Satie’s Parade. The premiere literally caused a riot. Satie created the Cubist ballet with a scenario written by Jean Cocteau, choreographed by Léonide Massine, and stage design and costumes by Pablo Picasso. Parade was scored for, along with traditional instruments, typewriters, sirens, airplane propellers, ticker tape, and a lottery wheel, and anticipated the use of jazz materials by Igor Stravinsky and others.
Satie is described as having a soft, deep voice, unhurriedly familiar and friendly, that transformed his words into mysterious confidences. He was seized by unexpected bursts of laughter, which he would stifle with his hand. He spoke “as though he were afraid of damaging his internal dream.” But his remarks were full of wit and original humor. Igor Stravinsky described it thus: “He spoke very softly, hardly opening his mouth, but he delivered each word in an inimitable, precise way. His handwriting recalls his speech to me: it is exact, drawn.” Valentine Hugo, his close friend and wife of the grandson of Victor Hugo, says this: “His voice was well-pitched, rather gentle and slow in serious conversations. When he told jokes, it became lower, more theatrical and singing; and when he wasn’t happy, it was high and ascerbic.”
Rosalie “Lily” Texier (Li-lee Tess-yay)
A dress-maker from Burgundy, Gaby’s friend, and later Debussy’s first wife. When he abandoned her for the wife of a wealthy banker in 1904, Lily, deserted, shot herself but recovered and was granted a divorce. Satie was one of the few friends of Debussy’s who stuck by him through the scandal.
Maurice Utrillo (Mo-reese Oo-tree-oh) (1883-1955)
The illegitimate son of Suzanne Valadon. His father was not known; he took his name from a family friend, Catalan architect and art critic Miguel Utrillo y Molins. Maurice became an alcoholic by the time he was 18, and was in and out of sanatoriums thereafter. His mother encouraged him to take up painting as therapy. Despite his frequent relapses into alcoholism, painting became Utrillo’s obsession, and he produced thousands of oils. In 1924, to keep her son permanently away from the bars of Montmartre, Valadon moved with him to a château near Lyon.
Suzanne Valadon (Su-zan Vah-lah-doh), called by Satie Biqui (Be-key) (1865-1938)
The illegitimate daughter of a laundress, Valadon worked as a waitress and circus acrobat. In the early 1880s she became an artist’s model, posing for such artists as Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec and Renoir. By observing the artists for whom she modeled, she began to learn technique and to draw and produce pastels. Her first paintings date from about 1892. At the beginning of 1893, she took a room in Montmartre next door to Satie’s. They began an affair on January 14, and Satie proposed marriage that same night. He immediately became obsessed with her, calling her “Biqui.” Valadon did Satie’s portrait and gave it to him, while the musician did hers, which he kept. The two works were found hanging side by side after Satie’s death in his room at Arcueil. The couple ended the turbulent relationship on June 20, 1893, and Satie never had another romantic involvement.
Other People and Places Mentioned in the Play
Arcueil-Cachan (Are-quay Cah-shahn)
A dingy, working-class suburb to the south of Paris. Satie moved there in 1898 to find lower rent and to escape the temptations of Montmartre. He nevertheless walked most of the rest of his life the six miles from Arcueil to Montmartre to play in the cabarets, walking back at night after he finished.
Champs-Elysées (Shomp-sealy-say)
A fashionable street in downtown Paris.
Jean Cocteau (Zhawn Cok-toe) (1889-1963)
Poet, author, and film-maker who, in 1917, almost single-handedly brought Satie to the attention of the artistic community with the ballet Parade.
Dada
According to the dictionary, the term “dada” derives from a French word for a child’s cry, but I’ve also seen reference to Tristan Tsara, the founder of Dadaism, finding the word in an old French dictionary defined as a wooden horse. In any case, Dada or Dadaism was a nihilist literary and artistic movement from 1915 to 1922 that counted Satie as one of its adherents. (Satie was also an early communist, when that was still fashionable.) The rift between the Dadaists and the Surrealists accounted for much of the strife at the opening performances of Satie’s ballets, and for the conflict between Satie and his friends who clung to Surrealism.
Diablotin (Dyah-blow-taa) (Jack-In-The-Box)
Satie titled this work in English, so in the spirit of fairness, since the rest of the French has been translated, I translated this English to French.
Impressionism
The term Impressionism, in art, was first used derisively by a journalist, referring to Claude Monet’s canvas representing the effect of the sun rising over the sea, entitled “Impression,” first shown in 1874. Debussy’s compositions defined the beginning of the movement in music and the end of Romanticism (see “Richard Wagner”). Despite his influence on such great Impressionist composers as Debussy and Ravel, Satie leap-frogged over Impressionism, a style which is generally said to end the year of his death, 1925.
Guy de Maupassant (Ghee duh Moe-pah-san’) (1850-1893)
Maupassant’s mother was a friend of the great French writer Gustave Flaubert, who took an interest in Guy’s budding interest as a writer. Eventually Maupassant quit his job as a civil servant to devote his energies to his three principal interests: writing, athletics, and womanizing. In just over a decade he produced many articles, several novels, and hundreds of stories that helped define the short story form, establishing him as one of the most popular and influential French writers. His womanizing proved his downfall, however, in the form of syphilis. (For some time, the English and the French blamed each other for the disease, though some evidence points to Columbus bringing the spirochete back from the Americas.) Sensing his own decline, Maupassant tried to commit suicide in 1891. His friends had him committed to an asylum, where, after losing his mind completely, he died July 6, 1893.
Montmartre (Moan-martr’)
The bohemian section of northern Paris. In 1893, Montmartre had a rustic village feel that was quickly lost as cabarets like the Chat Noir gained international renown along with the musicians like Debussy and Satie who lived and played there.
P.A.R., P.D.C., H.G.E.D., and H.T.L.
These are the initials of some of the painters rumored to have had an affair with Suzanne Valadon: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Puvis de Chavannes, Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas, and Henri Toulouse-Latrec.
Maurice Joseph Ravel (Moh-reese Zho-sef Rah-vel) (1875-1937)
Along with Debussy, Ravel is considered one of the giants of French Impressionist music. By playing Satie’s second Sarabande (a languid Spanish waltz), the Prelude to Le Fils des étoiles, the third Gymnopédie at a concert in 1911, Ravel brought Satie back into public awareness and launched the most successful stage of Satie’s career.
Richard Wagner (Ree-card Vahg-ner) (1813-1883)
German composer who dominated classical music through much of the 19th Century. He lived in Bayreauth, West Germany, in the last decade of his life, and the music festival he helped establish there continued to perform his works after his death. Satie is sometimes credited with being the first French composer to break away from the Wagnerian style of leitmotifs, in which a particular musical phrase is associated with a corresponding character or action in an opera.
Author’s Note About The Play
Vexations is a dramatic adaptation of real events in the lives of real people. While I have tried to make the play as historically accurate as possible, some liberalities are inevitable. Many of the characters’ lines are their own, taken from historical accounts and personal recollections. (Most of Satie’s humor, for instance, is his own, although the joke about absinthe making the heart grow fonder, a pun only in English, is obviously mine.) I would be remiss, however, if I failed to point out that many quotes attributed to the characters of the play actually come from other of Satie’s many admirers and acquaintances, such as Charles Koetchlin, Francis Jourdain, René Peter, Gustave Doret, Augustin Grass-mick, Jean Hugo, and Henri Sauguet. I have also compressed some events; e.g. Debussy’s trip to Bayreuth was in 1891, Satie didn’t buy his grey velvet suits until 1895, and Lily Texier didn’t move to Paris until a few years after this play. Most of all, the scene in the Chat Noir, while based on the actual relationships between the characters, is nonetheless pure supposition on my part. I am deeply indebted to true Satie experts like Robert Orledge, Ornella Volta, and Steven Whiting, the sources for most of my information. Most of all, of course, I thank Satie himself, who, after all, lived the life.
“Great Masters are brilliant through their ideas. Their craft is a simple means to an end, nothing more. It is their ideas which endure… The Idea can do without Art, which is often nothing more than virtuosity.”
—Erik Satie