The Books: “House of Blue Leaves” (John Guare)

Next book in my Daily Book Excerpt:

190e9833e7a0165e30ff1110._AA240_.L.jpgNext play on the script shelf:

The House of Blue Leaves, by John Guare.

I saw the revival Broadway production of this show in the 80s. I was 19 years old. The play starred: John Mahoney, Stockard Channing, and Swoosie Kurtz in the 3 lead parts – and Ben Stiller had a spectacular one scene (he was making his Broadway debut – he was 21 years old). Ben Stiller’s one scene (which consists of him doing a 5 page monologue, which involves him being dressed in head to toe fatigues, and literally leaping up off walls, like Donald O’Connor. It’s a funny monologue, it’s also TRAGIC … it is potentially a tour de force if it’s done well. I still remember some of the blocking Ben Stiller had – how he leapt over the back of the couch … He was fanTAStic. And, of course, completely unknown at the time.) But everyone was amazing. John Mahoney! He played Artie, the lead character – an aspiring songwriter, who lives in Queens with his sick and sort of crazy wife Bananas, played by Swoosie Kurtz. The play takes place on October 4, 1965 – on the day the Pope passes through Queens. The Pope’s visit is the catalyst for wrenching changes in the lives of the characters in the play. Artie is having an affair right under Banana’s nose, with a babealicious cruel-hearted (very funny) woman named Bunny (played by Stockard Channing) – who stalks around in tight capris and stilettos – in stark contrast to Bananas, who can’t seem to ever make it out of her pajamas. Ben Stiller plays Ronnie, the hyperactive on-the-edge son of Artie and Bananas. Guare is an inventive and courageous writer. This may sound like a conventional story, but Guare never puts things into a conventional FORM. His writing is elevated, poetic … you’ll see what I mean when you read the excerpt. It’s not realistic. Characters talk to the audience, etc. People wander in and out of the scenes, in a non-realistic way.

I love John Guare.


EXCERPT FROM The House of Blue Leaves, by John Guare:

BANANAS. (smiling out front) Hello. I haven’t had a chance to welcome you. This is my home and I’m your hostess and I should welcome you. I wanted to say Hello and I’m glad you could come. I was very sick a few months ago. I tried to slash my wrists with spoons. But I’m better now and glad to see people. In the house. I couldn’t go out. Not yet. Hello. (She walks the length of the stage, smiling at the audience, at us. She has a beautiful smile.)

(Bunny comes out of the kitchen down to the edge of the stage.

BUNNY. (to us) You know what my wish is? The priest told us last Sunday to make a wish when the Pope rides by. When the Pope rides by, the wish in my heart is gonna knock the Pope’s eye out. It is braided in tall letters, all my veins and arteries and aortas are braided into the wish that she dies pretty soon. (She goes back to the kitchen)

BANANAS. (who has put a red mask on her head) I had a vision — a nightmare — I saw you talking to a terrible fat woman with newspapers for feet — and she was talking about hunters up in the sky and that she was a dream and you were a dream … (She crosses to the kitchen, pulls the mask down over her eyes and comes up behind Bunny) Hah!!!

Bunny screams in terror and runs into the living room

BUNNY. I am not taking insults from a sick person. A healthy person can call me anything they want. But insults from a sickie — a sicksicksickie — I don’t like to be degraded. A sick person has fumes in their head — you release poison fumes and it makes me sick — dizzy — like riding the back of a bus. No wonder Negroes are fighting so hard to be freed, riding in the back of buses all those years. I’m amazed they even got enough strength to stand up straight … Where’s my coat? Artie, where’s my coat? My binox and my camera? (To Bananas) What did you do with my coat, Looney Tunes?

Artie has retrieved the coat from the hallway

BUNNY. You soiled my coat! This coat is soiled! Arthur, are you dressed warm? Are you coming?

ARTIE (embarrassed) Bananas, I’d like to present — I’d like you to meet — this is Bunny Flingus.

BUNNY. You got the ski p.j.’s I bought you on underneath? You used to go around freezing till I met you. I’ll teach you how to dress warm. I didn’t work at ski lodges for nothing. I worked at Aspen.

BANANAS. (thinking it over a moment) I’m glad you’re making friends, Artie. I’m no good for you.

BUNNY. (taking folders out of her purse, to Bananas) I might as well give these to you now. Travel folders to Juarez. It’s a simple procedure — you fly down to Mexico — wetback lawyer meets you — sign a paper — jet back to little old NY.

ARTIE. Bunny’s more than a friend, Bananas.

BUNNY. Play a little music — “South of the Border” — divorce Meheeco style! —

ARTIE. Would you get out of here, Bunny. I’ll take care of this.

(Bananas sings hysterically, without wrods, “South of the Border”)

BUNNY. I didn’t work in a travel agency for nix, Arthur.

ARTIE. Bunny!

BUNNY. I know my way around.

(Bananas stops singing)

ARTIE. (taking the folders from Bunny) She can’t even go to the incinerator alone. You’re talking about Mexico —

BUNNY. I know these sick wives. I’ve seen a dozen like you in movies. I wasn’t an usher for nothing. You live in wheel chairs just to hold your husband and the minute your husband’s out of the room, you’re hopped out of your wheel chair doing the Charleston and making a general spectacle of yourself. I see right through you. Tell her, Artie. Tell her what we’re going to do.

ARTIE. We’re going to California, Bananas.

BUNNY. Bananas! What a name!

BANANAS. A trip would be nice for you …

BUNNY. What a banana —

BANANAS. You could see Billy … I couldn’t see Billy … (almost laughing) I can’t see anything …

ARTIE. Not a trip.

BUNNY. To live. To live forever.

BANANAS. Remember the time we rode up in the elevator with Bob Hope? He was a wonderful man.

ARTIE. I didn’t tell you this, Bunny. last week, I rode out to Long Island. (to Bananas, taking her hand) You need help. We — I found a nice hosp … By the sea … by the beautiful sea … It’s an old estate and you can walk from the train station and it was raining and the roads aren’t paved so it’s muddy, but by the road where you turn into the estate, there was a tree with blue leaves in the rain — I walked under it to get out of the rain and also because I had never seen a tree with blue leaves and I walked under the tree and all the leaves flew away in one big round bunch — just lifted up, leaving a bare tree. Whoosh…It was birds. Not blue leaves but birds, waiting to go to Florida or California … and all the birds flew to another tree a couple of hundred feet off and that bare tree blossomed — snap! like that — with all these blue very quietleaves… You’ll like the place, Bananas. I talked to the doctor. He had a mustache. You like mustaches. And the Blue Cross will handle a lot of it, so we won’t have to worry about expense … You’ll like the place … a lot of famous people have had crackdowns there, so you’ll be running in good company.

BANANAS. Shock treatments?

ARTIE. No. No shock treatments.

BANANAS. You swear?

BUNNY. If she needs them, she’ll get them.

ARTIE. I’m handling this my way.

BUNNY. I’m sick of you kowtowing to her. Those poison fumes that come out of her head make me dizzy — suffering — look at her — what does she know about suffering …

BANANAS. Did you read in the paper about the bull in Madrid who fought so well they didn’t let him die? They healed him, let him rest before they put him back in the ring, again and again and again. I don’t like the shock treatments, Artie. At least the concentration camps — I was reading about them, Artie — they put the people in the ovens and never took them out — but the shock treatments — they put you in the oven and then they take you out and then they put you in and then they take you out …

BUNNY. Did you read Modern Screen two months ago? I am usually not a reader of film magazines, but the cover on it reached right up and seduced my eye in the health club. It was a picture like this — she clutches her head — and it was called “Sandra Dee’s Night of Hell”. Did you read that by any happenstance? Of course you wouldn’t read it. You can’t see anything. You’re ignorant. Not you. Her. The story told of the night before Sandra Dee was to make her first movie and her mother said, “Sandra, do you have everything you need?” And she said — snapped back, real fresh-like — “Leave me alone, Mother. I’m a big girl now and don’t need any help from you.” So her mother said, “All right, Sandra, but remember I’m always here.” Well, her mother closed the door and Sandra could not find her hair curlers anywhere and she was too proud to go to her mom and ask her where they were —

ARTIE. Bunny, I don’t understand.

BUNNY. Shut up. I’m not finished yet — and she tore through the house having to look her best for the set tomorrow because it was her first picture and her hair curlers were nowhere! Finally at four in the a.m., her best friend, Annette Funicello, the former Mouseketeer, came over and took the hair curlers out of her very own hair and gave them to Sandra. Thus ended her night of hell, but she had learned a lesson. Suffering — you don’t even know the meaning of suffering. You’re a nobody and you suffer like a nobody. I’m taking Artie out of this environment and bringing him to California while Billy can still do him some good. Get Artie’s songs — his music — into the movies.

ARTIE. I feel I only got about this much life left in me, Bananas. I got to use it. These are my peak years. I got to take this chance. You stay in your room. You’re crying. All the time. Ronnie’s gone now. This is not a creative atmosphere … Bananas, I’m too old to be a young talent.

BANANAS. I never stopped you all these years …

BUNNY. Be proud to admit it, Artie. You were afraid till I came on the scene. Admit it with pride.

ARTIE. I was never afraid. What’re you talking about?

BUNNY. No man takes a job feeding animals in the Central Park Zoo unless he’s afraid to deal with humans.

ARTIE. I walk right into the cage! What do you mean?

BUNNY. Arthur, I’m trying to talk to your wife. Bananas, I want to be sincere to you and kind.

ARTIE. I’m not afraid of nothing! Put my hand right in the cage —

BUNNY. (sitting down beside Bananas, speaks to her as to a child) There’s a beautiful book of poems by Robert Graves. I never read the book because the title is so beautiful there’s no need to read the book: “Man Does. Woman Is.” Look around this apartment. Look at Artie. Look at him.

ARTIE. (muttering) I been with panthers.

BUNNY. (with great kindness) I’ve never met your son, but — no insult to you, Artie — but I don’t want to. Man does. What does Artie do? He plays the piano. He creates. What are you? What is Bananas? Like he said before when you said you’ve been having nightmares. Artie said, “You been looking in the mirror?” Because that’s what you are, Bananas. Look in the mirror.

ARTIE (is playing the piano) – “Where is the Devil in Evelyn?”

BUNNY. Man Does. Woman Is. I didn’t work in a lending library for nothing.

ARTIE. I got panthers licking out of my hands like goddam pussycats.

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1 Response to The Books: “House of Blue Leaves” (John Guare)

  1. Brandon T says:

    Me and my friends are doing this exact scene for our acting class. :D

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