Editor's note: The following play was rekeyed and
reprinted on January 14, 2011 in Resource Library with permission
of the author. If you have questions or comments regarding the play, please
contact the playwright at either this street, phone or web address: Steve
Hauk, 331 Lighthouse Ave. Pacific Grove, CA 93950, 831 373-5764, haukfa@pacbell.net
Fortune's Way, or Notes
on Art for Catholics (and Others)
by Steve Hauk
(Copyright 2009)
- A screen, on one side a pulpit, on the other a chair.
There is a slide image on the screen of a Fifteenth Century religious painting.
-
- E. Charlton Fortune and Bishop Edwin O'Hara enter
arm in arm.
- It will be a while before we see her clearly. She
can be played anywhere from her late fifties and up. She is tall and angular
and strong with attractive, intelligent eyes.
-
- Fortune and Bishop O'Hara separate. She stands by
the pulpit, her back to us, facing the screen.
-
- Bishop O'Hara looks at us. He radiates casual strength
and assurance, and an easy humor and natural forbearance, which Fortune
frequently tests.
-
-
- BISHOP O'HARA: It's the early 1940s. The war rages in
Europe and the Pacific. People are tense and anxious in the United States.
-
- In the heartland, in Kansas City, Missouri, Miss E. Charlton
Fortune has begun a lecture on art and, as it will turn out, on her life
as well.
-
- Who am I? Oh, she'll tell you.
-
- What am I doing here? She'll tell you that as well.
-
- Though I'll give you hints to both questions I
am her loyal friend and frequent theological adversary.
-
- (She turns her head slowly toward him, smiles.)
-
- Quite frequent.
-
- (He smiles at her, sits in the chair.)
-
- So, the lecture begins. Rather, continues.
-
-
- (Strong lighting change.)
-
-
- FORTUNE (Looking at image): . . . A section of
a fresco by Piero della Francesa . . . ``Discovery and Proving of the True
Cross'' . . .
-
- . . . Painted mid-Fifteenth Century . . .
-
- (She moves behind the podium, her face somewhat in
shadow.)
-
- Note the powerful diagonal plane created by the cross
and the figures
- . . . set against the vertical lines of the buildings
to the right . . . the circular and rounded shapes, like the human figures,
keep the eye moving through the painting, holding our interest.
-
- (She studies it a moment.)
-
- None of this is an `accident' all thought out.
Della Francesa brought his love of mathematics and geometry to his art.
I think you can see this. It feels geometric.
-
- A powerful composition, important, because despite what
some may tell you, ecclesiastical art is exactly the same as any other
art.
-
- Except for subject matter.
-
- Fine professional painting . . . of the most supreme
importance.
-
- The ability to paint superbly well . . . say, a lemon
on a plate . . . as Manet can do so beautifully, is the best preparation
for any religious subject.
-
- I mention this in a lecture I give in a seminary and
. . .
-
- (A beat; smiles.)
-
- . . . shock one of the students . . . scandalized, I
think, my discussing God in conjunction with a lemon.
-
- (# 2 Slide: Her name: E. Charlton Fortune.)
-
- Your lecturer.
-
- I prefer to introduce myself a little into a lecture.
Introductions by others are nice, but often a bit too effusive . . .
-
- (Smiles.)
-
- Some will tell you I use the initial to disguise my gender,
but actually it is to disguise my given name: Euphemia.
-
- Still, many women artists do use initials to hide the
fact they are women. It's a matter of survival if you want to have any
chance in the competitions.
-
- And, if the judges know you are a woman and still judge
you to be any good, it's because they say you paint
like a man.
-
- One reviewer said of me: ``Her work is unusually strong
for a woman having the vigorous brush stroke attributed to men only.''
-
- Well, I ask you, what am I to do? Develop a weak
brush stroke?
-
- Still, there's a danger in using initials. For instance
. . . in 1927 I won a medal at the Paris Salon. A nice moment in my rather
mixed career. The award certificate read . . . ``To Monsieur Fortune.''
-
- Monsieur Fortune is preferable, by the way, to Miss
Fortune we don't want to be reminded of that., do we, misfortune?
-
- Anyway, friends call me Effie. Much nicer.
-
- (Looks at the screen; tilts her head.)
-
- This lecture, as you know, is
-
- (# 3 Slide, with the words:)
-
- ``Notes on Art for Catholics.''
-
- (She glances at Bishop O'Hara, who smiles indulgently.)
-
- But it's good to remind you as we go along, since I do
get sidetracked.
-
- Non-Catholics might also benefit from this lecture. But
then, I feel
- the world might benefit from understanding and appreciating
art.
-
- Mind you, I'm not liberal about this subject. There's
a fallacy that anyone with a pair of eyes is capable of deciding what is
good or bad in art. That is, may I say . . .
-
- (Looks again at Bishop O'Hara, changes her mind as
he
- clears his throat.)
-
- . . . a way of letting you know that, at the tea afterward
-
- (A beat.)
-
- Is there a tea afterward, Edwin?
-
- BISHOP O'HARA: Yes in the lobby.
-
- FORTUNE: Not the rectory?
-
- BISHOP O'HARA: No support guild's replastering
the living room. We don't want plaster drifting into the tea.
-
- FORTUNE: Oh no . . . This, by the way, is Edwin O'Hara,
distinguished bishop of Kansas City, Missouri . . . I was saying?
-
- BISHOP O'HARA: ``A way of letting you know.''
-
- FORTUNE: Thank you. No ``I know what I like,'' unless
it comes
- from an informed basis. And if you come from an informed
basis,
- you won't say ``I know what I like.''
-
- You may wonder why the bishop sits nearby . . . He's
here in case you may have questions about religion I am unable to answer.
-
- BISHOP O'HARA: Trust me, she'll try anyway.
-
- FORTUNE: But the most important reason the projector
jamming. It does sometimes and I'm terrible with machines.
-
- BISHOP O'HARA: That's true.
-
- FORTUNE: It jammed a dozen times in Portsmouth. That's
in Rhode Island.
-
- BISHOP O'HARA: In Boston it jammed and then the light
bulb burned out, so we adjourned early for tea.
-
- FORTUNE: And if I get off track, Edwin can steer me back.
Isn't that so?
-
- BISHOP O'HARA: I try.
-
- FORTUNE: If I faint I did once, it was Cleveland
in August Bishop O'Hara to the rescue.
-
- BISHOP O'HARA: It was St. Louis, Effie.
-
- FORTUNE: Excuse me?
-
- BISHOP O'HARA: You fainted in St. Louis.
-
- FORTUNE: In August?
-
- BISHOP O'HARA: You'll recall they installed a tub in
the cathedral vestibule so you could bathe when the heat became unbearable.
-
- FORTUNE: Oh, yes! I plunged in every two hours.
-
- BISHOP O'HARA: Except the the day you got caught up in
your painting and didn't jump in and suffered heat prostration. You
scared us that time.
-
- FORTUNE (A beat): Did I?
-
- BISHOP O'HARA: Of course, very much. You were so ill,
even Rome heard of it.
-
- FORTUNE: Rome?
-
- BISHOP O'HARA: The Pope himself didn't you know?
-
- FORTUNE (Touched): No.
-
- BISHOP O'HARA (Back tracking): Oh, right
we thought it would go to your head if you heard the Holy Father was concerned.
-
- FORTUNE: If I'd known . . .
-
- BISHOP O'HARA: Exactly our point.
-
- The lecture, Effie.
-
- FORTUNE: The Holy Father . . . really?
-
- BISHOP O'HARA: Really.
-
- FORTUNE: My goodness.
-
- (A moment as she collects herself, giving him a second
look,
- then # 4 Slide, a classical public building.)
-
- This is the entrance to Kansas City's William Rockhill
Nelson Gallery of Art . . . Many of the works of art you will see this
evening are housed in this museum.
-
- A surprise for the bishop: I am adding some extra slides
to
- today's lecture . . . freshening it up.
-
-
- (She smiles in his direction; he arches a brow.)
-
-
- BISHOP O'HARA: Are you?
-
- FORTUNE: Not so many.
-
- (Turning front.)
-
- I add images because . . . the war grows worse in Europe
. . . so
- maybe we need to talk about things other than just art.
I know the
- war's on your minds, how could it not be? We can't just
ignore it, pretend it isn't.
-
- And my brother is over in . . . well, I don't know .
. . North Africa, perhaps Burma, an engineer searching for oil for the
war effort. Jim's second war . . . No longer young, and we haven't had
word from him for some time and Jim takes chances, so I worry . . .
-
- (Bishop O'Hara gives her a look of concern, shifts
in his
- chair.)
-
- (No. 5 slide sculpture of a Greek lion.)
-
- So I would like to discuss some things that bear on art,
mine and others, that I usually don't talk about.
-
- (Pause, briskly, glancing back at image.)
-
- This falls into our usual parameter: A stone sculpture
of a lion, to be found in the Museum's Classical Gallery. Greek. Four centuries
before Christ.
-
- A few wars since then . . .
-
- (#6 Slide sculpture of a Chinese lion.)
-
- Chinese lion of the seventh century after Christ. In
the --Chinese Gallery, of course.
-
- (#7 Slide back to the Greek lion.)
-
- . . . as far apart in conception
-
- (#8 Slide back to the Chinese lion.)
-
- as China from Greece.
-
- Both distinctly different from the image of
-
- (#9 Slide photograph of a lion.)
-
- a real lion . . . snapped this photograph the other
day in
- your zoo.
-
- (Smiles.)
-
- Handsome galoot, isn't he? Lazy, too.
-
- (Reversing slides, #10, 11 and 11A)
-
- These statues resemble our lion only remotely as subject
- matter, but absolutely as to its attributes.
-
- Kingliness and ferocity depicted to the point of exaggeration
through economy of design . . . the deliberate discarding of
- nonessential details.
-
- Details may be seen in the `absolutely truthful' product
of the
- camera
-
- (#12 Slide of photograph of lion.)
-