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Miss Pussy and Miss Stein

Characters

Gertrude:
Gertrude Stein—the play spans the length of her relationship with Alice Toklas, but it would probably be best to choose an actor in her late fifties or sixties.
Miss Pussy:
Alice Toklas
Hélène:
Servant and cook to Gertrude and Miss Pussy. Relentlessly French.

Set

A suggestion of the studio at 27 rue de Fleurus—the walls of paintings by Picasso and Matisse, the Renaissance table, the Renaissance chairs, the objet d’art.

Production history

There is no production history, which is a shame because this is my best play.

The Story

The play is an evocation of the writing of Gertrude Stein focusing on the lives of Miss Stein and Miss Toklas. It generally follows a chronological path from the time of Miss Stein and Miss Toklas' meeting, until Miss Stein’s death. But the presentation is anything but linear. It rejoices in repeated refrains highlighting the absurdities of events and characters, and from curtain rise to close, the “action” circles around and around like the "dance" that defines Miss Stein and Miss Toklas' unique relationship.

Using a collage of factual fragments as core material, the play is an expressionist "portrait." Much of the play is fictional (sometimes radically so)–conversations, intimate thoughts and actions, psychological motives, emotional concerns, many of the lesser events. The dialogue is highly stylized and markedly absurdist, reflecting in some way. I hope, the audacious absurdity of Miss Stein’s writing and even her life. The rhythm of the language of each character is that character—a central tenant of Miss Stein’s. Essentially, the style of the play is the content of the play. Or as Miss Stein would have it: There is no story. There is no beginning, middle, and end.

Download full play here

The Dialogue

Pussy:
We dismissed Mr. Hemmingway.
Gertrude:
I took a card and wrote on the card, "Miss Stein and Miss Pussy no longer require the company of Mr. Ernest Hemmingway."
Pussy:
The head of Mr. Hemmingway became too big.
Gertrude:
It was big to begin with but then it became bigger.
Pussy:
We did not like Mr. Fitzgerald.
Gertrude:
His head was too small.
Gertrude and Pussy laugh, delighted.
Pussy:
You took a card and wrote on the card, "Miss Stein and Miss Pussy no longer require the company of Mr. Scott Fitzgerald."
Gertrude:
I took a card and wrote on the card, "Miss Stein and Miss Pussy no longer require the company of Mr. Virgil Thompson."
Pussy:
You took a card and wrote on the card, "Miss Stein and Miss Pussy no longer require the company of Monsieur and Madame Juan Gris."
Gertrude:
We make friends with people, we murder people.
Pussy:
I discovered my nails as a young girl, because as a young girl I was not thought to be attractive, and I wanted to discover what it was that made me attractive, and therefore I discovered by nails.
Gertrude:
I wrote the great play, "Counting Her Dresses" and nobody noticed.
Pussy:
You wrote the great play, “"urkey and Bones and Eating," and nobody noticed.
Gertrude:
A play is a landscape, a ceremony of the imagination, a continuous ritual of movement with nothing to resolve.
Pussy:
I have murdered the cow, the duck, the goose, the pig…I have strangled the neck of the goose, broken the neck of the duck, slashed the throat of the pig, eviscerated the beautiful carp with the huge kitchen knife, very sharp, wham, slash, bang, dead. Before we can cook we must murder.
Gertrude:
They will write about us.
Pussy:
They will write what they want to write about us, not what we want them to write about us.
Gertrude:
They will call it biography and it will be a lie.
Pussy:
Biography is a lie.
Gertrude:
We will write our own biography and the lies will be our own lies.