hanging pictures
act one
May 22, 1916
Scene 1a
<GEORGIA is on stage alone dressed severely in black. She is eyeing Hartley paintings. She wants to take them down. She mumbles and stares at the Portrait of a German Officer which is lit centered on the wall. It is as if she has been warned off from touching it. She paws at some of her charcoal drawings that are organic abstractions that focus on an image of a shell.>
<STIEGLITZ joins her from stage left.>
GEORGIA
Noisy pictures.
STIEGLITZ
Just drop your sketches off. Give Hartley the room to take his paintings down. He hates the end of shows.
GEORGIA
I don't know why you show him.
STIEGLITZ
I show him because he's an important American artist.
GEORGIA
Can’t stay put long enough to be called American. Painting in Germany of all places in the midst of war.
STIEGLITZ
Not everyone has your rootedness, Georgia.
GEORGIA
Texas next. Teaching art. As if it can be taught.
STIEGLITZ
I wish you would stay put closer to me.
GEORGIA
We will write.
STIEGLITZ
Intensely.
<He pauses overcome by the hint of desire. Then continues.>
I’ve been showing Hartley for seven years.
GEORGIA
Tired.
STIEGLITZ
So quick and dismissive.
GEORGIA
Not worth the hanging space. A brass band in a closet. You loaned me that Hartley landscape.
STIEGLITZ
You were raving about him then. “I learn so much from master painters. Vibrant colors. The interplay of darkness and light.”
GEORGIA
I loathed it. The dark colors haunted my dreams. I awoke from a menacing dream and turned the landscape to the wall.
<She tries hanging three charcoal abstractions over the Hartleys.>
Organic images. A series that adds up. Hartley is all one-offs.
STIEGLITZ
I said not to hang anything yet. Not everyone can be effortlessly productive.
<She stares at the German Officer Painting fearfully.>
GEORGIA
Dead soldiers. Can I at least take that one down? The canvas just dies.
STIEGLITZ
I told you to keep it up. I want that one for all the bother. It will mean something someday.
GEORGIA
I see the bother. I just don't get the meaning.
STIEGLITZ
Leave it up.
GEORGIA
Whatever you say, dearest mentor.
<GEORGIA and STIEGLITZ exit stage left. They do not lock up the gallery. The stage is empty for a moment. The lighting on the German Officer enhances.>
Scene 1b
<Charles DEMUTH and Hart CRANE knock on the door and enter.>
DEMUTH
Where are you: aging fop?
CRANE
Did you tell him we were coming?
DEMUTH
I told him I was bringing some chicken over to take a look at his unsold paintings.
CRANE
I’m not chicken. I’m a poet.
DEMUTH
Fresh white meat. A full serving of words.
CRANE
You certainly did not refuse a helping.
DEMUTH
One must support the arts. You looked so plaintive on the streets. Stalking the galleries. Eyeing the sailors.
CRANE
I was cultivating metaphors.
DEMUTH
Grab the real stuff. Leave the metaphors to tired fops like Hartley!
CRANE
I’ve heard about his show.
DEMUTH
On your sabbatical from high school.
CRANE
I’ve left high school.
DEMUTH
Yes, dewy one. Peach fuzz as far as the eye can see.
Scene 1c
<Marsden HARTLEY enters quietly. Looks at the stacks of charcoal drawings and is not pleased. He angrily takes one of the three propped up paintings down. He kicks it to the corner.>
HARTLEY
Charles, here for the funeral.
DEMUTH
Yes, Hartley, dear. Un-hanging, hanging. I’ve brought a pall-bearer. Crane, Hartley—poet, painter.
HARTLEY
Here to pick over the bones. Angling for your own showing in the new gallery.
DEMUTH
Can’t I just be here as an interested bystander?
HARTLEY
Provincetown, Germany, Paris. We know each other too well to be interested bystanders. Just competitors for hanging space.
CRANE
You don’t seem to have much sympathy for Hartley?
DEMUTH
But I do. I’m the closest thing to a comrade that he has. And even I can’t abide him.
CRANE
Modern, earthy, powerful.
DEMUTH
Such an enthusiastic pall-bearer.
HARTLEY
Where do you find them?
DEMUTH
Out and about.
HARTLEY
And where are you out and about from?
CRANE
Cleveland.
HARTLEY
I’ve spent a few tiresome years in Cleveland. Out there with no about. Stieglitz will love you. He pushes Americana. How do you find Cleveland?
CRANE
Well, I left. My parents are breaking off their marriage. A silent, bloody battleground. I am pretty much orphaned.
HARTLEY
Orphaned! Abandoned with a stipend.
CRANE
I had to flee to Manhattan. I’m a poet. I came for this community.
HARTLEY
This community? Isn’t he a little young for even you, Demuth?
DEMUTH
Poetry is ageless.
CRANE
Are you often late to take down shows?
HARTLEY
End of shows are pretty tough. Particularly if you have so little sold. But then you don’t know much about failure.
CRANE
Failure? Everything I do smacks of failure.
DEMUTH
Our meeting was not a failure. I’d call it exuberant.
CRANE
Two wanderers on the docks.
DEMUTH
Seeking sailors. Accepting each other as poor substitutes for a ripe gob.
CRANE
Do you like sailors, Hartley?
HARTLEY
In a pinch. I’m more the cavalry type. Heroic with chiseled chins.
DEMUTH
I promised you modernism, poet child. I present you exhibit one: Marsden Hartley’s German Officer. Note the symbols. A clear sign that something modern is afoot.
CRANE
I like that you tell stories.
DEMUTH
I could recount a few Hartley tales.
HARTLEY
Shut up, Demuth.
DEMUTH
The poet child wants to speak.
CRANE
My poems tell stories.
DEMUTH
I can’t wait to read them.
CRANE
Hard to understand. Lots of metaphors.
DEMUTH
Then you will fit perfectly here. Welcome to the Stieglitz group where metaphors abound and where nothing is quite what it seems.
HARTLEY
Which do you like the best?
CRANE
That one. The German Officer.
DEMUTH
The hero’s requiem.
HARTLEY
Quiet, the child is speaking. What do you like about it?
CRANE
Its complexity. It needs deciphering. A series of codes. You knew the Officer well?
DEMUTH
Marsden knows his soldiers well. Much as he tries to hide it.
CRANE
I want to write epic poems.
HARTLEY
Stick to the shorter stuff. Magazines like The Little Review only take the short stuff.
CRANE
I’ll start short but expect to publish loud and long.
DEMUTH
A child with aspirations.
CRANE
You adored the Officer.
HARTLEY
He made me proud.
CRANE
24?
HARTLEY
His age when he died. In battle like a true warrior.
CRANE
Was he heroic?
HARTLEY
Everyone I love is a hero. A shining silver warrior.
CRANE
Why didn’t you paint him? His likeness I mean.
HARTLEY
Why do you use metaphors, poet? I can’t paint portraits. They don’t cohere.
DEMUTH
I can vouch for that. Too literal. Trivial.
CRANE
Have you even tried? Are there hidden Hartley portraits?
HARTLEY
A closet full of failures or in-completes. Stieglitz keeps some. Others I lug after me.
CRANE
Like homeless lines and stanzas.
HARTLEY
Some of my experiments will never find a home.
DEMUTH
That orphan schtick again.
CRANE
Aren’t you afraid you will lose him? Lose the memory of him.
HARTLEY
I have his heroism. Why do I need his likeness?
DEMUTH
Did that painting sell?
HARTLEY
Of course not. I’m here to talk to Stieglitz. To settle up. Not that there’s much to settle.
DEMUTH
You had your show. Now it’s the new woman’s turn.
HARTLEY
The scent of female art. Stieglitz’s latest project. Charcoal drawings. An umpire playing favorites.
CRANE
What do you mean?
HARTLEY
Stieglitz, umpire. Georgia, painter.
DEMUTH
These heterosexuals. So unreliable.
HARTLEY
We earn our solo shows.
DEMUTH
I like her work. It has a certain—
HARTLEY
Compulsiveness. Like picking at a scab over and over again until a wound erupts.
DEMUTH
You always hate unhanging pictures.
HARTLEY
I will ask Stieglitz to extend the show. 291 is closing. Keep my show up. My paintings need more time to find their audience.
DEMUTH
“The hanging space is promised.”
HARTLEY
<Hartley looks closer at one of Georgia’s sketches. He studies her work disdainfully. >
I thought we hung art here. Not commercial drawings. Who can tell them apart?
DEMUTH
OK, I will play the ingenue Georgia.
<He vamps a bit. Georgia in drag.>
They are a series. Like listening to low-tone, somber, rhythmic music.
HARTLEY
Couldn't you just have done one of them and gotten it right? Colorless Charcoals!
DEMUTH
I do not want the distraction of color.
HARTLEY
Color does force choice.
DEMUTH
I will return to color when I choose to.
HARTLEY
The art world holds its breath.
DEMUTH
I’m so proud to be shown here. To follow in your footsteps. We are so wicked. Georgia is actually quite nice. She visited my mother in Lancaster.
HARTLEY
Ah, Lancaster, so close, so far. The finest society. Elegance incarnate. Close enough to New York for debauches. Far enough away so that word does not get back to Mother.
DEMUTH
<Angrily.>
Don’t we have paintings to un-hang?
HARTLEY
The three of you at tea dissecting one of your insipid florals. Spare me. Show her some of your sailor paintings. The ones your Lancaster friends hide in closets. Then we will see how accepting Miss Georgia is.
DEMUTH
I count on everyone not to see what is so obvious to you and me. Stieglitz says play nice. We are a group.
HARTLEY
Artists don’t group. We compete for hanging space.
Scene 1d
<A Note on staging the flashback, non-gallery scenes. Each should be set in a framed place set-apart. The ‘frame’ can be a physical construction or a lighted frame. It should suggest that the past spawns the paintings.>
<Hartley stares at the German Officer painting. It lights up as if at an amusement park. Music is used to announce a different place. Demuth and Crane move upstage right. Karl enters as if from behind the painting.>
HARTLEY
It's simpler here. After Paris: full up with art mongering aesthetes sipping cocktails. Black shirts and plum ties.
KARL
So many styles. So many factions.
HARTLEY
Talk breeding talk. Unclean. Not at all like my scrubbed German officer.
KARL
Luring you here. To be watched by your turquoise eyes. So I can finger that aquiline nose.
<Karl runs his hand firmly down Hartley’s face.>
HARTLEY
And show me what I must do.
KARL
If I left it to you, nothing would have happened. Even here, in Berlin.
HARTLEY
I am too old for you. Too worn.
KARL
My silly older man.
HARTLEY
You buoy up my flesh. You treat me like a boy. I have always been the eldest. Now I am the Lieutenant’s orderly. Each day, an intense white fire.
KARL
For you everything is in the sight.
HARTLEY
Each happenstance has its own hues.
KARL
Is everything painting?
HARTLEY
Everything. Feeds.
KARL
Am I just fodder then?
HARTLEY
My clean, brave Spartan warrior.
KARL
My Merlin.
HARTLEY
Berlin. So many bright soldiers with their white leather breeches skin tight. Ebony enamel boots. Breast plates of silver and brass. The sun spearing flamelike. The cream white taxis lined with red leather. I fit here.
KARL
Then you'll stay longer? Not flee back to New York to show?
HARTLEY
Not yet. I will stay as long as I can milk it. My new style. My vibrant muse.
KARL
A painter always praises his model.
HARTLEY
You are beyond praise.
KARL
I'm only an obedient German officer.
HARTLEY
I am the one obeying now. By staying. Eventually I must go back.To show my new style.
KARL
As long as eventually is a world away. We must give your new style time to cohere.
<Karl exits.>
Scene 1e
<Stieglitz and Georgia join Hartley, Demuth, and Crane. Stieglitz is trying to be light and breezy. He points at the German Officer.>
STIEGLITZ
I like that work. Your best, Hartley.
GEORGIA
A highlight! A shame it’s unsold.
HARTLEY
A memory captured. Sold or unsold.
<Hartley tries to take one of Georgia’s pictures down that is covering one of his own. The two pull at it. It drops to the floor with a bang.>
GEORGIA
I know the spacing I want.
HARTLEY
Marvelous how quickly you master the mechanics.
GEORGIA
It saves time to know the correct order.
HARTLEY
That’s why you started so early. With the body barely cold. Don’t ever touch my paintings without permission.
GEORGIA
I only meant to speed the transfer along.
HARTLEY
Like a dog sniffing a bone. Marking his territory.
GEORGIA
I’m not a male dog.
HARTLEY
No, decidedly you are not.
GEORGIA
I’ll wait for you to clear out your memories before I start hanging my art. Stieglitz, I'll be back shortly to complete my installation.
<She exits without looking back.>
DEMUTH
Come, poet child. Stay over in our corner. Pretend to be studying each painting. I feel a heart to heart coming.
<DEMUTH and CRANE retire to the corner reluctantly.>
STIEGLITZ
I don't like bickering here. This is 291. We are a group. A common eye.
HARTLEY
The only eye I value is my own.
STIEGLITZ
Such self-sufficiency. Would you rather go it alone?
HARTLEY
Of course not. I must show somewhere. I must have a gallery.
STIEGLITZ
Then act like it. Instead of fighting us at every turn. Show some flexibility.
HARTLEY
Flexibility! Bow down to Stieglitz. Believe Georgia shows promise. Banter with Demuth. Smile at Marin and Dove. But you are shutting 291 down. I hate closing down a show. Unsold pictures like un-adopted children sent back to the orphanage.
STIEGLITZ
I need a break.
HARTLEY
From what?
STIEGLITZ
From artists. How I keep this gallery going is never clear to me.
HARTLEY
You never have enough room for me.
STIEGLITZ
Nothing is ever enough for you, Hartley. I keep the calendar open waiting for you and your German paintings. I give you your chance.
HARTLEY
And I fail. Is that what you are saying?
STIEGLITZ
Can't you just trust my faith in you?
HARTLEY
How can I trust you? Profligate in your faiths. Georgia! Indeed.
STIEGLITZ
I support multiple artists. We learn from each other.
HARTLEY
And what am I supposed to learn from Georgia? How to flirt?
STIEGLITZ
I advocate you as much as I can. There is only so much hang space.
HARTLEY
I know. But you give it away to bad art.
STIEGLITZ
I am not a painter. But it is my gallery, and I can see straight. I decide what goes up and when.
HARTLEY
How comforting. I am only too sorry that my life has been thrust upon you, Stieglitz. I test our friendship by this incessant asking.
STIEGLITZ
Imagine if you were my only artist. We'd have split long ago. Go somewhere and stay there. Tie yourself down.The public senses place in art, and restlessness does not sit well with them. That's why I concentrate on American artists. Not everything should have that damn French twist. I am fond of baseball, a true American game. A starting pitcher must stay on the same mound to pitch a complete game. Stay here, in the game.
HARTLEY
I will not limit myself to America.
STIEGLITZ
You have no practical contact in Europe. It's only here, at 291, where you have any influence.
HARTLEY
I can paint anywhere, anything, anyone. I'll wait for peace and return to Germany.
STIEGLITZ
It is not your most productive place.
HARTLEY
Where is that? Certainly not New York. This anchor-less hanging space. I need to know that you will show me again here soon. I need some guarantees.
STIEGLITZ
All I can promise is consideration.
HARTLEY
You offer artists your meagerly attention, but threaten that you will withdraw it if we are not up to snuff. Paint this, not that, stay here, go there. You are like an annoying lawyer. I'm a taciturn client drafting my last will.
STIEGLITZ
Then let me risk advising you. Stop wandering.
HARTLEY
Stay in one place! Produce postcard images. I found a place in Berlin. A marching, vibrant place, full of gaiety, but that was taken away from me by this blasted war.
STIEGLITZ
Find someplace American. Repeat yourself in one style so the public can get a fix on you.
HARTLEY
I search. For subjects. For color. I can’t take one notion, one place, one person, and repeat them endlessly.
STIEGLITZ
Try different angles.
HARTLEY
My paintings come to me with their own aspect. One and only one choice.
STIEGLITZ
You exasperate me. I don’t know why I show you.
HARTLEY
You show me because I’m a great painter.
STIEGLITZ
A stubborn one. You spend too much time in Berlin. I could not get you home.
HARTLEY
I stayed there as long as I had money.
STIEGLITZ
Melodramatic cables. Cable dollars. Helpless, Hartley.
HARTLEY
Nothing to eat.
STIEGLITZ
Of course you can not just leave and return to show. Inconvenient. It is more logical for you to stay in wartime Germany.
HARTLEY
I had to paint it through. Get past it.
<STIEGLITZ stares at the painting.>
STIEGLITZ
Past what? That feeble affection for a German Officer. You mount young men on such pedestals. You are needed in New York. You must show.
HARTLEY
I’m here in New York. Showing. So keep me up. Don’t take me down for some twat’s sketches. Keep me before the New York public. This dreadful place where I must hawk my wares.
STIEGLITZ
Yes, the New York public. Anxiously awaiting Hartley's return.
HARTLEY
No audience waits for me. None.
STIEGLITZ
All the New York art world waits with baited breath.
HARTLEY
Sharpening their claws.
STIEGLITZ
Where's Hartley? Painting in Berlin. Mourning Lieutenants. You develop this new muralist style. Indians, Germans, soldiers, symbols. Uniforms, decorations, banners.
HARTLEY
Emblems, numbers. Flattened out, locked together. Consultations for the eye, not symbols.
STIEGLITZ
This is me you are talking to, not some pansy hating critic. Of course they are symbols. Your memories firm and sexual. They propel each painting.
HARTLEY
And they are not pro-German!
STIEGLITZ
They are defiantly pro-German.
HARTLEY
I confess. I am guilty of being smitten with Germany. Despite this cancer of deceit the British slander the Germans with.
STIEGLITZ
Even I practice discretion about my pro-German feelings.
HARTLEY
I will try my best to behave. To be worthy of your promotion. Keep my show up or promise me another one. Soon.
STIEGLITZ
Let's see what you paint and where. Not Germany.
HARTLEY
I don’t need any particular place or any particular person.
STIEGLITZ
Then why bottle live memories in paintings? Confuse us that people mean something.
HARTLEY
I paint them out and they are gone.
STIEGLITZ
Vanished into indifference?
HARTLEY
No. Just replaced with something new. Something else. Do I have the promise of another show?
STIEGLITZ
No promises.
<STIEGLITZ reverts to the painting.>
STIEGLITZ
I want the German Officer.
HARTLEY
Why? As a keepsake?
STIEGLITZ
Because it is different. It’s the best of show.
HARTLEY
N O. My German Officer—just another deduction from what I owe you! My silvery soldier.
Scene 1f
<Crane comes over to stare again at the German Officer painting. Stieglitz starts to take paintings down.>
CRANE
Must an artist be alone?
HARTLEY
To be authentic.There is no dispensation.
CRANE
What of the German officer? Were you alone then?
HARTLEY
My hero. My silvery knight. Just one painting.
CRANE
You thought so little of him.
HARTLEY
I thought so much of him. I grieved so much. I had to be done with him. Wall him up.
CRANE
That is why his image is not in the painting.
HARTLEY
He is. Underneath.
CRANE
Men become metaphors. Images, within images.
HARTLEY
Artifacts.
CRANE
Words to hide behind. We are similar.
HARTLEY
Hardly. I am not like anyone.
CRANE
More the same than you admit. You are just better at it. The wandering, the seeking, the holding close. I get it, but then it escapes my grasp. I need help to hold fast.
HARTLEY
Child, why ever would I offer that?
<Stieglitz focuses on Hartley again.>
STIEGLITZ
Keepsakes.
HARTLEY
My stalwart warrior.
STIEGLITZ
How can others decipher them?
HARTLEY
It's a painting. Ideas about Karl. The supple rigidity of his touch. My valiant soldier of light. I paint to purge. I take dictation onto the blankness of the canvas.
STIEGLITZ
That’s why I want it.
HARTLEY
The gallery owner takes his cut. But it's mine.
STIEGLITZ
You forfeit it by hanging it.
Scene 1g
<Crane, Demuth, and Stieglitz exit. The light changes after a short musical interlude.>
<From behind the German Officer painting, Karl returns holding his helmet. Every hair is in place slicked down.>
HARTLEY
<Pridefully, Hartley narrates the painting. As he does its components are highlighted. >
A soldier’s medal.
Flags raised for battle.
E for Edmund that given name I left behind.
24, your age.
4, your regiment number.
K v F, your name, Karl Von Freyburg.
KARL
Our time of peace is over.
HARTLEY
A short war. You'll be back soon.
KARL
I go where I am told.
HARTLEY
I will remember our time together in the shadows of war.
KARL
You won't recollect me long.
HARTLEY
I'll capture our time somehow. My handsome, dauntless warrior.
KARL
You’ll take me captive.
<Flirtatiously.>
Will you show me in chains?
HARTLEY
Isn’t it me, the one in chains. I’ve never been one for accessories. I will picture you.
KARL
Tall and bold?
HARTLEY
Ready for the raw battle.
KARL
Commanding you to stay. Making you obey.
HARTLEY
Who knows what you'll become? I never imitate appearance.
KARL
You will make me less than human.
HARTLEY
No, more.
KARL
Will you be painting our farewell?
HARTLEY
No. I want something luminous, not trite and emotional.
KARL
I'll be honored by whatever you choose. May I live to see my painting, Hartley.
HARTLEY
<Hartley pauses and proposes a toast.>
Karl, to a quick war.
KARL
To a quick war!
<Karl goes back behind the painting and exits. Hartley is left alone onstage.>
HARTLEY
I wondered how long his flame might last,
The fire banked by hope had passed.
They pinned a medal on width of chest
As sunset blinked at his behest.
Scene 1h
<Stieglitz reenters with O’Keeffe. She starts to hang pictures in the open spots. Each hanging pains Hartley.>
STIEGLITZ
Georgia, of course we will write. I must know what you make of Texas. I can hardly wait to see how you view the place.
Hartley, come to Lake George this summer. The Hill is a wonderful place to paint. Visit Emmy and my family.
HARTLEY
Even if I could afford it, I don’t like the feigned closeness of one big happy family.
<Stieglitz and Georgia exchange looks.>
STIEGLITZ
I'm planning a Demuth show after Georgia's comes down. To open the new gallery.
HARTLEY
Not me again?
STIEGLITZ
That'll have to wait until I see what you produce from your new place. I must get Demuth past the damn flowers. Only women should paint flowers.
HARTLEY
Perhaps you could assign that genre to Georgia, your new find.
<He stares at Georgia's charcoals.>
She certainly seems to lack for variety of subject.
STIEGLITZ
She is finding her way.
HARTLEY
Yes, but must we all watch her?
STIEGLITZ
I think much of her.
HARTLEY
Did anything of mine actually sell? What's the final tally?
STIEGLITZ
Four smaller works. Barely enough to maintain your monthly stipends.
HARTLEY
Of course, next to nothing after the critics savaged me. Each painting at best a couple of months of freedom. I need some money, Stieglitz.
STIEGLITZ
A little advance against your next unscheduled show?
HARTLEY
I need it, now. Ask Emmy for money.
STIEGLITZ
I will take it from wherever I damn well please. I will keep the German Officer as recompense.
HARTLEY
There are enough unsold, unhung pictures. Keep them instead.
STIEGLITZ
No, I want the Officer. Here is a check for a hundred. I will deduct it from your fictitious balance.
HARTLEY
I trust you in your consummate kindness to do the arithmetic.
STIEGLITZ
A ledger with such few entries.
<Georgia comes over.>
GEORGIA
Let’s take the remainder down.
<She reaches for the Officer but Hartley slaps her hand.>
HARTLEY
Visions don’t come with timetables.
GEORGIA
Paint another. Visions are cheap.
HARTLEY
I will leave the assembly line to you, Georgia. Don’t take it down.
GEORGIA
It’s time is up.
HARTLEY
I will unhang my own damn pictures.
<Hartley grabs the painting. Stieglitz, oh so smoothly, relieves Hartley of the painting.>
<A quick curtain.>
