Muldoon Shining Brow

Main
ISBN: 978-0-571-26390-5
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 200 Seiten

Originally commissioned by Madison Opera as a libretto for American composer Daron Aric Hagen, Shining Brow can be read as a dramatic poem in its own right. Displaying all the structural ingenuity and subtle resonance that have marked Paul Muldoon as the most influential poet of his generation, it tells, with suitable bravura, the story of architectural genius Frank Lloyd Wright and his catastrophic affair with the wife of a wealthy client.

Paul Muldoon is the author of fifteen collections of poetry, including Moy Sand and Gravel, for which he received the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Among his other awards are the 1994 T. S. Eliot Prize, the 2003 Griffin Prize, the 2015 Pigott Prize, and the 2017 Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. Born in County Armagh in 1951, he has lived since 1987 in the United States, where he is the Howard G. B. Clark Professor in the Humanities, Emeritus, at Princeton University. In 2022, he was appointed Ireland Professor of Poetry.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Muldoon, Paul

Leseproben

SCENE 1

Chicago,1903. Lights up on Frank Lloyd Wright’s bustling office. A male CHORUS of twenty DRAFTSMEN at twenty drawing-boards, seen from rear; each drawing-board is equipped with a work-light.

DRAFTSMEN

The poetry of architecture

is a poetry of vision;

we set our sights

on unscaled heights

with our ground-plans and elevations.

The poetry of architecture

is a poetry of tension;

we take as our theme

the brick and the beam

and we add an extra dimension.

But the poetry of architecture

is not without its laws;

there’s someone at the bottom

of every totem-

pole: you can’t make bricks without straw.

The poetry of architecture

is a poetry that’s rooted

in our bearing much more stress

than a flying buttress

though our fame is less often bruited.

So the poetry of architecture

is a poetry that’s composed

by a chorus of slaves

much like ourselves

who get shunted from pillar to post.

For the poetry of architecture

has its Masters and its Schools;

some are destined to stand

with their pencils in their hands …

(WRIGHT enters.)

WRIGHT

And some are destined to rule.

(WRIGHT is followed by EDWIN and MAMAH CHENEY, whom he ushers to his desk, on which are spread the plans of various houses.)

DRAFTSMEN

(Sheepishly, sotto voce)

Some are destined to stand

with their pencils in their hands

and some are destined to rule.

WRIGHT

The poetry of architecture, Mr and Mrs Cheney,

is universal. The Sioux and the Shoshone

might have taught the Greeks and Romans

a lesson in harmony.

MAMAH

I can’t quite imagine the appeal to John Ruskin

of a few sticks covered with deer-skins.

EDWIN

Mamah, please.

MAMAH

In any case, we might as justly speak of

the ‘music’

of architecture.

WRIGHT

Indeed we might. Be it mud hut,

mansion or mosque,

cabin, cathedral or kraal –

they should all be somehow integral.

DRAFTSMEN

They should all be somehow integral.

(WRIGHT comes round to the front of the desk and stands beside MAMAH.)

WRIGHT

And Mah-mah – if I may?

MAMAH

(Correcting his pronunciation)

May-mah – if you would.

DRAFTSMEN

Mah-mah. May-mah. My, my, my.

WRIGHT

May I say that what’s uppermost in my mind

when I take my pencil in my hand

to draw up a plan for your Utopia, your Erewhon,

is that form and function are one.

MAMAH

What a curious expression – ‘my pencil in my hand’.

DRAFTSMEN

We know pretty much exactly what he has in mind

when he mentions his ‘pencil in his hand’.

WRIGHT

Take, for example, this house in Buffalo;

each room opens into the next, so one may follow

one’s bent, as it were, from the living room

through the den to the bedroom …

EDWIN

It’s faintly reminiscent of a maze …

MAMAH

But a maze in which one finds oneself, my sweet,

the way the greatest rivers most meander.

EDWIN

The way in every labyrinth there lurks a Minotaur.

WRIGHT

Over the lintel of the hearth

in this house in Buffalo is carved;

The reality of the house is order

The blessing of the house is community

The glory of the house is hospitality

The crown of the house is godliness

DRAFTSMEN

The reality of the house is order

The blessing of the house is community

The glory of the house is hospitality

The crown of the house is godliness

MAMAH

What a curious sloping roof.

WRIGHT

That, Mamah, is a

hip-roof;

so called, I might say, because it follows the curve …

EDWIN

Far be it from me to lower the tone

of these proceedings, but when all’s said and done

there’s the little matter of how much it’ll cost …

MAMAH

Edwin, you sound like Banquo’s ghost.

DRAFTSMEN

It’s almost six. Time to call it a day.

WRIGHT

It’s still a tad early to say

exactly. I’ll have a more concrete idea

by the end of the week.

MAMAH

Oh, Eddie,

the cost is as nothing to the worth

of a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

EDWIN

Just so long as it doesn’t cost the earth.

(EDWIN and MAMAH CHENEY take their leave.)

MAMAH

(Extending her hand)

Until the end of the week.

WRIGHT

(Kissing her hand)

Until then, Mamah.

EDWIN

(Abruptly)

Goodnight.

(The DRAFTSMEN leave their drawing-boards, automaton-like, each switching off his work-light.)

DRAFTSMEN

The music, so … the music of architecture

is a music that takes its tempo

from the hammer blows

and the to and fro

of the saw in the wrist and the temple.

The music of architecture

is the music that stirs the heart

with a passion so profound

as can only be found

in the highest forms of art.

The music of architecture

is a music that stems from the breast;

but there’s many a slip

‘twixt cup and lip:

so much gets compromised.

For the music of architecture

has a theme that’s rarely stated;

the bottom line

of nickels and dimes

and cheques that are always post-dated.

The music of architecture

is the music of the human soul,

but, take it from us,

it ain’t worth a cuss

without a great, big, fat bank-roll.

The trick is this; how to reconcile

these irreconcilable factors:

now that Wright’s left at least one of the Cheneys

in no doubt of his genius,

he can only hope …

(The last DRAFTSMAN is clearing his drawing-board. WRIGHT leans against his awn desk in a warm pool of light.)

WRIGHT

Her hip …

DRAFTSMAN

He can only hope to make …

WRIGHT

I can only hope to make …

(The DRAFTSMAN turns out his light and leaves.)

DRAFTSMAN

To make and remake the music of architecture.

WRIGHT

And her scent. Was it musk?

(WRIGHT is alone at his desk, his ‘pencil in his hand’.)

Not musk. Cedar perhaps. Perhaps night-scented stock.

It all goes back to those Froebel blocks

my mama gave me as a child.

La Belle Dame sans Merci, The Lady of Shalott –

these were my first patrons; I was their Master Builder.

Not stock. Saxifrage. A flower to split a boulder

in the prairie of men’s hearts;

(Unbeknownst to him, CATHERINE WRIGHT comes into the office.)

she has pierced my heart like an arrowhead.

CATHERINE

Frank, my dear.

WRIGHT

Catherine. What brings you here?

CATHERINE

An arrowhead? But this is all so sudden.

Is it jasper or obsidian?

WRIGHT

What brings you here?

CATHERINE

Is it Minnetaree or Mandan?

WRIGHT

What brings you here?

CATHERINE

If Mahomet won’t come to the mountain …

WRIGHT

Catherine, my dear.

CATHERINE

We’ve scarcely spoken in a month.

(SULLIVAN briefly comes to, delivers line, then...