THE CANNIBAL MASQUE
“‘The Cannibal Masque’ and ‘A Serpent’s Egg’ are the second and third plays respectively in a provocative trilogy by Ronald Ribman that began at the American Repertory Theater in February with ‘Sweet Table at the Richelieu.’ Just as allusively complex as their forerunner, these two brief plays flesh out—the verb is apt!—Ribman’s central theme which is human appetite…Writing with a poetic grace that disturbingly heightens some of the philosophical horror he puts before us, Ribman focuses on the diner who becomes the dinner, the victor who becomes the victim. In a combined running time of 75 minutes, the two new plays are a last supper before the death of civilization.
“‘Cannibal Masque’ is set in a café in Bavaria during the famine of 1923. A gruff workman enters and orders ‘good eats,’ which he specifies as plenty of fat pork, potatoes and thick gravy. He’s attended by a waiter whose pallid face is—literally and figuratively—the color of death. Also present are a woman pianist and another diner, both of whom are similarly ghost like. Since nothing in Ribman is precisely clear (except possibly his general tone of nihilism), the café can be taken for what it is or as a Sartreian corner of hell. Outside there is hunger. Inside there is the ‘strange divertissement’ of music, food, and confused identity (the waiter deludes himself that he is the son of ‘Germany’s greatest military leader,’ Paul von Hindenburg; the pianist imagines herself a concert artist). While the world shatters beyond the café’s doors, the occupants within sip schnapps, suck marrow from bones.
“And such it always is. In an age without hope—with the Holocaust still to come—there is only rapacious appetite, there is only the insatiable self, or, as a character coolly observes and without any rationalization at all: ‘In a time of famine one must do what one can to stay on the good side of the cook.’ Before Ribman has finished his metaphor the hapless diner has become nourishment for Death and Deaths two acolytes.” — Kevin Kelly, The Boston Globe
“Existentially speaking, Man is in the stew…playwright Ronald Ribman treats of the human appetite for its own kind—it’s a dog-eats-dog world as the dogma goes, and we are all, potentially, Alpo on the hoof. Trouble is, as Ribman sees it, you can’t always tell the diners from the dog food. Sometimes mutt and meal trade places—victim becomes victimizer as quick as the latter can blink…In this deft comedy of menace, a sort of Pinteresque parable, things are not as they seem.” — Carolyn Clay, The Boston Phoenix
“Although ‘The Cannibal Masque’ and ‘A Serpents Egg’, two one-acts by Ronald Ribman, received their permieres at the ART after his ‘Sweet Table at the Richelieu’ did, they are better viewed as preludes to that major work…Both plays are set in Beckettian landscapes where the sense of desolation is severe and the sense of hope has been reduced to ashes. The language is spare and mean, far more so than in the lush ‘Richelieu’. The characters are mean too, and the world is harsh and unforgiving.” — Joe Arena, Cambridge (Mass) Chronicle
“The Cannibal Masque,’ the remaining two portions of Ronald Ribman’s parable-like trilogy, breaks down the conventional distinctions we have about good and evil. The two-one act plays receiving world premieres during the American Repertory Theater’s New Stages series, pulls back the curtain on a world where the victim and the victimizer may be one and the same. Bundled together…the two plays, ‘The Cannibal Masque’ and ‘The Serpents Egg,’ are imaginative renderings of Ribman’s ideas about morality and social order.
“The Ribman trilogy is set in Europe, which in the playwright’s view is characterized by extremes of mind, body and soul. The third portion of the trilogy, ‘Sweet Table at the Richelieu’ was presented by ART at the Loeb Drama Center earlier in the season. If all three are ever staged in one evening as Ribman intends, it would be a rich, but troubling feast indeed.
“Both ‘The Cannibal Masque’ and ‘A Serpents Egg’ are a bit like short stories in that they present characters in brief and compelling scenes. At the end of each, there is an inclination to ask: Well, what happens next? The scenes presented are fleeting and brief. But the imagery detailed lingers in the mind like smoke in a still room. — Timothy C. Morgan, The Sentinel-Enterprise
Sample Excerpt:
WORKMAN
You! Hey, you! Come over here. I want to talk to you. I heard this place got good eats. That right?
WAITER
Yes.
WORKMAN
That’s good, because I’m hungry. I haven’t had anything to eat since I got in my truck this morning. I want you to bring me some pork. You got pork here? Fresh pork?
WAITER
Yes.
WORKMAN
You sure? A lot of places say they got fresh pork and then when they get you inside they got nothing but blood sausage and worm meat.
WAITER
We have fresh pork.
WORKMAN
Okay. Some nice thick slices…eight, nine, ten of them. No la de da slices you can see through like they was wax paper…thick ones with the fat still dripping on the ends. Something that’s gonna satisfy a man’s hunger. You understand what I’m saying?
WAITER
Yes.
WORKMAN
I came a long way out of my way to get to this part of the city because I heard you had good eats here, that you served a decent portion, that you didn’t stick your customers next to a plate glass window with a lot of faces staring in at them, bothering them while they ate.
WAITER
Nobody will bother you here while you’re eating.
WORKMAN
I don’t want to be annoyed while I eat. I don’t want to look up and see half a dozen drooling faces hovering over my table with their tongues hanging out. You understand?
WAITER
Of course. Every man has the right to devour his meal in peace.
WORKMAN
A man works, does an honest day’s labor, he’s entitled to be left alone to enjoy his food.
WAITER
Absolutely, as long as he has the money to pay.
WORKMAN
I’ve got the money. Don’t worry about that.
WAITER
You would find it incredible to see the number of people who come in here, just as you do, demanding this and demanding that. Give me sautéed calf’s liver with Pommery mustard sauce! Give me noisettes of lamb glazed with shallots and green pepper reduction! Give me filets and sweetbreads, mandelkirch with sour cherries and ground almonds, elefantenkopf with marzipan and butter cream! Give me everything my stomach cries for! And what do they intend to pay for all this with?
WORKMAN
You don’t have to worry about that with me. I pay up front.
WAITER
Wallets filled with counterfeit currency! Shopping bags bulging with make-believe fabrications: French francs, British pounds, American dollars! Bogus illusions printed up by themselves in futile attempts to ward off starvation by deceit! Wretched green and yellow ink smeared on newspaper and cardboard, packing paper and rice paper! Forged yen from China, false rupees from India, ersatz pesos from the backwaters of South America!
WORKMAN
There’s nothing ersatz about what I got! I got the old mazuma! The old moolah!
WAITER
No one eats in here who cannot pay for his food.
WORKMAN
(Opening his wallet) Feast your eyes on that wad. Is that the real cabbage, or isn’t it? The real lettuce, the real spinach, the real scratch? (Allowing the waiter to remove some bills and examine them) None of your crummy billion dollar marks in there. You won’t rub any color off that…Well, what do you say? Is it good enough for you, or do you want me to pick myself up and walk out of here? Plenty of other restaurants I could go to.
WAITER
No need to raise your voice, sir. I can tell the genuine from the fraud.
WORKMAN
Then get me what I want to eat! I’m hungry and I want to eat! I’ve been driving in all morning from the border, and my stomach is empty! You tell the cook I want a double order of mashed potatoes with brown gravy. Tell him I want him to scoop out a lake on top of the potatoes and pour the gravy into it. Tell him I want the gravy poured over the pork, too. I want to be able to sop my bread in it…a whole loaf, nice and fresh, big thick three-inch slices. You understand what I’m saying? The best of everything you got!
WAITER
Of course. You’re hungry, you have the money to be fed, and only the best will do under the circumstances.
WORKMAN
And bring me a bottle of schnapps! And make sure everything is hot! I wanna see steam coming out of it! I get cold pork with slimy brown gravy congealed all over it, you know what you’ll get for a tip? (Raising his rear end and farting) Well, get going! I don’t have all day. Ive got deliveries to make east over the mountains. (The Waiter exits, and the Workman notices that the Woman at the piano is looking at him) What are you looking at?
WOMAN
I was just wondering if the handsome gentleman had any favorite song he’d care to have me play?
WORKMAN
Why? Is it for free?
WOMAN
(Gesturing toward a small plate on top of the piano) Whatever you care to leave. A few francs, a few lira.
WORKMAN
Forget it. I don’t need music while I eat. All I want to do is eat. (The Woman smiles slightly, strikes a few notes on the piano, and exits. The Workman notices that the other customer in the restaurant is glancing at him) Whats your problem? (The Diner looks behind him as if someone else might be being addressed) Yeah, you. I’m talking to you, Krautface. You got a problem?
DINER
No. Not at all.
WORKMAN
Then what’s with the fish eye? Ever since I drove into this city everybody’s been staring at me, giving me the fish eye. You all gone nuts, or what?
DINER
I was merely admiring the way you put the two of them in their place. Yes. Good for you. Good for you, indeed.
WORKMAN
(Rising menacingly out of his chair) That supposed to be some kind of smart ass remark?
DINER
No. No. I assure you. I was simply admiring the way you handled yourself with that woman and the waiter. Quite extraordinary. Really. It’s too bad there aren’t more people like you to put people like that in their place.
WORKMAN
(Sitting down again) All I did was order my lunch.
DINER
Oh no, no…if you don’t mind my disagreeing. You did quite a bit more than that. You brought back a sense of proportion into things. The way you handled that woman whos notorious for her ability to extort money out of everyone, shaming and wheedling hungry diners into tipping her for music they don’t want, was marvelous. ‘I was just wondering if the handsome gentleman had any favorite song he’d care to hear me play.’ You don’t know how many poor fish she’s drawn into her net with that line. God knows what sort of romantic dalliance they imagine she’s offering them. Dreams of passion. Nights of amore.
WORKMAN
Who? Her?
DINER
La Belle Dame Sans Merci! Jezebel! Sorceress!
WORKMAN
That bag of bones? You talking about that rag bag of bones?
DINER
You don’t find her attractive? Perhaps even alluring?
WORKMAN
I’ve hung up wash with better looking clothespins than that.
DINER
Yet she excites men. They come in night after night and fight for her. The way her shawl caresses the tightened flesh of her shoulders, the succulent movement of her breasts nibbling below the fabric, the slender length of the kneecap bone when the dress parts open just so at the slit…excites…inflames.
WORKMAN
It doesn’t do anything to me.
DINER
It’s the hunger produced by the famine. It’s made the merest sight of flesh on bones irresistible. But you see through all these illusions.
Available At:
http://www.amazon.com/Best-American-Short-Plays-1994-1995/dp/1557832323
*Original first editions also often found through eBay and Coming Soon in eBook.