The Song of Alice B.
Adapted by Cathy White & Beverly Brown © 1982 Revised 2006
Stage Directions: Gertrude dressed in period cloths that are somewhat severe plain and masculine sits alone and upright on a wooden chair in a bare room next to an empty identical chair. She speaks directly to the audience.
Gertrude:
“Come along and sit to me, sit with me, sit by me, come along and sit with me all the next day too. Come along and sit with me, sit by me sit for me, come along and sit by me sit by me and see and you will learn and hear the song of Alice B.”
Stage Directions: Alice enters from stage left and primly and properly arranges her small lady like frame on the chair next to Gertrude while smoothing and arranging her clothes.
Alice:
“Before I came to Paris, I was born in San Francisco, California. I have in consequence always preferred living in a temperate climate but it is difficult, on the continent of Europe or even in America, to find a temperate climate and live in it. My mother’s father was a pioneer, he came to California in ’49, he married my grandmother who was very fond of music. She was a pupil of Clara Schumann’s father. My mother was a quiet charming woman named Emilie.”
Gertrude: (Claps her hands in delight)
“ A sonatina followed by another. A sonatina song is just this long. A sonatina long is just this song.”
Alice: (Without directly acknowledging Gertrude’s presence.)
I myself have no liking for violence and have always enjoyed the pleasures of needlework and gardening. I am fond of paintings, furniture, tapestry, houses, and flowers and even vegetables and fruit-trees. I like a view but I like to sit with my back to it.
Gertrude: (She looks at Alice).
“A beauty is known to be beautiful. How beautiful you are I see. A reason I see this is this. Prettily, prettily me, she is all the world prettily”.
Alice: (Goes on without acknowledging Gertrude).
“I led in my childhood and youth the gently bred existence of my class and kind. I had intellectual adventures at this period but not very quiet ones. When I was about nineteen years of age I was a great admirer of Henry James. I felt that the Awkward Age would make a remarkable play and I wrote to Henry James suggesting that I dramatise it. I had from him a delightful letter on the subject and then when I felt my inadequacy I rather blushed for myself and did not keep the letter. Perhaps at the time I did not feel that I was justified in keeping it. At any rate, it no longer exists.”
Gertrude:
“They knew all that you know. In this way I mention what she will say. In this way I will say what she will say. In this way I take it literally.”
Alice:
“ Up to my twentieth year I was seriously interested in music. I studied and practiced assiduously but shortly it seemed futile. My mother had died and there was no unconquerable sadness but there was no real interest that led me on. From then on for about six years I was well occupied. I had a pleasant life, I had many friends, much amusement many interests, my life was reasonably full and I enjoyed it but I was not very ardent in it. This brings me to the San Francisco fire which had as a consequence that the elder brother of Gertrude Stein and his wife came back from Paris to San Francisco and this led to a complete change in my life.”
(Alice turns and looks slyly at Gertrude for the first time. A bell rings)
in the back ground.)
Gertrude: (Coy aside to Alice)
“I caught sight of a splendid Misses. She had handkerchiefs and kisses. She had eyes and yellow shoes she had everything to choose and she chose me. In passing through France she wore a Chinese hat and so did I. In looking at the sun she read a map. And so did I. In eating fish and pork she grew fat. And so did I. In loving the sea she had a pain. And so did I. In loving me she of necessity thought first and so did I. How prettily we swim. Not in water. Not on land but in love. How often do we need trees and hills?
Alice:
“Not often.”
Gertrude:
“How often do we need mountains?”
Alice:
“Not often.”
Gertrude:
“How often do we need birds?“
Alice:
“Not often.”
Gertrude:
“How often do we need wishes?”
Alice:
“Not often.”
“And how often do we need glasses?”
Alice:
“Not often.”
Gertrude:
“We drink wine and we make, well we have not made it yet. How often do we need a kiss?”
Alice:
“Very Often.”
Gertrude:
“Kiss my lips.”
(They kiss on the lips)
Gertrude:
“She did.”
Gertrude:
“Kiss my lips again.”
(They kiss on the lips)
Gertrude:
“She did.”
Gertrude:
“Kiss my lips over and over and over again.”
(They kiss on the lips 3 or 4 or 5 times)
Gertrude: (With an air of supreme satisfaction).
“And so she did.”
Alice:
“Mrs. Stein brought with her three little Matisse paintings, the first modern things to cross the Atlantic. I made her acquaintance at this time of general upset and she showed them to me, she also told me many stories of her life in Paris.”
Gertrude:
“Bright at night, not too bright at night. I read to you and you read to me and we both read intently. I waited for you and you waited for me and we both waited attentively.”
Alice:
“Gradually I told my father that perhaps I would leave San Francisco. He was not disturbed by this, after all there was at that time a great deal of going and coming and there were many friends of mine going. Within a year I also had gone and I had come to Paris. There I went to see Mrs. Stein who had in the meantime returned to Paris, and there at her house I met Gertrude Stein. I was impressed by the coral brooch she wore and by her voice.”
Gertrude:
“ I sing of Alice B. Little Alice B is the wife for me. Little Alice B so tenderly is born as long as she can be born along by a husband strong who is not he with his hair shorn. And what size is wise? The right size is nice. How can you credit me with wishes? I wish you a very happy anniversary, a happy birthday and a very happy life. One two one two I come to you. Today there is nothing but the humble expression of love. Take it.”
(Gertrude hands Alice an imaginary bouquet of love.)
Alice: (To the audience after accepting the bouquet with a flourish).
“ I may say that only three times in my life have I met a genius and each time a bell rang
(Backstage a bell rings) within me and I was not mistaken and I may say in each case it was before there was any general recognition of the quality of genius in them. The three geniuses of whom I wish to speak are Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso and Alfred Whitehead. I have met many important people. I have met several great people but I have only known three first class geniuses and in each case on sight within me something rang. In no one of the three cases have I been mistaken. In this way my new full life began.”
Gertrude:
“Thank you so very much, how often I have thanked you, how often I have cause to thank you. How often I do thank you.’
Alice:
“Thank you very much.”
Gertrude:
“ And what would you have me do?”
Alice:
“I would have you sing songs. Not in the forms of game snot in the manner of repetitions. Repetitions are in your first manner and now we are in the South and the South is not the North”. In the North we resist even when we are kissed and in the South we kissed on the mouth.”
Gertrude:
I love my love with a g because she is faithful. I love her with a p because she is my pearl.
I love my love with a v because it is like that. I love myself with a b because I am beside that a king. I love my love with an a because she is my Queen. I love my love and a a is the best of then. Think well and be a King, think more and think again.
Alice:
“A sontina followed by another. This ought to be the other and it is. No sonatina can make me frown.”
Gertrude:
“I love my love with a dress and a hat. I love my love and not with this or with that. I love my love with a y because she is my bride. I love her with a d because she is my love beside.”
Alice:
“Thank you for being there. Nobody has to care.
Gertrude:
“Thank you for being here because you are not there. And with and without me which is and without she, she can be late and then and how and all around we think and found that it is time to cry she and I.”
Alice:
“Can you subsist on butter, oil, aperitifs, edibles, rosebuds, brownies and weddings?”
Gertrude:
“I smoke a little pipe and who has given it to me? We were we were. They applauded”
“And them, the electricity disappointed them. This was so unnecessary. We do not use coal, we burn wood, we find it more economical and pleasanter. Before the war we used to wish we could afford to burn wood instead of coal, now thast we are no richer and wood is dearer we find it more economical to burn wood. Can you reason with me?”
Gertrude:
“ I do not wish to. And now as to cooing…”
Alice:
“Coo away.”
Gertrude:
“The coo coo bird is sitting on the coo coo tree, budding the roses for me. Why is pussy like the great American Army?”
Alice:
“ Because she buds so many buddies?”
Gertrude:
It is so much more than a conversation.”
Alice:
“It is a dialogue’”
Gertrude:
“ I say to you and I say it to you how I love my little Jew.”
Alice:
“I say it to you.”
Gertrude:
“And I say it to you.”
Alice:
“I say it to you.”
Gertrude:
“And I say it to you.
Alice:
“I say it to you.”
“I say it to you.”
Gertrude:
”How can I have the air of here and there and I say to you, I say it to you I love my little Jew.
How can I breathe the air and I do care, I do care for her hair and there for the rest of her too, my little Jew.”
Alice:
“I say it too, how I love my little Jew.”
Gertrude:
“And she will have endured the cold that is cured, it is cured it is cured and a cow how can a cow follow now a cow can follow now because I have a cow you have a cow, you have a cow now. She is that kind of wife. She can see.”
Alice:
“I am very pleased to be in the South. I address my caress, my caresses to the one who blesses me who blesses me best.”
Gertrude:
“Honey moon so soon again?”
Alice:
“When?”
Gertrude:
“Why now. Some have a honey moon with a husband too soon.”
Alice:
“Some have a honey moon with a husband soon enough.”
Gertrude and Alice in unison:
“And we have a honey moon at noon, every noon, we have a honeymoon and in the afternoon and before noon.”
Alice:
“And between the afternoon…”
Gertrude:
“And the forenoon which is not noon. Do you understand me?”
Alice:
“ I understand you very well.”
Gertrude:
“I can sign myself sincerely yours.”
Alice:
“We have a multitude of roses and mountains of lilac. We pick everything as it shows. We are a model to everyone. We are wonderfully productive.”
Gertrude:
“I usually say it for each separately. I am going to say it for all of them together. White yellow and pink roses, single ones.”
Alice:
“Pink roses. Single ones. White yellow and red roses.”
Gertrude:
“An elephant.”
Alice:
“Pink roses, single ones. White roses.”
Gertrude:
“Lilacs white roses and red roses and tea roses. I need not mention the others.”
Alice:
“How can gaiters cover old shoes?”
Gertrude:
“ How can rubber heels come off?”
Alice:
“How can oil be thick and thin?”
Gertrude:
“How can olives flower and why don’t figs?”
Alice:
“ As I was saying we were all living comfortably together and there had been in my mind no active desire or thought of change. The disturbance of the routine of our lives by the fire followed by the coming of Gertrude Stein’s older brother and his wife made the difference.”
Gertrude:
“A honey moon so soon again?”
Alice:
“Yes it pleases when it comes so soon and again.”
Gertrude:
“Yet and again and some times when there is need of honey for the moon.”
Alice:
“Again.”
Gertrude:
“ I understand everything. Lifting belly is to jelly. Holy most is in the sky.”
Alice:
“We see it in three. Yes we see it every night near the hills. This is so natural.”
Gertrude:
“Birds do it, we do not know their name.”
Alice:
“Listen to me, lifting belly is so kind, lifting belly is so dear, lifting belly is here.”
Gertrude:
“Lifting belly is so strong. I love cherish idolize adore and worship you. You are so sweet, so tender and so perfect.”
Alice:
“Coo coo Mona, Dream away.”
Gertrude:
“Have you seen a mixed dream? I dreamed of dances, guessing and cooing. How did you guess that?”
Alice:
“Eighty pages of love and blandishment and small handwriting. And now a poem, a conversation and a dialogue.”
Gertrude:
“And a rebuttal, birds are fat and roses are yellow.”
Alice:
“Tea is a color and tiluel is a drink. Politics is a subject and obedience is necessary.”
Gertrude:
“Blandishments are long and the buds are budded. Who budded the buds?”
Alice:
“ I do love Tubbs hotel very well with Eucalyptus and palms, Godiva and a mistress.
I find little hand writing precious.”
Gertrude:
“And now a conversation.”
Alice:
“Let me neglect you. Do not let me neglect you.”
Gertrude:
“I do not and I would not let you neglect me. I am reproachful.”
Alice:
“I have been reading.”
Gertrude:
“What?”
Alice:
A book about Russia and you with a credit to me.”
Gertrude:
“A credit to you, she is, always a credit to me and what do I credit her with, I credit her with a kiss. Always sweet, always right, always welcome, always wife, always blessed. And always a successful druggist of the second class and we all know what that means.”
Alice:
“Exactly.”
Gertrude:
“Actually. I spy a fly.”
Alice:
“It was a bee.”
Gertrude:
“ You are my honey, honey suckle.”
Alice:
“I am your bee.”
Gertrude:
“ You are my honey, honey suckle. I am your bee.”
Alice:
“ For some time now many people and publishers have been asking Gertrude Stein to write her autobiography and she has always replied, not possibly. She began to tease me and say that I should write my autobiography. Just think, she said, what a lot of money you would make. She then began to invent titles for my autobiography, My Life with the Great, Wives of Geniuses I have Sat With, My Twenty Five Years with Gertrude Stein. Then she began to get really serious and say, but seriously you ought to write your autobiography. Finally I promised that if during the summer I could find time I would write my autobiography.”
Gertrude:
“Question and butter, you do want me?”
Alice:
“I find the butter very good. Does that astonish you strawberry?”
Gertrude:
“Say it again.”
Alice:
“Lifting belly is so kind.”
Gertrude:
“Lifting beside belly. Kindly lifting belly.”
Alice:
“Sing to me I say.”
Gertrude:
“ Some are wives not heroes, lifting belly merely.”
Alice:
“Sing to me I say.”
Gertrude:
“How is this song, instead of that this and we would miss the honey and money but we do not and we did not because now we have the money and the honey.
Alice:
“I am a pretty good housekeeper and a pretty good gardener and a pretty good needlewoman and a pretty good secretary and a pretty good editor and a pretty good vet for dogs and I have to do them all at once and I find it difficult to add being a pretty good author. About six weeks ago Gertrude Stein said to me….”
Gertrude:
“It does not look to me as if you were ever going to write that autobiography. You know what I am going to do. I am going to write it for you. I am going to write it as simply as Defoe did the autobiography of Robinson Crusoe.
Alice:
“And she has and this is it.”
Gertrude & Alice in unison:
“We have been very wise to enjoy ourselves so much and we hope to enjoy ourselves very much more. Thank you so very much. Sincerely yours.”
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