TIME 1924-1938

CHARACTERS ADELE ASTAIRE FRED ASTAIRE

Played by the same actor: GEORGE GERSHWIN P.G. WODEHOUSE LORD CHARLES ARTHUR FRANCIS CAVENDISH 1. REHEARSAL, WEST 42ND ST, 1924

(Lights slowly rise on ADELE and FRED. They are doing the end of a routine to “Fascinating Rhythm,” tap-dancing in unison. They are very good dancers, obviously, but most importantly they are effortless. Fred’s effortlessness, however, is much more practiced, poised, whereas Adele seems to be having real fun. Fred is in tails. Adele wears a dress that catches the light. It is hard to look away from her.

GEORGE sits behind a piano, accompanying, smoking a long cigar.

Adele misses a step, nearly crashes into Fred, mouths “fuck,” but Fred is unscathed.)

ADELE/FRED: Oh how I long to be the **gal/man** I used to be!

Fascinating rhythm, you’ve got to stop ticking on me...

GEORGE: Now -- good! -- now listen, I want you to keep running it, keep working, but you’ve got to loosen the whole thing up a bit. It’s not Bach, Freddie.

FRED: Am I not smiling?

ADELE: Freddie’s smiling. Freddie’s just worrying because Freddie is a worrywart.

FRED: (lovingly) Shut up.

GEORGE: Now, now, you two can work it out. Adele -- as always, you’re darling, just fantastic. (Exits, humming “Fascinating Rhythm.”) Ya da da da da da...

FRED: Delly?

ADELE: (going to her purse, removing heels, otherwise distracted) What is it?

FRED: Delly, listen to me. You’re not taking this seriously.

ADELE: What do you mean? We’re here, like we always have been, and we’re fine.

FRED: Yes, but -- this isn’t like back when we were kids.

ADELE: Yes, we’re not cute anymore, I know. There’s newspaper gossip about me next to my face in the cold cream ads. We’re everywhere, Freddie, darling, we’re a commodity.

FRED: It’s not about that.

ADELE: Do you think you’re carrying me now, is that it?

1 FRED: No --

ADELE: It’s not the fucking Follies, Freddie, it’s George and Ira. We know them. They like us.

FRED: Never mind, then.

ADELE: What were you going to say?

FRED: Never mind.

ADELE: I’m exhausted.

FRED: We’re not done! And it’s five o’clock, you’ll never catch a cab, so you might as well stay and work.

ADELE: I’ll walk, nitwit. You’re a nitwit, you know that?

FRED: I’m not a nitwit.

ADELE: Freddie has always been a nitwit.

FRED: Freddie is not a nitwit Freddie is just nervous about getting / this right and

ADELE: Okay! We can run it. Will you just stop? All you do is bitch about getting things perfect and it just makes you look worse, it makes you look really grim, Fred, and/

FRED: No. (Pause) No, you’re right. We hit a wall, let’s go home.

ADELE: I’m sorry.

FRED: I’m not a nitwit.

2. THE ALGONQUIN HOTEL, 1924

(20s lounge version of “Fascinating Rhythm” plays. Fred drinks conservatively from a coupe glass. P.G. WODEHOUSE enters. He is incredibly Jolly but in a very sincere, very English way. He has a short, fat cigar.)

WODEHOUSE: It’s Fred, yes? Fred Astaire?

FRED: Ah. Yes. Hello. (They shake) I’m sorry, who are you again?

WODEHOUSE: Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, Plum to friends, friend to most. (Fred reacts blankly.) No matter, I know who you are. And your sister -- that

2 enticing little Sheba over there -- forgive me, old boy, I’ve lost my manners, but, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like a minute alone with the lady.

ADELE: (Overhearing.) Oh -- Pongo! (She gives Fred a weird, what-are-you-doing glance.)

FRED: We were just about to leave. (This is an old routine.)

ADELE: (ignoring him) This is my brother, Fred. We go way back.

WODEHOUSE: I’ve heard. Miss Astaire, I have endeavored to get your attention for some time.

ADELE: Spit it out, Pongo.

WODEHOUSE: To put it plainly, Adele, I’ve been attempting to court you for many months. I always approach you when I see you about. I should like to think you’re an independent woman.

ADELE: Well, when are you putting me in a show of yours?

WODEHOUSE: Ha! Clever girl. I’d have to write the part for you. (Glances to Fred) And him, as well, since I suppose you’re a pair.

ADELE: Is that a bad thing?

WODEHOUSE: No. Not at all. Perhaps we’ll all get to know each other better.

ADELE: I have to warn you, Fred’s the most important man in my life. Now wouldn’t it be funny if Freddie were a pansy and you were a pansy and we all got along, wouldn’t that be a scream? It’s funny, you know -- Freddie, the best dancer alive, a flagrant heterosexual!

WODEHOUSE: Ah. (Pause; he is extremely flustered.) Aha ha ha ha...

ADELE: Now, I really hope I can see you again, Pongo, but my brother and I are busy, so, from the bottom of my heart, beat it. (He exits.) What a funny old bird.

FRED: Really? Not to your taste?

ADELE: If I’m marrying an Englishman I’m marrying a lord.

FRED: He’ll never write a show for us now.

ADELE: I don’t care about some old drip who writes novels about fucking his butler.

3 FRED: Does he really?

ADELE: I don’t know.

FRED: We have work to do.

ADELE: You heard what Georgie said -- you need to lighten up.

FRED: Not the way you lighten up.

ADELE: ‘Not the way you lighten up!’ Good God, you sound like the talkies. I’m no boozehound. I’m not a danger to myself. I just happen to know how to have fun, a field in which you have always been impaired, Fred.

FRED: I can’t have fun when I’m worrying about if we’re going to flop again.

ADELE: Well, just stop! You always do this.

FRED: Don’t -- you can’t just tell me to stop worrying, that won’t help, you know that/

ADELE: Alright, alright, I think that’s enough.

FRED: Delly I love you but you are fucking impossible.

ADELE: Wow, I never hear you cuss. Only when you’re trying to make a point. To me.

FRED: Just go home and get some rest, alright? Tomorrow we’ll get it down.

(Shift. “Fascinating Rhythm” starts again -- they do the dance break section, and the chorus:)

ADELE/FRED: Fascinating rhythm, I’m all a-quiver!

Why, I’m always shaking, just like a flivver!

Each morning I get up with the sun

To find at night no work has been done!

3. CAST PARTY, W. 42ND ST, 1928

(Fred, loosening his bowtie, picks up the champagne coupe from before. CAVENDISH enters. He is blisteringly drunk, rakishly handsome, and totally out of place. He has a highball glass and a cigarette with an absurdly long ash.)

FRED: Good to see you, Charles.

4 CAVENDISH: (jolting) Who’re you then?

FRED: It’s Fred.

CAVENDISH: Right. Now where’s Del?

FRED: I wouldn’t know.

CAVENDISH: Don’t know much, then?

FRED: Couldn’t say.

ADELE: Hello, Charlie.

FRED: Ah, there’s my little sister. I’ll leave you two alone. (He goes to refill his drink but remains onstage.)

CAVENDISH: Other women must hate you.

ADELE: What?

CAVENDISH: They must think, why’s she getting all the good parts, all the good men?

ADELE: I never thought about it that way.

CAVENDISH: You look ravishing. Like a teacup rose, sweltering in the bushes. Puckered. Delicate. And red.

ADELE: You’re a charmer, aren’t you.

CAVENDISH: I’m a lord, it’s in my blood.

ADELE: I’m Viennese. My father’s from Vienna.

CAVENDISH: They do waltzes?

ADELE: What?

CAVENDISH: I said, they do some kind of waltzes there, don’t they?

ADELE: Yes, they do some kind of waltzes there.

CAVENDISH: Heh. I see why you’re some big deal.

ADELE: Why, because I’m finally paying you attention?

CAVENDISH: You’ve got that...thing. It. Star power. An ineffable quality.

5 ADELE: Thank you. I think. You say that, but -- that’s just me on stage. You don’t really know me, nobody does.

CAVENDISH: No one?

ADELE: Well, my brother does.

CAVENDISH: Are you twins?

ADELE: No. I’m the older one.

CAVENDISH: He called you his little sister.

ADELE: Oh, it doesn’t matter. I want to hear about you. What’s it like being an English lord?

CAVENDISH: Don’t bely the point.

ADELE: Which is?

CAVENDISH: Show me a waltz.

ADELE: I don’t --

CAVENDISH: You know how, don’t be daft.

(They waltz to the faint sound of another Gershwin song.)

So I don’t really know you?

ADELE: No.

CAVENDISH: Am I going to have to look out for your brother?

ADELE: I think you should look out for me.

CAVENDISH: That so?

(Fred slowly exits the scene, puts down his glass; takes off his bowtie and coat; begins to practice the moves. He sings under his breath, in counterpoint to the music, and gets gradually louder.)

FRED: I know that once it didn’t matter, but now you’re doing wrong;

When you start to patter, I’m so unhappy.

Won’t you take a day off, decide to run along,

6 Somewhere far away off, and make it -- (he stumbles) FUCK!

...one two three BAH and make it snappy!

4. DREAM BALLET

(“Do it Again” by Gershwin, instrumental. Adele dances with Cavendish. They spin together slowly. Adele speaks as if to Fred:)

ADELE: I proposed to him! It’s the queerest thing -- I couldn’t believe it myself. We were at the 21, just us, talking, and at one point I said, we get on so well, we ought to get hitched, and he said, yes, we ought to. We were both blotto, absolutely fried, I was sure the next morning he’d forget or regret the whole thing, but he phoned me, he said:

CAVENDISH: Last night you proposed. Now I intend to make you my wife. If you refuse, I’ll sue for breach of promise.

ADELE: Isn’t that a scream?

(She keeps dancing with Cavendish, until gradually, he peels away.)

He drinks too much, they all do. But he’s...respectable. A respectable breed. I’m not so modern, you know, I do want a family -- I think it might finally be time, Freddie. Oh, but -- I can’t abandon you, can I? We’re a team.

(Fred and Adele do a routine, pirouetting in unison, carefully posing their hands. The lights change. She stops dancing. Fred continues.)

I’m always weighing you down anyway. It’s work for you. For me it just happens.

Freddie? Don’t look so cross.

(He stops.)

5. LONDON, 1938

(A decade later. Adele, married six years to a slowly-dying alcoholic, is tired and hardened, but still projects that grand, theatrical wit. Fred only seems suaver, more distinguished, and lighter on his feet.)

ADELE: How are Phyllis and the children?

FRED: Good. They’re good. (Pause) How is Charles?

7 ADELE: There are good days and there are bad days.

FRED: We miss you.

ADELE: I miss you. (Pause) I mean. I miss George, mostly.

FRED: George’s dead and I’m alive, nitwit. (Small pause) Sorry.

ADELE: No, it’s true, at least you’ll outlive me. I’ve only had Charlie to contend with, and Mama, and you know how she is.

FRED: I do.

ADELE: Oh, Freddie. I really do miss us on stage. You know when I left on the train to New York, to go marry him, I just stared out the window and cried...and cried...and cried. My pillow was soaked! I kept wondering if I’d done the right thing -- Mama wasn’t so sure --

FRED: Yes. You said that. But -- things had to change, and it’s not like you can never go back -- say, what happened to Plum? Wasn’t he going to write you some part, a long time ago?

ADELE: I can’t do that now -- what would I do about Charlie? Besides, he got laughed out of America a few years ago, don’t you remember?

FRED: I don’t know. Maybe I heard. I’ve been busy.

ADELE: Poor Ethel. I’m sure she’s sticking it out just fine, though. Maybe I should marry a homo. I think sex might be overrated, after all -- I don’t miss it.

FRED: Oh, Delly/

ADELE: I miss George. He was actually a good man.

FRED: You two never...

ADELE: No, no. Was he a flirt? Absolutely, but he never had much going on down there. Women or men. I think it was the brain tumor.

But...he wrote the most sensual music. You always said he wrote for dancers. There was nothing like it -- I miss it. Look at you now, though. I’d just be tripping over myself compared to you.

FRED: That’s not true.

ADELE: I never wanted it like you did.

8 FRED: That’s not true either.

ADELE: It was strange, a brother and sister dancing together.

FRED: Not when we did it.

ADELE: No, it was. Now people can fantasize about you without feeling odd.

How is...

FRED: She’s well.

ADELE: You two look gorgeous on screen. She’s beautiful.

FRED: That’s what they say.

ADELE: Aren’t you happy?

FRED: Sure.

ADELE: Oh Fred, don’t let me find out you’ve been some kind of monster to her.

FRED: Why would you say that?

ADELE: Just be patient, be a good partner/

FRED: I don’t have to be patient, she works hard. She works very hard.

ADELE: Good. (Pause) That’s good.

FRED: Do you really miss it?

ADELE: Of course.

FRED: Then why don’t you come back?

ADELE: It wouldn’t be the same.

(Pause. Slowly, the first five notes of “Fascinating Rhythm” play. They look at each other, but do not move.

END OF PLAY.)

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