Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver

Ruff

PROLOGUE

(Peggy enters with a bottle of water, a shoe, and an orange. Three blank television screens envelop her on stage. A large roll of green paper covers the back wall, extending across the floor to the audience edge, creating the playing space.)

I was minding my own business, And an icicle of death hit the ocean floor of my brain.

(Peggy hands the orange to an audience member to hold.)

I guess I was praying. I was already on my knees. If you get me through this, I’ll stop wearing suits. I’ll get gay married. I’ll pay market rent in Manhattan. I’ll stop wearing skinny jeans. I’ll take anti-depressants. I’ll buy a car from the decade I’m living in. I’ll stop drinking coffee.

I’m so sorry I was drinking coffee. If I knew there was an absolute connection to the way I felt, I’d definitely give up coffee. And cigarettes. But I already gave up cigarettes. And just so you know, It’s worth the high blood pressure and the heart disease to order to have been able to smoke for a while.

(Peggy asks another audience member to hold her shoe.)

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 There was just no more room for new thoughts in my brain. It had reached capacity. After spending forty-five years on stage with lights in my eyes, Trying to figure out what a woman is, let alone a lesbian, My brain finally crashed.

I decided to try to recover some of my documents by doing some old shows as soon as I could, To prove to myself that I could still do it. People really liked that because I had to slow down. They could appreciate what I was saying, not just that I looked like Sean Penn. Although I always like to say Sean Penn looks like me.

And they also liked it when I told them that I’d had a stroke. Then they could say, “Wow, I couldn’t tell!” “You look great!” “You were lucky!” I’m good at performing wellness, But the doctor says that works against me. He also says that if I get the flu, my body will react like it’s having another stroke. I think of it like blowing up a balloon. It’s easier the second time because the rubber is all stretched out.

But I cough. Sometimes when you cough in a show, you have the audience suspended in the palm of your hand, ’Cause they wish so much that they could give you some water.

(Peggy speaks directly to a random audience member in the front row.)

Just so you know, Water doesn’t stop the cough. But I have a bottle of water to relax your worries.

(She hands an audience member the bottle of water.)

The only thing that can help is a cough drop, But you can’t talk very well with a cough drop. If you see me start to cough, you could either wait for me to get a cough drop, Or you could say, “That’s OK, take all the time you need to cough.” I guess we could call that audience participation.

SHAW and WEAVER / Ruff  109

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 GREEN

About five years ago now, I made a show where I would take off my shoe and lie down in a circle of light.

(Peggy lies down in a circle of light center stage. She asks the audience member holding her shoe to place it in the light on stage.)

This was copied from a photo by Weegee, The famous photographer who kept all his cameras in the trunk of his car, And lived in an SRO, like Quentin Crisp.

When there was a crime, He would hear it on the police radio, Jump up and get in his car with the cameras, And go to the scene of the crime.

Several times during the show, I’d lie down in the circle of light with my shoe off and say, “Have you ever noticed that when someone is hit by a car or something, One or both of their shoes comes off? I wonder why this happens. I wonder if someone takes them off or if the force of the impact removes them.”

Or I would say: “I hope this is not the year I will get a headache like Bob did and have a stroke, And my brain will be robbed of oxygen. And I’ll lose my social skills. And in order to do a show someone will have to write the whole script. And tape it to the back wall of the theatre like they did for Joe Chaikin. And I won’t have to learn it.”

I was practicing.

(Peggy stands up as the performance text appears on all three screens. This is displayed for the remainder of the performance.)

The day Ellen Stewart died I dreamt she was pulling me down with her, Her silver fingernails digging into my shoulders and arms, Dragging me down with her ’cause she was lonely.

The day after her funeral, After she got a standing ovation from the sold-out crowd at St. Patrick’s Cathedral,

110  PAJ 119

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 I had a stroke. Her desire was that strong.

There were three things that caused my stroke: Number One: Ellen Stewart’s desire. Number Two: Too many lights shining in my eyes for too many years. Number Three: Seeing a home movie of my sister’s wedding in 1957, When I was thirteen years old and wearing a green dress.

Ellen Stewart hated green. She didn’t allow green to appear anywhere on her stage. She believed that it brought bad luck. And if you didn’t believe that, You would soon find out that she was right.

It was a spiritual thing because something always happened to those who defied her. I guess that’s why I had a stroke. ’Cause I didn’t go with her. And that was a huge moment in my life. Deciding not to do everything Scorpios tell me to do.

So maybe if you are psychological, You could say this performance is about defying Scorpios. Or Ellen Stewart.

Some of my brain is missing now. Look at me: Can you guess which part? I know which part because I have a picture of it.

(A projection representing Peggy’s brain is displayed on the back wall.)

Some of you will look at me and think you know what’s going on in my head. I can’t challenge you on that because I don’t really know what is going on in my head.

You could call the police. You could get a lawyer. You could sue me. You could put me in performer jail for not knowing what comes next. That would be the end of me. You would never believe any of the things I say or do. Let me introduce you to my band.

SHAW and WEAVER / Ruff  111

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 (A pre-recorded video featuring all the members of Peggy’s band is projected on the back wall. Each is a previous Split Britches collaborator. They play during the musical breaks throughout the performance. Peggy introduces them one by one.)

Vivian on drums. Missy on bass. Antonia on guitar. Missy on guitar. Terry on horns. Ellie on accordion. Sharon on accordion. Maggie on piano.

One Thanksgiving, when I lived on First Avenue and First Street, I cooked my first turkey for friends, And I forgot to take out the giblets. They were secretly cooking inside the twenty-one-pound bird.

I had taken a tab of acid and when it kicked in, I went to check on the turkey. When I opened the oven door, there was this giant hot dead bird cooking in my oven. I was so freaked out, I had to leave my apartment.

I remember a man who drank too much and wouldn’t stop. He drank until he threw up in the toilet every night. His daughter went out and bought a turkey with all its gizzards, including the heart and liver. When he came home, threw up, and passed out, She put the turkey parts in the toilet and told him that he had thrown up his insides. Seeing his body parts in the toilet made him lose his taste for Wild Turkey.

I often get dizzy and nauseous riding in the back seat of a car. When I was a kid, my parents always brought towels for me. My dad would stop the car on the side of the road. My brother would open the car door so I could throw up. The towels were there in case I didn’t make it, but I usually did.

I wonder what will happen to me now. Green is what I am left with. After the defiance, After the funeral.

112  PAJ 119

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 NAME GAME

(A video projection of an arctic landscape appears. Peggy describes what she sees.)

In Antarctica, a small icicle descended into the cold water And grew longer and longer until it hit the floor of the ocean like a cold “finger of death.” Millions of sea life on the bottom were destroyed immediately as the icicle crawled across the ocean floor. Yet some slower moving ocean life, especially crabs, Managed to escape annihilation by this freezing terror, Showing the randomness of it all. No God. Only randomness and luck (or bad luck).

No one had ever seen this before. They had set up cameras under the water and waited for something to happen. That’s what happened.

I was minding my own business, And an icicle of death hit the ocean floor of my brain. I was standing up tall. And suddenly, I was crawling, trying to reach the phone, But the phone was up on the ceiling now.

(The video projection ends. Peggy continues.)

I remember when Leonard . . . Lou . . . Lois’s mother was dying, She yelled to me, “This is it!” A moment she had been expecting.

Now when I try to think of names or words, I say the first thing that comes to my mind, Starting with the first syllable. Like M, for Maggie, Maggie for Thatcher, the one and only . . . I mean lonely. One for sorrow, two for joy, three, four, I mean magpie.

Orange, Octopus, O.K., O is for the dog who knocked me over in the woods named Orpheus. “A” for Atlanta, Alabama, Alaska, I mean Australia.

Was this “it”? What had I been expecting? I try to adjust the picture, But the tracking is out of sync.

SHAW and WEAVER / Ruff  113

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 (Peggy sings.)

The joint was jumpin’. The room was rockin’. The lights were blinding. The clock was multiplying. There were one, two, three clocks on the wall.

I saw Ruth Gordon on 42nd Street. I wanted to meet her, but couldn’t think of what to say. So I asked her the time. She said to me: “Look around honey, this is Times Square. There are clocks everywhere!”

I just got that Times Square is because of the newspaper. Ruth and I thought it was because of all the clocks. One, two, three.

And then came the noises. And the sinking down, down, down into the beat.

When you first learn to play the drums, There is a drum phrase you learn called the three-stroke ruff.

(Singing.)

Keepa knockin’ but you can’t come in. Keepa knockin’ but you can’t come in. Keepa knockin’ but you can’t come in.

I was hiding in the beat till the next wave, Hiding and residing. Come back tomorrow night and try again.

(Singing.)

The joint was jumpin’. The room was rockin’. The lights were blinding.

Knock one, two, three times on the coffee shop door. And the door opens to a huge technicolor fountain.

114  PAJ 119

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 I’m home, and everybody’s there. Lit up singing and drinking. Bull dykes, drag queens, trannies, fairies, Jim Nance and the Boston Patriots, Patty and the Raindrops. Father Time and his Tick Tocks, With a huge clock around his neck leading his band, To Shirley Ellis’s “The Name Game.”

(Peggy sings “The Name Game” using names of different audience members. The rhyme is repeated several times following the introduction to the song.)

Come on everybody! I say now let’s play a game. I betcha I can make a rhyme out of anybody’s name. The first letter of the name, I treat it like it wasn’t there. But a B or an F or an M will appear, And then I say bo add a B then I say the name and Bonana fanna and a fo And then I say the name again with an F very plain, and a fee fy and a mo, And then I say the name again with an M this time and there isn’t any name that I can’t rhyme!

THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD

(A video projection appears of Peggy when she was thirteen years old and wearing a dress.)

Our brains don’t fully develop until we are twenty-seven. So the brain of my thirteen-year-old body in a green dress, Was fourteen years away from being developed.

When I saw the video of myself at thirteen, I was shocked that I looked like a girl. ’Cause I thought I looked like Stevie Bentoncourt, Who looked like Elvis Presley.

It is the only moving image of my family. The light was catching us just as if it was happening now. But when my sixty-seven-year-old self saw my thirteen-year-old self wearing a green dress, I could see a picture of my thoughts before I even thought them back then in the fifties, In a world that was not ready for me.

SHAW and WEAVER / Ruff  115

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 I could see myself trying to fill in the blanks with the information, I needed to be able to carry my brain on top of my body.

And then suddenly I was exhausted from still trying to hold my brain in my head, And my head on my neck, dizzy from the same neck holding up the same head, And the same thoughts fifty-four years later.

I was inside my young brain, And I felt a cold metallic tear, Like when I lost my lips by resting them on a freezing sled.

I started leaking from every hole in my body, including my ears. It only took a fraction of a second. I was walking free and easy up the hill. I was practicing.

When I saw myself stop, I caught myself, Catching sight of the camera. My old brain met my young brain. That one look shattered my insides all at once. What I’m trying to describe is the thrashing inside me when I saw it, Like I had taken poison, or lightning had crashed into my eyes.

My sister Norma and I were looking at the same storm once, And she had lightning flash into her eyes. And the center of her vision was blinded from the too bright light. The doctor said it should have burned my retina, but it didn’t. It missed mine and burned hers.

But I get lights. Not that I understand them, I just get them. I was getting them a lot before the stroke. They started in Rome, Italy. I thought it was the heat and the bright sunshine of the summer, And my daughter losing her job.

The doctor told me it was either too much coffee, Or not enough coffee. But the lights got brighter. After my stroke, the lights were like a bunch of grapes down left in my left eye. I thought, “Is this ’cause I went to Italy too much, that I’m now seeing grapes?”

116  PAJ 119

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 I started increasing the wine I drank every day. The red wine was good for me the doctor said, Which must be true because my grapes went away after two glasses of wine. I kept drinking so much wine, that I don’t get lights anymore.

But I hear a little buzzy sound in my brain, Like I have a radio left on in my head. The radio repeats things like phone numbers, Over and over all night.

Or the last thing I think before I go to sleep, Like I have to make a ham sandwich. I have to make a ham sandwich. I have to make a ham sandwich. My grandson would say, “Make the sandwich at night before you go to bed,” Or “Forget about it,” and he would make it in the morning.

Then my mind says, “He is making a ham sandwich in the morning for his lunch.” “He is making a ham sandwich in the morning for his lunch.” “He is making a ham sandwich in the morning for his lunch.” And I keep waking myself up saying the same thing over and over, Looking at the clock to see if it’s morning and time to make the ham sandwich.

I always fall asleep as the morning light comes, ’Cause I feel safe. Maybe that’s because one time, When I took my family camping at seventeen because my dad had died, We got to Cape Cod at night in pitch black, no moonlight. I thought I had parked in the tent site, but when the sun came up, We were in the middle of a traffic island, With cars moving on either side.

Long before that when we used to go camping as a family, We would all be sleeping in one big canvas army tent, Our cots lined up around the edge. If by mistake anyone touched the inside wall of the tent When it was raining, water would drip in from that spot. It would leak inside the tent.

That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I couldn’t contain all this within my skull without touching the walls of my mind. I started to leak.

SHAW and WEAVER / Ruff  117

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 HOKEY POKEY

I’m going to do a public service announcement. This is very important information that they don’t teach you at school. To make it easy let’s get a little something going. Band, please give me a familiar drum beat.

(As Peggy speaks the following text, the band begins to riff.)

Yeah that’s it, you know what I’m talking about. Sounds like one of those bands of old white guys over fifty, like AC/DC. I saw Jim Brewer once do a riff on AC/DC.

He talks about how they do the same concert for years and years, but nobody cares. You can’t understand a word they’re saying. They just like screaming and yelling, And no matter what they say they always end it up with:

Are you ready!? Are you ready!? Are you ready!?

They could even rock out with the Hokey Pokey!

Here we go. The singer comes out, really macho walking. Feet stomping, hands clapping, His head going up and down to the beat like this, screaming at the crowd. Just a scream, no words, just to let you know he’s there, And he’s gonna give you a great show. On the beat now, one, two, three:

(Peggy sings.)

You put your right hand in, You put your right hand out, You put right hand in, Now shake it, shake it, shake it, shake it. Hokey Pokey, Hokey Pokey, Hokey Pokey.

118  PAJ 119

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 OK, here’s the announcement: The government has come up with a way to help you recognize the signs of a stroke. It’s called FAST: F-A-S-T. I don’t want you to think like I did that it was the flu. Or maybe it was the old ham sandwich I wasn’t sure about in the fridge, That I’d had for lunch, that made me puke up my guts. And I couldn’t tell right from wrong, or up from down. So in case you don’t know you’re having a stroke, this will help you figure it out:

(An echo effect is used for Peggy’s voice as she announces each new letter. She encour- ages the audience to follow along with her instructions.)

“F” is for Face: Smile everybody and look at the person next to you. If their smile is crooked, if one side of their mouth goes down, they’re not unhappy, They are having a stroke!

“A” is for Arms: Put both arms out, palms up, if one arm drops down, You’re having a stroke! Or close your eyes, try and touch your index finger to your nose. If you can’t do it, guess what? You’re having a stroke!

“S” is for Speech: Repeat after me, are you ready? “I was born on a pirate ship.” Ok, now stick out your tongue and hold it while you are speaking, And say again, “I was born on a pirate ship.” If it sounds like you are saying, “I was born on a pile of shit,” You’re having a stroke!

“T” is for Time: Look at your watch or your phone. If you see three clocks, you’re having a stroke! Just kidding, that’s not what they mean by time. What they mean by time is, while you are throwing up, And you can’t tell up from down, GET TO A HOSPITAL FAST.

Are you ready!?

SHAW and WEAVER / Ruff  119

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 (Singing.)

One, Two, Three: You put your whole face in, You put your right arm out, You put your whole speech in, And you shake shake it, shake it, shake it. You put your time in, You take your time out. I’m going to take a timeout.

(Peggy sits off left on a black chair.)

You know one of the other symptoms of a stroke is arrogance. In the past I might have called it swagger, but swagger is a good thing. Arrogance is a guy thing.

I was arrogant. I yelled at everybody and said, “Don’t look at me like that, I’m not having a stroke!” But when they saw me watching a Jets game on TV, They knew something was wrong. They said, “Put your coat on!” I said, “Don’t send me to no doctor, fill me up with those pills.”

But I ended up in the emergency room, Where they checked my ticket and passport, My SAT scores, my birth certificate, citizenship, Social Security Number, sexual preference, gender pronoun, Netflix account, marital status and AOL password, None of which I had.

Because I was upside down and freezing cold, Because they had run out of blankets, Lois covered me with my coat and said to the nurse, “What is this, a hospital or an airline?”

And I said to the nurse, “I will just take two aspirin and come back in the morning.” That’s when she hit me with a rubber hammer, And took my shoes, my pants, my MetroCard, my blood, And said, “What’s wrong with you?

120  PAJ 119

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 And I said, “The check’s in the mail.” The light is on at the end of the tunnel And the nurse said, “No, you have to drink water, Your blood is like sludge, drink some water.”

“But not right now,” she said, “’Cause you’re going to have an MRI.” So she laid me back flat, And I couldn’t tell if it was day or night. I started kissing everything in sight

She slid me down a tube, Backwards like down a water slide, And gave me a panic button to relax me, And banged my head with huge noises for twenty-five minutes, Getting louder and louder, And going on and on and on and on, Until I put the lime in the coconut and drank it all up, Put the lime in the coconut, call the doctor, woke her up, And I say, “Doctor, is there nothing I can take?” I say, “Doctor, to relieve this belly ache?”

She put me in a stroke ward at about 4 a.m., And left me there alone, And just as I fell asleep. The, she woke me up and said, “Are you sleeping or do you want a sleeping pill?” And I said, “What is this, a hospital or an airline?”

Are you ready!?

(Peggy returns center stage. She sings.)

Hokey Pokey, Hokey Pokey, Hokey Pokey.

LEONARD COHEN

I heard about a guy who had a stroke, And when he recovered he was gay. Another guy went into the hospital for a gallbladder operation, And he came out of the hospital as a woman.

SHAW and WEAVER / Ruff  121

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 I went into the hospital as a woman who gets mistaken for a man, But it seems I came out of the hospital as a straight white man, ’Cause half my brain was missing.

I couldn’t cry. I could only do one thing at a time. I had to shake hands instead of hugging. I couldn’t text and drive. I always had to have somebody like an assistant or a secretary, I needed a wife or a partner to help me, I needed “a support system,” the doctor said.

But I’ve always had a support system. I’ve always sung with Otis Redding, Done monologues with Malcolm X, Solo shows with Ethyl Eichelberger in mind.

But your mind doesn’t show up on an MRI. It’s like when you watch a video of a performance, And you realize you didn’t look as much like Marlon Brando as you thought you did.

(Peggy sings Leonard Cohen’s “I’m Your Man” while a video of Cohen singing live plays in the background. She deliberately mimics and impersonates his performance.)

IF I ONLY HAD A HEART

If you have a chance to see inside your body, don’t do it. It doesn’t look like those charts that chiropractors have up on their wall. When I looked at the sonogram of my heart, I saw two little flailing arms that waved back and forth pathetically.

Best to think of a red, heart-shaped object like on a coffee mug, Or a T-shirt that looks like it will last forever. Now when I think of my heart, I see it flailing like those tall, inflatable, tube- like men, Wiggling back and forth to call attention to a used car lot. And I never thought all that much about having a brain.

(Peggy sings a few lines of “If I Only Had a Brain” from The Wizard of Oz.)

People are giving me brains of plastic and rubber for a joke. Blow-up, inflatable brains, key chains of brains,

122  PAJ 119

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 Books about brains, pictures of brains, Ted Talks of stroke victims, stories of survival. It’s almost like when you buy a Volkswagen, then you start seeing millions of Volkswagens.

I always thought that if you looked in my ear, You could see sunlight and blue skies, And hear birds singing like in Hollywood movies, But you wouldn’t be able to see any of that in a Magnetic Resonance Image. You can’t photograph your thoughts, Or take a picture of what you believe in.

JACKIE

A stroke is a good excuse for a lot of things, But a computer is a poor excuse for a brain. I watch my grandson playing Xbox games. I can see his body still and his thoughts virtual. He will see things differently than I ever saw them. Maybe when he sees himself in his memories, He will be framed by a constantly moving screen. He will be running fast through a desert landscape, And jumping from tops of buildings.

I went into his room once and his hand, Which was shown on the screen as if it was coming from his actual body, Was digging a lodged bullet out of his thigh with a knife, And he was actually crying out in pain.

Americans blow people up all the time. And then spend thousands and thousands to airlift them here, And talk about how we operate on them, And make them so much better. My mother said it’s cheaper and better if they didn’t blow them up in the first place.

My mother once sent me a letter: “Dear Peggy, Black pepper causes brain damage. Love, Mom.”

She also warned me that every word I speak is forever in the air. I thought she meant that God could hear everything, But maybe she was predicting the Internet.

SHAW and WEAVER / Ruff  123

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 Somewhere I blame the Internet for my stroke, Coupled with the cell phone that I had to get when they took away all the phone booths. I had no phone at all, not even a landline until 1979. If anyone wanted me, they could yell up at my window and call my name. They could find me by instinct, Rather than locate me on Google Maps.

People are sleeping with their iPhones in bed with them, As if it holds thoughts and feelings safely through the night. And then they reach for them and re-install them in their brain the following morning.

Before I’m gone, Someone will invent a slot in your head where you place an app, And you can be whatever you want to be. If I said I wanted to be a singer, then I could go to the app store, Slide the singer app into the slot in my brain, And download the information.

And you could call me Frank.

(Peggy sings her own version of Jacques Brel’s “Le Chanson de Jacky” with the following lyrics.)

And if one day I could become A singer, blue eyes, he’s the one, Who sings for women in a lounge.

I’d sing to them with a great flair I learned from him. I’d slick my hair. They’d know their true love they had found

My name would then be known as Frank, And all my bridges I would burn. I would get “My Way” in return, I’d start to sing for them each night.

I’d wear a suit and be myself, Share all my money and my wealth, Be just as cool as I could be, I’d be your total fantasy.

124  PAJ 119

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 I’d leave behind reality, With a piano you can’t see, I’d sing the song they sang to me, About a time they called me Frank.

But I am me for just an hour, Just one hour in every single day, I have stolen this one little hour, And I am happy in a weird kind of way.

And if I left the underground, The chances are I could be found, Onstage where I’d be always young.

I’d sing with all my older brothers, For teenage girls and younger lovers, I’d prove to you he’s not my son.

My records would be number one, I’d play them loud and one by one, You’d see me dancing with a crowd, I’d turn the volume up so loud, I’d dress up bad in my black leather, Wear a glove to make it better, Keep all my friends in never, never, And never want to let them go.

I’d reach the moon, I’d beat the clock, A thriller and the king of pop, I’d sing the song they sang to me, My name would then be changed to Jacko.

But I am me for just an hour, Just one hour in every single day, I have stolen this one little hour, I am happy in a weird kind of way.

Now tell me wouldn’t it be nice, That if one day in paradise, I sang for all the ladies up there, And they would sing along with me, We’d be as happy as could be, We’d wear our drag and do our hair.

SHAW and WEAVER / Ruff  125

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 My name would then be Clytemnestra, A queen who was her own orchestra, I’d spin my story, weave my magic, For grand women who were tragic.

I would sing in cabarets, But not like all the other gays, I’d play my zither just for you, We would laugh, I’d play the fool.

When my angelic world was through, The angels and the devil too, Would sing my childhood song to me, About the time they called me Ethyl.

She is gone, they say she doesn’t matter, Oh, her songs they say, are idle chatter, Memories of her, like faded dreams, will scatter, She’s alive, she’s alive, do not doubt that she’s alive, When you hear her name in song, then she’s alive, she’s alive, So listen to her singing, And when you hear her singing, Don’t forget, she hears you too.

Now as the lights dim slow to black, You’ll hear me change my pronouns back, They slip so fast from he to she.

I’ve been doing this so long, I move my mouth, lip synch the song, Is this just a memory?

You got in line to see my show, You filled the seats to overflow, I entertained and now you’ll go, Am I the one you know?

And is my name just ordinary? Do I need Tom, Dick and Harry? Perform with names that are well-known, I can’t do this on my own.

126  PAJ 119

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 I know I need the help of friends, To sing for girls but then again, I’d sing the song that I sung then, About the time they called me . . .

Peggy. Do I look like a Peggy to you?

NORMA

(Peggy takes back the orange from the audience member holding it and moves upstage against the green screen.)

It wasn’t long after my sister Norma died that I had my ischemic infarction, Or in poetic terms, a stroke in my Pons, Pronounced like “The Fonz,” who Norma loved a lot.

My sister Norma was deaf. From birth she had a brittle bone disease. She was born with a broken collarbone and four other broken bones in her inner ear. They called it Osteoporosis Imperfecta. What a fate in life to be called Imperfecta.

After she died, I guess she moved in, inside me, exactly inside me. As close as white on bread, directly under my skin. I guess I mistook her blue veins for mine.

Sometimes, trying to go to sleep, I would feel her rustling around inside me trying to get comfortable. She would listen to my heart beating on the left side, Then she’d listen to the right side.

And when she’d laugh my legs started jumping. Eventually, without knowing why, I would have to put my head in a cardboard box in order to sleep, Like her.

After my stroke is when they found her on my MRI, Right next to the dark spaces left in my brain. They removed her carefully, and then gave me lots of prescription drugs, For the pain of it

SHAW and WEAVER / Ruff  127

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 Before that operation and before the prescription drugs, My veins sounded like this: ping, ping, ping, ping, ping. Now that Norma is gone, and for $180.00 a month, They go “ping.”

I feel lighter, Lightweight, but dull, Along with that certain kind of emptiness I’ve never felt before.

My neck doesn’t seem to get as exhausted holding up my head as it used to, But her delicate removal has left me bereft, And longing for someone I didn’t even know I had.

When Norma was inside me I was wet, I had juice, The feeling that sometimes I was Tina Turner, Must have come directly from her. Norma was high-waisted and long-legged like Tina Turner, And she liked to sing.

She gave me the feeling that I could write like Angela Davis, Suffer and paint like Frida Kahlo while she was having an affair with Luz. I could be old like Louise Bourgeois, Who would wake up and draw in the night on the wall next to her phone.

I could walk Italian like Anna Magnani, Be queer like Dusty Springfield, Funny like Wanda Sykes. I could masturbate like Patti Smith, while thinking of Annie Lennox.

I could be bad like my friend Gloria in the Virgin Islands, Edgy and poetic like Gloria’s girlfriend for ten years, Audre Lorde. I could sing soulful and sultry like Amy Winehouse, Who always makes me think of Norma.

I wonder what got erased from my memory. Of course, I will never remember what it is. But now I know I have more room in my brain for new thoughts.

Carrie Fisher, Eddie Fisher’s daughter or the princess in Star Wars, Has electroshock treatment every six weeks for depression. She feels better, but much of her memory gets wiped away.

128  PAJ 119

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 When my mom had shock treatments, They would purposely pulverize a part of her brain, And that part would be gone forever. There is not even a DVD of it.

It could have been the place where she remembered love for someone special, Like Norma, whom she loved most of all. I know the shocks made her forget that she had loved my dad once.

Before she died, she told me she didn’t want to be buried next to Joe, Her husband, my father, for eternity. I don’t know if I was the only one she told that to.

When she died, they lowered her right into the ground, Her casket on top of his, ignoring her desire, as they ignored it all her life. At night, I like to think that my mother would have wanted to be on top of him, If they hadn’t removed the memory of her Joe, my dad.

Funny how, in hindsight, I should have felt Norma inside me, Or seen her in my shadow at least. I spend so much time now sitting and thinking, Or lying down and thinking about Norma and Jimmy and my mother, And James Brown and Pavarotti, Ethyl Eichelberger, Otis Redding, Malcolm X. Sometimes when my thoughts won’t stop, I stand up tall so my thoughts drift out of my brain and down to my legs and feet.

Mortality is on my mind, heavy on my mind, In that dark shadowy part of my brain, Where Norma used to be.

And sometimes when I wake up, I reach out and can’t find the wall that was there when I went to sleep. Or I wonder if I am in another country or bedroom, Or maybe someone moved me in the night, Or that I moved, Or that I am in a movie.

(Peggy mimics Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now. She peels the orange with her teeth.)

There are no lights at first, it’s pitch black. Slowly, you see a flickering light, like a subway or a train going by for a long time, Casting light just on the eyes of someone. It’s me, of course.

SHAW and WEAVER / Ruff  129

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 I’m Marlon Brando, talking as if I have such very important things to say. My eyes are very knowing and inward looking, As if something I have been waiting for my whole life is about to happen. I keep looking up on high for inspiration, And slowly peeling and spitting orange peels, Really proving how good I am at method acting.

What I’m saying is a slow monologue, A monologue about horror. I’m proving that I have learned what horror means. It’s impossible for words to describe what is Necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror.

Horror has a face, And you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends, and if they are not, They are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies. From the left side off the stage, a huge full moon is coming.

(A projection of the full moon moves across the stage from right to left, catching Peggy in the light as it moves by her.)

Coming slowly across the stage, It lights up my whole body as it goes by. It goes dark as it passes my body.

I’m aware of the quickness of the passing of days, And how I want to let them go, And hold onto them at the same time, Like grabbing fog or smoke.

And I am haunted by a wild dream, Where I was pushed off the George Washington Bridge, And all I could remember is that if I kept my hands at my side and my legs together, I would be O.K., and I was.

(As Peggy speaks the next line, two remote-controlled drone clown fish float down from above, swirling around the room as if swimming in the water.)

130  PAJ 119

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 I landed on the bottom of the Hudson River. It was such a long fall, I had to concentrate so hard, And I was amazed that I landed so gently on my feet at the river bottom.

I was surprised at how I wanted to stay down there. The light was so shimmery, and I was surrounded by fish, Transparent and curious and swimming around me. It was peaceful, and relaxing, and oh so gay. A spirit-world of fish. And then I recognized each one of them.

Marsha P. Johnson and Wilhelmina Ross, And Carson and Ethyl, Lisa Mayo, James Neal Kennerly, Bill Rice, Mary Macintosh, José Muñoz, Ellen Stewart, Charles Ludlam, Jimmy Eckert . . .

(To the audience.)

And help me, Help me remember their names.

(Peggy begins to exit, but then returns for the following lines.)

I don’t want to be like Mr. Hindsight from South Park, Who shows up at tragedies and lists all the things that could have been done, To avert the tragedy in the first place. Mr. Hindsight can fly and is considered a superhero.

There was a fire, and thirteen or fourteen people were trapped in the burning building. No one could get to them. He lands in the crowd and says, “What’s wrong?” And they tell him, “Thirteen or fourteen people are trapped in the burning building!”

He looks at the building, and he says, “Well, if they had built a fire escape all the way to the top of the building, They could have just climbed out and saved themselves!” Or, “If they hadn’t built a building right next to that building, The fire department could have gotten close enough to raise their ladders up to where they were, And rescue them.”

SHAW and WEAVER / Ruff  131

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021 The crowd goes, “Oooh” and “Ahhhhhh.” Mr. Hindsight says to the crowd, “Well, my work here is done.”

(Peggy exits as these last lines roll across the monitor.)

And he turns and flies off up into the sky, To the applause and thanks of the crowd. Meanwhile, the people are still burning in the building . . .

Images and video clips of the production are available on the Split Britches website (https://split-britches.squarespace.com/ruff) and the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics (http://hemisphericinstitute.org/hemi/en /enc14-performances/item/2347-enc14-performances-shaw-ruff).

PEGGY SHAW and LOIS WEAVER co-founded the iconic lesbian-feminist theatre company Split Britches in 1980. Spanning four decades, their collaborative and solo works have been published in Split Britches: Lesbian Practice/Feminist Performance, A Menopausal Gentleman: The Solo Performances of Peggy Shaw, and The Only Way Home is Through the Show: Performance Work of Lois Weaver. Their most recent performance piece, UXO: Unexploded Ordnances, which premiered at the Under the Radar festival in 2018 and explores themes of aging, well-being, and hidden desires, is currently on tour in the UK.

132  PAJ 119

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj_a_00413 by guest on 29 September 2021