FOOFEE
I
feel a dance coming on.(The womanservant, FOOFEE, rises and disrobes.)
ELINOR
RADLEY
You
dare---?(ELINOR RADLEY makes for FOOFEE, but is stopped by the power of rhythm.)
FOOFEE
It’s
a simple dance, about a country girl who becomes a servant.(COUNTESS VAN DER CAVE snorts and awakes.)
COUNTESS
VAN DER CAVE
Foofee,
is that you?(Whatever the dance is, it is fantastic. It is hard to write about dance---really it
is. It’s better to write about its effect on the watcher. Whoa mama. Such
power.)
GRACE
Look
at the limbs on her!
GEORGETTE
I know! Let
her dance---(She tells the story of a young peasant in Alsace, who toils in a way most
Alsatian, until her sister goes off and becomes a prostitute. For a moment,
it seems like the sister is doing well for herself, until a cedar falls on her
and she becomes encased in amber. A-a-ah!)
GEORGETTE (Continued)
I can’t
look!
COUNTESS
VAN DER CAVE
But
look you must!(O, the tears from that pauvre Alsatian! But she has made the right choice!
Mais oui, she has made the right choice!)
ANNIE
Now,
I, too, must dance!
GRACE
Keep that butt on the ground, sweetie!(Trials and tribulations. And then, a moment beside some waters where she sees
in her reflection true beauty and a transcendent love for other women. A
Sapphic slavabo. And a merry meeting with a wealthy noblewoman who
employs her as a servant. She also employs her brother who later dies in a tragic
plane crash. But that sorrow is passed over quickly in favor of the climax of
wing-finding, aloft-lifting, freedom-in-coping, a swannish precision. Again,
whoa. And the dance ends.)
ALL
BUT ELINOR RADLEY (AND LONNIE, WHO IS ABSENT)
Brava! Brava!(The PANTHER LADY is made ashamed of her spontaneous applause.)
END OF EPISODE 16.
