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Filling A Page, A Pantomime With Words By C. Demuth A “little magazine” called Rogue, financed by art patrons Walter and Louise Arensberg, and edited by poets Allen and Louise Norton, began in March 1915 as a semi-monthly periodical and lasted for all of six months. In between, it featured the work of those whom Steven Watson later called “the Patagonians, the most dandified of the American avant garde.” This included the writings of Arensberg himself, poets Witter Bynner and Donald Evans, semi-pornographer Frank Harris, sometime playwright Edna Kenton, poet and critic Alfred Kreymborg, poet and artist Mina Loy, the Nortons, experimental writer Gertrude Stein, poet Wallace Stevens, and music critic Carl Van Vechten. Robert Locher was the magazine’s illustrator, and artist and writer Djuna Barnes supplied a drawing for one issue.
Charles Demuth contributed “Filling A Page, A Pantomime With Words.” It is no better and not much worse than similar pieces of the period — evidence that Demuth was wise to forsake the pen in favor of the paint brush. It is here reprinted — with Locher’s decorations inserted where they originally appeared, and all of its infelicities intact — from a copy of the publication in the Carl Van Vechten Collection of the Manuscript and Archives Division of the New York Public Library. Scene: A pair a black velvet curtains. Time: After Aubrey Beardsley After Miss Gertrude Stein (A white satin curtain rises slowly, accompanied perhaps by music. The music perhaps being a fragment by Bach – perhaps a de Bussey.) Enter a Harlequin from the left after the curtain has been raised a few minutes and the music is ended. His back is toward the audience; he takes three slow poses (arranged after drawings by Beardsley) to reach the center of the stage. Harlequin (As a hand holding a white rose appears between the curtains at center): “All my toys have wooden wheels – and some have furry feet.” (Enter Columbine right.) Columbine: “I have a gilded cage for my yellow bird. The omnibus was crowded.” (She discovers Harlequin in rapt attention before the hand with the rose. She folds back the right-hand curtain – and against black, we see a white Pierrot!) Columbine: “I have a new cage for my yellow bird.” (Pause.) (Pierrot comes forward, holding rose as Columbine drops corner of black curtain.) Pierrot: “The chairs in my room are painted blue.” (There is music of a pipe now heard, broken at irregular intervals by the clang of a Chinese gong.) Harlequin faces audience. He is masked. (Columbine and Pierrot move towards right. Harlequin remains standing at left center, while Columbine and Pierrot pose and dance. Harlequin’s distress is shown by slight movements of the mouth and hands.)Columbine: “The wind is cold in the park.” Pierrot: “The moles in the spring raise the earth in little mounds.” (They dance very slowly, line being more expressive to them than many movements.) Columbine: “I have orange slippers.” Pierrot: “In the green grass?” Columbine: “Among the yellow leaves they are charming.” (They continue posing.) Pierrot: “There must be wine and viandes froides.” Columbine: “Langouste – too.” Pierrot: “In the wood at my garden’s edge mushrooms grow.” (Still posing.) Columbine: “I am tired.” Pierrot:“My little house is white. When the sun shines it is pale yellow.” Columbine: “I have a hat – it is mauve and pink.” (Pierrot gives her the rose. Harlequin makes visible the tip of his tongue. They pose with a trifle more rapidity.) Columbine: “I have a new gilded cage for my yellow bird!” Pierrot: “All the chairs in my room are painted blue!” (They go out at right together. The rose Columbine drops in her exit. It lies at right center of the stage.) (Pause.) (Harlequin, seeing the rose, comes from his position and picks it up. He returns to center, taking a pose with his back toward the audience as at the beginning. He takes a long gilded pin from the back of his mask. The mask falls off; he pins the rose on the curtain in about the same place as when held by Pierrot. Harlequin then takes the exact position held at the entrance of Columbine.) (The music, which has been becoming fainter and slower, stops.) Harlequin: “All my toys have wooden wheels – except a few. I like the green and the purple monkey and – the green and the orange pig. All my toys have wooden wheels, and some have furry feet.” (Curtain) |
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