DREAM OF THE RED SPIDER
“‘Red Spider’ catches you in a web of fantasy…An invasion of uncountable so-tiny-they’re-invisible red spiders, corroding, corrupting and ending everything. The place is a country much like Pinochet’s Chile, a withered landscape of festering dreams and fearful angels, where God, like Godot, will never come…Dream of the Red Spider with all its fantasy retains the authentic voice of a writer. It has the howl of despair, the grit of a stiffened spine. It is theater made grand and not for everyone. You will remember it, though, for its go-to-hell grandiosity and its bleak world view that is made bearable, Ribman seems to say, only by that last inextinguishable flicker of hope that some people have.
“Ribman (The Journey of the Fifth Horse, Sweet Table at the Richelieu) chooses as his hero, if that’s the word, one Don Emilio Valverde, an aging conquistador attempting to be young again through an affair with a voluptuous young woman…Don Emilio, played with aching need by Alvin Epstein, is a man of accomplishment amid desecration turned into a fool, a Bottom-like donkey in Red Spider. The young woman Violet (Maggie Rush) is a spy, a trick, a temptress send to unmask and psychically castrate Don Emilio. Dressed in a parody of Valentine’s Day lingerie (brilliant imaginative costumes by Catherine Zuber), she succeeds all too well, realizing in Rush’s lush portrayal that she cannot avoid being corrupted by her attempts at corruption.
“The master of these ceremonies is Uyttersprot, a Beckettian figure not so much raging against but trying to fathom the concept of God…Uyttersprot succeeds in his plots. But he cannot make his rendevous with diety. ‘I can forgive God everything but not existing’…In the end, Uyttersprot and a cripple become like Waiting for Godot’s Didi and Gogo. The one final hope in Dream of the Red Spider is that these two can’t go on but they will go on. Ribman has said that a human being is solitary, cannot depend on anyone but himself, or herself. It’s hardly a unique or even new message. But on A.R.T.’s bloody and bleak stage, it is a powerful one: all we’ve got is us, Red Spider says. It will have to do.” — William K. Gale, The Providence Journal-Bulletin
“This principle of creative transformation guides the style and substance of Ribman’s scripts—both Sweet Table and Dream of the Red Spider are filled with phantasmagorical images and events, with masquerade and mystery. Dream dovetails the machinations of a South American dictator determined to have himself elevated to the title of ‘El Supremo’ with the revenge plot of a spy who wants to confront God over the senseless death of his wife…
“With its overripe atmosphere of paranoia and betrayal, its hallucinogenic vision of disease, decay, and barbarity, Dream of the Red Spider smacks of the authoritarian nightmares drawn in such Latin American masterpieces as Gabriel García Márquez’s The Autumn of the Patriarch and José Donoso’s The Obscene Bird of Night…
“In Job God finally takes center stage. In the dark universes of Ronald Ribman, He’s silent in the wings.” — Bill Marks, The Boston Phoenix
Sample Excerpt:
Scene 2: The Lido
On rise: Violet and her dance instructor, Jockimo, are practicing the flamenco as we segue into this scene—the incessant beat of the music, the cries, the clapping of hands, coming from a portable cassette player. For some moments Violet is doing well enough, but as the music picks up speed and intensity, her feet fall out from under her and she is sent comically sprawling on her rear end. For some moments more she sits splayed out like a propped up doll, pouting, shrugging off her partner’s proffered hand. Out of the darkness Uyttersprot enters from the wings, applauding.
UYTTERSPROT
Bravo! Bravo! This is a performance for the gods!
VIOLET
(Scrambling to her feet) Who is it? Who is out there? (Uyttersprot snaps on a small lamp at one of the tables and sits down, as Jockimo shuts off the tape recorder) You! What are you doing here?
UYTTERSPROT
What does anybody do here? I have come to see my Violet. Don’t be shy, pretty Violet. Come over and greet one of your admirers.
VIOLET
You told me you wouldn’t bother me while I was rehearsing!
UYTTERSPROT
I was in the neighborhood and I couldn’t resist…So where is my kiss?
VIOLET
(Looking at this repulsive being in front of her in his rag-picker clothes, his stains and smells, the way the princess with the golden ball looked at the frog who asked for a kiss) You’re not supposed to be here. The nightclub is closed.
UYTTERSPROT
Don’t you have a kiss for me?
VIOLET
I don’t want my lipstick smeared.
UYTTERSPROT
A kiss for me after all I’ve done for you? (Violet with visible distaste bends over to kiss this loathsome thing on the cheek. But when she does he grabs her and forces a fierce kiss on the mouth. Violet returns his fevered ardor with all the passion of a dead fish. Uyttersprot keeps trying to breathe some fire into the kiss, gluing his lips to hers, but her arms dangle limply down. And even when he tries to adjust her arms around his neck for an embrace they seem to slide off of their own volition. His kiss finally finished, he pulls back a few inches to look at her, exclaiming with great enthusiasm) That was an exciting kiss for me!
VIOLET
You smeared my lipstick.
UYTTERSPROT
No. It’s absolutely perfect.
VIOLET
It’s smeared! I can tell by the way you’re looking at me.
UYTTERSPROT
I’m merely looking at your eyes.
VIOLET
Why? Is there something wrong with my eyes?
UYTTERSPROUT
There’s nothing wrong with your eyes!
JOCKIMO
(Coming over to the table) Well, what’s going on here, Violet? One of your admirers giving you some artificial desperation for your voice? (To Uyttersprot) In case she forgets to introduce me, which she always does, I’m Jockimo, and you are interrupting my lesson, and that’s a no-no.
VIOLET
I’ll be with you in a few minutes, Jockimo.
JOCKIMO
You don’t have a few minutes, not if you’re going to get your dancing, or whatever you call it, in shape before the red spiders arrive, or the Ice Age arrives, or whatever God-awful thing it is that’s arriving in this town. God, if I wasn’t stranded in this place…!
UYTTERSPROT
(Suddenly hooking the crook of his cane around Jockimo’s neck and jerking him to within an inch of his face) Perhaps you remember me? I was the one who engaged you on the phone to teach this young lady how to dance!
JOCKIMO
(Instantly frightened) Oh, it’s you! Yes! Sure!
UYTTERSPROT
So? How’s business?
JOCKIMO
Good! Good! She’s really coming along fine. A lot of talent.
UYTTERSPROT
You think so? It’s not just a whim of mine?
JOCKIMO
No! No! Of course not.
UYTTERSPROT
Good. I’m glad to hear that. She’s anxious to be ready for her big debut of talent carnival night.
JOCKIMO
Sure. No problem.
UYTTERSPROT
Then maybe you could give one of her admirers a few minutes alone…Jockimo?
JOCKIMO
Sure.
UYTTERSPROT
I appreciate it. (Releasing him. Jockimo can’t get away fast enough) Just a minute, Jockimo. I got something for you. Stick your hand in my pocket. (Jockimo is extremely hesitant, his eyes flitting from Uyttersprot to Violet)
JOCKIMO
Which pocket?
UYTTERSPROT
Enny, meanny, miney, moe. (Jockimo stares at Uyttersprot’s filthy ragged clothing with its many pockets, and slowly, hesitantly reaches into one. For some moments he fishes about, searching, and when he withdraws his hand he holds up a wrinkled bill of some unknown denomination covered with a drippy, gummy sauce that sticks to his fingers and hangs down in threaded globs) Ah! You have chosen wisely, Jockimo. Buy yourself a cup of coffee and a breakfast treat.
JOCKIMO
(Backing away, and glad to be getting away) Thanks! Thanks a lot! (Still trying to free his fingers from the goo) And take your time. No rush at all. Great improvement! Just great. (Exiting)
UYTTERSPROT
Sit down, Violet. We’ll have a little drink and then we’ll have a little talk.
VIOLET
(Reluctantly sitting) I don’t have all day. I have to rehearse, and then I have to get my legs waxed.
UYTTERSPROT
(Searching through his clothing) I brought a little surprise for you if I can find it, but first…(Pulling out a half- filled bottle of champagne and two crumpled and obviously used paper cups from his inside coat pocket)…champagne! (Wiping out the cups with his fingers, blowing out whatever trace of dirt and germs might be in them. Disgust is written all over Violet’s face at this loathsome toad and his loathsome actions) It’s incredible what’s being thrown out in the garbage these days. This was taken from the garbage of an honest judge who would not be corrupted. He would not wink his eye at the drug trade. He thought he was above the law until he got a hundred years in prison for not developing a convenient twitch. (Downing his drink and smacking his lips with relish. Noticing she’s not drinking) What’s the matter? Too warm? Not the right year? (Sticking one of his fingers into her cup, testing the temperature)
VIOLET
The cup is dirty.
UYTTERSPOT
So what? Everything is dirty.
VIOLET
Somebody else’s mouth was on it.
UYTTERSPROT
Somebody else’s mouth is always on everything. Drink up. Drink up! (As Violet sips her drink) Such delicate sipping like a little honey bee mouth. Drink up before the red spiders get here and there is no more drinking! (Violet empties her cup and Uyttersprot pours out another round) As one spider said to the other, “Time is sure fun when you’re having flies.” So? How’s business with you-know— who whose name is never allowed to be mentioned?
VIOLET
It’s boring.
UYTTERSPROT
I put you in a great house with one of the great saviors of our country, a man known up and down the continent for his brilliant intellect, and you find it boring?
VIOLET
He has little tags of skin on his neck and he combs his hair every which way so nobody will see how thin it is, and he’s almost as old as you are.
UYTTERSPROT
Thank you. Thank you very much. This is the gratitude I get taking you out of that fish packing plant and molding you into your new identity as Mata Hari.
VIOLET
Who asked you to? I was happy at the fish plant.
UYTTERSPROT
You were not happy at the fish plant! You tried to commit suicide at the fish plant! If I didn’t fish you out of the harbor at Antofagasta with my cane, you would have gone under for the thirty-second time!
VIOLET
I was happy at the fish plant! I had good friends!
UYTTERSPROT
You had no friends! You had one dress and it was stained front and back from where the men spread-eagled you on the market floor! And if you found wrapping paper to sleep on at night you were lucky!
VIOLET
I had…
UYTTERSPROT
Nothing!
VIOLET
I had…
UYTTERSPROT
Nothing and nothing and nothing but unredeemable selfishness and ingratitude! That is the quintessential nature of your existence, the sum of what you are made of, and the rest is whim! In all this world there is no truer love than the love Violet feels for Violet! Everything and everyone else you were born to betray! And sooner or later you will understand this about yourself, and you will not be floating around the air this way!…So? How’s business?