Camerado & The Trial of Pius XII

By Richard Gambino

Camerado is a play presenting the very dramatic life and compelling thoughts of Walt Whitman, who remains the foremost American poet of the greatness possible in the human spirit, and in the spirit of a vital democracy. His inspiring views and tough criticisms, expressed in simple, but beautiful and powerful language remain as critically relevant to us today as they were in his lifetime. History placed Pius XII on trial during his reign as pope, from 1939 to 1958, testing how a moral and religious leader, in his case of the largest Christian church on earth, should lead in the midst of World War II, the Cold War, and horrible mass crimes against humanity. This play presents very dramatic but fair views of that test and how the pope performed vis a vis them, and provokes thoughts about moral leaders facing great challenges in our time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Guernica
• Release date: Mar 31, 2013
• ISBN: 9781550716795

Book preview

Camerado, Followed By

The Trial of Pius XII

Richard Gambino

Guernica

Toronto – Buffalo – Berkeley– Lancaster (U.K.) 2013

Contents

Copyright

Dedication

Camerado Characters

Camerado, Act I

Camerado, Act II

The Trial of Pius XII, Characters

The Trial of Pius XII, Act I, Scene 1

The Trial of Pius XII, Act I, Scene 2

The Trial of Pius XII, Act I, Scene 3

The Trial of Pius XII, Act II, Scene 1

The Trial of Pius XII, Act II, Scene 2

The Trial of Pius XII, Act II, Scene 3

The Trial of Pius XII, Act II, Scene 4

About the Author

For Gail,

who made these two plays so powerfully alive in stage productions, and with the hope that Liam and Beatrix live all their lives in the greatness of the human spirit Walt Whitman so well illuminated.

Camerado

Characters

Walt Whitman

Man: He plays all the male speaking roles, except Whitman.

Woman: She plays all the female speaking roles.

Act I

Setting: The curtain is always up. The play takes place in the parlor/office of Whitman’s last home in Camden, New Jersey. It is a cozy room of a small cottage, with simple, humble, but comfortable, old, midnineteenth century furniture. The furniture includes his large rocking chair, visitors’ chairs, his desk, a wheelchair, and a combination chaise/bed. There are piles of books and papers everywhere.

Time: The entire play takes place in a single day in the autumn of 1891, from morning to dark.

Throughout the play, Whitman will be talking to the audience, except for conversations with people on stage, played by Man and Woman, who arise from Whitman’s memory and thoughts. Changes in scene, time and mood are to be accomplished by uses of lighting, costume changes, rear slide projections, and audio recordings. The suggested slides and recordings can be revised and augmented by the director.

At rise: stage dark. Light up and we see Whitman sitting in the large rocking chair. Morning light is coming in from the windows. Despite Whitman’s white hair and beard, his voice is ten years younger than his age of seventy-two. His body is that of an ill man, no longer physically robust, but he telegraphs great inner power. He is six feet tall, and is dressed in the workman’s clothing he liked to wear: a homespun ivory-white shirt wide-open at the collar, revealing a skyblue undershirt, loose trousers devoid of belt loops, held up by a thick belt, and well-worn hiking boots of soft leather.

He is reading a copy of the New York Times. He snorts to himself, then looks at the audience. He is angry.

WHITMAN

(to the audience) Listen to this! The New York Times says my writing is full of picturesqueness and strength. But the paper still says my poems are the reverse of the poetic. They are banned in the state of Massachusetts, and the Society for the Suppression of Vice burns my book in New York. (He snorts again.) When I first published the same work years ago, the Times said that I rooted around like a pig among rotten garbage. Not to be outdone, the New York Tribune said that I took off my trousers in public. (He shakes his head in frustration.) I say published because I not only wrote the words, but I published them at my own expense. I also helped set the type for the first edition of Leaves of Grass, and operate the press. I could get no publishing house to print my poems. And none would distribute them. My work was deemed obscene! Still is. So I carried copies to the bookstores on my back. I sold them on the streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan. Why obscene? Well, my message to ordinary men and women is to find the cosmos, whole and complete in each individual. It is denounced as narcissism. My celebration of my body – and yours – is termed the issue of a slop bucket. My joining of the soul and body is called indecent. As if the only way to celebrate the union is to reduce the soul to the body. I raise the body to the soul! It seems my blasphemy is in seeing God in each man and each woman. (His mood changes. He becomes wry, mischievous.) But back then there was one notice that truly appreciated my call to infinitude in everyday life. I think I can still remember some of it. (Closing his eyes in an effort of memory. We hear a voice offstage reciting the lines.) Very devilish to some, and very divine to some, will appear the poet of these new poems ...they are ...affectionate, sensual ...undraped, regardless of models, regardless of modesty or law, and scornful ...of all except the author’s own presence and experience ... Who wrote this anonymous review? I did. You say, of course, This fellow has not reviewed his work, but himself! Yes! (He becomes sad, heartbroken.) But there was one critic – I should say two – who hurt me badly. A reporter searched out my brother, George, and asked him about Leaves of Grass. George said, I saw the book, but didn’t read it at all – didn’t think it was worth reading. Mother thought as I did. You see, they were cowered by the yawpers who slandered my work. (Pause. Insistent.) But I will be understood before I die! I am determined! The ninth edition of my work will be definitive. Has to be – I’m dying, and not afraid of it. But Walt Whitman, the man, would be understood. In this my supporters have been almost as deficient as my critics. The first famous man to champion my work was Ralph Waldo Emerson, and I was grateful to him. I went to Boston, to thank him. We strolled on the Common for two hours, he the talker and me the listener. (Change of lighting. Emerson appears onstage. Whitman and Emerson walk as if strolling on the Boston Common. Projections of the Common in antebellum times.)

EMERSON

(friendly, fatherly) My dear Walt, I am not blind to the wonderful worth of Leaves of Grass. Remarkable!

WHITMAN

Thank you, sir.

EMERSON

In matter of fact, your writing is the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed to the world. Henry David Thoreau calls it a trumpet note ringing throughout the American camp, and I agree.

WHITMAN

You have both been most kind in your public praise of my book.

EMERSON

Your poems, well, they meet a requirement, a demand, I set for American writers.

WHITMAN

What would that be?

EMERSON

Our authors have seemed to me too sterile and stingy in nature. It’s as if they’re too aggressively colorless. They’ve been making our American wits fat and mean.

WHITMAN

(nodding) Ah.

EMERSON

I have great joy in your free and brave thought. I find in your poems incomparable things said incomparably well. Your courage of treatment delights, and your large perception inspires!

WHITMAN

Well, you are very kind, and I thank you.

EMERSON

There is but one caution. One request I would make to you.

WHITMAN

Please do.

EMERSON

In tone, some of your writing ...your Calamus poems, for instance. They are ...untoward. In tone, mind you, not in merit.

WHITMAN

Untoward?

EMERSON

Please understand. When I first read yourpoems, I rubbed my eyes a little, to see if this sunbeam were no illusion. But their solid nature is a certainty.

WHITMAN

Then what do you mean by untoward?

EMERSON

Your superbly graphic descriptions, and great stretches of imagination ...There is a certain delicacy they challenge. (Whitman stops strolling, and he and Emerson face each other squarely.)

WHITMAN

Please make yourself plain, Mister Emerson, I beg you.

EMERSON

One cannot leave your book lying about for chance readers. And one would be sorry to know that any woman had looked at it past the title page.

WHITMAN

I see. You agree with my critics, then, all those who call my poems indecent.

EMERSON

No. Your personal exploration of the boundlessness of the spirit is nothing less than divine.

WHITMAN

Then?

EMERSON

Let them be unimpeded, unburdened. Excise some of the provocative lines that obstruct their acceptance. Or change them.

WHITMAN

(pause) Sir, your argument is complete and convincing.

EMERSON

Well, then.

WHITMAN

(steadfast; stubborn) But I feel more settled than ever to adhere to all of my writings. I will not cut or change a single line. (Lighting change. Emerson disappears. To the audience.) I wish only two things. A readership for the ninth edition, and ...there are those who take liberties with my poems, with my life. Free love advocates. And seducers, and sundry other debauchers. And rugged individualists. They use my poems for their ends. They misuse them, and my life, too. And I would be understood. I would free myself from many of my admirers. A young man came to see me, about nine years ago. An Irishman. From England. And like me at his age, he’d published at his own expense a collection of his own poems, which are deemed improper. And now, a novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, which has been denounced as immoral ...and so is selling very well. Oscar Wilde. He paid me several visits, and we got on very well. Until ...(Change of lighting. Oscar Wilde appears onstage. Their conversation builds in intensity.) Yes, yes, yes, I admit it, Mr. Wilde ...

WILDE

Oscar, please!

WHITMAN

Oscar, then. Yes, I too wore pretty clothes as a young man. How did you find that out?

WILDE

My dear Mister Whitman, you are talked about.

WHITMAN

Would that it weren’t so, if it’s to be gossip.

WILDE

Better than not being talked about. Is that not so? I mean a poet can survive anything but being neglected. Or a misprint.

WHITMAN

(chuckling) Yes, alright, then, I’ll tell you. I wore frock coats, grand hats, a boutonnière in my lapel, and I carried a silver-capped walking stick.

WILDE

My own model!

WHITMAN

No, Oscar, forgive me for saying so, but I am simply not your model, no