conversations.from: human
conversations.value: a description for a book titled The Screens about Screens, Deathwatch, Maids with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Dramas & Plays
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: the author was one of the world's greatest contemporary dramatists, and his last play, The Screens, is his crowning achievement. It strikes a powerful, closing chord to the formidable theatrical work that began with Deathwatch and continued, with even bolder variations, in The Maids, The Balcony, and The Blacks.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: the first three paragraphs for this book
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Screens
  In an open-air theater. A rectangular area enclosed within a very high, board fence. For the audience: tiers of any material one wishes. The back and sides of the stage are to be formed by high, uneven boards, painted black. They are to be arranged in such a way that platforms of different heights can be brought onstage from the left and right. There will thus be an extremely varied set of stages, levels, and surfaces. The screens and actors will enter and leave through spaces between the boards, right and left.
  One or more real objects must always be on the stage, in contrast with the objects drawn in trompe-l'oeil on each screen. The objects are to be brought in as follows: when the audience enters, a milestone and a rock pile are already onstage. When the audience has been seated, a screen, moved by a man behind it, arrives from the right wing. This screen slides in such a way that it is set up behind the milestone and the rock pile.
  It will be formed by a series of screens, each about ten feet high, on which objects and landscapes will be painted.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: four more paragraphs
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: KADIDJA (taken aback for a moment, to the Arabs who remain): And you, is that all you've brought me? Then get the hell out. And don't let her return to the village. Let her ravage! Let her ravage! (The Arabs leave. A rather long pause. KADIDJA is alone. Then, five or six women enter silently.) Approach! Do you have what's needed?
  KADIDJA: It's strength that you'll need in your wrist. Lay me out and wash me well. Without silly chatter. No, don't chase the flies away. I already know them all by name! (The women begin to bury KADIDJA.) Don't forget to bind my jaw and stuff cotton in my ears and nostrils and up my ass. I've already been among the dead for three minutes, and I'll see how I can continue to help you... because I'm bringing tons of hatred there.... Wash my feet well, in particular!... it'll be the second time in three years....
  The set is as follows: On the stage level, foreground, slightly to the right, is a five-paneled screen representing a field, with a cactus, both painted green. At the foot of the screen, a real milestone, on which nothing can be read. Behind, and high enough so that the character who walks on it is not concealed by the first screen, is a platform on which will enter, when indicated, a second screen. It will remain slightly to the left, upstage. Above this first platform will be a second (there will thus be three levels) onto which a screen will slide, when indicated, from the right.
  SAïD and LEILA enter from behind the screen. They look exhausted. Then, suddenly, THE GENDARME appears, right, THE GENDARME'S uniform is all torn and muddy. His wife, who is in front of him, is pushing a baby carriage loaded with multicolored valises. At the top of the pile is the red cardboard valise THE MOTHER was carrying in Scene One. THE GENDARME is driving his wife with a cudgel. They very rapidly describe a semicircle, entering at the right and leaving at the left. The woman is wearing dark blue clothes, which are in rags. Her stockings are falling over her heels and we see her pale calves.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: the last five paragraphs. Start with the sentence 'BACHIR hands her an aspirin, which she swallows'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: BACHIR hands her an aspirin, which she swallows. Everyone has withdrawn, except two combatants and OMMU. Below, THE BANKER, THE LEGIONNAIRE, THE VAMP, etc., who had stood up when SAïD arrived, sit down again to doze.
  She leaves, right, supported by her two canes and by BACHIR and AMER. The two combatants follow her. All the other actors, except the dead, remove the screens and objects which they brought in at the beginning of the scene. A long silence. All the dead, above, watch the living clear the stage. They remain alone.
  THE SERGEANT: There it is!... I've got my plaque! (He laughs.) I sure got it, the plaque at the corner of the alley where my uncle's a mattress maker. Got it! People resented my handsome mug, but my beauty served as a setting for my cruelty—that jewel!
  THE SERGEANT : My beauty grew with my cruelty, one heightening the other. And the rays of their love, when I took off my pants, gilded my behind! (He laughs.)
  During the last two or three speeches, the dead carried off their screens. THE MOTHER leaves last, with her armchair. The stage is empty. It's all over.