TWO QUARTETS
by Alessandro Giudice

In the first of the two scenes of Two Quartets, the one set in the ’60ies, with B. L. O. and W., namely Bank director, Librarian (actually, he is a Bookseller but the initial “B” would cause confusion with the “B” of the Bank director), Officer and Writer, the bank director is very well-off (it’s worthwhile here to observe that back then the current exaggerated number of credit/accumulation/investment institutes with their related subsidiaries didn’t exist). I had discarded the alternative, that is, to insert a banker in his place, because in that case it would have created an excessive social gap between this latter and the other characters, given that the four are friends and have been hanging out since they were students. Usually for his origin a banker has his acquaintances/friendships in uncommon environments, that is, “elevated”, privileged, powerful: the character’s young age, just thirty years old, though it already was an adult age at the time, would precisely connote his inherited social status, namely, in the ’60ies a man of that age really is a banker mostly thanks to his environment/family of provenance; in this regard, I didn’t want to specify the rank of the officer but clearly this latter, given the above mentioned epoch and age, doesn’t occupy yet the position of – for instance – general, who, instead, in certain circumstances, perhaps could be an acquaintance for a banker. Therefore, given the context, it would be appropriate to insert a bank director instead of a banker, but the exchange is anyhow possible because theatre can obviously convey realistic contents also maintaining a certain mark of fiction/surreality. The four characters of the second scene are obviously the sons of those of the first. The theme of the violence on women is just hinted both as a part of a speech pronounced by character A and by means of the audio-diffusion of the song Hey Joe, therefore, in the representation in a different language from English, the visual availability of the translation of the song’s words turns out to be important on stage at the start of the show through a projection of sliding-karaoke subtitles on the wall over the bar or by the use of some Brechtian sign- boards appearing down from above and then disappearing back upwards. The text avoids at the utmost certain scurrilities usually attributable to male dialogues (but not only male, these days), because of a very precise, and not less realistic, style choice. The director can decide if the characters are smokers or not. At the times of the first scene, Judith Immoor wasn’t known as Exner yet: she would acquire that surname later, namely, from her last husband. About that, the text doesn’t mean to express any opinion regarding the figures mentioned (who, by the way, are dead, apart from Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Bob Dylan); as for the rest, every reference to existing people or to true events is accidental. The cast is made of four actors. The very short part of the priest can hypothetically be interpreted also by a volunteer who happens to be at the theatre on each occasion (a spectator, a professional actor passing by there on holiday, etc.).