Under the sloping ceiling, there are ageing beams; on the walls, posters of the ubiquitous Eiffel Tower, the inevitable Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, some Impressionist paintings, a Picasso, and — one essential detail — a portrait or bust of Victor Hugo. There is nothing of great elegance, nothing superfluous, just what is necessary to give an impression of comfort and warmth: a little retreat where the occupant can feel safe and protected from the turmoil and scrutiny of the outside world, free to conjure up her innermost demons and confront them face to face. There is a thick wooden desk, a broad delapidated sofa, covered all over with rugs, some cushions on the floor, the tape-recorder and the typewriter, a small record-placer, the usual records of Juliette Greco, Léo Ferré, Yves Montand, Georges Brassens, etc. Filing cabinets, notebooks, papers and some books, but not too many, because Kathie’s idea of culture has little to do with literature.
There is nothing special or unusual about what Kathie or Santiago wear. The story takes place some time in the 1960s and this can be indicated in the way they dress. Santiago’s clothes reflect the modest salary and the hectic life of a journalist and lecturer, and it would not be inappropriate for Kathie to dress, when she’s in her little attic, in the Bohemian style of Saint-Germain in the 1950s: black turtle-neck jersey, tight-fitting trousers, stiletto-heeled boots. The costumes Ana and Juan wear need not be so precise. Unlike Kathie and Santiago, who are characters of flesh and blood, contemporaneous with the action, they only live in the minds and the imaginations of the two protagonists. They exist in so far as they are projections of the protagonists’ memories and fantasies. Their subjective, if not to say perceptual, nature should perhaps be subtly suggested in the way they dress, but any outlandishness or exaggeration should be avoided. One possibility is that, as Ana’s and Juan’s thought-processes, gestures, speech and names fluctuate in accordance with Kathie’s and Santiago’s recollections, so might their dress, if only in small details — such as the acquisition of a hat, a cloak, a pair of spectacles, or a wig — to emphasize the metaphorical, volatile nature of their personalities. The same might happen with Kathie and Santiago when they shed their identities and assume new ones, as a projection of either their own or the other’s fantasy. But none of this should be carried beyond the bounds of credibility; the characters should never seem grotesque or like circus clowns — Kathie and the Hippopotamus is not a farce, and should not be performed as such. It is in the subtext, the inner workings of the characters’ minds lying at the root of what they say and do on stage, that we find elements of farce.
The action of the play exceeds the conventional limits of normal life: it takes place not only in the objective world but also in the subjective world of the characters themselves, as if there were no dividing line between the two, and it moves with complete freedom from one to the other. Any exaggerated speech, gesture or movement, any distortion of reality such as we find in slapstick comedy would be counterproductive and out of place here: the play’s intention is not to provoke laughter through any crude stylization of human experience, but, by using the combined techniques of humour, suspense and melodrama, to lead the audience imperceptibly to accept this integration of the visible with the invisible, of fact with fantasy, of present with past, as a separate reality. Objective life becomes suffused with subjectivity, while the subjective life of the individual acquires the physical and temporal tangibility of objective reality. Characters of flesh and blood become to a certain extent creatures of fantasy, while the phantoms that emerge from their imaginations become creatures of flesh and blood. The deepest concerns of Kathie and the Hippopotamus are, perhaps, the nature of theatre in particular and fiction in generaclass="underline" not only that which is written and read, but, more importantly, that which human beings practise unwittingly in their everyday lives.
Visual effects can be helpful in the staging of the play, but it is primarily the use of music as a background presence that can evoke most effectively the different atmospheres — Paris, Black Africa, and the Arab world — that is to say the exotic appeal of a good part of the story.
It may not be superfluous to add that in this play I have tried, as I have in my novels, to create an illusion of totality — which should be understood qualitatively rather than quantitatively in this case. The play does not attempt to paint a broad panorama of human experience but seeks to illustrate that experience itself is both objective and subjective, real and imaginary, and that life is made up of both these levels. Man talks, acts, dreams and invents. Life is not just a rational catalogue of events — fantasy and ambition play their part as well. It is not the result of cold planning — but also of spontaneity. Although these two aspects of human experience are not entirely interdependent, neither could do without its counterpart without destroying itself. For a long time we have resorted to fantasy as an escape from reality when it becomes unbearable for us, but this is not just escapism; it is a devious means of gaining the knowledge required for understanding that reality. If we could not distance ourselves from it, it would seem confused and chaotic, little more than a stifling routine. The exploits of the imagination enrich reality and help us better our lives. If we didn’t dream, life would seem irredeemable; if we didn’t allow our imaginations free rein, the world would never change.
Mario Vargas Llosa
This translation of Kathie and the Hippopotamus was first performed as a rehearsed reading on 15 April 1989 at the Gate Theatre, Notting Hill. The cast was as follows:
KATHIE KENNETY Marian Diamond SANTIAGO ZAVALA Thomas Wheatley ANA DE ZAVALA Geraldine Fitzgerald JUAN Alan Barker Director David Graham-Young
Life, such as it has been made for men, can only be born with lies.
Simone Weil, ‘Miscellaneous Thoughts about Loving God’
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets
ACT ONE
When the curtain goes up, Parisian music from the 1940s or 1950s can be heard in the background. SANTIAGO is dictating into a tape-recorder. KATHIE walks round him, going through some notes, recalling her experiences. When their voices become audible, the background music fades into an Arab melody with flutes, hornpipes and drums.
KATHIE: I stood beside the Sphinx until it got dark — then suddenly the lights came on.
SANTIAGO: Oblivious of the advancing night I stand transfixed, gazing up at the Sphinx. All at once, an unearthly glow illuminates her face, and she smiles serenely down at me. There we confront each other — I, the woman of flesh and blood; she with her heart of stone, head aloft, and lion’s claws.
KATHIE: There were masses of stars. It was late and I felt — I don’t know — sort of alone out there amongst all those Egyptian tombs.
SANTIAGO: I meander midst vast pyramidical sepulchres and megalithic colossi of the ancient pharaohs: beneath the canopy of night, an infinity of stars, which floats over Cairo in an indigo sea of opalescent hues.
KATHIE: It was rash of me to have stayed behind. Who would there be to defend me in case of danger? But then I remembered my revolver and didn’t feel afraid any more.
SANTIAGO: Not a living soul in sight — neither man, nor beast, nor plant: hardly aware of my isolation, I muse on that far-off civilization that raised such memorials, a race so perfectly attuned to the supernatural, as fish are to the ocean. I hold silent communion with the Sphinx. Suddenly my illusion is shattered and harsh reality reasserts itself: what am I doing there, alone, exposing myself to a thousand perils — does a hunger-crazed jackal or some ruthless desperado lie in wait? But I am reassured as I remember my small revolver with its mother-of-pearl handle which accompanies me round the world like a faithful dog.