Neglected Works: Volume Three

Neglected Works; Volume Three consists of three plays: "Silence, Wittgenstein ", "The Place Where Something Is", and "Abalone ". "Silence, Wittgenstein " concerns the tender, knotty friendship and shared intellectual life of two aging philosophers, Wittgenstein and Goodson (modeled after G.E. Moore). The two friends are taken hostage in Wittgenstein's rooms in England by a band of Americans fleeing the police after having stolen millions of American dollars. The Americans, masquerading as entertainers for the U.S. military, claim that they are really working for the Central Intelligence Agency in an operation designed to correct the imbalance of world trade. In an absurd clash of manners calling up the ghosts of Betty Grable, Carmen Miranda, black activism, feminism, covert monetary machinations, and logical positivism, the revolutionary passions of the New World shatter the decorum of the Old World.The Place Where Something Is" takes place in 1923, when Ariadne Goldberg travels to the North Pole to research a Ph.D. thesis in Anthropology on the subject of Shamanism among the Inuit people. Bearing a letter of introduction from the local bishop, she arrives at the summer camp of the "Ilivilermiut" tribe at a difficult time in the tribe's life. The traditional pagan nomadic way of life has been called into question by the decline of hunting and fishing and the inroads of white Christian trading settlements which seem to offer safer alternatives to the old way. The attractive Ariadne, with her ample stores of food, becomes the focus of the battle between the new ways, represented by Tiquanuq, the unordained Anglican minister who is ambitious to become the leader of the tribe, and Natani, the tribal angakok, or shaman, who stands for the traditions of a leaderless, cooperative, tightly knit group of believers in the animistic spirits of the earth. The play attempts to treat these subjects with the same broad humorous irony with which the Inuit people deal with their dangerous existence. In the end, the intractability of human history bequeaths a little self-knowledge on the characters, but leaves them still grasping toward their goals and their desires. "Abalone" depicts the zany, passionate encounter of three writers-Ambrose Bierce, George Sterling, and Mary Austin-in Carmel on the afternoon and evening of August 12, 1910. Each of the writers has reached a critical stage in life and hopes to discover through the others a renewal of some sort bound up with the lure and the promise of the California landscape. The action of the play involves romantic hi-jinks, eloquent debate, and a poignant evocation of the Carmel landscape. The plot comes to a climax in a duel between Bierce and Sterling; it ends with the break-up of the potential love between Bierce and Austin and the longstanding friendship between Sterling and Bierce. Mary Austin turns out to be the hero of the play, for, after the disappointment of love and friendship, she alone is able to continue to believe in the spirit of life and to carry on with her work.