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WHEN WE DEAD AWAKEN
A monologue from the
play by Henrik
Ibsen
| NOTE: This monologue is reprinted with the author's permission. All inquiries should be directed to the author at: sandmaster@aol.com |
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RUBEK: They're a bunch of pompous windbags! The whole lot of them! They look at my work and ... and see something that isn't there--something that was never in my mind at all! It's just a bunch of academic nonsense. On the surface, yes, I'll admit I give them the "striking likeness" they so desperately desire, that they gape at in astonishment, but I could never satisfy myself with such a simple task--you should realize that by now. I have to do something to entertain myself--don't I? So I take a few ... artistic liberties, let's say ... make a few embellishments here and there ... leave a little something hidden in each one, something cryptic, lurking behind those lifelike masks, a subliminal suggestion that my wealthy benefactors are either too stupid or too proud to discern. But someday, perhaps ... someday, they shall see it. As they huddle round these "portrait busts," as you call them, with their children and their grandchildren, they shall suddenly come to the horrific realization that, at bottom, they are all a bunch of pompous horse-faces, lop-eared dog-skulls, and fatted swine-snouts! It is these double-faced works of art that our excellent plutocrats come and order of me, and pay for in good round figures!
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MONOLOGUES BY HENRIK IBSEN |
