From "The Memoirs, Chapter Five" -

            Around the end of the year Dale was back in town and we got the idea to do a Gertrude Stein and try to interest the Julian Theater.  I had always liked a piece called “Turkey and Bones and Eating and We Liked It” and so we cast Dale, Joy, Terry, me, a couple others, and Russell as Gertrude Stein playing the piano and narrating the piece directly to the audience.  Dale also played the silent role of Alice B. Toklas sitting with Gertrude at the piano during the interludes and eating brownies.  Well, the whole thing was very obtuse and strange but with some great scenes, like Dale as Mark Anthony and me as Cleopatra watching “our son” partaking in the military games with the soldiers.  That kind of thing.

      In another scene I played "William," the young innocent whom Dale seduces with the sins of gambling and smoking.  He was always good at the dirty, old lecher.

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TURKEY AND BONES AND EATING AND

WE LIKED IT

By

GERTRUDE STEIN

AAA PRODUCTIONS and JULIAN THEATER

SAN FRANCISCO

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A PLAY

            He was very restless.  He does not like to stand while he picks flowers.  He does not smell flowers.  He has a reasonable liking for herbs.  He likes their smell.  He is not able to see storms.  He can see anything running.  He has been able to be praised.

SCENE I

            Straw seats which are so well made that they resemble stools.  They are all of straw and thick.  They are made with two handles.

            I do not like cotton drawers.  I prefer wool or linen.  I admit that linen is damp.  Wool is warm.  I believe I prefer wool.

            I like a dog which is easily understood as I have never had the habit of going out except on Sunday.  Now I go out every day.

            I believe that coal is better than wood.  If coal is good it burns longer.  In any case it is very difficult to get here.

            I do not wish to reply to a telegram, not because I find it difficult to explain in it that I wished to see you.  I did wish to see you.

MR. CLEMENT:  It gives me great pleasure to meet you.  I am feeling well today and I see that you are enjoying the mild weather.  It will continue so.  I hope you will be pleased.  I will present myself to you in saying that I am certain that you are deriving pleasure from your winter.  I am certainly eager.

WILLIAM:  He is too difficult.  I mean he is too difficult.  I don’t believe you understand me yet.  He is too difficult.

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William is William and he does not use any precaution.  He is not very adroit.

Will you drink wine.

I do.

I know that but will you take any now.

I don’t mind the taste of it.

This is not really wine.  It is a concoction of brown sugar and water and fermented juice.  I call it wine it is a drink.

I did not know is was not wine.

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CLEOPATRA:  Do you like him.

ANTHONY:  I must go and see the workingmen.

CLEOPATRA:  Do you like them they are giving our son a knife.

ANTHONY:  Whom does he resemble.

CLEOPATRA:  The son resembles his mother.

ANTHONY:  Don’t say it.

CLEOPATRA:  Why not.

ANTHONY:  Because the father does not prefer to hear it.  He prefers to hear that the son resembles him.

CLEOPATRA:  The son resembles him but he looks like his mother.

ANTHONY AND CLEOPATRA:  They wish him to have every advantage.

...

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             Well, the Julian people didn’t exactly know what to make of it, but we had a good house and a growing bunch of our friends who were into our kind of humor and the piece went over very well.

            Perhaps most memorable, to us, part of the evening, though, was our opening act.  With the play running only about forty-five minutes, we had asked around if anybody knew a musician or somebody who could open for us and kind of pad out the evening into a full show, if you know what I mean.  Well, somebody said they had this good singer who could come, so we said OK.  Well, it turned out to be Maria Scatuccio, whom we had met briefly, friend of Alma’s and Marge’s.  She loved our piece and we loved her singing and we would go on to become long and best of friends.

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   ...NEXT:  MARIA'S BAKERY