Selected excerpts from

F O R E P L A Y

 

 

(Hannah Arendt, the Two Adornos, and Walter Benjamin)

 

 

 

 

By Carl Djerassi

Foreword

 

Hannah Arendt (1906 � 1975), Theodor W. Adorno (1903 � 1969), and Walter Benjamin (1892 � 1940) justifiably are considered towering giants of the 20th century German intellectual scene. Arendt, a famous political theorist, and Adorno, one of the founders of the Frankfurt School of Social Theory and internationally recognized sociologist, philosopher, and musicologist, disliked each other intensely, but both admired, even worshipped, Benjamin. Adorno�s life-long womanizing (openly admitted to his wife Gretel, who even typed some of his love letters) and his intense preoccupation with his dreams are well documented, as is the range of the deeply personal and extensive correspondence between Benjamin and Gretel Adorno. It is also very likely that Benjamin carried a briefcase with him on his flight from France to Spain where he committed suicide in September 1940. The briefcase or its contents (though frequently speculated upon) were never found. Those are facts as is the relationship between Hannah Arendt and the philosopher Martin Heidegger.

 

And why do I start with these facts in an introduction to my eighth play? Because in preparation for my last book, Four Jews on Parnassus�A Conversation: Benjamin, Adorno, Scholem, Sch�nberg, I spent over three years on biographical research in the archives and published literature of these men. Prior to that time, most of my literary writing dealt with the behaviour of scientists and their cultural tribal practices based on my own knowledge as a working scientist for over half a century, which I illustrated for a general readership in the guise of fiction. This is why I coined the descriptive term �science-in-fiction� in order to differentiate it from science fiction.

 

Four Jews on Parnassus neither dealt with scientists nor with fiction, but rather constituted carefully researched biography, which I chose to write in the rarely used dialogic literary format. Why dialog? Because my life as a scientist has imprinted me with certain tribal characteristics from which I wished to depart, one of which is that dialog is not used nor allowed in scientific written discourse. Yet from the time of the classic Greeks until the 17th century, dialogic writing was a respected European literary format used by scientists (e.g. Galileo) as well as humanists (e.g. Erasmus). Nowadays, it is virtually limited to plays, which was the original reason why I turned to play-writing some thirteen years ago, much�though not all of it�in the form of �science-in-theatre.�

 

The book, Four Jews on Parnassus, represented an interregnum in my literary writing in that I embarked on a historically accurate biography in dialogic format in order represent a humanizing view of my entirely non-scientific protagonists. Once finished with that book, I started to speculate about aspects of their personal lives and actions, which I could only do if I discarded the shackles of a biographer and assumed the freedom of a fiction author. Accordingly, I chose the role of a playwright focussing on the theme of jealousy�professional and personal�that I had encountered in my biographical research for Four Jews on Parnassus.

 

Hence, the nature and the depth of jealousy displayed by most of the characters, the putative contents of Benjamin�s lost grip, and the blackmail of my fictitious Fr�ulein X are pure invention on the part of a playwright, who also happened to be the author of a non-fictional, biographic account of these fascinating personages.


CAST OF CHARACTERS

 

Theodor (�Teddie�) W. Adorno (in his sixties)

 

Gretel Adorno, his wife (in her sixties)

 

Hannah Arendt (in her sixties)

 

Walter Benjamin (in his early forties)

 

Fr�ulein X, a scholar (in her late twenties or early thirties)

 

 

TIME

 

Late 1960s

 

Scene 1. 1967. Teddie Adorno reclining on a �Freudian� sofa and basically free-associating, looking up to the ceiling rather than at Gretel Adorno, who sits across from him with a notebook and pencil in her hand. A small table is by her side. She does not write.

 

 

GRETEL Remember your dream about the difference between equibrium and equilibrium?

 

TEDDIE Vaguely. And what about the difference?

 

GRETEL You said �equibrium� is the innermost equilibrium.

TEDDIE That was just a dream. There is no such thing as equibrium.

 

GRETEL My dear husband, I beg to differ. Basically all we talked about during the last few minutes was the retention of one�s equibrium.

 

TEDDIE Whose equibrium are you referring to?

 

GRETEL Mine of course. Since I was never able to affect your equilibrium�

 

TEDDIE Meaning that I�m too cocksure?

 

GRETEL Bravo! I couldn�t have put it more accurately. To cope with your cocksure equilibrium, I had to maintain my own tenuous equibrium.

 

TEDDIE And for that you have now stopped taking dictation?

 

GRETEL (Rises and gives him a kiss on his forehead.) I thought you�d understand. Now let�s reverse roles. (She motions him to get up and when he does so, reluctantly, she points to the chair by the table). Let me lie down and dictate to you.

 

TEDDIE (Reluctantly moves to the chair) Your dreams?

 

GRETEL Who knows? (Pause) Ready?

 

TEDDIE But I have a terrible handwriting.

 

GRETEL I can read it� and so can you.

 

TEDDIE (Shrugs his shoulders as he picks up notebook and pencil) Go ahead.

 

GRETEL First a question. (Beat). A question I�ve never asked you directly.

 

TEDDIE Yes?

 

GRETEL How jealous are you?

 

TEDDIE In general� or of you?

 

GRETEL Well� both.

 

TEDDIE Professionally, I�m very jealous.

 

GRETEL We both know that. I mean, otherwise.

 

TEDDIE Of you?

 

GRETEL Well, yes� for instance of me.

 

TEDDIE Never!

 

GRETEL Good. And of other women?

 

TEDDIE It depends.

 

GRETEL Could you elaborate?

 

TEDDIE I could, but I won�t. You were going to tell me about the tenuous nature of your equibrium.

 

(Adorno fades into darkness as lights shine on Gretel and soon thereafter on Walter Benjamin sitting on the opposite side. He is reading some letters.)

 


Scene 2: Theodor Adorno in Hannah Arendt�s apartment.

 

ARENDT Enough of that. Just assume it was an innocent squint caused by my insufferable vice. (Stubs out her cigarette, points to a chair, while lighting another cigarette). Sit down and let me pour you a drink.

 

ADORNO Just some water. With you I prefer to remain coldly sober.

 

����������� (Arendt fetches a glass of water)

 

ARENDT Here you are� with ice. To keep you as coldly sober as possible. I think you�ll need it. I just got back from Italy

 

ADORNO After Switzerland, my favorite country for holidays.

 

ARENDT This was no holiday, it was a summons.

 

ADORNO I didn�t know you ever responded to summonses.

 

ARENDT Generally not, but this was blackmail packaged in a summons.

 

ADORNO Blackmail? This is becoming interesting. Based on facts?

 

ARENDT When is blackmail based on pure thin air? Whether this is based on real facts is something that I want to ask you.

 

ADORNO Me! Am I involved in this blackmail?

 

ARENDT We both are.

 

ADORNO You and I? Impossible! Whatever transpired between us happened so long ago that the statute of limitations would preclude any blackmail.

 

ARENDT Some blackmail transcends any time limits.

 

ADORNO For instance?

 

ARENDT Admission to Parnassus. In other words, canonization.

 

ADORNO Do you mean mine or yours?

 

ARENDT (Ironic smile) What a discreet compliment: conceding that canonization might also apply to me. But no�it�s Walter�s canonization we need to consider. Walter Benjamin�s posthumous elevation to Parnassus and his ever-increasing status up there.

 

ADORNO You can�t blackmail a dead person.

 

ARENDT True enough. But since the subject is canonization of a dead person, what about the canonizers who got him up there? For instance you and me?

 

ADORNO Would you care getting to the point? How can Walter�s posthumous canonization become the subject of blackmail?

 

ARENDT A stain that may make such canonization reversible or at least tainted. And since we were participants, why not blackmail us?

 

ADORNO Participants in Walter�s elevation� or in his mysterious stain?

 

ARENDT This is precisely why I needed to talk to you. I didn�t go to Italy on holiday� I went prompted by a visit that you made there just a few months ago.

 

ADORNO How on earth did you come to find that out?

 

ARENDT That is quite immaterial. The point is, you went there to search for a suitcase. Or was it two suitcases? Walter�s baggage. Is that true?

 

ADORNO Yes.

 

ARENDT Well?

 

ADORNO Well what?

 

ARENDT What made you go there? A quarter of a century after Walter had last been there! The real truth.

 

ADORNO Why ask me? You seem to be well informed.

 

ARENDT The truth is precisely what I don�t know. It�s all second- or even third-hand.

 

ADORNO But you know the facts.

 

ARENDT Facts are not the truth. At best, facts are only part of it. So please! The truth! A lot is at stake for both of us.

 


Scene 3. Same setting as Scene 1.

 

Lights dim on Teddie and shine on Walter. He is excited as he reads.

 

WALTER (reading from p.172 of Kamasutra) When the girl is possessed using an accessory properly in place and wedged into her vagina, her eyes start vacillating under the unrush of pleasure, and the pupils of her eyes start moving. (Looks up from book). Are yours moving?

 

GRETEL Yes.

 

WALTER (resumes reading) The partner must then agitate the accessory in a violent manner and, by making her suffer, rapidly increases her excitement. (Looks up from book). Do you wish me to continue?

 

TEDDIE (from the couch in the shadow) No!

 

GRETEL You can�t stop now!

 

WALTER (resumes reading from p. 377) Some use objects with the shape of the virile member to satisfy their fantasies: carrots, turnips, and fruit such as bananas or aubergines; roots like that of the sweet potato� or cucumbers. Having cleaned the fruit, they grasp it and insert it in the organ, so as to cause a pleasurable feeling. (Looks up from book). Any favorites?

 

GRETEL Asparagus�

 

TEDDIE (Outraged) Gretel! Green� thin� asparagus?

 

GRETEL Thick� preferably white.

 

WALTER (resumes reading) The state of mind of girls who can be possessed is of three kinds: accessible, cooperating, or hostile. (Looks up from book). What is yours?

 

TEDDIE (from the couch in the shadow) Gretel! You are not going to answer this!

 

GRETEL Accessibly cooperating.

 

TEDDIE (from the couch in the shadow) What?

 

GRETEL My husband may well be surprised by my answer. But my very precious Walter, I have always known that correspondence with you is infinitely configurable�as is so much of your formal writing�yet I had not realized until now that this also applies to erotica. Call it epistolary sex� more exciting than any direct physical contact ever would.

 

ADORNO (Taken aback) Epistolary sex?

 

GRETEL Of course, with words you never know who said them first. Others may argue that we have now crossed the border into pornography, but if that is actually the case, it is such soft porn that� (Does not finish the sentence)

 

WALTER That what?

 

GRETEL I blush to finish the sentence and hence will leave the remaining words to your imagination.

 

WALTER Somewhere, the Kamasutra states that when the wheel of sexual ecstasy is in full motion, there are no words at all, and no order.

 

GRETEL (interrupts) I prefer the wheel of sexual fantasy over ecstasy. In fantasy, there are no limitations� anatomical, chronological, geographical�

 

WALTER (interrupts)� nor financial.

 

ADORNO (Sotto voce) The poor schnorrer� always worrying about money.

 

GRETEL Tell me: where do you draw the line between porn and erotica?

 

WALTER That�s what I would like to explore with you if you�d permit it.

 

GRETEL My dearest, dearest Walter. With you, I don�t �permit�� I only �welcome.�

 


Scene 4: Hannah Arendt�s apartment.

ADORNO Have you met her?

 

ARENDT Not face to face� she�s much too cautious. But you apparently have.

 

ADORNO I? When? Where? How? What�s her name?

 

ARENDT No idea. But you certainly made an indelible impression on her.

 

ADORNO (slightly grinning) That I�ve heard from a few other women. Did she tell you where we met?

 

ARENDT Briefly. Very briefly. But if what she told me is true, then we are in trouble� deep trouble.

 

ADORNO We?

 

ARENDT I asked that same question.

Light off on Adorno while light now refocuses on Fr�ulein X holding the telephone in continued telephone conversation with Arendt. Fr�ulein X, whose phone has a very long extension cord, is now truly agitated and as she walks around, gesturing with phone in hand, she occasionally gets tangled by the cord. Arendt, by contrast, reclines and starts smoking while the conversation progresses. She is clearly interested.

 

ARENDT I presume you came voluntarily.

 

X As voluntarily as most of his other women.

 

ARENDT And you minded that?

 

X Not at first...but a few weeks later was another matter. I don�t remember ever feeling so humiliated.

 

ARENDT Why humiliated?

 

X Because he didn�t remember me.

 

ARENDT Well� how often did you meet?

 

X Once� late at night.

 

ARENDT (tries to joke). Perhaps it was too dark for him to have recognized your face.

 

X What I considered memorable was what transpired that night� not the partner�s physiognomy.

 

ARENDT I see.

 

X I doubt that you do. (Beat). For that, I would�ve had to show you the marks on my body.

 

ARENDT Yet you went back for more?

 

X Not for collecting more bruises. I went back because I thought that he was prepared to see me for what I had come for in the first place. Verbal rather than physical intercourse about my take on Benjamin�s last work before his suicide� not solely some unilaterally sadomasochistic exercise. He hurt me deeply and I shall reciprocate.

 

ARENDT Let me offer you some advice: It is so much simpler to be hurt than to hurt.

 

X How do you know that?

 

ARENDT Experience by someone twice your age� and at times on both sides of the equation. (Beat). But what has all that hurt and revenge got to do with me? Why attempt to blackmail Adorno and me together?

 

X I must insist that you never use that word again.

 

ARENDT What would you call it?

 

X Persuasion� not extortion.

 

ARENDT But then, why start with me? Especially in view of what you just disclosed.

 

X Your mutual dislike is well known in academic circles.

 

ARENDT I won�t deny that.

 

X I thought you�d be interested in what I�ve come upon in my research on Benjamin. A literary treasure trove so staggering that it will surprise even the most sophisticated Benjaminologists.

 

ARENDT But there are many other admirers of Benjamin.

 

X True, but you and Prof. Adorno head that list� and not just as admirers. You were crucial to his posthumous canonization. Not unlike the relation between Franz Kafka and Max Brod. Did you know that just before his death, the great Kafka�another product of posthumous canonization�wrote to his friend that everything he might leave behind in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters, sketches, and so on was to be burned unread?

 

ARENDT Rumors to that effect have been floating around for a long time. But what has that got to do with your blackmail� excuse me� your persuasion?

 

X Suppose I told you that Kafka�s letters were not burned. That they were confiscated by the Gestapo in 1933.

 

ARENDT Are you now fantasizing or is that supposed to be factual?

 

X For the sake of my argument, assume that this is factual� including that there was a great deal of pornographic material among Kafka�s unburned papers.

 

ARENDT I think that by now you have wasted half my time� although I am not yet certain which half.

 


Scene 5. Adorno wearing hat and coat, hands in his pockets, paces up and down in an apparently cold outdoor location. Suddenly Fr�ulein X approaches and heads straight for him.

 

X I am matriculated at the University of Mainz� in other words, close enough so that I could attend your lectures here in Frankfurt.

 

ADORNO Really? I don�t recall�

 

X (Interrupts) I will refresh your failing memory. But at this stage of my tale, your not knowing about me would not be surprising. You had hundreds of students at your lectures, so why should you note a woman who usually sat deliberately in one of the last rows. There was only one thing that distinguished me from all your other students. You will never guess.

 

ADORNO (trying to joke) You always brought your pet cat with you, which is why you sat in back, knowing that I am allergic to all felines� even of the human variety?

 

X (Ignoring the attempted wisecrack) I always carried opera glasses with me and studied you throughout your lecture.

 

ADORNO (Impressed) You did that, rather than taking notes?

 

X For well over a year, I studied you through opera glasses while you spoke. Studied you in a manner that probably few students� female or male� did. One of my friends, who had noticed that I always brought opera glasses and who usually sat close by, once said� rather jealously� �all Adorno wants is to convince you how unbelievably vital, how profound, how enthusiastic, how significant his lectures are� every one of them, without a single exception. And all that is then left for you and those other enthralled groupies to say is �Sock it to me again, Adorno!�

 

ADORNO (Grinning) I am beginning to enjoy this. (Beat). Frankly I never thought that I would be saying this to you.

 

X My friend was a man! Just imagine how I� a woman looking at you for nearly an hour at a time through high powered opera glasses� responded to Theodor Adorno, the verbal eroticist.

 

ADORNO (Grinning) I can hardly wait.

 

X It was your huge eyes. Deep, enormous black eyes, which simply dominated the face... and eye lashes that I could count through my binoculars. And your body, which though chubbily bourgeois, was capable of immense agility when you dealt with the young women who clustered around the podium after you finished your lectures.

 

ADORNO I take you were among them?

 

X I am getting to that. After some months, I went up to you after a lecture to ask whether I could get some advice on my thesis research. You just told me to make an appointment.

 

ADORNO Sounds plausible. It�s my usual response.

 

X But when I went to your office, I faced the impenetrable barrier of your wife, who was in charge of deciding who would be allowed to see you. I, evidently, was marked by some sexual curiosity that older women are good at discerning. So I used a more direct approach, having heard that you were not immune to such appeals by female students.

 

ADORNO (Suddenly severe) Enough! I know what�s coming.

 

X Even if you can guess, I must say it.

 

ADORNO For the record?

 

X Precisely. In a subsequent lecture, in your inimitable categorical way you stated that �Curiosity is a powerful human impulse�some distance below sex and greed�but far ahead of altruism.�

 

ADORNO Did I say that? It�s an interesting idea, but I don�t recall having ever said it.

 

X You certainly said it, but perhaps you were quoting someone else without citing the source.

 

ADORNO That would have been quite inappropriate, which is not typical of me.

 

X Is that so? Then let me continue on the slippery slope of inappropriateness. I went up to you after the lecture and waited for the last groupie to disappear before volunteering to you that in my opinion, curiosity is not some distance below sex, but rather an indispensable component of it. You virtually undressed me with your powerful eyes and then asked me for the evidence. When I volunteered that it was my personal experience, you suggested that this topic was worth further examination. I came that night� figuratively and literally� assuming that you would now surely extend to me the courtesy of also discussing my thesis topic with you. But when I made it to the podium some weeks latter to arrange an appointment, you didn�t even recognize me. (Beat). Do you remember now?

 

ADORNO I shall have to plead temporary amnesia� even if nothing is being taped.

 

X In that case you leave me no other choice but to continue my demands through Prof. Arendt.

 

ADORNO You are going to tell her about the correspondence you just claimed to have unearthed?

 

X. Who knows? I may just send her the tape� as some sort of foreplay. Or perhaps I shall titillate her with some further excerpts.

 

Scene 6. Gretel Adorno, dressed in black mourning clothes, and Hannah Arendt, an unlit cigarette in her hand, face each other.

 

GRETEL Working day in and day out with such a polymath, who kept nothing from me, was deeply satisfying. You could almost call it sex in the mind. And I loved him deeply.

 

HANNAH (Reflective) Ah yes� sex in the mind. It certainly lasts longer than in the flesh.

 

GRETEL Since we are suddenly moving into such personal territory, let me ask you a question which many wondered about, including Teddie and me. Your love affair as a 19-year old student�

 

HANNAH Actually barely 18.

 

GRETEL Whatever� but with your professor in his thirties� married and with two children� was well known.

 

HANNAH How could you� of all people� be surprised? Didn�t this happen all too often in front of your eyes with your husband� and over decades? In a way, isn�t that what brought us here courtesy of our thin-lipped, icy-stared, butch-haircut Felicitas?

 

GRETEL That was not the question. Admittedly, Martin Heidegger was one of the most important German philosophers of his generation�

 

HANNAH The most important!

 

GRETEL I beg to differ and my Teddie would have done so even more vociferously. But that is not the point� whether he was number 1 or number 3. You, a Jewish student and he a Catholic ex-Theologian and proto-Nazi�

 

HANNAH Not proto-Nazi. At best, a pseudo Nazi manqu� and only that for a limited time.

 

GRETEL Good God! Are we now going to debate the nuances of Nazidom� or Nazihood� if there are such words? The question is simply why you defended such a person some decades later during his de-nazification trial at the University of Freiburg?

 

HANNAH You�re ignoring the effect upon the students of a professor�s willingness to commit adultery.

 

GRETEL Ignoring? As you already said, you are speaking with a life-long expert of professorial amorous power. But I thought you were different.

 

HANNAH So did I� then. But years later, I found that it�s more complicated than you think.

 

GRETEL (Suddenly in low tone) It always is. Weren�t we all after felicity? Walter never experienced it� I did in so many ways with Teddie and then with Walter. And you?

 

HANNAH On occasion.

 

GRETEL With Heidegger?

 

HANNAH No, that was something else� even beyond felicity. But I did with Heinrich� my second husband.

 

GRETEL Lucky you.

 

(The doorbell rings)

 

GRETEL (Startled) There she is. Would you let her in? It will give me a chance to look at her before I have to say a word.

 

����������� (Arendt opens the door and then steps back as she faces Felicitas, at least 1.8 meters tall, slender, dressed in well-cut, mannish black suit, white shirt and black tie, large horn rimmed glasses framing large eyes, full mouth, short blond hair, parted on the side and combed back�a startlingly arresting androgynous beauty).

 

HANNAH (Taken aback) My goodness! (Pause). Come in.

 

X You seem surprised. (Looks at her watch). I am not early, am I?

 

HANNAH (Almost laughing). Not at all. It�s just that I imagined you (beat)� differently.

 

X For the purpose of our meeting, I suspect that looks won�t make much difference.

 

GRETEL (Rising from her chair) True enough. Why don�t you sit down over there (points to chair or sofa) and let�s start. I want to hear what you have to say face to face� not in letters or phone calls. By the way, what is your name?

 

X Felicitas. You know that from my letter.

 

GRETEL I meant your family name. We are not on a first-name basis and are unlikely to ever reach it.

 

X If it�s formality you�re after, just call me �X�� Felicitas X.

 


Scene 7. Hannah and X sit around a table in Arendt�s apartment. The table is bare except for a large, virtually overflowing ashtray and a bound manuscript. Arendt slowly inhales from a half-finished cigarette.

 

 

HANNAH Much of what we write in our work is based on suppositions.

 

X But this is different. What Adorno or Benjamin or Heidegger wrote is in the final analysis based on suppositions, but I am dealing with interpretation of a single person�s motivation and personal thoughts. Call it psychobiographical writing.

 

HANNAH The most dangerous of genres. Still, considering that all of us� Gretel, Teddie, and I� were and in part still are deeply involved with Walter�s life, work, and reputation, I cannot fault you for wishing to read the missing half of the correspondence. Once I learned of its existence� really through you� I also was hooked.

 

X And?

 

HANNAH Now that I have read it, I regret being privy to their secrets.

 

X You read it? How? Where? When?

 

HANNAH How? Gretel Adorno gave them to me. Where? Here in my home. When? Yesterday.

 

X I can�t believe what I�m hearing. Why would she do that?

 

HANNAH Because she trust me.

 

X You, of all people? You, one of her husband�s greatest enemies?

 

HANNAH But one of Benjamin�s greatest promoters. Besides, it was you that got Adorno and me to a first-name basis. Frankly, I would never have dreamed that in my worst nightmares.

 

X And you have those letters here� in your apartment?

 

HANNAH Yes.

 

X Will you show them to me?

 

HANNAH Yes.

 

X (Jumps up, utterly dumbfounded) Yes? (Beat) When?

 

HANNAH Quite soon. But first calm down and listen to me� carefully! Do you have any relatives and friends you can trust?

 

X (Confused) I suppose so.

 

HANNAH Someone to whom you have confided about this matter?

 

X Not exactly.

 

HANNAH What does that mean.

 

X Well� not everything.

 

HANNAH Does the person know anything about my involvement?

 

X Very little.

 

HANNAH I suppose that�s better than nothing. I�m saying that because I want you to go into the next room (points to the door) where you will find a telephone. Call that person, tell him or her where you are right now and that if you do not call back within (looks at her watch) say four hours, they should come here to look for you or call the police.

 

X The police?

 

HANNAH (waves her hand dismissively, still pointing to the door) Or an ambulance� or whatever.

 

X But why?

 

HANNAH For insurance sake. I don�t think you trust me.

 

X That you might do me some harm?

 

HANNAH Who knows? (Beat) Now go ahead and phone, because we are wasting time.