Nevertheless
Nevertheless
Characters:
Clio, Muse of History
Saint Catherine
Judith
Artemisia Gentileschi
Agostino Tassi
Man 1
Man 2
Traveler, female
Setting:
1600s Italy
2017 USA
Reading Note:
Bold words indicate important words
Do not feel obligated to use accents, or to speak old Italian.
This story transcends time, and the language used is intended to reflect that. In other words, if it sounds modern, it could be intentional.
Disclaimer:
While the characters in this play are based on historical figures, this work is purely speculative. The Playwright is a big fan of Signorina Gentileschi but not so big a fan of research. All events depicted in this play are fictitious or based loosely on historical events as the Playwright remembers learning them.
Content Warning: Discussions of rape.
Darkness, then—
A TRAVELER appears. She crosses the stage, passing three large paintings. Each painting is spotlit as the TRAVELER passes and admires each.
Three women appear from their respective paintings: CLIO, SAINT CATHERINE, JUDITH.
These women comprise the Chorus.
They speak.
CLIO
1611. Florence.
JUDITH
Look at all that art.
CLIO
Don’t raise your voice.
JUDITH
You’re not my father.
SAINT CATHERINE
Clio knows the rules of the city.
JUDITH
Rules can change.
SAINT CATHERINE
Rules do change, eventually.
CLIO
But now it’s 1611. Layer your skirts, preserve your virginity, and keep your voice down.
JUDITH
I wish I could behead the whole social institution.
CLIO
Every Holofernes has a second in command, Judith.
SAINT CATHERINE
We have a story to tell.
CLIO
A spark has landed.
Lights up on ARTEMISIA. She paints.
SAINT CATHERINE
Artemisia Gentileschi, female, age eighteen.
CLIO
An artist overshadowed by her father in name alone.
JUDITH
A name to remember.
SAINT CATHERINE
How do you quantify success?
JUDITH
Talent? Notoriety?
CLIO
A name in history books.
SAINT CATHERINE
What if your name never makes it into the books?
JUDITH
Wouldn’t be the first time.
CLIO
Recording history is difficult.
SAINT CATHERINE
Censoring history is easy.
JUDITH
Some names set a spark. Some names are kept out of the books for the safety of the flammable authority who writes them.
ARTEMISIA has painted “Clio, Muse of History”. She wipes her hands on a rag.
CLIO admires the piece; she is identical to the woman in the painting.
ARTEMISIA
Clio, Muse of history.
CLIO
From Greek, meaning “to recount”, “to celebrate”.
ARTEMISIA
Blessed are the ones whom the Muses love.
A bar. MAN 1, MAN 2, and AGOSTINO sit and drink.
MAN 2
Orazio Gentileschi?
MAN 1
Artemisia. His daughter.
MAN 2
She any good?
MAN 1
Word is she’s better than he is.
AGOSTINO
I know Orazio. He rivals Caravaggio, in my opinion.
MAN 2
This girl must be some painter then.
AGOSTINO
I’m shocked Orazio even lets her near his studio.
MAN 1
What’s the harm? It’s his daughter.
AGOSTINO
I suppose I have morals.
MAN 1
You, Agostino? This is a surprise.
AGOSTINO
There’s no room for a woman in art.
MAN 1
You say so, but she’s making a name for herself.
MAN 2
You don’t get out enough to hear about her otherwise.
MAN 1 and MAN 2 laugh.
AGOSTINO
Have you seen her work?
MAN 1
Not personally.
AGOSTINO
How do you know if she’s any good?
MAN 1
Word spreads.
AGOSTINO
Rumors spread.
MAN 2
What are you saying?
AGOSTINO
Could it be a stunt? A ploy?
MAN 1
To what end?
AGOSTINO
I don’t know yet.
MAN 2
Is our friend Agostino jealous of a little girl?
AGOSTINO
You shouldn’t be too quick to believe gossip.
MAN 1
Come on. You don’t have to worry about direct competition. She’s a portrait artist like her father.
MAN 2
Maybe you should be worried. Hills and trees don’t have faces.
AGOSTINO
Landscape painting is plenty impressive. My work is highly demanded.
MAN 2
Don’t get defensive.
AGOSTINO
Don’t get so blown away by a bitch you’ve never seen paint.
CLIO hands AGOSTINO a letter.
He reads it, frowns.
A studio. ARTEMISIA paints.
ARTEMISIA
So my father sent for you.
AGOSTINO
Blame him if this doesn’t work out.
ARTEMISIA
Given your tone, I’m very optimistic.
AGOSTINO
You have a sharp tongue.
ARTEMISIA
I am attempting to maintain a positive outlook, though for what, I am not sure. You do not seem enthusiastic about this arrangement.
AGOSTINO
I doubt my being here will be of much benefit to either of us.
ARTEMISIA
Should I not trust in your ability as a painter?
AGOSTINO
That’s not—
ARTEMISIA
Consider my expectations revised then.
AGOSTINO
My work is very highly demanded.
ARTEMISIA
In certain circles, I’m sure.
AGOSTINO
Landscape painting is a well-respected area. And I am very well-known for it.
ARTEMISIA
My father likes you at least.
AGOSTINO
Surely you trust your father’s preferences?
ARTEMISIA
How much can you trust the taste of a man who has been surpassed by his own daughter?
AGOSTINO
Your father seems to think you have room for improvement.
ARTEMISIA
If you can show me where, you really are as good as he says.
AGOSTINO
I find it hard to believe that a respectable man like Orazio could rear such an insufferable child.
ARTEMISIA
I’ve been without a mother’s soft sensibility for six years.
AGOSTINO
Hm. My condolences.
ARTEMISIA
Keep them. You don’t like me.
AGOSTINO
I sure am sorry you don’t have any female sensibility. You would make a much better pupil that way.
ARTEMISIA
And less insufferable?
AGOSTINO
There is no way to know for sure.
ARTEMISIA
When will you teach me something useful, Signor Tassi?
AGOSTINO
Our first lesson will be tomorrow.
ARTEMISIA
That does not answer my question.
AGOSTINO
I am looking forward to this arrangement already.
ARTEMISIA
Bring some of your mythical sensibility and we’ll call it a profitable exchange.
The Chorus descends as the scene freezes. Several days pass.
SAINT CATHERINE
Some might call this the blaze.
JUDITH
Fire spreads like rumors.
CLIO
Commissions increased.
JUDITH
Our girl Artemisia was impossible to ignore.
CLIO
And impossible to teach.
A new day.
AGOSTINO
You’re impossible.
ARTEMISIA
To resist? To deny?
AGOSTINO
To stand.
ARTEMISIA
No true master gets frustrated on the first lesson.
AGOSTINO
Are you trying to get me to show weakness?
ARTEMISIA
Why? Is it working?
AGOSTINO
A true master would not succumb to childish taunts.
ARTEMISIA
Let me know when he arrives.
AGOSTINO
Show me what you’re working on.
ARTEMISIA
Prepare to be blown away.
ARTEMISIA grabs and displays a painting. AGOSTINO studies it, frowns, smiles.
AGOSTINO
It’s amateur work.
ARTEMISIA
Is it?
AGOSTINO
It is.
ARTEMISIA
Funny, because I grabbed one of my father’s portraits.
AGOSTINO
That’s not your work?
ARTEMISIA
Some friend you are. Can’t even recognize Orazio’s brushstrokes.
AGOSTINO
Enough games.
ARTEMISIA
I was finally enjoying myself. Please tell me again how amateur you find my father’s work.
AGOSTINO roughly grabs a new painting.
AGOSTINO
Is this one yours?
ARTEMISIA
You’re no fun.
AGOSTINO
Is it yours?
ARTEMISIA
Yes, that one’s mine.
AGOSTINO
It’s…
ARTEMISIA
It’s?
AGOSTINO is blown away, but he would never tell her that.
AGOSTINO
It’s adequate work. Certainly not as good as the real masters.
ARTEMISIA
Matter of taste, I suppose.
AGOSTINO
I should take this… To study. To prepare for our next lesson.
ARTEMISIA
Oh no, signor. My work stays here. In my studio. With me.
ARTEMISIA takes the painting, stands a little too close for a little too long. Eyes meet, dart away.
AGOSTINO exits.
SAINT CATHERINE
And the blaze continues.
JUDITH
Artemisia Gentileschi was the name on every tongue.
CLIO
And the face she reused in many of her works
SAINT CATHERINE
Her own face
CLIO
was the image in everyone’s mind.
ARTEMISIA turns the painting she is holding toward the audience.
It is “Self-Portrait as Saint Catherine”. SAINT CATHERINE admires it; she is dressed the same as the woman in the painting, but this is a self-portrait of ARTEMISIA.
ARTEMISIA
Saint Catherine of Alexandria.
SAINT CATHERINE
So devout that one hundred great rhetoricians could not sway her from her belief.
A new day.
There is an underlying flirtatiousness to these lines that neither AGOSTINO nor ARTEMISIA want to directly address.
ARTEMISIA flirts like a teenager.
She is one, after all.
AGOSTINO
You are impossible.
ARTEMISIA
To teach? To respect?
AGOSTINO
To resist. To forget.
ARTEMISIA
You’ve got me on your mind, Signor Tassi?
AGOSTINO
In a purely professional sense.
ARTEMISIA
Of course.
AGOSTINO
Fetch your painting.
ARTEMISIA
Anxious to see my genius at work again?
AGOSTINO
I’d rather watch you at work this time.
ARTEMISIA
The genius herself.
AGOSTINO
Let your painting speak for itself.
ARTEMISIA
It will sing praises for its creator.
ARTEMISIA paints.
When will I see some of your work?
AGOSTINO
I am not the student.
ARTEMISIA
So I am simply to trust that you’re worth listening to?
AGOSTINO
Do you trust your father?
ARTEMISIA
Not when it comes to art.
AGOSTINO
Do you trust me?
ARTEMISIA
That depends.
AGOSTINO
Keep painting.
CLIO
There comes a point in every tutorship when nothing more can be gained by either party.
SAINT CATHERINE
Debatably that point came very early in this case.
JUDITH
I would say, nearly immediately.
A new day.
AGOSTINO poses while ARTEMISIA paints. Things are flirty until they are not.
AGOSTINO
Why do you hold your head that way?
ARTEMISIA
Just sit still.
AGOSTINO
I am your tutor. I must understand your behaviors in order to rectify them.
ARTEMISIA
What makes you think you think all of my habits should be corrected?
AGOSTINO
Your father pays me to improve your skills.
ARTEMISIA
My father is wasting his money.
AGOSTINO
You still don’t trust me?
ARTEMISIA
The inclination comes and goes.
AGOSTINO
I can never tell how you feel about me.
ARTEMISIA
That is by design.
AGOSTINO
You’re impossible.
ARTEMISIA
You’re impatient. And mediocre.
AGOSTINO
Oh?
ARTEMISIA
You’re mediocre. I saw some of your paintings.
AGOSTINO
Surely you cannot assess my skill without studying my complete body of work.
ARTEMISIA
That’s why you’re modeling for me.
AGOSTINO
And? Do you like what you see?
ARTEMISIA
You don’t have the stature of an artist.
AGOSTINO
You can’t know that.
ARTEMISIA
I’m clever. I can tell.
AGOSTINO
What does an artist look like then?
ARTEMISIA
I picture longer hair. Softer face. More curves in more attractive places.
AGOSTINO
You picture a woman?
ARTEMISIA
I draw from personal experience.
AGOSTINO
What am I then? What is your father?
ARTEMISIA
There are so many of you. Each male artist is redundant.
AGOSTINO
Men do not have wandering minds or snapping tongues.
ARTEMISIA
Men do not have patience or empathy or understanding of the female form. Those things take a feminine eye.
AGOSTINO
I think we are done for today.
ARTEMISIA
I was just getting warmed up.
AGOSTINO
I cannot teach a girl who does not want to learn.
ARTEMISIA
Then I fear our entire acquaintanceship has been a waste of time. There is nothing you can teach me that I can’t already do better.
AGOSTINO storms out.
Later, the bar.
AGOSTINO
The rumors are true.
MAN 1
Are you impressed?
AGOSTINO
Quite the opposite.
MAN 1
But she is your student.
MAN 2
Surely some of that success could be attributed to you.
AGOSTINO
There is nothing I can teach her that she does not already know. Her words, but in her absence, I am inclined to agree.
MAN 2
Could it be that landscape and portraiture just don’t overlap?
AGOSTINO
Even my technique is… subordinate to hers.
MAN 1
I’m sorry, old friend.
MAN 2
Don’t let the critics know. Your name will take the same hit Orazio’s has. No use for the girl to surpass two great masters.
AGOSTINO
Great masters.
MAN 2
Well, aren’t you?
AGOSTINO
Weeks ago I would insist on it. But now.
MAN 2
This girl really has broken you.
MAN 1
Maybe you can learn from her.
AGOSTINO
Impossible.
MAN 1
Put your pride aside. She’s talented. You can use that.
AGOSTINO
She has instinct. Real talent like that you can’t teach, and I can’t learn.
MAN 2
So what? You’re just going to mope about it?
MAN 1
This is an opportunity, Agostino.
AGOSTINO
For growth? I am too old, too set in my ways. I’ve been painting the same pictures for years.
MAN 1
And you’ve been popular. Successful. This girl does not change that.
AGOSTINO
She’s entered the art world now. My world. Her name is tied up with mine and will cast me into shadow.
MAN 1
What are you going to do?
AGOSTINO
I can’t let her ruin my reputation any further. She must be silenced.
MAN 2
You can’t kill every woman who makes you feel inferior.
AGOSTINO
Kill her? No.
MAN 2
I sense a but.
MAN 1
Good god, Agostino. What are you thinking?
AGOSTINO
I cannot take her life.
MAN 1
Right. Good.
MAN 2
But?
AGOSTINO
But I can take her virtue.
MAN 1
Marrying her will not improve your art or your status.
AGOSTINO
It is not marriage I am suggesting.
JUDITH
Nothing like some seventeenth century locker room talk.
CLIO
Let’s skip ahead.
JUDITH
History really likes to gloss over the rapes, doesn’t it?
CLIO opens a folder. This is her case file.
CLIO
A young woman, an eighteen-year-old girl, with an older male teacher. An authority, a mentor, a friend of the family.
SAINT CATHERINE
Eight out of ten perpetrators are known by the victim.
CLIO
A man deranged by jealousy and anger.
JUDITH
A monster.
CLIO
Agostino Tassi, the defendant, entered the studio.
SAINT CATHERINE
He was drunk.
CLIO flips through her folder.
CLIO
Was he?
JUDITH
Does it make a difference?
CLIO
The defendant entered the studio.
SAINT CATHERINE
Artemisia’s studio.
CLIO
The defendant entered the plaintiff’s studio.
JUDITH
Spit it out, will you?
CLIO
The defendant grabbed the plaintiff. The defendant disrobed the plaintiff. The defendant penetrated the plaintiff.
JUDITH
Raped. Just say raped, you coward.
SAINT CATHERINE
This is the water. The end. The conclusion to a victorious blaze.
CLIO
Smoke rises.
SAINT CATHERINE
Smoke masks the crime. Casts doubt.
JUDITH
If a woman is raped, and she’s the only witness, did the rape even happen?
CLIO
The affair continued for several months.
JUDITH
Affair?
SAINT CATHERINE
Don’t condescend, Judith.
ARTEMISIA
It was rape, okay? He hurt me, for sure. But we’d gotten closer in our lessons. I knew him. And he was hard to resist.
SAINT CATHERINE
But your father pressed charges. So what changed?
ARTEMISIA
He was supposed to marry me. He broke his promise.
CLIO
No man wants to marry an impure woman.
SAINT CATHERINE
Read out the charges again.
CLIO
The plaintiff’s father has charged the defendant with deflowerment.
SAINT CATHERINE
Rape wasn’t a punishable offense in those days.
JUDITH
Orazio pressed charges for making his daughter undesirable.
SAINT CATHERINE
And only after learning Tassi had no intention of marrying Artemisia.
CLIO
The defendant was convicted but never served jail time.
SAINT CATHERINE
Artemisia was tortured and ridiculed in court, forced into an unhappy marriage, and chased out of the city.
JUDITH
But hey, everyone knows sexual assault is a new trend, right?
ARTEMISIA
He was charming, in a way. Not particularly talented. Certainly arrogant. But he was an artist. And a friend. And my teacher, to my constant complaint. How could I have known? Could I have seen the signs? Were there signs at all?
A long hall of paintings. CLIO holds a tour guide flag and leads the other women. They stop at each painting.
CLIO
Susannah and the Elders.
SAINT CATHERINE
Old men harassing a nude young woman.
JUDITH
The pressures of a young woman in a man’s line of work. Oppressed, overwhelmed.
SAINT CATHERINE
Looked down on.
CLIO
Danaë.
JUDITH
The only reason the hero, Perseus, was born was because Zeus raped his mother first.
CLIO
Portrait of a Young Woman as a Sibyl.
SAINT CATHERINE
Orazio’s tribute to his daughter, Artemisia. That’s her face.
JUDITH
Artemisia was tortured by sibille during the trial.
SAINT CATHERINE
Sibyls speak the truth.
JUDITH
Those broken fingers sure proved she wasn’t lying about being raped.
Good thing we take women at their word nowadays.
JUDITH glares at the audience.
The words, “Trust Women”, appear in neon letters in the background.
It’s really no wonder that Artemisia painted so many self-portraits as a female martyr.
Maintaining eye contact with the audience, the Chorus backs up, returns to their large paintings.
ARTEMISIA unveils “Judith Slaying Holofernes” on the wall.
A young female TRAVELER approaches. She is nervous.
TRAVELER
Judith Slaying Holofernes.
The Chorus talks among themselves from their respective paintings. ARTEMISIA and the TRAVELER cannot hear them.
JUDITH
The widow Judith who killed the general Holofernes to protect her people.
CLIO
The canonicity of the Book of Judith is widely debated.
JUDITH
Censoring history is easy.
ARTEMISIA
The original was destroyed.
TRAVELER
She looks strong. Angry.
JUDITH
She is.
TRAVELER
Look at the blood drops, wow.
ARTEMISIA
Violent acts demand graphic depiction.
The TRAVELER approaches “Portrait of a Young Woman as a Sybil”.
TRAVELER
This one isn’t yours.
ARTEMISIA
You have a discerning eye.
TRAVELER
It is a great likeness though.
ARTEMISIA
My father was a great artist.
TRAVELER
You’re better.
ARTEMISIA
Everyone knows, but many are scared to admit it.
TRAVELER
Um. I wanted to thank you.
ARTEMISIA
For?
TRAVELER
Just for making it. I mean, a successful woman in the 1600s. Your story is so impressive, but people haven’t really ever heard about you.
ARTEMISIA
History is funny like that.
TRAVELER
You are such an inspiration to me.
ARTEMISIA
Are you an artist?
TRAVELER
How…?
ARTEMISIA
I can always tell. You have the stature.
The TRAVELER smiles.
The Chorus reappears.
CLIO
This is what happens after a fire has been extinguished.
SAINT CATHERINE
From smoke and dust rises a new structure, stronger and wiser than before.
CLIO
Like a phoenix from the ashes.
JUDITH
History knocks us down, erases us.
SAINT CATHERINE
What does a director look like? What about an engineer?
JUDITH
A doctor? A CEO?
CLIO
Picture yourself working for us.
JUDITH
Picture yourself.
SAINT CATHERINE
The books aren’t gospel. History is constantly being written.
CLIO
And rewritten.
JUDITH
Who says fame is only quantified by your name in dusty old books?
CLIO
Make an impact, take a stance, and rumors spread.
SAINT CATHERINE
Talk to people, make connections, and stories spread.
JUDITH
Women rise from the ashes.
SAINT CATHERINE
Women raise each other up.
CLIO
We persist.
ARTEMISIA
We succeed.