William Kentridge The Great Yes, The Great No Libretto

SECTIONS OF WILLIAM KENTRIDGE’S
LIBRETTO FOR THE GREAT YES, THE GREAT NO

Suzanne, Aimé and Captain – Au bout du petit Matin…

Suzanne	At the end of day break… The blue smoke from my forbidden English cigarette. To leave. My heart was throbbing with an insistent desire to give. To leave ….
Captain	Suzanne Césaire, Surrealist of desire, teacher, writer, her mind spins around the Caribbean, the warrior heart of a hummingbird against the dead-end of assimilation.
Suzanne	to that country whose clay is part of my flesh: “I have wandered far and I am coming back to the lonely ugliness of your wounds.” I am waiting. I am no longer waiting. “My mouth shall be the mouth of misfortunes which have no mouth, My voice is the freedom of those freedoms which break down in the prison-cell of despair.” “Beware of crossing your arms and assuming the sterile attitude of the spectator, Because life is not a spectacle, because a sea of sorrows is not a spectacle, Because a man who cries out is not a dancing bear.”
Aimé	And the voice declares that for centuries
Suzanne Aimé	Europe has stuffed us with lies and crammed us with plague.
Suzanne Aimé	For it is not true that the work of man is finished.
Captain	Aimé Césaire poet, philosopher, surrealist of dignity, socialist, politician, with a revolutionary message for Martinique’s creole self.
Aimé	For it is not true that we are the parasites of the world.
Suzanne Aimé	Our job is to keep in step with the world.
Suzanne Aimé	The work of man is only just beginning.
Suzanne Aimé	As I leave Europe to cross one more sea to cross one more sea oh one more sea to cross so that I may invent my lungs so that the queen may make love to me As I leave Europe the irritation of its own cries to cross one more sea to cross one more sea oh one more sea to cross so that I may invent my lungs so that the queen may make love to me so that my soul may shine The radios go silent As I leave Europe the irritation of its own cries to cross one more sea to cross one more sea oh one more sea to cross so that I may invent my lungs so that the queen may make love to me so that my soul may shine The radios go silent
Coffee pots	(in French) Did I or did I not tell you that you must speak French the French of France the French of the French the French French

Suzanne – When is the time right?

Suzanne	When is the time ripe? In what form should it be manifested? Freedom is at once madly desirable and quite fragile, which gives it the right to be jealous. A literature is taking shape. Opening upon an increasingly vast and immense ‘beyond’ What we do not worry about is whether it pleases you or not. Get over not liking poetry. One never loves that which does not deserve to be loved. There are people who claim that war has taught them something.
Chorus	nothing but the sea
Suzanne	It nourished in us an impatient strength..
Chorus	nothing but the sea
Suzanne	I was listening very attentively, without being able to hear your voices lost in the Caribbean symphony Nothing but the sea and the indistinct outline of lands. the metallic face of the sea that is no longer of water but of mercury.
Chorus	No longer water
Suzanne	One can only guess the easy lovemaking of fish. Many have believed that surrealism was dead. the forbidden zones of the human mind …. The only [thing] that can liberate humankind … in one magical word: freedom. Freedom must make itself flesh and blood […] must be reflected and recreated in language, in the word. And here before us are splendours and hopes. A communion of seers.
Chorus	We know where we stand
Suzanne	We know where we stand. There is my island, Martinique, and its fresh necklace of clouds buffeted by Mount Pele.
Chorus	Here are splendours and hopes
Suzanne	Here the poets feel their heads capsize
Chorus	Caught between staying and leaving The radios fall silent.
Suzanne	One must however dare to say that refined forms of slavery still run rampant.
Chorus	All will be recovered
Suzanne	Here the poets feel their heads capsize[Colonial idiocies] will be purified by the welding arc’s blue flame. ….our cutting edge of steel… all will be recovered. Do not move. Let it pass.

Suzanne – Poetry, not a bit of it

Suzanne

What is the Martinican? – A plant-human.
Obstinate moreover as only a plant can be.
Open your eyes – a child is born. To which god should it be entrusted? To
the Tree god. Coconut tree or Banana tree, among whose roots the placenta
is buried.
Open your ears….The grass that grows on a grave is the living hair of the
dead female buried beneath, who is protesting against death.
I knew, very young, that Martinique was sensual, coiled upon itself,
stretched out, unwound in the Caribbean,[Here we see] a stunning contradiction appear between the innermost self,
with its desires, its impulses, its unconscious forces – and life lived with its
necessities, its urgencies, its gravity.
From the time of the arrival of the conquistadors and the rise of their
know-how (beginning with firearms),
There are, melded into the isles, beautiful green waves of water and of
silence.
the lands from across the Atlantic have changed, not only in appearance but
in fear.
Fear of being surpassed by those who remained in Europe, already armed
and equipped.
Fear of competition with people of colour quickly declared inferior in
order to better beat them down.
Released onto the streets of their capitals, an insurmountable timidity fills
them with fear among their European brothers.
Is this attitude enough to explain his failure in the world?
Ashamed of their drawling accent, of their unrefined French, they sigh
longingly for the peaceful warmth of Antillean houses and the voice of the
Black “nanny” of their childhood.[They] do not yet know that [they] [are] participating in the island’s
absence of equilibrium.
Enough! [Real] poetry lies elsewhere. Far from rhymes, laments, sea breezes,
and parrots.
Then the radios go silent.
Our miraculous names until now lodging in the storehouse of
forgetfulness.
Since three centuries the colonial adventure continues
the wars of independence are only an episode[I believe] more in struggles than in tears
The river of grass snakes that I call my veins
the river of battlements that I call my blood
Our poetry will be cannibal or will not be at all!

Lament

Chorus

I was sad when I was young
Now I’m old and sad When can I be happy – Soon – that would be good.
Who knows no way of helping
Let him be silent.
This woman is sick to her marrow bone
This woman is utterly alone.
With husband dead,
With son away in jail.
Pray for me, Pray
I carry a brick to show how beautiful my house once was.
The twenty-nine legally permitted strokes of the whip.
The branched yoke of iron
and the red-hot fleur-de-lys from the smoking brands
bleeding on the soft flesh of my shoulder
and the whip argued with the swarming flies over the sweet dew of our
wounds.
I’ve come back to my city.
These are my old tears.

Breton and Breton – Party

Captain	André Breton and André Breton, the pope of Surréalisme and general misanthrope. He hopes that cutting up the world will make it anew.
Breton	We believe that the supreme task of art in our epoch is to take part actively and consciously in the preparation of the revolution.
Breton	Our aims: The independence of art – for the revolution The revolution for the complete liberation of art
Captain	He is 40, he is 42, he hopes to be 80, but has but 10 months to live.
Breton	We by no means insist on every idea put forward in this manifesto
Breton	At the forefront of discovery, a new land was in sight the moment when they set foot on the shore, he began to measure the import of his observation.
Breton	I have made an inventory of the stones, Less time than it takes to tell, fewer tears than it takes to die
Breton	A very delicate flame highlights or perfects life’s meaning as nothing else can.
Breton	Any philosophical, sociological, scientific or artistic discovery seems to be the fruit of a precious chance.
Breton	Behind ourselves, we must not let the paths of desire become overgrown.
Breton	If in a cluster of grapes there are no two alike, why do you want me to describe this grape by the other, by all the others, why do you want me to make a palatable grape?
Breton	Nothing retains less desire in art, in science, than this will to industry, booty, possession.
Breton	It would lose its charm if it were explained
Breton	Still today I am only counting on what comes of my own openness, my eagerness to wander in search of everything, which, I am confident, keeps me in mysterious communication with other open beings, as if we were suddenly called to assemble.
Breton	Let us now mince words: the marvellous is always beautiful, anything marvellous is beautiful, in fact only the marvellous is beautiful.
Breton	We have no intention of justifying political indifference True art is unable not to be revolutionary The communist revolution is not afraid of art
Breton	I shall be proved guilty of poetic dishonesty.

Captain and Fanon

Captain	Frantz Fanon, surrealist of Justice, student of Suzanne and Aimé, psychiatrist, philosopher, prophet of the Algerian revolution and the end of colonies.
Fanon	Blood – birth – ecstasy of becoming. The arteries of all the world convulsed, torn away, uprooted, turned towards me and feed me. my negritude is no stone, its deafness hurled against the noise of the day my negritude is no drop of lifeless water on the dead eye of the world my negritude is neither tower nor cathedral it thrusts into the red flesh of the soil It thrusts into the red flesh of the sky. Have I no purpose on earth but to avenge the black man of the 17th century? I am not a prisoner of history, my freedom turns me back on myself.
Chorus	I put the white man back into his place, I jostled him and told him point blank. Get used to me. I am not getting used to anyone. I shout my laughter to the stars. Get used to me.
Captain	I want to know I don’t want to know I want to know Don’t tell me. Enough of this lukewarm whining. Let’s light the fuse that will blow up paradise!

Suzanne and Aime in the Storm

Suzanne	At this moment off the coast of Puerto Rico a huge cyclone begins to spin its way between the seas of clouds, with its beautiful tail sweeping rhythmically the semi-circle of the Antilles. The Atlantic takes flight toward Europe with great oceanic waves. Our little tropical observatories begin to crackle with the news. The boats flee, but to where? Wait? Why wait?
Aimé	We, vomit of the slave-ship We, hunted meat of Calabar. Plug your ears?
Suzanne Aimé	We, stuffed to bursting with the swell, with squalls, with inhaled fog! Forgive me, whirlwind!
Suzanne Aimé	I hear rising from the hold chained curses, gasps of the dying,
Suzanne Aimé	the sound of one who is thrown into the sea …
Suzanne Aimé	the baying of a woman giving birth … the scrape of fingernails advancing on throats…
Suzanne Aimé	Let them serve and betray and die
Suzanne	Millions of Black hands, across the raging clouds of world war, will spread terror everywhere.
Aimé	Let it be
Suzanne	Come on now, real poetry lies elsewhere. Far from rhymes, laments, sea breezes, parrots.
Aimé	How to find our homes? the monstrous sodomies of the host and the slaughterer, the unscalable ship’s prow of prejudice and stupidity,
Chorus	At the old village, what happened? At the old village we fought the war. Please take care of my child. She is now an orphan.

End of journey

Captain	Here we are… On the other side. Suits didn’t expect that their bodies would emigrate so soon. And you know the rest That 2 and 2 make 5 that the forest mews like a cat So the end has happened You’re my and I’m your friend Once the money’s safely trousered Mostly there’s a happy end.
Suzanne	Now I have come. I dream I am jumping, swimming, running, climbing; I dream that I burst out laughing, that I span a river in one stride, or that I am followed by a flood of motorcars which never catch up with me.
Captain	died at 50 in 1966, before she dies she destroys her writing.
Suzanne	I am not dreaming of a new myth, I want it to come and I am looking for it.
Suzanne	I carry with me the idea of its birth, And I am waiting.
Captain	Aimé lives to 94. He barely speaks of her again.
Captain	Léon-Gontran Damas, dead in 1978 Frantz Fanon in 1961. André Breton in 1966 Paulette Nardal in 1985 Jane Nardal in 1993
Captain	From the coffin it is said, There came a clapping. A thousand and one useless bells.
Chorus	I drink to the terrible world we inhabit, I drink to the terrible world we inhabit, I drink to the terrible world we inhabit, and to God who never replied and to God who never replied Love no country, countries soon disappear. Everywhere, Everywhere Who shall I tell my sorrow, my horror, greener than ice? Do not love people, people soon perish Or they are wronged and call for your help. unexpectedly on their feet We shall call for the sun & it will not rise unexpectedly on their feet on their feet in the hold on their feet in the cabins on their feet in the wind on their feet beneath the sun on their feet on their feet beneath the stars These are my old tears We go, we won’t arrive. Everything changes – You can start afresh with your very last breath. The world is out of kilter. We will reset it. The world is out of kilter, we will kilter. (The seven-times disunited Will be united the eighth time.)