Every Man’s Evil Expresses Me

Abstract

The delicate and sometimes brutal relations we weave with strangers’ provide moments of elision between spheres of experience conventionally and schematically termed ‘private’ and ‘public’; these relations are particularly fundamental in daring to enter a theatre, or to walk onto a stage, or to write a play, all of which involve self-exposure to the unexpected revelation or reaction. They offer a sense of the riot of possibilities through interpersonal expression, depending on the force of circumstance and individual openness, or want. Such is the importance of Axt’s encounter with Drum in A Passion in Six Days; and Stalin laments his personal elevation beyond the reach of accident and surprise, the chance to meet a woman on a train, in The Power of the Dog. In Women Beware Women, Sordido speaks of the way strangers catch signals from each other in the street, stirring withdrawal and sympathy, occasionally the glimpse of a want which completes a personal chord, major or minor:

• LIVIA: It was not arbitrary, your coming across.

• SORDIDO: How could it be? In this state we are all linked by hate, by little quirks and signs, and eyes to eyes direct when looking down would be collusion with the great unanimous approval. The word which characterizes everything is YES and no is only fit for whispering — (He grabs a passer-by by his lapels) Say yes!

• MAN: Yes. …

• SORDIDO: He says it! See! (He turns back to LIVIA) You are a no, or you could not fuck like that … good day. … (28)

Every time someone looks in our eyes, we wonder, could this be the man, the woman, who will make me different?

Crimes in Hot Countries

Imperceptible redefinitions occurred

Which at a later date may seem significant

Gary Upright