The director gets along with nobody. The star of the show is a total asshole. The crew feigns enthusiasm but works grudgingly. The original budget drawn up was more than would be needed and spending follows accordingly. The original schedule was written for production at a snail's pace and it will be met. On the set, nobody seems to be able to connect. The actors have eyes but cannot aim them in the right directions. The lines are said, the footsteps are taken, the camera shifts, the film takes image, but that is all. No extraordinary effort will be taken, and this is manifest.
Doctor Faustus sees the walls of a college not his own. He sees fragments of a romance that never happened. He sees a dozen people fabricated out of the scraps of a nation. He sees movement and he sees an intense heavy waiting. What he sees stops him utterly. He sits and stares forward, his hands moving on the arms of his chair as if there were controls there to be manipulated.
The director stops everything. He asks the entire set to freeze while he reflects upon the current scene, the current dilemma. He stands in his turtleneck and jeans and places two fingers to each temple. He manages to clear his mind of everything but that cola song. He pretends to close his eyes but in reality keeps them squeezed open enough to faintly see those thin legs in black tights to the side, those legs bending slightly in the silence.
The smiles have all evaporated. The star, playing Faustus from his twenties to his old age, is in a deep funk. He is not satisfied with his performance and asks the real Faustus to work with him on it. He invites the real Faustus to lunch.
Brutus Terrain, the actor, sits and holds the menu with both hands. "No matter what you hear, this life is difficult. I'll tell you a little about me. Grew up in mines, an army brat, carried coal to light the fires in a thousand eyes, had three sets of parents, some loving, some distant, some alcoholic who beat me till I screamed and denied their problems and my own. I saw Kennedy die, a speck of his blood flew to the tip of my nose, I have not washed it off to this day. My father the astronaut, walked in space, my mother keeping the home fires burning thru all the wars. I played all the games and won, on the tough streets, the snot beneath my nose streaked with soot. When I was old enough to know it, I tried to kill myself. Died, was buried, rose again after my life of crime and drugs. I lived hard but that's far behind me. Saw my entire world flinch in its convulsions. Swept out the old with the storm in Vietnam and on the campuses. Did away with all my fears during those days; in the seventies I sold them at a garage sale with all my beads to the musicians of tomorrow.
"There were no sour notes. It was so hard, in front of all those people. I improvised, playing bass with the band of God Almighty and lived to sing a new song. Alot of me is already in heaven – hell, I brand a nuisance. I have a spirit in torment, a soul in chains. Then I saw the light and today I know how to make my money work for me, not me for it. I know what you must be saying, what you wish you were thinking. A nice guy, happy family, has everything he needs. His wildest dreams. How wrong you are. If I had the balls to torture the ocean's spray. If only I could aim my entire wealth of apprehension at the rising eyes of silence. Some days I know better. On others, I stand for the beret of everlasting. I think I know you better than you think. But first my character has to sink in your quicksand. Throw me a line, but wait 'til it's too late."
The actor, Brutus Terrain, does all the talking. Faustus sits and eats his dinner like someone who forgot how to turn off his television.
Outside, anvil clouds are hammered by big guns on army maneuvers. The soldiers work hard to bring on thunder but can't even manage to raise a cubic centimeter of genuine lasting pain. When they go to war they will push all the right buttons. They are sharpened by people far away so they can be used like a precision tool, a set of fine knives.
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