StanTheManIslavski Does Thanksgiving (notes on carving your bird)>> I was invited, for the first time, to dine at the house of Paul’s uncle, the famous actor, Shustov. He asked what we were doing at school. Paul told him we had just reached the study of “units & objectives.” Of course he and his children are familiar with our technical expressions. “Children!” he said laughingly, as the maid set a large turkey in front of him, “Imagine that this is not a turkey but a five-act play, The Inspector General. Can you do away with it in a mouthful? No; you cannot make a single mouthful either of a whole turkey or a five-act play. Therefore you must carve it first, into large pieces, like this . . . “ (cutting off the legs, wings, and soft parts of the roast and laying them on an empty plate). “There you have the first big divisions. But you cannot swallow even such chunks. Therefore you must cut them into smaller pieces, like this . . “ and he disjointed the bird still further. “Now pass you plate,” said Mr. Shustov to the eldest child. “There’s a big piece for you. That’s the first scene.” To which the boy, as he passed his plate, quoted the opening lines of The Inspector General, in a somewhat unsteady bass voice: “Gentlemen, I have called you together to give you a highly unpleasant piece of news.” “Eugene,” said Mr. Shustov to his second son, ‘here is the scene with the Postmaster. And now, Igor and Theodore, here is the scene between Bobchinski and Dobchinski. You two girls can do the piece between the Mayor’s wife and daughter.” “Swallow it,” he ordered, and they threw themselves on their food, shoving enormous chunks into their mouths, and nearly choking themselves to death. Whereupon Mr. Shustov warned them to cut their pieces finer and finer still, if necessary. “What tough, dry meat,’ he exclaimed suddenly to his wife. “Give it taste,’ said one of the children, ‘by adding an ‘invention of the imagination’.” “Or,” said another, passing him the gravy, “with a sauce made of magic ifs. Allow the author to present his given circumstances.” “And here” added one of the daughters, giving him some horse radish, “is something from the regisseur.” “More spice, from the actor himself,” put in one of the boys, sprinkling pepper on the meat. “Some mustard, from a left wing artist?” said the youngest girl. Uncle Shustov cut up his meat in the sauce made of the children’s offering. “This is good,” he said. “Even this shoe leather almost seems to be meat. That’s what you must do with the bits of your part, soak them more and more in the sauce of ‘given circumstances.’ The drier the part the more sauce you need.”
Posted on: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 17:41:47 +0000
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