The Play's the Thing; Park Your Car in Harvard Yard; Part 1

Park Your Car in Harvard Yard by Israel Horovitz recorded live in performance by LA Theatre Works in the ballroom of the Guest Quarters Suite Hotel Santa Monica. Jacob Brackish, the toughest, meanest schoolteacher ever to set foot in Gloucester High School, is dying at home. His advertisement for a housekeeper to look after him during his final year is answered by a 40 year old mousy woman named Kathleen. And now Park Your Car in Harvard Yard by Israel Horovitz, starring Judith Ivey, Jason Robards and Christopher Plummer as the voice of Byron Weld. This is boring. Well, how are you, George? Most of Massachusetts on Cape. You think winters are rough?

Yes. Try coming around here by a transmitter, you know, roughly. I know so many air leaks on windows every time the wind blows the shit out straight parallel to the floor and the ceiling, which, by the way, stopped leaking finally because it's so cold in here, what it was, power into the holes actually froze up here. But you never hear me complain. Donations can be addressed to me. Burnwell WGL, who are from Gloucester, Massachusetts, oh one nine three oh, don't hold back because you think what you're sending is too small. I'll take an Antonio Vivaldi lived from sixty seventy eight to seventeen forty one here. Five gorgeous jaakonsaari. This one is his concerto in a matter of four to two

RCA Red SEAL recording history and offer Henry on the cello with Paul Robinson, conductor. Kathleen, I am very happy you're here and I'm very happy to be here. Mr. Bracket, I was very pleased that was a person like you who answered my advertisement. Yeah. You wouldn't believe how few people replied. Do you think nobody needed work around these parts? Oh, not that you wouldn't have landed a job if dozens had replied. I mean, you would have. No, it's not like I'll live forever. You know, you'll still be young when this is over.

Kathleen, I can promise you that I'm not complaining. No, no, no, you're not. Oh, God. I made a wicked big puddle on your carpet. Oh. Uh, could you please let me take your coat and boots, Kathleen? I'm really wicked sorry about your carpet. And, yeah, I imagine your stomach in knots to Kathleen. This isn't an everyday sort of occurrence. I'm not complaining, Mr. Barker. Oh, I know you're not. Well, I've resisted having a housekeeper, but this last spell I had was a pip, I saw Doc Chandler of Addison Gilbert. He was my student two thousand years ago, and he gives me six months to a year if I turn myself in to the hospital for total bed rest. But I prefer to live a lot in luxury.

Thank you. Right here in my own house. Oh, you got yourself a job and I got myself an employee. I'm not complaining. And really, I've worked with my husband passing on so sudden and leaving me with next to nothing. I mean, really, I'm happy to be here to be a housekeeper and all happy. Six months to a year is fine with me. Yes, I see you're probably tired, you should go on up. I hope the rooms aren't going to be too tiny for you. God, now, first time I ever had a room on my own, I always had a shower with my sisters kind of thing. Well, after I got married, of course, I shared with my husband this will be my first room, my first bed till.

You never had a bed on my own. I always had a shower bed before here. Oh, yes, I see what you mean, I think. Well, the think you dropped off yesterday up there already. I cleaned out four drawers for you. You need more storage space. I can find a room, I'm sure. God, look at that. You got about a million records. I personally never saw the need for accumulation. They'll be fine. The accumulation of my records will be fine. Your antecedent is unclear, Kathleen. Oh, gosh. Now not your records. I just meant my stuff. Forgeries will be more than enough for my stuff. Yeah, well, we'll both be more relaxed with each other in short order.

I know you're not complaining, Kathleen. It's just that the intimacy of a thing never occurred to me. These rooms, you say, have been mine alone. Well, yeah. This chair, my closest friend, my company, my company, my sole confidant. That's a hell of a thing when a man comes to depend on his chair not only to hold up his backside, but also to hold up the other side of the conversation. And I have come to love my chair. Yeah. Me in my chair, the two of us against the world. Mr. Barcus. It's the brackish.

Mr. Prakash Mm hmm. Oh, I was just afraid maybe the doctor, you know, underestimated. I can bring the most wicked, awful bad luck to people. I got to tell you, I have personally had all the deaths I can take for a while. Oh, I better go on up. This is Byrant World to us from Gloucester, Massachusetts. You're listening to Johann Sebastian Bach. Music that's been played continuously by music lovers ever since it was first opened in 1725. Classical music has held up more than 250 units. When this music station won't hold up another 25 days

if you don't send in some hard, cold cash. Is the final warning. Kathleen, hello. I'm in the pantry, Mr.. The practice still. I got about a half dozen more shirts to go, but only cold out there. Yeah, it's freezing. I don't want you to freeze to death on your first day. Finish up in here. That'll be all right. It'll be all right. Freezing to death on your first day of finishing up in here to iron in with you. It'll be fine. All right. I'll get my stuff. And sorry about banging into everything, that's a strange animal can kill a woman. And no problem, I'll get the iron

a plug in here. Oh, God, it's still hot. No problem. And these are the ones to do these are the done ones, they'll be much better over here by the great, where it's warm, still slightly damp. This and the heat coming out of the great here will dry them. Nice. Are you ready for another cup of tea? No, no more tea. Kathleen, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I don't want to drown in my own living room either. Oh. Oh. All right, Jack. Why? Why? I heard it go down. Yeah. I can't hear you. I'm deaf as a haddock without this.

Yeah, that's a minute. I changed my battery, went dead on you. Wicked awful thing. You know, to have to depend on the lights of the Radio Shack to make the between here and not here at the bar. Oh that. Fix it. But concerto no to any major concerto, no three dimensional. God damn it, Byron, that was number two and he made under the name of Tony Major. Take my word for calculating the man knows nothing. Go. Something wrong? I am a little leachate, no problem. Well, you're not overdoing it, are you? I mean, there's no need to iron all my shirts the first day. I don't have any active plan for dressing up.

I don't mind, really. I like ironing. OK, then. Yeah, oh, look at this poor guy Watson died, huh, scares me to open the paper these days because at my age I'm running out of possibilities. Oh, look at that crispy. Franklin's son died. It's so old now. I'm not only I live my friends, I live the children. Oh, no. Yeah. Well, you've you've seen some tragedy yourself, then. I don't mean to pry, but you did mention your husband's death. Oh, well, no point complaining, is there? Well, I don't know. I complain all the time. I mean, nothing's bringing him back, right? I mean, what's your dad? Your dad, I suppose the worms crawl

in. The worms crawl out. I mean, my dad used to say that. He also used to say that all the complaining in the world was it were to bits. Barbara Boxer clamps down movements. Would you grow up local on the North Shore? I mean, I thought you were living down the line and Wubin. Didn't you say you grew up in Wyoming? Oh, no. I was just staying at my husband's cousin's. She's married to Wubin. Boy, Magrath. Oh, gosh darn it. What now? Leaked on the charts again. It's been doing that on me all morning. And yeah, don't worry, you spoil a couple. I've got a lifetime of white shirts. Yeah. Like the marble head regatta in here. Now look here, you can't feel that iron all the way. You know, if you drain off some of the water, you'll be fine. I think I bought that. I know President Taft and.

Oh, God, yeah, that's. Well, aren't you going to drain it off at no point and drain it off with just a couple of shirts to go? It'll only leak. It's going better. So yourself. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. You know, this first day, probably the most difficult will ever had together. I mean. Oh, well, I guess. Yeah. You mentioned you had sisters. Oh yeah. To plus me for three Irish triplets. All three of us sisters born in less than four years. They both went to Catholic school.

I'm the only one got to go to public school. I'm the baby. We're all angels. I beg your pardon me. And my sisters, we're all angels. Maureen, Doreen and Kathleen, I guess they didn't have a lot of time for thinking up imaginative names and nothing. You know, it was quite difficult for me to follow the complexity of your sentences, cut the twisting and the turning, so to speak. We are all each day. You didn't have a lot of time for thinking up names. The antecedents to many of your pronouns are not precisely clear, not as clear as they should be. I guess I should finish up. Oh, God dammit. What happened? Oh Lord. I'm sorry to be swearing in the house. Well, what happened? The I leaks brown rusty water. It's all over the shirt and the floor.

I can bleach this out. Oh God. You're going to laugh it up. Dirty rusty water. I'll get to it later. There's no point mopping it up and having it leak again. I mean, mopping it up. Having that leak mopping up. Over and over, I'll get to it later. Hmm. Your decision I don't speak well, do I miss the backlash from a point of view of being understood quickly or or, you know, being a natural conversationalist kind of thing. And from a language point of view, I mean, my husband cooks your daughter. He never had much of a mind for long sentences. Just just a quick little ideas, you know.

Hi, how's it going? Kind of thing. I'm hot, I'm cold, I'm tired. Those kind of low, quick ideas, and I mean, the only thing he said to let me know the heart attack was coming on was the heart. But that was it, certainly not much wanting their. He was dead inside a minute. Yeah, could have been worse, I guess, I guess. I'm sure he hated music. Oh no. I actually taught music, music appreciation and English literature courses. Did you taught my husband. I didn't know your husband was local. His name was Otto Otto Haugen, possibly.

There were so many possibly. Definitely Otto Hagen. Oh, we call them princi. Well, I'm afraid I don't remember your princi, Kathleen. I hope this doesn't hurt your feelings, honey. Now, Mr. Backus, really, it don't matter. Strictly speaking, I suppose it really doesn't. I don't have any kind of wicked serious regrets, if you get my message. I certainly do. It was good to me, I'm sure of it. We had our fun, no doubt about that. He wore a bright orange shirt every day, day and night. I don't even think they required it. I really don't get your message this time syntactical who required the orange Bob's

Clam Shack, but a princi cook's short order forum? Oh, well, why should I want to remember this princi person, your husband. I mean that, right? I mean, was there anything unusual about him? He saved your life. In what sense, Kathleen? It was years back when you used to work Summers given lectures on the tourist boat in the harbor. The Dixie Belle Princi was having a cigaret out back of Bob's and he saw you flip over and he swam out. My God, you were trapped under the boat with three tourists. Labor Day weekend. Yes, Labor Day weekend. I was in a stupor from our endless questions about cheap lobster and early Americana. Yes, a former student who swam out saved us and thanked the Lord. He did this to me with tourists. I remember he wore an old uniform orange.

That's what I've been telling us. Oh, he wasn't one of the good ones students. Yeah, I remember that. He was one of the good students. You plonk them in English and gave him a D plus a music appreciation. Really? Well, I suppose I had to. It wasn't like he was dumb, retarded and nothing. Well, some of them were Cassilly some of them actually were dumb retarded. My memory system, instead of a kind of magical defense against remembering the failures, they fail. I forget if to air is human, then to forget is divine. Giving is forgetting. Jennifer Sylvian. Don't just we know a moment ago some oh oh oh you dropped them in the muddy water.

Oh Kathleen I told you six times the mop it up. Oh Kathleen what a shame. What a waste of effort. Oh dear. Oh dear. And the. Graham noticed the contrapuntal shading, the composer of great sobriety. Don't you agree with me? Yeah, it's marvelous. What the hell is that smell? Bleach. Water. I could do it outside in the snow. I guess I won't. I forgot about this now. This smells like more than just bleach. Oh, shoot the pots. But. Oh, OK. No problem.

OK, yeah. Perfect. Well it was an old part. Not to worry. No pots ok. It was only bleach. Water in the pot. In the pot that boiled away. Yeah. Bleach was boiling away all that time. Evaporating into the air we breathe I suppose. Yeah. That's chlorine. It's Clorox. When chlorine evaporates into the air, it is deadly. Kathleen, deadly, I'll crack the window. The German nation was censured by the entire world for using chlorine gas in World War One. I'll pack up in the back until I smell all gone in here. Really? I have this shining like a baby behind and in no time at all. The good is no.

Why don't you take a break now, Kathleen? You don't have to work day and night. It isn't as if we're going up back against any kind of a deadline here. You know, sit down, Kathleen. We take a break, huh? Uh. You hear this speech, Kathleen, but the shock, hmm, the same few notes are repeated in different variations. Twenty nine of them in all variation. Now, the untrained ear would never hear the repetition, but I do. I hear them all and they scare me silly. Over and over, nothing changes, sometimes faster, sometimes slower, sometimes broken up into bits and pieces that accumulate in the memory. And one day shocks you with the realization. I've heard all this before.

It honestly does scare me, silly. That's what scares me to the repetition of waking up. I feel like I've done all this cry over and over again and the seagull screaming and you're getting, you know, variations of 29 variations in all. Huh? The Shukan, Kathleen. This Bach piece, don't you ever pay to me? Yeah. Janet. Well, damn, damn, damn it, could you come down here?

Hello? Hello. Mommy, would you call me Mr. Baggage, Mr. Blackguards? Buy some new batteries. Now it's freezing out there. Yeah, sure, why not delay a fire on that little Radio Shack? Better yet, still try to value. Yeah. Yeah. True value. Better by two. Fine. I'll buy you right away. Bundle up now, young lady. I wouldn't want you catching your death on my conscience. This is Burnwell, where you go from Gloucester, Massachusetts.

I'm keeping you in your warm house when you come back on against this Memorial Day, cold snap, no doubt toasty while I'm sitting here, a metal stool by the transmitter half froze to death for heat. You know, sending your contribution. This station's closing time. No ifs, ands or buts. The next selection is on an EMI Classics recording symphony. No funny in my crucial five five zero. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Hey, I don't stay friends. Help me. I'm just out filling the bowl in hot water. A Memorial Day cold snap.

Just God's way of telling us that the tourists are coming and that makes everybody sick. That's no doubt. But the good Lord invented chicken, so there'd be a cure there. I observed my half. Oh, God, are you OK? You have to excuse me. Kathleen Hall. Shit. Is your hand better? Yeah, I feel fine now, so far gone a little harsh, you can't make it better. My father used to say that, yeah. Oh dear father, you say a lot more than that. You get this whole house to talk. Oh, what a scene. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Now, this is my mother's secret potion. Chicken soup. Many chicken died so that you might live. Kathleen, I suggest that you drink this slowly. Reverentially, yes. It tastes like what it is. Oh, dead chickens, yeah, dead chickens. Yeah, you know, this was my room, huh? This house was built by a stevedore. A lumper. It's a poor house, really. I imagine the original owner spent his life working on the docks. My father was a lampa, huh? Nothing that. This house built by a lumpers tiny really. But maybe in an only child and all. Oh, was spacious. A perfection. Imagine living an entire life in one house. Hmm.

My father bought this house when he was 22 years old. He was born over in Pontecorvo. Got over 100 years ago. He was a Yankee Jew, quite a rare breed, spent his last cent educating me, wanted the best for me. I always figured I'd move from here one day when I married and had children, but. I didn't. None of those things. Well, forgive me if you've told me this before, Kathleen, but that you and your husband have children as though we never did. It's understandable. It's already such a crowded planet. I guess all my friends were having them used to trouble me at first, worried why we were, you know, being passed over. Well, I myself never wanted any. Yeah, well, you were married. Were you still in all the choices of basic human right? Yeah, well, it's different for Catholics. Yeah. I suppose Princi was never bothered.

He said he was glad to never bring any kid of his into this mess. Oh, my sentiments precisely here, sitting with his body down to pikes, I couldn't help but wonder if it might have been different if we'd had kids. Only natural to wonder he was laid out for extra days or the cow. The ground froze up solid. They couldn't get a bite with a bulldozer to get his grave dug. I had a lot of time alone with him to think I must have been grim. Was it so bad? It was kind of like having to sleep in front of the TV. Only there was no TV. This call does get me mentally depressed, and I I regret, Kathleen, that we have this odd coincidence between us that your late husband

was my student and that he failed. It wasn't like he was never doubted. He was wicked and happy when he found out he flunked English. He was supposed to repeat in order to graduate, but he didn't. He dropped out since he didn't finish high school and college was out of the question. Yeah. And you college bado, what held you back? I have to say, more than anything, it was the grades, the grades and what sense. Kathleen, antecedence, again, the grades you gave me music and English. They really did he charts I for a scholarship. You were my student, both subjects. Yeah, but my my God.

Kathleen, why didn't you mention this before the point? Well, there was a point. I had no idea what my. It is so perverse, Kathleen, really, you should have mentioned this to me specifically during an interview. You let me ramble on and on, and you never once mentioned this to me. My God, I guess my feelings get hurt because you forgot the kind of thing. Kathleen, really, do you have any idea how many students pass through my life and 50 years of teaching to completely different subject? Lots, I guess. Lots, you guess. Tens of thousands, Kathleen. Tens of thousands. Did you fail? Fail me, oh, I wouldn't so much say I failed, as I would say I was failed object versus subject kind of thing. You gave me a C in English for the D plus a music appreciation, which, of course will by your average, down too low for a scholarship.

Anyway, I didn't even bother to apply it finally. Oh, Kathleen, I am sorry. It doesn't bother me. Mr. Beck is really no sweat. Oh, no, really. I am sorry. You see, I. I don't really remember. That's the worst. I don't really remember. I'm sure I had my reasons. I was fair. I was demanding answers. But I was fair. I said it'd bother me, ok. Oh there was so many. Yeah there were in my family alone there was a number you might even say the Stotish had no mother, father, husband that I taught that you failed. It's a good take, Maurita Doree, with the sister school, you probably would enable them to. You were the toughest teacher in Gloucester, Mr. Brackish, practically no one got away

from you. I was strict. It's true. Listen, it's really no bother me at all, really. I hardly think about it. And I do understand there were tested and kids either flunk or they don't. It it just happens that most of the people in Gloucester that I was connected to did flunk. And that's just the way it happened. The past is the past. Right. Nothing's gonna change it. What was your maiden name, Kathleen A. Was it? My father was Javiera and my brother was Fritzie, when I'm in the yearbook with the Greek cover from the second shelf down, if you ever want to check it out. Mr. Baracas. The brackets, you lied to me.

What are you doing in my house? Lie to me about who you are. I will not have this terrible upset in my house. I never have I never will not hear this out. Oh. LaVoy. I feel cold, I'm going to my room. I want to be alone now, I should like to regain the sanctity of my home. I'm going to my room. I'm bringing that beauty.

Hello. Hello, urinate in or out? Hello. Hello. And I was wondering if you'd taken a walk for gotten me my aspirin. I didn't forget nothing. Well, I'm keeping my hearing aid out of my headache fresh take aspirin. Well, yeah, that is called me. Wouldn't I love to hear you saying something? May now. Uh. Sometimes. I am just amazed to think that I am standing here and you were just there within striking distance and all.

Like a legend to me, really, my father could see me now. Wouldn't he have been the jealous one, huh? I mean, he used to dream of being this close to you and having a rock in his hand. Of course, he was interested in marine biology. My father, he loved the sea in the boats and all. He always loved to point out the different kinds of weeds and name the fish and all especially down the marshes. And you think you were listening to some kind of a Harvard professor, some such. Really pisses me off to think that he spent his life working the docks, lumpiness, he did it, kill them young, carrying crates and went to all that, had stupid labor, stupid, stupid, useless. Used to get tanked up, get down to Sham's, he'd come home and he beat my mother. I know he would have loved to have beaten you brackish, but the closest he could ever come was to beat my mother, three of us girls cowering in the corner like my sketch. It's a wicked bad nobody having a life worth living. Every time I heard your name out loud, it was in connection with somebody like my father

getting their hearts broken, get blunt, get creamed, nobody was ever good enough, smart enough with send it on into the world. You was the hated person, the ones I had the positive, the John Connors and Annie Bell, the naturally smart student types, and most of us scared little bastards as Paul Lumpers kids. We didn't stand a chance, did we? Not a chance. I'm going to keep you alive until you apologize to us or me, mother, father, husband. And after you do. Then you can kick off. And I can kick off the. Because there won't be any reason for us to pathetic bastards not to. I'm going back downstairs, but I'm going back downstairs. But. After they did it all

over the house, my God damn thing, I just went completely dead, crackling with static when I put it in and I said, No, no, no, I'm taking this machine out of my ear once and for all. Yeah, they had much better. Much better. Was a sweet Jesus. I'll go downtown and get you some new batteries as soon as I finish making my soap, as soon as I finish my soap. As soon as I finish that show, the show, let me finish the show, but, oh, Janet,

you finish your show first and then head out downtown for the battery. No problem. No, wait a couple extra minutes. I'm a hard man to please all I can say, saying you're a hard man to please is kind of like saying the rattlesnakes are hard animal to hug. I beg your pardon, young lady. I didn't say nothin. I didn't say not that this broadcast. Gotcha, huh? Well, that's it. Add some fire and water and by magic in three hours we shall have seagull shit. I love it when you're stoned that day.

Now, use Kathleen Koch, yet Ratchet and my grandfather's leather boot up your ass is. OK, what's that you're cooking, huh? Oh, it smells good, you know, looks good, Joe. Oh, I didn't say, though. Oh, that taste even better. Yeah, well, that's probably the hot roasted goat, yet we're talking hot roasted goat yet on a bed of clamshells seasoned with seagull dung that I just mentioned and topped off Mr. Stone deaf and dumb brakhage with hounds, pubic hair that is legendary. You have to live with your own cat. Your spirits have lifted, haven't they?

Oh, you are a foolish looking to do this on my own heart. Good. I live for these moments is the last. I truly do it. Now that you're in such a jolly mood, could I take up your offer to fire on down and buy me some no matter how far down I ride and away from you is worth more to me than a whole fucking day at the beach. Yes or no? Yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, that's good. I'll be waiting right here. Yeah, right. Miss the backlash your way through. I listen to some real music. Hey, hey, ladies. I actually don't know anything about. Uh.

Oh. Dana likes to lie. Yes, go by. To water park your car in Harvard Yard call LA Theater works at three one zero

eight 2007, 08, 08. That's three one zero eight 2007, 08, 08. We now return to L.A. Theater Works, production of Park Your Car in Harvard Yard by Israel Horovitz, starring Jason Robards and Judith Ivy. It's just gorgeous out there in that perfect football weather, could you ask for a better autumn weekend? But of course, I'm locked up here, no transmitter, I'm cooped up here like a man in prisons, I can play for you work of composers who are all deeply gifted. And this station better be to have quick because without your gifts, we're going to fall faster than you can say, Wolfgang Amadeus

Mozart. There isn't a tourist left on the entire beach. It's a marvelous, marvelous, marvelous thing. The way the seasons change restores faith in the deity much. The snow melts April, the cellar floods June, July and August. The cars all sport New York and New Jersey plates. And they went from side to side, taking in all the sights, threatening life and limb. And then, by God, the Labor Day comes and the tourists all pack up their dreadful, greasy hotdog colored bodies and a God awful charcoal sketches of motif number one. And they vanish like green heads and mosquitoes. Mystically, magically, they are simply. Got. And it is a marvelous,

marvelous thing. Who's your friend, huh? Oh, Cat's name is the Samuel Hawthorne. Hello, Nathaniel. The girl's name is Kathleen Hogan had. Say, did I get a phone call when I was out this phone ring? Well, I thought maybe nobody else called Nathaniel's neighbor's cat. I bumped into A.I.M. I like a good have a beach near wannabee, and I used to pitch our horseshoes, so I thought maybe Navvy was back home saying the cat. No, we took a walk up to his house, a Brian that was still boarded up. Yeah, kind of a worrisome sign that he'll be calling me the more bad news. I have heard it by now. Nothing spreads faster than bad news and cheap oleomargarine. Are we going to boil Nathaniel down to or are we just going to eat him in the rough?

Oh, yeah. Kathleen, I think Nathaniel Alford, you read that Daniel. Kathleen was just joking. She would never boil a wonderful cat like, you know, this girl just has a warped sense of humor, that's all. Oh. Park your car in Harvard Yard continues on side to.