As mentioned in my previous blogs on this subject [Philippa blog
I, 16 September 2012, blog 2, 18 September, and blog 3, 25 September], I have been talking to
people for some years now about an opera
on Philippa Duke Schuyler, the Harlem-born concert pianist who died in
Vietnam rescuing schoolchildren in 1967. But now I've decided to work on
the piece in the
open, via my
blog, until such time as someone commissions it, or the libretto (or
opera) is finished. Below I've written a one-page synopsis to check if the story can fit into a digestible "two hours' traffic on the stage". Can it?
Philippa -
Synopsis
This is a story of the agony of confused identity,
transcended ultimately in a spirit of self-sacrifice. Prologue: May 18, 1967: the Requiem Mass at New York’s St.Patrick’s Cathedral
for Philippa Duke Schuyler; and words of praise from Sammy Davis Jr, Ella
Fitzgerald, President Johnson, and others. But this famous concert pianist,
daughter of African-American journalist George S. Schuyler and wealthy white
Texan Josephine Cogdell (Jody), died “too young” in a helicopter crash off Ðà
Nãng. JODY wants to know how Philippa can “rest in peace when her potential
lies unfulfilled” and rejects GEORGE’S attempts at consolation. Philippa’s
life, she believes, was wasted.
Act I: In September
1966, 35 year-old PHILIPPA arrives to give concerts in then-South Vietnam
at the invitation of US Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge. She is confronted by
signs of war but bridles at the protectiveness of the embassy. Her chaperone’s
“stifling rules” remind her of growing up with Jody who mapped out her every
move, planning for her to grow into America’s “bi-racial genius, a beacon of
hope to black and white worlds”. But Philippa is no longer comfortable in
either world. Life has been difficult since she ceased to be “the cute little girl,
classical music’s mulatto Shirley Temple”. She has had to perform further and
further off the main circuits and has desperately searched for other forms of
self-expression. In Vietnam she discovers that she can slip into an aí daò and pass for Vietnamese, moving
with perfect freedom through enemy territory, but this is merely “play-acting”;
something she has been doing most of her life. Returning to Saigon for
concerts, she wonders if she will ever find an answer to her life’s dilemmas.
Then, at a convent school, a PRIEST introduces her to the ‘orphans’, offspring
of American servicemen and Vietnamese women and SHE is entranced by children
who are “between cultures” as she is. SHE decides to devote more time to them,
but JODY has booked concerts back in the States.
Act II: In Harlem, New
York over the winter, JODY continues to plot out Philippa’s future – guaranteeing
“continuity” by finding her a Mr Right (“after all those Mr Wrongs”) and mapping
out a showcase career. But PHILIPPA is under no illusions; she will never play
the major venues again. And she is angry with George who has arranged concerts for
her with the John Birch Society. Having witnessed discrimination against black
servicemen doing the work of whites in Vietnam, she has grown weary of her
father’s “contrary opinions” on Civil Rights. All the old arguments arise: George
and his “we’ve got to not be
separate....It’s got to become unremarkable when we write a book or compose a
concerto”; Philippa and her “‘closed doors’ of the whites” and her “insulting” (George’s
word) desire to pass herself off as southern European... But this time
PHILIPPA’s bitterness rises to a higher-than-usual peak and things are said which
will be difficult to unsay.
As often happens in times of stress, JODY’s reminiscences
‘conjure’ the YOUNG PHILIPPA of the past, as she was in the 1940s, the little
star, proving the greatness that can result from a ‘mixed-race’ marriage. JODY
and GEORGE relive the excitement of the Harlem Renaissance when it seemed that
African-Americans would break into the American mainstream via the arts and
YOUNG PHILIPPA, the prodigy, plays the piano while JODY re-reads the scrapbooks
that plotted Philippa’s every step of progress. JODY remembers, however, the
way Philippa was struck dumb when presented with the books on her 13th
birthday. “Was I a mere project?” the older PHILIPPA asks, and the playing stops.
Almost in defiance of her mother, PHILIPPA meets and beds
‘Mr Right’. Given her sexual aggressiveness, HE is bemused when he discovers
her Catholicism (something not shared with her parents). She is offended – she has had to find answers to
life’s questions somewhere - but ALL THE OTHER MEN OF HER PAST (CHORUS) back up
MR RIGHT’S low opinion of her. One of them, an AFRICAN POLITICIAN, mourns the
son she aborted because he might prove to be “too obviously black”. PHILIPPA
determines to get out of New York.
Act III: Briefly, in Philippa’s absence, GEORGE
rekindles in JODY the tenderness which lay at the heart of their little family
experiment to prove ‘the American genius of hybridization’. They hoped that Philippa’s
birth would undo the hatred between American blacks and whites after hundreds
of years of “lynchings and slayings”. But JODY feels Philippa’s mission will
stall if she stays in Vietnam.
While PHILIPPA gets to know the children in a Hué
orphanage, a MILITARY LIAISON briefs the PRIEST on North Vietnamese Army
movements around the city. PHILIPPA determines that, as a journalist and
writer, she is in a unique position to promote the orphans’ case to the world and
wonders if she has found the answer to her own torments in burying herself in
their needs. But gunfire is already being heard in the streets.
9 May 1967 ...
the approach of the NVA; closer sounds of rifle fire: there is a desperate need
for evacuation. Only one helicopter remains. PHILIPPA has run off to find one
unaccounted-for orphan. Time presses. The PRIEST is getting anxious. The sounds
of gunfire get louder. PHILIPPA returns. SHE has left behind her music and
notebooks and the voices of the parents, critics and men-friends. Placing the
orphan in her lap, THE SOLDIERS strap her in; the rotors start… Then, as the
sound of the rotor blades die down, we hear her voice - singing of fulfilment.
(Epilogue)
The CHOIR back at St. Patrick’s bursts into song.
G.K. Williams, 8 Oct 2012
