Emily’s First Visit to Marsha’s Summer House

The following is an excerpt from Linda Rosenkrantz’s Talk, a novel made out of recorded conversation from three friends in the summer of 1965.

Emily: I’m putting a little gorgonzola into the salad dressing to brighten it up. Is there any sour cream or anything like that?

Marsha: Nothing of that nature.

Emily: The salad has to marinate.

Marsha: It’s marinating in water at this moment.

Emily: Could you limp it out of the water, helper that you are? Marinating in water, pretty funny.That’s one of your real cul-de-sac remarks. Hey, I haven’t told you about the big breakthrough I had last week. I had a very big breakthrough.

Marsha: What was the breakthrough?

Emily: I did a scene in class, that’s what it was really all about. I had to do a monologue and I picked the end of La Notte, where she reads the letter. And it was fantastic, it was the best work I’ve ever done for myself. I was able to beat a problem that I’ve never been able to beat before. I won’t go into the whole complicated nature of it, but it had to do with like when you’re all alone and you have certain kinds of private thoughts, maybe you read a love letter and you cry, in a way you could never cry if anyone was with you. Well I was able to do that on the stage, with all those people watching me, absolutely purely, with no concern for the audience. It was an incredible thing—I think very few actors ever do it. You see, as I read the letter, I personalized it as if it was from Philippe, I recreated our little apartment in Paris. The scene starts and as I read this letter, the tears begin to fall down my face, it was the most intimate private thing. Acting-wise it was a very big break- through and everybody loved it. They had tears in their eyes too. I was marvelous, not marvelous the way I might be at a party, but pure, private and pure, simple and moving. And what I did was right scene-wise, it was right for the interpretation of the character and everything else. So anyway, the next night I went to a party where Michael Christy was, and I was completely calm. And then I realized what it was all about. It wasn’t that I had suddenly gotten healthier, it was that in the acting I was able to put my feelings where they belonged. Those feelings, those hysterical feelings for Michael Christy, they’re not really frantic, hysterical feelings. They’re damaged, abused...