ACT ONE

SCENE 1

(The stage is round. All is words, bodies and light. TONY is sitting on the edge of the stage, close to the public.)

TONY: Now, I am getting into the heart of my subject. The heart and the flesh. Don't let me get off it. Don't let me move out on a tangent. Don't let me wander off. Hold me down. Keep me on track. I was talking about boats.

About wanting a boat.

A boat.

It's like wanting a woman.

I mean, a woman.

These people there (pointing into the audience), are my parents. They want me to have a boat. They have always wanted me to have what I want as well as what they want. My dad's a doctor. On Long Island. I had a catboat when I was nine. In the Bay. I had other boats. Boats were always what I wanted, I mean, one thing I really wanted very much, always, were boats. As a kid.

I've sailed on rented boats, in the Sound. In the Caribbean. In the Aegean Sea. I'm a good sailor. I'm getting my own boat now. Second hand, but custom made. From a stockbroker. I'm a businessman. I import things from Italy, shoes, etc., like my grandfather did, but I'm doing better at it. I've done very well, and it's time, it's high time in my life that I get my own, big boat.

My parents are happy with that. Ishtar is happy with that. I should say, Ishtar isn't against, why should she be, she likes sailing, she's not crazy- mad about it, but we have the money, she would want a boat just to make me happy, she has done a few things in her life for no other reason but to make me happy. Because, I believe, Ishtar loves me, so even if a boat isn't exactly what she wants most in life, she'll go along with the boat.

Ishtar wants a baby.

When the time has come when you can have your own boat, here in New York harbor, when this time has come, it's no use postponing any longer, I mean, decently, you can't, it's time to have the baby. We've been married eight years. My parents also want the baby. And, honestly, I want the baby. Why on earth wouldn't I want our baby? She wants it, Ishtar wants it, she has not been tanning my hide over the years with this matter, she is a thoughtful, lovely woman, she has waited until I was ready to have the boat, I suppose she's been ready for a while already, although she hasn't made a big fuss about it, she trusted me to bring up the matter some day, oh, it's not that it was taboo, that we never mentioned it, we mentioned it, it seems to me, all the time, like when she said: why on earth did X and Y make a baby if they couldn't get along in the first place, you don't make a kid to patch things up - that one we pondered a lot, she said:

(there, ISHTAR enters, discreetly, barefoot, and sits at first in the background)