MISHA: But Marilyn is a serious and talented actress…
(Xenia laughs about that idea)
XENIA: You are a great and talented actor too! You’d better think about yourself… I can’t forget how well we lived in Connecticut, you had a group of actors there…
MISHA (with patience): The war began… The money stopped… We could only move to Los Angeles… Here only movie studios, no theaters… They invite me to play in movies, but it’s my Russian accent… here it’s good only for foreign men with beards… for spies… criminals.
XENIA: (angry) No! All was ruined with your infatuations… Nobody wanted to trust their money to a crazy Russian.
MISHA: That night you were crazy too… Remember, what did you cry to the students?
XENIA: Of course!…You get out! You… You all… You nosy! You gossipy understudies! (Pause) And you!… You!… Whore!…Get out! You dumb vamp! Get out! Crazy… Slut…Seductress!… Bait… Bitch… Prostitute!
MISHA: Why did you call my students such dirty words?
XENIA: I called “bitch and prostitute” your lover Margaret.
MISHA: You cried me: “Go ahead die!… Die!… Die you bastard!” Did you really want I would die?
XENIA: No… I only wanted the students go away from the room and you finish this scene. I know you didn’t have a heart attack…
MISHA: How did you guess?
XENIA: I knew your dirty tricks… After you finished playing… you put your head up and asked me: They… They are gone?
MISHA: But I played heart attack very well… All the dorm students actually believed that I could die…
XENIA (sadly): You didn’t die then, but you’re dying now…
MISHA: What do you say?
XENIA: You are dying as a theatre actor here in Hollywood. “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach”
MISHA (hands up): Stop! It is hard for me… Yes, now I can only promote… motivate my students here. But I was a great actor!
XENIA: Did you really come here to teach Hollywood actors, to make them better? To make movie bosses richer? Why are you here?
MISHA: I am here… helping people to grow spiritually…
XENIA: (laughs): You are calling Yul because… because in order to help Merilyn grow spiritually… Misha, I keep reminding you why you came to America… You had a dream to make a theater like Stanislavsky in Moscow… You are working very hard, creating a group of talented actors, and all in vain… Where is your King Lear, Don Quixote, Pickwick Papers?
MISHA: (seriously, slowly, sadly) I don’t know… I think about how it happened. I analyze…
XENIA: You came to conquer America with our art and in the end America conquered you…
