One-Act Plays Part 66

ALBERT [_going_]. Toffy, Toffy. [_Exit._]

VOICE. Meestaire Jacob Smith, Able Seaman.

Sn.i.g.g.e.rS. I can't go, Toffy. I can't go. I can't do it. [_He goes._]

VOICE. Meestaire Arnold Everett Scott-Fortescue, late Esquire, Able Seaman.

THE TOFF. I did not foresee it. [_Exit._]

[THE CURTAIN.]

THE TWILIGHT SAINT[48]

By STARK YOUNG

[Footnote 48: Copyright, 1921, by Stark Young. Acting rights, amateur and professional, must be secured from the author, care of the New York Drama League, 7 East 42 Street, New York.]

Stark Young, dramatist and critic, the author of _The Twilight Saint_, was born in Como, Mississippi, on October 11, 1881. He was graduated from the university of his native state and a year later took his master's degree at Columbia University. From 1907 to 1915 he taught at the University of Texas, and from 1915 to 1921 he was professor of English at Amherst College. His travels have taken him to Greece, and to Spain, and to Italy where he has lingered, making a special study of the native drama.

The text of _The Twilight Saint_ has undergone revision by the author since its first appearance. It was acted in 1918 with _Madretta_, another of the author's plays, at the dramatic school of the Carnegie Inst.i.tute of Technology in Pittsburgh, under the direction of Thomas Wood Stevens. The author writes: "The only instruction I should like to propose is that the actor of St. Francis keep him very simple, not get him moralizing and long-faced. In Egan's book on St. Francis[49]

there is a picture of the preaching to the birds in which Boutet de Monvel shows a Tuscan type that is my idea of the man simplified." The play itself suggests charming by-ways of literature that lead in one direction perhaps to Hewlett's _Earthwork Out of Tuscany_ and Josephine Preston Peabody's _The Wolf of Gubbio_, and in another possibly to the Saint's own _Little Flowers_, and _Canticle to the Sun_.

[Footnote 49: Maurice F. Egan, _Everybody's St. Francis_, with pictures by M. Boutet de Monvel, New York, 1912.]

THE TWILIGHT SAINT

CHARACTERS

GUIDO, _the husband, a young poet._ LISETTA, _his wife._ PIA, _a neighbor woman._ ST. FRANCIS OF a.s.sISI.

_In the year 1215 A.D._

_A room in GUIDO's house, on a hillside near Bevagna. It is a poor apartment, clumsily kept. On your left near the front is a bed; on the floor by the bed lie scattered pages of ma.n.u.script. A table littered with ma.n.u.scripts and crockery stands against the back wall of the room to the right. On the right hand wall is a big fireplace with copper vessels and bra.s.s. A bench sits by the fireplace and several stools about the room. On the stone flags two sheepskins are spread._

_Through the open door in the middle of the back wall rises the slope of a hill, green with spring and starred with flowers. A stream is visible through the gra.s.s and the drowsy sound of the water fills the air. The late yellow sunlight falls through a window over the bed like gilding and floods the hill without._

_LISETTA lies on the bed, still, her eyes closed. PIA sits on the ingle bench, halfway in the great fireplace, sh.e.l.ling peas. She is a little peasant woman with a kerchief on her head and a wrinkled face as brown as a nut._

_GUIDO sits at the table, his face to the wall, his chin on his palm._

PIA.

Guido, Guido, thou hast not spoke this hour, Nor read one word nor written aught. Dear Lord, The lion on the palace at a.s.sisi Sits not more still in stone! Guido, look thou!

GUIDO [_turning round without looking at her_].

Yes, old Pia, good neighbor.

PIA.

Yes, old Pia! Guido, grieve not so much, Lisetta will be well before the spring Comes round again.

GUIDO.

Yes, Lisetta will be well perhaps. G.o.d grant!

PIA.

Well, what then?

GUIDO.

'Tis not only of her I think, Pia, here am I Shut in this house from month to month a nurse; Here lies she sick, this child, and may not stir; And I, lacking due means to hire, must serve The house; while my best self, my soul, my art, Rust. My soul is scorched with holy thirst, My temples throb, my veins run fire; but yet, For all my dim distress and vague desire, No word, no single song, no verse, has come-- O Blessed G.o.d!--stifled with creature needs, And with necessity about my throat!

PIA.

Thy corner is too hot, the glaring sun Is yet on the wall.

GUIDO.

'Tis not that sun that maddens me, O Pia!

Can you not see me shrunk? Have you not heard That other Guido of Perugia How he is grown? How lately at the feast That Ugolino, the great cardinal, Spread at a.s.sisi Easter night, Guido Read certain of his verses and declaimed Pages of cursed sonnets to the guests.

PIA.

Young Guido of Perugia, thy friend?

GUIDO.

Yea. And when he ended, came the Duke Down from the dais to kiss that Guido's hand Humbly, and said that poesy was king.

PIA.

Madonna, kissed by the Duke!

GUIDO.

And I, O G.o.d, I might have honor too Could I but break this prison where I drudge!