The Harlequinade: An Excursion Part 11

MAN OF THE WORLD. Then followed some years of experiment in the scientific manufacture and blending of drama. As I speak, no less than twenty-three factories dot the gra.s.sy meads of America. The work is done by clerks employed at moderate salaries for eight hours a day. For the cerebration of whatever new ideas may be needed, several French literary men are kept in chains in the backyard, being fed exclusively on absinthe and caviare sandwiches during their periods of creative activity. No less than forty different brands of drama are turned out, each with its description stamped clearly on the can. While a complete equipment for anyone can be travelled by the operator in his valise, still leaving room for toothbrush and slumber-suit.

CLOWN. Do the public like the stuff?

MAN OF THE WORLD. They've got to like it. They get none else.

CLOWN. Can't you give us another chance? I'll lay we could make good.

MAN OF THE WORLD. Sorry, sonny, but I don't see how you'd fit in. Watch this attraction I'm going to try over.

CLOWN. You still rehea.r.s.e, do you?

MAN OF THE WORLD. Once. Would you like to watch? Then you'll see.

CLOWN. What's it called?

MAN OF THE WORLD. It's called "Love: a Disease", and it's Number seventy-six of the High Brow Ibsen series. It ain't got nothing to do with Ibsen really, but his is still a name that sells. He was a German professor of mathematics and highly respected in his day. I'll have you see a bit of one act.

COLUMBINE. What's the plot?

MAN OF THE WORLD. No plot. It's a home life story, a conversation. A man is telling a woman that he is just bored stiff with everything on earth.

PANTALOON. Ah!

MAN OF THE WORLD. And she doesn't know what to say. That's the first act.

CLOWN. Gos.h.!.+

MAN OF THE WORLD. In the next he's asking her advice as to whether a really tired man ought to marry. And she doesn't know.

CLOWN. How long does that take?

MAN OF THE WORLD. Quite a while.

CLOWN. Which is the act we are going to see?

MAN OF THE WORLD. The third. It contains the action. About half-way through he moves across to her and says: "Don't cry, little girl, I can always shoot myself!" And then he finds out that she is stone deaf from birth, and hasn't really heard a word he said. So she goes forth into the world to learn the Oral system, while he awaits her return, when he will begin again. Are you ready? I'll ring up.

[Quite wonderfully the big cigar s.h.i.+fts to one corner of his mouth, almost in line with his ear, and he whistles shrilly. The curtain of the "six ads." flies away, and there's the automatic drama in full swing. Three canvas walls, liberally stencilled in the worst Munich style. And in this s.p.a.ce are two pink gramophones on two green pedestals. One is gilt-lettered "Arthur." The other silver-lettered "Grace." The trumpets incline to each other a little, for this is a love scene going on. On a white framed s.p.a.ce in the back wall, stage directions are written moviely. This one spells out "Arthur is still speaking. He crosses his legs and takes an asthma cigarette." Then the gilt-lettered phonograph croaks:--

ARTHUR. After all, what is love but a disease of the imagination? Don't cry, little girl, I can always shoot myself!

GRACE. [Who croaks an octave higher.] I'm not crying. Tell me more.

[Moviely the stage direction comes: "He leans forward."

ARTHUR. But why should there be one law for women and another for men? One law for childhood and another for old age? Why skirts, why trousers? Why those monotonies of sensation and experience? Why this unreality, this hypocrisy, this cowardice, this exaltation of the super-sham? Why...?

[Moviely at the back is written: "She leans forward, too."

MAN OF THE WORLD. Now the emotion thickens!

GRACE. Let us go back to the beginning.

PANTALOON. I can't hear none of this.

CLOWN. If you worked Pictures with it, it mightn't be so bad...for them as likes this sort of stuff.

MAN OF THE WORLD. We do work Pictures with the lighter and fruitier forms of drama. But here they would only obfuscate the cerebration. Wait till she cerebrates. And she cerebrates some!

GRACE. No child at her mother's knee was more innocent than I. How then did knowledge of good and evil come? I will tell you. I will tell you of the evil first ...

PANTALOON. Columbine, you go and wait outside.

GRACE. [With a louder croak.] Pa.s.sion...!

CLOWN. Stop!

MAN OF THE WORLD. Don't interrupt.

CLOWN. She ain't got no right to it with a voice like that.

GRACE. Laughter...!

CLOWN. Never laughed in her life! Never had a life to laugh in!

MAN OF THE WORLD. Young man, if this were a performance, you would be dealt with by our aesthetic policewoman. Vulgar comments made in public upon works of art are now an indictable offence.

CLOWN. Works of what?

GRACE. ...And the joy of life!

CLOWN. Stop, I say!

MAN OF THE WORLD. For the last time... don't interrupt.

CLOWN. I will interrupt. And I'll smash those durned machines, though the last Clown in the world is hung for it. For that's me ...that's me! Oh, has it come to this, after all we've done for the theatre! Haven't we loved it, Grandfer, haven't we? My red-hot poker's in p.a.w.n, and I've worn out the sausages. But let's have a try to make him laugh. Take the starch out of him! Take the banknote rustle out of him! Take the Theatre from him.

Save it and save him, too! Come on, old 'un. Kiss your hand, Columbine.

Harlequin, if you love me, if you love the drama, have one more try.

Magic...Magic! Turn these clicking clocks there back into wholesome human bad actors again, and turn the Deputy Inspector of the New York Circuit of the Hustle Bustle Trust of Automatic...

[Columbine trips across the stage. Pantaloon chuckles. Clown tumbles head over heels and sends the Man of the World flying. Harlequin leaps in the air and smites with his wand the two pink gramophones on two green stands. They vanis.h.!.+ Down through a trap goes the Man of the World. Red Fire! And Alice, as she tugs the curtains to, calls in her most stentorian tones...

ALICE. Grand transformation scene! I always draw the curtains rather quick because it never works quite right.

[She waits a little, and then, very simply, says

The G.o.ds go back...

[And stops and swallows. Poor dear, her throat is dry.