The Real Inspector Hound and Other Plays
Page 15
Your Committee found no evidence or even suggestion of laws broken or harm done, and thereby concludes that its business is hereby completed.
WITHENSHAW: Is that it?
FRENCH: It’s the best I can do.
WITHENSHAW: How am I going to spin that out until Queen’s Jubilee?
FRENCH: You can’t. This is the last meeting of this Committee, unless you want to do it your way.
WITHENSHAW: No—no——
(MADDIE throws her report and all her appendices in the waste-paper basket.)
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE: You’ll have to get your peerage another way.
WITHENSHAW: The P.M. will kick my arse from here to Blackpool.
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE: Services to sport.
MCTEAZLE: I would like to applaud Mr. French’s understanding
attitude and his stroke of diplomacy.
CHAMBERLAIN: Hear, hear.
MRS. EBURY: I move that Mr. French’s report is put to the
Committee.
COCKLEBURY-SMYTHE: Second.
WITHENSHAW: Have you got that, Miss Gotobed?
MADDIE: Yes, Malcolm.
WITHENSHAW: All in favour.
ALL: Aye.
WITHENSHAW: Against.
(Silence.)
FRENCH: Arsenal 5—Newcastle nil.
WITHENSHAW: Thank you, Mr. French.
FRENCH: Not at all, Mr. Chairman. (He takes out his breast-pocket handkerchief, which is now the pair of knickers put on by MADDIE at the beginning, and wipes his brow.) Toujours l’amour.
(Big Ben chimes the quarter hour.)
MADDIE: Finita La Commedia.
DOGG’S HAMLET
INTRODUCTION
The comma that divides Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth also serves to unite two plays which have common elements: the first is hardly a play at all without the second, which cannot be performed without the first.
Dogg’s Hamlet is a conflation of two pieces written for Ed Berman and Inter-Action; namely Dogg’s Our Pet, which opened the Almost Free Theatre in Soho in December 1971, and The Dogg’s Troupe 15-Minute Hamlet, which was written (or rather edited) for performance on a double-decker bus.
Dogg’s Hamlet derives from a section of Wittgenstein’s philosophical investigations. Consider the following scene. A man is building a platform using pieces of wood of different shapes and sizes. These are thrown to him by a second man, one at a time, as they are called for. An observer notes that each time the first man shouts ‘Plank!’ he is thrown a long flat piece. Then he calls ‘Slab!’ and is thrown a piece of a different shape. This happens a few times. There is a call for ‘Block!’ and a third shape is thrown. Finally a call for ‘Cube!’ produces a fourth type of piece. An observer would probably conclude that the different words described different shapes and sizes of the material. But this is not the only possible interpretation. Suppose, for example, the thrower knows in advance which pieces the builder needs, and in what order. In such a case there would be no need for the builder to name the pieces he requires but only to indicate when he is ready for the next one. So the calls might translate thus:
Plank = Ready
Slab = Okay
Block = Next
Cube = Thank you
In such a case, the observer would have made a false assumption, but the fact that he on the one hand and the builders on the other are using two different languages need not be apparent to either party. Moreover, it would also be possible that the two builders do not share a language either; and if life for them consisted only of building platforms in this manner there would be no reason for them to discover that each was using a language unknown to the other. This happy state of affairs would of course continue only as long as, through sheer co-incidence, each man’s utterance made sense (even if not the same sense) to the other.
The appeal to me consisted in the possibility of writing a play which had to teach the audience the language the play was written in. The present text is a modest attempt to do this: I think one might have gone much further.
Cahoot’s Macbeth is dedicated to the Czechoslovakian playwright Pavel Kohout. During the last decade of ‘normalization’ which followed the fall of Dubcek, thousands of Czechoslovaks have been prevented from pursuing their careers. Among them are many writers and actors.
During a short visit to Prague in 1977 I met Kohout and Pavel Landovsky, a well-known actor who had been banned from working for years since falling foul of the authorities. (It was Landovsky who was driving the car on the fateful day in January 1977 when the police stopped him and his friends and seized the first known copies of the document that became known as Charter 77.) One evening Landovsky took me backstage at one of the theatres where he had done some of his best work. A performance was going on at the time and his sense of fierce frustration is difficult to describe.
A year later Kohout wrote to me: ‘As you know, many Czech theatre-people are not allowed to work in the theatre during the last years. As one of them who cannot live without theatre I was searching for a possibility to do theatre in spite of circumstances. Now I am glad to tell you that in a few days, after eight weeks rehearsals—a Living-Room Theatre is opening, with nothing smaller but Macbeth.
‘What is LRT? A call-group. Everybody, who wants to have Macbeth at home with two great and forbidden Czech actors, Pavel Landovsky and Vlasta Chramostova, can invite his friends and call us. Five people will come with one suitcase.
‘Pavel Landovsky and Vlasta Chramostova are starring Macbeth and Lady, a well known and forbidden young singer Vlastimil Tresnak is singing Malcolm and making music, one young girl, who couldn’t study the theatre-school, Tereza Kohoutova, by chance my daughter, is playing little parts and reading remarks; and the last man, that’s me … ! is reading and a little bit playing the rest of the roles, on behalf of his great colleague.
‘I think, he wouldn’t be worried about it, it functions and promises to be not only a solution of our situation but also an interesting theatre event. I adapted the play, of course, but I am sure it is nevertheless Macbeth!’
The letter was written in June, and in August there was a postscript: ‘Macbeth is now performed in Prague flats.’
Cahoot’s Macbeth was inspired by these events. However, Cahoot is not Kohout, and this necessarily over-truncated Macbeth is not supposed to be a fair representation of Kohout’s elegant seventy-five minute version.
TOM STOPPARD
August 1980
Dog’s Hamlet is
dedicated to
Professor Dogg
and The Dogg’s Troupe
of Inter-Action
CHARACTERS
BAKER
ABEL
CHARLIE
EASY
DOGG
LADY
FOX MAJOR
MRS DOGG
SHAKESPEARE
HAMLET
HORATIO
CLAUDIUS
GERTRUDE
POLONIUS
OPHELIA
LAERTES
GHOST
BERNARDO
FRANCISCO
GRAVEDIGGER
OSRIC
FORTINBRAS
The first stage performance of Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth was at the Arts Centre of the University of Warwick, Coventry, on 21 May 1979, by BARC, British American Repertory Company. The cast of BARC was:
John Challis
Alison Frazer
Ben Gotlieb
Peter Grayer
Davis Hall
Louis Haslar
Ruth Hunt
Stanley McGeagh
Stephen D. Newman
John Straub
Alan Thompson
Sarah Venable
Gilbert Vernon
Designed by Norman Coates
Directed by Ed Berman
The play opened for a season at the Collegiate Theatre, London, on 30 July 1979.
Translation from ‘Dogg’ language into English is given in
square brackets where this seems necessary.
Empty stage.
BAKER: (Off-stage) Bride! [*Here!]
(A football is thrown from off-stage left to off-stage right. BAKER receiving ball) Cube. [* Thanks]
(ABEL, off-stage, throws satchel to stage left, ABEL enters. He is a schoolboy wearing grey flannel shorts, blazer, school cap, etc., and carrying a satchel. He drops satchel centre stage and collects the other which he places with his own. ABEL exits stage right and returns with microphone and stand which he places down stage. The microphone has a switch.)
ABEL: (Into the microphone) Breakfast, breakfast… sun—dock—trog … [* Testing, testing … one—two—three … ] (He realizes the microphone is dead. He tries the switch a couple of times and then speaks again into the microphone.) Sun—dock—trog—pan—slack … [*One—two—three—four—five … ]
(The microphone is still dead, ABEL calls to someone off-stage.)
Haddock priest! [*The mike is dead!]
(Pause, BAKER enters from the same direction. He is also a schoolboy similarly dressed.)
BAKER: Eh? [*Eh?]
ABEL: Haddock priest.
BAKER: Haddock?
ABEL: Priest.
(BAKER goes to the microphone, drops satchel centre on his way.)
BAKER: Sun—dock—trog—
(The mike is dead, BAKER swears.) Bicycles!
(BAKER goes back off-stage. Pause. The loud-speakers crackle.)
ABEL: Slab? [*Okay?]
BAKER: (Shouting off-stage, indistinctly.) Slab!
ABEL: (Speaking into the mike.) Sun, dock, trog, slack, pan.
(The mike is live, ABEL shouting to BAKER, with a thumbs-up sign.)
Slab! [*Okay!]
(Behind ABEL, CHARLIE, another schoolboy, enters backwards, hopping about, the visible half of a ball-throwing game, CHARLIE is wearing a dress, but schoolboy’s shorts, shoes and socks, and no wig.)
CHARLIE: Brick!… brick! [*Here!… here!]
(A ball is thrown to him from the wings, ABEL dispossesses CHARLIE of the ball.)
ABEL: Cube! [*Thanks!]
VOICE: (Off-stage) Brick! [*Here!)
(CHARLIE tries to get the ball imt ABEL won’t let him have it.)
CHARLIE: Squire! [*Bastard!]
(ABEL throws the ball to the unseen person in the wings—not where BAKER is.)
Daisy squire! [*Mean bastard!]
ABEL: Afternoons! [*Get stuffed!]
CHARLIE: (Very aggrieved.) Vanilla squire! [*Rotten bastard!]
ABEL: (Giving a V-sign to CHARLIE.) Afternoons!
(ABEL hopping about, calls for the ball from the wings.) Brick! [*Here!]
(The ball is thrown to ABEL over CHARLIE’; head. DOGG, the headmaster, in mortar-board and gown, enters from the opposite wing, and as the ball is thrown to ABEL, DOGG dispossesses ABEL.)
DOGG: Cube! [*Thank you!] Pax! [*Lout!]
(DOGG gives ABEL a clip over the ear and starts to march off carrying the ball.)
ABEL: (Respectfully to DOGG.) Cretinous, git? [*What time it is, sir?]
DOGG: (Turning round.) Eh?
ABEL: Cretinous pig-faced, git? [*Have you got the time please, sir?]
(DOGG takes a watch out of his waistcoat pocket and examines it)
DOGG: Trog poxy. [*Half-past three.]
ABEL: Cube, git. [*Thank you, sir.]
DOGG: Upside artichoke almost Leamington Spa? [*Have you seen the lorry from Leamington Spa?]
ABEL: Artichoke, git? [*Lorry, sir?]
CHARLIE: Leamington Spa, git? [*Leamington Spa, sir?]
DOGG: Upside? [*Have you seen it?]
ABEL: (Shaking his head.) Nit, git. [*No, sir.]
CHARLIE: (Shaking his head.) Nit, git. [*No, sir.]
DOGG: (Leaving again.) Tsk. Tsk. [*Tsk. Tsk.] Useless. [*Good day.]
ABEL/CHARLIE: Useless, git. [*Good day, sir.]
(DOGG exits with the ball. BAKER enters. He looks at his wrist watch.)
BAKER: Trog poxy. [*Half-past three.]
(There are now three satchels on the ground centre stage. BAKER goes to one and extracts a packet of sandwiches. ABEL and CHARLIE do the same. The three boys settle down and start to examine their sandwiches.)
ABEL: (Looking in his sandwiches.) Pelican crash. [*Cream cheese.]
(To BAKER.) Even ran? [*What have you got?]
BAKER: (Looking in his sandwich.) Hollyhocks. [*Ham.]
ABEL: (To CHARLIE.) Even ran? [*What have you got?]
CHARLIE: (Looking in his sandwich.) Mouseholes. [*Egg.]
ABEL: (To CHARLIE.) Undertake sun pelican crash frankly sun mousehole? [*Swop you one cream cheese for one egg?]
CHARLIE: (With an amiable shrug.) Slab. [*Okay.]
(ABEL and CHARLIE exchange half a sandwich each.)
BAKER: (To Abel.) Undertake sun hollyhocks frankly sun pelican crash?
ABEL: Hollyhocks? Nit!
BAKER: Squire!
ABEL: Afternoons!
(BAKER fans himself with his cap and makes a comment about the heat.)
BAKER: Afternoons! Phew—cycle racks hardly butter fag ends.
[*Comment about heat.]
CHARLIE: (Agreeing with him.) Fag ends likely butter consequential.
ABEL: Very true. [*Needs salt.]
CHARLIE: Eh?
ABEL: (Putting out his hand.) Very true.
(CHARLIE takes a salt cellar out of his satchel, CHARLIE passes ABEL the salt.)
Cube. [*Thank you.]
(He sprinkles salt on his sandwich and then offers salt to BAKER.) Very true? [*Need salt?]
BAKER: (Taking it.) Cube. [Thank you.]
(BAKER uses the salt and puts it down next to him. CHARLIE puts his hand out towards BAKER.)
CHARLIE: Brick. [*Here.]
(BAKER passes CHARLIE his salt-cellar. They eat their sandwiches. The explanation for the next passage of dialogue is that ABEL and BAKER, who are due shortly to participate in a school play performed in its original language—English—start rehearsing some of their lines.)
ABEL: (Suddenly) Who’s there?
BAKER: Nay, answer me.
ABEL: Long live the King. Get thee to bed.
BAKER: For this relief, much thanks.
(ABEL stands up.)
ABEL: What, has this thing appeared again tonight?
(BAKER stands up by him.)
BAKER: Peace, break thee off: look where it comes again.
ABEL: Looks it not like the King?
(They are not acting these lines at all, merely uttering them, tonelessly.)
BAKER: By heaven, I charge thee, speak!
ABEL: ’Tis here. (Pointing stage left.)
BAKER: ’Tis there. (Pointing stage right, their arms crossing awkwardly.)
ABEL: ‘Tis gone.
BAKER: But look—the russet mantle…
(He has gone wrong. Pause.)
ABEL: (Trying to help him.) Clad—walks …
(ABEL and BAKER don’t always structure their sentences correctly.)
BAKER: (Shakes his head and swears softly to himself.)
Bicycles!
(BAKER produces from his pocket his script. He looks through it and finds where he has gone wrong.)
The morn!—the morn in russet mantle dad—walks o’er the dew of yon high eastern hill.
ABEL: Let us impart what we have seen tonight unto (indicating HAMLET is just above waist height with his hand.) young Hamlet… Slab? [*Okay?] Block. [*Next.]
(BAKER shakes his head and sits down.)
BAKER: (Shakes head.) Nit! [*No!]
(CHARLIE, for no reason, is singing to the tune of ‘My Way’. He doesn’t know all the words in the third line. BAKER joins in on the fourth line in close harmony.)
CHARLIE: (Sings) Engage congratulate moreover state abysmal fairground.
Begat perambulate this aerodrome chocolate eclair found.
Maureen again dedum-de-da- ultimately cried egg.
Dinosaurs rely indoors if satisfied egg …
> (ABEL blows a raspberry by way of judgement. As the song dies away a lorry is heard arriving. The three boys get up and put away their sandwich papers etc. and look expectantly in the direction of the lorry.)
BAKER: Artichoke. [*Lorry.]
(BAKER goes forward, looking out into the wings, and starts directing the lorry—which is apparently backing towards him—with expressive gestures.)
Cauliflower …. cauliflower … hardly … onyx hardly … [*Left … left… right… right hand down … ] Tissue … tissue … slab! [*Straight… straight… okay!]
(The lorry-driver EASY is heard slamming the cab door and he enters. He is dressed in a white boiler-suit and cloth cap and is carrying a rolled-up red carpet and a box of small flags on sticks. He puts them down.)
EASY: Buxton’s—blocks an’ that.
ABEL: Eh?
EASY: Buxton’s Deliveries of Leamington Spa. I’ve got a load of blocks and that. I’ll need a bit of a hand.