ALICE: (To MORE.) That’s hot, that’s spicy, that one –
(To BONCHOPE.) Let me fill a plate for you, let me pile it up, you must be so –
(She fills a plate.)
You really must –
(MORE is seated and eating.)
How’s that?
(She puts a plate in front of him. He looks at the food.)
This is pleasant isn’t it?
This is.
We haven’t dared to eat outdoors, this is the first –
(Pause. She closes her eyes.)
Obviously I am your persecutor, too.
Obviously you are shit mouth in my estimation.
I think the heretic must die. I think the wrong must suffer.
(A long pause. MORE dabs his mouth.)
MORE: Did you enjoy Utopia?
BONCHOPE: It brought Heaven nearer to my mouth.
MORE: How’s that?
BONCHOPE: By showing tolerance to be supremely beautiful. Though I stood in my own dung by failing light, it brought tears to my eyes.
(MORE studies him. Pause.)
MORE: Is that pickle sweet?
ALICE: Which one?
MORE: The yellow one.
ALICE: Yes, the yellow one is sweet.
MORE: She calls it sweet, wherein the sweetness, love?
ALICE: (Tasting it.) Well, I – yes, that’s surely –
MORE: (To BONCHOPE.) Tolerance appeals to you, then, does it?
BONCHOPE: I think it is the mark of civil society and the glory of all culture.
MORE: You sing its praises, then…
BONCHOPE: It is the pinnacle of political society and the highest moment of –
MORE: He hymns! He hymns!
(To ALICE.)
Then what is that one there?
ALICE: That’s hot.
MORE: Give me that.
ALICE: It’s hot –
MORE: Tolerably, though? Tolerably hot?
ALICE: Well, how do I know what –
MORE: (Tasting it.) It’s tolerable, certainly. My tongue is quite content… but what if it were… suppose my tongue were burned? Would that be tolerable, Mr. Bonchope?
(Pause.)
BONCHOPE: If your tongue burns, drink some water.
MORE: I am the wit, Mr. Bonchope. What are you?
BONCHOPE: A simple preacher.
MORE: No, chuck false modesty, what’s your intention?
BONCHOPE: Intention? Must one have intention?
MORE: One must if one goes preaching illegality! One might fake innocence but one has intention!
BONCHOPE: Yes.
Yes.
(Pause.)
To make God’s word ring clear in every –
(MORE scatters some crockery with his elbow. The noise shocks and shatters. A tin plate rolls over the paving, and stops. Pause.)
MORE: You only love tolerance because it lets your filth flow.
(Pause. BONCHOPE stares at him.)
Tolerate me, says the miscreant, that I may come nearer to your throat. You would have me and my family in the gutter, dirt and ash.
ALICE: (To THE SERVANT who has appeared.) We’ve had an accident, would you just –
(THE SERVANT kneels and collects.)
BONCHOPE: It’s not Utopia, this, then?
MORE: Not Utopia, no…
(He turns in his chair. Across the lawn he sees THE DOCTOR, a distant figure, strolling.)
ALICE: (To THE SERVANT.) It’s too early for a picnic but I thought, risk it, put a shawl on…
BONCHOPE: It’s death, then, if I –
MORE: Yes.
ALICE: (As THE SERVANT sweeps up a broken plate.)
Oh, what a pity, I so liked the pattern on
that rim!
BONCHOPE: I recant.
MORE: (Rising.) That’s sensible.
(BONCHOPE rises also.)
ALICE: (To BONCHOPE.) Take a napkin with you, fill it up, here –
(She stuffs items of food into a napkin.)
Mr. Bonchope is going back to his little den –
MORE: Scripture is a ground, Mr. Bonchope, that’s all. A ground of struggle. Later, there will be other grounds, and other books from which the likes of you might wring wrong meaning. What these grounds will be I cannot – even I – imagine.
BONCHOPE: Utopias?
(MORE leaves, watched by BONCHOPE. THE SERVANT is clearing the table. Suddenly BONCHOPE seizes on the food, stuffing it into his mouth. He catches sight of ALICE, looking at him. He stops, smiles, then proceeds with his feasting.)
SCENE 15
MORE is walking through the trellis ways. He is pestered at the heels.
THE COMMON
MAN: A joke, Sir Tom!
MORE: (Walking.) Not every day can jokes be manufactured. Not every day is funny.
THE COMMON
MAN: Must laugh, Sir Tom!
MORE: I see you are determined to reflect the cosmic mockery rained down on us by our intellectual pretensions –
(THE COMMON MAN bursts out laughing.)
No, that’s not a joke!
(He cackles.)
That is merely a reflection on the futile nature of –
(And cackles.)
Not a joke, I say!
(He leaves THE COMMON MAN behind. As he swiftly walks, he hears a voice.)
KING HENRY: More.
(He stops. He turns. HENRY is seated in a secluded rustic niche.)
MORE: You?
But it’s daytime!
(He smiles, bows. HENRY looks at him.)
Much luck with the poem?
(Pause. HENRY merely observes him. MORE is uncomfortable.)
It is a sad fact that the loved object is more often than not more susceptible to force than poetry.
(He grins, weakly. Long pause.)
Sometimes, when you look at me, I know why I so loved being a priest …
KING HENRY: NO SAFETY IN THE CLOISTERS!
MORE: No?
KING HENRY: I look at the cloisters. And I think, what a lot of bricks…!
(MORE looks puzzled.)
MORE: Yes, a lot of bricks, but…
KING HENRY: I think, there’s an asset…
(Pause.)
MORE: An asset? The bricks? Surely, it’s the thought that is the asset, not the bricks…?
(Pause.)
The accumulation of philosophy…
(Pause. HENRY looks at him.)
The aggregation of analysis and sensibility…
(Pause.)
KING HENRY: No, the bricks.
(HENRY drops a copy of Utopia onto the pavement with a definitive slap. Pause.)
MORE: Ah. Not your –
KING HENRY: Pox.
(Pause.)
MORE: You are frank today. Fortunately I am not without endorsement. Today I had a letter from Erasmus of Rotterdam fulsomely applauding its ambition and congratulating me on the maturity of my Latin style. He welcomes me into the –
KING HENRY: Shh –
MORE: Hallowed circle of the discoursers on faith and government, I–
KING HENRY: Shh!
(MORE contains himself. Pause.)
Where’s the politics?
MORE: I replaced it with goodwill.
(HENRY looks at him.)
KING HENRY: Where’s the parties?
MORE: Parties?
(He is patient.)
There are no parties because there are no contradictions. And no contradictions because there are no separate interests –
KING HENRY: Pox.
(Pause.)
I want to get divorced and you must fix it.
(Pause.)
MORE: I did, I think, fix –
KING HENRY: Yes, you did, and thank you, but now I want to get divorced again.
MORE: Again?
(Pause.)
I am sure you know what you are doing, but –
KING HENRY: I do, and everybody must agree.
MORE: Everybody?
KING HENRY: The peasant, the factory hand, the shepherd and the sailor.
MORE: Yes, but –
KING HENRY: The roofer and the gutternsnipe, the butcher, and –
MORE: Yes, but –
KING HENRY: AND ALL THE GENIUSES OF THE CLOISTER!
(Pause.)
MORE: You are very modern.
KING HENRY: Modern, yes, to the buckle on my boot.
(Pause.)
MORE: You see how I prefer to prune and prattle here among the climbing and the twining –
KING HENRY: Everybody inside. Nobody outside.
MORE: What?
KING HENRY: Solidarity.
(Pause.)
MORE: Solid – arity?
KING HENRY: Good word. I found it in the dictionary. It means you must.
(Pause.)
MORE: Forgive me, but I much prefer the –
KING HENRY: YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO BE STANDING ON THE EDGES. (Pause.) SNOB. (Pause.) AND NOW THERE ARE NO EDGES. (Pause.) SNOB. (Pause.) Down now, in the puddle with the rest of us. (Pause.) I’m insecure. My dad got power with an axe… (Pause.) How black you are, which is the colour of self-confidence. And me, all colours, all flash. I stick my emblem in every gap, HENRY, HIS ROSE! HENRY, HIS MONOGRAM! Vulgar, like a yobbo bawling in the night, as if by scrawling on the fence I might keep history off… (Pause.)
MORE: History? Don’t you mean time?
KING HENRY: I mean whichever bastard’s waiting in the alley. (Pause. He reaches into a pocket.) I want your signature on this. (He draws out a paper.) Sign and you can plant begonias until your eyes are fields of cataract…(Pause. He holds it out to MORE.)
MORE: I don’t like naked documents.
KING HENRY: No envelopes.
MORE: I don’t like letters pointing at my heart.
KING HENRY: My arm is suffering.
MORE: I don’t like –
KING HENRY: (Withdrawing it petulantly.) Too late! You had your chance but you preferred to stutter! Too late! (He stares at him.) No immunity for genius! (And MORE stares.) Genius wants to pontificate from floral havens, but reputation carries risks. You are a great-headed flower, and when the wind blows down must come the stalk. The bigger the head, the poorer the stalk, I am the wind and you damned well asked for it, you snob! (Pause.)
CECILIA: (Aside.) Brutopia, among its highest achievements, abolished the surprise. In Brutopia, nothing was surprising. To even appear surprised was certain evidence of immaturity or weak-mindedness. (Pause.)
MORE: If you killed me they’d name you barbarian from Greenland to China.
KING HENRY: If I killed you, the intellectuals would shudder from Greenland to China too. OH, THE WIND BLOWS ON US ALSO. Many monarchs would delight. Many of the second-rate would dash for empty chairs. (Pause, then he rises to his feet, looks around him.) The genius must share the garden with the yob. No world yobfree. No world geniusfree. (He goes away, down the path. Instantaneously it rains.)
MORE: (In despair.) MEG! OH, MEG! (CECILIA enters. She watches him.) OH MEG! (He is weeping. CECILIA’s face is taut with pain and confusion. She hurries to him. He clasps her in his arms.) Oh, Meg!
CECILIA: I’m not Meg –
MORE: GOING TO DIE, MEG!
CECILIA: Die…?
MORE: DIE, DIE!
CECILIA: Why die?
MORE: Because I’m honest! (He buries his head in her hair. The rain runs down.)
CECILIA: Be dishonest, then… (Pause. His face emerges from her hair.)
MORE: You’re not Meg…
CECILIA: No, I’m Cecilia… (He searches her face.) FORGIVE ME, I’M CECILIA. (She stares at him. His hands grip her by the shoulders. A long pause. She trembles.)
MORE: Oh, wonderful…her womanly nature yields to see my ashen mask for the last time…indelibly stamped on memory the visage of her doomed father, Thomas More…
(She frowns.)
CECILIA: Who is Thomas More…?
(He does not relax his grip.)
What are you –
(He stares.)
You are –
(Pause. It dawns on her.)
Are you – instructing me – in – sham life?
(He merely stares.)
Are you – for love – teaching me to lie – and lie – even to myself?
(Pause.)
You are…
(Pause.)
You are trying to save me from the world…
MORE: (Booming.) MEG!
(CECILIA frees herself from her father as MEG appears, running.)
MEG: Father!
MORE: DEAD!
MEG: What –
MORE: (Grasping her in his arms.) DEAD, MEG!
MEG: Oh, God –
MORE: Ripped from your adoration by manic power!
(As he recites, his eyes meet CECILIA’s, who is slowly drifting away from them.)
MEG: Oh, great soul, what –
MORE: DEAD!
DEAD!
The Recovery.
SCENE 1
The garden.
MORE: (Offstage.) DEAD! DEAD!
(CECILIA walks backwards from the spectacle. She is unaware of BETRAND, and collides with him. He seizes her wrists.)
BERTRAND: Shh.
CECILIA: Not now.
BERTRAND: Shh.
CECILIA: No, not now, I –
(He draws her back into a niche in the wall.)
No –
CECILIA: (Aside.) The Brutopians suffered more than any other race from love, which was not called love, but anger. ‘I am angry with you’ was an expression of deepest desire. But when this anger was relieved by carnal acts, the Brutopians experienced despair. Thus men and women seemed either furious or sunk in grief, according to how far their passion had progressed.
(CECILIA emerges, adjusting her skirts. BERTRAND leans against the wall, staring out over a lawn on which distantly, THE DOCTOR is discovered staring down at a single point on the turf. CECILIA leans beside BERTRAND. Pause.)
CECIILIA: You speak.
You speak now.
BERTRAND: What?
CECILIA: Anything. Timber if you wish.
(Pause.)
Or skins.
(Pause.)
BERTRAND: I –
CECILIA: Tallow. Fur.
BERTRAND: I –
CECILIA: Your voice, for God’s sake.
(Pause. She puts her hand on him.)
BERTRAND: I apologize for any –
CECILIA: (In despair.) No, not that. Anything but that.
(She walks away from him, along a path. She encounters ALICE, distraught, but does not stop.)
ALICE: Have you heard!
CECILIA: (Striding.) Yes –
ALICE: And he says death, death all the time, what can we –
CECILIA: I heard –
ALICE: Meg is powerless!
SCENE 2
The maze. A cacophony of BRUTOPIANS. CECILIA stares, goes through the gate. They press on her. She forces her way to the centre, where THE SERVANT is sitting. Perfect silence prevails at the centre. THE SERVANT looks up.
CECILIA: I’m pregnant
(Pause.)
Pregnant by a lout.
THE SERVANT: I’ll cure it.
CECILIA: No. This is Brutopia, where nothing comes except by error, and the wanted is simply what occurs.
THE SERVANT: I’ll attend you when it comes.
CECILIA: (Amused.) That’s to risk its life I solemnly predict!
SCENE 3
MORE is walking towards the rustic prison, with ALICE and MEG at his heels.
ALICE: You will die of pneumonia –
MEG: You must prepare an argument on the basis of Nihil Autoritatem, the Juridicium of Aquinas –
ALICE: You have been coughing all the winter, your lungs are tissue paper as it is –
MEG: The absolution of the clergy under the Edicts of Diocletian –
ALICE: What are you going to do in there? Die? Do you want to die?
ALICE: IT ISN’T FAIR ON ME!
MEG: Be quiet! How can anybody think!
SCENE 4
The centre of the maze. The BRUTOPIANS are kneeling as a congregation. CECILIA passes among them with a gracious smile.
CECILIA: (Aside.) The Brutopians were never silent except when sentimental. And how sentimental they could be! They held childbearing in such high esteem, whilst frequently killing children! And funerals they loved, whilst indulging murder!
SCENE 5
MORE is in the rustic prison. He hangs his arms through the grille, staring at the ground. ALICE is weeping.
ALICE: Please sleep in your bed. I will keep to my own side. Please sleep in your bed. I will not disturb you by tossing.
MORE: Your napkin of a mind…
ALICE: Yes, but do as I ask, I’ll lie silent as a graven image…
MORE: Your table cloth of a mind…
ALICE: It is, but –
MORE: Your ironing board and breadknife of a mind –
ALICE: ALL RIGHT, BUT I HAVE SOME RIGHTS AS WELL AS YOU.
(Pause.)
MORE: Gaol is what I always wanted. Even lying beside you in a mattress plump with affection, it was gaol I ached for.
ALICE: You will have all the gaol you want, why anticipate it?
MORE: I have always been one step ahead in the imagination, and now go in, your head is wet.
ALICE: The last occupant of this place apologised, why don’t you? The last occupant is smothering his children with a slobbering love, why don’t you? The last occupant walks the streets intoxicated with freedom, WHY DON’T YOU?
MORE: He will be back.
ALICE: No. He is swallowing life by the lungful.
MORE: I SAID HE WILL BE BACK.
(He looks into her face.)
Fireside, piss on it. NO SWEET LIKE THIS.
(He slaps a fistful of mud over his cheek. She winces. Pause. She withdraws.)
ALICE: (Suddenly.) I love you.
(She stops. Pause. She looks back. His eyes are tight shut, his face filthy.)
MORE: In what way?
(He gives nothing. She goes. MORE hangs in this posture.)
CECILIA: In Brutopia everyone is sentenced to death. Without exception. The death sentence is handed out at birth and hangs above their beds, framed as a certificate. This dispenses with all the paraphernalia of courts and trials! At various times, as the need arises, these sentences are enforced.
(CECILIA approaches the rustic prison. MORE remains with his arms propped and his eyes closed. She examines him.)
Barker, Plays Eight Page 16