Plays Political

by Dan Laurence

  BALBUS [intimidated by the fate of Crassus, but unable to forbear a protest] Look here, Joe—

  PROTEUS. You shut up, Bert. It’s true.

  BALBUS [subsides with a shrug]!

  PROTEUS. Well, what will happen? There will be no denials, no excuses, no vindications. We shall not fall into that trap, clever as you are at setting it. Crassus will say just simply that you are a freethinker. And Balbus will say that you are a libertine.

  THE MALE CABINET [below their breaths] Ahaa-a-a-h!!!

  PROTEUS. Now, King Magnus! Our cards are on the table. What have you to say?

  MAGNUS. Admirably put! People ask how it is that with all these strong characters around you hold your own as the only possible Prime Minister, in spite of your hysterics and tantrums, your secretiveness and your appalling laziness—

  BALBUS [delighted] Hear hear! Youre getting it now, Joe.

  MAGNUS [continuing] But when the decisive moment comes, they find out what a wonderful man you are.

  PROTEUS. I am not a wonderful man. There is not a man or woman here whose job I could do as well as they do it. I am Prime Minister for the same reason that all Prime Ministers have been Prime Ministers: because I am good for nothing else. But I can keep to the point—when it suits me. And I can keep you to the point, sir, whether it suits you or not.

  MAGNUS. At all events you do not flatter kings. One of them, at least, is grateful to you for that.

  PROTEUS. Kings, as you and I very well know, rule their ministers by flattering them; and now that you are the only king left in the civilized half of Europe Nature seems to have concentrated in you all the genius for flattery that she used to have to divide between half a dozen kings, three emperors, and a Sultan.

  MAGNUS. But what interest has a king in flattering a subject?

  AMANDA. Suppose she’s a goodlooking woman, sir!

  NICOBAR. Suppose he has a lot of money, and the king’s hard up!

  PROTEUS. Suppose he is a Prime Minister, and you can do nothing except by his advice.

  MAGNUS [smiling with his utmost charm] Ah, there you have hit the nail on the head. Well, I suppose I must surrender. I am beaten. You are all too clever for me.

  BOANERGES. Well, nothing can be fairer than that.

  PLINY [rubbing his hands] You are a gentleman, sir. We shant rub it in, you know.

  BALBUS. Ever the best of friends. I am the last to kick a man when he’s down.

  CRASSUS. I may be a jobber; but nobody shall say that I am an ungenerous opponent.

  BOANERGES [suddenly overwhelmed with emotion, rises and begins singing in stentorian tones]

  Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

  And never brought to mind—

  Amanda bursts into uncontrollable laughter. The King looks reproachfully at her, struggling hard to keep his countenance. The others are beginning to join in the chorus when Proteus rises in a fury.

  PROTEUS. Are you all drunk?

  Dead silence. Boanerges sits down hastily. The other singers pretend that they have disapproved of his minstrelsy.

  PROTEUS. You are at present engaged in a tug of war with the King: the tug of your lives. You think you have won. You havnt. All that has happened is that the King has let go the rope. You are sprawling on your backs; and he is laughing at you. Look at him! [He sits down contemptuously].

  MAGNUS [making no further attempt to conceal his merriment] Come to my rescue, Amanda. It was you who set me off.

  AMANDA [wreathed with smiles] You got me so nicely, sir. [To Boanerges] Bill: you are a great boob.

  BOANERGES. I dont understand this. I understood His Majesty to give way to us in, I must say, the handsomest manner. Cant we take our victory like gentlemen?

  MAGNUS. Perhaps I had better explain. I quite appreciate the frank and magnanimous spirit—may I say the English spirit ?—in which my little concession has been received, especially by you, Mr Boanerges. But in truth it leaves matters just where they were; for I should never have dreamt of entering on a campaign of recrimination such as the Prime Minister suggested. As he has reminded you, my own character is far too vulnerable. A king is not allowed the luxury of a good character. Our country has produced millions of blameless greengrocers, but not one blameless monarch. I have to rule over more religious sects than I can count. To rule them impartially I must not belong to any of them; and they all regard people who do not belong to them as atheists. My court includes several perfectly respectable wives and mothers whose strange vanity it is to be talked about as abandoned females. To gain the reputation of being the king’s mistress they would do almost anything except give the unfortunate monarch the pleasure of substantiating their claim. Side by side with them are the ladies who are really unscrupulous. They are so careful of their reputations that they lose no opportunity of indignantly denying that they have ever yielded to solicitations which have in fact never been made to them. Thus every king is supposed to be a libertine; and as, oddly enough, he owes a great part of his popularity to this belief, he cannot deny it without deeply disappointing his subjects.

  There is a rather grim silence, during which the King looks round in vain for some encouraging response.

  LYSISTRATA [severely] Your Majesty’s private affairs do not concern us, in any case.

  AMANDA [splutters into an irrepressible laugh]!!

  MAGNUS [looks reproachfully at Amanda]!

  AMANDA [composing her features as best she can] Excuse me.

  CRASSUS. I hope your Majesty recognizes that kings are not the only people to whom certain sorts of mud always stick, no matter what fool throws them. Call a minister a jobber—

  BALBUS. Or a bungler.

  CRASSUS. Yes, or a bungler, and everybody believes it. Jobbery and incompetence are the two sorts of mud that stick to us, no matter how honest or capable we are; and we havnt the royal advantage that you enjoy, that the more the ladies take away your character the better the people like you.

  BOANERGES [suddenly] Prime Minister: will you tell me what the Postmistress General is sniggering at?

  AMANDA. This a free country, Bill. A sense of humor is not a crime. And when the King is not setting me off, you are.

  BOANERGES. Where is the joke? I dont see it.

  AMANDA. If you could see a joke, Bill, you wouldnt be the great popular orator you are.

  BOANERGES. Thank Heaven, I am not a silly giggler like some I could mention.

  AMANDA. Thanks, dearest Bill. Now, Joe: dont you think you have let us run loose long enough? What about that ultimatum?

  MAGNUS [shaking his head at her] Traitor!

  PROTEUS. I am in no hurry. His Majesty’s speeches are very wise and interesting; and your back chat amuses both you and him. But the ultimatum is here all the time; and I shall not leave this room until I have His Majesty’s signed pledge that its conditions will be observed.

  All become gravely attentive.

  MAGNUS. What are its terms?

  PROTEUS. First, no more royal speeches.

  MAGNUS. What! Not even if you dictate them?

  PROTEUS. Not even if we dictate them. Your Majesty has a way of unrolling the manuscript and winking—

  MAGNUS. Winking!

  PROTEUS. You know what I mean. The best speech in the world can be read in such a way as to set the audience laughing at it. We have had enough of that. So, in future, no speeches.

  MAGNUS. A dumb king?

  PROTEUS. Of course we cannot object to such speeches as “We declare this foundation stone well and truly laid” and so forth. But politically, yes: a dumb king.

  PLINY [to soften it] A constitutional king.

  PROTEUS [implacably] A dumb king.

  MAGNUS. Hm! What next?

  PROTEUS. The working of the Press from the palace back stairs must cease.

  MAGNUS. You know that I have no control of the Press. The Press is in the hands of men much richer than I, who would not insert a single paragraph against their own interests even if it were signed by my own h
and and sent to them with a royal command.

  PROTEUS. We know that. But though these men are richer than you, they are not cleverer. They get amusing articles, spiced with exclusive backstairs information, that dont seem to them to have anything to do with politics. The next thing they know is that their pet shares have dropped fifteen points; that capital is frightened off their best prospectuses; and that some of the best measures in our party program are made to look like city jobs.

  MAGNUS. Am I supposed to write these articles?

  NICOBAR. Your man Sempronius does. I can spot his fist out of fifty columns.

  CRASSUS. So can I. When he is getting at me he always begins the sentence with “Singularly enough.”

  PLINY [chuckling] Thats his trademark. “Singularly enough.” Ha! ha!

  MAGNUS. Is there to be any restriction on the other side? I have noticed, for instance, that in a certain newspaper which loses no opportunity of disparaging the throne, the last sentence of the leading article almost invariably begins with the words “Once for all.” Whose trademark is that?

  PROTEUS. Mine.

  MAGNUS. Frank, Mr Proteus.

  PROTEUS. I know when to be frank. I learnt the trick from Your Majesty.

  AMANDA [tries not to laugh] !

  MAGNUS [gently reproachful] Amanda: what is the joke now? I am surprised at you.

  AMANDA. Joe frank! When I want to find out what he is up to I have to come and ask Your Majesty.

  LYSISTRATA. That is perfectly true. In this Cabinet there is no such thing as a policy. Every man plays for his own hand.

  NICOBAR. It’s like a game of cards.

  BALBUS. Only there are no partners.

  LYSISTRATA. Except Crassus and Nicobar.

  PLINY. Good, Lizzie! He! he! he!

  NICOBAR. What do you mean?

  LYSISTRATA. You know quite well what I mean. When will you learn, Nicobar, that it is no use trying to browbeat me. I began life as a schoolmistress; and I can browbeat any man in this Cabinet or out of it if he is fool enough to try to compete with me in that department.

  BOANERGES. Order! order! Cannot the Prime Minister check these unseemly personalities?

  PROTEUS. They give me time to think, Bill. When you have had as much parliamentary experience as I have you will be very glad of an interruption occasionally. May I proceed?

  Silence.

  PROTEUS. His Majesty asks whether the restriction on press campaigning is to be entirely onesided. That, I take it, sir, is your question.

  MAGNUS [nods assent] !

  PROTEUS. The answer is in the affirmative.

  BALBUS. Good!

  MAGNUS. Anything more?

  PROTEUS. Yes: one thing more. The veto must not be mentioned again. That can apply to both sides, if you like. The veto is dead.

  MAGNUS. May we not make a historical reference to the corpse?

  PROTEUS. No. I cannot carry on the King’s government unless I can give pledges and carry them out. What is my pledge worth if our constituents are reminded every day that the King may veto anything that Parliament does? Do you expect me to say, when I am asked for a pledge, “You must ask the king”?

  MAGNUS. I have to say “You must ask the Prime Minister.”

  PLINY [consoling him] Thats the constitution, you know.

  MAGNUS. Quite. I only mention it to shew that the Prime Minister does not really wish to kill the veto. He only wishes to move it next door.

  PROTEUS. The people live next door. The name on the brass plate is Public Opinion.

  MAGNUS [gravely] Admirably turned, Mr Prime Minister; but unreal. I am far more subject to public opinion than you, because, thanks to the general belief in democracy, you can always pretend that what you do is done by the will of the people, who, God knows, never dreamt of it, and would not have understood it if they had; whereas, for what a king does, he, and he alone, is held responsible. A demagogue may steal a horse where a king dare not look over a hedge.

  LYSISTRATA. I doubt if that is any longer true, sir. I know that I get blamed for everything that goes wrong in my department.

  MAGNUS. Ah! But what a despot you are, Lysistrata! Granted, however, that the people have found out long ago that democracy is humbug, and that instead of establishing responsible government it has abolished it, do you not see what this means?

  BOANERGES [scandalized] Steady, steady! I cannot sit here and listen to such a word as humbug being applied to democracy. I am sorry, sir; but with all respect for you, I really must draw the line at that.

  MAGNUS. You are right, Mr Boanerges, as you always are. Democracy is a very real thing, with much less humbug about it than many older institutions. But it means, not that the people govern, but that the responsibility and the veto now belong neither to kings nor demagogues as such, but to whoever is clever enough to get them.

  LYSISTRATA. Yourself, sir, for example?

  MAGNUS. I think I am in the running. That is why I do not feel bound to accept this ultimatum. By signing it I put myself out of the running. Why should I?

  BALBUS. Because youre the king: thats why.

  MAGNUS. Does it follow?

  PROTEUS. If two men ride the same horse, one must ride behind.

  LYSISTRATA. Which?

  PROTEUS [turning to her sharply] What was that you said?

  LYSISTRATA [with placid but formidable obstinacy and ironical explicitness] I said Which? You said that if two men rode the same horse one of them must ride behind. I said Which? [Explanatorily] Which man must ride behind?

  AMANDA. Got it, Joe?

  PROTEUS. That is exactly the question that has to be settled here and now.

  AMANDA. “Once for all.”

  Everybody laughs except Proteus, who rises in a fury. PROTEUS. I will not stand this perpetual tomfooling. I had rather be a dog than the Prime Minister of a country where the only things the inhabitants can be serious about are football and refreshments. Lick the King’s boots: that is all you are fit for. [He dashes out of the room].

  BALBUS. Youve done it now, Mandy. I hope youre proud of yourself.

  MAGNUS. It is you, Amanda, who should go and coax him back. But I suppose I must do it myself, as usual. Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen.

  He rises. The rest rise. He goes out.

  BOANERGES. I told you. I told you what would come of conducting a conference with His Majesty as if it were a smoking concert. I am disgusted. [He flings himself back into his chair].

  BALBUS. We’d just cornered the old fox; and then Amanda must have her silly laugh and lets him out of it [he sits].

  NICOBAR. What are we to do now? thats what I want to know.

  AMANDA [incorrigible] I suggest a little community singing [she makes conductorlike gestures].

  NICOBAR. Yah!! [he sits down very sulkily].

  AMANDA [sits down with a little splutter of laughter]!

  CRASSUS [thoughtful] Take it easy, friends. Joe knows what he is about.

  LYSISTRATA. Of course he does. I can excuse you, Bill, because it’s your first day in the Cabinet. But if the rest of you havnt found out by this time that Joe’s rages are invariably calculated, then nothing will ever teach you anything [she sits down contemptuously].

  BOANERGES [in his grandest manner] Well, madam, I know I am a newcomer: everything must have a beginning. I am open to argument and conviction. The Prime Minister brought this conference, in what I admit was a very able and resolute manner, to the verge of a decision. Then, in a fit of childish temper he breaks up the conference, leaving us looking like fools with nothing done. And you tell me he did it on purpose! Where was the advantage to him in such a display? answer me that.

  LYSISTRATA. He is settling the whole business with the King behind our backs. That is what Joe always contrives to do, by hook or crook. PLINY. You didnt arrange it with him, Mandy: did you?

  AMANDA. There wasnt any need to arrange it. Joe can always depend on one or other of us saying something that will give him an excuse for flying out.


  CRASSUS. In my opinion, ladies and gentlemen, we have done our bit, and may leave the rest to Joe. Matters had reached a point at which it was yes or no between the Cabinet and the Crown. There is only one sort of committee that is better than a committee of two; and that is a committee of one. Like the family in Wordsworth’s poem, we are seven—

  LYSISTRATA. Eight.

  CRASSUS. Well, seven or eight, we were too many for the final grapple. Two persons sticking to the point are worth eight all over the shop. So my advice is that we just sit here quietly until Joe comes back and tells us whats been settled. Perhaps Amanda will oblige with a song. [He resumes his seat].