Goodnight Children Everywhere and Other Plays
Page 8
JOE (Reading):
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! The very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
(Joe slowly closes the book. In the near distance, Big Ben begins to strike six. No one looks at anyone else; six people alone in their own thoughts. One wipes the rain off his face, one puts up an umbrella but then takes it down because it is too windy—a portrait of loneliness. When the clock finishes, Joe opens his single piece of paper, and everyone, following Joe’s lead, begins to sing quietly, so as not to embarrass themselves—and of course in their American accents.)
EVERYONE (Singing):
God save our gracious Queen
Long live our noble Queen,
God save the Queen!
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us,
God save the Queen!
(Joe starts the second stanza, others follow, though with a little more difficulty.)
O Lord our God, arise
Scatter her enemies,
And make them fall.
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hearts we fix,
God save us all!
(Pause.)
JOE: Third stanza. (He looks down at the paper)
SCENE 11
LUIGI’S RESTAURANT, COVENT GARDEN
The same restaurant as in the first scene, though a larger table. Toward the end of their meal: Joe, Henry, Betty, Frankie, Philip, Katie, Orson, Harriet and Joanne.
FRANKIE: It will be nice to get home.
JOE: Back to the real world. Back to work! (Laughs to himself)
PHILIP: Don’t remind me. Now we have all those journals to read. (Beat) Orson, not only do we have to see the plays, but then we have to read what our students thought about them.
ORSON: I know the system.
HENRY: Phil, I enjoy reading what my students—
PHILIP: I’m kidding, Henry.
(He looks at Henry who looks away.)
FRANKIE: It has been a great time.
JOE: I think we’ve all enjoyed ourselves.
(Pause. They eat.)
HARRIET: Has everyone tried to pack? I remember—when was that, dear?
ORSON: I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.
HARRIET: Yes you do. (Beat) I don’t remember the year, but our things didn’t fit. We had to buy a whole new suitcase at the very last minute. (Laughs)
ORSON: The suitcase broke. We bought a new one because it had broken.
HARRIET: That was another year.
ORSON (Shaking his head): Oh forget it. What does it matter? So we bought a suitcase. Who cares? (He drinks from his wineglass. Short pause)
HARRIET (To the others): It’s those martinis.
ORSON: It is not those martinis!
(Short pause.)
FRANKIE (To Henry and Betty): You never did get down to their home in East Sussex, did you? (Beat) It’s very beautiful. Historic, I should say.
JOANNE (To Orson): You must be very pleased.
BETTY (To Frankie): We were never invited.
(Beat.)
HARRIET: You weren’t— Oh I’m terribly— You weren’t waiting for a formal—?
(Beat.)
BETTY: No. We weren’t waiting for anything formal. (Beat) I suppose there was just so much we wanted to do. And the time just vanished.
(Short pause.)
HENRY: Well we’ve packed everything. Except what we’ll use tonight. (Beat) Everything fits. We tried to restrain ourselves— (Laughs)
BETTY: The trip cost us enough as it was.
(Pause.)
JOE: I suspect tomorrow morning will be a real madhouse. How did you handle it, Orson? Some of the students say they’ll take the tube to the airport.
FRANKIE: But the luggage some of them now have.
JOE: That’s what I’m saying. And half of them I’m sure are down to their last fifty pence.
ORSON: That’s their problem.
(Beat.)
PHILIP: Orson’s right. Let them find their own way. It’s good training.
(Short pause.)
FRANKIE: What time are we supposed to meet?
JOE: In the lobby at eight. No later than eight.
PHILIP: We better say 7:30.
(Pause.)
FRANKIE (To Joanne): We’re really sorry we didn’t get the chance to meet your husband, Joanne. It’s funny, in the beginning it seemed like there was going to be so much time—
PHILIP: Where did the time go?
(Joe looks at Philip, then at Frankie. Philip turns away.)
JOANNE: He’s hoping maybe next year.
(No one seems to understand.)
My husband. He’s—
ORSON: What does your husband do?
JOANNE: He works in the financial city. (Beat) Near St. Paul’s.
ORSON: Good for him.
FRANKIE: I love St. Paul’s.
JOE (To Joanne): Of course, whenever you’re back in the States—
JOANNE: We’re talking about a trip—
FRANKIE: We’d love to see you. Both of you.
JOE: Katie would even let her old babysitter have her room, I suppose.
KATIE: I’m never there. I’m in a dorm.
JOE: And why I don’t know. (To Joanne) Do you know how much housing is now? Everything’s gone crazy. (Beat) But Mary said Katie should have the whole experience of college. I mean, how’s she going to have bull sessions with her friends until three in the morning if her parents are right next door? (Laughs) That sort of thing. Right, Katie?
ORSON (Eating): Or how’s she going to have boys in her bed when her parents are in the next room?
(Short awkward pause.)
KATIE (To Orson): That didn’t stop me in high school.
(Beat, then laughter.)
HARRIET: Good for you. Give it back to him.
JOE: By the way, I was reading through Katie’s journal this morning—
KATIE: Dad!—
JOE: You let me. I wasn’t doing anything you didn’t know about. She’s got some real interesting things to say about the RSC’s As You Like It. Very interesting.
PHILIP: Really? . . .
JOE: You’ll have to read it.
HENRY: I’d like to.
JOE (To Katie): The Tempest I think you missed the point of though.
FRANKIE: That’s easy enough to do.
HARRIET: Especially at her age.
(The others nod. Pause. They eat.)
JOE: What did anyone think of the play last night?
PHILIP: There’s a loaded question.
JOE: No. Really. I haven’t heard anyone say a word.
ORSON: What was the play last night?
JOE: What was the title? I don’t remember. That says something. (Laughs) Some new play, Orson. I wouldn’t rush out.
PHILIP: I liked it.
(Beat.)
JOE: Good. (Shrugs, then laughs)
PHILIP: Look, your problem is that you don’t think politics belongs in the theatre.
JOE: First, I’ve never said that. In fact, I have often argued the opposite. Who defends Shaw?
FRANKIE: Please, keep Shaw out of this.
JOE: And second, I happen to believe there is a difference between politics and sentimental whining. (Beat) I would kill to see real political thinking on the stage. Where real problems are really addressed, Phil. Where I can be engaged! I am not a dum
b person. We should not be treated like we were. This is all I’m saying.
PHILIP: And last night—
JOE: If someone is going to start preaching to me then he—or she—better have something very very interesting to say. That’s all. But to be a captive audience, forced to listen either to what I already know or what I know to be a very simplistic, you know, explanation, then—well, I want to run screaming into the night. Period.
PHILIP: Bullshit. I repeat, your problem is that you don’t think politics, today’s politics, even belong in a play.
ORSON: Why is that a problem?!!
(Pause.)
KATIE (Standing): Excuse me. Before you get started again, I promised some of the women I’d join up with them. It’s our last night as well.
JOE: Yes. You told me you’d have to leave early.
HENRY: It was our pleasure to have you, even if for a short time.
HARRIET: She’s our godchild, you know.
BETTY: I didn’t know.
(Katie has opened her purse.)
JOE: No, no, no! Please, Katie. I’m not that poor. I’m not rich, God knows, but I’m not so poor as that.
KATIE: Thanks, Dad. (She turns to leave) Don’t stay up too late.
HARRIET (Laughing): Listen to her.
JOE: Katie, wait a minute. You still have your camera?
KATIE: Yes.
JOE: Come on, all of us. Come on. (Starts moving people together)
KATIE: I don’t know if there’s enough—
JOE: Try. What’s to lose? A little closer. (Beat) Of our last night.
KATIE: OK.
(Everyone is posed.)
Ready? One. Two. Three.
JOE: Everyone smile. Are we smiling?
(Click. Everyone moves.)
Another one.
ORSON: No, no. One’s enough.
PHILIP: Please, Joe. We’re still eating.
JOE: It’s probably too dark anyway.
(He waves Katie off. She leaves)
FRANKIE: Thanks, Katie!
HENRY: Thanks!
(Short pause.)
JOE: So in this play, we’re meant to feel sympathy for miners. Good. Fine. Who doesn’t like miners?
ORSON: In my day—
PHILIP: Anyone with a political view you tried to arrest, Orson.
ORSON: Only when it got in the way of—
HARRIET: Please.
JOE: And it gave me goose bumps. This play. Why?
PHILIP: Because it touched—
JOE: Because it pushed obvious buttons! Things in this world are complicated. Not simplistic. You don’t help yourself or anyone else by not recognizing that. By not using the mind you’ve got. (Beat) Isn’t that what we teach? Isn’t that why we have our students read what we do—so that they can learn to think? (Beat) A mind is not a reflex, it is a living thing.
HENRY: The president of the college said that at last year’s graduation.
JOE: I know. And I liked it.
(Short pause.)
PHILIP: And I liked the play. So that’s that.
FRANKIE: I liked it, too.
JOE: Who doesn’t like a good cry?
FRANKIE: I learned something about miners.
JOE: You learned what you already believed, Frankie. Period. (Beat) Trust me, this sort of theatre is old-fashioned. We went through that twenty years ago. (Beat) You certainly don’t find it in the States anymore. (Beat) And in another five, ten years you won’t find it here either. (Beat) I don’t want to see it. Americans don’t want to see it. (Pause) Sorry, I’m dominating the—
PHILIP: We argue like this all the time.
FRANKIE (To Orson and Harriet): They do. This I can swear to.
ORSON: Nice to see ideas still being discussed in the department. (Beat) I was afraid after I’d left . . .
(Beat.)
JOE (Nodding toward Philip): He’s fun to argue with. He really is. advocate. Five kids with armbands walking around telling the college to disinvest in South Africa, and you’d think from listening to Phil that it’s the sixties all over again. (Laughs)
PHILIP: Disinvestment has a point.
JOE: Of course it has a point. I don’t argue with that. It’s your Pollyannaish hope that is so irritating! It’s like he never learns! (Beat) Of course South Africa’s bad! Of course!!!
(Long pause. They eat.)
BETTY: Professor Baldwin, how is your book coming? Frankie was telling me a little about it.
JOANNE: What is the book about?
HARRIET: Orson is editing the collected letters of Harold Frederic for Cornell University Press.
ORSON: I’m writing the introduction as well.
FRANKIE: That I didn’t know.
(Short pause.)
JOANNE: I’ll be ignorant, who’s Harold Frederic?
HENRY (Before anyone else can answer): Nineteenth-century American novelist. Very interesting. Very important.
JOANNE: Never heard of him.
PHILIP: Edmund Wilson liked him.
(Pause.)
HARRIET: We’ve gotten the proofs.
FRANKIE: You’re that close?
ORSON: Mmmmmmmmmmmm. (Short pause) Harriet’s been helping, haven’t you? (Beat) We read them out loud to each other, as we proof. Every night from six to nine. We do about fourteen pages an evening that way. (Beat) Harriet has a lovely voice. (Pause) Henry James helped raise money for Frederic’s family when he died.
HARRIET: He died drunk. (Beat) He had a drinking problem.
(Short pause.)
ORSON: He was a good friend of James. He lived quite a long time in England.
HARRIET: He is said to have called Henry James an effeminate old donkey who lives with a herd of other donkeys around him and insists on being treated as if he were the Pope. (Beat. To Orson) I think I got that right.
ORSON: I doubt if Frederic either said it or felt that way. It is part of the Frederic myth though. (Beat) He had two wives, though only one officially. Two sets of children. One in America, one here. He liked women. They liked him.
HARRIET: Though both families he stuck in the country while he himself went off to carouse in the city. (She shakes her head)
JOANNE: Sounds very—
ORSON: He wrote The Damnation of Theron Ware. Do you know it?
(Joanne shakes her head.)
A very sexy book. (Beat) I reread it all the time.
(Pause.)
JOANNE: While I have all of you here, I was wondering if there was anything different or whatever that I could do for next year. If you don’t mind I’d like to pick your brains.
PHILIP: I don’t know.
HENRY: We had great seats.
JOANNE: I’m sorry I couldn’t get any speakers.
FRANKIE: I think it worked out just fine like it did.
JOE: Sometimes a speaker, well, if they don’t know the class . . .
JOANNE: I wanted to get an actor.
BETTY: That would have been interesting.
JOANNE: There’s a friend of a friend who knows someone who is with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
PHILIP: Really? The students would have loved that.
JOANNE: But he wanted fifty pounds.
PHILIP: For one class? Forget it.
JOANNE: That’s what I said. I had thought that they’d do this sort of thing for free.
FRANKIE: I would, too.
PHILIP: You’d think they’d want to meet their audience.
JOE: Or just for the publicity.
JOANNE: But if you are interested for next year . . .
JOE: We’d have to put it in the budget.
PHILIP: Absolutely.
JOANNE: Then I guess it was a good thing I didn’t tell the guy it was OK.
PHILIP: For next year? He needs to know now?
JOANNE: For this time. He said he needed an answer right then and there.
JOE: That would have been a disaster, really. I think we’re what? Quite a lot in the red already. What with the car rental.
FRANKIE: Oh and I said the department should pay for Joe’s dinner in Stratford.
HENRY: With Donna Silliman?
ORSON: Who’s Donna Silliman?
BETTY: That girl who said Phil—
ORSON: Oh yes. The department should pay for that sort of thing. (Beat) Got caught with your pants down, did you, Philip? (Laughs)
PHILIP: She made it up, Orson.
ORSON (Laughing): I’m sure she did! I’m sure! (Short pause) Henry, I hear you have to move on. All I can say is you shall be missed, dear boy.
HENRY: I don’t think that is totally settled as yet. For next year, I mean. (He looks around. No one looks at him)
ORSON: Too bad you’re not black.
JOE: I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m beginning to feel the wine.
ORSON: Yes, we should get another bottle!
FRANKIE: No, no! (Beat) I think I wouldn’t mind getting back. I haven’t even started to pack.
JOE: I thought you were going to pack this afternoon. What did you do all day if you didn’t pack? (He suddenly turns to Philip)
PHILIP: We should get the check.
JOE (Staring at him): We already have.
HENRY: Let me see. (Takes the bill)
PHILIP: I think we should treat Joanne.
FRANKIE: Yes, for all her tireless work.
JOANNE: No, really.
JOE: Out of the department?
PHILIP: We should split hers.
JOANNE: No, no please, it’s I who—
PHILIP: We insist.
JOE: If she wants to pay, Phil.
(Short pause.)
JOANNE: I’m serious. Let me pay for myself.
(Philip hesitates, then nods.)
ORSON (To Betty): Within twenty-four hours of Henry James having two strokes, he was calling for a thesaurus; the doctor had called his condition paralytic and he thought there was a more accurate word. (Laughs) He loved words. I suppose you have to.
HARRIET: Orson.
(He is quite drunk now.)
I’ll pay ours. What did you have, the beef spaghetti?
(He shrugs.)
At least one of these four bottles is yours. We’ll pay for one whole bottle.
BETTY: Actually, I think he drank—
PHILIP: I’ll buy your drinks, Joe. You bought me drinks at the Barbican.
JOE: But only because you bought me drinks at the National. No, no, you don’t owe me.
PHILIP: Still, that’s OK.
JOE: No. (Beat) Katie didn’t have anything to drink, did she? Did anyone notice?