Four Plays

by John Osborne

  STELLA: All that rigidity. The fact is men don’t want to die so much they won’t be born, so foetus themselves up in music halls, clubs, regiments and pubs. Do you know what that Yorkshire git said to me when he knew he wasn’t going to get it and was too pissed to remember where he’d left it? He said, as if he were Voltaire, morality is the child of imagination, which is why women don’t have it. That we’d had more leisure than most to paint, sing, play the piano, write poetry, verses, novels, music. What did we get: the Brontës and the Ivy Benson Band. That not women invented steam and God but US!

  REGINE: How ignorant. (Slightly sending up STELLA’s new fervour)

  STELLA: Barefoot and pregnant. Even sweet-natured Chekhov said women didn’t have a baby every day. Just every year. Fable about Barefoot and poorly shod. I don’t think sweet Doctor Chekhov would have bought you any shoes at all. As your cliché book would say, marriage needs re-phrasing.

  REGINE: We’re in total agreement. But don’t you see that’s the point. We all are. To us. To us women.

  STELLA: Right.

  REGINE: To us.

  STELLA: To us.

  REGINE: (Toast) The aim, the aim is not social equality, no, it’s not that, it’s social DISHARMONY. All they have is an inexhaustible crop of regrets. Regrets!

  STELLA: They like the language of concealment. Not us.

  REGINE: We’re going to enjoy this, Stella. This is the barricades. At last.

  STELLA: Barricades! Here we come! We’re closing your borderline. Like going into the EEC, it filled a long, unfelt want. Now we don’t want you!

  REGINE: You know that chap Aretino or something like that. I just went to Farley Road Secondary School till I was fourteen. Well, it seems this old character laughed himself to death at a dirty joke. Just like my old man. So did I nearly. Thank God I didn’t. Think of all that money. Only time he made me laugh. (They both giggle) We’ve got a whole spotlight of dignitaries and here come the last of the bombs. Lead ‘em on!

  (WAIN comes in.)

  WAIN: Mrs Pangborn is here, m’lady.

  REGINE: Give me a minute and then show her in.

  WAIN: Very well, m’lady.

  STELLA: Letitia Pangborn?

  REGINE: Who else? Publishers’ parties and lays all round, grand Tory MP husband, writes books on the cookery of sex, travel (over-researched), popular biographies. Regrets, like so many, she hadn’t been an actress and set the world alight without the benefit of rich husband, large ears and hungry little typewriter to feed for fame and a reputation for beauty and intellect…

  STELLA: Wheel ‘em on.

  WAIN: (Enters) Mrs Pangborn, m’lady.

  (MRS PANGBORN is pretty, confident, about the same age as the rest)

  REGINE: Darling! I’m so glad you’re first. You know all the ropes. Only I’ve got a rather funny little lady coming next and I may have to sort her out a bit. You know Stella, don’t you?

  LETITIA: Yes. Hullo.

  STELLA: It’s all right. You’ve nothing to worry about from me.

  REGINE: No. She’s one of us.

  STELLA: Yes. Not just an outside observer. A participant. A resistance worker. Not soon enough, alas. I could have helped.

  REGINE: It was my one insight. It’s nice to have one. Drink?

  LETITIA: Thanks. Not before work. Who have you got for me?

  REGINE: Stratford West.

  LETITIA: Oh, not him. That awful, creepy show-biz journalist. Why do you always get me journalists?

  REGINE: Sorry.

  LETITIA: Don’t be. I was just complaining.

  REGINE: Well, poor Stratford can only get plastic starlets to roll in his garden before he goes back to the wife and kids in Ealing. Pretending he’s been living it up – for the paper – to all hours. And he wants a bit of class and intellect. He can’t spell ‘existentialism’ but he’ll swoon when you bite it into his grizzled old ears.

  LETITIA: Isn’t it time we closed up shop? You must have enough to wreck the entire Western Civilisation.

  REGINE: That’s exactly what we’ve agreed. With Stella.

  LETITIA: Thank God. I’m sick to death of staring up at myself in the ceiling mirror. I almost fancy my husband. But the House is too busy having divisions these days.

  REGINE: You can always go back to publishing.

  LETITIA: That’s like going back as an old girl when you were once Head Girl.

  REGINE: How’s the writing?

  LETITIA: I wish you wouldn’t ask silly questions to people like writers, Regine. You should know better. It’s like asking a window cleaner ‘How are the windows then?’ It’s the same as usual. It’s all hours but I get it done. In spite of Tom and the children.

  REGINE: Well, you are rich.

  LETITIA: He is. Thank God.

  REGINE: I’ve explained the set-up to Stella. She not only understands but she’s right behind us.

  LETITIA: Good. We’ll need all the help we can get. These men will think of something. That’s what worries us.

  STELLA: With your bottom in the air, your pants hanging down in a frightened animal way, it’ll be difficult to think of anything. Privacy’s never really been assaulted and brought down. They won’t know what hit them or why anyone could do it to them. Their God will have cast them out. We’ll be left laughing.

  LETITIA: In Paradise? No men!

  REGINE: We’ll make our own paradise. Our own kind of men. And remake God’s bad job on the whole unfortunate incident. We will multiply. We have already. That’s what it meant.

  LETITIA: I hope so. I can’t stay, Regine. I’m sorry. Tom’s wanting me on his constituency stint this weekend.

  STELLA: Last time.

  REGINE: As I said, I’ve this funny little woman – (WAIN comes in.)

  WAIN: Mrs Sands, m’lady.

  REGINE: Send her in.

  (WAIN goes out.)

  Be nice to her. She must be very nervous.

  (WAIN enters with MRS ISOBEL SANDS. She is shrewd-looking but nervous. However, making a go of it. Late thirties. Quite attractive. Not startlingly dressed. WAIN goes out.)

  REGINE: Mrs Sands! Isobel, right? Isobel, this is Letitia Pangborn, Stella Shrift – she shows no shrift and gives no favour – I expect you’ve heard of her?

  ISOBEL: Yes. Of course.

  (They exchange the usual things and sit.)

  REGINE: Isobel, anything, no? Isobel, this won’t be too difficult for you. These people are close friends and I’ve heard from many sources what an honest kind of character you are. We can be frank. If you want to change your mind at any time, of course you may. I’ll understand. I just wanted someone quite honest, well, decent, who was intelligent and curious and in some distress but in control; objective but emotional, who would get in on this – just for once, and form her judgements for herself of what we have all created for ourselves.

  ISOBEL: There’s no danger of that. I shall stay as long as you need me.

  REGINE: Wonderful. Well, to cases: there will be about five or six women here and about seven men. So some may have to do overtime.

  STELLA: Jog. She’s a sperm vampire.

  REGINE: Could you tell me a bit more about yourself?

  ISOBEL: Not much really. I’ve been married nearly twenty years. I’ve three teenage children who don’t take notice of either of us much. They really scare both of us now and I suppose we avoid them most of the time and they us… I feel young and I seem to have no future. Although, I feel, perhaps stupidly, it might be not new but different. I don’t know…

  REGINE: I know.

  ISOBEL: I do know I reduce him to such despair and tedium, he dreads coming in and I dread his key in the lock.

  REGINE: Don’t worry. The stars are pointing for all of us. I’ve well, teamed you, if you don’t mind the expression, with Leonard Grimthorpe.

  ISOBEL: One’s free. But for what. (Pause.) I’m sorry for him. And he for me. (Pause.) He really goes pale and damp with fear and irritation with me. I can watch it. It’s lik
e a boiling migraine. You need to put him to bed in the dark, alone as long as possible. While I sit and stare at nothing, well, our house walls; the walls of our house.

  REGINE: Isobel. Let me get you a drink. I have to be practical I’m afraid. I have to be speedy and generalise because time is pressing on us a bit. Len Grimthorpe: he’s decided not to be brilliant because he couldn’t bear it. He really does, I think, I think he does, he believes in the beauty of failure. Not just as a literary throw-away for someone like Hindle to seize on.

  STELLA: Who’s got him?

  REGINE: You have.

  STELLA: Oh, no. Not two journalists.

  REGINE: Usual enough. Anyway, all this bedroom placement is very difficult. You try it. You’ll probably have Smash Deel first.

  STELLA: No. I think I’m resigning.

  REGINE: It’s only the once, Stella. And you are new. We’ve all done our bit.

  STELLA: What about Mrs Sands?

  REGINE: No, I don’t think she could handle Smash Deel.

  STELLA: Quick flick of the wrist.

  REGINE: I think he’ll take a lot more than that. He’s a wrist breaker.

  ISOBEL: I’m very athletic. Yes, I know you’re grinning. But I don’t need, I don’t want to be protected.

  REGINE: This is my placement. It took hours to work out and I’m sticking to it. Otherwise, we’ll all argue and be here all night and no customers. (To ISOBEL.) Now Len is an odd fish. But he can be fun. And he won’t ask too much of you. Because he expects so little. I see you’re wearing tights.

  ISOBEL: Oh, are they – ?

  REGINE: But the last time Len came he complained of someone – I can’t remember who – wearing tights. He said they were for men not women. For male dancers and Shakespearian actors. He couldn’t stand that patchy triangle round the centre. Definitely underwear, I’m afraid. I’ll get it laid out in your room. I know what he likes. Quite harmless and dull. Totally MALE. Do we think of such things?

  ISOBEL: Right. I’ll remember. I wasn’t sure.

  REGINE: He’s much more full of gaiety than he sounds. I think you might get on. I can’t quite think quite why I asked him. He’s not really famous. Sort of well known. For doing nothing – much. But quite good at it.

  (WAIN enters.)

  WAIN: Lady Gwen Mitchelson and Miss Jog Fienberg.

  REGINE: Two minutes, Wain. Show them the new conservatory.

  (He goes, nodding.)

  Lady Gwen: like me, a girl from Hackney. I knew her at school. Another nibbling girl-actress who went to Hollywood too late but brought it back to Weybridge or somewhere. Lots of alimony from sweet, misguided ex-husband actor who has given her two children, a mansion by-Californian-standards in Malibu. Lives off him and their accumulated houses and pictures and furniture. Remarried title and some money. Bad type for us. But ideal man bait. For the right type. And there are plenty. Jog – yes, Jog Fienberg’, US nutcase. Wants all men to have compulsory vasectomy with or without the option of the death penalty. Now, she is a cliché. Except that you won’t believe her when you see her. Don’t listen, that’s all. Above all, don’t argue. Useful because she does all the donkey work.

  (JOG and Lady GWEN enter)

  Gwen, darling! Jog.

  (They fit her description. GWEN has clearly taken hours to prepare herself. JOG is in jeans and sweater and badly, really badly in need of a bath.)

  You do make a quite splendid pair! I think you all more or less know –

  (They go through the pantomime of introductions)

  Drink? Ah, Coke for jog.

  GWEN: No, thanks.

  REGINE: Not dieting again. It’s so oppressive. Like your eyelashes and wigs. People who diet are like converts to warmed-up religious beliefs. And your lovely rich husband, and various children by which of them and your home? How is your home? The Ranch Style one in Mill Hill? Or have you moved?

  GWEN: It’s all great. So where are the guys?

  REGINE: We’re waiting for Rachel.

  GWEN: Oh, the Countess of Bleak. She never really made it, did she? Couldn’t act. Write. Anything. No good in the sack.

  REGINE: Well, they do say that every cigar-smoking gentleman having lunch at the Black Rhinoceros has known the favours of both of you or either.

  GWEN: Darling, if I didn’t know you so well and had nothing better to do for an hour or so, I’d go straight back to London.

  REGINE: Don’t worry; this is the last of the weekends.

  GWEN: Thank God! It takes so long to get here. And you know how suspicious Mitch gets.

  REGINE: Next week is Bastille Day.

  GWEN: What day? Here, I hope you’re not going to go too far.

  STELLA: We’re all in this and you more than most. You compounded the system. With your make-up and Beverly Hills in Virginia Water; and film premiéres but no proper films; your alimony; your calculations; your shop-girl vanities. Just get on with being what you are and always have been; a prissy producer’s tart with smart solicitors and accountants. You’re not unknown, you know.

  GWEN: Thanks. I don’t need you.

  STELLA: Watch it, you untalented trollop. I can get you eaten up. A threat like that from me, of all people, wouldn’t intimidate little pussy. But it will you. Because, beneath all that British Beverly Hills, you’re more of a cliché than you are and what you write about.

  REGINE: And you Jog.

  JOG: Is this the last one? I hope so. I can’t stand another man, the sight of one. The mother-homemaker-secretary kind is still what they want, want, and they won’t believe we’re not. Who wants their prick rights? All laying down this crap. All stewing maleness and rhetoric. What are we, tits and no mind, to them? We are, we are the politics. The gags are better, they’re better, not much but anything’s better than what – they – call themselves – straights. Straight. What’s straight? In this world. Men? Straight. I’ll never go again with any man. We all know what they end up doing to you! Sweet Jesus! Not man, Jesus! Give us, give us a woman for President! Is it possible? Couldn’t it be? (She weeps a little)

  STELLA: You’re not all that interesting, Jog.

  JOG: Great. So tell me how uninteresting I am. I want a lover and it isn’t a man and it isn’t a woman. I’m a soldier, a fighter, I’m an academic, I’m educated middle-class American and you all, you English, look down from your sinking, stinking rat shit at us… Help the woman who is obliged to work in any patriarchal, cultural set-up. A reunification of the reverence of the female principle. Give us the Goddess. Dig the Goddesses. Diana, Mary, Penelope. You have wasted us. Wasted us. We are your waste. Your effluent. Men and their things. Big deal. Big fucking deal. Let them do it to themselves. You’re all a Big Deal. Protagonists. Tyrants. We are the killers now. Kill them. Kill the men. Before we do it. To ourselves. We’re so scared. Kick out the fags too. Kill them all.

  REGINE: Wain will get you some coffee.

  JOG: What are we fucking well waiting for? You say I’m a cliche, don’t you? Well, what do you think you are?

  REGINE: The same as you. As all of us…

  (She rings the bell. WAIN enters.)

  Some coffee for Miss Fienberg. And anyone else.

  WAIN: Yes, m’lady. The Countess of Bleak is here.

  REGINE: Send her in at once. We’re late.

  (He nods and goes out.)

  The Countess of Bleak. Another disjointed actress, married into the aristocracy from the usual disappointment and cupidity… I’m afraid you have to bait for the big fish with almost unspeakable morsels. If that’s what gulls them. And it usually does.

  (They all look depressed in the extreme. WAIN re-enters with RACHEL, the Countess of Bleak.)

  WAIN: The Countess of Bleak.

  REGINE: Darling. Anything? Sure, right, we’ll start off. (To WAIN) Let the gentlemen in as they arrive. Oh, you know the batting order.

  WAIN: Yes, m’lady.

  REGINE: Well, how are the Bleaks?

  RACHEL: Bloody mean and petty as ever for seven
centuries.

  REGINE: Now, I think we’re all here… You know why we’re all here. Make bait and it’s time to strike, haul up the nets and trawl in those wriggling creatures you’ve had to bear with in all this time. Jog, you’ve got, oh, I’m so confused now, I think you’ve drawn Smash Deel.

  JOG: Kill him!

  REGINE: And – I – think – Ashley Withers. Newspaper proprietor. Not Stella’s but a well, BIG, little deal. Now, quick briefing: Stella, you’ve got Hindle. You know the score, you know him.

  STELLA: Don’t I just! They all do.

  REGINE: Well, as I say, ladies, this will be our last weekend. I don’t need to say much to you. Even our newcomer, Mrs Sands, seems more than capable of holding her own – if you’ll forgive the linguistic handstands of the good old English language. Even if some grandparents leapt off the boat from Omsk or Tomsk. I’ll just add a few general things. As I say, Stella, you know Hindle, but he might stray, and they do sometimes, elsewhere –

  STELLA: Hope so.

  REGINE: Well, ladies, Hindle Nates is a famous ex-boy wonder from Oxford – I can’t remember which college – who writes about almost anything for anyone and makes a great deal of money doing it. He has been trying to cultivate style ever since he was seen wearing lilac knickers and a top hat on Magdalen Bridge on his way to the Union reading Marx in a loud falsetto. He stunned the single-minded students, who’ve talked about it ever since and tickled some of the dons. He became a ‘legend’ in that city of dreaming spires and sure of soft jobs for its dud comics. He likes Wagner, anything American or clearly ephemeral, as well as dangerously painful spanking. So watch for that. He hates the past, even yesterday, with almost pathological hatred. And even today is a broken series of disappointments. You have to look like tomorrow’s girl even if you feel like the forgotten or unfashionable decades of the century. So mind your bottoms, ladies. They can get very stripey and sore after half an hour with Hindle in the quest for his undergraduate glory. He writes unbelievably vindictive, incomprehensible, apparently erudite letters to obscure journals like the Listener which specialise in vindictiveness. So give him a bit of politics and literature. You don’t need to say anything interesting or know who or what you’re talking about. In fact, if you sound like Marilyn Monroe giving her views on Kierkegaard, he’ll be perspiring with joy and discovery. A lot of what I say applies, in principle, to all our other guests. Their interests are all there to be titivated of whatever kind. But Hindle is quite a good example even if he’s a bit over the usual intellectual top. As always, just drop a few names and he’ll say something which he’ll attribute to you. After all, he’s grateful for the other services you’re dealing out… It never does any harm to pretend you like mostly plays by Negroes or Irishmen on the run for murder. Women’s Lib tolerated, often welcomed by the ‘bondage’ artists. You can even pretend you’re gay, which can spur some of them on. If you are indeed gay, it may be even helpful if it turns them off and it saves time and labour. They may, as often, think you’re secretly longing, yes, here we go, to be dominated, yes, dominated by them, particularly if he’s an established genius or today’s idea of paradise and tomorrow’s sexual garbage. You can offer him pot. Some will pretend to be in that scene. But most won’t bother. You’re safe with theatre chat because no one knows anything about it and cares less. Cinema is more dodgy because some of them are practically archivists and, anyway, it often digs deep into their grubby schoolboy consciousness. Say the Theatre is dead – as always – except the Fringe or Underground. You don’t need to have seen any. They won’t have seen any either. Or they’ll have fallen asleep. Talk about non-happening happenings being the ultimate and so on. You don’t have to explain. Just say it casually. Talk a lot of off-hand filth in between as if you were doing that brushing your glowing spring of hair from your clear fountainhead forehead. Just, oh, just be generally charmless is fairly good standard behaviour. But watch it if it misfires. Then, be gentle, loving, attentive. If you’ve got stubble in your armpits, say jolly things which will intrigue his running-down tape-recorder mind, desperately trying to freeze each new experience to release all the lost, shattered ones. So he’ll tell you – a bit usually. Try not to actually bore him but let’s simply hope he won’t notice either ante or post coitum. It may be triste est quite often or just like getting up from a sauna and massage. There’s always something he’ll be interested in. Find it and he’ll do the talking. Otherwise be enigmatic. Easiest thing in the world. Shut your mouth and look sulky. A few crass judgements may, on the other hand, make him feel good. Don’t be really funny. That’s poaching his rights. Oh, you can say – I’m sorry to be repetitive. You all know your stuff but I have to try and make you feel a bit enthusiastic about this dismal project. Remember it’s the last time over that timeless top and then a New World waits for us! And we were the crack troops, who blew up the world’s idea of itself and what they once called mankind. Womankind! And a time will come when we can afford to be Women and kind – when it’s just and right. Anything else? Yes. Say you’ve written a book called Fucking Our Way to Revolution and Socialism. Some of you probably have for all I know. Say lightly that Michael Foot is a right-wing fascist. It’ll get some sort of response, however drowsy. That Chairman Mao is the Kung Fu of gradualism. Talk about going down – with Man – or in any way. You’ll find out what ‘turns him on’. Cliché but remember you are dealing with men; and men who are the products of a society which turned itself into an almost overnight cliché. Either way, political action always sounds sexy because it means you’re violent and passionate even if brainless – so much the better. Yes, you can say things like ‘violence is the greatest orgasm of Historical Experience and Significance’. That’ll do for right or left. I’m only talking about the verbal aspects because it can often save you from the exhausting contortions of great or famous men. Anything you say about painting is more or less OK. As long as it shows you’ve heard of it and have got reasonable eyesight. Stately homes should be turned into brothels like mine or abortion clinics; or pads for squatters, drop-outs and the workers. Whoever they are it’ll amuse you with your perky flight of female mind. Oh, as for sex, when you get to it: whatever he wants if you can manage it without incurring physical damage. Or try and talk him into something else. Lots of mouth-work all round usually works so make sure you haven’t had rice pudding or spinach for lunch. If you wear dentures, you can even turn it to advantage. While he’s luxuriating, toss off an odd mot like ‘The Queen should be buggered daily in the Palace Yard.’ If you don’t care for the practice yourself think of something else that isn’t entirely repellent to you. There’s always Princess Anne and stallions. Anyone’ll go for that. Just choose the least objectionable lead to the action. Above all, be spontaneous. That’s the only real fun of it. Do a quick sound out and play it. People are best at it – like women, they’re numinously intuitive. Drill into the ocean bed of your feminine consciousness. Approve or disapprove. Be disparaging or dismissive. Manically enthusiastic or just moody and full of hidden hurt and failure. Men love failure. Especially the ones who’ve made it early or easy. Or you can be tantalisingly arcane. I have a lady who always plays records by Wanda Landowska and talks for ages about her in her midwife’s skirt and her hands poised like gentle hawks over the keyboard. Then she says ‘May I play you some of her Scarlatti?’ She talks about Japs – yes, just about the nastiest race on earth, so that’s imaginative – little dears calling to speckled deer on their strange flutes. Then she has a record of Tibetan monks chanting a fifteenth-century prayer to booming bells. Then it’s usually Ah, let’s go back to England. To Byrd’. You see she believes – or pretends to admire and venerate anyone trying to put significance into their or our lives. Significance! That’s a good stopper. Significance. It’s a word that can’t even signify. So use it if you like it or it amuses you. It’s true – I’ve miles of her on film doing it. But it is significant…? To us. It’s a ball breaker. ‘Now that the captains and the kings have depart
ed.’ No, I won’t tell you any more about her. She has her own special star quality and she’s no chicken either. But what she’s done for us! Quote unreadable writers like Fanon, Lubin, Marx; be odd but withdrawn about Sylvia Plath; bluff about Ted Hughes. If you really can’t stand the thought of it all, vomit. Only, take care – he may like it. Eat it or something. Men like dirty talk but not about the realities of women’s insides so a lot of banter about tubes and afterbirth and tubes and babies’ heads and legs and forceps and so on will send some men, especially the nicer ones, really off to the bathroom… Oh, but you will all use your own techniques. Believe me, from what I’ve seen, the female mind and body is a holy miracle of ingenuity and divine invention. Blake has nothing on HER visions and explorations. That’s why we’re here. That’s the message. Right? No questions?… On with the final engagement of Life, its very self…