by Ayn Rand
In her other works, Ayn Rand herself gave the answer to such a “malevolent universe” viewpoint, as she called it. Dominique Francon in The Fountainhead, for instance, strikingly, resembles Kay and Johnnie in her idealistic alienation from the world, yet she eventually discovers how to reconcile evil with the “benevolent universe” approach. “You must learn,” Roark tells her, “not to be afraid of the world. Not to be held by it as you are now. Never to be hurt by it as you were in that courtroom.” Dominique does learn it; but Kay and Johnnie do not, or at least not fully. The effect is untypical Ayn Rand: a story written approvingly from Dominique’s initial viewpoint.
Undoubtedly, the intensity of Miss Rand’s personal struggle at the time—her intellectual and professional struggle against a seemingly deaf, even hostile culture—helps to account for the play’s approach. Dominique, Miss Rand has said, is “myself in a bad mood.” The same may be said of this aspect of Ideal.
Despite its somber essence, however, Ideal is not entirely a malevolent story. The play does have its lighter, even humorous side, such as its witty satire of Chuck Fink, the “selfless” radical, and of the Elmer Gantry-like Sister Essie Twomey, with her Service Station of the Spirit. The ending, moreover, however unhappy, is certainly not intended as tragedy or defeat. Johnnie’s final action is action—that is the whole point—action to protect the ideal, as against empty words or dreams. His idealism, therefore, is genuine, and Kay Gonda’s search ends on a positive note. In this respect, even Ideal may be regarded as an affirmation (albeit in an unusual form) of the benevolent universe.
—L. P.
Ideal
CHARACTERS
BILL McNITT, screen director
CLAIRE PEEMOLLER, scenario writer
SOL SALZER, associate producer
ANTHONY FARROW, president of the Farrow Film Studios
FREDERICA SAYERS
MICK WATTS, press agent
MISS TERRENCE, Kay Gonda’s secretary
GEORGE S. PERKINS, assistant manager of the Daffodil Canning Co.
MRS. PERKINS, his wife
MRS. SHLY, her mother
KAY GONDA
CHUCK FINK, sociologist
JIMMY, Chuck’s friend
FANNY FINK, Chuck’s wife
DWIGHT LANGLEY, artist
EUNICE HAMMOND
CLAUDE IGNATIUS HIX, evangelist
SISTER ESSIE TWOMEY, evangelist
EZRY
COUNT DIETRICH VON ESTERHAZY
LALO JANS
MRS. MONAGHAN
JOHNNIE DAWES
SECRETARIES, LANGLEY’S GUESTS, POLICEMEN
Place Los Angeles, California
Time Present; from afternoon to early evening of the following day
Synopsis of scenes
Prologue—Office of Anthony Farrow in the Farrow Film Studios
Act I, Scene 1—Living room of George S. Perkins
Scene 2—Living room of Chuck Fink
Scene 3—Studio of Dwight Langley
Act II, Scene 1—Temple of Claude Ignatius Hix
Scene 2—Drawing room of Dietrich von
Esterhazy
Scene 3—Garret of Johnnie Dawes
Scene 4—Entrance hall in the residence of
Kay Gonda
Prologue
Late afternoon. Office of ANTHONY FARROW in the Farrow Film Studios. A spacious, luxurious room in an overdone modernistic style, which looks like the dream of a second-rate interior decorator with no limits set to the bill.
Entrance door is set diagonally in the upstage Right corner. Small private door downstage in wall Right. Window in wall Left. A poster of KAY GONDA, on wall Center; she stands erect, full figure, her arms at her sides, palms up, a strange woman, tall, very slender, very pale; her whole body is stretched up in such a line of reverent, desperate aspiration that the poster gives a strange air to the room, an air that does not belong in it. The words “KAY GONDA IN FORBIDDEN ECSTASY” stand out on the poster.
The curtain rises to disclose CLAIRE PEEMOLLER, SOL SALZER, and BILL McNITT. SALZER, forty, short, stocky, stands with his back to the room, looking hopelessly out of the window, his fingers beating nervously, monotonously, against the glass pane. CLAIRE PEEMOLLER, in her early forties, tall, slender, with a sleek masculine haircut and an exotically tailored outfit, reclines in her chair, smoking a cigarette in a lengthy holder. McNITT, who looks like a brute of a man and acts it, lies rather than sits in a deep armchair, his legs stretched out, picking his teeth with a match. No one moves. No one speaks. No one looks at the others. The silence is tense, anxious, broken only by the sound of SALZER’s fingers on the glass.
McNITT: [Exploding suddenly] Stop it, for Christ’s sake!
[SALZER turns slowly to look at him and turns away again, but stops the beating. Silence]
CLAIRE: [Shrugging] Well? [No one answers] Hasn’t anyone here a suggestion to offer?
SALZER: [Wearily] Aw, shut up!
CLAIRE: I see absolutely no sense in behaving like this. We can talk about something else, can’t we?
McNITT: Well, talk about something else.
CLAIRE: [With unconvincing lightness] I saw the rushes of Love Nest yesterday. It’s a smash, but a smash! You should see Eric in that scene where he kills the old man and . . . [A sudden jerk from the others. She stops short] Oh, I see. I beg your pardon. [Silence. She resumes uneasily] Well, I’ll tell you about my new car. The gorgeous thing is so chic! It’s simply dripping, but dripping with chromium! I was doing eighty yesterday and not a bump! They say this new Sayers Gas is . . . [There is a stunned, involuntary gasp from the others. She looks at two tense faces] Well, what on earth is the matter?
SALZER: Listen, Peemoller, for God’s sake, Peemoller, don’t mention it!
CLAIRE: What?
McNITT: The name!
CLAIRE: What name?
SALZER: Sayers, for God’s sake!
CLAIRE: Oh! [Shrugs with resignation] I’m sorry.
[Silence. McNITT breaks the match in his teeth, spits it out, produces a match folder, tears off another match, and continues with his dental work. A man’s voice is heard in the next room. They all whirl toward the entrance door]
SALZER: [Eagerly] There’s Tony! He’ll tell us! He must know something!
[ANTHONY FARROW opens the door, but turns to speak to someone offstage before entering. He is tall, stately, middle-aged, handsomely tailored and offensively distinguished]
FARROW: [Speaking into the next room] Try Santa Barbara again. Don’t hang up until you get her personally. [Enters, closing the door. The three look at him anxiously, expectantly] My friends, has any of you seen Kay Gonda today? [A great sigh, a moan of disappointment, rises from the others]
SALZER: Well, that’s that. You, too. And I thought you knew something!
FARROW: Discipline, my friends. Let us keep our heads. The Farrow Studios expect each man to do his duty.
SALZER: Skip it, Tony! What’s the latest?
CLAIRE: It’s preposterous! But preposterous!
McNITT: I’ve always expected something like this from Gonda!
FARROW: No panic, please. There is no occasion for panic. I have called you here in order to formulate our policy in this emergency, coolly and calmly and . . . [The interoffice communicator on his desk buzzes sharply. He leaps forward, his great calm forgotten, clicks the switch, speaks anxiously] Yes? . . . You did? Santa Barbara? . . . Give it to me! . . . What?! Miss Sayers won’t speak to me?! . . . She can’t be out, it’s an evasion! Did you tell them it was Anthony Farrow? Of the Farrow Films? . . . Are you sure you made it clear? President of the Farrow Films? . . . [His voice falling dejectedly] I see. . . . When did Miss Sayers leave? . . . It’s an evasion. Try again in half-an-hour. . . . And try again to get the chief of police.
SALZER: [Desperately] That I could have told you! The Sayers dame won’t talk. If the papers could get nothing out of her—we can’t!
FARROW: Let us be systematic. We cannot
face a crisis without a system. Let us have discipline, calm. Am I understood? . . . [Breaks in two a pencil he has been playing with nervously] . . . Calm!
SALZER: Calm he wants at a time like this!
FARROW: Let us . . . [The intercom buzzes. He leaps to it] Yes? . . . Fine! Put him on! . . . [Very jovially] Hello, Chief! How are you? I . . . [Sharply] What do you mean you have nothing to say? This is Anthony Farrow speaking! . . . Well, it usually does make a difference. Hel . . . I mean, Chief, there’s only one question I have to ask you, and I think I’m entitled to an answer. Have there or have there not been any charges filed in Santa Barbara? [Through his teeth] Very well. . . . Thank you. [Switches off, trying to control himself]
SALZER: [Anxiously] Well?
FARROW: [Hopelessly] He won’t talk. No one will talk. [Turns to the intercom again] Miss Drake? . . . Have you tried Miss Gonda’s home once more? . . . Have you tried all her friends? . . . I know she hasn’t any, but try them anyway! [Is about to switch off, then adds] And get Mick Watts, if you can find the bast—if you can find him. If anyone knows, he knows!
McNITT: That one won’t talk either.
FARROW: And that is precisely the thing for us to do. Silence. Am I understood? Silence. Do not answer any questions on the lot or outside. Avoid all references to this morning’s papers.
SALZER: Us the papers should avoid!
FARROW: They haven’t said much so far. It’s only rumors. Idle gossip.
CLAIRE: But it’s all over town! Hints, whispers, questions. If I could see any point in it, I’d say someone was spreading it intentionally.
FARROW: Personally, I do not believe the story for a minute. However, I want all the information you can give me. I take it that none of you has seen Miss Gonda since yesterday?
[The others shrug hopelessly, shaking their heads]
SALZER: If the papers couldn’t find her—we can’t.
FARROW: Had she mentioned to any of you that she was going to have dinner with Granton Sayers last night?
CLAIRE: When has she ever told anyone anything?
FARROW: Did you notice anything suspicious in her behavior when you saw her last?
CLAIRE: I . . .
McNITT: I should say I did! I thought at the time it was damn funny. Yesterday morning, it was. I drove up to her beach home and there she was, out at sea, tearing through the rocks in a motorboat till I thought I’d have heart failure watching it.
SALZER: My God! That’s against our contracts! McNITT: What? My having heart failure?
SALZER: To hell with you! Gonda driving her motorboat!
McNITT: Try and stop her! So she climbs up to the road, finally, wet all over. “You’ll get killed someday,” I say to her, and she looks straight at me and she says, “That won’t make any difference to me,” she says, “nor to anyone else anywhere.”
FARROW: She said that?
McNITT: She did. “Listen,” I said, “I don’t give a damn if you break your neck, but you’ll get pneumonia in the middle of my next picture!” She looks at me in that damnable way of hers and she says, “Maybe there won’t be any next picture.” And she walks straight back to the house and her damn flunkey wouldn’t let me in!
FARROW: She actually said that? Yesterday?
McNITT: She did—damn the slut! I never wanted to direct her anyway. I . . .
[Intercom buzzes]
FARROW: [Clicking the switch] Yes? . . . Who? Who is Goldstein and Goldstein? . . . [Exploding] Tell them to go to hell! . . . Wait! Tell them Miss Gonda does not need any attorneys! Tell them you don’t know what on earth made them think she did! [Switches off furiously]
SALZER: God! I wish we’d never signed her! A headache we should have ever since she came on the lot!
FARROW: Sol! You’re forgetting yourself! After all! Our greatest star!
SALZER: Where did we find her? In the gutter we found her! In the gutter in Vienna! What do we get for our pains? Gratitude we get?
CLAIRE: Down-to-earthiness, that’s what she lacks. You know. No finer feelings. But none! No sense of human brotherhood. Honestly, I don’t understand what they all see in her, anyway!
SALZER: Five million bucks net per each picture—that’s what I see!
CLAIRE: I don’t know why she draws them like that. She’s completely heartless. I went down to her house yesterday afternoon—to discuss her next script. And what’s the use? She wouldn’t let me put in a baby or a dog, as I wanted to. Dogs have such human appeal. You know, we’re all brothers under the skin, and . . .
SALZER: Peemoller’s right. She’s got something there.
CLAIRE: And furthermore . . . [Stops suddenly] Wait! That’s funny! I haven’t thought of this before. She did mention the dinner.
FARROW: [Eagerly] What did she say?
CLAIRE: She got up and left me flat, saying she had to dress. “I’m going to Santa Barbara tonight,” she said. Then she added, “I do not like missions of charity.”
SALZER: My God, what did she mean by that?
CLAIRE: What does she mean by anything? So then I just couldn’t resist it, but couldn’t! I said, “Miss Gonda, do you really think you’re so much better than everybody else?” And what did she have the nerve to answer? “Yes,” she said, “I do. I wish I didn’t have to.”
FARROW: Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?
CLAIRE: I had forgotten. I really didn’t know there was anything between Gonda and Granton Sayers.
McNITT: An old story. I thought she was through with him long ago.
CLAIRE: What did he want with her?
FARROW: Well, Granton Sayers—you know Granton Sayers. A reckless fool. Fifty million dollars, three years ago. Today—who knows? Perhaps, fifty thousand. Perhaps, fifty cents. But cut-crystal swimming pools and Greek temples in his garden, and . . .
CLAIRE: . . . And Kay Gonda.
FARROW: Ah, yes, and Kay Gonda. An expensive little plaything or art work, depending on how you want to look at it. Kay Gonda, that is, two years ago. Not today. I know that she had not seen Sayers for over a year, previous to that dinner in Santa Barbara last night.
CLAIRE: Had there been any quarrel between them?
FARROW: None. Never. That fool had proposed to her three times, to my knowledge. She could have had him, Greek temples and oil wells and all, anytime she winked an eyelash.
CLAIRE: Has she had any trouble of any kind lately?
FARROW: None. None whatever. In fact, you know, she was to sign her new contract with us today. She promised me faithfully to be here at five, and . . .
SALZER: [Clutching his head suddenly] Tony! It’s the contract!
FARROW: What about the contract?
SALZER: Maybe she’s changed her mind again, and quit for good.
CLAIRE: A pose, Mr. Salzer, just a pose. She’s said that after every picture.
SALZER: Yeah? You should laugh if you had to crawl after her on your knees like we’ve done for two months. “I’m through,” she says. “Does it really mean anything?” Five million net per each picture—does it mean anything! “Is it really worth doing?” Ha! Twenty thousand a week we offer her and she asks is it worth doing!
FARROW: Now, now, Sol. Control your subconscious. You know, I have an idea that she will come here at five. It would be just like her. She is so utterly unpredictable. We cannot judge her actions by the usual standards. With her—anything is possible.
SALZER: Say, Tony, how about the contract? Did she insist again . . . is there anything in it again about Mick Watts?
FARROW: [Sighing] There is, unfortunately. We had to write it in again. So long as she is with us, Mick Watts will be her personal press agent. Most unfortunate.
CLAIRE: That’s the kind of trash she gathers around her. But the rest of us aren’t good enough for her! Well, if she’s got herself into a mess now—I’m glad. Yes, glad! I don’t see why we should all worry ourselves sick over it.
McNITT: I don’t give a damn myself! I’d much rather direct Joan Tudor an
yway.
CLAIRE: And I’d just as soon write for Sally Sweeney. She’s such a sweet kid. And . . .
[The entrance door flies open. MISS DRAKE rushes in, slamming it behind her, as if holding the door against someone]
MISS DRAKE: She’s here!
FARROW: [Leaping to his feet] Who? Gonda?!
MISS DRAKE: No! Miss Sayers! Miss Frederica Sayers!
[They all gasp]
FARROW: What?! Here?!
MISS DRAKE: [Pointing at the door foolishly] In there! Right in there!
FARROW: Good Lord!
MISS DRAKE: She wants to see you, Mr. Farrow. She demands to see you!
FARROW: Well, let her in! Let her right in, for God’s sake! [As MISS DRAKE is about to rush out] Wait! [To the others] You’d better get out of here! It may be confidential. [Rushes them to private door Right]
SALZER: [On his way out] Make her talk, Tony! For God’s sake, make her talk!
FARROW: Don’t worry!
[SALZER, CLAIRE, and McNITT exit Right. FARROW whirls on MISS DRAKE]
FARROW: Don’t stand there shaking! Bring her right in!
[MISS DRAKE exits hurriedly. FARROW flops down behind his desk and attempts a nonchalant attitude. The entrance door is thrown open as FREDERICA SAYERS enters. She is a tall, sparse, stern lady of middle age, gray-haired, erect in her black clothes of mourning. MISS DRAKE hovers anxiously behind her. FARROW jumps to his feet]
MISS DRAKE: Miss Frederica Sayers, Mr. Far—
MISS SAYERS: [Brushing her aside] Abominable discipline in your studio, Farrow! That’s no way to run the place. [MISS DRAKE slips out, closing the door] Five reporters pounced on me at the gate and trailed me to your office. I suppose it will all appear in the evening papers, the color of my underwear included.
FARROW: My dear Miss Sayers! How do you do? So kind of you to come here! Rest assured that I . . .
MISS SAYERS: Where’s Kay Gonda? I must see her. At once.
FARROW: [Looks at her, startled. Then:] Do sit down, Miss Sayers. Please allow me to express my deepest sympathy for your grief at the untimely loss of your brother, who . . .