Act One

by Moss Hart

  There was another little silence and then the voice came softly through again. “Do you know George Kaufman? Ever met him?” he asked.

  “No,” I replied.

  “Has he read the play yet, do you know?” he inquired.

  “He may be reading it today,” I answered. “He should have gotten it by this morning. That’s why I wanted to call you before he read it, just in case he liked it. And I want to thank you, Mr. Harris, for being so…”

  “Listen,” the voice cut in, “this is George Kaufman’s home telephone number. Put it down. You call him right away and tell him that Jed Harris says that this is just the kind of play he ought to do. Good-bye.”

  And before I could utter a word, there was a click from the receiver at the other end. I sat staring at the telephone, wondering anew at the unpredictability of Jed Harris, and for a moment I had a strong impulse to call him back immediately and thank him. I would drop him a note and do it properly, I decided, after I talked to George Kaufman; and I picked up the telephone again.

  The number had barely buzzed once when a voice said, “Yes?” Not “Hello”—just “Yes.” “May I speak to Mr. Kaufman, please,” I said. “This is he,” said the voice bluntly.

  “Oh,” I said and paused lamely. I had expected to give my name and state my business to a secretary before being put through. I had always taken it for granted that a secretary was as much a part of a famous playwright’s stock in trade as a typewriter and blank paper. It was disconcerting to find myself talking to George Kaufman without that small moment of preparation beforehand.

  “Yes?” said the voice again, this time quite testily.

  There was nothing to do but speak up. “My name is Moss Hart,” I said, plunging. “You don’t know me, Mr. Kaufman, but Sam Harris is sending you a play of mine to read.” I paused, suddenly overcome with timidity.

  “I received it this morning,” said George Kaufman. “I am reading it tonight.”

  “Oh,” I said again, and stopped, thereby reaffirming the impression, I thought hopelessly, of what a brilliant conversationalist I was. There was nothing but silence from the other end of the telephone, so I gulped and continued. “Well,” I said, “Jed Harris has read the play and he asked me to give you a message. He said to tell you that this was just the kind of play you ought to do.”

  Even as I spoke the words I was dimly conscious of their peculiar ring. But I was so relieved to have it quickly over and done with, that for a brief moment I did not realize no reply had come from the other end of the wire, and for another moment I thought we had been disconnected.

  “Hello?… Hello?” I said into the receiver two or three times. But we had not been disconnected. The voice of George Kaufman was glacial when it again sounded over the telephone. Each word seemed to be incrusted with icicles. “I would not be interested in anything that Jed Harris was interested in,” he said and hung up.

  I put down the telephone and stared stupidly at it in complete dismay.

  * * *

  Not until long afterward did I learn that George Kaufman and Jed Harris were at that particular moment at the climax of a corrosive theatrical quarrel, a quarrel of such bitterness that it has remained irreconcilable to this very day.

  Obviously, the motive of that seemingly innocent message was to produce exactly the deplorable result that it had had. There could be only one explanation: If Jed Harris intended to punish me for withdrawing the play, he had deftly accomplished his purpose in the most stinging and hurtful way. It is the only conclusion I have ever come to on this ill-natured and wayward bit of wickedness, for when I next met Jed Harris some three or four years later, the trepidation that awesome gentleman still inspired in me precluded any kind of inquiry on my part. I was still not brave enough to cross swords with him, and by that time it no longer mattered.

  It mattered very much indeed at the moment however. I remained sitting in the chair by the telephone, too numbed by the sudden collapse of my hopes of working with George Kaufman, to do anything more than stare out the window and perceive the full idiocy of my behavior. I briefly considered calling Lester, Miss Fishbein, and even Max Siegel, but I doubted if there was anything very much that Max Siegel could do now to repair the damage, and I was in no mood for either “I told you so” or the disclosure of what a complete fool I had been.

  I finally went about my business and did nothing. The play might be sold elsewhere, of course, and I supposed that I would be consoled and even console myself with the idea that this had been a blessing in disguise, but I knew I would never believe it. The chance of working with George S. Kaufman was gone, and I could not take the loss of that opportunity lightly. I was then, and am still, all things being equal, a great believer in the element of luck in the theatre—in that strange alchemy of timing that seemingly by chance and little else brings together an admixture of talents which, working in combination, infuses the theatre with a magical alloy that blends it into a mosaic-like junction of play, playwright, actor and director. It was my deep-rooted and perhaps childish belief in the mystique of this process that had made me grasp so eagerly and so unhesitatingly at the chance of working with George Kaufman.

  I had felt in that moment when Max Siegel read me Sam Harris’ telegram that luck was running my way, and I felt just as strongly now that fortune’s wheel had seemingly spun past me. It would be nonsense to suggest that a complete reliance on so dubious and uncertain an element as luck does not imply an evasion of the other substantial realities that go into the making of any career, theatrical or otherwise. But I have seen the element of luck operate conversely too often not to remain convinced that it plays an exceptional and sometimes absurd part in the precarious charting of that thin line that divides success from failure. I am not an optimist where fate is concerned. I do not belive that one’s destiny is resolved beforehand. It is a doctrine I have always rejected as indicating a certain poverty of mind or as the excuse of the insolvent, for it is a dogma that allows inaction to become a virtue. Nevertheless, I could think of no action on my part that would retrieve the disaster of that morning, and I went through the rest of that day and evening in a state of real wretchedness.

  I was asleep when the telephone rang the next morning, but contrary to my usual custom of putting the pillow over my head and turning over, I got out of bed and answered it myself.

  “Is this the young author?” the voice of Max Siegel came cheerfully over the telephone.

  “Yes,” I answered, thoroughly wide awake in a moment and shaking a little with excitement.

  “Can you meet George Kaufman here at the Music Box at three o’clock?” he went on.

  “You mean he read it?” I asked incredulously.

  “Certainly he read it,” said Max Siegel. “That’s what he wants the meeting for this afternoon. He likes it very much—I told you he would. What’s the matter?” He laughed. “You sound like you don’t believe it! It’s true. You’ll be here at three o’clock then?”

  “Yes,” I managed to reply. “Three o’clock, the Music Box.”

  I hung up, and startled my mother, who had just come into the room, by throwing my arms around her and kissing her three or four times soundly.

  “We’re going to be rich,” I said gleefully. “This time next year we may not even be living in Brooklyn.” She smiled, pleased at my good spirits, but refrained from asking if they were once again based upon my “homework.” She had been through six years of varying forms and degrees of enthusiasm every time I finished a play, and I have no doubt she had heard a version of the same speech before.

  “I’m going to work with George Kaufman, that’s the difference this time,” I said. “George S. Kaufman,” I repeated, rolling out the name luxuriously.

  She stared at me blankly, the name having registered nothing at all, and then added hastily, “That’s very nice.” It was the tone of voice and the expression she reserved, I remembered, for such moments as when I would rush to show her a new stamp I had garne
red by barter in my stamp-collecting days.

  “You go ahead and do your shopping.” I laughed. “I’ll make my own breakfast.” She smiled encouragingly, obviously pleased that she had not deflated my good spirits by her unawareness of who George Kaufman was.

  “If you’re going to bring him home to work with you,” she said politely, “I hope you won’t do it until after next week. We’re having the painters next week.”

  “I’ll explain that to him,” I said carefully as I made my way toward the kitchen.

  While the eggs fried, I composed in my mind a graceful little speech of gratitude I intended to deliver to Mr. Kaufman at the right moment after all the business details were out of the way. It sounded a shade too reverential even to my own ears, I decided, as I tried speaking it aloud while I waited for the coffee to boil, but there was no time to polish it up now. That could be done on the subway on the way into town.

  I hurried through breakfast as quickly as possible and got to the telephone to acquaint Lester and Miss Fishbein with the happy trend of events, but more particularly to insist that for this first meeting I wanted to meet with George Kaufman alone. As I suspected, this did not sit any too well with either one of them, but I was firm, and at three o’clock I walked alone up the stairs of the Music Box Theatre to the mezzanine and knocked on the door of Sam Harris’ office.

  Max Siegel, smiling as usual, stood in the doorway, and behind him, slumped down in one of the large armchairs, I caught a glimpse of George Kaufman. That first glimpse of George Kaufman caught fleetingly over Max Siegel’s shoulder made all the caricatures I had seen of him in the Sunday drama sections through the years come instantly alive. The bushy hair brushed straight up from the forehead into an orderly but somehow unruly pompadour, the tortoiseshell glasses placed low on the bridge of the rather large nose, the quick, darting eyes searching incisively over the rims, the full sensuous mouth set at a humorously twisted tilt in the descending angularity of the long face—each single feature was a caricaturist’s delight. It was easy to understand why he had been caricatured so often. It was not a handsome face in the way the word handsome is generally used to describe men’s looks, but it was an immensely attractive one. He had the kind of good looks that men as well as women find attractive.

  Though it was rather a mild October day, he sat in the chair in his overcoat, and around his neck was wrapped a long blue woolen scarf that hung outside the coat and came almost to his knees. His legs were twisted or, rather, entwined one under the other in the most intricate fashion, so that one wondered how he would ever get out of the chair if he had to do so quickly, and one arm was stretched clear around the back of his neck to the opposite side of his head where it was busily engaged in the business of scratching the back of his ear.

  “This is the young author, George,” said Max Siegel, ushering me to the center of the room.

  “Hi,” said Mr. Kaufman wearily. He lifted in greeting one finger of the hand that was not engaged in scratching his ear, but he did not move otherwise. Even the one finger was lifted slowly and with infinite lassitude.

  “Sit down,” said Max Siegel, and smiled reassuringly at me. I retreated to the sofa at the other end of the room, but my eyes remained fastened and expectant on the figure slumped in the armchair.

  “You want me to do the talking, George?” said Max Siegel after what seemed to me an unconscionably long time. Again the one finger of the disengaged hand rose slowly in assent. “Mr. Kaufman is willing to work with you on the play and he has suggested some terms for a division of the royalties,” said Max Siegel, consulting a typewritten slip of paper on the desk. “Would you prefer to go over them with your agent?” he asked, coming over and handing me the paper. “I think you’ll find they’re very generous terms,” he added.

  “I’m sure there will be no difficulty,” I said. I took the slip of paper from him and put it in my pocket without looking at it. My eyes were still riveted on the unmoving figure in the armchair. There was another long silence, and a long drawn-out and mournful sigh came from the depths of the chair, followed by a slight but unmistakable belch. It was a somewhat surprising sound—a cross between a prodigious yawn, a distant train whistle hooting over a lonely countryside, and the satisfied grunt of a large dog settling down in front of the fireplace. It was followed by still another silence while Mr. Kaufman’s eyes restlessly searched for something they seemed to find missing on the ceiling. He had a perfect view of the ceiling, for he was now sunk so low in the chair that only the top of his head was visible from where I sat. The long legs wrapped one around the other in a tight sailor’s knot obscured most of his face, but now the legs moved slightly and his voice issued clearly from behind them.

  “When can we have a working session?” he said.

  “Whenever you want to,” I answered quickly. “Right away—any time—now.” The words came out in too great a rush, but there was nothing I could do to stem my eagerness. Behind the legs the arms rose slowly and one hand reached into an inside pocket and withdrew an envelope, while the other hand found a pencil in the handkerchief pocket. I could not see his face, but he was holding up the envelope and evidently regarding some notations on the back of it.

  “Would eleven o’clock tomorrow morning be all right?” he asked tiredly.

  “Fine,” I replied.

  “My house,” he said, “158 East 63rd Street.” The envelope and pencil were moving down and going back into his pocket and one arm was going around the back of his neck again to scratch his ear. I waited and looked inquiringly across the room to where Max Siegel sat behind the desk.

  Max Siegel winked at me and addressed the armchair. “Is that all you want of the young author now, George?” he said.

  “That’s all,” came the answer, “except a second act.”

  Max Siegel made a slight gesture back to me, which seemed to say, Well, that’s it, I guess. I cleared my throat and took a deep breath. It seemed that the moment for my graceful little speech had arrived. I had polished it up rather well in the subway, I thought smugly, and I knew it by heart. I rose from the sofa and stood in front of the armchair.

  “Mr. Kaufman,” I said, “I would like you to know how very much it means to me to…” and that was all I said. To my horror, the legs unwound themselves with an acrobatic rapidity I would not have believed possible, and the figure in the chair leaped up and out of it in one astonishing movement like a large bird frightened out of its solitude in the marshes. He was out of the chair, across the room, had opened the door and was flying down the stairs, the blue scarf whipping out behind him.

  I stared dazedly after the retreating figure until it disappeared down the stairway. “What have I done?” I stammered. “What did I do?”

  Max Siegel, to my intense relief, was shaking with laughter. “You haven’t done anything,” he answered. “Maybe I should have warned you. Mr. Kaufman hates any kind of sentimentality—can’t stand it!” He started to laugh again, but controlled himself. “Maybe I should have told you about George over the phone, but it never occurred to me that you were going to make a speech at him. Did you actually prepare a speech of thanks?”

  I nodded sheepishly.

  “Well, no great harm done,” he said. “He had a barber’s appointment that he had to get to, and you saw to it that he got there on time.” He handed me a sheet of paper with a check attached. “I’m certain Miss Fishbein will agree these are very generous terms, so you can just fill in the contracts and sign them. That’s a check for five hundred dollars for your advance royalty. Congratulations.” He held out his hand and smiled. “If you want to, you can make the speech to me so it won’t be a total loss.”

  I smiled back and shook my head. “Is there anything else I ought to know about Mr. Kaufman?” I asked.

  He hesitated and laughed again. “There is, but if I started you’d never make that eleven o’clock appointment tomorrow morning. Anyway, it’s like marriage—nothing anybody tells you about it is really any
help. You’ve got to live it out for yourself; and if I know George, you’ll be living it out every day from now on. Get a good night’s sleep—that’s the best advice I can give you.” We shook hands warmly and I walked out into the bright October afternoon.

  I stood for a moment outside the Music Box and looked up at its columned façade with a new and proprietary interest, the contracts and the check rustling importantly in my pocket. There could be no doubt of it now; at last I was on my way.

  The rest of that shining afternoon had a quality of incontinent pleasure that I can still recall as vividly as though it were yesterday. The jubilant meeting with Lester and Miss Fishbein, the fusillade of congratulations and obligatory misgivings when the group forgathered at Rudley’s, and that last look at Times Square lighting up for the evening just before I walked down the subway steps to go home; the same subway steps, I reminded myself, that I had darted up to have my first look at Broadway long, long ago.

  I looked back at the lighted canyon, its daytime ugliness softened into something approaching beauty by the magic of the October twilight deepening around it. The knowledge that I was going to be part of it at last brought me perilously close to that wonderful mixture of emotions that makes one want to laugh and to cry at the same time. It is a mistake to dismiss such a moment as maudlin. To do so is to rob oneself of one of the few innocent pleasures the theatre offers. I enjoyed that last lingering look unabashed by its sentimentality and unashamed of its bathos. I deserved that moment, it seemed to me, and I allowed myself to enjoy it to the full.

  I was wise to have done so, for my family’s reception of the news, when I stood in the doorway and announced in ringing tones that I had sold the play, in no way matched my own triumphant glow. They received the news with an air of amazed disbelief and infuriating calm. Even the check, which I unfolded carefully and placed in the center of the dining-room table to be admired by them and by myself all over again, was viewed with an irritating detachment and a quite evident distrust.