Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 663
With that the curtain falls and the play ends on just that strange note of uncertainty, that perplexing unanswered questioning, that alone makes great drama. The Germans call it, I think, Weltschmerz. I forget what the Turks call it — probably much the same.
You will have realized from what I have said about reconstructing the melodrama to turn it into a High Brow play, that I am speaking from experience as a playwright. I don’t say that my plays have been much acted or indeed acted at all. But that is in their favour. They can’t be acted. It is recognized that many of the greatest dramatic works are not acting plays, and indeed hardly even reading plays — they are just plays. Mine are like that.
I remember very distinctly my first success with Melodrama. I took the manuscript to a manager.
‘Where is the first act laid?’ he asked.
‘In a lighthouse,’ I answered.
‘Good, and where is the second laid?’
‘In a madhouse.’
‘Fine, and where have you laid the third act?’
‘In a monkey house.’
‘And the fourth?’
‘In the House of Lords.’
‘First-rate,’ he said, all of it, ‘but you have forgotten to put a condemned cell, and a crypt, and a vault, and London Bridge at midnight.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Give it me back: I’ll add four more acts and another set of actors acting in two shifts.’
But in the end they couldn’t use it. They couldn’t cast it — didn’t know where to throw it.
However, it made little difference to me, as I soon was busy in other directions. About that time — it’s away back — there was a great demand for Ibsen plays, plays by Henrik Ibsen, though the people in the country called him Henry Gibson. The demand was so great that Ibsen working alone couldn’t fill it. Some of us had to help him, and so I put together one or two Ibsen plays and allowed them to be acted under his name. Let me just in a few minutes try to give you an idea of one of them, not in the original Norwegian, but in the kind of English that is chopped out of the Norwegian with an axe.
Here is the list of the characters in the play:
Slump
A builder
Vamp
His wife
Dump
A professor of thermodynamics
Simp
A maidservant
Yoop
An accountant
Scoop
His sister
Pastor Gymp
A pastor
Cramp
His mother-in-law
etc...........etc..............etc.
. . . and as many more with names of that kind, and with occupations of that sort, as there is room for on the page. Some of them may not get into the play at all. But that doesn’t matter. An Ibsen Dramatis Personae is a thing by itself.
Scene: A room in Slump’s house. There are flowers on the table.
Slump: What beautiful flowers.
Vamp: Yes, they are fresh this morning.
Slump and Vamp speak one after the other in short turns, like sawing wood with a crosscut saw. But there is no need to indicate which is speaking. It doesn’t matter.
Are they indeed?
Yes, they are.
How sweet they smell.
Yes, don’t they?
I like flowers.
So do I. I think they smell so beautiful.
It’s a beautiful morning.
Yes, the spring will soon be here.
The air is deliciously fresh.
Yes, it is, isn’t it?
I saw a bobolink in the garden.
A bobolink already? Then the summer is soon here.
Soon indeed, the meadows are already green.
I like the green meadows.
Yes, isn’t it?
The angle of the sun is getting high.
I suppose it is. I noticed yesterday that the diameter of the moon was less.
Much less, and the planets are higher than they were. Their orbits are elongating.
I suppose so.
Vamp: How I love the spring!
Slump: So do I. The evaporation of the air closes the pores of my skin.
This completes round number one. It is meant to show Norwegian home life, the high standard of education among the Norwegians and, just at the end, the passionate nature of Vamp.
The spring fills her with longings. It also shows where Slump stands. For him the spring merely opens the pores of his skin.
With this understanding we are ready for a little action.
A bell rings. Then Simp the maid enters, showing in Dump, a professor of thermodynamics.
Good-morning, Dump. Good-morning, Slump. Good-morning, Vamp. Good-morning, Dump.
Dump: The spring will soon be here.
Vamp: I saw a bobolink in the garden.
Dump: Yes, I saw a wagtail on the thatch of the dovecote.
Slump: Spring is coming.
Dump: It will do my cough good.
Vamp: Yes, you will soon be well.
Dump: Never well. (He coughs again.)
Slump: You think too much. You need pleasure. For me each time I finish a subcontract, I like to take my ease and drink sprott.
Dump: I can’t drink sprott. (He coughs.) I have a mortal disease.
Vamp: Don’t say that.
Dump: In six years I shall be dead.
Slump: Nonsense. Come, drink a glass of sprott.
No.
Have some yip?
No.
Take some pep?
No.
Dump goes and sits down near a window; the others look at him in silence.
This completes round two. It is intended to establish the fact that Dump has a mortal disease. There is nothing visibly wrong with Dump except that he looks bilious. But in every Ibsen play it is understood that one of the characters has to have a mortal disease. Dump in the Ibsen drama will die of biliousness and ill-temper in six years. Biliousness and ill temper take the place of Ananke in the Greek tragedy.
Slump: Well, I must be about my work. Come, Simp, come and help me get my wallet and my compasses.
Simp: Yes, sir.
Simp and Slump go out. Vamp and Dump are left alone.
Vamp: Come and sit down.
Dump: I don’t want to sit down. I’m too ill to sit down.
Vamp: Here, get into this long chair; let me make you comfortable.
Dump: Why should I be comfortable? I’m too ill to be comfortable. In six years I shall be dead.
Vamp: Oh, no! Don’t say that.
Dump: Yes, I will. The bile is mounting to my oesophagus.
Vamp: Oh, no!
Dump: I say it is. There’s an infiltration into my ducts. My bones are turning into calcareous feldspar.
This dialogue is supposed to bring out the full charm of Dump. The more bilious he is the better Vamp likes him. It is a law of the Norwegian drama that the heroines go simply crazy over bilious, disagreeable men with only from six to twenty years to live. This represents the ‘everlasting-mother-soul.’ They go on talking:
Vamp: Let me dance for you.
Dump: Yes, yes.
Vamp: Let me dance for you.
Dump: No. Yes, yes. Dance for me.
Vamp is evidently smitten with that peculiar access of gaiety that is liable to overcome the heroine of an Ibsen play at any time. She dances about the room singing as she goes:
Was ik en Butterflog
Flog ik dein Broost enswog,
Adjo, mein Hertzenhog,
Adje, Adjö!
Dump (Passionately): More, more, keep on singing. Keep on dancing. It exhilarates my capillary tissue. More, more.
Vamp: Do you love me?
Dump: I do.
Vamp: No, you mustn’t say that. It’s wicked to say that. What put that into your head?
Dump: Dance for me again.
Vamp: No, I mustn’t. Listen. I hear them coming back.
Of course after that the denouement is easy; anybody used to an Ibsen play can foresee all the rest. Indeed Ibsen himself guessed it right away and said it was just the way he would have ended it.
But the Ibsen boom ran out and first thing us playwrights knew — I say ‘us playwrights’ because ‘we playwrights’ sounds too conceited — first thing we knew there was a great boom on Napoleonic Plays. They were all done under enigmatic sorts of titles like Plus que Reine, and Moins de Rien, etc. The best one I wrote was called Des Deux Choses l’Une. Here’s a little scene from it that is intended to reproduce the First Empire at its height and to show in particular the extraordinary devotion of Napoleon’s Marshals.
The scene is the Ballroom of the palace of the Tuileries. Standing around are ladies in Directoire dresses, brilliant as rainbows. Up right beside them are the Marshals of France. There is music and a buzz of conversation.
Enter Napoleon followed by Talleyrand in black, and two secretaries carrying boxes. There is silence. The Emperor seats himself at a little table. The secretaries place on it two black dispatch boxes.
The Emperor: Marshal Junot.
The Marshal steps forward and salutes.
The Emperor: Marshal, I have heard strange rumours and doubts about your fidelity. I wish to test it. I have here (He opens one of the boxes) a vial of poison. Here — drink it.
Junot: With pleasure, Sire.
Junot drinks the poison and stands to attention.
The Emperor: Go over there and stand beside the Comtesse de la Polissonerie till you die.
Junot (Saluting): With pleasure, Sire.
The Emperor (Turns to another Marshal): Berthier?
Berthier: Here, Sire!
Berthier steps out in front of The Emperor.
The Emperor (Rising): Ha! Ha! Is it you? (He reaches up and pinches Berthier’s ear.) Vieux paquet de linge sale!
Berthier looks delighted. It is amazing what a French Marshal will do for you if you pinch his ear. At least it is a tradition of the stage. In these scenes Napoleon always pinched the Marshals’ ears and called them Vieux paquet de linge sale, etc.
The Emperor turns stern in a moment.
The Emperor: Marshal Berthier!
Berthier: Sire!
The Emperor: Are you devoted to my person?
Berthier: Sire, you have but to put me to the test.
The Emperor: Very well. Here, Marshal Berthier (The Emperor reaches into the box) is a poisoned dog biscuit. Eat it.
Berthier (Saluting): With pleasure, Sire. It is excellent.
The Emperor: Very good, Mon Vieux trait d’union. Now go and talk to the Duchesse de la Rotisserie till you die.
Berthier bows low.
The Emperor: Marshal Lannes! You look pale. Here is a veal chop. It is full of arsenic. Eat it.
Marshal Lannes bows in silence and swallows the chop in one bite.
The Emperor then gave a paquet of prussic acid to Marshal Soult, one pill each to Marshals Ney and Augereau. Then suddenly he rises and stamps his foot.
The Emperor: No. Talleyrand, no! The farce is finished! I can play it no longer. Look, les braves enfants! They have eaten poison for me. Ah, non, mes amis, mon vieux. Reassure yourselves. You are not to die. See, the poison was in the other box.
Talleyrand (Shrugging his shoulders): If your Majesty insists upon spoiling everything.
The Emperor: Yes, yes, those brave fellows could not betray me. Come, Berthier. Come, Junot, come and let us cry together —
The Emperor and his Marshals all gather in a group, sobbing convulsively and pulling one another’s ears.
The Napoleon Plays had a great run. But I never felt that they represented such a high reach of dramatic interest as the Abraham Lincoln Plays. I don’t mean the Civil War plays showing the armies and the fighting and all that. I mean the plays that show Lincoln, isolated in his loneliness, trying to understand the Constitution — and not getting it. I had a little play that I called Forging the Fourteenth Amendment that seemed to me to have wonderful power.
Oh, they couldn’t act it. Impossible. Every manager gave me the same answer, impossible — couldn’t get a hall small enough. But it was good just the same. I put into it Lincoln, Seward, Stanton, Artemus Ward, and the other members of the Cabinet, and here’s how the chief scene goes:
(The scene is laid in the Council room of the White House. There are present Abraham Lincoln, Seward, Stanton, Artemus Ward, and the other members of the Cabinet.)
Lincoln (Speaking very gravely): Mr. Secretary, what news have you from the Army of the Potomac?
Stanton: Mr. President, the news is bad. General Halleck has been driven across the Rappahannock, General Pope has been driven across the Roanoke, and General Burnside has been driven across the Pamunkey.
Lincoln (With quiet humour): And has anybody been driven across the Chickahominy?
Stanton: Not yet.
Lincoln: Then it might be worse. Let me tell you a funny story I heard ten years ago.
Seward (With ill-disguised impatience): Mr. President, this is no time for telling stories ten years old.
Lincoln (Wearily): Perhaps not. In that case fetch me the Constitution of the United States.
The Constitution is brought and is spread out on the table, in front of them. They bend over it anxiously.
Lincoln (With deep emotion): What do you make of it?
Stanton: It seems to me, from this, that all men are free and equal.
Seward (Gravely): And that the power of Congress extends to the regulation of commerce between the States, with foreign states, and with Indian Tribes.
Lincoln (Thoughtfully): The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
[In the printed text of the play there is a note to the effect that Lincoln did not on this particular occasion use this particular phrase. Indeed it was said by someone else on some other occasion. But it is such a good thing for anyone to say on any occasion that it is the highest dramatic art to use it.]
Lincoln (Standing up from the table to his full height and speaking as one who looks into the future): Gentlemen, I am prepared to sacrifice any part of this Constitution to save the whole of it, or to sacrifice the whole of it to save any part of it, but what I will not do is to sacrifice all of it to save none of it.
There is a murmur of applause. But at this very moment, a messenger dashes in.
The Messenger: Mr. President, telegraphic news from the seat of war. General Grant has been pushed over the Chickahominy.
Lincoln: Pushed backward or pushed forward?
The Messenger: Forward.
Lincoln (Gravely): Gentlemen, the Union is safe.
But of course all that kind of thing has drifted into the past. The moving pictures have taken over all the big scenic stuff, and the old melodrama is dead. All that is left for the acting stage now is the High Brow Drama as I have described it. Even that has got to be made small, delicate — intimate, that’s the word; I couldn’t think of it — what the French call intime. The French always go us one better. In the intime play there’s a minimum of acting and a maximum of thought, very little speaking, or movement or sound. I’ve worked out a little thing in three brief acts to be used as the final piece of an evening’s entertainment. In the first act the characters don’t speak at all, they just brood. In the second act they are not on the stage at all; it’s empty; the effect is that of utter desolation. In the last act they are all dead. I think it will make quite a hit. Good night.
OMINOUS OUTLOOK
Talking of the Drama, I was once the organizer and chief actor of an amateur company which undertook in a small way to go on tour. In the first village where we were billed to play I went into the barber’s shop to get a shave and gather information.
‘How do you think our company will do here?’ I asked.
The barber paused, with the razor in the air.
‘Might do well,’ he said. ‘This is a good place for shows; there hasn’t been but one company egged out of town all spring.’
‘Egged out?’ I said. The words were new to me and ominous.
‘Yes, sir, egged out.’
‘An immoral sort of show, was it?’
‘Oh, no, but it got round town that the company was just amateurs and not real actors, and so the boys went in and put the eggs to them. Clip your moustache?’
IV. FRENZIED FICTION. FIRST LECTURE. MURDER AT $2.50 A CRIME
I PROPOSE TO-NIGHT, ladies and gentlemen, to deal with murder. There are only two subjects that appeal nowadays to the general public, murder and sex; and, for people of culture, sex-murder. Leaving out sex for the minute — if you can — I propose to-night to talk about murder as carried on openly and daily at two dollars and fifty cents a crime.
For me, I admit right away that if I’m going to pay two dollars and fifty cents for a book I want to make sure that there’s going to be at least one murder in it. I always take a look at the book first to see if there’s a chapter headed ‘Finding of the Body.’ And I know that everything is all right when it says, The Body was that of an elderly gentleman, well dressed but upside down. Always, you notice, an ‘elderly gentleman.’ What they have against us, I don’t know. But, you see, if it said that the body was that of a woman — that’s a tragedy. The body was that of a child! — that’s a horror. But the body was that of an elderly gentleman — oh, pshaw! that’s all right. Anyway, he’s had his life — he’s had a good time (it says he’s well dressed) — probably been out on a hoot. (He’s found upside down.) That’s all right! He’s worth more dead than alive.
But as a matter of fact, from reading so many of these stories I get to be such an expert that I don’t have to wait for the finding of the body. I can tell just by a glance at the beginning of the book who’s going to be the body. For example, if the scene is laid on this side of the water, say in New York, look for an opening paragraph that runs about like this:
