Three Plays: Six Characters in Search of an Author, Henry IV, The Mountain Giants (Oxford World's Classics) (13 page)

On one side of the stage, sitting in a row, are the
ACTORS
;
on the other the
CHARACTERS
.
The
DIRECTOR
stands in the middle of the stage, raising a closed fist to his mouth, thinking hard
.

DIRECTOR
[
straightening up after a brief pause
]. Right now, let’s get to Act Two. Leave it to me, leave it all to me as we agreed at the outset, and everything will be fine.

STEPDAUGHTER
. It’s when we come into his house [
indicating the
FATHER
], in spite of that fellow over there [
referring to the
SON
].

DIRECTOR
[
impatient
]. Yes, yes. But leave it to me, I say.

STEPDAUGHTER
. As long as it’s clear how spiteful he was.

MOTHER
[
from her side, shaking her head
]. For all the good it did …

STEPDAUGHTER
[
rounding on her
]. It doesn’t matter. The more suffering for us, the more remorse for him!

DIRECTOR
[
impatiently
]. All right, I know; I’ve got the message. And I’ll keep it in mind, especially at the beginning. Don’t worry.

MOTHER
[
imploring
]. But please, sir, for the sake of my conscience, make it absolutely clear that I did everything I could …

STEPDAUGHTER
[
interrupting indignantly and taking up the speech
]. To calm me down, to advise me not to offend him. [
To the
DIRECTOR
] So satisfy her, give her what she wants, because it’s true. In the meantime I’m thoroughly enjoying it because, as you can see, the more she implores, the more she tries to touch his heart, the more distant, the more
absent
he becomes. What a treat!

DIRECTOR
. Now could we finally get started on this second act?

STEPDAUGHTER
. I won’t say another word. But I warn you; it won’t be possible to do it all in the garden the way you want.

DIRECTOR
. Why won’t it be possible?

STEPDAUGHTER
. Because he [
indicating the
SON
] stays out of the way all the time, closed up in his room. And then everything to do with that poor lost boy there has to happen inside the house. I told you.

DIRECTOR
. Yes, I see. But on the other hand, you must understand that we can’t put up signs or change the set three or four times in one act.

LEADING MAN
. They used to once …

DIRECTOR
. Yes, maybe when the audience was like that little girl over there.

LEADING LADY
. And the illusion much easier to create.

FATHER
[
jumping up
]. The illusion? For God’s sake, don’t say the illusion! Don’t use that word which is especially hurtful for us.

DIRECTOR
[
stunned
]. Why on earth?

FATHER
. Oh yes, cruel, cruel! You should understand that!

DIRECTOR
. What should we say then? The illusion that we create, here, for our spectators …

LEADING MAN
. Through our performance …

DIRECTOR
. The illusion of a reality.

FATHER
. I understand, sir. But maybe it’s you who doesn’t understand us. Forgive me. Because, you see, for you and for your actors here, it’s only—as is right and proper—a matter of playing your game.

FIRST LADY
[
interrupting, indignant
]. What game? We’re not a bunch of children. Here we take our acting very seriously.

FATHER
. I don’t deny it. What I mean, in fact, is the game of your art, your playing which—as the gentleman says—should give a perfect illusion of reality.

DIRECTOR
. That’s it. Exactly.

FATHER
. Now, if you consider that we, as ourselves [
indicates himself and gestures vaguely towards the other five
CHARACTERS
], have no reality other than this illusion.

DIRECTOR
[
dumbfounded, looking at his
ACTORS
who are no less dazed and bewildered
]. Which means what?

FATHER
[
after pausing to look at them, with a pale smile
]. Yes, indeed, sir. What other reality do we have? What for you is an illusion that has to be created is for us, on the contrary, our only reality. [
Brief pause. He takes a few steps towards the
DIRECTOR
and adds
] But not just for us, come to that. Just think about it. [
Looking him in the eye
] Can you tell me who you are? [
He stands pointing at him
]

DIRECTOR
[
troubled, with a half-smile
]. What? Who am I? I’m me.

FATHER
. And if I said that’s not true because you are me?

DIRECTOR
. I’d answer that you were mad.

FATHER
. You’re right to laugh: because here we’re all playing a game; [
to the
DIRECTOR
] and so you can object that it’s only in play that the gentleman there [
indicating the
LEADING MAN
] who is
him
must be
me
who, on the other hand, am this
me
myself. Do you see how I’ve caught you in a trap?

DIRECTOR
[
annoyed
]. But we’ve heard all this already. So we’re back where we started?

FATHER
. No, no. In fact, I didn’t mean that. On the contrary, I was inviting you to come out of this game [
with a warning look at the
LEADING LADY
]—of art! Art!—which you play here with your actors; and I ask you once again quite seriously: who are you?

DIRECTOR
[
turning to the
ACTORS
,
astonished and also irritated
]. Well, what a bloody nerve! Someone who claims to be a character comes and asks me who I am!

FATHER
[
dignified, but not overbearing
]. A character, sir, may always ask a man who he is. Because a character really has a life of his own, marked by his own traits, which means that he is always ‘someone’. But a man—I’m not talking about you, but about man in general—a man may well be ‘nobody’.

DIRECTOR
. Maybe. But you’re asking me, me the Director, the boss! Have you got that?

FATHER
[
almost under his breath, modestly soft-spoken
]. It’s a matter of knowing, sir, whether you, as you are now, really see yourself … in the same way, for example, as you see in retrospect what you once were, with all the illusions you then had; with all those things within and around you, as they then seemed—and indeed truly were for you. Well, sir, when you think back on those illusions which you now no longer have, on everything that no longer ‘seems’ what once for you it ‘was’—don’t you feel, not the boards of this stage, but the earth, the earth itself, give way beneath your feet? For you must conclude that in the same way all ‘this’ that you feel now, all your reality of today, as it is, is destined to seem illusion tomorrow.

DIRECTOR
[
not understanding much and stunned by the specious argument
]. So what? What are you trying to prove?

FATHER
. Oh, nothing, sir. Only to make you see that if we [
indicating himself and the other
CHARACTERS
] have no reality beyond the illusion, then maybe you also shouldn’t count too much on your own reality, this reality which you breathe and touch in yourself today, because—like yesterday’s—inevitably, it must reveal itself as illusion tomorrow.

DIRECTOR
[
deciding to take it as a joke
]. Oh, that’s wonderful! And now tell me that you, and this play you’ve come here to put on for me, are more real and true than I am.

FATHER
[
deeply serious
]. There’s no doubt about it, sir.

DIRECTOR
. Really?

FATHER
. I thought you’d understood that right from the start.

DIRECTOR
. More real than me?

FATHER
. If your reality can change from one day to the next …

DIRECTOR
. Of course it can change, and how! It changes all the time. Like everyone else’s.

FATHER
[
shouting
]. But not ours, sir! There’s the difference, you see. It doesn’t change, it can’t change, it can never be different because it’s fixed—like this; it’s ‘this’—for ever—a terrible thing, sir!—an immutable reality that should make you shudder to come near us.

DIRECTOR
[
jumping up, struck by a sudden idea
]. But what I’d like to know is who has ever seen a character step out of his part and start lecturing about it the way you’re doing, expounding it and explaining it? Can you tell me that? I’ve never seen such a thing.

FATHER
. You’ve never seen it, sir, because authors usually hide the labour of their creation. When characters are alive, truly alive before their author, all he does is follow them in the actions, words, and gestures that they, indeed, set before him. And he must wish them to be as they themselves wish to be; otherwise he runs into trouble! When a character is born he immediately obtains such an independence, even from his author, that everyone can imagine him in a host of situations that the author never thought of—and he sometimes acquires a significance that the author never dreamed of giving him.

DIRECTOR
. As if I didn’t know that!

FATHER
. Then why are you so surprised by us? Imagine what it’s
like for a character to have the misfortune I’ve already told you about—to have been born alive from the imagination of an author who then decided to deny him life; and tell me if that character, abandoned like that, living and without a life, isn’t right to start doing what we’re doing here, before you, after already doing it for so long, so long, believe me, before our author—urging him, persuading him, appearing before him, each of us in turn: me, her [
indicating the
STEPDAUGHTER
], that poor Mother there …

STEPDAUGHTER
[
coming forward as if in a trance
]. It’s true. Me too, sir, me too! Tempting him so often in the gloom of his study, at twilight, as he lay listless in an armchair, unable to decide whether or not to switch on the light, letting the darkness invade the room, a darkness swarming with us who came to tempt him … [
As if she could see herself still there in that study and felt disturbed by the presence of all the
ACTORS
] If only you’d all clear off and leave us alone! Mother there with that son of hers—me with my little sister—that boy there always by himself—and then me with
him
[
hardly gesturing towards the
FATHER
]—and then me alone, all alone … in the shadows. [
Starting up, as if she wanted to grasp that vision of herself, alive and shining in the shadows
] Ah, my life! What scenes, what scenes we used to offer him! And I tempted him most of all.

FATHER
. You certainly did. But perhaps it was your fault; precisely because you insisted too much, because you kept going too far!

STEPDAUGHTER
. Not in the least! Since that’s the way he willed me to be. [
Coming close to the
DIRECTOR
,
confidentially
] I think, sir, it was discouragement rather, or contempt for the kind of theatre that the public nowadays usually wants and gets.

DIRECTOR
. Let’s get on with it, for God’s sake, and let’s go straight to the action. Ladies and gentlemen, please.

STEPDAUGHTER
. Well, I reckon you’ve got more than enough action, with us coming into his house [
indicating the
FATHER
]. And you said you couldn’t put up signs or change the set every five minutes.

DIRECTOR
. So I did. That’s just the point. We need to combine the episodes, unite them in one single simultaneous concise action, and not do things the way you want, with first your little brother who comes back from school and wanders through the rooms like
a shade, hiding behind doors and brooding on some plan that would make him—how did you put it? …

STEPDAUGHTER
. Sapless, sir, totally sapless.

DIRECTOR
. That’s a new one on me! But all right, and then: ‘Only his eyes seem to grow larger’, wasn’t that it?

STEPDAUGHTER
. Yes, sir. There he is. [
Pointing to where he stands next to the
MOTHER
]

DIRECTOR
. Well done! And then, at the same time, you want this little girl to be playing in the garden, all unawares. One in the house and the other in the garden, is that possible?

STEPDAUGHTER
. Ah, happy in the sunshine, sir! It’s my only reward—her happiness, her delight, in that garden; saved from the misery and the squalor of that horrible room where we slept, all four of us—and me with her—me, just think of it! With the horror of my contaminated body next to hers as she hugged me tight, so tight, in her innocent and loving little arms. As soon as she saw me in the garden she used to run and take me by the hand. She didn’t even notice the bigger flowers; she went looking for all the ‘teeny-weeny ones’ to show me, with such joy, such delight!