ZS2.^ \^1t^ PS 3525 .071 R4 1922 Copy 1 REHEARSAL A COMEDY IN ONE ACT By CHRISTOPHER MORLEY REHEARSAL A COMEDY IN ONE ACT By CHRISTOPHER MORLEY ^ © K V Characters Freda The Director Christine Barbara Gertrude SONIA Marjorie The Stage Carpenter and Property Man .The Players COPTBIGHT, 1922, BY FbaNK ShaT. All rights reserved. No performance of this play, either amateur or professional, may be given except by special arrangement with the author, who may be addressed in care of the Evening Post 20 Vesey Street, New York City. C1A683539 SEP 25 1922 REHEARSAL Scene. Rehearsal of a play to be given by a college dramatic club. This is, as far as the setting is concerned, the easiest play to produce that you ever heard of. It requires only a bare stage, several plain chairs ajid a small table. Whatever is the natural and unadorned condition of your stage, leave it so. Nor are any special costumes necessary: the characters may attire themselves as suits their fancy and condition in life. The scene represents a rehearsal of an amateur play — I mean, a play performed by amateurs. As a matter of fact, the play they are at work on is supposed to be one of those Irish peasantry things. I have imagined the characters as being college girls, in whom is ap- parent that pleasing mixture of hilarity and importance char- acteristic of the sex in youth. However, it being to the author s interest that this play should be performed as frequently as possible, I will remark that by the change of a word or so here and there it is equally valid for girls' schools, or clubs of high- spirited ladies. The house lights having been turned off, and the footlights on, as usual, the audience, eager to be entertained, attentively waits the rise of the curtain. But before the curtain goes up, the gutter is again darkened; so that for a moment the audience thinks some mistake has been made. This impression is perhaps con- firmed when the curtain immediately rises upon the naked stage, which is adequately lit from above, but seems rather gloomy without the usual shine of the footlights. Enter Freda, the director and manager, a brisk young person who enjoys her responsibility and takes it seriously. She carries a typescript, which she lays on the table at the front of the stage, — the sacred little table which still holds an empty jug and a glass to remind one that not long ago some British celebrity spent 340 REHEARSAL a happy evening lecturing there. Freda moves the table to one side, and rapidly begins to arrange the chairs {which are stand- ing in a row at the back) in a calculated pattern. She puts four of them close together toward the back of the stage; and two, a little distance apart, one behind the other, toward the right side; two, similarly, toward the left. Two or three chairs she places with thoughtful precision in other places within the area thus marked out. Enter Christine, Barbara, and Sonia, all carrying scripts. FREDA. Hullo, Where's Gertrude? CHRISTINE. She'll be here, I guess. FREDA. She'd better be, or I'll get some one else to do her part. She doesn't seem to realize we've got to play this thing a week from to-night. BARBARA. Horrid thought ! FREDA. Well, while we await the prima donna, let's get to work. Now you know your lines, we can develop some business. SONIA. I wish you'd picked out some other play; this is so dreadfully gloomy. It'll put the audience into a morbid melancholy. CHRISTINE. Yes, and there's some pretty strong stuff in it, too. My father and mother are going to be here, and really, I think one ought to be careful about saying some of these things before parents — FREDA. You ought to be glad it's gloomy. People don't respect you if you play comedy. This kind of thing is much more artistic. Besides, don't blame me. The Professor of English Literature chose it; I didn't. CHRISTINE. I know — but just looking at things from the parents' standpoint, English Literature is awfully out- spoken sometimes. SONIA. I'm glad my people live so far away there's no chance of their coming to the show. BARBARA. Think of me, I have to play the stricken old father, brooding over his shame. You try being a stricken old father — REHEARSAL 341 FREDA. Come now, we're wasting time. [Enter Marjorie, carrying a hammer, a paint pot and brush, electric bulbs, a roll of canvas and a dingy old suit of masculine garments. MARJORIE. Look here, what the deuce am I going to do for 'moonhght through cottage window'.'' I can't get an arc Hght anywhere. D'you suppose ordinary frosted bulbs will do.'' FREDA. Don't bother me. That's your affair. Lord knows I've got enough to manage. MARJORIE. Well, will these do for the stricken old father? [Holds out horrible old trousers and coat. FREDA. Hurrah! Just the thing. {Takes trousers and holds them against Barbara, who views them with much distaste) A perfect fit ! BARBARA. Have I got to wear those things? MARJORIE. I got them from the janitor. FREDA. Better put them on right away, and get used to them. [Barbara shudders. MARJORIE. Yes, atmosphere, local color — BARBARA. From the local colored man. No thanks. [She deposits trousers gingerly at one side of stage. Enter Gertrude, carrying script. GERTRUDE. Sorry to be late. [Marjorie goes rear of stage, and occupies herself quietly with paint and canvas while the rehearsal proceeds. FREDA. All right, now we can go ahead. I've put these chairs to show essentials of scenery. These (indicating chairs at the back) are the hearth. This (to two chairs at one side) is a door; this (to tivo chairs on other side) is another door. This (to another chair, toward the rear) is the window where the moonlight comes in. And here (to another chair) is the wheel-chair where the stricken old parent sits disconsolate. CHRISTINE. There are going to be some stricken parents in the audience, too. 342 REHEARSAL FREDA {ignoring her). Now get the scene well in mind. {Reads from her script) "A poor cottage in the Irish bogs. At the back, a faint glimmer of a scanty fire of peat on the hearth, with a pile of kelp drying beside it." MARJORiE. Where am I going to get any kelp? What is kelp, anyway? FREDA. Seaweed. MARJORIE. I wonder if spinach would be all right? FREDA {continues to read). "Through rear window, a clear beam of moonlight. In a wheel-chair by a lamp sits Shawn O'Connell, a stricken old man, reading the Bible. The setting indicates an atmosphere of extreme wretched- ness and misery. From the shadows near the hearth, where Norah has flung herself prostrate in despair, comes an occasional low keening." {Christine and Sonia look humorously at Gertrude, who plays the part of Norah) Are you ready? Places! {Barbara sits down in one of the chairs; Gertrude, with a shame-faced air, lies down on the chairs assembled at the back. Christine and Sonia retire to one side of the stage, off the chair-marked area, and solemnly consult their scripts. Freda sits down at the little table, on the other side of the stage) Curtain ! {There is a short pause, while Barbara gazes pensively at her hands, which she holds spread to represent a large book. Gertrude utters a low moan. It is not a success) You'll have to keen better than that. Throw a little agony into it. GERTRUDE {sits up). Can't we have the footlights on? I can do much better then. It seems to make it more real. FREDA. Good idea. Chris, switch 'em on. {Christine exit. The footlights go on, and Christine returns) We've got to get into the spirit of this thing. Try to imagine the audience out there. {She waves toward the auditorium) Imagine the place crowded with intelligent REHEARSAL 343 faces — proud parents, interested friends, hopeful young men — BARBARA. I'm damned if I want to wear trousers before a mixed audience — FREDA. Don't be so mid-Woodrovian. Look here, I told you to bring something to use as a Bible. What did you make me director for if you're not going to obey orders? Wait a minute, I'll find something. [She rushes off. GERTRUDE. Tell me if this sounds any better. [She utters several throbbing tremulous wails. CHRISTINE, Somehow it doesn't seem to carry conviction. SONIA. You must try to imagine terrible things. Imagine you've flunked Physics. GERTRUDE. The trouble is, it's so hard to find any place to practice keening. I tried it in my room late at night, and the watchman sent for a doctor. MARJORIE. I wish Freda wouldn't insist on that moonlight. GERTRUDE. I simply can't keen in cold blood. It'll be all right when the audience is here. SONIA. You're too self-conscious. You'll never be a great actress. GERTRUDE. You'd be self-conscious too if you had to play this part before parents and younger brothers. CHRISTINE. Younger brothers are the devil. They're as bad as Doctor Freud. SONIA. Write and tell them there's smallpox in town. [Reenter Freda, carrying large telephone directory. FREDA (to Barbara) . Here you are — the Telephone Book. It's the only thing I could find. Come now, Places! BARBARA (produccs a clay pipe). I thought that if I used this pipe, it would help me to get the illusion. [Puts it in her mouth and sits down with the directory. FREDA. Curtain ! [Barbara sits in the "wheel-chair", turning over the leaves of the directory, and awkwardly holding the pipe in her mouth. Gertrude is lying, face down, with her head buried in her arms. 344 REHEARSAL on the chairs at the hack. She utters a dire dreadful moaning occasionally. BARBARA. Has Herself come yet? GERTRUDE (sobbing) . Not yet. Nor never will, I'm thinking. BARBARA {grav ly, with the tremulous voice of old age, but having great trouble to keep the pipe in her mouth while she speaks). Fifty year and five it is that I'm living in this place, and never before now did shame come down upon the home of the O'Connell. (Gertrude utters only a low wail) Be leaving off your keening, my girl, I'll be having no stomach to my supper. Is that broth cooked? GERTRUDE {gcts up languidly and pretends to look at the hearth). No, father. BARBARA. Comc away out of the darkness now, and let me be seeing you. {Gertrude comes forward, slowly and shamefully, and crouches at Barbara's feet. Barbara tries to light her pipe) See how all the names are written here in the Book — names of the O'Connell, all numbered in the Good Book. {Christine and Sonia cannot restrain a giggle) Thirteen childer and never a word of shame agin one of them. Francey, Padraic, Finn, Bridget, Cathleen, Dennis. Think of Dennis, now, who killed three Englishmen in one Sunday. This has been a proud house, surely. GERTRUDE. I'm thinking that the broth will soon be ready, father. BARBARA. God be praised, I'm after keeping my appetite in spite of all this sorrow. {Points to page in the book) Thirteen childer, six dead of the bog fever, three drowned in the fishing, two in jail for the republic, one gone to America — all numbered in the Book. CHRISTINE {to Sonia). Call Columbus 8200. FREDA {angrily). Shhhh! BARBARA {in her own voice). I've forgotten my lines. It isn't fair of the author to give any one a speech as long as this one. REHEARSAL 345 GERTRUDE. It doesn't matter. The audience never listens to the first five minutes. They're busy cUmbing over each other's feet. FREDA (rapping on table). How do you expect to get this thing across if you make a joke out of it.'' BARBARA. I simply can't talk with this pipe in my mouth. It's funny — I've often seen men do it. FREDA {reading from her script). "I am an old man — " BARBARA. Oh, ycs. {Resuiues her part) I am an old man, and shamed in my own house. I am after looking for the third chapter of Isaiah. Does Isaiah come ajter Jeremiah or before it? I never can remember. GERTRUDE. Yourself had thirteen childer, father, and if only one goes to hell, it's no bad proportion at all — BARBARA. Whisht, whislit, Norah — is it the Bad Place Yourself is speaking of? Don't be naming that place to an old stricken man that maybe will have had sins of his own to be shriven. It's perished with hunger I am. GERTRUDE (rises, goes to chairs at the back and stoops over the imaginary fire). Which is it that is troubling you more, father; the shame or the supper? BARBARA (absently turning over pages of the directory). The third chapter of Isaiah. There's something about mantles and wimples and crisping pins. GERTRUDE. Crisping pins, is it? Devil a crisping pin did I ever see in this house. BARBARA (reads). "Because the daughters of Zion walk with Stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet. . . . the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments . . . the chains and the bracelets and the mufflers, the bonnets and the ornaments of the legs . . . the rings and nose jewels, the changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles and the wimples and the crisp- ing pins. . . . And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of well-set 346 REHEARSAL hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher — " — Sure, Norah, isn't that broth ready? GERTRUDE. Here it is, father. [Comes forward, carrying an imaginary bowl, which she sets down on an imaginary table beside Barbara, and pretends to set out imaginary dishes, spoons, etc. FREDA (interrupting). That's rotten! Barbara, you've got to be more tragic. Read that with more feehng. BARBARA. I don't Hkc reading the Old Testament. It's — well, it's so vulgar — FREDA (going to her). Let me show you how that ought to go. Remember you're a broken old man. (Takes the directory and sits down in Barbara's chair; assumes a quavering and senile solemnity, and pretends to read from the book, improvising the speech from memory) Because the daughters of Zion walk with stretched forth legs and wanton stomachers the Lord will take away John J. Wimple plumber and steamfitter and instead of crisping pins there shall be Henry Wiesenfeldt Audubon 6543. (Rises) There, do you see? More pathos! MARJORiE. Just a minute! I hadn't heard about all these mufflers and wimples and crisping pins — they aren't actual props, are they? GERTRUDE. No, uo, you poor fish. They're only mentioned. MARJORIE. Well, how was I to know? Freda never gave me a copy of the script to look over. If anything goes wrong, it won't be my fault. FREDA. Attention, please! Now go on with it from there. [Barbara resumes her place in the chair. BARBARA. Where were we? These interruptions get my goat. FREDA. "Here it is, father." GERTRUDE. Here it is, father. (Again brings imaginary soup from the rear, and serves it as before. Barbara pretends to spoon it up with gusto) Leave off feeding till I fix your napkin. Herself might be coming in, and you wouldn't want to be all speckled with the soup — REHEARSAL 347 BARBARA. There's darker stains than spilHng a Httle broth on your breastbone. Yourself might be thinking of the daughters of Zion. GERTRUDE. Perhaps the daughters of Zion were not brought up all alone in the bogs, with no company but the moon- light and an old man dripping his soup. It's more of soup you are thinking than of salvation. Surely it's bitter. BARBARA {after a pause). It is bitter. You've maybe dropped some of the kelp in it. (A pause) I'll be telling you the truth, I'm destroyed altogether with thirst. If you'd be slipping over to the shebeen to bring me a dram — GERTRUDE (goes to the chair that represents a window, and pretends to look out). Here comes Herself now, God help us, and a foreigner with her. Be easy and go on with your supper. I'll be passing into the loft. (She starts to the chair-doorway, right, and then impulsively returns to Barbara. Piteously) Oh, Daddy, you'll not be thinking too hard of your Norah? BARBARA {still eating). It's grand fine soup. ''(Gertrude goes through chair-doorway, right, and stands near Freda. Christine and Sonia come to chair-doorway, left, and Sonia taps on the stage with her foot, to represent knocking at the door) Who's that, God help us? (Christine and Sonia enter) Ah, it's yourself, Mrs. O'Toole, and a foreigner with you. CHRISTINE. Yes. An English lady, God help her. BARBARA. Comc in and be set. CHRISTINE. Surely it's quare and cold to-night, Shawn, and the bogs in the moonshine as white as soap. BARBARA. Ycs, I've finished my soup, thank you kindly. CHRISTINE. A sorrowful night to be lying drowned in the bogs, I'm thinking. I mind the time when Katie ^P'Shaughnessy perished herself in the marsh. She floated face under, God help her, and they said it was because she was ashamed to look her Maker in the face. Indeed I don't wonder, with nothing on her but a shift. BARBARA. The men folk float face upwards, Mrs. O'Toole. 348 REHEARSAL CHRISTINE. To be sure you ought to know the rights of it, what with three sons floating in at the high tide. {To Sonia) We waked them all together, and Father Daly ran short on candles. SONIA. Mr. O'Connell, I'm afraid I have dreadful news for you — BARBARA. Indeed, Ma'am, bad news is an old friend in this house of shame. (Plaintively) If I had a drop of spirits it would be a consolation. FREDA (interrupting). Fine! That's fine! (The actors re- lax, and stand at ease) I don't think your Irish brogue is very good, but you're beginning to get the spirit of the thing. CHRISTINE. Yes, if we can do it hke this I think the audience ought to be sufficiently depressed. FREDA. We won't need to go over the part where the young Englishman's body is brought in, and Norah commits suicide. By the way, Marjorie, what are you going to do for the young Englishman's body? MARJORIE. Oh, I'm going to play that myself. My only chance of glory. FREDA. All right, then — we'll take it again from the be- ginning down to where Sonia and Christine come in. SONIA. I don't think that's fair. You never give me a chance to rehearse the only decent bit I have. BARBARA. Oh, rot, Sonia ! Your stuff is a cinch. You don't even have to talk Irish. GERTRUDE. Ycs, for Hcavcn's sake let's do that first part again while we've got it hot. If I don't get used to watch- ing Barbara I shall burst into yells of laughter — BARBARA. Considering I have the rottenest part in the whole show, I think I do fairly well. SONIA. Some people are certainly hard to please. Your part is the only one with a chance for any real acting. Pretty fat, I call it. CHRISTINE. I agree with Sonia. We ought to rehearse the last half as often as we can. That bit where I have to REHEARSAL 349 break the news to the old man needs some doing. That seems to me the real crux of the play, and I don't feel at all sure of it yet. MARJORiE. I thought you were going to check up that list of props with me. Here I've been hanging around — FREDA. Ye gods, you girls think of no one but yourselves. Can't you forget your own parts for a moment and think of the good of the show? SONIA. I don't care, you've skimped my part right along, and never give me a decent chance to rehearse. I know damn well you want me to flivver — BARBARA. Sonia can have my part whenever she wants it. I'm fed up with the stricken old parent and his house of shame — GERTRUDE (looking at her wrist watch). Well, what's the dope? I haven't got all day — MARJORIE. You people make me tired. All wanting to grab off the footlight stuff. Suppose some of you lend me a hand in building the scenery. FREDA (angrily). Who's directing this play, I'd like to know? You put it up to me, didn't you? Somebody's got to run things — CHRISTINE. It was asiuine to pick out a fool play like this. Why not something with some fun in it ? FREDA. Who ever heard of a one-act play with any fun in it? They don't write 'em. A one-act play has to be artistic — SONIA. All I can say is, I hate to see an innocent audience suffer. GERTRUDE. I know I'll nevcr be able to live down this house of shame business with my young brothers. They'll be kidding me about it for the next five years. SONIA. Come on now, all together — can't we do something else instead? Honestly, Freda, we'd rehearse all night for the next week if you'll choose something really decent — FREDA. Don't be absurd. The announcements have gone out. 350 REHEARSAL SONIA. I bet the damn thing will be a hideous failure — FREDA. Now let's be sensible. I know exactly how you all feel. Putting on a play is just like going to the dentist — the worst part is beforehand. When the fatal evening comes, no one will suspect the agony we've been through. I bet the house will give us a big hand — even the younger brothers. BARBARA. Freda's right. Come on, children, a little cour- age FREDA. We'll do the second part of the play at the next rehearsal. This time we'd better stick to what we've been doing, and get it set. Places! BARBARA. Give the stricken old father time to light his pipe. [As she fumbles with the pipe, the others take their positions — Freda at the little table; Marjorie at the rear; Christine and Sonia down-stage, left; Gertrude on the chairs toward the back; and Barbara then sits down with the telephone directory. FREDA. Curtain ! [And, as Barbara turns over the leaves of the book, and ' Gertrude utters her first "keen", the curtain falls. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS LIBRARY OF CONGRFQc ■Hi