.1

0-"?

THE DESKSN AND EXECUTION OF A
paooucnon 0F GEORGE BERNARD
SHAW’S "HEARTBREAK HOUSE”
FOR A SMALL STAGE wn‘H LIMITED
EAGLETFES AND AN ANALYSIS OF. THE
PROBLEMS .mvoweo

Thesis for the. 9692-99 of M. A.
MICHIGAN STATE COLLEGE
Chad-es Jéhn’ Tékh

1950 *

THE DESIGN AND EXECUTION OF A
PRODUCTION OF GEORGE BERNARD SHAW‘S "HEARTBREAK HOUSE"
FOR A SMALL STAGE WITH LIMITED FACILITIES AND AN
ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEMS INVOLVED

By

Charles John Tolch

A THESIS

Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies of Michigan
State College of Agriculture and Applied Science
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Speech, Dramatics and Radio Education

1950

(A

ACKNOWLEDGTFENT

244597

ACK NOWLE DGE‘IEN T

my gratitude can never be fully expressed to the
many staff members and students who helped me to complete
this project through its many phases.

My sincere thanks goes to Dr. Wilson B. Paul, head
of the Department of Speech, Dramatics, and Radio Educa-
tion, for making the production possible; to Harold F.
Niven, Jr. for his welcome advice and suggestions; to
Mr. Donald 0. Buell for his patience and guidance in the
writing of this thesis; to Dr. Donald Hayworth, Mr. Ralph
Duckwell, and Mr. Stuart C. Chenoweth for assistance and
advice; to William Gregory, c0dworker and director, for
his cooperation; to Edward A. Andreasen and Dorthea
Sergeant for their painting efforts; to the excellent
crews for their help with the production; and to my'wife,
Barbara, who has a place of her own, for her encouragement
and inspiration.

**#**#****
********
******
****

*1:

t

 

[I[ I l I l' ‘l I I II III |l|||II
l

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

IINTRODUCTIOIQ’OOIOOOO.0.0.00.0000...OOOOCOOCOOOOOIOOOOOO0......

CHAPTER I -

PART I:

PART II:

PART III:

CHAPTER II -

PART I:

PART II:

CHAPTER III -

CHAPTER IV -

PART I:

PART II:

CHAPTER V -

THE ANALYSIS OF THE AUTHOR'S PROBLEH AS IT
AFFECTS THIS PRODUCTION........................

SHAW'S GENERAL DEMANDS UPON HIS PRODUCERSOOOOOO

THE SCENERY REQWIRENENTS OF HEARTBREAK HOUSE AS
ES'PABLIS}IED BY TIIIE AITTHCROOCOOOOOOOOOOOOOI0....

THE PHYSICAL LINITATIONS OF STUDIO THEATRE.....

THE PLAN OF PRODUCTION AND THE DESIGNING OF THE

SETTING...00.00.0000...OOOOOOOIOOOOOOOOOCOOO...

PLANNING THE SCENERYOeeooeeeeeooeeoeooooeoeooeo
DESIGNING OF THE SETTINGeoeeoeeeooeooeoocone...
THE PLAY SCRIPT WITH TECHNICAL CUES............
AN ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLENS OF EXECUTING THE
DESIGNS, AND THE NECESSARY DRAWINGS, CHARTS,
PLOTS, ETCeeeooeeoeeeoeeee00000000000000eeeoooe

AN ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLENS OF EKECUTING THE

DESIGIJSOOOOCOOOCOOIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.O...

SCELJ DESIGNER‘S DRAWINGSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
WAKE‘UP CHARTS AND INSTRUCTIONSOOOOOOOOOO0.0...
THE COSTUrE PLOTooeeeeoeooeeeo00.000.000.000...

PICTURTSSOOOOOOOOOOOOOO0.0.0...OOOOOOOOOOOOOO...

COTTCLTTSIOI‘TSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...

BIBLIOGl—{APMOOOCOOCOO0.00.000...COCOOOOOOOOOO0.00.00.00.00...

l

12

20

25
25
32

58

141

141
146
163
169
170
175

180

INTRODUCTION

 

It[1.l [I‘llulllll‘ It I Ill .. l T {Illll l Ill l III II I

INTRODUCTION
THE DESIGNER APPROACHES THE PROBLEM

The problem of this thesis is three-fold, as the title indicates:

”The Design and Execution of a Production of G. B. Shaw‘s Heartbreak

 

.EEEEE for a Small Stage with Limited Facilities and angAnalysis of the
Problems Involved". There are these considerations: a. the general
problem of satisfying G. B. Shaw in his demands in the script; b. the
plan and design of the whole production as they are effected by a
small stage; and c. the working out of the details of the construction
and execution of the designs with an analysis of the various problems
involved.

Before analyzing the individual problems of Heartbreak House, a

 

discussion of the general procedure followed by the average designer
might be in order. Reference will be made from time to time to the
designer and his relation to the entire production.

As a guide for the designing of the scenery, the general plan sug-
gested by Merdecai Gorelik, a Broadway designer, was used.1 Although
Mr. Gorelik is designing for the professional theatre, many of his
procedures are followed to a large extent in the educational theatre.
The business of the'designer does not necessarily follow this plan
step by step, but rather, it is flexible.

The designer must first of all have a thorough knowledge and under-

standing of the script. With this study and understanding of the

 

1 Mbrdecai Gorelik, "Designing the Play”, Producin the P1 ,
ed. John Gassner, (New Yerk: Dryden Press, I§ZIE, pp. 3I%-353.

script, an effort is made to penetrate closer and closer to the deeper
meaning of the play.2 At all times the designer must be aware of what
his settings will contribute to the production as a whole. The
designer must think beyond architectural detail, and attempt to deter-
mine what his setting will do for the action as called for in the
script, and how the actors will use his setting. Extensive conferences
should be held with the director so that the two are in agreement on
the major problems of action, style, and atmosphere or mood. The de-
signer follows a general pattern of interpreting the play, and creating
the settings. However, since his role in the theatre is a supporting
one, his work must be of a cooperative nature and in agreement with the
director at all times.

In fulfilling these obligations, the designer may find himself
doing research in order to clearly represent an accurate production of
stage. It may be necessary to visit factories, lighthouses, and other
existing structures if that type setting is demanded. Also, the
designer may be called upon to design historic and geographic settings,
for example, a beican play of 1860. For this type production, he will
need to do library research.3

Because properties help to convey particular elements in the
design,'the designer is responsible for their selection.

Sketches should be made and are important because they can give

a concrete visual expression of the ideas which the designer has in

 

2 Ibid., p. 315.
3 Tara” p. 320.

-2-

mind. The designer prepares models and blueprints of his designs which
are drawn to scale. As the designs are planned, he should not overlook
the physical nature of the theatre in which the settings are to be used.

After the drawings are complete, the designer is the individual
who supervises the construction of the setting through all its stages
including the actual setting up on stage. The lighting arrangement is
also planned and supervised by the designer.

The proceeding outline, then, was the general guide used in plan-

ning the scenery for Heartbreak House.

 

For the purposes of this study, the specific treatment of this
problem has been analyzed in six chapters.

Chapter I, part one, discusses Shaw's demands upon the actor, di-
rector,.and designer. The material on the actor and director is included
to show how Shaw's demands upon these people influences the designer.

Part two discusses the specific scenery requirements of Heartbreak

 

nggg'as outlined by Mr. Shaw.

Part three describes Studio Theatre and shows the limitations imp
posed by the physical plant.

Chapter II gives a description of how the production was planned,
and how the scenery was designed.

Chapter III includes the script as used with all technical cues.

Chapter IV is a record, containing blueprints and pictures, of
the execution of the proposed design.

Chapter'V offers any conclusions to be drawn from designing and

executing the settings for the production.

. -3-

CHAPTER I

THE ANALYSIS OF THE AUTHOR'S
PROBLEM AS IT AFFECTS THIS PRODUCTION

CHAPTER I
PART I: SHAW'S GENERAL DE‘iANDS UPON HIS PRODUCERS

George Bernard Shaw has been recognized as one of our outstanding
present-day playwrights.1 An.effort to discover his attitudes towards
the people who produce his plays has not been an easy task, for:

his influence on the theatre as a social thinker, philosopher,

realistic and imaginative writer, and master or even virtual

creator of modern comedy of ideas, it is difficult to pigeon-

hole this versatile master.

In light of this author's research, Shaw has given only scattered
indications of what he requires of the scene designer. Mr. Shaw has
himself written extensively about his plays, their ideas, their direct-
ing and acting problem. Many of his critics have done the same, but
both Mr. Shaw'and his critics have written relatively little concerning

the scene design for these plays. Nevertheless, Shaw realizes the value

of the setting and shows this in one instance when a setting was poorly

 

done. In a production of Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman at the New'Century.
Theatre, London, Shaw became quite upset over the abominable and sloven
use of the scenery.3 Neither does Shaw approve of stage "hokumf or
tricks,4 but constantly desires the scenery to produce a true and ac-

- curate representation.

 

1 John Gassner, Masters of the Drama, (New York: Dover Publica-
tions, 1945), pp. 598-616.

2 John Gassner, Philo M. Buck, H. s. Alberson, A Treasury of‘ths
Theatre (New York: The Dryden Press, 1940), p. 397.

3 George Bernard Shaw, Dramatic Opinions and Essays With an A 010
byiBernard Shaw (New fess. Brentano's, 1907),'Vol. II, p. 525.

4 G. B.:§haw,‘"nake Them Do It well", Colliers, June 24, 1922.

 

 

 

-4-

Shaw shows his emphasis on the setting by the very complete des-
criptions which preceed the dialogue to his plays. In the descriptions
of his settings that follow, it is evident that they: help to create
the nature and atmosphere for the play; describe the traits of the
characters who occupy the settings; define to a degree the historical
architectural boundaries; and provide that the "faces of the speakers
are seen quite distinctly".5

This exerpt from.§ygmalion, Act II, sets the scene in a male speech
clinician's office and illustrates the point that the settings create
the nature and atmosphere of the play.

Higgin's laboratory in'Wimple Street......The double doors are
in the middle of the back wall; and the persons entering find
in the corner to their right two tall file cabinets at right
angles to one another against the walls. In this corner
stands a flat writing-table, on which are a phonograph, a
laryngoscope, a row of tiny organ pipes with a bellows, a set
of lamp chimneys......several tuning forks of different sizes,
a life-size image of a half a human head, showing in section
the vocal organs......Further down the room, on the same side,
is a fireplace, with a comfortable leather-covered easy-chair
at the side of the hearth nearest the door, and a coal scuttle

This passage from Candida illustrates Shaw's description of the
character traits of the individual who occupies the setting. It is
the home of the Reverend James Mavor Merell.

In this room, the only sitting room that can be spared from
the children, the Reverend James flavor Merell does his work.
He is sitting in a strong roundebacked revolving chair at
the right hand of a long table, which stands across the win-
dow;...At the opposite end of the table, adjoining it, is a
little table only half the width of the other, with a type-
‘writer on it.....The large table is littered with pamphlets,

 

5 Lee Simonson, Part of A Lifetime (New York: men, Sloan, and
Pearce, Inc., IB437, p. SI.
Bernard Shaw, Androcles and the Lion, Overruled, Pygmalion
(New York; Brentano‘s, 1923), p. 127.

 

 

 

-5-

journals, letters, nests of drawers, an office diary, postage
scales and'the like. A spare chair for visitors having busi~
ness with.the person is in.the middle, turned to his end.
Within reach of his hand is a stationery case, and a cabinet
photograph in a frame.....0pposite him.on the left, near the
typewriter, is the door, further down the room, opposite the
fireplace, a bookcase stands on a cellaret, with a sofa near
it. There is a generous fireburning.......7

To show how Shaw has defined the historical and geographical boun-

daries of the setting, a bit from.The Doctor's Dilemma will illustrate:

 

The consulting-room has two windows looking on Queen Anne
Street. Between the two is a marble-topped console, with
haunched gilt legs ending in sphinx claws. The huge pier-
glass which surmounts it is mostly disabled from reflection
by elaborate painting on its surface of palms, ferns, lilies,
tulips, and sunflowers. The adjoining wall contains the fire-
place, with two arshchairs before it.....There is a couch in
the middle of the mom, at right angles to the console, and
parallel to the fireplace. The'windows have green venetian
blinds and red curtains; and there is a gasalier; but it is a
convert to electric lighting. The wall paper and carpets are
mostly green, coeval with the gasalier and the Venetian blinds.
The house, in fact, was so well furnished in the middle of the
XIX century that it stands unaltered to this day and is still
quite presentable.8

Shaw does not describe his setting and then forget it. As his
plays progress, he continues to add directions which are related to the

designer's problem. In act III of Heartbreak House, Lady Utterword is

 

interrupted in a speech by flute music and after her retort, Shaw di-
rects, "the window is slammed down. She subsides". He is aware of the
darkness he calls for at the beginning of the act when he writes as a
direction "she drags him.away into the darkness". The designer of the
production is affected by the air raid which occurs. Some of the

directions read: "a dull distant explosion is heard", "the lights go

 

7 Bernard Shaw, Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (New York: Brentano's,

1912), Vol. II, pp. 84-85.
8 Bernard Shaw, The Doctor's Dilemma (New York: Brentano's, 1911),

pp- 4-5.

 

-6-

out,” "running in from the house to the middle of the esplanade,"
"he dashes into the house," and "the lights go up again." These pas-
sages give evidence that Shaw does not describe his scenery and then
forget it, rather he is aware of his scenery at all times and uses it
to the best advantage.
As an artist-designer Shaw admits he was not a great success,9
but he suggests that the business of the designer is "the work of making
the stage clean, handsome, fashionable, correct, costly, and thoroughly
gentlemanly, was an indispensible preliminary to any movement towards
beauty, individuality, and imaginative setting."lo He has great respect
for the artist and allows him.very much freedom in his designing.11
The only absolute demanding restriction that Shaw'places on the scenery
is that the actors may be clearly seen.12

Shaw has always been interested in realistic settings, for in some
of the earliest interiors of this type Shaw said they were "worlds
above flats, wings, sky borders..."15 He also liked them because ”it
brought the stage into closer connection to contemporary life".14 Lee
Simonson, an outstanding contemporary designer, feels that Shaw demands
a realistic setting, for

so long as audiences find comedies like Bernard Shaw's stage

in clergymen's studies, artists' studios, Salvation Army bar-
racks, and physicians' consulting-rooms, as provocative as

 

9 Simonson, Ibid., p. 51.
10 George Bernard Shaw, Dramatic Opinions and Essay§_(NeW'York:
Brentano's 1907), Vol. I, p. 278. ‘—
11 Simonson, Ibid., p. 51.
2 11°C. Cit. *
15 Shaw,_5?amatic Opinions and Essays, Vol. I, op. cit., p. 277.
4 2.92 2212- ‘" "“

 

 

-7-

they once found Meliere's comedies staged in the drawing
room of a marquis or a misanthrope, the designer will be
forced to imitate to a greater or less degree, rooms which
we habitually inhabit.1

Because Shaw has been less specific in treating the designers
requirements, a study of his directing and acting instructions was made
to indicate the careful attention he gives to these groups. Since the
designer is working so closely with both the director and actor, a good
many suggestions to him.may be indirectly gained and used to advantage.

Shaw'has recognized the demands upon the directors of his plays.
In a letter to a friend who was undertaking the direction of a long
play, Shaw wrote:

Be prepared for a spell of hard work. The incessant strain on

one's attention (the actor's have their exits and rests: but

the producer is hard at it all the time), the social effort of

keeping up everyone's spirits in view of a great event, the

dryness of the previous study of the mechanical details, daunt
most authors.16

Upon the director then falls the tremendous task of preparing the
actor's and the author's words for presentation. The director must have
a thorough knowledge of all the stage business, movement, and interpre-
tation before the first rehearsal'for Shaw advises:

If before you begin rehearsing you sit down to the manuscript

of your play and work out all the stage business; so that you

know where every speech is to be spoken as well as what it is

to convey, and where the chairs are to be and where they are

to be taken to, and where the actors are to put their hats or

anything else they have to take in their hands in the course

of the play, and when they are to rise and when they are to

sit, and if you arrange all this so as to get the maximum of
effect out of every word, and thus make the actors feel that

 

15 Lee Simonson, The Stage Is Set, (New York: Harcourt Brace
and Co., 1932), pp. 49-50.
16 Shaw, ”make Them Do It well", 22. Egg.

 

-3-

they are speaking at the utmost possible advantage--or at
worst that they cannot improve on your business, however
little they may like it-«and if you take care that they
never distract attention from one another: that when they
call to one another that are at a dire distance; and that,
when the audience is looking at one side of the stage and
somebody cuts in on the other, some trick (which you must
contrive) calls the attention of the audience to the new'
point of view or hearing, etc., then you will at the first

rehearsal get a command of the production that nothing
will shake afterwards.”

Shaw gives explicit directions to the director which covers essen—

tially all of the stage business. In.Act I of Heartbreak House, the

 

director has such descriptive aids as: "the young lady picks up the
book and places it on the table", "advancing to the drawing table",
"she goes to the door leading to the hall“, "he sits down in the big
wicker chair", and "he seizes the cup and the tea-pot and empties both
into the leathern bucket". Directions and guide-posts as those cited
run throughout the play and clearly indicate Shaw‘s personal require-
ments for the action.

Particular attention has been given to the actor by Mr. Shaw. He
feels'that a play is not complete until it has been acted.18 Shaw
maintains that there is no substitute for honest acting, for the actor
should be told that:

mere suggestion is no use here, I don't ask you to suggest

anything: I give you the actual things to do and say. I

don't want you to look as if you could say wonderful things

if you uttered your thoughts. I give you both the thoughts
and words; and you must get them across the footlights. "

 

17 Shaw, "make Them Do It Well", 23. cit.

18 William Irvine, The Universe of G.“B: S. (New York: Whittlesey
House, 1949), p. 202.

9 G. B. Shaw, "Make Them Do It'Well“, 22. git.

 

-9-

The foregoing implies that the actor should strive for reality
and that he mpg: get the thoughts and words of Shaw to the audience
with extreme care and exactness. In addition, the actor should have
enough training (which is the minimum amount)20 so that when he comes
to an author he can say:

hfithin the limits imposed by my age and sex, I can do all the
ordinary work of the stage with perfect certainty. I know my
vowels and consonants as a phonetic expert, and I can speak
so as to arrest the attention of the audience whenever I open
my mouth forcibly, delicately, roughly, smoothly, prettily,
harshly, authoritatively, submissively, but always artistic-
ally, just as you want it. I can sit, stand, fall, get up,
walk, dance, and otherwise use my body with the complete some
mand of it that marks the physical artist.2

Shaw demands skilled flawless actors in every respect because:

unless the lines are spoken by voices of which the ear never
tires, with gestures and actions which never lose their fas-
cination, the result can be no better than a disagreeable
experience, drawing and holding a crowd and holding it only
as a street accident does.22

In the light of these findings, it is evident that Mr. Shaw has
been quite definite in his views and attitudes towards the director and
actor. From the illustrations cited, the importance which Mr. Shaw has
placed on his director'and actor is seconded by the importance with
which he considers the designers contribution. While he seldom goes
farther than the description of the used objects in his rooms, he is
fully conscious of the importance of a well designed setting.23

His requirements for'the scenery which the designer must concern

himself is adequately summarized by William Irvine:24

 

20 Shaw, Dramatic Opinions and Essaystol. I, op.cit., p. 425.
1 Loc. cit. -_'-__

22 md.:—VOI. I, p. 1970

23 S‘F’monson, Part of a Lifetime, Ibid., p. 51.

24 Irving, Ibid., p. 202.

 

 

-10..

First, that they be authentic to the time and nature of the
play; second, that they be, in so far as possible, pleasing
and beautiful in themselves; and third, that they afford
every oppor‘tmnity to the actor.

-11..

PART II: THE SCENERY REQUIREMENTS OF HEARTBREAK HOUSE
AS ESTABLISHED BY THE AUTHOR

 

Following the suggestions of Mr. Gorelik, the first step for ana-

lyzing the needs for Heartbreak House was to follow'the script very

 

carefully. Again Mr. Shaw‘s directions are as exacting in this script
as in his other plays.

There are two settings needed. The general location of the action
is Captain Shotover's country home in Sussex, England. For Acts I and
II the setting is the living room, and for Act III the setting is the
garden immediately outside the same room.

The general description for the interior scene by Mr. Shaw'is as
follows:

The hilly country in the middle of'the north edge of Sussex,
looking very pleasant on a fine evening at the end of Septem-
ber, is seen through the windows of a room.which has been
built so as to resemble the after part of an old fashioned
high-pooped ship with a stern gallery: for the windows are
ship built with heavy timbering, and run right across the
room.as continuously as the stability of the wall allows.

.A row of lockers under the windows provides an unupholstered
windowbseat interrupted by twin glass doors, respectively
halfdway between the stern post and the sides. Another door
strains the illusion a little by being apparently in the
ship's port side, and yet leading, not to the open sea, but
to the entrance hall of the house. Between this door and

the stern gallery are bookshelves. There are electric light
awitches beside the<ioor leading to the hall and the glass
doors in the stern gallery. Against the wall is a carpenter's
bench. The vice has a board in its jaws: and the floor is
littered with shavings, over-flowing from a waste-paper basket.
A couple of planes and a center bit are on the bench. In the
same wall, between the bench and the windows, is a narrow
doorway with a half door, above which a glimpse of the room
beyond shows that it is a shelved pantry with bottles and
kitchen crockery.

0n the starboard side, but close to the middle, is a plain
oak drawing-table'with drawing-board, T-square, straight-
edges, set of squares, mathematical instruments, saucers of
pencils, and brushes on it. The drawing-board is set so

that the draughtsman's chair has the window on its left hand.
0n the floor at the end of the table, on his right is a ship's
fire bucket. On the port side of the room, near the book-
shelves, is a sofa with its back to the windows, it is a
sturdy mahogany article, oddly upholstered in sailcloth, in-
cluding the bolster, with a couple of blankets hanging over

‘ the back. Between the sofa and the drawing-table is a big
wicker chair, with broad arms and a low sloping back, with its
back to the light. A small but stout table of teak, with a
round top and gate legs, stands against the port wall between
the door and the bookcase. It is the only article in the
room that suggests (not at all convincingly) a woman's hand in
the furnishing. The uncarpeted floor of narrow boards is
caulked and holystoned like a deck.
The garden to which.the glass doors lead dips to the south be-
fore the landscape rises again.to the hills. Emerging from
the hollow is the cupola of an observatory. Between the ob-
servatory and the house is a flagstaff on a little esplanade,
with a hammock on the east side and a long garden seat on the
WGSte

This is Shaw's outline of Act III:

In the garden, Hector, as he comes out through the glass door

of the poop, finds Lady Utterword lying voluptuously in the

hammock on the east side of the flagstaff, in the circle of

light cast by the electric arc, which is like a moon in its

opal globe. Beneath the head of the hammock, is a campstool.

0n the other side of the flagstaff, on the long garden seat,

Captain Shotover is asleep, with Ellie beside him, leaning

affectionately against him.on his right hand. On his left is

a deck chair. Behind them.in the gloom, Hesoine is strolling

about with Mangan. It is a fine still night, moonless.

Both settings as described by Mr. Shaw have carefully outlined the
scenes into the fundamental acting areas grouped around the furniture.
To illustrate Shaw's requirements of the setting, several scenes have
been selected. Shaw directs the action to the sofa in the two-some
scene between.Ellie and Mrs. Hushabye while Ellie explains her feeling
for Mhngan.and one ”Marcus Darnley." This scene also has The. Hushabye
make use of one of the books from.the bookcase, and she is directed

to fling the'book on the draughtsman's table, and walk about the room

in an intolerable manner.

This same scene is interrupted by mrs. Hushabye's husband, and
Shaw has him enter from.the hall, then place his hat and stick on the
teak table.

In the scene after Randall has made his entrance, the Captain has
been directed to exit into the pantry. The stage is held by Mrs.
Hushabye, Randall, and mangan. Lady Utterword is directed to the window’
seat, sits down, and upon one, remarks, ”Who is that gentleman.walking
in the garden with Miss Dunn?" 'Whereupon, Mrs. Hushabye and Randall go
to the window to discover who the gentleman is.

Near the end of Act I in the Hector and Captain's scene, Shaw has
given.the direction that the Captain sit and work at the drawing table.
The indications are‘that the Captain should have complete emphasis
here because it is a scene in.which he expounds very much upon his
particular views towards mankind.

In Act II the entire cast must appear on stage during the burglar
scene. However, just before everyone has made their final entrance for
the scene, the commotion of the Burglar causes Hector, the Captain,
Lady Utterword, Randall, and Ellie to make a hurried exit out the hall
door. This hurried exit demands that sufficient off stage space be
available to accommodate the actors. After the burglar is captured,
the entire cast is brought on stage by Shaw; Nazzini Dunn enters first,
is directed to the drawing-table where he throws his pistol down, and
then he sits in the draughtsman's chair. Hector enters marching the
villain to the center of the room. Ellie runs to her father, and so

the directions continue until all are on stage.

-14-

It may be concluded from these examples that Shaw does not des-
cribe his setting and then forget it. Rather, he is always aware of
his scenery and gives directions to his director and designer as to
the specific use of the setting as he would desire it.

Since Shaw requires that his actors must be seen, he is interested
in the visual elements of the play which are reflected in his lighting
demands.

The lighting requirements are not fully discussed in the descrip—
tion of the settings, but the script reveals that in.the first act,
the light should be of a general nature, notivated by the late summer
evening sunset. The windows must be backlighted to create this illu-
sion of the sun, and the light must slowly dim.down so that by the end
of the act the stage is in near darkness.

The second act also requires a general light upon the setting.

The act takes place just after dinner and the light source is to be
suggestive of illumination by electric lights.

The lighting in the third act is the most difficult to produce.
According to Shaw it is a moonless night, and thersource of light comes
from.an electric arc.

It may be noted that although he has not been specific in his
method for illumination, he has made provision for the source of light.

Shaw as a playwright has created the inherent problem of determin-
ing the style of the production. Style is difficult to isolate and
describe because there are many styles and they often overlap. Accord-

ing to Alexander Dean, "style is the degree and kind of likelifeness

that a playwright has used in his writing, the degree of his selectiv-
lity in dramatic form and structure.:1

Using this definition of style as a basis, Heartbreak House was

 

analyzed to determine the extent of "likelifeness" the author had in-
tended to portray. Shaw gives an excellent clue in his preface to

Heartbreak House by stating that the play was written to show “cultured,

 

leisured Europe before the war."2 A study of the characters revealed
that although they were unusual, they were to act and react to each
other in a manner familiar to all, and that they lived and moved in an
environment very much as they would in real life. Consequently, the
style Shaw seems to want is a realistic one.

The quality of mood or atmosphere is also established by the author.
This is one of the most elusive elements of the scenery requirements
to definitely express. The reference to mood and atmosphere implies the
emotional tone or feeling of the play that is reflected in the scenery.

The seriousness of the theme of Heartbreak House, its light treatment,

 

and the personalities of the characters living there, combine to govern
the mOOdo

The title of Heartbreak House itself tends to suggest that it is

 

an.unusual house where hearts are broken. Ellie is affected by the
house when she says, "I have a horrible fear that my heart is broken,

but that heartbreak is not what I thought it must be. Mangan suffers

 

1 Alexander Dean, Fundamentals of Play Direction (New York:
Rinehart and Co. Inc., 19467, p. 354.
Bernard Shaw, Heartbreak House, Great Catherine, and Playlets
of the war (New York: Brentano's, 1919), p. ix.

 

 

 

 

-16-

heartbreak in this house when he learns that he has been played for a
fool by Ellie and Mrs. Hushabye. Upon the revelation, he breaks into
crying like a child and Mrs. Hushabye remarks, "Don't cry: I can't
bear it. Have I broken.your heart? I didn't know you had one. How
could I?” In answer, Mhngan replies, "I'm a man, ain't I?"

The atmosphere of the house is described to an extent by Lady
Utterword by saying:

Oh, this house, this house: I come back to it after twenty-

three years; and it is just the same: the luggage lying on

the steps, the servants spoilt and impossible, nobody at home

to receive anybody, no regular meals, nobody ever hungry be-

cause they are always gnawing bread and butter or munching

apples, and, what is worse, the same disorder in ideas, in

talk, in feeling.

The Captain as owner of the house contributes a pertinent remark

concerning the atmosphere of Heartbreak‘House. Gloomily he reflects

 

"youth, beautyi novelty: They are badly wanted in this house."

Perhaps the mood and atmosphere of Heartbreak House can best be

 

summarized by this passage from Act III:
Ellie: (musically) Yes: this silly house, this strangely
happy house, this agonizing house, this house without founda-
tions. I shall call it Heartbreak House.
Mrs. Hushabye: Stop, Ellie: or I shall howl like an animal.
mangan: (breaks into low snivelling) :1:
Mrs. Hushabye: There: you have set Alfred off.
Ellie: I like him best when he is howling.

Captain Shotover: Silence: (Mangan subsides into silence.)
I say, let the heart break in silence.

Hector: Do you accept that name for your house?

-17...

If ‘I I Llllllllnl III I III I llulul I'll llll‘l'. lllllll .lllll I [I l

Captain Shotover: It is not nor house: it is my kennel.

Hector: We have been too long here. We do not live in
this house. We haunt it.

In conclusion, the illustrations tend to show that Shaw demands
that the mood reflect an unusual house. This should be a house in which
discontent with life is the keynote; a house in which all of the char-
acters are trying to find happiness but none of them succeed; a house
dominated by the peculiarities of the old seacaptain; a house that serves
as the background for the domineering woman who absorbs the personalities
of man and destroys them. The exterior setting should be a shaft of
light illuminating the little group of people as they watch the world go
to its destruction.

Occasionally a designer is fortunate enough to receive specific
directions from his author. When Mr. Lee Simonson, prominent New York
designer, was going the setting for the American premiere, he wrote
Mr. Shaw asking for specific advice. With his typical positiveness,

Mr. Shaw replied as follows:
Parknaville, Co. Kerry
(temporary)
lO Adelphi Terrace,
London, W. C. 2
23 Aug., 1920

Dear Mr. Simonson:

The XII century Dutch marine painters show us lovely stern
windows in brown woodwork with magnificent gilt framing, tall

and handsome, with a balcony or stern gallery, gold in the fram-

ing, gold in the water, gold in the brown paint. They set like

this mostly except that they stand much higher above the
water line and are very ornamental. Now I know no picture which
shows what they are like from the inside; so I have (or rather

Zora. have) to imagine what Captain ‘Nhatshisname would have imagined
a out them when he designed his house. As the captain is 150

years old or thereabouts his notions of naval architecture
would not be more modern than those of the Flying Dutchman.
Unfortunately I cannot draw} so I cannot help you out with
a sketch; but I enclose a plan of the stage, and a rough
view. The perspective and construction are impossible; but
you can adapt them to 3-dimensional space. The mountains
are like slate crags instead of Sussex hills: but that is
what the inside of my envelopes gives me.

The difficulty of the are light has bothered me all
along. Here we use for street lighting (or used to) a white
globe; and my first notion'wasix>make it a very soft moon
throwing a circle of light on the stage, so that the charac-
ters could, as directed, disappear into the surrounding dark-
ness and emerge into the radiance. But, as you say, if you
put even.a candle in a dark scene the audience can see noth-
ing else. I think you will have to shade the light (it need
not be an arc)--drape it ornamentally or put a prosiac green
tree $333!: to conceal the actual glare (these must be some-
thing that can be visibly extinguished) and do the real
lighting off the stage.

The observatory is a cupola. The top of the<iome sticks
up behind the first profile, and helps to suggest the ravine
supposed to be between it and the back cloth.

The flagstaff is only an excuse for something characteris-
tic to attach the cable which feeds the are light. All these
things are suggestions and makeshifts. So long as you do not
alter or mask the positions of my people on the stage, or cut
out an essential effect like the cutting off of the light and
leaving the group in the dark, you may do your job in your
own.way. The more of your own you put in, the richer the
play will be. You know, I take it, that comedy dialogue is
impossible unlessthe faces of the speakers are seen quite
distinctly. That is all you have to look out for as far as
the author is concerned. For the rest, let yourself rip.
Artist and author are go-equal and co-eternal--see the
athanasian creed......

Faithfully,
G. Bernard Shaw

 

3 Ibid., pp. 51-52.

PART III: THE PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS OF STUDIO THEATRE

One of the major factors confronting the designer as he starts
to plan his production is the theatre in which the offering will be
given. As already indicated, one of the major factors in this study
was working "on a small stage with limited facilities". Before pro-
gressing further a description of Studio Theatre is in order.

The house is rectangular in shape and it is twenty-one feet, one
inch wide, and forty-three feet five and one-half inches long. The
seating capacity is one hundred and twenty-five. All rows of seats
are parallel to the stage. The first row of seats is only four feet
from the stage platform. Beginning at the fourth row of seats, the
floor has a slight incline. However, the incline does not provide a
great deal of better vision for the audience as it is still difficult
to see the floor of the stage when the house is filled.

The stage is at one end of the house and its floor is raised
eighteen inches:from.the floor of the house. The opening is not clearly
defined by a proscenium wall or a permanent proscenium.arch. The sides
of the arch are formed by the act curtains when they are drawn for the
performance. The top of the arch is determined by a drapery which is
hung on the house side of the act curtain. The drapery is attached by
a batten to the ceiling of the house. With the drapery in place, and
the act curtains open, the proscenium opening is seventeen feet, six
inches in width and eight feet, three inches in height.

The stage floor is not centered behind the proscenium.opening.

Instead, the stage right wall is a continuation of the house left wall,

-20-

and the stage left wall is extended five feet beyond the house right
wall. From.side to side, the stage floor is twenty-six feet, three
inches; and from front to rear, it is sixteen feet. In effect, the
house floor and the stage floor form.an.“L" shape.

Because of the stage floor arrangement, the off-stage space is
quite limited. The only space available on stage right is formed by
the act curtains when they are drawn. The space created by completely
pulling the curtains is about two feet. On stage left, it is possible
to have a much larger space. When the act curtains are fully drawn,
the space is approximately seven feet, six inches.

The ceiling is not flat over'the entire floor area. From the cur-
tain line and extending back four feet three inches, it is eleven feet
to the floor. From four feet, three inches to the rear-of the stage,
the ceiling is lowered to nine feet, five inches above the floor. The
only method of attaching scenery to the ceiling for support is by the
use of fixed travelers. The chief purpose of the travelers is to hold
curtains when designed scenery is not in use. Because of the fixed
travelers, only flats of eight feet, three inches in height are practi-
cal to use.

Entrances to the stage are definitely limited. There is no outside
entrance on stage right. Stage left is provided with double doors
which measure six feet in width, and seven feet in height. The only
other method of entering the stage is through the act curtain.

The play on stage may'be lighted from'three positions. Light in-

struments may be placed in.a row immediately behind and above the act

-21-

curtain or in the usual teaser position. A row of outlets for light-
ing equipment is available behind the first border. Beam spots are
located in the auditorium approximately seven feet from the curtain
line. There are no floor pockets nor wall outlets on the stage. If
off stage lighting is desired, it must come by extension cords from
outlets in an adjoining room. The light switchboard is located in the
wall in the off stage area stage left.

Following are two blueprints of Studio Theatre to give a graphic

illustration of the nature of the theatre.

 

H£ARTBR£A K HOUSE ‘

' FLOOR PLAN OF WEATRE r

PROSCEN/UM 0P£NING _ _ J 4.,1 . _ .
8’3”X ”’72!” _ A . , 50:45,. ..

 

 

 

 

 

:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ll

_F/sz’ ’

 

 

 

 

E.

 

 

 

CE/L/NG 9’5 ”
05/1. we _//

 

3 CLEARANCE TO

o
k
m
U
3:
c:
E
\l
K)

4th.
19
\

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOTE: DEF/675 STAGE LEFT FROM
CE/V 75/? L /NE 0F PROSC E/V/UM
5H0 (xv/Ne 5w / TC H5 02: RD /5)
AND DOC/51.5 000/? {A}

 

 

 

 

 

571- 0/0 77 /E/‘x.7_/§E
/'///7: HI’L'fl/V 67/4 TE CA1. LE'EE
CR :5 .2: £57/Mr’ ME W

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER II

THE PLAN OF PRODUCTION AND THE

ESIGNING OF THE SETTING

CHAPTER II
PART I: PLANNING THE SCENERY

As suggested by Mordecai Gorelik, the planning of the designer
must at all tines be in harmony with the director's interpretation of
the play.1 In this particular instance the designer and director were
concerned with more than interpretation because both were vitally af-
fected by the small stage of Studio Theatre. Hence, the technical
planning of the production was worked out in close cooperation.

The physical nature of Studio Theatre could not accommodate the
scenery as outlined by Mr. Shaw; It is evident from his description
of the settings that they require a proscenium opening of perhaps
thirty-five feet in width and a stage floor of thirty feet in depth.
Using his directions verbatum, the production could not have been accomp-
lished in Studio Theatre which had a proscenium of eighteen feet and a
stage floor with the depth of sixteen feet. Obviously, both the direc-
tor and designer had to agree upon the necessary changes.

Of immediate concern was the arrangement of the windows in the
first setting which are described to run the length of the back wall.
This arrangement needed to be changed for Studio Theatre stage for
these reasons: a. there could be no illusion of distance as Shaw des-
cribed the exterior scene: b. there could be no presentation of a real-

istic exterior in such a prominent location; c. there could be no

 

1 Mbrdecai Gorelik, "Designing the Play", Producinggthe Play, ed.
John Gassner (New York: Dryden Press, 1511), p. 3T3.

 

-25-

shifting of scenery because there is no fly gallery; and, d. there
could be no opportunity for the actors to cross from one side of the
stage to the other without being seen. With the change of these basic
windows, entrances and exits had to be shifted accordingly.

To meet the problem of window placement, which is essentially the
garden placement, the upstage left area was selected because the off-
left area presented the most off stage space. Since so much action
carried out into the garden, this seemed to be the most logical place-
ment for the windows and garden. The door leading into the garden was
located in the down left area.

The setting required a door leading into the Captain's pantry and
one leading into the hall of the house. Since the director wished to
give the Captain all possible emphasis, the door which was used only
by the Captain was placed in the center of the upstage wall. To keep
the illusion of a spacious house and to keep the down right area clear
for the actors, the hall door was planned in the up right wall.

This planning between the director and designer established the
physical boundaries of the setting generally as: a door down left,
garden windows up left, the Captain's pantry door up center, and the
hall entrance up right.

The furniture as set forth by Shaw'would have filled the acting
area of Studio Theatre to the point that any freedom of movement would
have been impossible. A study of the script revealed that no specific
reference was made to the carpenter's bench, so the carpenter's bench

and draughtsman's table was planned as one. This decision gave

-2 6-

additional acting space that would not have been available had the
script demanded the use of two tables. The table and a chair were
planned up center to the right of the door leading into the Captain's
pantry.

The script called for the use of the bookcase described by Shaw,
so it was located to the left of the door in the upstage wall. It was
placed in the wall so that the floor space would not be reduced.

The window bench suggested by Shaw presented an excellent means of
providing seating space which would not reduce the acting area because
it too could be built into a bay window arrangement in the left wall
upstage.

The director felt that a chair was necessary in the extreme down
left area, so one was planned. A large comfortable chair in the center
left area was planned because Shaw demanded that his people sit and
talk in many of his scenes. A small table was placed beside this chair
to complete this furniture unit, and provide for the uses of the actor's
business, such as a place for trays, teacups, and ash trays.

Shaw mentions a sofa in his description of the setting and the de-
signer and director both agreed that it was necessary, with the provis-
ion that it would be small in the relative size of sofas. Smallness
was indicated because the acting area was limited. This unit was
placed downstage right.

The designer suggested that a platform be placed before the hall
door in the up right wall. This plan would give the actors an oppor-

tunity to use levels, and also it would indicate that this room was on

-2 7...

a different plane than the rest of the house. The director agreed to
the suggestion and it was incorporated into the planning.

With the discussion and planning of the scenery at this point, a
definite floor plan had taken form. The stage had been divided into
six acting areas with the bay window and window bench up left, the
Captain's pantry door and work table up center, the stair landing and
hall entrance up right, the sofa down right, a chair’and table left
center, and a chair down left. This arrangement allowed the center
area to be quite open and provided for an unrestricted acting area.

Shaw describes the setting as being fashioned after a "high-pooped
ship with a stern gallery". Because of the changes the director and
designer felt were necessary, this suggestion of the ship was abandoned.
Also, the low ceiling in Studio Theatre would not permit the heavy
timbering required in this type setting. The director did not place
specific requirements upon the design of the changed setting, so long
as the design.supported his interpretation of the play.

Both the director and designer realized that the lighting system
in Studio Theatre would present a problem when other than a general
lighting pattern was desired. Therefore the lighting was kept as simple
as possible. General illumination was planned for Acts I and II be-
cause it would fulfill Shaw's demand and could be worked out with the
equipment on hand.

The floor plan for.Act III was very largely influenced by the
setting for Acts I and II and much of the planning worked from the
first set and how the shifting of scenery could be accomplished as

easily and quickly as possible. Shaw required that there be two means

-28-

of entering and leaving the stage, one going into the house and one
leading from.the garden to the gravel pit.

The designer pointed out that the first set could be pushed
against the wall and masked off by the use of black velour drapes.

The bay window unit and garden door could be reversed to suggest an
exterior. Since all of the action moved into and out of the house in
contrast to the two exits to the gravel pit, the entrance into the
house should be stage left, because of the large off stage space in that
area. The hall opening (up right) from.set one would provide a means

of exiting into the gravel pit. The director felt that such an arrange-
ment would suit his requirements.

Although the furniture and set pieces suggested by Mr. Shaw were
helpful, changes were necessary to suit the smallness of Studio Theatre.
In the beginning of the act, the characters sit and chat. This re-
quires sufficient furniture to accommodate the cast. In planning to
meet the situation, the following items were considered essential: a
chaise lounge stage right, a bench up center, a chair center left, a
large chair stage left and a small stool beside it. The director wished
to use after-dinner wine as a motivation for stage business while the
characters sat and talked at the opening of the act. To meet this need
a small table holding a wine decanter and glasses was added up left
center, and a small table for glasses and an ash tray was placed down
right. In an effort to add some interest in the design, and aid the
actors in entering and exiting, a six inch platform.was placed stage
left before the house entrance and the chair and stool in that area was

placed on the platform.

-29..

Because of space limitations the Act I setting could not be
cleared, nor could a sky drop or cyclorama be hung so that a realistic
garden with trees and shrubs could be staged. Taking the clue from.the
author's suggestion that these people were sitting in an arc of light
on a moonless night, the background was blacked out with black velour
drapes and the suggestion of the garden ended with the small brick wall
which evidently enclosed the terrace just outside the living room.windows.
The feeling of the garden had been established in Act I and II, and con-
sequently a slight suggestion could carry the scene. The designer
pointed out that by using a wall arrangement, sections could be strength-
ened, providing a means of seating a character without taking up addi-
tional floor space. The director suggested that this idea be incor-
porated into the up center section.

The lighting for Act III was governed largely by the fact that all
feeling of an exterior set would have to come from front lighting.
However, the feeling of the exterior was furthered by using blue colors
and the cooler pinks to suggest the night. The warm light on stage came
from.the interior of the house through the windows and provided a suffi-
cient source for visibility purposes.

In conjunction with the planning of the physical nature of the
setting, the director disclosed that the premise of the play was "drift-
ing leads to destruction",2 and that the play was a serious drama with
overtones of comedy. The director indicated that to fulfill the premise,
the play would be acted and presented in a realistic manner. In harmony

with the realistic directing approach, the designer had to plan for

2William Gregory, masters Thesis, (Michigan State College, 1950),
p. 122 o

 

-30-

scenery which was true to life and recognizable to the audience as a
reproduction of a scene of which all could say, "This is Shotover's
living room”, and "This is his garden”. He also stated that his purpose
was to place the action in modern dress and stress the ideas stated with
1950 implications, as though the message was ”taken from yesterday's
editorial page of the daily paper".3

The conclusion and agreements reached, as indicated, by the di-
rector and designer provided the planning and basis for the designs of

the setting.

 

3 Ibid., p. 4.

-31-

PART II: DESIGNING OF THE SETTING

‘When working on the average theater stage, the director and the
designer do not have to concern themselves with the difficulties en-
countered with small stage space. As has already been pointed out this
study offered a primary problem in its limitations of both stage space
and facilities. The simple factor of getting adequate pieces of scenery
on and off stage was a main determinant in designing the set. The plan,
as already outlined, included the setting up of a first setting which
could be moved back against the side and rear walls of the stage. The
windows and the door units were to be used in.both scenes. For the
second set, black velour drapes were to be placed over the stored back
and side walls, and a garden fence was to be added to give the effect
of a terrace. 'With garden furniture and lighting that would give an
outdoor effect, an exterior setting was to be accomplished.

With the cooperative planning completed, and a general plan for
shifting the scenery determined, the designer began.to work out the
details of the settings. The needs for Acts I and II will be discussed
first and then the problems for Act III.

The interior scene was designed to be primarily a room occupied
by Captain Shotover, and reflect in the main his masculine characteris-
tics. Since Hesoine (Mrs. Hushabye), the Captain's daughter, lived with
her father, a feminine influence would also need to be shown. Another
objective was to present a background fitting the mood and atmosphere
for'the play as it was described in Chapter I.

Wood paneling was selected for the wall treatment because of its

English quality, masculinity, and particularly because of its impersonality,

since, as was pointed out in Chapter I, this is a house where hearts
are broken. The general conception of wood paneling runs into the
waxed or varnished surfaces, going from light to dark brown. Therefore,
brown was the color diosen for the set. Ordinarily this color tends to
be on the subdued side and is more suitable for the serious type play.
Since this was a comedy with serious overtones and philosophical dis-
cussions, a brown with slight tones of red was chosen. In order to get
contrasting notes and support the touches of comedy, green was used at
various points on the stage in the upholstery, drapes, and trim.

Important in the design was the treatment of the bay window; It
was designed with a curve at the top rather than a straight line. This
curved type window was suggested from pictures of the Old Dutch sailing
vessels which Shaw had in mind. This window reflected the interest in
the sea which Captain Shotover had, and also showed his attitude towards
design. The panes were outlined by diagonal muntins instead of the
conventional vertical—horizontal bars. By using this diagonal pattern,
a note of uneasiness was introduced into the setting.

In harmony with the curved windows which overlooked the garden,
a large arch with double doors was used as an entrance into the garden.

The selection of the furniture was left to the taste of the de-
signer. The Captain's table was a square box, handmade type that some
workman might have hastily constructed to serve as a work table. This
crude, unadorned type of table seemed to fit the Captain's inventive
characteristics. A small but heavy wood chair was used as the draughts-

man's chair.

-33..

The window bench in the bay window was of a portable nature. The
front was paneled to match the walls and the top was padded and covered
with a dark green material.

A brown leather-covered chair of English design was placed down
left. This chair was a type which a man would choose and thus helped
to carry out the masculine feeling.

In the center left area, a chair of wing design was used and a
small oval table was placed beside it to complete this unit of furniture.

A small sofa of quite severe lines was chosen and used in the down
right area. It was covered with dark green material.

The furniture was not selected in keeping with a definite unity as
to period or style. The designer felt that since the Captain was a
seafaring man, and.because of his unusual character, he would have se-
lected furniture which met his fancy during his many voyages to all
parts of the world.

The Captain‘s character was given emphasis, particularly his role
as a seaman, by the use of a map and a barometer which wmre hung on
the wall near his work table. A small globe, a strong box, drawing
board, and supplies were placed on this table to reflect still more the
disposition of the Captain.

To show the influence of Hesoine upon the decor of the room, several
items were planned. Two pictures with small frames were hung on the
stage right wall. The table center left had a covering instead of a
bare top. Green drapes were used in the door leading into the "hall"

stage right. Two matching green pillows of the same material were used

on the window seat to produce a greater amount of contrasting color in
that area of the room. The bookshelves contained various "what-note"
in the spaces which were not occupied by books. All these items tended
to show the feminine influence of the household.

The setting for Act I and II was adequate for the acting demands
of the author with the possible exception of the burglar scene in which
the cast of ten was onstage at the same time. The essential elements
of the setting called for by Shaw'were retained. The treatment of these
elements were reflective of the individuals who occupied the house. The
serious mood of the play as discussed in Chapter I was enhanced and sup-
ported without dominating the play.

The third act shifts from the interior of the house into the garden.
As mentioned, the mood of this scene was strengthened by the setting
of Act I and II. Therefore the scenery for.Act III needed to maintain
the mood and definitely create the illusion of a garden. Since the scene
was a moonless one, the complete blacking out of the outer perimeter of
the set was in order. The garden was then defined by showing the ex-
terior of the bay window and adding a garden type brick wall which in-
cluded a gate in the up right area. A six inch platform was placed stage
left before the entrance of the house to suggest a small terrace.

The furniture used in this setting consisted of: a home made chaise
longue, a bench that might have been hurriedly made by the Captain to
suffice for a more elaborate garden bench, a chair (the same one which
was at the Captain's table in the first setting), a foot stool oddly up-
holstered in a canvas duck material, a wooden high backed garden chair,

and two small tables.

-35-

The lights were planned to produce a general illumination pattern.
Acts I and II needed to be lighted with warm colors. Surprise pink
was chosen because it could supply the warm tones and be more compli-
mentary to the skin tones of the actors than any other color. Blue
light was selected to supply the light for the moonless garden scene.
With very little opportunity to vary the lighting between acts, due to
the Studio Theatre arrangement, the same lights used in Act III were
also used in Acts I and II.

Off stage lighting was needed to show the sunset in Act I, and to
show lights from the interior of the house in Act III.

Although Shaw does not specifically place the garden in his des-
cription of the set, this designer felt that there would be a greater
unity between the two settings if the architectural features of the
windows were repeated in both sets. In Act I the interior of the
windows was seen, and in Act III the exterior of the same windows was
used. Actually the windows in this second setting did aid in giving
the feeling of an exterior as well as providing a definite motivation
for action and providing a very useable light source.

The setting for.Act III had sufficient space for movement. It
carried the mood and atmosphere of destruction, frustration, and triumph
‘which Mr. Shaw was writing about in the air raid scene and the conclud-
ing moments of the play.

If there was a weakness in the setting, it was the fact that it
did not provide an adequate background for staging the air raid scene.

The author has given.many opportunities for scenic effect with light

-36-

and sound, providing an adequate background could be used. But with
the little stage space available and the complete lack of flying facili-
ties in staging, the air raid was unavoidably sacrificed. This however

was the only scenic demand of Heartbreak House that the designer was

 

unable to meet.
The designing process was completed with the drawing of the con-

struction plans and their successful execution.

-37-

CHAPTER III

THE PLAY SCRIPT
WITH TECHNICAL CUES

HEARTBREAK HOUSE

Script Showing Cues

Legend:

 

Sound

Lights

 

 

Properties

Costume & Make-up

 

HEARTBREAK HOUSE

By

George Bernard Shaw

 

The hilly country in the middle of the north edge

of Susses, looking__very_ pleasant on a fine evening
at the end of September, is seen through the win-
dows of a'rosm,wh1ch has been built so as to resem-
ble the after part of an old fashioned high-pooped
ship with a stern gallery; for the windows are

ship built with heavy timbering, and rwn right
across the room.as continuously as the stability of
the wall allows. A row of lockers under the win-
dows provides an.unupholstered windoweseat inter-
rupted by twin glass doors, respectively half-way
between the stern post and the sides. Another door
strains the illusion a little by being apparently

in the ship's port side, and yet leading, not to

the open sea, but to the entrance hall of the house.
Between this door and the_sternugallerymare book-
shelves. There are electric light switches beside
the door leading to the hall and the glass doors in
the stern gallery. Against the wall is a carpen-
ter's bench. The vice has a board in its jaws; and
the floor is littered with shavings, over-flowing
from.a waste-paper basket. A couple ofmpianes and
a_centrebit are on the bench. Ithhe same wall,
between.the bench and the windows, is a narrow door-
way with a half door, above which a glimpse of the
room.beyond shows that it is a shelved pantry with
bottles and kitchen crockery.

On the starboard side, but close to the middle, is

a plain oak drawing-table with drawing-board, T-
square, straight-edges, set of squares, mathemati-
cal instruments, saucers of pencils, afiHMBFHEHEE—Bn
it. The drawing-board“ is set so t‘ha‘t'th’emdraughtsl
men's chair has the window on its left hand. On
the floor at the end of the table, on his right is
guship's fire bucket. On the port side of the room,
near the bookshelves, is a sofa with its back to the
windows, It is a sturdy mahogany article, oddly up-
holstered in sailcloth, including the bolster, with
a couple of blankets hanging over the back. Between
the sofa and the drawing-table is a big wicker chair,
with broad arms and a low sloping back, with its
back to the light. A small but stout table of teak,
with a round top and gate legs, stands against the
port wall between the door and the bookcase. It is
the only article in the room that suggests (not at

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

all convincingly) a woman's hand in the furnishing.
The uncarpeted floor of narrow boards is caulked
and holystoned like a deck.

The garden to which the glass doors lead dips to
the south before the landscape rises again to the
hills. Emerging from the hollow is the cupola of
an observatory. Between the observatory and the
house is a flagstaff on a little esplanade, with a
hammock on the east side and a long garden seat on
the WGSt.

Whmanservant: God bless us: Sorry to wake you,
miss, I'm sure; but you are a stranger to me. What
might you be waiting here for'now?

Young Lady; 'Waiting for somebody to show some
signs of knowing that I have been invited here.

'Wbmanservant: Oh, you're invited, are you? And has
nobody come? Dear! Dear!

Young Lady: Aflgdld:looking old gentleman came and
looked in at the window; and I heard him calling
out, “Nurse, there is a young and attractive female
waiting in the poop. Go and see what she wants."
Are you the nurse?

'Womanservant: Yes, miss: I'm Nurse Guinness.
That was old Captain Shotover, Mrs. Hushabye‘s
father. I heard him roaring; but I thought it was
for something else. I suppose it was Mrs. Hush-
abye that invited you, ducky?

Young Lady; I understood her to do so. But really
I think I'd better go.

Guinness: Oh, don't think of such a thing, miss.
If Mrs. Hushabye has forgotten all about it, it
will be a pleasant surprise for her to see you,
won't it?

Young Lady; It has been a very unpleasant sur-
prise to me to find that nobody expects me.

Guinness: You'll get used to it, miss, this

house is full of surprises for them.that don't
know our ways.

-39-

Captain Shotover: (looking in from the hall sudden-
ly) Nurse, there is a hold-call and a handbag on
the front steps for everybody to fall over. Also a
tennis racquet. Who the devil left them there?

Young Lady: They are mine, I'm afraid.

Captain: (coming down) Nurse, who is this mis-
guided and unfortunate young lady?

Guinness: She says Miss Hessy invited her, sir.

Captain: And had she no friend, no parents, to warn
her against my daughter's invitations? This is a
pretty sort of house, by heavens! A young and at-
tractive lady is invited here. Her luggage is left
on the steps for hours; and she herself is deposited
in the poop and abandoned, tired and starving. This
is our hospitality. These are our manners. No room
ready. No hot water. No welcoming hostess. Our
visitor is to sleep in the toolshed, and to wash in
the duckpond.

Guinness: Now'it's all right, Captain: I'll get
the lady some tea; and her room shall be ready be-
fore she has finished it. (To the young lady) 113159
off our hat, ducky; and make yourself at home.
(she goes to the door leading to hall)

Captain: (as she passes him) Ducky: Do you sup-
pose, woman, that because this young lady has been
insulted and neglected you have the right to address
her as you address my wretched children, whom you
have brought up in ignorance of the commonest de-
cencies of social intercourse?

Guinness: Never mind him, doty. (she goes into the
hall)

Captain: Madam, will you favor me with your name?
Young Lady: "y name is Ellie Dunn.

Captain: Dunn: I had a boatswain.whose name was
Dunn. He was originally a pirate in China. He set
up as a ship's chandler with stores which I have.

every reason.to believe he stole from me. No
doubt he became rich. Are you his daughter?

-40-

Ellie: No, certainly not. I am proud to be able
to day that though my father has not been a suscess-
ful man, nobody has ever had one word to say against
him. I think my father is the best man I have ever
known 0

Captain: He must be greatly changed. Has he attain-
ed the seventh degree of concentration?

Ellie: I don't understand.

Captain: But how could he, with a daughter? I,
madam, have to daughters. One of them is Hesione
Hushabye, who invited you here. I keep this house;
she upsets it. I desire to attain the seventh de-
gree of concentration: she invites visitors and
leaves me to entertain them. (Guinness returns)

I have a second daughter who is, thank God, in a re-
mote part of the empire with her numskull of a
husband. As a child she thought the figure-head of
my ship, the Dauntless, the most beautiful thing on
earth. He resembled it. He had the same expression:
wooden yet enterprising. She married him, and wdll
never set foot in this house again.

Guinness: Indeed you never were more mistaken. She
is in England this very moment. You have been told
three times this week that she is coming home for a
year for her health. And very glad you would be to
see your own daughter’again after all these years.

Captain: I am.not glad. The natural term of the
affection of the human animal for its offspring is
six years. my daughter Ariadne was born when I was
forty-six. I am now eighty-eight. If she comes,

I am not at home. If she wants anything, let her
take it. If she asks for me, let her be informed
that I am extremely old, and have totally forgotten
her.

Guinness: That's no talk to offer to a young lady.
Here, ducky,_have some tea; and don't listen to him.

Captain: (rising wrathfully) Now before high heav-
en they have given this innocent child Indian tea;
the stuff they tan their own leather insides with.
(He seizes the cup and the tea-pot and empties both
into the leathern bucketQ)

Ellie: (alnmst in tears) Oh, please! I am so tired.
I should have been glad of anything.

-41..

Guinness: Oh, what a thing to do: The poor lamb
is ready to drop.

Captain: You shall have some of my tea. Do not
touch that fly-blown cake: nobody eats it here ex-
cept the dogs. (he disappears into the pantry)

Guinness: There's a man for you: They say he sold
himself to the devil in Zanzibar before he was a
captain; and the older he grows the more I believe
them.

woman's Voice: (in the hall) Is anyone at home?
Hesionel Nurse: Papa! Do come, somebody; and take
in my luggage- (thansiaa.hea¥t§a-g§i9f an umbrella:
mmmiaaaq’q) .. m " W ‘-

Guinness: My gracious! It's Miss Addy, Lady Utter-
word, ”rs. Hushabye's sister: the one I told the
captain about. (calling) Coming, Miss, coming.

(She is intercepted by Lady Utterword, who bursts
in much flustered.

Lady Utterword: Oh, is that you, Nurse? How'are
you? You don't look a day older. Is nobody at
home? ‘Where is Hesione? Doesn't she expect me?
Where are the servants? Whose luggage is that on
the steps? 'Where's papa? Is everybody asleep?
(seeing Ellie) Oh: I beg your pardon. I suppose
you are one of my nieces. Come and kiss your aunt,
darling.

Ellie: I'm only a visitor. It is my luggage on
the steps.

Guinness: I'll go get you some fresh tea, ducky.

Ellie: But the old gentleman said he would make
some himself.

Guinness: Bless you! He's forgotten what he went
for already. His mind wanders from.one thing to
another.

Lady U: Papa, I suppose?

Guinness: Yes, Miss.

Lady U: Don't be silly, Nurse. Don't call me
Miss.

-42 .-

Guinness: No, lovey. (goes out with tga-tgy)

Lady U: (sitting down with a flounce on the sofa)

I knowwwhat you must feel. Oh, this house! I come
back to it after twenty-three years; and it is just
the same: the luggage lying on the steps, the ser-
vants spoilt and impossible, nobody at home to
receive anybody, no regular meals, nobody ever

hungry because they are always gnawing bread and
butter of munching apples, and, what is worse, the
same disorder in ideas, in talk, in feeling. ‘When I
was a child I was used to it: I had never known any-
thing better, though I was unhappy and longed all the
time--oh, how'I longed!--to be respectable, to be a
lady, to live as others did, not to have to think of
everything for myself. I married at nineteen to
escape from it. My husband is Sir'Hsstings Utterword,
who has been governor of all the crown colonies in
succession. I have alnys been the mistress of
Government House. I have been so happy: I had for-
gotten thst people could live like this. I wanted

to see my father, my sister, my nephews and nieces
(one ought to, you know), and I was looking forward
to it. And now the state of the house! the way 1':
received! the casual impudence of that woman Guinness,
our old nurse! really Hesione night at least have
been here: some prepsrstion.night have been.made for
me. You must excuse my going on in this way; but I
sm.ree11y very much hurt and annoyed and disillusioned
and if I had realised it was to be like this, I
wouldn't have come. I have a great find to go away
without another word (she is on the point of weeping)

Ellie: (also miserable) Nobody has been here to re-
ceive me either. I thought I ought to go away too.
But how can I, Lady Utterword? my luggage is on the
steps; and the station fly has gone.

(The Captain emerges from the pantryiyith stray of
cm.” lacquer and . vefi”?i§€”£§gé¥f’6§"it: a?"
rests it provisionally on the end of the table;
gnatchgs away thg_dr§ning:bgggd, which he stands on
the floor against table legs; and puts'the'tray in
the space thus cleared. Ellie pours out a cup
greedily.)

 

 

 

 

 

Captain: Your tee, young lady. 'Ihat! another lady!
I must fetch another cup (makes for the pantry)

Lady U: (Rising from'the sofa, suffused with emotion)
Pepe! Don't you know'me? I'm.your daughter.

-43-

Captain: Nonsense! My daughter's upstairs asleep.
(vanishes thru the half door)

Lady U retires to the window to conceal her tears.

Ellie: (going to her with the cup) Don't be so dis-
tressed. Have this cup of tea. He is very old and
very strange: he has been just like that to me.

I know how dreadful it must be: nw own father is all
the world to me. Oh, I'm sure he didn't mean it.

(Captain returns with another cup)

Captain: Now we are complete. (places it on the
tray)

lady U: Papa, you can't have forgotten me. I am
Ariadne. I'm little Paddy Patkins. Won't you kiss
me? (she goes to him and throws her arm round his
neck)

Captain: (woodenly enduring her unbrace) How can
you be Ariadne? You are a middle-aged woman: well
preserved, madam, but no longer young.

Lady U: But think of all the years and years I have
been away, Papa. I have had to grow old, like other
people.

Captain: (disengaging himself) You should grow out
of kissing strange men: they may be striving to
attain the seventh degree of concentration.

Lacbr U: But I'm your daughter. You haven't seen
me for years.

Captain: So much the worse! When our relatives are
at home, we have to think of all their good points or
it would be impossible to endure them. But when they
are away, we console ourselves for their absence by
dwelling on their vices. That is how I have come to
think my absent daughter Ariadne a perfeot fiend: so
do not try to ingratiate yourself here by impersonat-
ing her. (he walks firmly away to other side of room)

Lady U: Ingratiating myself indeed! (with dignity)
‘Very well, Papa. (sits down and pours tea for her-
self)

Captain: I am neglecting 11w social duties. You
remember Dunn? Billy Dunn?

-44...

Lady U: Do you mean that villianous sailor who
robbed you?

Captain: (Introducing Ellie) His daughter. (he
sits on sofa)

Ellie: (protesting) No--- (Guinness returns with
trashing.)

Captain: Take that hogwash away. Do you hear?

Nurse: You've actually remembered about the tea!
(To Ellie) Oh, miss, he didn't forget you after all!
You have made an impression.

Captain: (gloomily) Youth! beauty! novelty! They
are badly wanted in this hous e. I an excessively old.
Hesione is only moderately young. Her children are
not youthful.

lady U: How can children be expected to be youthful
in this house? Almost before we could speak we were
filled with notions that might have been all very

well for pagan philosophers of fifty, but were cer-
tainly quite unfit for respectable people of my age.

Nurse: You were always for respectability, Miss Addy.

Lady U: Nurse, will you please remember that I am
Lady Utterword, and not Miss Addy, nor lovey, nor
darling, nor doty? Do you hear?

Nurse: Yes, ducky: all right. I'll tell them all
they must call you My lady. k wi h

undisturbgg placidity)

Lady U: What comfort? what sense is there in having
servants with no mnners?

Ellie: Lady Utterword, do you think Mrs. Hushabye
really expects me?

Lady U: Oh, don't ask me. You can see for yourself
that I've just arrived: her only sister, after twenty
three years' absence! and it seans that I am not
expected.

Captain: What does it matter whether the young lady
is expected or not? She is welcome. There are beds:
there is food. I'll find a roan for her myself.

(he makes for the door)

-45-

Ellie: Oh, p1ease--(he goes out) Lady Utterword,
I don't know what to do. Your father persists in
believing that my father is some sailor who robbed
hime

Lady U: You had better pretend not to notice it.

My father is a very clever man: but he always forgot
things: and now that he is old, of course he is worse.
And I met urn you that it is sometimes very hard

to feel quite sure tint he really forgets.

(Mrs. Hushabye bursts into the room tempestuously and
embraces Ellie. Unlike her sister is is uncoreeted
and dressed anyhow in a_ rich wrote of black pile that
shows off her white skin and ”statuesque contour.

“awn-r

 

Mrs. Hushabye: Ellie, my darling, Iv pettikins
(kissing her) how long have you been here? I've been
at home all the time: I was patting flowers ani
things in your room: and when I just sat down for a
moment to try how comfortable the armchair was I went
off to sleep. Papa woke me and told me you were here.
Fancy your finding no one, and being neglected and
abandoned. (kissing her ggain) My poor love! (she
deposits Ellie on the sofa. Meanwhile Ariadne has
left the table an! come over to claim her share of
attention.) Oh! you've brought someone with you.
Introduce me.

Lady U: Hesione, is it possible that you don't know
me?

Mrs. H: (conventionally) Of course I remember your
face (mite well. Where have we met?

Lady U: Didn't Papa tell you I was here? Oh! this
is really too much.

he H8 Papa!

Lady U: Yes, Papa. Our papa, you unfeeling wretch!
I'll go straight to a hotel.

Mrs. H: (seizing her by the shoulders) w goodness
gracious goodness, you don't mean to say that you're
Addy!

lady U: I certainly an Addy: and I don't think I can
be so changed that you would not have recognised me

if you had any real affection for me. And Papa didn' t
think me even worth mentioning!

-46-

Mrs. H: What a lark! Sit down (she pushes her back
into the chair instead of kissing her, and posts
herself behind it) You do look a swell. You're such
handsomer than you used to be. You've nude the
acquaintance of Ellie, of course. She is going to
marry a perfect hog of a millionaire for the sake of
her father, who is as poor as a church mouse: and you
must help me to stop her.

Ellie: Oh, please, Hesione!

Mrs. H: My pettikins, the man's coming here today
with your father to begin persecuting you; and every-
body will see the state of the case in ten minutes:
so what's the use of making a secret of it?

Ellie: He is not a hog, Hesione. You don't know
how wonderfully good he was to my father, and how
deeply grateful I am to him.

Mrs. H: (to Lady U.) Her father is a very rennrk-
able man, Addy. His name is Mazsini mun. mssini
was a celebrity ofsome kind who knew Ellie's grand-
parents. They were both poets, like the Brownings:
and when her father came into the world Maszini said,
“Another soldier born for freedom!“ So they christ-
ened him Massini: and he has been fighting for free-
dom in his quiet my ever since. That's why he is

so poor.

Ellie: I am proud of his poverty.

Mrs. H: Of course you are, pettikins. Why not leave
him in it, and mrry someone you love?

Lady U: (rising suddenly) Hesione, are you going to
hiss me or are you not?

Mrs. H: What do you want to be kissed for?

Lady U: I don't want to be kissed: but I do Int you
to behave properly and ecently. We are sisters. We
have been separated for twenty-three years. You
ought to kiss me.

Mrs. H: Tomorrow morning, dear, before you nke up.
I hate the smell of powder.

Lady U: Oh! you unfeeling---

-47-

Captain: (to Ellie) Your room is ready. (Ellie
rises) The sheets were damp: but I have changed
them (he makes for the garden door.)

lady U: Oh! What about my sheets?

Captain: (halting at the door) Take 1w advice: air
them: or take them off and sleep in blankets. You
shall sleep in Ariadne's old room.

Lady U: Indeed I shall do nothing of the sort. That
little hole! I am entitled to the best spare room.

Captain: (continuing unmoved) She married a numkull.
She told me she would marry anyone to get away from
home.

lady U: You are pretending not to new no on purpose.
I will leave the house.

(Massini Dunn enters from the hall)
Ellie: At last! Captain Shotover, here is my father.

Captain: This! Nonsense! not a bit like him (he
goes away through the garden, shutting the door
sharply behind him)

Lady U: I will not be ignored and pretended to be
somebody else. I will lave it out with Papa now,
this instant. (To Maszini) Excuse me. (She follows
the captain out, making a hasty bow to Massini, who
returns it.)

Mrs. H: (hospitably shaking hands) How good of you
to come, Mr. Dunn. You don't mind Papa, do you? He
is as mad as a hatter, you know, but quite harmless
and extremely clever. You will have some delightful
talks with hip.

Maszini: I hope so. (to Ellie) So here you are,
Ellie, dear. (He draws her arm affectionately through
his) I must thank you, Mrs. Hushabye, for your kind-
ness to not daughter. I'm afraid she would have had

no holiday if you had not invited her.

Mrs. H: Not at all. Very nice of her to come and
attract young people to the house for us.

Maszini: (smiling) I'm afraid Ellie is not interested
in young men, Mrs. Hushabye. Her taste is on the
gtaver, solider side. '

-48-

Mrs. H: (with a sudden rather hard brightness in
her war) mitigate.“ 9ft mu? mace“: Mr-
Dunn? You will find a cupboard for costs and hats
and things in the corner of the hall.

Massini: (hastily releasing Ellie) Yesa-thank you--
I had better- (he goes out)

Mrs. H: The old brute!
Ellie: Who?

Mrs. H: Who!‘ Him. He. It. "Graver, solider
tastes," indeed!

Ellie: You don't mean that you were speaking like
that of nw father!

Mrs. H: I was. You know I use.

Ellie: I will leave your house at once. (she turns
to the door)

Mrs. E: If you attempt it, I'll tell your father
why.

Ellie: (turning again) Oh! How can you treat a
visitor like this, Mrs. Hushabye?

Mrs. H: I thought you were going to call me Hesione.
Ellie: Certainly not now

Mrs. H: Very well: I'll tell your father.

31119: on:

Mrs. H: If you turn a hair--if you take his part
agairmt me and against your own heart for a moment,
I'll give that born soldier of freedom a piece of aw
mind that will stand him on his selfish old head for
a ”eke

Ellie: Hesione! My father selfish! How little you
know--- (She is interrupted by Massini, who returns,
excited) ‘

Mazsini: Ellie, Mangan be come: I thought you'd
like to know. Excuse me, Mrs. Hushabye, the strange
old gentlemen-~-

Mrs. H: Papa. Quite so.

-49..

mum. Oh, I beg your pardon, of course: I was a
little confused by his manner. He is making Mangan

help him with something in the garden; and he wants

me too-n

(a powerful $1921-13mh9éfd3)

 

The Ca ain' s voice: Bosuu ahoy! (EEE12.}§ .39"
2221-51;

Lhzzini: Oh dear! I believe he is whistling for me.
(He hurries out)

Mrs. H: Now my father is a wonderful man, if you
like.

Ellie: Hesione, listen to me. You don't understand.
My father and Mr. Mangan were boys together. Mr.
ya..-

Mrs. H: I don't care what they were: we not sit
down if you are going to begin as far back as that.
(she snatches at Ellie's waist, and makes her sit
dom on the sofa beside her) Now, pettikins, tell no
all about Mr. Mangan. They call him Boss hngan,
don't they? He is a Napoleon of industry and disgust-
ingly rich, isn't he? Why isn't your father rich?

Ellie: My poor father should never have been in
business. His parents were poets; and they gave bin
the noblest ideas: but they could not afford to give
him a profession.

Mrs. H: Fancy your grandparents, with their eyes in
fine frenzy rolling! And so your poor father had
to go into business. Hasn't he succeeded in it?

Ellie: He always used to say he could succeed if he
only had some capital. He fought his way along, to
keep a roof over our heads and bring us up well; but
it was always a struggle; always the same difficulty
of not having capital enough. I don't know how to
describe it to you.

Mrs. H: Poor Ellie! I know. Pulling the devil by
the tail.

3111.: (hurt) Oh, no. Not like that. It was at
least dignified.

Mrs. H: That made it all the harder, didn't it? I
shouldn't have pulled the devil by the tail with
dignity. I should have pulled hard (between her
teeth) u-hard. Well? Go on.

Ellie: At last it seemed that all our troubles were
at an and. Mr. lhngan did an extraordinarily noble
thing out of pure friendship for our father and re-
spect for his character. He asked him how much
capital he wanted, and gave it to him. He just simly
made him a present of it. Wasn't that splendid of
him?

Mrs. H: On condition that you married hin?

Ellie: Oh, no, no, no! This was when I was a child.
He had never even seen as: he never came to our
house. It was absolutely disinterested. Pure gen-
erosity.

Mrs. H: Oh! I beg the gentleman's pardon. Well,
what became of the money?

Ellie: We all got new clothes and moved into another
house. And I went to another school for two years.

Mrs. H: Only two years?

Ellie: That was all: for at the end of two years my
father was utterly mined.

Mrs. H: How?

Ellie: I don't know. I never could understand. But
it was dreadful. When we were poor my father had
never been in debt. But when he launched out into
business on a large scale, he had to incur liabilities.
When the business went into liquidation he owed more
money than Mr. Mangan had given him.

Mrs. H: Bit off more than he could chew, I suppose.
Ellie: I think you are a little unfeeling about it.

Mrs. H: My pettikins, you mstn't mind 11w way of
talking. I was (pits as sensitive and particular as
you once: but I have picked up so such slang from the
children that I am really hardly presentable. I sup-
pose your fahher had no head for business, and nde

a mess of it.

-51..

Ellie: Oh, that just shows how entirely you are mis-
taken about him. The business turned out a great
success. It now pays forty-four percent after de-
ducting the excess profits tax.

Mrs. H: Then why aren't you rolling in money?

Ellie: I don't know. It seems very unfair to me.

You see, aw father was nnde bankrupt. It nearly broke
his heart, because he had persuaded several of his
friends to put money into the business. He was sure
it would succeed: and events proved that he was quite
right. But they all lost their money. It was dread-
ful. I don't know what we should have done but for
Mr. Mangan.

Mrs. H: What! Did the Boss come to the rescue again,
after all his money being thrown away?

Ellie: He did indeed, and never uttered a reproach
to my father. He bought what was left of the business
«the buildings and the mchinery and things---. Then
Mr. Ihngan started a company to take up the business,
and mde my father a mamger in it to save us from
starvation; for I wasn't earning anything than

Mrs. H: Quite a romance. And when did the Boss de-
velop the tender passion?

Ellie: Oh, that was years after, quite lately. He
took the chair one night at a sort of people's con-
cert. I was singing there. As an amateur, you know:
He was so pleased with my singing that he asked

might he walk home with me. I never saw anyone so
taken aback as he was when I took him home and intro-
duced him to my father, his own mnager. It was then
that my father told me how nobly he had behaved. Of
course it was considered a great chance for Is, as

he is so rich. Andm-and-mwe drifted into a sort of
understanding—I suppose I should call it an engage-
ment--(she is distressed and cannot go on)

Mrs. H: (rising and marching about) You may have
drifted into it: but you will bounce out of it, aw
pettikins, if I am to have anything to do with it.

Ellie: No: it's no use. I am bound in honor and
gratitude. I will go through with it.

Mrs. H: (behind the sofa, scolding down at her) You
know, of course, that it's not honorable or grateful
to marry a man you don't love. Do you love this
Mangan man?

-52-

Ellie: Yeas At least---

Mrs. H: I don't want to know about “at least”: I
want to know the worst. Girls of your age fall in
love with all sorts of impossible people, especially
old people.

Ellie: I like Mr. Hangar: very much; and I shall
always be----

Mrs. H: ----grateful to him for his kindness to dear
father. I know. Anybody else?

Ellie: What do you mean?

Mrs. H: Anybody else? Are you in love with anybody
else?

Ellie: Of course not.

Mrs. H: Humph! (the booLon the drawing table catches
hem She picks it up, and evidently finds the
title very unexpected. She looks at Ellis, and asks
quaintly) Quite sure you're not in love with an actor?

Ellie: No, no. Why? What put such a thing into
your head?

Mrs. H: This is yours, isn't it? Why else should you
be reading Othello?

Ellie: My father taught me to love Shakespeare.

Mrs. H: (flinging the book down on the table) Really!
your father does seem to be about the limit.

Ellie: (naively) Do you never read Shakespeare,
Hesione? That seem to me so extraordinary. I like
OthOIIOe

Mrs. H: Do you indeed? He was jealous, wasn't he?

Ellie: Oh, not that. I think all the part about
jealousy is horrible. But don't you think it must
have been a wonderful experience for Desdemona,
brought up so quietly at home, to meet a man who had
been out in the vorld doing all sorts of brave things
and having terrible adventures, and yet finding some-
thing in her that made him love to sit and talk with
her and tell her about them?

Mrs. H: That's your idea of romance, is it?

Ellie: Not romance exactly. It might really happen.
(Ellie's eyes show that she is not arguing, but in a
day dream. Mrs. H., watching her inquisitively,
goes deliberately back to the sofa and resumes her
seat beside her.)

Mrs. H: Ellie darling, have you noticed that some
of those stories that Othello told Desdemona couldn't
have happened?

Ellie: Oh no. Shakespeare thought they could have
happened.

Mrs. H: Hm! Desdemona thought they could have hap-
pened. But they didn't.

Ellie: Why do you look so enigmatic about it? You
are such a sphinx: I never know what you mean.

Mrs. H: Desdemona would have found him out if she
had lived, you know. I wonder was that why he
strangled her!

Ellie: Othello was not telling lies.
Mrs. B: How do you know?

Ellie: Shakespeare should have said if he ms.
Hesione, there are men who have done mnderful things:
men like Othello, only, of course, white, and very
handsom, and------

Mrs. H: Ah! Now we're coming to it. Tell me all
about him. I knew there mat be somebody, or you'd
never have been so miserable about Mangan: You'd
have thought it quite a lark to marry him.

Ellie: (blushing vividly) Hesione, you are dreadful.
But I don't want to make a secret of it, though of
course I don't tell everybody. Besides, I don't know
1111110

Mrs. H: Don't know him! What does that mean?

Ellie: Well, of course I know him to speak to.

Mrs. H: But you want to know him ever so such more
intimately, eh?

-54...

Ellie: No, no: I know'him.quite----almost inti-
mately.

Mrs. H: You don't know'him; and you know him.al-
most intimately. How lucid!

Ellie: I mean that he does not call on.us. I--I
got into conversation with him.by chance at a con-
cert.

Mrs. H: You seem to have rather a gay time at your
concerts, Ellie.

Ellie: Not at all: we talk to everyone in the green
roomwwaiting for our turns. I thought he was one of
the artists: he looked so splendid. But he was only
one of the conhdttee. I happened to tell him.that I
was copying a picture at the National Gallery. I

make a little money that way. I can't paint much:

but as it's always the same picture I can do it pretty
quickly and get two or three pounds for it. It hap-
pened that he came to the National Gallery one day.

Hrs. H: One students' day. Paid sixpence to stumble
about through a crowd of easels, when he might have
come in next day for nothing and found the floor
clear! Quite by accident?

Ellie: (triumphantly) No. On purpose. He liked
talking to me. He knows lots of the most splendid
people. Fashionable women.who are all in love‘with
him. But he ran away from.them to see me at the
National Gallery and persuade me to come with him.for
a drive round Richmond Park in.a taxi.

who. H:' My pettikins, you have been going it. It's
wonderful what you good girls can.do'without anyone

saying a word.

Ellie: I am not in society, Hesione. If I didn't
make acquaintances in that way I shouldn't have any
at all.

Mk3. H: loll, no harm if you know how'to take care
of yourself. May I ask his name?

Ellie: (slowly and musically) Marcus Darnley.

Mrs. H: (echoing the music) Marcus Darnley! What
a splendid name!

-55-

Ellie: Oh, I'm so glad you think so. I think so
too; but I was afraid it was only a silly fancy of
my own.

Mrs. H: Hm! Is he one of the Aberdeen Darnleys?

Ellie: Nobody knows. Just fancy! He was found in
an antique chest----

Mrae H3 A what?

Ellie: An antique chest, one summer morning in a rose
garden, after a night of the most terrible thunderstorm.

Mrs. H: What on earth was he doing in file chest? Did
he get into it because he was afraid of the lightning?

Ellie: Oh, no, no: He was a baby. The name thrcus
Darnley was embroidered on his baby clothes. And
five hundred pounds in gold.

Mrs. H: (looking hard at her) Ellie!
Ellie: The garden of the Viscoun ---
Mrs. H: --de Rougemont?

Ellie: (innocently) No: de Larochejaquelin. A
French family. A vicomte. His life has been one
long romance. A tiger-u-

Mrs. H: Slain by his own hand?

Ellie: Oh, no: nothing vulgar like that. He saved
the life of the tiger from a hunting party: one of
King Edward's hunting parties in India. The King was
furious; that was why he never had his military
services properly recognized. But he doesn't care.
He is a Socialist and despises rank, and has been in
three revolutions fighting on the barricades.

Mrs. H: How can you sit there telling me such lies?
You, Ellie, of all people! And I thought you were
a perfectly simple, straightforward, good girl.
Ellie: Do you mean to say you don't believe me?

Mrs. H: 01' course I don't believe you. You're in-
venting every word of it. Do you take me for a fool?

(Ellie stares at her. Her candor is so obvious that
Mrs. H. is puzzled)

-55-

Ellie: Goodbye, Hesione. I'm very sorry. I see
now that it sounds very improbably as I tell it.
But I can't stay if you think that way about me.

Mrs. H: (catching her dress) You shan't go. I
couldn't be so mistaken: I know too well what liars
are like. Somebody has really told you all this.

Ellie: (flushing) Hesione, don't say that you
don't believe him. I couldn't bear that.

Mrs. H: (soothing her) Of course I believe him dear-
est. But you should have broken it to me by degrees.
(drawing her back to her seat) Now tell me all

about him. Are you in love with him?

Ellie: Oh, no. I'm not so foolish. I don't fall in
love with people. I'm not so silly as you think.

Mrs. H: I see. Only something to think about---to
give some interest and pleasure to life.

Ellie: Just so. That's all, really.

Mrs. H: (caressing her) Pettikins, my pettikins,
how I envy you! and how I pity you!

Ellie: Pity me! Oh, why?

(4.1.611... handsome mm of fifty, with mousquetaire
moustaches, wearing a__ rather dandified curly brimmed

hat Land naminsmaelaboratanlking-stick,“ comes
into the room from the hall, and stops short at

sight of the women on the sofa.)

Ellie: (seeing him and rising in glad surprise) Oh!
Hesione: this is Mr. Marcus Darnley.

Mrs. H: (rising) What a lark! He is W husband.

Ellie: But now--- (she stops suddenly: then turns
pale and sways)

Mrs. H: (catching her and sitting down with her on
the sofa) Steady, my pettikins.

The Man: (with a mixture of confusion and effrontery,
depositing his hat and stick on the teak table) My
real name, Miss Dunn, is Hector Hushabye. I leave
you to judge whether tint is a name any sensitive

nan would care to confess to. I never use it when

-5 7..

I can possibly help it. I have been away for nearly
a month; and I had no idea you knew m wife, or that
you were coming here. I am none the less delighted
to find you in our little house.

2111.: (in great distress) I don't know what to do.
Please, may I speak to Papa? Do leave me. I can't
bear its

Mrs. H:- Be off, Hector.
Hector: I-----
Mrs. H: Quick, quick. Get out.

Hector: If you think it better--(he goes out, tak-
ing his hat with him but leaving the stick on the
table.)

Mrs. H: (laying Ellie down at the end of the sofa)
Now, pettikins, he is gone. There's nobody but me.
You can let yourself go. Don't try to control your-
self. Have a good cry.

Ellie: Damn!

Mrs. H: Splendid! Oh, what a relief! I thought you
were going to be broken-hearted. Never mind me.
Damn him again.

Ellie: I am not damning him. I am damning myself
for being such a fool. (rising) How could I let 1W"
self be taken in so? (she begins prowling to and fro,
her bloom gone, looking curiously older and harder)

Mrs. H: W not, pettikins? Very few young women
can resist Hector. I couldn't when I was your age.
He is really rather splendid, you know.

Ellie: Splendid! Yes, splendid locking, of course.
But how can you love a liar?

Mrs. H: I don't know. But you can, fortunately.
Otherwise there wouldn't be such love in the world.

Ellie: But to lie like that! To be a boaster!
a coward!

Mrs. H: (rising) Pettikins, none of that, if you
please. If you hint the slightest doubt of Hector's
courage, he will go straight off and do the most

-53-

horribly dangerous things to convince himself that
he isn't a coward. He has a dreadful trick of get-
ting out of one third-floor window and coming in at
another, just to test his nerve. He has a whole
drawer full of Albert Medals for saving people's
11758.

Ellie: He never told me that.

Mrs. H: He never boasts of anything he really did:
He can't bear it; and it makes him shy if anyone else
does. All his stories are made-up stories.

Ellie: Do you mean that he is really brave, and
really has adventures, and yet tells lies about things
that he never did and that never happened?

Mrs. H: Yes, pettikins, I do. People don't have
their virtues and vices in sets: they have them any-
hOWS ‘11 made

Ellie: There's something odd about this house,
Hesione, and even about you. I don't know why I'm
talking to you so calmly. I have a horrible fear that
nw heart is broken, but that heartbreak is not like
what I thought it mst be.

Mrs. H: (fondling her) It's only life educating you,
pettikins. How do you feel about Boss mngan now?

Ellie: (disengaging herself with an expression of
distaste) Oh, how can you remind me of him, Hesione?

Mrs. H: Sorry, dear. I think I hear Hector coming
back. You don't nindnow, do you, dear?

Ellie: Not in the least. I am quite cured.
(mzzini Dunn and Hector come in from the hall)

Hector: (as he opens the door and allows Maszini to
pass in) One second more, and she would hage been a
dead woman!

Mancini: Dear! dear! what an escape! Ellie, my
love, Mr. Hushabye has just been telling me the most
extraordinary-

Ellie: Yes, I've heard it (she crosses to the other
side of the room)

Hector: (following her) Not this one: I'll tell

it to you after dinner. I think you'll like it. The
truth is I made it up for you, and was looking for-
ward to the pleasure of telling it to you. But in a
moment of impatience at being turned out of the room,
I threw it any on your father.

Ellie: (turning at bay with her back to the carpen-
ter's bench scornfully self-possessed) It was not
thrown away. He believes it. I should not have be-

Mazzini: (benevolently) Ellie is very naughty, Mr.
Hushabye. Of course she does not really think that.

(Boss Mangan comes in from the hall, followed by the
Captain.)

Captain: (to Mrs. H., introducing the newcomer)
Says his name is Mangan. Not able bodied.

Mrs. H: (graciously) How do you do, Mr. lungan?
Mangan: (shaking hands) Very pleased.

Captain: Dunn's lost his muscle, but recovered his
nerve. Men seldom do after three attacks of delirioum
tremens. (he goes into the pantry)

Mrs. H: I congratulate you, Mr. Dunn.

Lhzzini: (dazed) I am a lifelong teetotaler.

Mrs. H: You will find it far less trouble to let
papa have his own way than try to explain.

Lhzzini: But three attacks of delirium tremens.
really!

Mrs. H: (to Lhngan) Do you know my husband, Mr.
Mangan (she indicates Hector)

Mangan: (going to Hector, who meets him with outstret-
ched hand) Very pleased. (taming to Ellie) I hope,
Miss Ellie, you have not found the journey down too
fatiguing. (they shake hands)

Mrs. H: Hector, show Mr. Dunn his room.

Hector: Certainly. Come along, Mr. Dunn. (he
takes Mazzini out)

-60..

Ellie: You haven't shown me my room yet, Hesione.
Mrs. H: How stupid of me! Come along. Make your-
self quite at home, Mr. Mangan. Papa will entertain
you. Papa, come and explain the house to Mr. Mangan.

(she goes out with Ellie. The captain comes in
from the pantry)

Captain: You're going to unrry mnn's daughter.
Don't. You're too old.

Mangan: (staggered) Well! That's fairly blunt,
Captain.

Captain: It's true.

Mgan: She doesn't think so.
Captain: She does.

Mangan: Older men then I have--.”

Captain: made fools of themselves. That, also is
true.

Mangan: I don't see that this is any business of
ywrse

Captain: It is everybody's business. The stars in
their courses are shaken when such things happen.

Mangen: I'm going to marry her all the same.
Captain: How do you know?

mngan: I intend to. I mean to. See? I never made
up my mind to do a thing yet that I didn't bring it
off. That's the sort of man I am: and there will
be a better understanding between us whm you make
up your mind to that, Captain.

Captain: You frequent picture palaces.

kangan: Perhaps I do. Who told you?

Captain: Talk like a man, not like a navy. You mean
that you make a hundred thousand a year.

Msngan: I don't boast. But when I meet a sun that
makes a hundred thousand a year, I take off W hat

-51-

to that man, stretch out my hand to him and call
him brother.

Captain: Then you also mks a hundred thousand a
year, hey?

Mangan: No. I can't say that. Fifty thousand,
perhaps.

Captain: His half brother only. (he turns away

from Mangan with his usual abruptness, and ggllects
th e t a-cu s n the Chingggiglz)

Manganr (irritated) See here, Captain Shotover, I
don't quite understand my position here. I came here
on your daughter's invitation. Am I in her house or
in yours?

Captain: You are beneath the dome of heaven, in the
house of God. What is t rue within these walls is
true outside them. Go out on the seas: climb the
mountains 3 wander through the valleys. She is still
too young.

Mangan: (weakening) But I'm very little over fifty.

Captain: You are still less under sixty. Boss Mangan,
you will not mrry the pirate's child. (he carries
the tray away into the pantry)

Mangan: (following him to the half door) What pirate's
child? What are you talking about?

Captain: (in the pantry) Ellie Dunn. You will not
harry her.

mngan: Who will stop me?

Captain: (emerging) My daughter (he makes for the
door leading to the hall)

mngen: (following him) Mrs. Hushabye! Do you mean
to say she brought me down here to break it off?

Captain: (stopping and turning on him) I know noth-
ing more than I have seen in her eye. She will break
it off. Take my advice: marry a West Indian negress:
they sake excellent wives. I was narried to one myC
self for two years.

-62..

Mangan: Well, I am damned!

Captain: I thought so. I was, too, for many years.
The negress redeemed me.

Mangan: (feebly) This is queer. I ought to n1]:
out of this house.

Captain: Why?

Mangan: Well, many men would be offended by your
style of talking.

Captain: Nonsensei It's the other sort of talking
that mkes quarrels. Nobody ever quarrels with me.

'- 5 H 5 5 ’5“ (A gentleman, whose first-rate tailoring and friction-
Ti??? 9‘“, less _nanners proclaim the wellbred West Ender, comes
.. ”A: L. f A} in from the hall. He has an engaging air of_ being

“-..... ..-..--....l-,e...‘.m-......... Loung and unmarried, but on close inspection is found
L to ______b_g at least“ over fgrty.

, Gentleman: Excuse nw intruding in this fashion, but

there is no knocker on the door and the bell does
not seem to ring.

Captain: Why should there be a knocker? Why should
the bell ring? The door is open.

Gentleman: Precisely. So I ventured to come in.

Captain: Quite right. I will see about a room for
you.

Gentleman: But I'm afraid you don't know who I am.

‘ Captain: Do you suppose that at my age I make dis-

, tinctions between one fellow creature and another?

'7 (he goes out. Mangan and the newcomer stare at one
another)
Lhngan: Strange character, Captain Shotover, sir.
Gentleman: Very.
Captain: (shouting outside) Hesione, another person
has arrived and wants a mom. Man about town, well
dressed, fifty.

Gentleman: Fancy Hesione's feelingsi May I ask are
you a mentor of the family?

-63-

Lhngan: No.

Gentlemn: I am. At least a connection. (Mrs. H.
comes back)

Mrs. H: How do you do? How good of you to comet

Gentleman: I am very lad indeed to nuke your ao-
quaintanoe, Hesione. Instead of taking her hand he
kisses her. At the same moment the captain appears
in the doorway) You will excuse my kissing your
daughter, Captain, when I tell you that-mu-

Captain: Stuff}. Everyone kisses my daughter. Kiss
her as much as you like (he makes for the pantry)

Gentleman: Thank you. One moment, Captain. (the
captain halts and turns. The gentleman goes to him
affably.) Do you happen to remember-“but probably
you don't, as it occurred many years agouthat your
younger daughter married a numskull?

Captain: Yes. She said she'd mrry anybody to get
away from this house. I should not have recognised
you: your head is no longer like a walnut. Your
aspect is softened. You have been boiled in bread
and milk for years and years, like other married men.
Poor devil! (he disappears into the pantry)

Mrs. H: (going past Mangan to the gentlemen and
scrutinizing him) I don't believe you are Hastings
Utterword.

Gentleman: I am not.
Mrs. H: Then mat business had you to kiss me?

Gentlemn: I thought I would like to. The fact is,
I am Randall Utterword, the unworthy younger brother
of Hastings. I was abroad diplonntizing when he was
married.

Lady U: (dashing in) Hesione, where is the key to
the wardrobe in my room? My diamonds are in w
dressing-bag: I met lock it up---Randall, how dare
you? (she marches at him past Mrs. H., who retreats
and joins Mangan near the Sofa)

Randall: How dare I what? I am not doing anything.

Lady U: Who told you I was here?

Randall: Hastings. You had just left when I called
on you at Claridge's; so I followed you down here.
You are looking extremely well.

Lady U: Don't presume to tell me so.
Mrs. H: What is wrong with Mr. Randall, Addy?

Lady U: (recollecting herself) Oh, nothing. But he
has no right to come bothering you and papa without
being invited. (she goes to the window seat and sits
down, turning away from them ill-humoredly and looking
into the garden, where Hector and Ellie are now seen
strolling together)

Mrs. H: I think you have not met Mr. Mangan, Addy.

Lady U: (turning her head and nodding coldly to
Mangan) I beg your pardon. Randall, you have flust’u
ered me so: I make a perfect fool of nyself.

Mrs. H: Lady Utterword. My sister. My younger
sister.

Mangan: (bowing) Pleased to meet you, Lady Utterword.

Lady U: (with marked interest) Who is that gentle-
man walking in the garden with Miss Dunn?

Mrs. H: I don't know. She quarrelled mortally with
nw husband only ten minutes ago: and I didn't know
anyone else had come. It must be a visitor. (she
goes to the window to look) Oh, it is Hector.
They've made it up.

Lady U: Your husband: That handsome man?

Mrs. H: Well, why shouldn't aw husband be a handsome
man?

Randall: (joining them at the window) One's husband
never is, Ariadne.

Mrs. H: One's sister's husband always is, Mr.
Randalle

Lady U: Don't be vulgar, Randall. And you, Hesione,
are just as bad.

(Ellie and Hector come in from the garden by the
starboard door. Randall rises. Ellie retires into

-65-

the corner near the pantry. Hector comes forward;
and lady U rises looking her very best)

Mrs. H: Hector, this is Addy.

Hector: (apparently surprised) Not this lady.

Lady U: (smiling) Why not?

Hector: (looking at her with a piercing glance)

I thought-«J beg your pardon, Lady Utterword. I am

extremely glad to welcome you at last under our roof
(he offers his land with grave courtesy)

Mrs. H: She wants to be kissed, Hector.
Lady U: Hesione!. (but she still smiles)

Mrs. H: Call her Addy; and kiss her like a good
brother-in-law; and have done with it. (she leaves
them to themselves).

Hector: Behave yourself, Hesione. Lady Utterword is
entitled not only to hospitality but to civilization.

Lady U: (gratefully) Thank you, Hector. (they
shake hands cordially)

Captain: (coming from the pantry and addressing Ellie)
Your father has washed himself.

Ellie: He (often does, Captain Shotover.

Captain: A strange conversion! I saw him through
the pantry window.

(haunt Dunn enters. through. _th_e-quf!2J1nd.on door.
manly 13813.94 and unwed. andstops ._ smiling; -benoxo-

lently, between mngan and Mrs. H)

Mrs. H: (introducing) Mr. Mazzini Dunn, Lady Ut--oh,
I forgot: you've met. (indicating Ellie) Miss Dunn.

Mazzini: (walking across the room to take Ellie's

hand) I mve met Miss Dmn also. She is my daughter .
(he draws her arm through his caressingly)

Mrs. H: Of course: how stupid! Mr. Utterword, my
s ister' s --er--

Randall: (shaking hands agreeably) Her brother-in-
law, Mr. Dunn. How do you do?

-66-

Mrs. H: This is my husband.

Hector: We have met, dear. Don't introduce us any
more. Won't you sit down, Lady Utterword? (she does
so very graciously)

Mrs. H: Sorry. I hate it: it's like making people
show their tickets.

Bfazzini: How little it tells us, after all! The
great question is, not who we are, but what we are.

Captain: Ha! What are you?

ms: ini: What am 1?

Captain: A thief, a pirate, and a murderer.
Mass ini: I assure you you are mistaken.

Captain: An adventurous life: but what does it and
in? Respectability. A ladylike daughter. The language
and appearance of a city miniomry. Let it be a warn-
ing to all of you. (he goes out through the garden)

Dunn: I hope nobocb' here believes that I an a thief,
a pirate, or a murderer. Mrs. Hushabye, will you
excuse me for a moment? I must really go and explain.
(he follows the captain)

Mrs. H: (as he goes) It's no use. You'd really
better---(Dunn has vanished) We had better all go
out and look for some tea. We never have regular

tea; but you can always get some when you want; the
servants keep it stewing all day. The kitchen veranda
is the best place to ask. May I show you? (she goes
to the starboard door)

Randall: (going with her) Thank you, I don't think
I'll take any tea this afternoon. But if you will
show me the garden--

Mrs. H: There's nothing to see in the garden except
papa's observatory, and a gravel pit with a cave where
he keeps dynamite and things of that sort. However,
it's pleasanter out of doors; so come along.

Randall: Dynamite! Isn't that rather risky?

Mrs. H: Well, we don't sit in the gravel pit when
there's a thunderstorm.

-67...

Lady U: That's something new. What is the dyna-
mite for?

Hector: To blow up the human race if it goes too
far. He is trying to discover a psychic ray that
will explode all the explosive at the will of a
Mahatm.

Ellie: The captain's tea is delicious, Mr. Utterword.
Mrs. H: (stopping in the doorway) Do you mean to say
that you've had some of 11v father's tea? that you got
around him before you were ten minutes in the house?
Ellie: I did.

Mrs. H: You little devil! (she goes out with Randall)
Mmgan: Won't you come, Miss Ellie?

Ellie: I'm too tired. I'll take a book u to my room
and rest a little. (she goes to bookshelf

Mangan: Right. You can't do better. But I'm disap-
pointed. (he follows Randall and Mrs. H)

(Ellie, Hector and Law Utterword are left. Hector
is close to Lady U. They look at Ellie, waiting for
her to go)

Ellie: (looking at the title of a book) Do you like
stories of adventure, lady Utterword?

lady U: (patronizingly) Of course, dear.

Ellie: Then I'll leave you to Mr. Hushabye. (she
goes out through the hall)

Hector: Tint girl is nude-about tales of adventure.
The lies I have to tell her!

lady U: When you saw me what did you mean by saying
that you thought, and then stopping short? What did
you think?

Hector: May I tell you?

lady U: Of course.

Hector: It will not sound very civil. I was on the
point of saying, "I thought you were a plain woman.“

-68-

lady U: Oh, for shame, Hector! What right had you
to notice whether I am plain or not?

Hector: Listen to me, Ariadne. Until today I have
seen only photographs of you; and no photograph can
give the strange fascination of the daughters of that
supernatural old man. There is some damnable quality
in them that destroys men's moral sense, and carries
them beyond honor and dishonor. You know that, don't
you?

Lady U: Perhaps I do, Hector. But let me warn you
once for all that I am a rigidly conventional woman.
You may think because I'm a Shotover that I'm Bohemian,
because we are all so horribly Bohemian. But I'm not.
I hate and loathe Bohemianism. No child brought up

in a strict Puritan household ever suffered from Puri-
tanism as I suffered from our Bohemianisn.

Hector: ~ Our children are like that. They spend their
holidays in the houses of their respectable school
£6110“.

lady U: I shall invite them for Christmas.

Hector: Their absence leaves us both without our
natural chaperones.

lady U: Children are certainly very inconvenient
sometimes. But intelligent people can always mmge,
unless they are Bohemians.

Hector: You are no Bohemian; but you are no Puritan
either; your attraction is alive and powerful. What
sort of woman do you count yourself?

Lady U: I am a woman of the world, Hector; and I can
assure you that if you will only take the trouble al-
ways to do the perfectly correct thing, and to say the
perfectly correct thing, you can do just what you
like. An ill-conducted, careless woman gets simply

no chance. An ill-conducted, careless man is never
allowed within arm's length of any woman worth knowing.

Hector: I see. You are neither a Bohemian woman or
a Puritan woman. You are a dangerous woman.

Lady U: On the contrary, I am a safe woman.

Hector: You are a most accursedly attractive woman.
Mind, I am not making love to you. I do not like being

’1

\
Ve-

L- ‘ -;'. H T F:

.\ "("5 C

:J

attracted. But you lad better know how I feel if
you are going to stay here.

Lady U: You are an exceedingly clever lady-killer,
Hector. And terribly handsome. I am guite a good
player, nyself, at that game. Is it quite understood
that we are only playing?

Hector: Quite. I amdeliberately playing the fool,
out of sheer worthlessness.

Lady U: (rising brightly) Well, you are m brother-
in-law. Hesione asked you to kiss me. (he seizes her
in his arms and kisses her stremously) Oh! that

was a little more than play, brother-in-law. (she
pushes him suddenly away) You shall not do that again.

Hector: In effect, you got your claws deeper into me
than I intended.

Mrs. a: (coming in from the garden) Don't let me
disturb you; I only want a cap to put on daddiest.
$112-~§HE,-}§_.L°'E§5:353 and he'll catch cold (she makes
for the door leading to the hall)

lady U: Your husband is quite charming, darling. He
has actually condescended to kiss me at last. I shall
go into the garden: it's cooler now (she goes out by
the port door)

Mrs. H: Take care, dear child. I don't believe any
man can kiss Addy without falling in love with her.
(she goes into hall)

Hector: (striking himself on the chest) Fool! Goat!

(Mrs. H. comes back with the captain's cap )
Hector: Your sister is an extremely enterprising
old girl. Where's Miss Dunn?

Mrs. H: Mangan says she has gone up to her room for
a nap. Addy won't let you talk to Ellie: she has
narked you for her own.

Hector: She has the diabolical family fascination.
I began making love to her automtically. What am I
to do? I can't fall in love, and I can't hurt a
woman's feelings by telling her so when she falls in
love with me. And as women are always falling in
love with 11w moustache I get landed in all sorts of

-70-

’; HIS)": ~"‘
L l 4?

tedious and terrifying flirtatious in which I'm not
a bit in earnest.

Mrs. H: Oh, neither is Addy. She has never been in
love in her life, though she has always been trying
to fall in head over ears. She is worse than you,
because you had one real go at least, with me.

Hector: That was a confounded sadness. You fascinated
me; but I loved you; so it ms heaven. This sister of
yours fascimtes me; but I hate her; so it is hell.

I shall kill her if she persists.

Mrs. H: Nothing will kill Addy; she is as strong as
a horse. (releasing him) Now I am going off to
fascinate somebody.

Hector: The Foreign Office Staff? Randall?

Mrs. H: Goodness gracious, no! Why should I fasci-
nate him?

Hector: I presume you don't mean the bloated capi-
talist, Mgm?

Mrs. H: HM! I think he had better be fascinated by

me than by Ellie. (she is going into the garden when
the captain comes in from it with some sticks in his

hand.) What have you got there, daddiest?

 

 

Captain: Dynamite.

Mrs. H: You've been to the gravel pit. Don't drop
it about the house, there's a dear. (she goes into
the garden. 1429.1-atnanzesing.,.li5!x§-.1§_!_9339}f¥£9¢o)

Hector: Listen, 0 sage. How long dare you concen-
trate on a feeling without risking have it fixed in
your consciousness all the rest of your life?

Captain: Ninety minutes. An hour and a half (he
goes into the pantry)

(Hector, left along, contracts his brows, and falls
into a day-dream. He does not move for some time.

Then he folds his arms. Then, throwing his hands
behind him, and gripping one with the other, he strides
tragically once to and fro. Suddenly he snatches his
walking stick fmm the teak table, and draws it; for
it is a sword stick. He fights a desperate duel with
an inaginary antagonist, and after may vicissitudes

-71..

runs him through the body up to the hilt. He

sheathes his sword and throws it on the sofa, falling
into another reverie as he does so. He looks straight
into the eyes of an imaginary womn; seizes her by the
arms; and says in a deep and thrilling tone, "Do you
love me!” The captain comes out of the pantry at this
moment; and Hector, caught with his arms stretched out
and his fists clenched, Ins to account for his attitude
by going through a series of gymnastic exercises.)

Captain: That sort of strength is no good. You will
never be as strong as a gorilla.

Hector: What is the dynamite for?
Captain: To kill fellows like Mangan.

Hector: No use. They will alnys be able to buy more
dynamite than you.

Captain: I will nuke a dynamite that he cannot ex-
plode.

Hector: And that you can, eh?

Captain: Yes: when I have attained the seventh degree
of concentration.

Hector: What's the use of that? You never do attain
it.

Captain: What then is to be done? Are we to be kept
forever in the mud by these hogs to whom the universe
is nothing but a nachine for greasing their bristles
and filling their snouts?

Hector: Are Mangan's bristles worse than fundall's
lovelooks?

Captain: We must win powers of life and death over
them both. I refuse to die until I have invented the
mango

Hector: Who are we that we should judge them?

Captain: What are they that they should judge us?
Yet they do, unhesitatingly. There is enmity betwem
our seed and their seed. They know it and act on it,
strangling our souls. They believe in themselves.
When we believe in ourselves, we shall kill them.

-72-

Hector: It is the same seed. You forget that your
pirate has a very nice daughter. Mangan's son may
be a Plato; Randall's a Shelley. What was not father?

Captain: The damnedst scoundrel I ever met. (he
rgplacgs the drawing-board; sits down at the table;
and begins to mix a wash of colorw.)

Hector: Precisely. Well, dare you kill his innocent
grandchildren?

Captain: They are mine also.

Hector: Just so. We are members one of another.
(he throws himself carelessly on the sofa) We live
among the mngans and Randalls and Billie Dunne as
they, poor devils, live among the disease germ and
the doctors and the lawyers and the persons and the
restaurant chefs and the tradesmen and the servants
and all the rest of the parasites and blackmailers.
What are our terrors to theirs:? Give me the power
to kill them; and I'll spare them in sheer---

Captain: Fellow feeling?

Hector: No. I should kill melt if I believed that.

I must believe that my spark, smll as it is, is divine,
and that the red light over their door is hell fire.

I should spare them in simple mgnanimous pity.

Captain: You can't spare them until you have the power
to kill them. At present they have the power to kill
you. There are millions of blacks over the water for
them to train and let loose on us. They're going to

do it. They're doing already.

Hector: They are too stupid to use their power.

Captain: (Web and coming to the
end of the sofa) Do not deceive yourself: they do

use it. We kill the better half of ourselves every
day to propitiate them. The knowledge that these
people are there to render all our aspirations barren
prevents us having the aspirations. And when we are
tempted to seek their destruction they bring forth
demons to delude us, disguised as pretty daughters,
and singers and poets and the like, for whose sake we
spare them,

Hector: (sitting up) May not Hesione be such a demon,
brought forth by you lost I should slay you?

-73-

Captain: That is possible. She has used you up,
and left you nothing but dreams, as some women do.

Hector: Vampire woman, demon women.

Captain: Men think the world well lost for them, and
lose it accordingly. Who are the men that do things?
The husbands of the shrew and of the drunkard, the
men with the thorn in the flesh. (walking distractedly
away towards the pantry) I must think these things
out. (turning suddenly) But I go on with the dynamite
none the less. I will discover a ray mightier than
any X-ray; a mind ray that will explode the ammunition
in the belt of 11V adversary before he can point his
gun at me. And I mst hurry. I am old; I have no
time to waste in talk ( he is about to go into the

www)

Mrs. H: Daddiest, you and Hector must come and help
me to entertain all these people. What on earth
were you shouting about?

Hector: He is madder than usual.

Mrs. H: We all are.

Hector: I must change (starts for hall door)

Mrs. H: Stop, stop. Come back, both of you. Come
back. (they return} reluctantly) Money is running
short.

Hector: Money! Where are my April dividends?

Mrs. H: Where is the snow that fell last year?

Captain: Where is all the money you 1nd for that
patent lifeboat I invented?

Mrs. H: Five hundred pounds; and I have nnde it last
since Easter!

Captain: Since Easter! Barely four months! Monstrous
extravagance! I could live for seven years on 500
pounds.

Mrs. H: Not keeping open house as we do here, daddiest.

Captain: Only 500 pounds for that lifeboat! I got
twelve thousand for the invention before that.

-74-

Mrs. H: Yes, dear; but that was for the ship with
the magnetic keel that sucked up submarines. Living
at the rate we do, you cannot afford life-saving in-
ventions. Can't you think of sanething that will
murder half Europe at one bang?

Captain: No, I an ageing fast. My mind does not
dwell on slaughter as it did when I was a boy. Why
doesn't your husband invent something. He does noth-
ing but tell lies to women.

Hector: Well, that is a form of invention, is it not?
However, you are right; I ought to support my wife.

Mrs. H: Indeed you shall do nothing of the sort. I
should never see you from breakfast to dinner. I want
my husband.

Hector: (bitterly) I might as well be your lapdog.

Mrs. H: Do you want to be my breadwinner, like the
other poor husbands?

Hector: No, by thunder! What a damned creature a bus-
band is anyhow!

Mrs. H: (to the captain) What about that harpoon
cannon?

Captain: No use. It kills whales, not men.

Mrs. H: Why not? You fire the harpoon out of a
cannon. It sticks in the enemy's general; you wind
him in; and there you are.

Hector: You are your father's daughter, Hesione.
Captain: There is something in it. Not to wind in
generals; they are not dangerous. But one could
fire a grapnel and wind in a machine gun or even a
tank. I will think it out.

Mrs. H: (squeezing the captain's arm affectionately)
Saved! You are a darling, daddiest. Now we must go
back to these dreadful people and entertain them.
Captain: They have had no dinner. Don't forget that.

Hector: Neither have I. finduitnishdark: . it must be

all hggs.

Mrs. H: Oh, Guinness will produce some sort of dinner
for them. The servants always take jolly good care
that there is food in the house.

Captain: (raising a strange wail in the darkness)
What a house! What a daughter!

Mr . H: (raving) What a father!

Hector: What a husband!

Captain: Is there no thunder in heaven?

Hector: Is there no beauty, no bravery, on earth?

Mrs. H: What do men want: They have their food,
their firesides, their clothes mended, and our love
at the end of the day. Why are they not satisfied?
Why do they envy us the pain with'which we bring them
into the world, and make strange dangers and torments
for themselves to be even with us?

Captain: (weirdly chanting) I builded a house for
my daughters, and opened the doors thereof,

That men might come for their choosing, and their
batters spring from their love;

But one of them mrried a numskull;

Hector: (taking up the rhythm) The other a liar wed;

Mrs. H: (completing the stanza) And now must she lie
beside him, even as she made her bed.

Lady U: (calling from the garden) Hesione! Hesione!
Where are you?

Hector: The cat is on the tiles.

Mrs. H: Coming, darling, coming. (she goes quickly
into the garden) (The captain goes back to his place
at the table)

Hector: (going out into the hall) Shall I turn up
the lights for you?

Captain: No. Give ms. 96699251331999:9.._~___"°9€¥.1130*:

_..._._.__._..-_..

mém_.§he._lisbio

‘aa‘

ACT TWO

The same room, with the lights turned up and the cur-
tains drawn. E'lliemcome's”inT‘foIlowe‘d by Mangan.
Both are‘dgessedwfogdinner. She strolls to the draw-
ing table. He comes betwoen the table and the wicker
chairs

 

 

Mangan: What a dinner! I don't call it a dinner;
I call it a meal.

Ellie: I am accustomed to meals, Mr. Mangan, and very
lucky to get them. Besides, the captain cooked some
maccaroni for me.

Mangan: Too rich: I can't eat such things. I suppose
it's because I have to work so much with my brain.
That's the worst of being a man of business; you are
always thinking, thinking, thinking. By the way, now
that we are alone, may I take the opportunity to come
to a little understanding with you?

Ellie: (settling into the draughtsman's seat) Certain-
ly. I should like to.

mngan: (taken aback) Should you? Tint surprises me;
for I thought I noticed this afternoon that you avoided
the all you could. Not for the first time either.
Ellie: I was vezy tired and upset. I wasn't used to
the ways of this extraordinary house. Please forgive
me.

Mangan: Oh, that's all right: I don't mind. But
Captain Shotover has been talking to me about you.

You and me, you know.

Ellie: (interested) The captain! What did he say?

Mangan: Well, he noticed the difference between our
ages.

Ellie: He notices everything.

Mgan: You don't mind, then?

Ellie: Of course I know quite well that our engagement----
Mangan: Oh! You call it an engagement.

Ellie: Well, isn't it?

Mangan: Oh, yes, yes: no doubt it is if you hold to
it. This is the first time you've used the word; and
I didn't quite know where we stood; that's all. (he
sits) You were saying----?

Ellie: Was I? I forget. Tell me. Do you like this
part of the country. I heard you ask Mr. Hushabye at
dinner whether there are any nice houses to let down
hares

Mangan: I like the place. The air suits me. I
shouldn't be surprised if I settled down here.

Ellie: Nothing would please me better. The air suits
me too. And I want to be near Hesione.

Mangan: (with growing uneasiness) The air my suit
us; but the question is, should we suit one another?
Have you thought about that?

Ellie: Mr. Mangan, we met be sensible, mustn't we?
ItBs no use pretending that we are Romeo? and Juliet.
But we can get on very well together if we choose to
make the best of it. Your kindness of heart will
make it easy for me.

Msngan: (leaning forward, with the beginning of some-
thing like deliberate unpleasantness in his voice)
Kindness of heart, eh? I ruined your father, didn't
I?

Ellis: 01), not intentionally.

Nangan: Yes I did. Ruined him on purpose.

Ellie: Onpurpose!

Mangan: Not out of ill-nature, you know. And you'll
admit that I kept a jobfor him when I had finished
with him. But business is business; and I ruined
him as a matter of business.

Ellie: I don't understand how that can be. Are you
trying to make me feel that I need not be grateful to
you, so that I may choose freely?

lengan: (rising aggressively) No. I mean what I
say.

Ellie: But how could it possibly do you any good to
ruin my father? The money he lost was yours.

-78..

Mangan: (with a sour laugh) Was mine! It is mine,
Miss Ellie, and all the money the other fellows lost
too. I just smoked them out like a hive of bees.
What do you say to that? A bit of shock, eh?

Ellie: It would have been, this morning. Now! You
can't think how little it matters. But it's quite
interesting. Only you must explain it to me. I

don't understand it. (she composes herself to listen
with a combination of com cious contempt which provokes
him to more and more unpleasantness)

Mangan: Of course you don't understand; imat do you
know about business? you Just listen and learn. Your
father's business was a new business; and I don't

start new businesses. I let other fellows start them.
They put all their money and their friends' money into
starting them. They wear out their souls and bodies
trying to make a success of them. They're what you
call enthusiasts. But the first dead lift of the thing
is too much for them; and they haven't enough financial
experience. In a year or so they have either to let
the whole show go bust, or sell out to a new lot of
fellows for a few deferred ordinary shared. And that's
where the real business man comes in: where I come in.
But I'm cleverer than some: I don't mind dropping a
little money to start the process. I took your father's
measure. I saw that he had a sound idea, and that he
would work himself silly for it if he got the chance.

I saw that he was a child in business, and was dead
certain to outrun his expenses and'be in too great a
hurry to wait for his mrket. I knew that the surest
my to ruin a man who doesn't know how to handle money
is to give him some. I explained my idea to some friends
in the city, and they found the money; for I take no
risks in ideas, even when they're my own. Your father
and the friends that ventured their money with him were
no more to me than a heap of squeezed lemons. You've
been msting your gratitude; my kind heart is all rot.
I'm sick of it. When I see your father beaming at me
with his moist, grateful eyes, regularly wallowing in
gratitude, I sometimes feel I must tell him the truth or
burst. What steps me is that I know he wouldn't believe
me. He's think it was my modesty, as you did just now .
He'd think anything rather than the truth, which is

that he's a blamed fool, and I am a man that knows how
to take care of himself. (he throws himself back into
the big chair with large self-approval) Now mat do
you think of m, Miss Ellie?

-79-

Ellie: (dropping her hands) How strange! that my
mother, who knew nothing at all about business,

should have been quite right about you! She always
said-«not before papa, of course, but to us children--
that you were just that sort of man.

Mangan: (sitting up, much hurt) Oh! did she? And
yet she'd have let you marry me.

Ellie: Well, you see, Mr. Mangan, my mother married
a very good man-u-n-for whatever you may think of my
father as a man of business, he is the soul of good-
ness-"and she is not at all keen on my doing the
same.

Mangan: Anyhow, you don't want to marry me now, do
you?

Ellie: (very calmly) Oh, I think so. Why not?
Mangan: (rising aghast) Why not!

Ellie: I don't see why we shouldn't get on very well
together.

Mangan: Well, but look here, you know---(he stops,
quite at a loss)

Ellie: (patiently) Well?

Mangan: Well, I thought you were rather particular
about people's characters.

Ellie: If we women were particular about men's char-
acters, we should never get married at all, Mr. Mangan.

Mangan: A shild like you talking of ”we women”! What
next! You're not in earnest?

Ellie: Yes, I am. Aren't you?

Mangan: You mean to hold me to it?

Ellie: Do you wish to back out of it?

Mangan: Oh, no. Not exactly back out of it.
Ellie: Well?

(with a long whispered whistle, he drops into the

wicker chair and stares before him like a beggared
gambler. But a cunning lick soon comes into his face.

He leans over towards her on his right elbow, and
speaks in a low steady voice.)

Mhngan: Suppose I told you I was in love with
another woman!

Ellie: (echoing him) Suppose I told you I was in
love with another man!

Mhngan: (bouncing angrily out of his chair) I'm not
joking.

Ellie: Who told you I was?

Mangan: I tell you I'm serious. You're too young to
be serious; but you'll have to believe me. I want

to be near your friend Hrs. Hushabye. I'm in love
with her. Now the murder's out.

Ellie: I want to be neafi your friend Mr. Hushabye.
I'm in love with him. (she rises and adds'with a

frank air) Now we are in one another's confidence,
we shall be real friends. Thank you for telling me.

Mangan: (almost beside himself) Do you think I'll
be made a convenience of like this?

Ellie: Come, Mr. Mhngan! You made a business con-
venience of my father. ‘Well, a woman's business is
marriage. Why shouldn't I make a domestic-convenience
of you?

Mangan: Because I don't choose, see? Because I'm not
a silly gull like your father. That's why.

Ellie: (with serene contempt) You are not good
enough to clean.my father's boots, Mr. Mangan; and I
am paying you a great compliment in condescending to
make a convenience of you, as you call it. Of course
you are free to throw over our engagement if you
like; but, if you do, you'll never enter Hesione's
house again: I will take care of that.

Mhngan: (gasping) You little devil, you've done me.
(on point of collapsing into the big chair again he
recovers himself) 'Wait a bit, though: you're not

so cute as you'think. You can't beat Boss Mhngan.as
easy as that. Suppose I go straight to Mrs. Hushabye
and tell her that you're in love with her husband.

Ellie: She kndls it.

-31-

Mangan: You told her!
Ellie: She told me.

Mangan: (clutching at his bursting temples) Oh,
this is a crazy house. Or else I'm going clean off
m champ. Is she mking a swap with you-ushe to
have your husband and you to have here?

Ellie: Well, you donIt want us both, do you?

Mangan: (throwing himself into the chair distractedly)
My brain‘won't stand it. My head's going to split.
Help! Help me to hold it. Quick: hold it: squeeze
it. Save me. (Ellie comes behind his chair; clasps
his head hard for a moment; then begins to draw her
hands from his forehead back to his ears) Thank you.
(drowsily) That's very refreshing. (waking a little)
Don't you hypnotize me, though. I've seen men nude
fools of by hypnotism.

Ellie: (steadily) Be quiet. I've seen men mde fools
of without hypnotism.

Mangan: (humbly) You don't dislike touching me, I
hope. You never touched me before, I noticed.

Ellie: Not since you fell in love naturally with a
grown-up nice woman, who will never expect you to make
love to her. And I will never expect him to make love
to me.

Mangan: He may, though.

Ellie: (making her passes rhythmically) Hush. Go to
sleep. Do you hear? You are to go to sleep, go to
sleep, go to sleep; be quiet, deeply, deeply quiet;
sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep.

(he falls asleep. Ellie steals away; turns the light
out; and goes into the garden) ' -m-
Nurse Guinness opens the door and is seen in.the light
which comes in from.the hall.

 

Guinness: (speaking to someone outside) Mr. Mangan's
not here, duckie; there's no one here. It's all dark.

Mrs. H: (without) Try the garden. Mr. mnn and I
will be in my boudoir. Show him the way.

-92-

,- 7 /\
\‘Vl v “8/ \

~fn.

Guinness: Yes ducky. (she makes for the garden door
in the dark; stumbles over the sleeping Lhngan and
screams) Ahoo! O Lord, sir! I beg your pardon, I'm
sure: I didn't see you in the dark. Who is it?

(she goes back to the door and turns on the light)
Oh, Mr. Mangan, sir, I hope I haven't hurt you plump-
ing into your lap like that. (coming to him) I was
looking for you, sir. Mrs. Hushabye says will you
please---(noticing that he remains quite insensible)
Oh, my good Lord, I hope I haven't killed him. Sir!
Mr. Mangan! Sir. (she shakes him; and he is rolling
inertly off the chair when she holds him up and props
him against the cushion) Miss Hessy! Miss Hessy!
Quick, doty darling. Miss Hessy! (Mrs. H. comes in
from the hall, followed by Mazzini Dunn) Oh, Miss
Hessy, I've been and killed him.

 

(Mazzini runs round the back of the chair to Ihngan's
right hand, and sees that the nurse's words are ap-
parently only too true)

Mazzini: What tempted you to commit such a crime,
woman?

Mrs. H: (trying not to laugh) Do you mean you did
it on purpose?

Guinness: Now is it likely I'd kill any man on purpose?
I fell over him in the dark; and I'm a pretty tidy
weight. He never spoke nor moved until I shook him;
and then he would have dropped dead on the floor.

Isn't it tiresome?

Mrs. H: (going past the nurse to Mangan's side, ind
inspecting him less credulously than Mazzini) Nonsense!
He is not dead: he is only asleep. I can see him
breathing.

Guinness: But why won't he wake?

Mazzini: (speaking very pllitely into Mangan's ear)
Mangan! My dear hogan! ( he blows into Mangan's ear)

Mrs. H: That's no good (she shakes him vigorously)
Mr. Maegan wake up. Do you hear? (he begins to roll
over) Oh! Nurse, nurse: he's falling; help me.

(Guinness rushes to the rescue. With Mazzini's assis-
tance l'angan is propped safely up again.)

-33-

Guinness: (behind the chair; bending over to test
the case with her nose) Would he be drunk, do you
think, pet?

Mrs. H: Had he any of papa's rum?

Mazzini: It can't be that: He is most abstemious.
I am afraid he drank too much formerly, and has to
drink too little now. You know, Mrs. Hushabye, I
really think he has been hypnotized.

Guinness: Hip no what, sir?

Mazzini: One evening at home, after we had‘seen a
hypnotizing performance, the children began playing
at it; and Ellis stoked my head. I assure you I

went off dead asleep; and they had to send for a
professional to wake me up after I had slept eighteen
hours. They had to carry me upstairs; and as the
poor children were not very strong, they let me slip;
and I rolled right down the whole flight and never
woke up. (Mrs. H. splutters) Oh, you may laugh, Mrs.
Hushabye; but I might have been killed.

Mrs. H: I couldn't have helped laughing even if you
had been, Mr. Dunn. So Ellie has hypnotized him.
What fun!

Mazzini: Oh no, no, no. It was such a terrible lesson
to her: nothing would induce her to try such a thing
again.

Mrs. H: Then who did it? I didn't.

Mazzini: I thought perhaps the captain might have
done it unintentionally. He is so fearfully magnetic;
I feel vibrations whenever he comes close to me.

Guinness: The captain will get him out of it anyhow
sir: I'll back him for that. I'll go fetch him
(she mkes for the pantry)

Mrs. H: Wait a bit. (to Mazzini) You say he is all
right for eighteen hours?

lhzzini: Well, I was asleep for eighteen hours.
Mrs. H: Were you any the worse for it?

Mazzini: I don't mite remember. They had poured
brandy dom my throat you see; and---

Mrs. H: Quite. Anyhow, you survived. Nurse, darling;
go and ask Miss Dunn to come to us here. Say I want
to speak to her particularly. You will find her with
Mr. Hushabye probably.

Guinness: I think not, ducky; Miss Addy is with him.
But I'll find her and send her to you. (she goes out
into the garden)

Mrs. H: Now, Mr. Dunn, look. Just look. Look hard.
Do you still intend to sacrifice your daughter to
that thing?

Mazzini: (troubled) You have completely upset me,
Mrs. Hushabye, by all you have said to me. That any-
one could imagine that I--I, a consecrated soldier
of freedom, if I may say sen-could sacrifice Ellis
to anybody or anyone, or that I should ever have
dreamd of forcing her inclinations in any way, is a
most painful blow to my---well, I suppose you would
say to my good opinion of mself.

Mrs. H: (rather stolidly) Sorry.

Mazzini: (looking forlornly at the body) What is
your objection to poor Mangan, Mrs. Hushabye? He
looks all right to me. But then I am so accustomed
to him.

Mrs. H: Have you no heart? Have you no sense? Look
at the brute! Think of poor weak innocent Ellie in
the clutches of this slavedriver, who spends his life
making thousands of rough violent workmen bend to his
will and sweat for him; a man accustomed to have great
masses of iron beaten into shape for him by steam-
hammers! to fight with women and girls over a half-
penny an hour ruthlessly! a captain of industry, I
think you call him, don't you? Are you going to fling
your delicate, sweet, helpless child into such a beast's
claws just because he will keep her in an expensive
house and make her wear diamonds to show how rich he
is?

Mazzini: (staring at her in wide-eyed amazement) Bless
you, dear Mrs. Hushabye, what romantic ideas of busi-
ness you have! Poor dear Mangan isn't a bit like that.
Mrs. H: (scornfully) Porr dear Mangan indeed!

Mazzini: But he doesn't know anything about machinery.
He never goes near the man: he couldn't mnage them:

-85..

He is afraid of them. I never can get him to take
the least interest in the works: he hardly knows
more about them than you do. People are cruelly un-
just to Mangan: they think he is all rugged strength
just because his manners are bad.

Mrs. H: Do you mean to tell me he isn't strong enough
to crush poor little Ellie?

Mazzini: Of course it's very hard to say how any
marriage will turnfiout; but speaking for myself, I
should say that he won't have a dog's chance against
Ellie. You know, Ellie has remarkable strength of
character. I think it is because I taught her to
like Shakespeare when she was very young.

Mrs. H: Shakespeare! The next thing you will tell
me is that you could have trade a great deal more money
than Mangan.

Mazzini: No; I'm no good at making money, I don't care
enough for it, somehow. I'm not ambitious! that must
be it. Mangan is wonderful about money: he thinks of
nothing else. He is so dreadfully afraid of being poor.
I am always thinking of other things: even at the
works I think of the things we are doing and not of what
they cost. And the worst of it is, poor Mangan doesn't
know what to do with his money when he gets it. He is
such a baby that ‘he doesn't know even what to eat and
drink: He has ruined his liver eating and drinking the
wrong things; and now he can hardly eat at all. Ellie
will diet him splendidly. You will be surprised when
you come to know him better: he is really the most
helpless of mortals. You get quite a protective feel-
ing towards him.

Mrs. H: Then who manages his business, pray?
Mazzini: I do. And of course other people like me.
Mrs. H: Footling people, you mean.

Mazzini: I suppose you'd think us so.

Mrs. H: And pray why don't you do without him if
you're all so much cleverer?

mzzini: Oh, we couldn't: we should ruin the business
in a year. I've tried; and I know. We should spend
too much on everything. We should improve the quality
of the goods and make them too dear. We should be

-86..

sentimental about the hard cases among the working
people. But Mangan keeps us in order. He is down
on us about every extra halfpenny. We could never
do without him. You see, he will sit up all night
thinking of how to save sixpence. Won't Ellie make
him jump, though, when she takes his house in hand!

Mrs. H: Then the creature is a fraud even as a cap-
tain of industry!

Mazzini: I am afraid all the captains of industry are
what you call frauds, Mrs. Hushabye. Of course there
are some manufacturers who really do understand their
own works; but they don't mks as high a rate of profit
as Mangan does. I assure you Mangan is quite a good
fellow in his way. He means well.

Mrs. H: He doesn't look well. He is not in his first
youth, is he?

Mazzini: After all, no husband is in his first youth
for very long, Mrs. Hushabye. And men can't afford
to marry in their first youth nowadays.

Mrs. H: Now if I said that, it would sound witty.

Why can't you say it wittily? What on earth is the
matter with you? Why don't you inspire everybody with
confidence? with respect?

Mazzini: (humbly) I think that what is the matter
with me is that I am poor. You don't know what that
means at home. Mind: I don't say they have ever com-
plained. They've all been wonderful: they've been
proud of my poverty. They've even joked about it
quite often. But my wife has had a very poor time of
it. She has been quite resigned-mu-

Mrs. H: (shuddering involuntarily)”

Mazzini: There! You see, Mrs. Hushabye. I don't want
Ellis to live on resignation.

Mrs. H: Do you want her to have to resign herself to
living with a man she doesn't love?

Mazzini: (wistfully) Are you sure that would be wu'se
than living with a man she did love, if he was a foot-
ling person?

Mrs. H: (relaxing her contemptuous attitude, quite
interested in Mazzini now) You know, I really think

-8 7..

you must love Ellie very much; for you become quite
clever when you talk about her.

Mazzini: I didn't know I was so very stupid on other
subjects.

Mrs. H: You are, sometimes.

Mhzzini: (turning his head away; for his eyes are wet)
I have learnt a good deal about myself from.you, Mrs.
Hushabye; and I'm afraid I shall not be the happier
for'your plain speaking. But if you thought I needed
it to make me think of Ellie's happiness you were very
much mistaken.

Mrs. H: Have I been a beast?

Mazzini: (pulling himself together) It doesn't matter
about me, Mrs. Hushabye. I think you like Ellie; and
that is enough for me.

Mrs. H: I'm beginning to like you a little. I per-
fectly loathed you at first. I thought you the most
odious, self-satisfied, boresome elderly prig I ever
met.

Mhzzini: (resigned, and now quite cheerful) I daresay
I am all that. I never have been a favorite with
gorgeous women like you. They always frighten.me.

Mrs. H: (pleased) Am I a gorgeous woman, Mazzini?
I shall fall in love with you presently.

Mazzini: No, you won't Hesione. But you would be
quite safe. Wbuld you believe it that quite a lot of
women.have flirted with me because I am quite safe?
But they get tired of me for the same reason.

Mrs. H: Take care. You may not be so safe as you
think.

Mazzini: Oh yes, quite safe. You see, I have been in
love really: the sort of love that only happens once.
(softly) That's why Ellie is such a lovely girl.

Mrs. H: well, really, you are coming out. Are you
quite sure you won't let me tempt you into a second
grand passion?

Mazzini: Quite. It wouldn't be natural. The fact is,

you don't strike on my box, Mrs. Hushabye; and I cer-
tainly don't strike on yours.

-33-

Mrs. H: I see. Your mrriage was a safety match.

Mazzini: What a very witty application of the expres-
sion I used! I should never have thought of it.
(Ellie comes in from the garden, looking anything but

happy)
Mrs. H: (rising) Oh! Here is Ellie at last.

Ellie: (on the threshold of the starboard door)
Guinness said you wanted me: You and papa.

Mrs. H: You have kept us waiting so long tint it

almost came to---well, never mind. Your father is a
very wonderful man (she ruffles his hair affectionately):
the only one I ever met who could resist me when I .de
myself really agreeable. (she comes to the big chair,
on Man an's left) Come here. I have something to show
you. Ellie strolls listlessly to the other side of

the chair) Look.

Ellie: (contemplating Mangan without interest) I know.
He is only asleep. We had a talk after dinner; and he
fell asleep in the middle of it.

Mrs. H: You did it, Ellie. You put him asleep...

Mazzini: (rising quickly and coming to the back of
the chair) Oh, I hope not. Did you, Ellie?

Ellie: (wearily) He asked me to.

Mazzini: But it's dangerous. You know what happened
to me.

31119: (utterly indifferent) Oh, I daresay I can
wake him. If not, somebody else can.

Mrs. H: It doesn't hatter, anyhow, because I have at
last persuaded your father that you don't want to
marry him.

Ellie: (suddenly coming out of her listlessness, such
vexed) But why did you do that, Hesione? I do want
to marry him. I fully intend to marry him.

Mezzini: Are You quite sure, Ellie? Mrs. Hushabye

has made me feel that I may have been thoughtless and
selfish about it.

-89-

Ellie: Papa. When Mrs. Hushabye takes it on her-
self to explain to you what I think or don't think;
shut your ears tight; and shut your eyes too.
Hesione knows nothing about me: she hasn't the
least notion of the sort of person I am, and never
will. I promise you I won't do anything I don't
want to do and mean to do for my own sake.

Mazzini: You are quite, quite sure?

Ellie: Quite, quite sure. Now you must go away and
leave no to talk to Mrs. Hushabye.

Mazzini: But I should like to hear. Shall I be in
the way?

Ellie: I had rather talk to her alone.

Missini: Oh, well, I know what a nuisance parents
are, dear. I will be good and go. (he does to the
garden door) By the way, do you remember the address
of that professional tho woke me up? Don't you
think I had better telegraph to him?

Mrs. II: It's too late to telegraph tonight.

Mazzini: I suppose so. I do hope he'll wake up in
the course of the night. (he goes out into the garden)

Ellie: (turning vigorously on Hesione the moment her
father is out of the room) Hesione, what the devil
do you mean by making mischief with my father about
Mangan?

Mrs. H: Don't you dare speak to me like that, you
little minx. Remember that you are in my house.

Ellie: Stuff! Why don't you mind your own business?
What is it to you whether I choose to narry Mangan
or not?

Mrs. H: Do you suppose you can bully me, you miser-
able little mtrimonial adventurer?

Ellie: Every woman iio hasn't any money is a matri-
monial adventurer. It's easy for you to talk: you
have never known what it is to want money; and you
can pick up men as if they were daisies. I am poor
and respectable-«-

-90...

Mrs. H: Ho! respectable! How did you pick up Mangan?
How did you pick up my husband? You have the audacity
to tell me that I am a--a--a-----

Ellie: A siren. So you are. You were born to lead
men by the nose: if you weren't, Marcus would have
waited for me, perhaps.

Mrs. H: (suddenly melting and half laughing) on, my
poor Ellie, an! pettikins, my unhappy darling! I'm
so sorry about Hector. But fiat can I do? It's not
nw fault: I'd give him to you if I could.

Ellie: I don't blame you for that.

Mrs. H: What a brute I was to quarrel with you and
call you names! Do kiss me and say you're not angry
with me.

Ellie: (fiercly) Oh, don't slop and gush and be
sentimental. Don't you see that unless I can be hard--
as hard as mils—J shall go mad? I don't care a damn
about your calling no names: do you think a woman in
my situation can feel a few words?

Mrs. H: Poor little wonan! Poor little situation!

Ellie: I suppose you think you're being sympathetic.
You are just foolish and stupid and selfish. You see
me getting a smasher right in the face that kills a
whole part of my life: the best part that can never
come again; and you think you can help me over it by
a little coaxing and kissing. When I want all the
strength I can get to lean on: something iron, some-
thing stony, I don't care how cruel it is, you go all
mushy and want to slobber over me. I'm not angry;
I'm not unfriendly; but for God's sake do pull your-
self together; and don't think that because you're on
velvet and always have been, women who are in hell
can take it as easily as you.

Mrs. H: (shrugging her shoulders) Very well. But I
warn you that when I am neither coaxing and kissing
nor laughing, I am just wondering how such longer I
can stand living in this cruel, damnable world. You
object to the siren: well, I drop the siren. You
want to rest your wounded bosom against a grindstone.
Well (folding her arms) here is the grindstone.

Ellie: (sitting down beside her, appeased) That's

better: you really have the trick of falling in with
everyone's mood; but you don't understand, because

you are not the sort of woman for whom there is only
one man and only one chance.

Mrs. H: I certainly don't understand how your marry-
ing that object (indicating Maegan) will console you
for not being able to marry Hector.

Ellie: Perhaps you don't understand why I was quite
a nice girl this morning, and am now neither a girl
nor particularly nice.

Mrs. H: Oh, yes, I do. It's because you have mde
up your mind to do something despicable and wicked.

Ellie: I don't think so Hesione. I must sake the best
of my mined house.

Mrs. H: Pooh! You'll get over it. Your house isn't
ruined.

Ellie: Of course I shall get over it. You don't sup-
pose I'm going to sit down and die of a broken heart,
I hope, or be an old maid living on a pittance from
the Sick and Indigent Roomkeeper's Association. But
my heart is broken, all the same. What I mean by that
is that I know that what has happened to me with Marcus
will not happen to me over again. In the world for me
there is Marcus and a lot of other men of whom one is
just the same as another. Well, if I can't have love,
that's no reason my I should have poverty. If Mangan
has nothing else, he has money.

Mrs. H: And are there no young men with money.

Ellie: Not within my reach. Besides, a young man
would have the right to expect love from me and would
perhaps leave me when he found I could not give it to
him. Rich young men can get rid of their wives, you
know, pretty cheaply. But this object, as you call
him, can expect nothing more from me than I am prepared
to give him.

Mrs. H: He will be your owner, remember. If he buys
you, he will sake the bargain pay him and not you.
As your father.

Ellie: (rising and strolling to the chair to contem-
plate their subject) You need nct trouble on that

score, Hesione. I have more to give Boss Maegan than
he has to give me; it is I who am buying him, and at
a pretty good price, too, I think. Women are better

-92-

at that sort of bargain than men. I have taken the
Boss's measure; and ten Boss Lhngans shall not pre-
vent me doing far more as I please as his wife than

I have ever been able to do as a poor girl. (steeping
to the recumbent figure) Shall they, Boss? I think
not. I shall not have to spend most of my time won-
dering how long my gloves will last, anyhow.

Mrs. H: Ellie, you are a wicked, sordid, little beast!
And to think that I actually coalescended to fascinate
that creature there to save you from him! Well, let
me tell you this: if ybu mks this diagusting match,
you will never see Hector again if I can help it.

Ellie: (unmoved) I nailed Mangan by telling him that
if he did not marry me he should never see you again
(she lift-s herself on her wrists and seats herself on
the end of the table)

Mrs. H: (recoiling) 0h!

Ellie: So you see I am not unprepared for your play-
ing that trump against me. Well, you just try it;
that's all. I should have mde a man of Marcus, not
a household pet.

Mrs. H: (flaming) You dare!

Ellie: (looking almost dangerour) Set him thinking
about me if you dare.

Mrs. H: Well, of all the impudent little fiends I ever
met! Hector says there is a certain point at which
the only answer you can give to a man who breaks all
the rules is to knock him down. What would you say if
I were to beat your ears?

Ellie: (calmly) I should pull your hair.

Mrs. H: (mischievously) Tint wouldn't hurt me. Per-
haps it comes off at night.

Ellie: Oh, you don't mean to say, Hesione, that your
beautiful black lair is false?

Mrs. H: (patting it) Don't tell Hector. He believes
in its

Ellie: (groaning) 0h: Even the hair that ensnared
him false: Everything false!

Mrs. H: Pull it and try. Other women can snare men
in their hair; but I can swing a baby on mine. Aha!
you can't do that Goldylccks.

Ellie: (heartbroken) No. You have stolen my babies.

Mrs. H: Pettikins, don't mks me cry. You know what
you said about my making a household pet of him is a
little true. Perhaps he ought to have waited for you.
Would any other woman on earth forgive you?

Ellie: Oh, what right had you to take him all for
yourself: (pulling herself together) There: You
couldn't help it: neither of us could help it. He
couldn't help it. No, don't 'say' anything more: I

can't bear it. Let us wake the object. (she begins
stroking lhngan's head, reversing the movement with
which she put him to sleep) Wake up, do you hear?

You are to wake up at once. Wake up, wake up, wake-«~-

Mangan: (bouncing out of the chair in a fury and
turning on them) Wake up! So you think I've been
asleep, do you? (he kicks the chair violently back
out of his way and gets between them) You throw me
into a trance so that I can't move hand or foot-~-

I might have been buried alive! it's a mercy I
wasn't-«wand then you think I was only asleep. If
you'd let me drop the two times you rolled me about,
my nose would have been flattened for life against
the floor. But I've found you all out, anyhow.

I how the sort of people I'm among now. I've heard
every word you've said, you and your precious father,
and (to Mrs. H.) you too. So I'm an object, am I?
I'm a thing, am I, I'm a feel that hasn't sense
enough to feed myself properly, am I? I'm afraid

of the men that would starve if it weren't for the
wages I give them, an I? I'm nothing but a disgust-
ing old skinflint to be made a convenience of by
designing women and feel mnagers of my works, as:

I? I'm-mm-

Mrs. H: (with the most elegant aplomb) Sh-Sh-sh-sh-
sh! Mr. Mangan, you are bound in honor to obliterate
from year mind all you heard while you were pretend-
ing to be asleep. It was not meant for you to hear.

Mangan: Pretending to be asleep: Do you think if I
was only pretending that I'd have sprawled there
helpless, and listened to such unfairness, such lies,
such injustice and plotting and backbiting and sland-
ering of me, if I could have up and told you what I
thought of you! I wonder I didn't burst.

-94..

Mrs. H: (sweetly) You dreamt it all, Mr. Mangan. We
were only saying how beautifully peaceful you looked in
your sleep. That was all, wasn't it, Ellie? Believe
me, Mr. Mangan, all those unpleasant things came into
your mind in the last half second before you woke.
Ellie rubbed your hair the wrong way; and the disagree-
able sensation suggested a disagreeable dream.

Mangan: I believe in dreams.
Mrs. B: So do I. But they go by contraries, don't they?

Mangan: I shan't forget, to my dying day, that when
you gave me the glad eye that time in the garden, you
were mking a fool of me. That was a dirty low mean
thing to do. You had no right to let me come near you
if I disgusted you. It isn't my fault if I'm old and
haven't a moustache like a bronze candlestick as your
husband has. There are things no decent womn would

do to a nan-unlike a ran hitting a woman in the breast.

(Hesione, utterly shamed, sits down on the sofa and
covers her face with her hands. Mangan sits down also
on his chair and begins to cry like a child. Ellie
stares at them. Mrs. H., at the distressing sound he
sakes, takes down her hands qnd looks at him. She
rises and runs to him.)

Mrs. H: Don't cry; I can't bear it. Have I broken
your heart? I didn't know you had one. How could I?

Mangan: I'm a man, ain't 1?

Mrs. H: (half coaxing, half rallying, altogether ten-
derly) Oh no: not what I call a mn. Only a Boss:
just that and nothing else. What business has a Boss
with a heart?

Mangan: Then you're not a bit sorry for what you did,
nor ashamed?

Mrs. H: I was ashamed for the first time in m life
when you said that about hitting a woman in the breast,
and I found out what I'd done. My very bones blushed
red. You've had your revenge, Boss. Aren't you
satisfied?

Mangan: Serves you right! Do you hear? Serves you
right: You're just cruel. Cruelt

-95..

Mrs. H: Yes: cruelty would be delicious if one

could only find some sort of cruelty that didn't really
hurt. By the way (sitting down beside him on the arm
of the chair) what's your name? It's not really Boss,
is it? .

Mangan: If you want to know, my name's Alfred.

Mrs. H: (springs upo Alfred! Ellie, he was christened
after Tennyson!!

Mangan: I was christened after my uncle, and never had
a penny from him, damn him! What of it?

Mrs. H: It comes to me suddenly that you are a real
person: that you had a mother, like anyone else.
(putting her hands on his shoulders and surveying him)
Little Alf!

Mangan: Well, you have a nerve.

Mrs. H: And you have a heart, Alfy, a whimpering little
heart, but a real one. (releasing him suddenly) Now
run and make it up with Ellie. She has had time to
think what to say to you, filich is more than I had (she
goes out quickly into the garden by the port door).

Mngan: That woman has a pair of hands that go right
through you.

Ellie: Still in love with her, in spite of all we
said about you?

Mangan: Are all women like you two? Do they never
think of anything about a man except what they can get
out of him? You weren't even thinking that about me.
You were only thinking whether your gloves would last.

Ellie: I shall not have to think about that when we
are married.

Mangan: And you think I am going to marry you after
what I heard there!

Ellie: You heard nothing from me that I did not tell
you before.

Mangan: Perhaps you think I can't do without you.

Ellie: I think you would feel lonely without us all,
now, after coming to know us so well.

-96..

Mangan: (with something like a yell of despair) Am
I never to have the last word?

Captain: (appearing at the starboard garden door)
There is a soul in torment here. What is the utter?

l’hngan: This girl doesn't want to spend her life
wondering how long her gloves will last.

Captain: (passing through) Don't wear any. I never
do. (he goes into the pantry)

Lady U: (appearing at the port garden door, in a
handsome dinner dress) Is anything the matter?

Ellie: This gentleman wants to know is he never to
have the last word?

Lady U: (coming forward) I should let him have it,
my dear. The important thing is not to have the last
word, but to have your own way.

Mangan: She wants both.

Law U: She won't get them, Mr. Mangan. Providence
always has the last word.

Mangan: (desperately) Now you are going to come
religion over me. In this house a nan's mind might
as well be a football. I'm going. (he makes for the
hell, but is stopped by a hail from the Captain, who
has just emerged from his pantry)

Captain: Whither away, Boss Mangan?

Mangan: To hell out of this house: let tint be enough
for you and all here.

Captain: You were welcome to come: you are free to
go. The wide earth, the high sees, the spacious skies
are waiting for you outside.

Lady U: But your things, Mr. Mangan. Your bag, your
comb and brushes, your pyjamas----

Hector: (who has just appeared in the port doorway in

a handsome Arab costume.) Why should the escaping
slave take his chains with him;

Mangan: That's right, Hushabye. Keep the pyjamas, my
lady, and much good may they do you.

-97-

WI“: '35

‘1, 1." I

p N

E N L;

Hector: (advancing to Lady U) Let us all go out into
the night and leave everything behind us.

Lhngan: You stay where you are, the last of you. I
want no company, especially female company.

Ellie: Let him go. He is unhappy here. He is angry
with us.

Captain: Go, Boss Mangan: and when you have found the
land where there is happiness and where there are no
women, send me its latitude and longitude; and I will
join you there.

Lady U: You will certainly not be comfortable without
your luggage, Mr. Nangan.

Ellie: Go, go: why don't you go? It is a heavenly
night: you can sleep on the heath. Take my waterproof
to lie on: it is hanging up in the hall.

Hector: Breakfast at nine, unless you prefer to break-
fast with the captain at six.

Ellie: Good night, Alfred.

Hector: Alfred! (he runs back to the door and calls
into the garden) Randall, Mangan's christian name is
Alfred.

Randall: (appearing in the starboard doorway _‘inwgv‘ening
dhgess’) The Hesione wins her bet.

(Mrs. H. appears in the port doorway. She throws her
left arm around Hector's neck: draws him with her to
the back of the sofa: and threw her right arm round
Lady Utterword's neck.

Mrs. H: They wouldn't believe me, Alf.

(they contemplate him)

Mangan: Is there any more of you coming in to look at
me, as if I was the latest thing in a menagerie?

Mrs. H: You are the latest thing in this menagerie.

(before Mangan can retort, a £911,93.-;9§§1§9r°e.13.h”rd
from upstairs: then a pistol: shot, and a yell _o‘f'pain.

 

III—0M2“ -

’The staring gteiip“ breaks “tp‘ ifi"‘e6n‘eterhatien”:)

Mazzini's Voices (from above) Help! Aburglar! Help!

-98-

Hector: (his eyes blazing) A burglar:

Mrs. H: No, Hector: you'll be shot. (he has dashed
out past Mangan, who hastily moves towards the bookshelves
out of his way)

Captain: (blowing his whistle.) All hands aloft!
(he strides after Hector)

Lady U: My diamonds! (she follows the Captain)
Randall: (rushing after her) No Ariadne. Let me.
Ellie: Oh, is papa shot? (she runs out.)

Mrs. H: Are you frightened, Alf?

Hangan: No. It ain't my house, thank God.

Mrs. H: If they catch a burglar, shall we have to go
into court as witnesses, and be asked all sorts of
questions about our private lives?

Mangan: You won't be believed if you tell the truth.

(lliazzini, terribly upset, with a duelling pistol in his
hand, comes from the hall, and mkes his way to the
drawing table.)

thsini: Oh, w dear Mrs. Hushabye, I might have
killed him. (he throws the pistol on the table and
staggers round to the chair) I hope you won't believe
I really intended to.

(Hector comes in, marching an oldhand'“villainousi_‘look1.
,ingfiman before him by the, collar. He plants him in

the middle of the room and releases him. Ellie follows,
and immediately runs across to the back of her fathers'
chair and pets his shoulders.)

Randall: (entering with a poker) Keep your eye on
this door, languid. I'll look after the other (he goes
to the starboard door and stands on guard there.)
(Lady U. comes in after Randall, Nurse Guinness brings
up the rear, and waits near the door)

Mrs. H: What has happened?
Mazzini: Your housekeeper told me there was somebody
upstairs, and gave me a pistol that Mr. Hushabye had

been practicing with. I thought it would frighten him;
but it went off at a touch.

-99-

Burglar: Yes, and took the skin off my ear. Precious
near took the top off my head. Why don't you have a
proper revolver instead of a thing like that, that goes
off if you as much as blow on it?

Hector: One of my duelling pistols. Sorry.

Mhzzini: He put his hands up and said it was a fair
cop.

Burglar: So it was. Send for the police.

Hector: No, by thunder! It was not a fair cop. we
‘were four to one.

‘Mrs. H: What will they do to him?

Burglar: Ten years. Beginning with solitary. Ten
years off my life. I shan't serve it all: I'm.too old.
It will see me out.

Lady U: You should have thought of that before you
stole my diamonds.

Burglar: Well, you've got them back, lady, haven't
you? Can you give me back the years of my life you
are going to take from.me?

Mrs. H: Oh, we can't bury a man alive for ten years
for a few diamonds.

Burglar: Ten little shining diamonds! Ten long black
years!

Lady U: Think of what it is for us to be dragged
through the horrors of a criminal court, and have all
our family affairs in the papers! If you were a native,
and Hastings could order you a good beating and send
you away, I shouldn't mind; but here in England there
is no real protection for any respectable person.

Burglar: I'm.too old to be giv a hiding, lady. Send
for'the police and have done with it. It's only just
and right you should.

Randall: (who has relaxed his vigilance on seeing the
burglar so pacifically disposed, and comes forward
swinging the poker between his fingers like a'well-
folded umbrella) It is neither just nor right that we
chould be put to a lot of inconvenience to gratify your
moral enthusiasm, my friend. You had better get out,
while you have the chance.

~100-

Burglar: No. I must work my sin off my conscience.
This has come as a sort of call to me. Let no spend
the rest of my life repenting in a cell. I shall
have my reward above.

Mangan: The very burglars can't behave naturally in
this house.

Hector: My good sir, you must work out your salvation
at somebody else's expense. Nobody here is going to
charge you.

Burglar: Oh, you won't charge me, won't you?

Hector: No. I'm.sorry to be inhospitable: but will
you kindly leave the house?

Burglar: Right. I'll go to the police station and
give myself up. (he turns resolutely to the door,
but Hector stops him)

Hector: Oh no. You mustn't do that.

Randall: No, no. Clear out, man, can't you; and
don't be a fool.

mrs. H: Don't be so silly. Canit you repent at home?
Lady U: You will have to do as you are told.
Burglar: It's compounding a felony, you know.

‘Mrs. H: This is utterly ridiculous. Are we to be
forced to prosecute this man when we don't want to?

Burglar: .Am I'to be robbed of my salvation to save
you the trouble of spending a day at the sessions? Is
that justice? Is it right? Is it fair to me?

massini: (rising and leaning across the table per-
suasively as if it were a pulpit desk or a shop counter)
Come, come! Let me show'you how you can turn your'very
crimes to account. 'Why not set up as a locksmith? You
must know'more about locks than most honest men?

Burglar: That's true, sir. But I couldn't set up as
a locksmith under twenty pounds.

Randall: well, you can easily steal twenty pounds.
You will find it in the nearest bank.

~101-

Burglar: Oh, what a thing for a gentleman to put into
the head of a poor criminal scrambling out of the
bottomless pit as it were! Oh, shame on you, sir!

Oh God forgive you! (He throws himself into the big
chair and covers his face as if in prayer)

Lady U: Really, Randall!

Hector: It seems to me that we shall have to take up
a collection for this inopportunely contrite sinner.

Lady U: But twenty pounds is ridiculous.

Burglar: (looking up quickly) I shall have to buy a
lot of tools, lady.

Lady U: Nonsense: you have your burgling kit.

Burglar: What's a jimmy and a centrebit and an acetyl-
ene welding plant and a bunch of skeleton keys? I shall
want a forge, and a smithy, and a shop and fittings.

I can't hardly do it for twenty.

Hector: My worthy friend, we haven't got twenty
pounds.

Burglar: (new master of the situation) You can raise
it among you, can't you?

Mrs. H: Give him a sovereign, Hector, and get rid of
hime

Hector: (giving him a pound) There! Off with you.

Burglar: (rising and taking the money very ungrate-
fully) I won't promise nothing. You have more on you
than a quid; all the lot of you, I mean.

Lady U: Oh, let us prosecute him and have done with
it. I have a conscience too, I hope; and I do not feel
at all sure that we have any right to let him go,
especially if he is going to be greedy and impertinent.

Burglar: All right, lady, all right. I've no wish to
be anything but agreeable. Good evening, ladies and
gentlemen; and thank you kindly.

(he is hurrying out when he is confronted in the door-
way by Captain Shotover)

Captain: (fixing the burglar with a pie rcing regard)
What's this? are there two of you?

~102-

Burglar: (falling on his knees before the captain in
abject terror) Oh, my good Lord, what have I done?
Don't tell me it's your house I've broken into,
Captain Shotover.

(The captain seizes him by the collar; drags him to
his feet; and leads him to the middle of the group,
Hector falling back beside his wife to make way for
them)

Captain: (turning him towards Ellie) Is that your
daughter? (he releases him)

Burglar: Well, how do I know, Captain? You know the
sort of life you and me has led. Any young lady of that
age might be my daughter anywhere in the wide, world,

as you might say.

Captain: (to Nazzini) You are not Billy Dunn. This
is Billy Dunn. Why have you imposed on me?

Burglar: Have you been giving yourself out to be me?
You, that nigh blew my head off! Shooting yourself,
in a manner of speaking!

Mauini: My dear Captain Shotover, ever since I came
into this house I have done hardly anything else but
assure you that I am not Mr. William Dunn, but lfazsini
Dunn, a very different person.

Burglar: He don't belong to my branch, Captain. There's
two sets in the family: the thinking Dunna and the
Drinking Dunne, each going their own ways. I'm a drink-
ing Dunn: He's a thinking Dunn. But that didn't give
him any right to shoot me.

Captain: So you've turned burglar, have you?

Burglar: No, Captain: I wouldn't disgrace our old
sea calling by such a thing. I am no burglar.

Lady U: What were you doing with my diamonds?

Guinness: What did you break into the house for if
you're no burglar?

Randall: Mistook the house for your own and came in
by the wrong window, eh?

Burglar: Well, it's no use my telling you a lie: I
can take in most Captains, but not Captain Shotover,

~103-

because he sold himself to the devil in Zanzibar, and
can divine water, spot gold, explode a cartridge in
your pocket with a glance of his eye, and see the
truth hidden in the heart of man. But I'm no burglar.

Captain: Are you an honest man?

Burglar: I don't set up to be better than my fellow-
oreatures, and never did, as you well know, Captain.
But what I do is innocent and pious. I enquire about
for houses where the right sort of people live. I
work it on them same as I worked it here. I break into
the house; put a few spoons or diamonds in my pocket;
make a noise; get caught; and take up a collection.
And you wouldn't believe how hard it is to get caught
when you're actually trying to. I have knocked over
all the chairs in a room without a soul paying any at-
tention to me. In the end I have had to walk out and
leave the job.

Randall: When that happens, do you put back the spoons
and diamonds?

Burglar: Well, I don't fly in the face of Providence,
if that's what you want to know.

Captain: Guinness, you remember this man?

Guinness: I should think I do, seeing I was married
to him, the blackguard!

Hesione: (exclaiming together) Married to him!
Lady U: Quinness!

Burglar: It wasn't legal. I've been narried to no end
of women. No use coming that over me.

Captain: Take him to the forecastle. (he flings him
to the door with a strength beyond his years)

Guinness: I suppose you mean the kitchen. They won't
have him there. Do you expect the servants to keep
company with thieves and all sorts?

Captain: Land-thieves and water-thieves are the same
flesh and blood. I'll have no boatswain on my quarter-
dBCke Off fith you bOthe

Burglar: Yes, Captain. (he goes out humbly)

Mazzini: Will it be safe to have him in the house like
that?

-lO4-

Guinness: Why didn't you shoot him, sir? If I'd
known who he was, I'd have shot him myself. (she
goes out)

Mrs. H: Do sit down, everybody. (she sits down on the
sofa) (Captain goes into the pantry in deep abstraction.
They all look after him: and Lady U. coughs consciously)

Mrs. H: 30 Billy Dunn was poor nurse's little romance.
I knew there had been somebody.

Randall: They will fight their battles over again and
enjoy themselves immens ely.

Lady U: You are not married; and you know nothing
about it, Randall. Hold your tongue.

Randall; Tyrant:

Mrs. H: Well, we have had a very exciting evening.
Everything will be an anticlimax after it. We'd better
all go to bed. '

Randall: Another burglar may turn up.
Nazzini: 0h, impossible: I hope not.

Randall: Why not? There is more than one burglar in
England.

Mrs. H: What do you say, Alf?

Mangan: Oh, I don't matter. I'm forgotten. The burglar
has put my nose out of joint. Shove me into a corner
and have done with me.

Mrs. H: (jumping up mis chievious ly, and going to him)
Would you like a walk on the heath, Alfred? With me?

Ellie: Go, Mr. Mangan. It will do you good. Hesione
will soothe you.

Mrs. H: (slipping her arm under his and pulling him
upright) Come, Alfred. There is a moon: it's like
the night in Tristan and Isolde. (she carresses his
arm and draws him to the port garden door.)

Nangan: (writhing but yielding) How you can have the

face-w-the heart---( he breaks down and is heard sobbing
as she takes him out)

-105-

Lady U: What an extraordinary way to behave: What is
the matter with the man?

Ellie: (staring into an imaginary distance) His heart
is breaking: that is all. (the captain appears at the
pantry door, listening) It is a curious sensation:
the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers
of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are
burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of
happiness and the beginning of peace.

Lady U; (suddenly rising in a rage, to the astonish-
ment of the rest) How dare you?

Hector: Good heavens! What's the matter?
Randall: Tch--tch--tch-- Steady.

Ellie: I was not addressing you particularly, Lady
Utterword. And I am not accustomed to being asked how
data Io

Lady U; 01' course not. Anyone can see how badly you
have been brought up.

Nazzini: Oh, I hope not, lady Utterword. Really:
Lady U: I know very well what you meant. The impudence'.
Ellie: What on earth do you mean?

Captain: She means that her heart will not break. She
has been longing all her life for someone to break it.
At last she has become afraid she has none to break.
Lady U: (flinging herself on her knees and throwing
her arms round him) Papa, don't say you think I've no
heart.

Captain: (raising her with grim tenderness) If you
had no heart how could you want to have it broken,
child?

Hector: (rising with a bound) Lady Utterword, you are
not to be trusted. You have made a scene. (he runs
out into the garden through the starboard door)

Lady U: 0h! Hector, Hector: (she runs out after him)

Randall: Only nerves, I assure you. (he rises and
follows her, waving the poker in his agitation) “10.de

-106-

Ariadne! For God's sake, be careful. You will----
(he is gone)

Mhzzini: How distressing! Can I do anything, I wonder?

Captain: (promptly takin his chair and setting to
'work at the drawing board No. Go to bed. Good night.

Mazzini: Oh: Perhaps you are right.

Ellie: Good-night, dearest. (she kisses him)

Mazzini: Good-night, love. (he makes for the door,
but turns aside to the bookshelves.) I'll_just takg

a book (he takes one) Good-night. (he goes out,
leaving Ellie alone with the Captain)

(The captain is intent on his drawing. Ellie, standing
sentry over his chair, contemplates him;for a moment.)
Ellie: Does nothing ever disturb you, Captain Shotover?
Captain: I've stood on the bridge for eighteen hours
in a typhoon. Life here is stormier; but I can stand
it.

Ellie: Do you think I ought to marry Mr. Mangan?

Captain: (never looking up) One rock is as good as
another to be wrecked on.

Ellie: I am not in love with him.
Captain: Who said you were?
Ellie: You are not surprised?
Captain: Surprised! At my age!

Ellie: It seems to me quite fair. He wants me for one
thing; I want him for another.

Captain: Money?
Ellie: Yes.

Captain: ‘Well, one turns the cheek: the other kisses
it. One provides the cash: the other spends it.

Ellie: “Who will have the best of the bargain, I wonder?

Captain: You. These fellows live in an office all day.
You will have to put up with him from.dinner to

-107-

breflfast; but you will both be asleep most of that
time. All day you will be quit of him; and you will
be shopping with his money. If that is too nmch for
you, marry a seafaring nan: you will be bothered
with him only three weeks in the year, perhaps.

Ellie: That would be best of all, I suppose.

Captain: It's a dangerous thing to be married right
up to the hilt, like my daughter's husband. The nan
is at home all day, like a damned soul in hell.

Ellie: I never thought of that before.

Captain: If you're marrying for business, you can't
be too business like.

Ellie: Why do women always want other women's
husbands?

Captain: Why do horse-thieves prefer a horse that is
broken-in to one that is wild?

Ellie: (with a short laugh) I suppose so. What a
vile world it is!

Captain: It doesn't concern me. I'm nearly out of
it.

Ellie: And I'm only just beginning.

Captain: Yes; so look ahead.

Ellie: Well, I think I am being very prudent.
Captain: I didn't say prudent. I said look ahead.
Ellie: What's the difference?

Captain: It's prudent to gain the whole world and lose
your own soul. But don't forget that your soul sticks
to you if you stick to it; but the world has a way of
slipping through your fingers.

Ellie: (wearily, leaving him and beginning to wander
restlessly about the room.) I'm sorry, Captain Shotover;
but it's no use talking like that to me. Old fashioned
people are no use to me. Old-fashioned people think

you can have a soul without money. They think the less
money you have the more soul you have. Young people
nowadays know better. A soul is a very expensive thing
to keep: such more so than a motor car.

-108-

Captain: Is it? How much does your soul eat?

Ellie: Oh, a lot. It eats music and pictures and
books and mountains and lakes and beautiful things
to wear and nice people to be with. In this country
you can't have them without lots of money: that is
why our souls are so horribly starved.

Captain: Mangan's soul lives on pig's food.

Ellie: Yes: money is thrown away on him. I suppose
his soul was starved when he was young. But it will
not be thrown away on me. It is just because I want
to save my soul that I am narrying for money. All the
women who are not fools do.

Captain: There are other ways of getting money. Why
don't you steal it?

Ellie: Because I don't want to go to prison.

Captain: Is that the only reason? Are you quite sure
honesty has nothing to do with it?

Ellie: Oh, you are very very old-fashioned, Captain.
Does any modern girl believe that the legal and illegal
ways of getting money are the honest and dishonest ways?
Mangan robbed my father and my father's friends. I
should rob all the money back from angan if the police
would let me. As they won't I must get it back by
marrying him.

Captain: I can't argue: I'm too old: my mind is made
up and finished. All I can tell you is that, old-fash-
ioned or new-fashioned, if you sell yourself, you deal
your soul a blow that all the books and pictures and
concerts and scenery in the world won't heal. (he gets
up suddenly and makes for the pantry)

Ellie: (running after him and seizing him by the sleeve)
Then why did you sell yourself to the devil in Zanzibar?

Captain: (stopping, startled) What?

Ellie: You shall not run away before you answer. I
have found out that trick of yours. If you sold your-
self, why shouldn't I?

Captain: I had to deal with men so degraded that they

wouldn't obey me unless I swore at them and kicked
them and beat them with ny fists. Foolish people

-109"

took young thieves off the streets; flung them into a
training ship there they were taught to fear the cane
instead of fearing God; and thought they'd mde men
and sailors of them by private subscription. I
tricked these thieves into believing I'd sold myself
to the devil. It saved 11y soul from kicking and swear-
ing that was damning me by inches.

Ellie: (releasing him) I shall pretend to sell myself
to Boss Mangan to save m soul from the poverty that
is damning me by inches.

Captain: Riches will damn you ten times deeper.
Riches won't save even your body. .

Ellie: Old-fashioned again. We know now that the soul
is the body, and the body the soul. They tell us they
are different because they want to persuade us that
we can keep our souls _if we let them make slaves of our
bodies. I am afraid you are no use to me, Captain.

Captain: What did you expect? A Savior, eh? Are you
old-fashioned enough to believe in that?

Ellie: No. But I thought you were very wise, and
might help me. Now I have found you out. You pretend
to be busy, and think of fine things to say, and run
in and out to surprise people by saying them, and get
away before they can answer you.

Captain: It confuses me to be answered. It discour-
ages me. I camiot bear men and women. I have to run
away. I must run away now. (he tries to)

Ellie: (again seizing his arm.) You shall not run
away from me. I can hypnotize you. You are the only
person in the house I can say what I like to. I know
you are fond of me. Sit down. (she draws him to the
sofa

Captain: (yielding) Take care: I am in my dotage.

Old men are dangerous: it doesn't matter to them

what is going to happen to the world.

(they sit side by side on the sofa. She leans affection-
ately against him with her head on his shoulder and her
eyes half closed.)

Ellie: (dreamily) I should have thought nothing else

mattered to old men. They can't be very interested in
what is going to happen to themselves.

~110-

Captain: A man's interest in the world is only the
overflow from his interest in himself. When.you are a
ohild.your vessel is not yet full; so you care for
nothing but your own affairs. 'When you grow"up, your
vessel overflows; and you are a politician, a philosopher,
or an explorer and adventurer. In old age the vessel
dries up: there is no overflow: you are a child again.
I can give you the memories of my ancient'wisdom: mere
scraps and leavings; but I no longer really care for
anything but my own little wants and hobbies. I sit
here working out my old ideas as a means of destroying
my fellow-creatures. I see my daughters and their men
living foolish lives of romance and sentiment and snob-
bery. I see you, the younger generation, turning from
their romance and sentiment and snobbery to money and
comfort and hard common sense. I was ten times happier
on the bridge in the typhoon, or frozen into Arctic ice
for months in darkness, than you or they have ever been.
You are looking for a rich husband. At your age I looked
for hardship, danger, horror, and death that I might,
feel the life in me more intensely. I did not let the
fear of death govern.my life; and my reward was, I had
my life. You are going to let the fear of poverty
govern.your life; and your reward will be that you will
eat, but you will not live. .

Ellie: (sitting up impatiently) But what can I do?

I cannot a sea captain: I can't stand on.bridges in
typhoons or go slaughtering seals and whales in Green-
land's icy mountains. They won't let women.be Captains.
Do you want me to be a stewardess?

Captain: There are worse lives. The stewardesses could
come ashore if they liked; but they sail and sail and
sail.

Ellie: What could they do ashore but marry for money?
I don't want to be a stewardess: I am too bad a sailor.
Think of something else for me.

Captain: I can't think so long and continuously. I am
too old. I must go in and out. (he tries to rise)

Ellie: (pulling himeack) You shall not. You are
happy here, aren't you?

Captain: I tell you it's dangerous to keep me. I
can't keep awake and alert.

Ellie: What do you run away for? To sleep?

~111-

Captain: No. To get a glass or rum.

Ellie: (frightfully disillusioned) Is that it? How
disgusting! Do you like being dmnk?

Captain: No: . I dread being dmnk more than anything
in the world. To be drunk means to have dreams; to go
soft; to be easily pleased and deceived; to fall into
the clutches of women. Drink does that for you when
you are young. But when you are old: very very old,
like me, the dreams come by themselves. You don't
know how terrible that is: you are young: you sleep
at night only, and sleep soundly. But later on you
will lseep in the afternoon. Later still you will
sleep even in“ the morning; and you will awake tired,
tired of life. You will never be free from.dozing and
dreams; the dreams will steal upon your work every
ten minutes unless you can awaken yourself with rum.

I drink now to keep sober; but the dreams are conquer-
ing; rum is not what it was: I have had ten glasses
since you came; and it might be so much water. Go get
me another: Guinness knows where it is. You had
better see for yourself the horror of an‘oldsmn
drinking.

Ellie: You shall not drink. Dream. I like you to
dream. You must never be: in the real world when we
talk together.

Captain: I am too weary to resist, or too weak. I am
in my second childhood. I do not see you as you really
are. I can't remember what I really am. I feel noth-.
ing but the accursed happiness I have dreaded all my
life long: the happiness that comes as life goes,

the happiness of yielding and dreaming instead of re-
sis ting and doing, the sweetness of the fruit that is
going rotten.

Ellie: You dread it almost as much as I used to dread
losing my dreams and having to fight and do things.
But this is all over for me: my dreams are dashed to
pieces. I should like to marry a very old, very rich
man. I should like to marry you. I had much rather
marry you than marry Mangan. Are you very rich?

Captain: No. Living from hand to mouth. And I have
a wife somewhere in Jamaica: a black one. My first
wife. Unless she's dead.

Ellie: What a pity! I feel so happy with you. (she

takes his hand, almost unconsciously, and pets it) I
thought I should never feel happy again.

-112-

Captain: Why?
Elli e: Don't you know?
Captain: No. ,

Ellie:j Heartbreak. I fell in love with Hector,
anddidn't know he was narried.

Captain: Heartbreak? Are you one of those who are
so sufficient to themselves that they are only happy
when they are stripped of everything, even of hope?

Ellie: (gripping the hand) It seem so; for I feel
now as if there was nothing I could not do, because
I want nothing.

Captain: That's the only real strength. That's genius.
That's better than rum.

Ellie: (throwing away his hand) Rum! Why did you
spoil it?

(Hector and Randall come in from the garden through the
starboard‘door.)

Hector: I beg your pardon. We did not know there was
anyone here.

Ellie: (rising) That means that you want to tell Mr.
Randall the story about the tiger. Come, Captain: I
want to talk to my father; and you had better come with
mac

Captain: Nonsense: the man is in bed.

Ellie: Aha! I've caught you. My real father has gone
to bed; but the father you gave me) is in the kitchen.
You knew quite well all along. Come. (she draws him
out into the garden with her through the port door)

Hector: That's an extraordinary girl. She has the
Ancient Mariner on a string like aPekinese dog.

Randall: Now that they have gone, shall we have a
friendly chat?

Hector: You are in vhat is supposed to be my house.

I am at your disposal.

(Hector sits down in the draughtsman's chair, turning
it to face Randall, who remains standing, leaning at

his ease against the carpenter's bench.

~113-

Randall: Itake it that we may be quite frank. I mean
about Lady Utterword.

Hector: You may. I have nothing to be frank about.
I never met her until this afternoon.

Randall: What!' But you are her'sister's husband.

Hector: ‘Well, if you come to that, you are her husband's
bmthere

Randall: But you seem.to be on intimate terms with her.
Hector: So do you.

Randall: Yes: but I am on intimate terms with her.
I have known her for years.

Hector: It took her years to get to the same point
with you that she got to with me in five minutes, it
80617180

Randall: Really, Ariadne is the limit. (he moves away)

Hector: (cooly) She is, as I remarked to Hesione, a
very enterprising woman.

Randall: (returning, mnch.troubled) You see, Hushabye,
you are what women consider a good looking man.

Hector: I cultivated that appearance in the days of
my vanity; and Hesione insists on my keeping it up.
She makes me wear these ridiculous things (indicating
his Arab costume) because she thinks me absurd in
evening dress.

Randall: Still, you do keep it up, old chap. Now,
I assure you I have not an atom of jealousy in my
disposition--—-

Hector: The question would seem to be rather whether
your brother has any touch of that sort.

Randall:. What! Hastings! Oh, don't trouble about
Hastings. He has the gift of being able to work six-
teen hours a day at the dullest detail, and actually
likes it. That gets him to the top wherever he goes.
As long as Ariadne takes care that he is fed regularly,
he is only too thankful to anyone who will keep her in
good humor for him.

-ll4—

Hector:. And as she has all the Shotover fascination,
there is plenty of competition for the job, eh?

Randall: (angrily) She encourages them. Her conduct
is perfectly scandalous. I assure you, my dear fellow;
I haven't an atom of jealousy in my composition; but

she makes herself the talk of every place she goes to
by her thoughtlessness. It's nothing more:~ she doesn't
really care for the men she keeps hanging about her;

but how is the world to know'that? It's not fair to
Hastings. It's not fair to me.

Hector: Her theory is that her conduct is so correct----

Randall: Correct! She does nething but make scenes
from.morning till night. You be careful, old chap.
She will get you into trouble: that is, she would
if she really cared for you.

Hector: Doesn't she?

Randall: Not a scrap. She may want your scalp to add
to her Collection; but her true affection has been
engaged years ago. You had really better be careful.

Hector: Do you suffer much from this jealousy?

Randall: Jealousy! I jealous! my dear fellow}
haven't I told you that there is not an atom.of-----

Hector: Yes. and Lady Utterword told me she never made
scenes. ‘Well, don't waste your jealousy on my mous-
tache. Never waste jealousy on a real man: it is the
imaginary hero that supplants us all in the long run.
Besides, jealousy does not belong to your easy man-of-
the-world pose, which you carry so well in other
respects.

Randall: Really, Hushabye, I think a man may be al-
lowed to be a gentleman without being accused of posing.

Hector: It is a pose like any other. In this house
we know all the poses: our game is to find out the
man under the pose. The men under your pose is appar-
ently Ellie's favorite, Othello.

Randall: Some of your games in this house are damned
annoying, let me tell you

Hector: Yes: I have been their victim for many years.

I used to writhe under them.at first; but I became accus-
tomed to them. At last I learned to play them.

-115-

Randall: If it's all the same to you I had rather you
didn't play them on me. You evidently don't quite under-
stand my character, or my notions of good form.

Hector: Is it your notion of good form to give away
Lady Utterword?

Randall: (a childishly plaintive note breaking into
his huff) I have not said a word against Lady Utter-
word. This is just the conspiracy over again.

Hector: What conspiracy?

Randall: You know very well, sir. A conspiracy to mks
me out to be pettish and jealous and childish and every-
thing I am not. Everyone knows I am just the opposite.

Hector: (rising) Something in the air of the house has
upset you. It often does have that effect. (he goes
to the garden door and calls lady Utterword with com-
nanding emphasis) Ariadne!

Lady U: (at some distance) Yes.

Randall: What are you calling her for? I want to
speak---- '

Lady U: (arriving breathless) Yes. You really are a
terribly commanding person. What's the matter? ’

Hector: I do not know how to manage your friend Randall.
No doubt you do.

Lady U: Randall: have you been making yourself ridicu-
lous, as usual? I can see it in your face. Really,
you are the most pettish creature.

Randall: You know quite well, Ariadne, that I have mt.
an ounce of pettishness in my disposition. I have made
myself perfectly pleasant here. I have remained abso-
lutely cool and imperturbable in the face of a burglar.
Imperturbability is almost too strong a point of mine.
But (putting his foot down with a stamp, and walking
angrily up and down the room) I insist on being treated
with a certain consideration. I will not allow Hushabye
to take liberties with me. I will not steal year on-
couraging people as you do.

Hector: The man has a rooted delusion that he is your
husband. .

-116-

Lady U: I know. He is jealous. As if he had any right
to be! He compromises me everywhere. He makes scenes
all over the place. Randall: I will not allow it. I
simply will not allow it. You had no right to discuss
me with Hector. I will not be discussed by men.

Hector: Be reasonable, Ariadne. Your’fatal gift of
beauty forces men.to discuss you.

Lady U: Oh indeed! What about your fatal gift of
beauty?

Hector: How can I help it?

LadyU: You could cut off your moustache; i can't out
off my nose. I get my whole life messed up with people
falling in love with me. And then.Randall says I run
after men.

Randall: I----

Lady U: Yes you do: you said it just now; Why can't
you think of something else than women? Napoleon was
quite right when he said that women are the occupation
of the idle man. ‘Well, if ever there was an idle man
on earth, his name is Randall Utterword.

Randall: Ariad----

Lady U: Oh yes you are: it's no use denying it. What
have you ever done? What good are you? You are as much
trouble in the house as a child of three. You couldn't
live without your valet.

Randall: This is----

Lady U: Laziness! You are laziness incarnate. You are
selfishness itself. You are the most uninteresting man
on earth. You can't even gossip about anything but yourb
self and your grievances and your ailments and the people
who have offended you. Do you know what they call him,
Hector?

Hector: Please don't tell me.
Randall: speaking together I'll not stand it---

Lady U: Randall the Rotter: that is his name in good
society.

Randall: (shouting) I'll not bear it, I tell you. Will
you listen to me, you infernal--------(he chokes)

-117-

LadyU: Well: go on. What were you going to call me?
An infernal what? Which unpleasant animal is it to be
this time?

Randall: (foaming) There is no animal in the world so
hateful as a woman can be. You are a maddening devil.
Hushabye, you will not believe me when I tell you that
I have loved this demon all my life; but God knows I
have paid for it (he sits down in the draughtsman's
chair, weeping)

lady U: (standing over him with truimphant contempt)
Cry-baby!

Hector: (gravely, coming to him) My friend, the Shotover
sisters have two strange powers over men. They can make
them love; and they can make them cry. Thank your stars
that you are not married to one of them.

Lady U3 (haughtily) And pray, Hector-....

Hector: (suddenly catching her round the shoulders:
swinging her right round him and away from Randall: and
gripping her throat with the other hand) Ariadne, if ,
you attempt to start on me, I'll choke you: do you hear?
The cat and mouse game with the other sex is a good game;
but I can play your head off at it. (he throws her, not
at all gently into the big chair, and proceeds, less
fiercely but firmly) It is true that Napoleon said that
woman is the occupation of the idle man. But he added
that she is the relaxation of the warrior. Well, I am
the warrior. So take care.

Lady U: (not in the least put out, and rather pleased
by his violence) My dear Hector, I have only done
what you asked me to do.

Hector: How do you make that out , pray?

Lady U: You called me in to manage Randall, didn't you?
You said you couldn't manage him yourself.

Hector: Well, what if I did? I did not ask you to
drive the man mad.

Lady U: He isn't mad. That's the way to manage him.
If you were a mother, you'd understand.

Hector: Mother! What are you up to novn

Lady.U: It's quite simple. When the children got nerves
and were naughty, I smacked them just enough to give them

-118-

a good cry and a healthy nervous shock. They went to
sleep and were quite good afterwards. 'Well, I can't
smack Randall: he is too big; so when he gets nerves _
and is naughty, I just nag him.till he cries. He will
be all right now. Look: he is half asleep already
(which is quite true)

Randall: (waking up indignantly) I'm.not. You are most
cruel, Ariadne. (sentimentally) But I suppose I must
forgive you, as usual. (he checks himself in the act

of yawning)

Lady U: Is the explanation satisfactory, dread warrior?

Hector: Some day I shall kill you, if you go too far.
I thought you were a fool.

Lady U: (laughing) Everybody does, at first. But I
am.not such a fool as I look. (she rises complacently)
Now Randall, go to bed. Ybu'will be a good boy in the
mmmge

Randall: (only faintly rebellious) I'll go to bed when
I like. It isn't ten yet.

Lady U: It is lon past ten. See that he goes to bed
at once, Hector. (she goes into the garden)

Hector: Is there any slavery on earth viler than.this
slavery of men to women?

Randall: (rising resolutely) I'll not speak to her
tomorrow. I'll not speak to her for anotheereek. I'll
give her such a lesson. I'll go straight to bed without
bidding her good-night. (he makes for the door leading
to the hall)

Hector: You are under a spell, man. Old Shotover sold
himself to the devil in Zanzibar. The devil gave him
a black witch for a wife; and these two demon daughters
are their mystical progeny. I am.tied to Hesione's
apron-strings; but I'm.her husband; and if I did go
stark staring mad about her, at least we became man

and wdfe. But why should you let yourself be dragged
about and beaten.by Ariadne as a toy donkey is dragged
about and beaten.by'a child? 'What do you get by it?
Are you her lover?

Randall: You must not mdsunderstand me. In a higher
sense---in a Platonic sense---

-119-

Hector: Psha: Platonic sense: She makes you her serv-
ant; and when pay-day comes round, she bilks you: that
is what you mean.

Randall: 'Well, if I don't mind, I don't see what busi-
ness it is of yours. Besides, I tell you I am going to
punish her. You shall see: I know how to deal with
women. I'm.really very sleepy. Say good-night to Mrs.
Hushabye for me, will you, like a good chap. Good-night.
(he hurries out)

Hector: Poor wretch: Oh womeni 'womeni women: (he

lifts his fists in invocation to heaven) Fall. Fall
and crush. (he goes out into the garden)

~120-

ACT III

In the garden, Hector, as he comes out through the glass
door of the poop, finds Law Utterword lying voluptuously
in the hammock on the east side of the flagstaff in the
circle of light cast bythe electric arc, which is like
a mogn in its _opal globe. Beneath the head of the ham-
neck, a campstool. On the other side of the flagstaff,
_on the long garden seat, Captain Shotover is asleep, “with
Ellie beside him, leaning affectionately against him on
his right hand. On his left is a deck chair. Behind
them in the gloom, Hesione is strolling about with Mangan.

Lia), fine still night, moonless.

 

 

 

 

Lady U: What a lovely night! It seem made for us.

Hector: The night takes no interest in us. What are we
to the night? (he sits down nocdily in the deck chair)

Ellie: (dreamily, nestling against the captain) Its
beauty soaks into nw nerves. In the night there is
peace for the old and hope for the young.

Hector: Is that remark your own?

Ellie: No. Only the last thing the captain said before
he want to sleep.

Captain: I'm not asleep.

Hector: Randall is. Also Mr. Mancini Dunn. Mangan too,
probably.

Mangan: No.

Hector: Oh, you are there. I thought Hesione would have
sent you to bed by this time.

Mrs. H: (coming to the back of the garden seat, into
the light, with ranghn) I think I shall. He keeps tell-
ing me he has a presentinent that he is going to die.

I never met a nan so greedy for sympathy.

Mangan: But I have a presentment. I really have. And
you wouldn't listen.

Mrs. H: I was listening for something else. There was a
sort of splendiddrumming in the sky. Did none of you
hear it? It came from a distance and then died away.

Mangan: I tell you it as a train.

-121-

Mrs. H: And I tell you, Alf, there is no train at this
hour. The last is nine forty-five.

Mangan: But a goods train.

Mrs. H: Not on our little line. They tack a truck on
to the passenger train. What can it have been, Hector?

Hector: Heaven's threatening growl of disgust at as
useless futile creatures. (fiercely) I tell you, one
of two things must happen. Either out of that darkness
some new'creation will come to supplant us as we have
supplanted the animals, or the heavens will fall in
thunder and destroy us.

Lady U: (in a cool instructive manner, wallowing oom-
fortably in her hammock) We have not supplanted the
animals, Hector. Why do you ask heaven to destroy this
house, which could be wade quite comfortable if Hesione
had any notion of how to live? Don't you know what is
wrong with it?

Hector: We are wrong with it. There is no sense in us.
We are useless, dangerous, and ought to be abolished.

Lady U: Nonsense! Hastings told me the very first day
he came here, nearly twenty-four years ago, what is
wrong with the house.

Captain: What! The numskull said there was something
wrong with my house:

Lady U: I said Hastings said it; and he is not in the
least a numkull.

Captain: What's wrong with my house?

Lady U: Just what is wrong with a ship, papa. Wasn't
it clever of Hastings to see that?

Captain: The man's a fool. There's nothing wrong with
a. Shipe

Lady U: Yes, there is.
Mrs. H: But what is it? Don't be aggravating, Addy.
Lady U: Guess.

Hector: Demons. Daughters of the witch of Zanzibar.
Demons.

-122-

Lady U: Not a bit. I assure you, all this house needs
to make it a sensible, healthy, pleasant house, with
good appetites and sound sleep in it, is horses.

mrs. H: Horses: What rubbish:

lady U: Yes: horses. Why have we never been able to
let this house? Because there are no proper stables.

Go anywhere in England where there are natural, whole-
some, contented, and really nice English people; and what
do you always find? That the stables are the real centre
of the household; and that if any visitor wants to play
the piano the whole room.has to be upset before it can
be opened, there are so many things piled on it. I never
lived until I learned to ride; and I shall never ride
really well because I didn't begin as a child. There are
only two classes in good society in England: the eques-
trian classes and the neurotic classes. It isn't mere
convention: everybody can see that the people who hunt
are the right people and the people who don't are the
wrong ones e

Captain: There is some truth in this. my ship made a
man of me; and a ship is the horse of the sea.

lady U: Exactly how Hastings explained your being a
gentleman.

Captain: Not bad for a numskull. Bring the man here
with.you next time. I must talk to him.

Lady U: Why is Randall such an obvious rotter? He is
well bred; he has been.at a public school and a univerb
sity; he has been in the Foreign Office; he knows the
best people and had lived all his life among them. 'Why
is he so unsatisfactory, so contemptible? Why can't he
get a valet to stay with him.longer than a few months?
Just because he is'too lazy and pleasure-loving to hunt
and shoot. He strums the piano, and sketches, and runs
after married women, and reads literary books and poems.
He actually plays the flute; but I never let him bring

it into my house. If he would only----(she is interrupted
by themmelancholyfistrains of a flute coming from an open
window above.. She raises herself indignantly in the
hammock) Randall, you have not gone to bed. Have you
been listening? (the flute replie__pertly) How'vulgari
Go to bed instantly, Randall: how dare you? (the'windqw
is slammed down. She subsides) How can anyone care for
such a creature'

 

Mrs. H: .Addy: do you think Ellie ought to marry poor
Alfred merely for his money?

—123-

Mangan: What's that? Mrs. Hushabye, are my affairs to
be discussed like this before everybody?

Lady U: I don't think Randall is listening now.
Mangan: Everybody is listening. It isn't right.

Mrs. H: But in the dark, what does it hatter? Ellie
doesn't mind. Do you, Ellie?

Ellie: Not in the least. What is your opinion, Lady
Utterword? You have so much good sense.

Mangan: But it isn't right. It---(Mrs. H. puts her
hand on his mouth) Oh, very well.

Lady U: How much money have you, Mr. Mangan?
’hngan: Really---No: I can't stand this.

Law U: Nonseme, Mr. Mangan'. It all turns on your
income, doesn't it?

Mangan: Well, if you come to that, how much money has
she?

Ellie: (None.

Lady U: You are answered, Mr. Mangan. And now, as you
have made Miss Dunn throw her cards on the table, you
cannot refuse to show your own.

Mrs. H: Come, Alf! out with it! How such?

Mangan: (bailed out of all prudence) Well, if you want
to know, I have no money and never had any.

Mrs. H: Alfred, you mustn't tell naughty stories.

Mangan: I'm not telling you stories. I'm telling you
the raw truth.

Lady U: Then what do you live on, Mr. Mangan?
Mangan: Traveling expenses. And a trifle of commission.

Captain: What more have any of us but travelling ex-
penses for our life's journq?

Mrs. H: But you lave factories and capital and things?

-124-

Mangan: People think I have. People think I'm an in-
dustrial Napoleon. That's why Miss Ellie wants to
marry me. But I tell you I have nothing.

Ellie: Do you mean that the factories are like Marcus's
tigers? That they don't exist?

Mangan: They exist all right enough. But they're not
mine. They belong to syndicates and shareholders and
all sorts of lazy good-for-nothing capitalists. I get
money from such people to start the factories. I find
people like Miss Dunn's father to work them, and keep a
tight hand so as to make them pay. Of course I mks
them keep me going pretty well; but it's a dog's life;
and I don't own anything.

Mrs. H: Alfred, Alfred, you are making a poor mouth of
it to get out of marrying Ellie.

thngan: I'm tel ling the truth about my money for the
first time in my life; and it's the first time my word
has ever been doubted.

Lady U: How sad: Why don't you go in for politics,
Mr. mngan?

Mangan: Go in for politics! Where have you been living?
I am in politics.

Lady U: I'm sure I beg your pardon. I never heard of
YOUe

Mangan: Let me tell you, Lady Utterword, that the Prime
Minister of this country asked me to join the Government
without even going through the nonsense of an election,

as the dictator of a great public department.

Lady U: As a Conservative or a Liberal?

Mangan: No such nonsense. As a practical business man.
(they all burst out laughing) “hat are you all laughing
at?

Mrs. H: Oh, Alfred, Alfredl

Ellie: You! who have to get my father to do everything
for you:

Mrs. H: You: who are afraid of your own workmen:

Hector: Youi with when three women have been playing
cat and mouse all the evening!

~125-

Lady U: You must have given an immense sum to the party
funds, nr. Mangan.

Mangan: Not a penny out of my own pocket. The syndicate
found the money: they knew how useful I should be to
them in the Gove mment.

Lady U: This is most interesting and unexpected, Mr.
mangan. And what have your administrative achievements
been so far?

Mangan: Achievements? well, I don't know'what you call
achievements: but I've jolly well put a stop to the games
of the other fellows in the other departments. Every

man of them.thought he was going to save the country all
by himself, and do me out of the credit and out of my
chance of a title. I took good care that if they wouldn't
let me do it they shouldn't do it themselves either. I
may not know anything about my own machinery; but I know
how to stick a ramrod into the other fellow's. And now
they all look the biggest fools going.

Hector: And in heaven's name, what do you look like?
Mangan: I look like the fellow that was too clever for
all the others, don't I? If that isn't triumph of
practical business, what is?

Hector: Is this England, or is it a madhouse?

Lady U: Do you expect to save the country, Mr. mangan?

Mhngan:,‘Well, who else will? 'Will your Mr. Randall
save it?

Lady U: Randall the rotter! Certainly not.

Mhngan: Will your brother-in-law save it with his
moustache and his fine talk?

Hector: Yes, if they will let me.

Mangan: (sneering) Ahi Will they let you?

Hector; No. They prefer you.

Mangan: Very well then, as you're in a world where I'm

appreciated and you're not, you'd best be civil to me,
hadn't you? Who else is there but me?

-126-

Lady U: There is Hastings. Get rid of your ridiculous
sham democracy; and give Hastings the necessary powers,
and a good supply of bamboo to bring the British native
to his senses: he will save the country'with the
greatest ease.

Captain: It had better'be lost. Any fool can govern
with.a stick in his hand. I could govern that way.
It is not God's way. The man is a numskull.

Lady U: The man is worth all of you rolled into one.
What do you say, Miss Dunn?

Ellie: I think my father would do very well if peeple
did not put upon him.and.cheat him.and despise him.be-
cause he is so good.

Hanganz. (contemptuously) I think I see Mazzini Dunn
getting into parliament or pushing his way into the
Government. we've not come to that yet, thank God:
What do you say, Mk3. Hushabye?

Mrs. H: Oh, I say it matters very little which of you
governs the country so long as we govern.you.

Hector: we? Who is We, pray?

Mrs. H: The devil's granddaughters, dear. The lovely
women.

Hector: (raising his hands as before) Fall, I say,
and deliver us from the lures of Satan:

Ellie: There seems to be nothing real in.the world ex-
cept my father and Shakespeare. Marcus's tigers are false:
Mr. Mangan's millions are false; there is nothing really
strong and true about Hesione but her beautiful black

hair; and Lady Utterword's is too pretty to be real. The
one thing that was left to me was that Captain's seventh
degree of concentration; and that turns out to be --

Captain: Bums

Lady U: (placidly) ‘A good deal of my hair is quite
genuine. The Duchess of Dithering offered me fifty
guineas for this (touching her forehead) under the im»
pression'that it was a transformation; but it is all
natural except the color.

Nhngan: (wildly) Look here: I'm.going to take off all
my clothes Lh.e._.b_.asis§,.§ear1ns.oftlhia ,coafc)

-127-

Lady U: Mr. Manganl
Captain: What's that?
Hector: Hat hat Do. Do.
Ellie: Please don't.

Mrs. H: (catching his arm and stopping him.) Alfred,
for shame! Are you mad?

mangan: Shame: ‘What shame is there in this house? Let's
all strip stark naked. we may as well do the thing
thoroughly when we're about it. we've stripped ourselves
morally naked: well, let us strip ourselves physically
naked as well and see how we like it. I tell you I

can't bear this. I was brought up to be respectable. I
don't mind the women dyeing their hair and the men drink-
ing: it's human nature. But it's not human nature to
tell everybody about it. Every time one of you opens
your mouth I go like this (he cowers as if to avoid a
missile) afraid of what will come next. How are we to
have any self-respect if we don't keep it up that we're
better than we really are?

Lady U: I quite sympathize with you, mr. Mangan. I have
been through it all; and I know by experience that men
and women are delicate plants and must be cultivated under
glass. Our family habit of throwing stones in.all di-
rections and letting the air in is not only unbearably
rude, but positively dangerous. Still, there is no use
catching physical ‘colds we well as moral ones; so

please keep your clothes on.

Mhngan: I'll do as I like: not what you tell me. Am.I
a child or a grown man? I‘won't stand this mothering
tyranny. I'll go back to the city, where I'm.respected
and made much of.

Mrs. H: Goodbye, Alf. Think of us sometimes in the city.
Think of Ellie's youth:

Ellie: Think of Hesione's eyes and hair!

Captain: Think of this garden in which you are not a
dog barking to keep the truth out!

Hector: Think of Lady Utterword's beauty: her good sense!
her style:

-128-

Lady U: Flatterer. Think, Mr. Mengan, whether you can
really do any better for yourself elsewhere: that is
the essential point, isn't it?

mangan: All right: all right. I'm done. Have it your
own way. Only let me alone. I don't know'whether I'm
on my head or my heels when you all start on.me like
this. I'll stay. I'll marry her. I'll do anything for
a quiet life. Are you satisfied now?

Ellie: No. I never really intended to make you marry
me, Mr. Mangan. Never in.the depths of my soul. I only
wanted to feel my strength: to know that you could not
escape if I chose to take you.

mangan: (indignantly) What: Do you mean to say you are
going to throwrme over after my acting so handsome?

Lady U: I should not be too hasty, Miss Dunn. You can
throw Mr. Mangan over at any time up to the last moment.
Very few men in his position go bankrupt. You can live
comfortably on his reputation for immense wealth.

Ellie: I cannot commit bigamy, Lady Utterword.

Mrs. H: Bigamyl ‘Whatever on earth are you talking
about Ellie?

Lady U: Bigamyi What do you mean, MissDunn?

Phngan: Bigamyt Do you mean to say you're married
already?

Hector: Bigamyl This is some enigna.

Ellie: Only half an hour ago I became Captain Shotover's
white‘wife.

Mrs. H: Ellieil What nonsense: Where?

Ellie: In heaven, where all true marriages are made.
Lady U: Really, Miss Dunn: Really, Papa:

mangan: He told me I was too old! And him.a mummy!
Hector: (quoting Shelley)

"Their altar the grassy earth outspread
And their priest the muttering wind."

-129-

Ellie: Yes: I, Ellie Dunn, give my broken heart and

my strong sound soul to its natural captain, my spiritual
husband and second father.

(she draws the captain's arm through here, and pets his
hand. The captain remins asleep)

Mrs. H: Oh, that's very clever of you, pettikins. Very
clever. Alfred, you could never have lived up to Ellie.
You must be content with a little share of me.

Mangan: (sniffing and wiping his eyes) It isn't kind
(his emotion chokes him)

Lady U: You are well out of it, Mr. Mangan. Miss Dunn
is the most conceited young woman I have met since I
came back to England.

Mrs. H: Oh, Ellie isn't conceited. Are you, pettikins?
Ellie: I know 11w strength now, Hesione.
Mangan: Brazen, I call you. Brazen.

Mrs. H: Tut, tut, Alfred: Don't be rude. Don't you
feel how lovely this marriage night is, made in heaven?
Aren't you happy, you and Hector? Open your eyes:

Adw and Ellie look beautiful enough to please the most
fastidious man: we live and love and have not a care
in the world. We women have managed all that for you.
Why in the name of common sense do you go on as if you
were two miserable wretches?

Captain: I tell you happiness is no good. You can be
happy when you are only half alive. I am happier now
I am half dead than ever I was in my prime. But there
is no blessing on my happiness.

Ellie: Life with a blessing: that is what I want. Now
I know the real reason why I couldn't mrry Mr. Mangan:
there would be no blessing on our marriage. There is a
blessing on my broken heart. There is a blessing on
your beauty, Hesione. There is a blessing on your
father's spirit. Even on the lies of Lhrcus there is a
blessing; but on Mr. Mangan's money the re is none.

Mangan: I don't understand a word of tint.
Ellie: Neither do I. But I know it means something.

Mangan: Don't say there was any difficulty about the
blessing. I was ready to get a bishop to marry us.

-130-

Mrs. H: Isn't he a fool, pettikins?

Hector: (fiercly) Do not scorn the man. We are all
£0018.

(Mazzini, inpyjamas‘ and amrichlycolored silk dressing-
62"..2! comes from the house, on Lady Utterword's side.)

Mrs. H: Oh'. here comes the only man who ever resisted
me. What's the matter, Mr. Dunn? Is the house on fire?

Mazzini: Oh, no: nothing's the matter: but really it's
impossible to go to sleep with such an interesting con-
versation going on under one's window, and on such a
beautiful night too. I just had to come down and join
you all. What has it all been about?

Mrs. H: Oh, wonderful things, soldier of freedom.

Hector: For example, Nangan, as a practical business
man, has tried to undress himself and has failed ignomin-
iously: whilst you, as an idealist, have succeeded bril-
liantlye

Mazzini: I hope you don't mind my being like this, Mrs.
Hushabye. (he sits down on the campstool)

Mrs. H: On the contrary, I could wish you always like
that.

Lady U: Your daughter's match is off, Mr. Dann. It seems
that Mr. Mangan, whom we all supposed to be a man of
property, owns absolutely nothing.

Mazzini: Well, of course I knew that, Lady Utterword.
But if people believe in him and are always giving him
money, vhereas they don't believe in me and never give
me any, how can I ask poor Ellis to depend on what I can
do for her?

Mangan: Don't you run away with this idea that I have
nethinge 1"."

Hector: Oh, don't explain. We understand. You have a
couple of thousand pounds in exchequer bills, 50,000
shares woth tenpence a dozen, and half a dozen tabloids
of cyanide of potassium to poison yourself with when you
are found out. That's the reality of your millions.

Mazzini: Oh no, no, no. He is quite honest? the busi-
nesses are genuine and perfectly legal.

~131-

Hector: (disgusted) Yahi Not even a great swindler.

Mangan: So you think. But I've been too many for
some honest men, for all that.

Lady U: There is no pleasing you, Mr. Mangan. You are
determined to be neither rich nor poor, honest nor dis-
honest.

Mangan: There you go again. Ever since I came into this
silly house I have been made to look like a fool, though
I'm as good a non in this house as in the city.

Ellie: (musically) Yes: this silly house, this strangely
happy house, this agonizing house, this house without
foundations. I shall call it Heartbreak House.

Mrs. H: Stop, Ellie: or I shall howl like an animal.
Mangan: (breaks into a low snivelling)ii

Mrs. H: There! you have set Alfred off.

Ellie: I like him.best when he is howling.

Captain: Silence (Mangan subsides into silence) I say,
let the heart break in silence.

Hector: Do you accept that name for your house?
Captain: It is not my house: it is only my kennel.

Hector: 'We have been too long here. we do not live in
this house: we haunt it.

Lady U: (heart torn) It is dreadful to'think how you
hage been here all these years while I have gone round
the world. I escaped young; but it has drawn me back.

It wants to break my heart too. But it shanit. I have
left you and it behind. It was silly of me to come back.
I felt sentimental about papa and Hesione and the old
place. I felt them calling to me.

Mazzini: But what a very natural and kindly and charming
human feeling, Lady Utterwordl

Lady U: So I thought, hr. Dunn. But I know now that it
was only the last of my influenza. I found that I was
not remembered and not wanted.

Captain: You left because you did not want us. Was
there no heartbreak in that for'your father? you tore

-132-

yourself up by the roots: and the ground healed up and
brought forth fresh plants and forgot you. What right
had you to come back and probe old wounds?

Mrs. H: You were a complete stranger to me at first,
Addy: but now I feel as if you had never been away.

Lady U: Thank you, Hesione: but the influenza is quite
cured. The place my be Heartbreak House to you, Miss
Dunn, and to this gentleman from the city who seems to
have so little self-control; but to me it is only a very
ill-regulated and rather untidy villa without any stables.

Hector: Inhabit ed by---?

Ellie: A. crazy old sea captain and a young singer who
adores him.

Mrs. H: A sluttish female, trying to stave off a double
chin and an elderly spread, vainly wooing a born soldier
of freedom.

Mazzini: Oh, really, Mrs. Hushabye-----

Mangan: A member of His Majesty's Government that every-
body sets dom as a nincompoop: don't forget him, Lady
Utterword.

Lady U: And a very fascinating gentleman whose chief
occupation is to be married to my sister.

Hector: All heartbroken imbeciles.

Mazzini: Oh no. Surely if I may say so, rather a favor-
able speciman of what is best in our English culture.

You are very charming people, most advanced, unprejudiced,
frank, humane, unconventional, democratic, free—thinking,
and everything that is delightful to thoughtful people.

Mrs. H: You do us proud, Mazaini.

Mazzini: I am not flattering, really. Where else could

I feel perfectly at ease in my pyjamas? I sometimes

dream that I am in very distinguished society, and suddenly
I have nothing on but my pyjamas! Sometimes I haven't

even pyjamas. And I always feel overwhelmed with confusion.
But fare, I don't mind in the least: it seems quite
natural.

Lady U: An infallible sign that you are now not in really
distinguished society, Mr. Dunn. If you were in my house,
you would feel embarrassed.

-l33-

massini: I shall take particular care to keep out of
your house, Lady Utterword.

Lady U: You will be quite wrong, Mr. Dunn. I should
make you very comfortable; and you would not have the
trouble and anxiety of wondering whether you should wear
your purple and gold or your green and crimson dressing
gown at dinner. You complicate life instead of simpli-
fying it by doing these ridiculous things.

Ellie: Your house is not Heartbreak House: is it, Lady
Utterword?

Hector: Yet she breaks hearts, easy as her house is.
That poor devil upstairs with his flute howls when she
twists his heart, just as Mangon howls when my wife
MStB hifle

Lady U: That is because Randall has nothing to do but
have his heart broken. It is a change from.having his
head shampooed. Catch anyone breaking Hasting's heart:

Captain: The numskull wins, after all.

Lady U: I shall go back to my numskull with the greatest
satisfaction when I am.tired of you all, clever as you
are.

Mangan: (huffily) I never set up to be clever.
Lady U: I forgot you, Mr. Mangan.
Mangan: ‘Well, I don't see that quite, either.

Lady U: You may not be clever, Mr. Mangan: but you are
successful.

Mangan: But I don't want to be regarded merely as a
successful man. I have an imagination like anyone else.
I have a presentiment----

Mrs. H: Oh, you are impossible, Alfred. Here I am de-
vouting myself to you: and you think of nothing but your
ridiculous presentiment. You bore me. Come and talk
poetry to me under the stars. (she drags him away into
the darkness)

mangan: (tearfully, as he disappears) Yes: it's all
very'well to make fun of me: but if you only knewh----

Hector: (impatiently) How'is all this going to end?

-134-

Mazzini: It won't end, Mr. Hushabye. Life doesn't end:
it goes on.

Ellie: Oh, it can't go on forever. I'm always expecting
something. I don't know what it is; but life must come
to a point sometime.

lady U: The point for a young woman of your age is a
babYe

Hector: Yes, but, damn it, I have the same feeling; and
I can't have a baby.

Lady U: By deputy, Hector.

Hector: But I have children. All that is over and done
with for me: and yet I too feel that this can't last.
We sit here talking, and leave everything to Mangan and
to chance and to the devil. Think of the powers of des-
truction that Mangan and his mtual admiration gang
wield: It's sadness: it's like giving a torpedo to

a badly brought -up child to play at earthquakes with.

Mazzini: I know. I used often to think about that when
I was young.

Hector: Think: What's the good of thinking about it?
Why didn't you do something?

Mazzini: But I did. I joined societies and made speeches
and wrote pamphlets. That was all I could do. But, you
know, though the people in the societies thought they
knew more than Mangan, most of them wouldn't have joined
if they had known as such. You see they had never had
any money to handle or any men to manage. Every year I
expected a revolution, or some frightful smash-up: it
seemed impossible that we could blunder and muddle on any
longer. But nothing happened, except, of course, the
usual poverty and crime and drink that we are used to.
Nothing ever does happen. It's amazing how well we get
along, all things considered.

Law U: Perhaps somebody cleverer than you and Mr. Mangan
was at work all the time.

Mazzini: Perhaps so. Though I was brought up not be be-
lieve in anything, I often feel that there is a great
deal to be said for the theory of an over-ruling
Providence, after all.

lady U: Providencei I meant Hastings.

-135-

vairnfi Mezzini: Oh, I beg your pardon, Lady Utterword.

Lntfifd'?n Captain: Every drunken skipper trusts to Providence.
But one of the ways of Providence with drunken skippers

(- /i"’ r is to run them on the rocks.
w fig}! (.32
t/ yazzinig' Very true, no doubt, at sea. But in politics
a . I assure you. they only run into jellyfish. Nothing
happens.

Captain: At sea nothing happens to the sea. Nothing
happens to the sky. The sun comes up from the east
and goes down.to the west. The moon grows from.a sickle
to an arc lamp, and comes later and later until she is
.‘ ‘ lost in.the light as other things are lost in the dark-
3 ‘ ness. After the typhoon, the flying fish glitter in
4' } the sunshine like birds. It's amazing how they get along,
f all things considered. Nothing happens, except something
} 1 not worth mentioning.

Ellie: What is that, 0 Captain, 0 my captain?

Captain: (savagely) Nothing but the smash of the drunken
skipper's ship on the rocks, the splintering of her rotten
timbers, the tearing of her rusty plates, the drowning

of the crew like rats in a trap.

Ellie: Moral: don't take rum.

Captain: (vehemently) That is a lie, child. Let a man
drink ten barrels of rum.a day, he is not a drunken
skipper until he is a drifting skipper. Whilst he can
lay his course and stand on his bridge and steer it, he
is no drunkard. It is the man who lies drinking in his
bunk and trusts to Providence that I call the drunken
skipper, though he drank nothing but the waters of the
River Jordan.

Ellie: Splendid: And you haven't had a drop for an hour.
You see you don't need it: Your own spirit is not dead.

_ Captain: Echoes: nothing but echoes. The last shot was
é : fired years ago.

Hector: And this ship that we are all in? This soul's
prison we call England?

F’WC“ ”J Captain: The captain is in his bunk, drinking bottled
[\figcs':>t ditch-water; and the crew is gambling in the forecastle.
N\' 7:._ She will strike and sink and split. Do you think the laws
of God will be suspended in.favor of England because you
were born in it?

s-F'W‘r\ k

~136-

Hector: well, I don't mean.to'be drowned like a rat
in a trap. I still have the will to live. What am.I

L\ to do?

/ "I

a [i Captain: Do? Nothing simpler. Learn your business as
2 ( an Englishman.

5

,‘>

1
l
/
\

I,
'.

\
/
(\

\

i
l
\

. I“
If “—‘M” \\\J

‘i
‘.
’.
3
/

i
‘i
I
/

Hector: And what may my business as an Englishman be,
pray?

Captain: Navigation. Learn.it and live; or leave it
and be damned.

Ellie: Quiet, quiet: you'll tire yourself.

Lhezini: I thought all that once, Captain; but I assure
you nothing will happen.

(a dull distant explosion is heard)

Hector: (starting up) 'What was that?

Captain: Something happening. (he blows his whistle)
Breakers ahead!

We.”

2‘
I

 
  
  

Hector: (furiously) 'Who put that light out? Who dared
put that.light out?

Guinness: (running in fromihe house to the middle of
the esplanade) I did, sir. The police have telephoned
to say we'll be summoned if we don‘t put that light out:
it can.be seen for miles.

Hector: It shall be seen for a hundred miles (he dashes
into the house)

Guinness: The rectory is nothing but a heap of bricks,
they say. Unless we can give the rector a bed he has
nowhere to lay his head this night.

Captain: The Church is on the rocks, breaking up. I
told him it would unless it headed for God's open sea.

Guinness: And you are all to go down to the cellars.

Captain: Go there yourself, you and all the crew. Batten
down the hatches.

Guinness: And hide beside the coward I married: I'll go

h2-29.9£...13i.17§.§a-.( he 1'1 11- magnesia!) There'.
Mr. Hushabye's turned it on again.

-137-

»- «a /‘~\/“\/\

\
!
,3

i

-4...

\
\

‘-.‘_I\/

‘- ... eo‘~'- "'

Burglar: (hurrying in.and appealing to Guinness) Here:
where's the way to the gravel pit? The boot-boy says
there's a cave in the gravel pit. Them cellars is no
use. Where's the gravel pit, Captain?

Guinness: Go straight on past the flagstaff until you
fall into it and break your dirty neck. (she pushes him
contemptuously towards the flagstaff, and herself goes
to the foot of the hammock and waits there, as it were
by Ariadne's cradle)

Another and louder explosion is heard. The burglar stops

and stands trembling.
Ellie: (rising) That was nearer.

Captain: The next one will get us. (he rises) Stand by,
all hands, for judgment.

Burglar: Oh my Lordy God: (he rushed away frantically
past the flagstaff into the gloom)

the. H: (emerging panting from the darkness) Who was
that running away? (she comes to Ellie) Did you hear
the explosions? And the sound in the sky: it's splendid:
it's like an orchestra: it's like Beethoven.

Ellie: By thunder, Hesione: it is Beethoven.
(the light increases)

Guinness: (looking up at the house) It's Mr. Hushabye
turning on all the lights in the house and tearing down
the curtains.

Randall: (rushing_in in his pyjamas, distractedly nvi
a flutg) Ariadne, my soul, my precious, go down to
cellars: I beg and implore you, go down to the cellarsl

Lady U: (quite composed in her hammock) The governor's
‘wife in the cellar with the servants: Really, Randallt

Randall: But what shall I do if you are killed?

Lady U: You will probably be killed, too, Randall. Now’
play your flute to show that you aren't afraid; and be
good. Play us "Keep the home fires burning”.

Guinness: (grimly) They'll keep the home fires burning
for us: them up there.

-138-

Randall: (having tried to play) My lips are trembling.
I can't get a sound.

mazzini: I hope poor Mangan is safe.
Mrs. H: He is hiding in the cave in the gravel pit.

Captain: My dynamite drew him there. It is the hand of
GOd e

Hector: (returning from the house and.striding across
to his former place) There is not half light enough. we
should be blazing to the skies.

Ellie: (tense with excitement) Set fire to the housa
MS. r0113 0

Mrs. H: My house: No.

Hector: I thought of that; but it would not be ready in
timee

Captain: The judgement has come. Courage will not save
you; but it will show that your souls are still alive.

Hrs. H: Sh-shl Listen: do you hear it now? It's mag-
nificant. (they all turn away from the house and look up,
listening)

Hector: (gravely) Miss Dunn, you can do no good here.
we of this house are only moths flying into the candle.
You had better go down to the cellar.

Ellie: (scornfully) I don't think.

Mhzzini: Ellie, dear, there is no disgrace in going to
the cellar. An officer would order his soldiers to take
cover. Mr. Hushabye is behaving like an amateur. Mangan
and the burglar are acting very sensibly; and it is they
who will survive.

Ellie: Let them. I shall behave like an amateur. But
why should you run any risk?

Mazzini: Think of the risk those poor fellows up there
are running!

Guinness: Think of them, indeed, the murdering blackguards!
What next?

”(El39351£}° explosion shakes the earth. They reel back in

‘ their seatET'BE”Eih£EE“€hS nearest support. They hear the
“falling of the shattered glass free the windows.)

~139-

Messini: Is anyone hurt?

Hector: Where did it fall?

Guinness: (in hideous triumph) Right in the gravel pit:
I seen it. Serve em right: I seen it. (she runs away
towards the gravel pit, laughing harshly)

Hector: One husband gone.

Captain: Thirty pounds of good dynamite wasted.

Mazzini: Oh, poor Mangan:

Hector: Are you immortal that you need pity him? Our
turn next. (they wait in silence and intense expectation.

Hesione and Ellie hold each other's hand tight. A distant
explgsipn is heard.)

 

Mrs. H: (relaxing her grip) Oh: they have passed us.
Lady U: The danger is over, Randall. Go to bed.

Captain: Turn in, all hands. The ship is safe. (he sits
down and goes to sleep)

Ellie: Safe: (disappointedly)

Hector: (disgustedly) Yes, safe. And how damnably dull
the world has become again suddenly: (he sits down)

Mezzini: (sitting down) I was quite wrong, after all.
It is we who have survived; and Hangan and the burglaru--

Hector: ----the two burglars----
Lady US ---the two practical men of business---

Mazzini: ---both gone. And the poor clergyman will have
to get a how house.

Mrs. H: But what a glorious experience! I hope they'll
come again tomorrow'night.

Ellie: (radiant at the prospect) Oh, I hope so.

Randall at last succeeds in keeping the home fires burning
dipihh‘llfité} -...--__-.._._.._....- .-. _ . . A _ _

 

nu. C'fi”—- -

THE END

-140-

CHAPTER IV

AN ANALYSIS OF ms PROBLEMS OF EXECUTING THE
DESIGNS, AND THE NECESSARY DRAWINGS,
CHARTS, PLOTS, ETC.

CHAPTER IV
PART I: ,AN ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEMS OF EXECUTING THE DESIGNS

As mentioned in chapter II, the problems imposed by shifting of
the scenery was a major consideration in the execution of the planning.
Since the first set could not be removed from the stage in a reasonable
time, it had to remain on stage while set two was being used. Because
of this, the scenery was assembled into large units. The diagram below

will indicate the general nature of these units.

13 c P—LTJ'GK’l
. F

I 8 p,

E IE

I
. k
SET 1 SET 11

m

A

 

 

In Set I, unit A was the arch with the double doors which opened
into the garden. By making B a small unit, it could be uhhinged and
unit A could be used in Set II.

The bay windows (C) were a separate unit because they had to be
changed to show an exterior treatment for Act III.

The upstage wall (D) was a large piece comprised of the bookcase
flat, the door flat, and one large solid flat. By making this into one
section, it could be pushed against the back wall of the stage, thereby
requiring a minimum of space.

The stage right wall was also made into one large unit so that it

could be moved as a section and placed next to the right wall of the

-141-

stage. This wall was composed of one door flat and two solid flats.

After units D and B were against the wall, the black velour
drapes were hung to mask the two sections. Black velour was chosen
because of a peculiar characteristic which suggests the darkness and
softness of a moonless night.

In Set II, unit A from.Set I was used without change because the
unit was in the shadows. Therefore, its actual detailed appearance was
not detectable.

A two foot flat (F) was needed to give porportion to the setting.

The bay WindOW’(G) was constructed as a separate unit. Originally
the window had been planned as one unit to be used in.both scenes, but
when actual execution was made, the designer discovered that floor space
could be conserved by shortening the center flat and increasing the
angle of the two side flats to about 130 degrees instead of the 90 as
was the case in Set 1. Consequently, two separate window'units were
used.

Since section H was the garden wall, three feet high, the flats
‘were used on their'sides. To the right end was added one-half of the
garden gate. A jog in the center made the wall self-supporting and
therefore the problem of bracing was eliminated. The jog also made
easy the construction of a section which would support the weight of a
character who might sit on the edge of the wall. Variety for the set-
ting was also added by this break in the wall.

Section "I" completed the garden wall, and followed the same con-

struction plan as H. The remaining half of the garden gate was attached

-142-

to "I" on the upstage end. By assembling one-half of the gate to
section H and one-half to "I", the gate was automatically in position
with the placement of H and "I".

The construction proceeded from.working drawings which were pre-
pared by the designer. 'Whenever possible, old flats were reconditioned
to suit the plans of the designer. By the use of materials already
available, the cost of the scenery was kept to a minimum. The scenery
was designed to be of simple construction and no complex units were
planned. The building was done in the Scenery Construction Laboratory
by members of the scenery construction class. Standard building techni-
ques for flats, doors, and windows as outlined by Selden and Sellman
were used.

The two base colors used in the painting (brown tending to red in
the color wheel for Act I and II, and a brick red for Act III) were
mixed according to the theories of Harold Burris-Meyer and E. C. Cole.a
A tablespoon of Lysol was added to each pail of paint to prevent any
possibility of spoilage.

The flats were painted first with the size coat and then the proper
base color was applied. The panel effect was achieved in Set I by using
a chalk line to indicate the panels. After they had been defined, they
'were painted in and given appropriate highlight with a light tan and

lowlight with a dark brown. The grain effect of the wood was brought

 

1 Samuel Selden and Hunton Sellman, Stage Scenery and Lighting
(NGW'YOPkt Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1936) Chap. V.

2 Harold Burris-Meyer and E. C. Cole, Scenery for the Theatre
(Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1946), p. 267.

 

 

-143-

out by dry brushing the outlined panels with the dark brown color.

The bricks in the second set were indicated by the use of a chalk
line. Then they were given character by laying in highlights of light
pink and buff, and lowlights of black, dark red, and dark brown.

The flats were hinged on the face and dutchmened to form.units as
indicated in the diagram.at the beginning of the chapter. The procedure
for shifting followed the following plan. In Set I, units A, B, and C
'were unpinned. Unit A was swung against the left stage house wall.

Unit B was removed to storage. Unit C was pushed against the back stage
house wall. Units D and E were pushed as one unit as far upstage as
possible. During this procedure all stage properties were removed and
black velours attached to a batten were fastened to the ceiling to mask
off units D and B. At this point, all properties of Act III were put

on stage. The platform riser was then placed before the door stage left.

To reset Set II, units H and "I" were put into position, then unit
G was set, unit F, and then unit A (which was the same unit as used in
Set I).

Since the scene shifting had to be accomplished manually without
the use of stage machinery and devices, the time for the complete shift
was nine and one-half minutes. A complete shifting plan is included in
the blueprints that follow;

The lighting for the play came from the beam position where two
baby spots were placed, the bridge which held seven R—4O reflector spdss,
and the first border position where two baby spots and two R-4O reflector

spots were hung.

-144-

The off stage lighting, indicating the sunset in Act I and the
house light in Act III, was accomplished by placing a baby spot on
a light standard up left, off stage.

Choosing the colors of lights for the effect of a room at sundown,
and a terrace on a moonless night was a problenzbecause the lights in
Studio Theater were so inflexible. Since the lights could not be moved
nor changed during the play one set of colors had to do for all varia-
tions needed on the settings. Because the play was an intellectual
rather than an emotional comedy, the director and the designer agreed
that there should be a coolness at all times on the set. They found,
by study and experimenting, that the color mediums of "Surprise Pink"
and"Medium Blue" were the most suitable colors to use. They also found
that these two colors were complimentary to the skin tones of the
actors, and did not affect the shade of brown used in the wood paneling

of Set I.

-145-

PART II:

SCEFE DESIG

NER'S DRAWINGS

The following section of this chapter contains the color sketches,

blueprints, charts, plots, diagrams, and pictures which are necessary

to the successful execution of any designer's plans for the setting of

the play.

Section A.

Section B.

Sheet 1,
Sheet 2,
Sheet 3,
Sheet 4,
Sheet 5,
Sheet 6,
Sheet 7,
Sheet 8,
Sheet 9,
Sheet 10,
Sheet 11,
Sheet 12,
Section C.
Section D.

Section E.

Section F.

Section G.

Color Plates of Settings

Technical workings for Settings

Ground Plan Act I and II

Furniture Plot Act I and II

Ground Plan Act III

Furniture Plot Act III

'Working
'Working
working
Whrking
working
working
Working

'Working

Drawings
Drawings
Drawings
Drawings
Drawings
Drawings
Drawings

Drawings

Light Plot

Shift Plan

Act

Act

Act

Act

Act

Act

Act

Act

I and II, Flats stage left
I and II, Door stage left

I and II, Bay window unit

I and II, Upstage wall

I and II, Stage Right wall
III, Garden walls

III, Bay windOW'unit

III, Garden gate

Make-up Charts and Instructions

The Costume Plot

Pictures of the Production

-146-

COLOR PLATE, ACTS I AND II

~147-

L 1
n if. I

2

:‘ml‘... 1..

c»;
_7 n.

SS ,.

new...
10“.: (I

.\ d

. w. Jim...
minivans

irarhhnflsEn

3-... 1

 

COLOR PLATE, ACT III

 

GROUND PLAN, ACTS I AND II

—149-

 

 

-'HEARTBREAK . House"
srumo THEATRE. NEH. STATE .

.W
GROUND PLAN

ACT. IJI ‘ SCALE $633 1'

, :Dnasucujv: “wfaux

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GROUND PLAN, ACT III

-151-

 

’6)me 900“." .. +
sruuo Tamas .. Matter“; --4
’Fuam‘ruaa PLAN.
Acct LII} “Scan ”t." 1" .
‘ penguin 31'. WW

 

 

 

Itasca: 'Wfi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

p

 

I ° II
AH antenna Hons:

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I
I
I sumo THEATRE "VCR-STATS
. . "I , 3
5-6’ .
I GRouND PLAN
y———- I ACT III _ 5cm: X. ‘ 1’f
‘ I s I NED 7:44.44er
I
I
I I
I
I
I
I
I
I
’ I
I’ .
I: I
' .
I
8° '
K I ‘° 6°93“
.I P
I In 9"
I
I
I
I ..h.

 

 

Ollie ll III:

 

lull-l III‘. I‘ll“ (III-II. ..u . lull 'III .‘l .3 “III-II.

FURNITURE PLOT, ACT III

—152-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_ ‘Hsaa'rsauu . Hon-St ..
Stems Tamra: Mun. Sta-rs. ,
II E

FURNITU RE. PLAN f
. Agf m '- SCALE h"=1' 4
W “W 53*)

 

 

 

 

/ >-

 

 

 

 

 

WORKING DRAWINGS ACTS I AND II

FLATS STAGE LEFT

-153-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1'"
:"~

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

. I—’——2’-o"—-——4
T:
”:32: o" s
. , “F“ It” s!3
, 6 0‘9. «1",»
' _ “9.221%"
- s
o.
O
{90 ‘\°“
‘ ¢9 ‘4“.
9‘26 4."
Mi" 9“ I

Q“ 9P9- lr -

9": g
‘P
(I) .

- “HEARTBREAK House"
STUDIO THearaz MILII. srnr‘a
MARC-H I950 SHEET 5
Woaawe DRAWINGS '
~>< ‘ STAGE LEV-V WALL SCALE 1”?- .l
IQFSIGLN gm {ATM

_sL.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WORKING DRAWINGS ACTS I AND II

DOOR STAGE LEFT

-154-

 

 

 

 

 

'I' Q»

 

 

 

 

6

 

 

 

"HEARTBREAK House"
STUDIO ‘WEATRE was. STATE

MIAMI-I Iago Sfigfi; é

 

 

 

 

Wanama D Rawmss -

GARDEN looaSl, SCALE 3/4'3 1

DESIGN BY '. QM» ”(g—Dido

 

 

...—A... .

  
    
    

'!

    

WORKING DRAV‘IINGS ACT I AND II

BAY WINDOW UNI T

-155-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I ’I‘=.

I I
I 7n

I ‘.

I m _

I

I ‘ . I ' . .I‘HCA’RTBREAK House "

I ’ ' - . ‘ .' . ,STUDIo THEATRE 1,.-MIQI-I. STATE

I ' y M. ago-I .1220. SHEET 2 _ -
I . a Wesxwe DRnwwes '
I [>4 ' ‘ [24 _' UPLEFT, BAY wwoow. Sons 1?].
4925mm By: gutA ’T’Lfidx.
I

I L _ I

 

 

 

 

WORKING DRAWINGS ACTS I AND II

UPSTAGE WALL

~156-

 

 

42-6"

 

 

I‘ ' L \I
,__ .-Hua'rsaua House
STUDIO 'THIATR‘ MIC“. STAT. _

AW
_womsms DRAWINGS ,-
BACK WALL Sun: 551‘

{D §§IGN 31: mfg ' w I

 

 

 

 

 

 

4a" 50_‘__‘u ‘ m
I: A“ . y
LAS '
m“:
. avg).
I I
_ 3 .
30 NOT (MK ~30 NOT COVER
: Loos: PIN HING'
‘9 oN race, COVER L35“
h E! - CRACK WITH CANVAS _ CI-MyI’
L00“ 9'“ 32"” ‘D
a“ “‘1‘; 99"”, /
IE .0” a: flavors
can

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sm. IRON}

     
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WORKING DRAWINGS ACTS I AND II

STAGE RI GH T WALL

-157-

 

 

 

I i 50.0"" _ J

 

a'-o~-¥-—-I

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

» 9
9X99 1

 

 

 

 

ll

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“HEART BREAK HOUSE. "

WORKING DRAWINGS

STAGE RIGHT WALL.$cM.E 1"= 1'

 

IMN av: WI”

, STUDIO THEATRE“ _MILH. STATE I

‘1 MARSH [3:0 §H§EL9

 

 

WORKING DRAWINGS ACT III

GARDEN WALLS

-158-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7'; D .
. i
k” "”6" 0‘" I I I
I! "I “din“? ~ '
: I 40'
HEARTDREAK House,
‘ , m w - STUDIO THHTRE MICHSS'rm'a _
. _ _AA Aggy: I250 Snag; _/o~
WORKWG. Dkawwas .
. I Am- .131 .scaL: 1":1' ' '-
STAGE RIGHT GARDEN. WALL I
TF 3‘ O 0" * ""0"_-‘-* “A 6!. on | 7 I - .
A I s w H ‘ I [COL—I" A330"
_ <1 Ldffi‘fi ~ I . «9;? )k «we . .
"I ‘ . V qf’f’.’ Dd qxsv-“efié I A
‘ '. _o / ' . \Koéi‘gv'?‘ _ Pd ><
: ' f§ . I 49/ka Q50
0 ' . ‘ O VII)
C’ \Q vb Q9
‘I ‘9 1‘ F
:0 «WP
<1 <‘ " ‘
. ‘ ) Dq <lfi

 

U9STAC1E

GARDEN WALL

WORKING DRAWINGS ACT III

BAY WINDOW UNIT

~159-

# Em“; _' T14

 

 

9° , £9363”:

 

fl
. 1“ EL \ r“
.--” $0166 0‘; _ . : “'QLSfl‘

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

" HEARTBREAK House .. ‘

STUDIO TfiEATRE M‘CH- STATE
MARCH I950 Snag [I

< . . , _ Womma DRAmes“ ‘
D l I . I BAY NIuDow Act In SCALE 13 l‘

I)“ . Di“ 1M" BY :

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

'WORKING DRAWINGS ACT III

GARDEN GATE

-180-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"'Heameaena House" "

- STUDIO THOATRi. Man. 5741:
MAE:\ I9§Q ,_S_H£ET l2

 

 

I V WORKING-I _ :DRAWINGS
.GM'E “‘0 35051 Am 5mm: 1": .1'

 

 

 

DESIGN 3/: 41,1“ “KIA

/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LIGHT PLOT

-161-

 

 

 

 

LJ - R40 Racucron s 901-
G ' 8AM sPaT
r3 - BEAM SPOT

5p - SuaPRIse PINK
B - BLUE

X - INDIGAYES FILLIN Focus

 

 

521’ I

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

0

° L

.

'. MN-

.
lo.

."9
‘ .
- o
I
O
I

l'.

PLOT :

t 3!“ .
'IiI-GHf-zz'uc: ....

‘SET

\v

.DN
.5

. ,0
.L
.P¢.
L
F

. E...
.AK
me

Q

O

O
I

SPOTI

b

. 8

O

9' 9 B'L (IE I

SHIFT PLAN

-162-

 

 

 

 

SET 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SHIFTING I>LAN

 

 

 

MAKE-UP CHARTS AND INSTRUCTIONS

~163-

Name :
Base:
Eyes:

Lines:

Hair:

Lady Utterwoni

Pale with touch of pink

Thin brows, definite appearance of being made-up
Eye bags, frown lines, nose lines, touch on
forehead

Very exotic, dyed red, pulled to one side in a

tight role

Additional: Heavy rouge to make it look as though it

Name:
Base:

Eyes:

were made up; the appearance is of one who is
elderly, but tries to look younger, a definite

"beauty parlor" look

Captain Shotover
Ruddy color
Definite age, heavy lines around them, show

age in dropping upper lid

Lines: Very heavy all over face, lighter at skull bones

Hair:

Whitened; add white beard (full) and mustache

Additional: He should appear as one with age but a

ruddy aliveness because of life on the sea

-164...

Na me :
Base:
Eyes:

Lines:

Hair:

Hector Hushabye

Colorful, but some touch of sallow

Not too heavy, slight suggestions of age
Suggest age with light brown lines, nose
lines, but no bags under the eyes

A fair mustache, touch of grey temples, a

handsome hair style

Additional: Red on cheeks, nose, temples and fore-

Name:
Base:

Eyes:

Lines

head to give color and freshness to face, the
effect should be one of a dashing "man of the

world"

Hesione Hushabye

Light natural coloring

Some lines and bags to denote middle age, but
a definite naturalness

Slight lines on forehead, frown lines, nose
lines to suggest middle age

Attractive with touches of gray, nothing to be

overdone to cover up age

Additional: Cheeks should be somewhat hollowed but the

general effect is one of naturalness. She is
middle aged and looks it, but an attractive woman

mdth natural beauty

-165-

all. III III '4! [I ill! I III .lll'illl' ..III I." 1" ll. ‘II .II

Name:

Base:

Eyes:

Lines:

Hair:

Mangan

Pale, no color, saIIOW'overcoat

A post middle age look, heavy shadowed sockets
and bags

Heavy frown lines on forehead, sunken Cheeks,
highlighted skull bones

Thick and very gray all over, thin gray mustache

Additional: The attempt here is an impression of a

Name:
Base:
Eyes:

Lines:

Hair:

pale executive, the "indoor" look

Hazzini Dunn

Pale, no color, some sallow

Severe circles around eyes, hard lines under eyes
Hard forehead, frown and nose lines, sunken
cheeks, highlighted bones

Whitened heavily, very gray, white preferred

Additional: An appearance of a man who uses his eyes

for close work, jovial face but haggard

-166-

Name:
Base:

Eyes:

Lines:

Hair:

Ellie

Colorful pinks

Green shadow, lines to bring out lashes, mascara
on lashes

None, rouge carefully applied to cheeks, lips
perfect

Youthful style, down and flowing but neat

Additional: A young and veny attractive woman who is

Name:
Base:
Eyes:

Lines

Hai r:

conscious of her personal appearance

Guinness

'Very pale, some sallow

Brown sockets, bags, drooped upper lids

Frown, nose, forehead lines neavy, sunken
cheeks, temples, etc., highlighted skull bones
Very white, in a knot on top, scraggly on

sides

Additional: A grave serious look, the children's

nurse, experienced mental strain for years

-167-

 

 

ll 1“

l0¥‘£-z-£-' 0. .‘J-‘Ir' ’

 

 

.9

o»
1!

 

Name:
Base:
Eyes:

Lines:

Hair:

Burglar

Ruddy but slightly off color because of age
Heavy bags, sunken eyes, drooped upper lids
Heavy lines for frown, nose, forehead; sunken
cheeks, temples; highlighted skull bones

Grqyed considerably, gray "mutton chop" whiskers

Additional: A sly roguish feIIOW'who has seen better

Name:

[fl

8863

Eyes:

Lines:

Hair:

days

Randall

Pale, no color, some sallow

Prominate bags and heavy shadows, wrinkles
heavy

Heavy frown, nose, forehead lines, sunken
cheeks and highlighted skull bones

Slightly grayed

Additional: Should be some color in cheeks and on

nose, a very sad and dissipated person

-168-

 

I‘ll II. If

' III. I. All

THE COSTUHE PLOT

 

. ‘llllllII‘II'Ill‘l'l-H‘lwl
TI!

 

 

 

COSTUYE PLCT

ACT I
Captain: Sea captain's uniform
Hector: Grey tweed suit, bowler, gloves, walking stick
Hazzini: Black business suit
Hangan: Grey business suit
Randall: Brown tweed suit, umbrella
Guinness: Cotton dress, apron, bandana on head
Ellie: Light cotton dress-suit
Lady Utterword: Blue suit, fur trim

Mrs. Hushabye: Green rayon dress

ACT II
Captain: Same as Act I
Hector: Short coat tuxedo, Arab's headdress
Nazzini: Light dress suit
Ihngan: Short coat tuxedo
Burglar: Sailor dungarees, pea-jacket, knit cap
Guinness: Same as Act I
Ellie: Light blue evening gown
lady Utterword: Cream colored dinner dress

Mrs. Hushabye: Blue dinner dress

ACT III
No changes except:
Hector: Remove headdress
Ehzzini: Pyjamas, dressing gown

Randall: Pyjamas

-169-

h“

I

I

I
.3.
.31
I'

"I

l

I-

I

...MQJ!S?.~ "

 

3": ffifff :61!!!

.I': ,mgo’zdsufl .81.

’ [‘ ;.C"o‘ . {3 "(1"9; :1“ o r

  
  
  
  
  
 
 
  
  
  
  
  
  
   
  

.,'!rh383
:unfoofi
’I-fohd'

:{nynfln

O
. a
I

. .-' {Di-unit
-. wrrr‘lflfl

' :QIIIa

2° I '7. ”’1‘“!

D
w
lo
a
Q.
\

o; ' wanna»?
mg. :qeixnfl

._- ".M' :2: sonata!)

em: than

. . P.
: 'csore 203nm“) 0"“‘135

, eme’fij‘l :1“ "

anrmffi‘! if

PICTURE ACT I

CAPTAIN SHOTCVER'S ROOM

w1vq_

 

m

Ji‘l’lvl‘ 'l . \

.i£.nl.ll‘|l\ 1 .i ’u':

‘ I'.‘.n I ll"..'ncli.. I..‘o

 

 

PI C'I'URE ACT I

"YOU OUGHT TO KISS FE."

~171-

 

PICTURE ACT II

"I REALLY 1mm: 13's laws HYPI-IOTI ZED."

—172-

 

PICTURE ACT III

u3 GARDEN

-175-

t ' ‘ <
‘35»)

85%. .

I,

’

~
A
‘4
--
’

..
a.

. I ‘

o

‘1 ,.

. .2.
1,5 x; q A

A; w'

J;

s

 

3
PI C'I'URE ACT III

"HORSE 1 WHAT RUBBISH'."

 

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSI 0N8

CHAPTER V

CONCLTTS I CNS

As noted in the introduction to this thesis, the problems encount—

ered in this production of Heartbreak House was three fold in nature:

 

a. supplying the setting for a play by George Bernard Shaw; b. adapting
the setting to the provisions of a small stage with limited facilities;
and c. the planning and execution of the plans for the actual production.

As a playwright ShaW'is inclined to give specific orders to his di-
rectors and actors in his dialogue and stage directions. The designer
in looking for the same instructions must often be content with a few
scattered references to the setting. However, Shaw does put an obliga-
tion on the designer'by asking himrto supply the physical background for
his dialogue and directors. The designer finds himself working back
thru the script in solving his problem.rather than going forward on the
specific details written.by the author.

In the theatre, interpretation may be given to a production by the
playwright, the director, and designer. Since ShaW'is so specific on
many points, the designer and director must carefully work together to
insure the coordination of a unified interpretation. Although Shaw'may
encourage some personal interpretation of his plays by those producing
them, he is apt to be autocratic in that he clearly states his wants in
the script itself, his prefaces, or letters to those who are producing
his plays.

One other factor that the designer is forced to recognize is the

fact that there has been a great deal of tradition that has grown up over

-l75-

the years in the production of the Shaw plays. Hardly a season goes

by that does not find Shaw listed as one of the contributing play-

1,2

wrights. Revivals in recent years of his Candida, Pygmalion, Man

 

and Superman, The Devil's Disciple, Getting married, You Never Can Tell,

 

and Caesar and Cleopatra are proof that although most of these plays

 

were written many years ago there is an appeal in these plays to modern
audiences. Even though Mr. ShaW'is still writing, his work is held in
such high esteem.by the theatre people that many of the methods of pro-
duction have become set by the manner in which the plays have been done,
and the work of the Theatre Guild, Katherine Cornell, and Naurice Evans
have set a high standard for any future Shaw production. Although the
reference material was available on the Theatre Guild production of

Heartbreak House in 1920, few of the specific details could be adapted

 

for this present production. However, many of the ideas were helpful
in working out the adaption.

In adapting the setting to the limitations of a small stage, the
designer found that it was possible to simplify the settings and stag-
ing from.a “high-pooped ship", as described by Shaw; to that of an
English interior inhabited by a seafaring gentleman and still retain
the essential message of the play and provide for the action needed.

Because of the type of scenery described by Shaw could not be

shifted successfully on the small stage, the designer had to select the

 

1 Daniel Blum, Editor, Theatre world, (New York: Stuyvesant Press
Corpa), Vols. Iv, v, and VI.

2 Burns Mantle, "The Season in New York and "Plays Produced in
NeW'York", The Burns mantle Best Plays(New York: Dodd Mead,
and Co., 1947, 1948, 1949 editions?

 

 

-l76-

essential details of the scenery in a simplified form. The wood panel-
ing suggested an English home; the curved windows, doors, maps, and
barometer suggested the influence of the sea; and the garden wall with
shafts of blue light suggested the essential features of the garden.

The planning and execution of the plans for a production on a small
stage have been done many times; however, this study has indicated that
exacting scenery demands of a playwright may be adapted to a small stage
and still support the play. In working out the detail, constant sight
had to be turned to the shifting problems. The method of leaving Set I
on stage and masking it off was quite adequate because the black masking
material was essential to the moonless garden scene.

The general opinion.among members of the audience was that the
garden scene was more striking than the interior scene. This may be
explained by the fact that audiences see interior sets frequently, and
the audience, which was familiar with Studio Theatre, was surprised that
such an exterior could be created on that stage with the methods of shift-
ing available.

Once again, the fact must be emphasized that this study was not the
first one which dealt with staging a difficult play in limited space
wdth few facilities. The interesting result of the work done was that
Shaw's plays would stand simplification and that with intelligent use
of a few units of equipment by both the director and designer, the
audience was satisfied and even pleased with what they saw. Once again,
this designer demonstrated to his own satisfaction that an elaborate pro-

duction layout, although convenient, wasn't absolutely essential. This

-l77-

project was also of benefit to the designer because it was illustrative
to him of what can be done with stages which are often found in the

educational theatre, a field in which he hopes to enter.

-l78-

v w

 

 

 

 

Studio Theater Actors
Delight Small Audience

By ED ACKLEY

 

Typical George Ecrnard Shaw humor was displayed last
night in Studio Theater and the cast of ten MSC students por- 4
trayed “Heartbreak House” with such zest and reality that .
the small audience was kept in constant humor despite the I

. great length of the play.

The two actors who display-~
ed an exceptional amount of
theatrical talent were Gloria‘
Gluski, who played Hesione, and
Robert Henderson, who took the
part of the old retired sea captain.'

The acting of the former, as the
captain’s oldest daughter, was ex- {
tremely' good. - She put across the1
Shavian humor with perfectness.
Her manner and speech were per-
fectly cast by Director William
Gregory.

Henderson, as the old captain,
was the mouthpiece of the author
'himself. The dialogue was loaded
'with humorous dynamite and Hen-
derson portrayed it with great apt-
ness. '

The story concerns a captain‘s‘

daughter, Hesione, who invites her

“friend, Ellie Dunn, to visit at thef
captain‘s home. She wants to Showi
Ellie the bad points about her fu-f

lure marriage to Boss Mangan.

Last night's presentation started,
out on a very high plane and fal-
tercd a little in the second act but
-the final act was lifted above the
highly entertaining initial act.

One reason for the second act
faltering was a scene between
lMiss Gluski and Sherwood Bader,
,as Boss Mangan. Up to this point,
'the play was kept on an enter-
taining level, with touches of flar-
ing tempers, but at this point Hes-
ione drives Mangan to tears and
iBader’s attempt at a crying scene
lwas sheer corn. It was not atall.

realistic and he; received anything.

but sympathy from the audience. .-

Bader‘s second attempt at emo—~
tion in the final act was greeted
with loud laughter from the. and;

:ience as he left the stage in a flood '

Z of tears.

"Heartbreak House“ was a very ;

good play selection for the college
stage as it combined humor, phil-
os'Ophy and a social standard
which delight a college audience.
L, _ _______'___ . ‘ _

~179-

--.v.-;_ _.»....__.

 

 

MI CHI CAN S TATE NEWS

Friday, l"arch 31, 1950

BIBLIOGRAPHY

R 0 01:8

 

Bently, Eric, Bernard Shaw. Norfolk, Connecticut: The Vail-Fallon
Press, 1947. 242 pp.

Blum, Daniel, editor, Theatre world, Vols. IV, V, VI. NeW'York:
The Stuyvesant Press Corp.,‘1947-50.

 

Broad, C. Laws, and Violet N. Broad, Dictiora * to the Plays and Novels
2E Bernard Shaw; New York: Tacmillan Co., 1929. 231 pp.

 

 

Burris-Meyer, Harold, and E. C. Cole, Scenery for the Theatre. Boston:
Little, Brown and Company, 1946. 473 pp. !

 

Dean, Alexander, Fundamenta1§_2£ Play Direction. New York: Rinehart
and Co. Inc., 1946. 428 pp.

 

 

Gassner, John, Philo N. Puck, H. S. Alberson, 5 Treasury of the Theatre.
New York: The Dryden Press, 1940. 898 pp.

 

Gassner, John, editor, Producing the Play. New York: The Dryden Press,
1941. 744 pp.

Gassner, John, "asters of the Drama. New York: Dover Publications,
1945. 804 pp.

 

Harris, Frank, Bernard Shaw. NeW'York: Simon, and Schuster, 1931.
430 pp.

 

Henderson, Archibald, Is Bernard Shaw A Dramatist? New York: Mitchell
Kennerley, 1929. 33 pp.

 

Irvine, William, The Universe 3£_G.B.S. New York: Whittlesey House,
1949. 439 pp.

 

Mantle, Burns, The Burns Nantle Best Plays. New York: Dodd, Mead, and
Co., 1947, 1948, & 1949 editions.

 

Selden, Samuel, and Hunton D. Sellman, Stage Scenery and lightigg.
NeW'York: Appleton, Century, CrOTts, Inc.,11936. 435 pp.

 

Simonson, Lee, Part 23 fl Lifetime. NeW'York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce,
Inc., 1943. 80 pp.

Simonson, Lee, The Stage 13 Set. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co.,
1932. 585 pp.

Shaw, Bernard, Androcles and the lion, Overruled, Pygmalion. New York:
Brentano's, 1923. 224 pp.

 

 

Shaw, George Bernard, Dramatic Opinions and Essays'With an Apology'by
Bernard Shaw; Vol} 1, New York: Brentano's, 1907. 301 pp.

 

 

Shaw, George Bernard, Dramatic Gpinions and Essays With ag.Apology Ex
Bernard Shaw. Vol. I}, New York: Brentano's, 1907. 307 pp.

 

 

Shaw, Bernard, HeartbreaE_House, Great Catherine, and Playlets 2: the
War. NeW'York: Brentano's, 1919. 295 pp.

 

Shaw, Bernard, The Doctor's Dilemma. New York: Brentano's, 1911. 116 pp.

 

Shaw; Bernard, Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant. Vol. II. New York:
Brentano's,'1912. 340 pp.

 

Newspapers

 

Michigan State News (Michigan State College, East Lansing), Harch 31,
1950.

 

Periodicals

 

HcGowan, Kenneth, "The NeW'Season," Theatre Arts Magazine, 5: 3-14,
January, 1921.

 

Shaw, G. 8., "Bake Them Do It well,“ Colliers, 69: 3, June 24, 1922.

Shaw, G. B., "Shaw's Rules for Directors," Theatre Arts, 38: 6-11,
August, 1949.

 

Unpublished Materials

 

Gregory, William Alfred Jr., A Production of George Bernard Shaw's
Heartbreak House on a Small Stage and a written Analysis of the
Directing Problems Involved.“ Unpublished master's thesis,
Michigan State College, East Lansing, Michigan, 1950. 242 pp.

 

~181-

”“S‘fl USE [lliLY * -

.t ‘3 'hn 5“",

.rept‘tfi- “N

l

l

, .. x - - l
WW“ ”it’s-:12. >~fritsfi‘%9-“:-n f
a. 3",.“ "’ - U). ‘ '

  
     

   
  

   

   
  
 
  
  

... . ‘ ' 5" _" ‘ ‘1: [iii '
' a" - ‘ "' ._ $4.0 . \"75?
.Q K Let.) C 5. ¢I . L.

 

 

. I- "a .
.- 5|“ ‘f’r ~
.‘. I.

W“.

-

I‘E‘J? 7’: .A'_ I '
fray..- .-

1’3”»

Di:
. ii, ‘03, -

“

 

 

 

  

    
 
 
 

., it’ll ~ 1" ~ - '
r‘. f’:. l'-‘ - ’1
' it.... 4‘; _‘yy. " -' ‘ fr. 7 ‘o ‘17: ‘
$11, _ .,' - 4‘5”“- . ‘1,,1-.|.
, o . f~ '4'! 1151i." ‘l--c .':k%#"l f". ,3 4 . w i.‘ .
l I 0' “. ‘ i. _ f :/.!'.l‘ In. . .:€ * ‘ lix‘ ’ V..f - ‘. rifit‘ .
‘ a ' t; =._ 2%- .- . g$€t , ~ A "' 6.;
_ _ _ 4 I ’ 4's - . t ,.- ' 31-
' “ Nag!“- 1: u . ~’ 1'. ‘3 ' ' 'g‘; "- '
.7-. . yr?!" Igfi‘xld a. .'_
' N ' I; d. A, “fé“ ‘ i I alv‘l
. - - i. 'f .I' 143:,

e ' .‘f.
. ' o. "' ‘.'
.., { 14,311. “‘1"
" ‘ 1" 33).", . 'v
, ro'
. \
“van-.1..- ..

   

 

 
  

—

. l
4..
'1‘

     

f ‘. l

..." -- ‘. "o". l" int

"5. 'I‘I-l.\l fl” . ‘02:I.(14" ?§.Jo . . ,

. " w; ‘ " " ' ' V -.',-‘1.-' '7‘ " .u -' ‘2 ' ’

‘ $fi. E ”’5‘! N"V 9;. "ll - i" '10! ‘2‘: ; . . l 2". . 1' . D

I

 

~“ M-.. Hag-cu a