Act 1 Maule

Question 1

Eriksson: Mr. Maule

Answer 1

How do you do?

Question 2

Maule: How do you do?

Answer 2

This is my wife - Mr. Maule. She just popped in for a minute and is now about to pop out again.

Question 3

Liz: Don’t forget Garry I’ll be sitting by the telephone.

Answer 3

I’ll remember. (To Maule) Please sit down won’t you?

Question 4

Thank you.

Answer 4

Cigarette?

Question 5

No, thank you.

Answer 5

Don’t you smoke?

Question 6

No.

Answer 6

Drink?

Question 7

No, thank you.

Answer 7

How old are you?

Question 8

Twenty-five. Why?

Answer 8

It doesn’t really matter - I just wondered.

Question 9

How old are you?

Answer 9

Forty in December - Jupiter you know - very energetic.

Question 10

Yes, of course.

Answer 10

So - you’ve come all the way from Uckfield.

Question 11

It isn’t very far.

Answer 11

Well, it sort of sounds far, doesn’t it?

Question 12

Mon: It’s a sweet little thing, but it looks far from well.

Answer 12

What did she want?

Question 13

Her sister.

Answer 13

Well, we haven’t got HER, have we?

Question 14

She lives two doors down in the mews. It was all a mistake.

Answer 14

This is my secretary, Miss Reed - Mr. Maule.

Question 15

(about script) Thank you very much.

Answer 15

Quickly!

Question 16

Mon: Yes, dear.

Answer 16

Sit down. I want to talk to you about your play.

Question 17

I expect you hated it.

Answer 17

Well, to be candid, I thought it was a little uneven.

Question 18

I thought you’d say that.

Answer 18

I’m glad I’m running so true to form.

Question 19

I mean it really isn’t the sort of thing you would like, is it?

Answer 19

In that case why on earth did you send it to me?

Question 20

I thought you just might like to have a shot at something deeper.

Answer 20

What is there in your play that you consider so deep, Mr. Maule? Apart from the plot which is completely submerged after the first four pages.

Question 21

Plots aren’t important, it’s ideas that matter. Look at Chekov.

Answer 21

In addition to ideas I think we might concede Chekov a certain flimsy sense of psychology, don’t you?

Question 22

You mean my play isn’t psychologically accurate?

Answer 22

It isn’t very good, you know, really it isn’t.

Question 23

I think it’s very good indeed.

Answer 23

I understand that perfectly, but you must admit that my opinion might be the right one, based on a lifelong experience of the theatre.

Question 24

The commercial theatre.

Answer 24

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

Question 25

All those old arguments. What you don’t realize is that the theatre of the future is the theatre of ideas.

Answer 25

That may be, but at the moment I am occupied with the theatre of the present.

Question 26

All you do with your talent is to wear dressing-gowns and make witty remarks when you might be really helping people, making them think! Making them feel

Answer 26

There can be no two opinions about it. I am having a most discouraging morning.

Question 27

you’d better do something about it quickly. There isn’t a moment to be lost.

Answer 27

I don’t give a hoot about posterity. Why should I worry about what people think of me when I’m dead as a doornail anyway? My worst defect is that I am apt to worry too much about what people think of me when I’m alive. But I’m not going to do that any more. I’m changing my methods and you’re my first experiment. (Rise) As a rule, when insufferable young beginners have the impertinence to criticize me, I dismiss the whole thing lightly because I’m embarrassed for them and consider it night quite fair game to puncture their inflated egos too sharply. But this time, my highbrow young friend, you’re going to get it in the neck. To begin with your play is not a play at all. It’s a meaningless jumble of adolescent, pseudo-intellectual poppycock. It bears no relation to the theatre or to life or to anything. (Crosses to chair center) And you yourself wouldn’t be here at all if I hadn’t been bloody fool enough to pick the telephone when my secretary wasn’t looking. Now that you are here, however, I would like to tell you this. If you wish to be a playwright you just leave the theatre of tomorrow to take care of itself. Go and get yourself a job as a butler in a repertory company if they’ll have you. Learn from the ground up how plays are constructed and what is actable and what isn’t. Then sit down and write at least twenty plays one after another, and if you can manage to get the twenty-first produced on a Sunday night performance you’ll be God-damned lucky!

Question 28

I’d no idea you were like this. You’re wonderful!

Answer 28

My God!

Question 29

and if you hadn’t got angry I shouldn’t have known what you were really like

Answer 29

You don’t in the least know what I’m really like.

Question 30

Oh yes, I do-now.

Answer 30

I can’t see that it matters anyway.

Question 31

It matters to me.

Answer 31

Why?

Question 32

Do you really want to know?

Answer 32

What are you talking about?

Question 33

It’s rather difficult to explain really.

Answer 33

What is difficult to explain?

Question 34

What I feel about you?

Answer 34

Now-look here, young man.

Question 35

one week I came every night, because I was up in town trying to pass an exam.

Answer 35

Did you pass it?

Question 36

No, I didn’t.

Answer 36

I’m not entirely surprised.

Question 37

studying psychology a great deal because I felt somehow that I wasn’t at peace with myself and gradually, bit by bit, I began to realize that you signified something to me.

Answer 37

What sort of something?

Question 38

I don’t quite know –not yet.

Answer 38

That “not yet” is one of the most sinister remarks I’ve ever heard.

Question 39

Don’t laugh at me, please. I’m always sick if anyone laughs at me.

Answer 39

You really are the most peculiar young man.

Question 40

I’m all right now, though I feel fine!

Answer 40

I’m delighted.

Question 41

Can I come and see you again?

Answer 41

I’m afraid I’m going to Africa.

Question 42

Would you see me if I came to Africa too?

Answer 42

Oh, no - no, I think you’d be much happier in Uckfield.

Question 43

I feel much better now because I think I shall be able to sublimate you all right.

Answer 43

Good! Now I’m afraid I shall have to turn you out because I’m expecting my manager and we have some business to discuss.

Question 44

It’s all right I’m going immediately.

Answer 44

I’ll get you your script.

Question 45

I see that now. Goodbye - goodbye.

Answer 45

Goodbye.