Act 1 Maule Flashcards
Eriksson: Mr. Maule
How do you do?
Maule: How do you do?
This is my wife - Mr. Maule. She just popped in for a minute and is now about to pop out again.
Liz: Don’t forget Garry I’ll be sitting by the telephone.
I’ll remember. (To Maule) Please sit down won’t you?
Thank you.
Cigarette?
No, thank you.
Don’t you smoke?
No.
Drink?
No, thank you.
How old are you?
Twenty-five. Why?
It doesn’t really matter - I just wondered.
How old are you?
Forty in December - Jupiter you know - very energetic.
Yes, of course.
So - you’ve come all the way from Uckfield.
It isn’t very far.
Well, it sort of sounds far, doesn’t it?
Mon: It’s a sweet little thing, but it looks far from well.
What did she want?
Her sister.
Well, we haven’t got HER, have we?
She lives two doors down in the mews. It was all a mistake.
This is my secretary, Miss Reed - Mr. Maule.
(about script) Thank you very much.
Quickly!
Mon: Yes, dear.
Sit down. I want to talk to you about your play.
I expect you hated it.
Well, to be candid, I thought it was a little uneven.
I thought you’d say that.
I’m glad I’m running so true to form.
I mean it really isn’t the sort of thing you would like, is it?
In that case why on earth did you send it to me?
I thought you just might like to have a shot at something deeper.
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.
Plots aren’t important, it’s ideas that matter. Look at Chekov.
In addition to ideas I think we might concede Chekov a certain flimsy sense of psychology, don’t you?
You mean my play isn’t psychologically accurate?
It isn’t very good, you know, really it isn’t.
I think it’s very good indeed.
I understand that perfectly, but you must admit that my opinion might be the right one, based on a lifelong experience of the theatre.
The commercial theatre.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
All those old arguments. What you don’t realize is that the theatre of the future is the theatre of ideas.
That may be, but at the moment I am occupied with the theatre of the present.
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
There can be no two opinions about it. I am having a most discouraging morning.
you’d better do something about it quickly. There isn’t a moment to be lost.
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!
I’d no idea you were like this. You’re wonderful!
My God!
and if you hadn’t got angry I shouldn’t have known what you were really like
You don’t in the least know what I’m really like.
Oh yes, I do-now.
I can’t see that it matters anyway.
It matters to me.
Why?
Do you really want to know?
What are you talking about?
It’s rather difficult to explain really.
What is difficult to explain?
What I feel about you?
Now-look here, young man.
one week I came every night, because I was up in town trying to pass an exam.
Did you pass it?
No, I didn’t.
I’m not entirely surprised.
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.
What sort of something?
I don’t quite know –not yet.
That “not yet” is one of the most sinister remarks I’ve ever heard.
Don’t laugh at me, please. I’m always sick if anyone laughs at me.
You really are the most peculiar young man.
I’m all right now, though I feel fine!
I’m delighted.
Can I come and see you again?
I’m afraid I’m going to Africa.
Would you see me if I came to Africa too?
Oh, no - no, I think you’d be much happier in Uckfield.
I feel much better now because I think I shall be able to sublimate you all right.
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.
It’s all right I’m going immediately.
I’ll get you your script.
I see that now. Goodbye - goodbye.
Goodbye.
