The Real Inspector Hound and Other Plays

by Tom Stoppard

  (Enter LADY MACBETH.)

  How now? What news? Hath he asked for me?

  LADY MACBETH:

  Know you not he has?

  MACBETH:

  We will proceed no further in this business.

  LADY MACBETH:

  And live a coward in thine own esteem,

  Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’,

  Like the poor cat i’ the adage?

  But screw your courage to the sticking place,

  And we’ll not fail. When Duncan is asleep—

  What cannot you and I perform upon

  The unguarded Duncan?

  (BANQUO is approaching.)

  MACBETH:

  (Off-stage) Who’s there?

  MACBETH goes to meet him at window, LADY

  MACBETH behind.)

  BANQUO:

  (From window.) A friend.

  What, sir, not yet at rest? The King’s a-bed.

  I dreamt last night of the three sisters.

  To you they have showed some truth.

  MACBETH:

  I think not of them. Good repose the while.

  BANQUO:

  Thanks, sir; the like to you.

  (MACBETH closes shutters.)

  MACBETH:

  Is this a dagger which I see before me,

  The handle towards my hand? Come, let me clutch thee—

  I have thee not and yet I see thee still!

  (A bell sounds.)

  I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.

  Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell

  That summons thee to heaven or to hell.

  (Exit MACBETH. Sounds of owls and crickets. Enter

  LADY MACBETH holding a goblet.)

  LADY MACBETH:

  That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold;

  The doors are open, and the surfeited grooms

  Do mock their charge with snores; I have drugged their possets.

  (Owl and crickets.)

  I laid their daggers ready.

  Had he not resembled

  My father as he slept, I had done’t.

  (Enter MACBETH carrying two blood-stained daggers.)

  My husband!

  MACBETH:

  I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?

  LADY MACBETH:

  I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.

  (A police siren is heard approaching the house. During the following dialogue the car arrives and the car doors are heard to slam.)

  MACBETH:

  There’s one did laugh in ’s sleep, and one cried ‘Murder!’

  One cried ’God bless us!’ and ‘Amen’ the other,

  (Siren stops.)

  As they had seen me with these hangman’s hands.

  LADY MACBETH:

  Consider it not so deeply.

  These deeds must not be thought

  After these ways; so, it will make us mad.

  MACBETH:

  Methought I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more!

  Macbeth does murder sleep’—

  (Sharp rapping.)

  Whence is that knocking?

  (Sharp rapping.)

  How is’t with me when every noise appals me?

  LADY MACBETH:

  My hands are of your colour; but I shame

  To wear a heart so white.

  Retire we to our chamber.

  MACBETH:

  Wake Duncan with thy knocking! (Sharp rapping.)

  I would thou couldst!

  (They leave. The knocking off-stage continues. A door, off-stage, opens and closes. The door into the room opens and the INSPECTOR enters an empty room. He seems surprised to find himself where he is. He affects a sarcastic politeness.)

  INSPECTOR: Oh—I’m sorry—is this the National Theatre?

  (A woman, the HOSTESS, approaches through the audience.)

  HOSTESS: No.

  INSPECTOR: It isn’t? Wait a minute—I could have made a mistake … is it the National Academy of Dramatic Art, or, as we say down Mexico way, NADA? … No? I’m utterly nonplussed. I must have got my wires crossed somewhere. (He is wandering around the room, looking at the walls and ceiling.)

  Testing, testing—one, two, three …

  (To the ceiling. In other words the room is bugged for sound.)

  Is it the home of the Bohemian Light Opera?

  HOSTESS: It’s my home.

  INSPECTOR: (Surprised) You live here?

  HOSTESS: Yes.

  INSPECTOR: Don’t you find it rather inconvenient, having a lot of preening exhibitionists projecting their voices around the place?—and that’s just the audience. I mean, who wants to be packed out night after night by a crowd of fashionable bronchitics saying ‘I don’t think it’s as good as his last one,’ and expecting to use your lavatory at will? Not to mention putting yourself at the mercy of any Tom, Dick or Bertolt who can’t universalize our predicament without playing ducks and drakes with your furniture arrangements. I don’t know why you put up with it. You’ve got your rights.

  (Nosing around he picks up a tea-cosy to reveal a telephone.) You’ve even got a telephone. I can see you’re not at the bottom of the social heap. What do you do?

  HOSTESS: I’m an artist.

  INSPECTOR: (Cheerfully) Well it’s not the first time I’ve been wrong. Is this ’phone practical?

  (To ceiling again.) Six seven eight one double one.

  (He replaces the receiver.)

  Yes, if you had any pride in your home you wouldn’t take standing-room only in your sitting-room lying down.

  (The telephone rings in his hand. He lifts it up.)

  Six seven eight: one double one? Clear as a bell. Who do you want?

  (He looks round.)

  Is Roger here?

  (Into the ’phone.)

  Roger who? Roger and out?

  (He removes the ‘phone from his ear and frowns at it.)

  Didn’t even say goodbye. Whatever happened to the tradition of old-world courtesy in this country?

  (He puts the ‘phone down just as ‘MACBETH’ and ‘LADY MACBETH’ re-enter the room.)

  Who are you, pig-face?

  ‘MACBETH’: Landovsky.

  INSPECTOR: The actor?

  ‘MACBETH’: The floor-cleaner in a boiler factory.

  INSPECTOR: That’s him. I’m a great admirer of yours, you know.

  I’ve followed your career for years.

  ‘MACBETH’: I haven’t worked for years.

  INSPECTOR: What are you talking about?—I saw you last season—

  my wife was with me …

  ‘MACBETH’: It couldn’t have been me.

  INSPECTOR: It was you—you looked great—sounded great—where were you last year?

  ‘MACBETH’: I was selling papers in—

  INSPECTOR: (Triumphantly)—the newspaper kiosk at the tram terminus, and you were wonderful! I said to my wife, that’s Landovsky—the actor—isn’t he great?! What a character! Wonderful voice! “Getcha paper!”—up from here (He thumps his chest.)—no strain, every syllable given its value … Well, well, well, so now you’re sweeping floors, eh? I remember you from way back. I remember you when you were a night-watchman in the builder’s yard, and before that when you were the trolley porter at the mortuary, and before that when you were the button-moulder in Peer Gynt … Actually, Pavel, you’ve had a funny sort of career—it’s not my business, of course, but … do you know what you want? It’s my opinion that the public is utterly confused about your intentions. Is this where you saw it all leading to when you started off so bravely all those years ago? I remember you in your first job. You were a messenger—post office, was it …?

  ‘MACBETH’: Antony and Cleopatra.

  INSPECTOR: Right!—You see—I’m utterly confused myself. Tell me Pavel, why did you give it all up? You were a star! I saw your Hamlet, your Stanley Kowolski—I saw your Romeo with what’s her name—wonderful girl, whatever happened to her? Oh my God, don’t
tell me!—could I have your autograph, it’s not for me, it’s for my daughter—

  ‘LADY MACBETH’: I’d rather not—the last time I signed something

  I didn’t work for two years.

  INSPECTOR: Now, look, don’t blame us if the parts just stopped coming. Maybe you got over-exposed.

  ‘LADY MACBETH’: I was working in a restaurant at the time.

  INSPECTOR: (Imperturbably) There you are, you see. The public’s very funny about that sort of thing. They don’t want to get dressed up and arrange a baby-sitter only to find that they’ve paid good money to see Hedda Gabler done by a waitress. I’m beginning to understand why your audience is confined to your circle of acquaintances. (To audience.) Don’t move. I mean, it gives one pause, doesn’t it? ‘Tonight Macbeth will be played by Mr Landovsky who last season scored a personal success in the newspaper kiosk at the tram terminus and has recently been seen washing the floors in number three boiler factory. The role of Lady Macbeth is in the capable hands of Vera from The Dirty Spoon’ … It sounds like a rough night.

  (The words ‘rough night’ operate as a cue for the entrance of the actor playing MACDUFF.

  Enter MACDUFF.)

  MACDUFF: O horror, horror, horror!

  Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!

  INSPECTOR: What’s your problem, sunshine? Don’t tell me you’ve found a corpse—I come here to be taken out of myself, not to be shown a reflection of the banality of my own life. Why don’t you go out and come in again. I’ll get out of the way. Is this seat taken?

  HOSTESS: I’m afraid the performance is not open to the public.

  (Enter ‘ROSS’, ‘BANQUO’, ‘MALCOLM’, but not acting.)

  INSPECTOR: I should hope not indeed. That would be acting without authority—acting without authority!—you’d never believe I make it up as I go along … Right!—sorry to have interrupted.

  (He sits down. Pause.)

  Any time you’re ready.

  (The HOSTESS retires. The ACTORS remain standing on the stage, unco-operative, taking their lead from ‘MACBETH’. The INSPECTOR leaves his seat and approaches ‘MACBETH’.)

  INSPECTOR: (To ‘MACBETH’.) NOW listen, you stupid bastard, you’d better get rid of the idea that there’s a special Macbeth which you do when I’m not around, and some other Macbeth for when I am around which isn’t worth doing. You’ve only got one Macbeth. Because I’m giving this party and there ain’t no other. It’s what we call a one-party system. I’m the cream in your coffee, the sugar in your tank, and the breeze blowing down your neck. So let’s have a little of the old trouper spirit, because if I walk out of this show I take it with me.

  (He goes back to his seat and says genially to audience.)

  So sorry to interrupt.

  (He sits down, ‘MACBETH’ is still unco-operative, ‘ROSS’ takes the initiative. He talks quietly to ‘BANQUO’, who leaves to make his entrance again, ‘LADY MACBETH’ goes behind screen stage left.)

  ROSS:

  Goes the King hence today? (Pause)

  MACBETH:

  He does; he did appoint so.

  (The acting is quick and casual.)

  ROSS:

  The night has been unruly.

  MACBETH:

  ’Twas a rough night.

  (MACDUFF enters as before.)

  MACDUFF:

  O horror, horror, horror!

  Confusion now hath made his masterpiece.

  Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope

  The Lord’s anointed temple and stole thence

  The life of the building.

  MACBETH:

  What is’t you say? The life? Mean you His Majesty?

  BANQUO:

  Ring the alarum bell. Murder and treason.

  LADY MACBETH:

  What’s the business,

  Speak, speak!

  MACDUFF:

  O gentle lady,

  ’Tis not for you to hear what I can speak.

  (Alarum bell sounds.)

  Our royal master’s murdered.

  LADY MACBETH:

  Woe, alas! What, in our house!

  ROSS:

  Too cruel, anywhere.

  MACBETH:

  (Enters with bloody daggers.) Had I but died an hour before this chance

  I had lived a blessed time; far from this instant

  There’s nothing serious in mortality.

  All is but toys; renown and grace is dead,

  The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees

  Is left this vault to brag of.

  (Enter MALCOLM.)

  MALCOLM:

  What is amiss?

  MACBETH:

  You are, and do not know’t.

  MACDUFF:

  Your royal father’s murdered.

  MALCOLM:

  By whom?

  MACBETH:

  Those of his chamber, as it seemed, had done’t:

  Their hands and faces were all badged with blood:

  So were these daggers which unwip’t we found upon their pillows;

  Oh yet I do repent me of my fury

  That I did kill them.

  MALCOLM:

  Wherefore did you so?

  LADY MACBETH:

  (Swooning) Help me hence, ho!

  MACBETH:

  Look to the lady!

  MACDUFF:

  Look to the lady!

  (LADY MACBETH is being taken out.)

  MACBETH:

  Let us briefly put on manly readiness

  And meet in the hall together.

  (All, except MALCOLM exeunt.)

  MALCOLM:

  (Aside) To show an unfelt sorrow is an office

  Which the false man does easy. I’ll to England.

  This murderous shaft that’s shot

  Hath not yet lighted; and our safest way

  Is to avoid the aim. Therefore to horse.

  (Exit.)

  MACDUFF:

  Malcolm and Donalbain, the King’s two sons,

  Are stolen away and fled, which puts upon them

  Suspicion of the deed.

  ROSS:

  Then ’tis most like

  The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth?

  MACDUFF:

  He is already named and gone to Scone

  To be invested.

  (Fanfare.

  They leave the stage, MACBETH in cloak crowns

  himself standing above screen.

  The INSPECTOR applauds and steps forward into the light.)

  INSPECTOR: Very good. Very good! And so nice to have a play with a happy ending for a change.

  (Other ACTORS come on-stage in general light.)

  (To LADY MACBETH.) Darling, you were marvellous.

  ‘LADY MACBETH’: I’m not your darling.

  INSPECTOR: I know, and you weren’t marvellous either, but when in Rome parlezvous as the natives do. Actually, I thought you were better on the radio.

  ‘LADY MACBETH’: I haven’t been on radio.

  INSPECTOR: You’ve been on mine.

  (To the general audience the INSPECTOR says.) Please don’t leave the building. You may use the lavatory but leave the door open.

  (To MACBETH.)

  Stunning! Incredible! Absolutely fair to middling.

  ‘MACBETH’: You were rubbish!

  INSPECTOR: Look, just because I didn’t laugh out loud it doesn’t mean I wasn’t enjoying it. (To HOSTESS.) Which one were you?

  HOSTESS: I’m not in it.

  INSPECTOR: You’re in it, up to here. It’s pretty clear to me that this flat is being used for entertaining men. There is a law about that, you know.

  HOSTESS: I don’t think Macbeth is what was meant.

  INSPECTOR: Who’s to say what was meant? Words can be your friend or your enemy, depending on who’s throwing the book, so watch your language. (He passes a finger over the furniture.) Look at this! Filthy! If this isn’t a disorderly house I’ve never seen one, and I have seen one. I’ve had this
place watched you know.

  HOSTESS: I know.

  INSPECTOR: Gave themselves away, did they?

  HOSTESS: It was the uniforms mainly, and standing each side of the door.

  INSPECTOR: My little team. Boris and Maurice.

  HOSTESS: One of them examined everyone’s papers and the other one took down the names.

  INSPECTOR: Yes, one of them can read and the other one can write. That’s why we go around in threes—I have to keep an eye on those bloody intellectuals.

  ‘MACDUFF’: Look, what the hell do you want? INSPECTOR: I want to know who’s in tonight.

  (He looks at a list of names in his notebook and glances over the audience.)

  HOSTESS: They are all personal friends of mine.

  INSPECTOR: Now let’s see who we’ve got here. (Looking at the list.) Three stokers, two labourers, a van-driver’s mate, janitors, street cleaners, a jobbing gardener, painter and decorator, chambermaid, two waiters, farmhand…. You seem to have cracked the problem of the working-class audience. If there isn’t a catch I’ll put you up as a heroine of the revolution. I mean, the counter-revolution. No, I tell a lie, I mean the normalization—Yes, I know. Who is that horny-handed son of the soil?

  (The INSPECTOR points his torch at different people in the audience.)

  HOSTESS: (Looking into the audience.) Medieval historian …