by Edward Albee
MAN
(To BOY and GIRL) No; the question is not who I think I am, but who I cannot be—the knowledge we all have of who we all cannot be, singularly, of course. I’ve lived long enough to understand that that is the most important question. Keep it in mind as you go on through it—both of you: what we cannot do; who we cannot be.
(WOMAN begins signing—clearly absurd signing-like gestures)
MAN
What are you doing?
WOMAN
Signing.
MAN
You know how? You know how to sign?
WOMAN
(Signing) It would seem so.
MAN
When did you learn? And why? Why did you learn?
WOMAN
(Shrugs; signs) It came upon me.
MAN
When?
WOMAN
Just now; I just realized I could do it.
MAN
Sign away.
WOMAN
(Signing; smiling) Thank you.
MAN
(Out now) Ignore her; I mean pay attention if you want to, but concentrate on me. I am talking; she is listening. Well, she is talking, too, in a way, but following me. She listens and then talks, almost simultaneously, but not quite. I … talk. I even listen as I talk—to myself, not to her. I can’t sign. (WOMAN stops signing) You’ve stopped.
WOMAN
It comes and goes. I’ve suddenly forgotten. You go on; I’ll catch up.
MAN
(Scoffs) With me? Never! (Out again) So. Who I cannot be. (To BOY and GIRL) Learn from this, children. (Out again) I cannot be young again; I cannot be a woman—therefore I cannot have babies, blah, blah, blah, if indeed I would have them, or could. (To GIRL) Eh, toots?
GIRL
Leave me alone!
BOY
(Gentle pleading) Leave her alone.
MAN
(To GIRL) But you asked … or he did: who I thought I was, et cetera. (In and out now) I would like, above all else, to be … historical and free-floating; I regret the people I have not met. I regret Jesus most of all. God! The questions! That’s in retrospect, of course … mostly. Still: to really … hear him. (To BOY and GIRL, who just look back) How many sentences do the scholars think are his in the testaments? Three? A half-dozen? (Dismissive gesture; back out) No education. To have been there; to have heard him speak. (To WOMAN) This is important.
WOMAN
I know, I know; I’ll try. (Begins signing again, badly, then better).
MAN
(In and out again; ecstatic) The Sermon on the Mount! Oh, my God! One could dine out on that … forever! The truth about the Last Supper? I almost don’t dare mention the Crucifixion! Would I have tried to stop it? Would He have made me not? Not tried? Was it what he wanted? The proof he needed?
WOMAN
(Stops signing) You go too far!
MAN
(Apologetic) I know, I know; madness lies that way.
GIRL
(Quiet begging) Please?
MAN
(To GIRL) Soon; soon, now. (To himself, mostly; shakes head) All the things I know I can never be, can never do, can never … undo. That’s the worst. (Ponders) All the things I can never be (Harsher now, to BOY and GIRL), including as sympathetic as you would like to your … what?—your “plight”? Your supposed plight? You who are probably not what you say you are—who you say you are.
BOY
(Weary) I’ve told you … a hundred times …
MAN
Yes yes yes, I know; you’re married—to one another … you have this baby.
BOY
Yes!
GIRL
Yes!
MAN
(Dismissive) Right; sure; and the Gypsies have taken it—or will, or have thought about it, at the very least, as Gypsies will.
(GIRL weeps; BOY takes her hand)
BOY
(Very serious; very calm) The baby is real; the baby is ours; we went to the hospital for her to have it. (GIRL nods, still weeping a little)
WOMAN
You go to the hospital a lot.
MAN
(Remembering) Yes! Yes, you do! You came to see me; I was on the stretcher; I was unconscious …
WOMAN
(To MAN; of BOY) … and he said to himself: “When he wakes up—if he wakes up—I’m going to be there …”
MAN
… and I’ll be the first person he sees, and he’ll love me; he’ll want me and he’ll love me; he’s my destination.
WOMAN
And he told them he was your brother.
MAN
(To BOY) And I woke up, and you were hard.
GIRL
It was me!
BOY
It was her!
GIRL
It was me!
MAN
(Pause) Oh?
WOMAN
(Pause) Oh?
BOY
(Dogged; almost in tears) Yes; yes. It was her; she woke up and I was hard.
MAN
(Surprise) It wasn’t me?! I remember you being hard.
WOMAN
(To BOY) We all do; we all remember you being hard.
MAN
Dick or no.
WOMAN
Dick or no.
MAN
And out popped the baby, the so-called baby?
BOY
When?
MAN
Then!
WOMAN
When-then.
BOY
No; that was when we met!
MAN
I remember; I woke up; the nurse said you were my brother, and you were hard.
BOY
(More dogged) No! Not then then; not that time! When we went to have the baby!
MAN
(Distant) I don’t remember. Was it me? I don’t remember.
WOMAN
Maybe it was me.
BOY
(To prove his existence; GIRL cries softly during this) I was in the kitchen, and she came in and she said, “My water broke; my water just broke!”
WOMAN
It was me! Yes; of course.
BOY
And I bundled her up, and we took a cab to the hospital. I called our baby doctor, and we raced off to the hospital.
MAN
(Shakes his head) Everyone’s a baby—even the doctor.
WOMAN
(To BOY) It isn’t water, you know. (To GIRL) It isn’t water.
BOY
(Determined) … and it wasn’t long; it didn’t take very long.
MAN
(Remembering giving birth) But it hurt! Oh, my God, it hurt! How it hurt me!
WOMAN
(Remembering) Oh, God, how it hurt me!
BOY
(Ibid) And I held her hand during it, and I squeezed and she squeezed …
(GIRL begins howling birthing sounds now, punctuating BOY’s speech; she stays seated; shows no emotion, hands in lap—merely howling)
BOY
… and she howled … and she howled … and she howled … and the sound was terrible, but I held on, we held on … the doctor and the nurses were all there … and the blood … and the blood came, and I’d never seen so much … blood, and then the baby came, the baby’s head came (GIRL ceases howling) … and the rest of it …
GIRL
(Hands going wide) WOOOOOOSSSSSSH!!
MAN
(Ecstasy) … and I’d never seen so much blood!
WOMAN
(Ecstasy) … I felt it! The blood, and then the baby …
BOY
(Ignoring them; maybe with a dismissive hand gesture) … and there it was; there was our baby.
GIRL
(Softer) Wooooossssssh.
WOMAN
(Shakes her head) Just like in the movies.
MAN
(Agreeing; suddenly understanding) Yes! (To BOY) You go to a lot of movies?
BOY
(Bewilde
red) Who? This wasn’t a movie!
WOMAN
It looked like one to me—all the trappings.
MAN
(To WOMAN) Yes! Didn’t it? When I had my baby …
WOMAN
The black one?
MAN
No; the green one; there was very little blood, no pain …
WOMAN
Well, you had a spinal.
MAN
Hmmmm! Yes, that may have had something to do with it. In any event, when I had my baby I had the Gypsies, too. The Gypsies came to me, too.
WOMAN
(Smiles) Too?
MAN
(Smiles) Whatever. But I was wise. (To GIRL) When I took my baby to the Gypsy …
WOMAN
The old Gypsy woman.
MAN
(Aside, to WOMAN) Whatever. (To GIRL again) When I took my baby to the Gypsy, I was smart; when they told me to put the baby in a big paper bag, I didn’t do it.
GIRL
(Weeping) No! I didn’t!
WOMAN
(To MAN) Of course you didn’t!
MAN
(Still to GIRL) I didn’t put it on the table, between me and the Gypsy.
WOMAN
Of course you didn’t!
MAN
(Still to GIRL) I didn’t see the lights go all funny, and hear the music.
WOMAN
Of course not!
MAN
(Still to GIRL) And I didn’t take the bag and bury it in the back yard for three weeks, so the baby could double, or whatever.
WOMAN
(Out) Twins!
GIRL
No! I didn’t!
BOY
She didn’t!
WOMAN
(To MAN) Of course you didn’t!
MAN
So that when it came time to dig it up …
GIRL
(Weeping) I … didn’t … do … that!
BOY
(Comforting her) No; no; of course you didn’t.
WOMAN
(Observing) Touching.
MAN
Or whatever.
GIRL
Please. My baby.
MAN
(Pause; brisk now) Well, time for the old blanket trick.
WOMAN
Oh; right! (Exiting right; to BOY and GIRL) I’ll be right back. (Out) I’ll be right back.
MAN
(To BOY and GIRL, as GIRL looks apprehensively off right) She’ll be right back. (Out) She’ll be right back.
BOY
(After a pause; shy; quietly fearful) Are you Gypsies?
MAN
(Laughs; to BOY) Do we look like Gypsies? Do we have fedoras and bushy mustaches …?
BOY
Whatever, then. Have you come to hurt us? Beyond salvation? Hurt us to the point that … if you want to do this to us, hurt us so, ask why! Ask what we’ve done. I can take pain and loss and all the rest later; I think I can—we can—when it comes as natural as … sleep? But … now? Not now. We’re happy; we love each other; I’m hard all the time; we have a baby; we don’t even understand each other yet. So … give us some time. (Pause) Please?
MAN
(After long pause; brisk) Time’s up.
(WOMAN re-enters with the baby blanket bundle, nuzzling. GIRL instinctively reaches toward bundle)
WOMAN
(Possessive) AH!
(GIRL withdraws)
BOY
(An echo from before) Please?
MAN
(Gentler) Time’s up. (WOMAN hands him the bundle. Out; a barker) Ladies and Gentlemen! See what we have here! The baby bundle! The old bundle of baby! (Throws it up in the air, catches it; GIRL screams)
BOY
(Desperate) Don’t do that!
WOMAN
(To BOY; comforting) He knows what he’s doing.
MAN
(To BOY and GIRL) I know what I’m doing. (Out again; in when necessary) The old baby bundle—treasure of treasures, light of our lives, purpose—they say—of all the fucking, all the … well, all the everything. Now the really good part, the part we’ve all been waiting for! (He takes the bundle, snaps it open, displays both sides; we see there is nothing there.) Shazaam! You see? Nothing! No baby! Nothing! (GIRL goes to blanket; MAN gives it to her; she searches it, cuddles it; weeps. To GIRL) You see? Nothing.
BOY
(Pause) You have decided then: you have decided to hurt us beyond salvation.
MAN
(Objective) I said: time’s up.
BOY
No matter how young we are? No matter how …
WOMAN
(Gentle) He said: time’s up.
MAN
I said: time’s up. Wounds, children, wounds. If you have no wounds, how can you know you’re alive? How can you know who you are? (BOY bows his head. To BOY and GIRL) Let us deal finally, once and for all, with the baby—I put it in quotes, “baby.” I want you to be certain, you have a baby? Have ever had a baby. (Pause) You have a baby?
(GIRL replies more and more tentatively; BOY stays firm)
(Don’t rush this section)
BOY
Yes.
GIRL
Yes.
(Pause)
MAN
You have a baby?
BOY
Yes.
GIRL
Yes.
(Pause)
WOMAN
You have a baby?
BOY
Yes.
GIRL
Yes.
(Pause)
MAN
You have a baby?
BOY
Yes.
GIRL
(Opens mouth; closes it)
BOY
(Tiny pause) Say something! (She shakes her head)
(Increasing intensity, and increased tempo here)
MAN
I’ll ask you once again. You have a baby?
BOY
(To GIRL) Tell him.
GIRL
(Finally) I don’t know.
BOY
Of course you know!
GIRL
No! I don’t know!
MAN
Once more: you have a baby?
BOY
(To GIRL) Tell him!!
WOMAN
(Gentle) Tell me, too.
BOY
Tell her!
MAN
Tell someone: you have a baby?
GIRL
(Long pause; finally; rather shy) No; I don’t think so.
BOY
But …?
GIRL
(To BOY; begging) No; no; we don’t have one; we don’t have a baby. (Varying intensities and tempi) Please, please, no baby, I can’t …
BOY
(Rage) I was with you when it was born!
GIRL
(Flat) No.
BOY
No one before me; we made it!
MAN
(An aside; quiet; out) They all say that.
GIRL
(Flat) No.
BOY
I SAW IT! I HELD IT! I WATCHED IT COME OUT OF YOU, ALL BLOOD …!
GIRL
No. Please; no.
WOMAN
(To GIRL) You have no baby.
GIRL
(Flat) No.
MAN
(To WOMAN) What a wise girl.
WOMAN
What a brave girl.
BOY
(Crying now) I … saw … it; I … I held it.
(Response tempi easy now; all gentle except BOY)
WOMAN
No.
MAN
No.
GIRL
No.
BOY
(Sobbing) Yes.
WOMAN
No.
MAN
No.
GIRL
No.
BOY
Yes.
WOMAN
No.
MAN
No.
GIRL
No.
BOY
No?
WOMAN
No.
MAN
No.
GIRL
No.
BOY
(Pause) No.
MAN
(Sighs) Well then; we’re done.
WOMAN
Yes.
(MAN and WOMAN begin moving upstage; MAN pauses; mild puzzled look; BOY and GIRL in silent tears—if possible)
MAN
Tears! (Out) Tears! (To WOMAN) Tears!
WOMAN
(Gentle smile) Yes: tears.
MAN
(To BOY and GIRL, who are too interior to respond) Oh what a wangled teb we weave. Wounds, children, wounds. Learn from it. Without wounds, what are you? If you don’t have a broken heart … (Shrugs) We’ll leave you, then. Don’t get up. (Taking WOMAN’s hand) Shall we?
WOMAN
Shall we?
(They exit; silence; BOY and GIRL still)
BOY
(Still in tears) No baby?
GIRL
(Still in tears) No.
BOY
(More a wish than anything) I hear it crying!
GIRL
(Please) No; no, you don’t.
BOY
(Defeat) No baby.
GIRL
(Begging) No. Maybe later? When we’re older … when we can take … terrible things happening? Not now.
BOY
(Pause) I hear it crying.
GIRL
(Pause; same tone as BOY) I hear it too. I hear it crying too.
(Lights fade)
CURTAIN
ALSO BY EDWARD ALBEE AVAILABLE FROM THE OVERLOOK PRESS
ALSO BY EDWARD ALBEE AVAILABLE FROM THE OVERLOOK PRESS
THE COLLECTED PLAYS OF EDWARD ALBEE
VOLUME 1 (1958–1965) • 978-1-58567-884-6 • $25.95
VOLUME 2 (1966–1977) • 978-1-59020-053-7 • $25.95
VOLUME 3 (1978–2003) • 978-1-59020-114-5 • $25.95
“A major playwright who helped to change the shape of contemporary drama here and abroad.”
—VINCENT CANBY, THE NEW YORK TIMES
“Albee throws the abyss in our faces with exhilarating, articulate, daring and dark, grown-up dazzle.”
—CHICAGO TRIBUNE
“One of the few genuinely great living American dramatists.”
—BEN BRANTLEY, THE NEW YORK TIMES
