by Dan Laurence
CRASSUS. I never said I was against it, Joe.
BALBUS. Neither did I.
NICOBAR. I think theres a great deal to be said for it. I have no objection.
PLINY. One king is no worse than another, is he?
BOANERGES. Is he any better? The way you fellows scuttle backward and forward from one mind to another whenever Joe holds up his finger is disgusting. This is a Cabinet of sheep.
PROTEUS. Well, give the flock a better lead if you can. Have you anything else to propose?
BOANERGES. I dont know that I have on the spur of the moment. We should have had notice of this. But I suppose the King must do as he thinks right.
PROTEUS. Then the goat goes with the sheep; so thats all right.
BOANERGES. Who are you calling a goat?
NICOBAR. If you come to that, who are you calling sheep?
AMANDA. Steady there, children! steady! steady! [To the King] You have brought us all round, sir, as usual.
PROTEUS. There is nothing more to be said.
AMANDA. That means another half hour at least.
BOANERGES. Woman: this is not the moment for your tomfooleries.
PROTEUS [impressively] Bill is right, Amanda. [He rises and becomes the conventional House of Commons orator].
Ministers compose themselves to listen with grave attention, as if in church; but Lysistrata is contemptuous and Amanda amused.
PROTEUS [continuing] It is a solemn moment. It is a moment in which an old tie is being broken. I am not ashamed to confess that it is a tie from which I have learned something.
MALE MINISTERS [murmur] Hear hear! Hear hear!
PROTEUS. For my own part—and I think I may speak for others here as well—it has been no mere political tie, but a tie of sincere friendship.
Renewed murmurs of sympathy. Increasing emotion.
PROTEUS. We have had our disagreements—as which of us has not ?—but they have been family quarrels.
CRASSUS. Thats all. Nothing more.
PROTEUS. May I say lovers’ quarrels?
PLINY [wiping his eyes] You may, Joe. You may.
PROTEUS. My friends, we came here to a meeting. We find, alas! that the meeting is to be a leavetaking. [Crassus sniffs tearfully]. It is a sad leavetaking on our part, but a cordial one. [Hear Hear from Pliny]. We are cast down, but not discouraged. Looking back to the past with regret, we can still look forward to the future with hope. That future has its dangers and its difficulties. It will bring us new problems; and it will bring us face to face with a new king. But the new problems and the new king will not make us forget our old counsellor, monarch, and—he will allow me to say—comrade. [Hear Hears ad libitum]. I know my words will find an echo in all your hearts when I conclude by saying that whatsoever king shall reign—
AMANDA. Youll be the Vicar of Bray, Joe.
Uproar. Proteus flings himself into his chair indignantly.
BALBUS. Shame!
NICOBAR. Shut up, you b—
PLINY. A joke’s a joke; but really—
CRASSUS. Too bad, Amanda! Behave yourself.
LYSISTRATA. She has a perfect right to speak. You are a parcel of sentimental fools.
BOANERGES [rising] Silence. Order.
AMANDA. Sorry.
BOANERGES. So you ought to be. Where’s your manners? Where’s your education? King Magnus: we part; but we part as strong men part: as friends. The Prime Minister has correctly represented the sentiments of all the men present. I call on them to express those sentiments in the good old English fashion. [Singing in stentorian tones] Fo-o-o-o-r-r-r
MALE MINISTERS EXCEPT PROTEUS [rising and singing]
—he’s a jolly good fel-low
For he’s a jolly good fel-low
For he’s—
MAGNUS [peremptorily] Stop. Stop.
Sudden silence and misgiving. They sit down furtively.
MAGNUS. I thank you with all my heart; but there is a misapprehension. We are not taking leave of one another. I have no intention of withdrawing from an active part in politics.
PROTEUS. What!!
MAGNUS. You are looking on me, with an emotion which has deeply touched me, as a man with a political past. But I look on myself rather as a man with a political future. I have not yet told you my plans.
NICOBAR. What plans?
BALBUS. A retired king cant have plans and a future.
MAGNUS. Why not? I am looking forward to a most exciting and enjoyable time. As I shall of course dissolve parliament, the fun will begin with a general election.
BOANERGES [dismayed] But Ive only just been elected. Do you mean that I shall have to stand two elections in one month? Have you thought of the expenses?
MAGNUS. Surely your expenses will be paid by the State.
BOANERGES. Paid by the State! Is that all you know about electioneering in England?
PROTEUS. You will get your whack out of the party funds, Bill; and if you cant find the extras you must put up with straight votes. Go on, sir: we want to hear about those plans of yours.
MAGNUS. My last act of royal authority will be to divest myself of all titles and dignities; so that I may step down at once into the position of a commoner.
BOANERGES. Step up, you mean. The common man is the superior, not the inferior, of the titled man.
MAGNUS. That is why I am going to make myself a common man, Mr Boanerges.
PLINY. Well, it does you honor.
CRASSUS. Not all of us would be capable of a sacrifice like that.
BOANERGES. A fine gesture, sir. A fine gesture. I admit it.
PROTEUS [suspicious] And since when, pray, has your Majesty taken to making gestures? Whats the game this time?
BOANERGES. Shame!
PROTEUS. Shut up, you gaby. [To the King] I say, whats the game?
MAGNUS. There is no imposing on you, Prime Minister. The game is, of course, that when I come back into politics I shall be in a better position as a commoner than as a peer. I shall seek a parliamentary seat.
PROTEUS. You in the House of Commons!
MAGNUS [blandly] It is my intention to offer myself to the Royal Borough of Windsor as a candidate at the forthcoming General Election.
All the rest except Boanerges and the ladies rise in consternation.
PROTEUS. This is treachery.
BALBUS. A dirty trick.
NICOBAR. The meanest on record.
PLINY. He’ll be at the top of the poll.
CRASSUS. There wont be any poll: it will be a walk-over.
BALBUS. This shews what all your fine manners and friendly ways are worth.
NICOBAR. Hypocrite!
CRASSUS. Humbug!
LYSISTRATA. I wish your Majesty every success.
AMANDA. Hear hear! Fair play, boys. Why shouldnt he go into parliament with us?
BOANERGES. Well said! well said! Why not?
THE OTHER MALE MINISTERS. Ya-a-a-ah! [They sit down in utter disgust].
PROTEUS [very sullen] And when you are in Parliament, what then?
MAGNUS. There are several possibilities. I shall naturally endeavor to form a party. My son King Robert will have to call on some Party leader who can depend on the support of the House of Commons to form a Government. He may call on you. He may even call on me.
AMANDA [breaks the glum silence by whistling a bar or two of the National Anthem] ! !
MAGNUS. Whatever happens, it will be a great relief to us to be able to speak out quite frankly about oneanother in public. You have never been able to tell the British people what you really think of me: no real criticism of the King is possible. I have never been able to speak my mind as to your various capacities and characters. All that reserve, that tedious affectation, that unwholesome concealment will end. I hope you look forward to our new footing as pleasurably as I do.
LYSISTRATA. I am delighted, sir. You will fight Breakages for me.
AMANDA. It will be awful fun.
BOANERGES. Now, Mr Prime Minister, we are waiting fo
r you. What have you to say about it?
PROTEUS [rising and speaking slowly, with his brows deeply knitted] Has Your Majesty got that ultimatum on you?
MAGNUS [produces it from his breast pocket and presents it to him]!
PROTEUS [with measured emphasis, after tearing the paper up into four pieces at two deliberate strokes, and throwing the pieces away] There is not going to be any abdication. There is not going to be any general election. There is not going to be any ultimatum. We go on as before. The crisis is a washout. [To the King, with deadly concentration] I will never forgive you for this. You stole your ace of trumps from the hand I played this morning. [He takes his hat from the balustrade and goes away through the park].
BOANERGES [rising] That was a very deplorable exhibition of temper on the part of the Prime Minister, sir. It was not the gesture of a Strong Man. I will remonstrate with him. You may depend on me. [He takes his hat and follows Proteus in a serious and dignified manner].
NICOBAR [rising] Well, I shall not say what I think. [He is taking his hat when the King addresses him].
MAGNUS. So I have not upset the apple cart after all, Mr Nicobar.
NICOBAR. You can upset it as soon as you like for all I care. I am going out of politics. Politics is a mug’s game. [He goes].
CRASSUS [rising reluctantly and taking his hat] If Nick goes, I shall have to go too.
MAGNUS. Can you really tear yourself away from politics?
CRASSUS. Only too glad to be well out of them, if Breakages will let me. They shoved me into it; and I daresay theyll find another job for me. [He goes].
PLINY [cheerful to the last as he, too, goes for his hat] Well, I am glad nothing’s happened. You know, sir, nothing ever really does happen in the Cabinet. Never mind their bit of temper. Theyll feed out of your hand tomorrow. [He goes].
BALBUS [after taking his hat] Now that theyre all gone I dont mind saying that if anything should ever happen to the throne, and your Majesty should become a President with a Cabinet to pick, you might easily find a worse Home Secretary than me, with all my faults.
MAGNUS. I shall bear it in mind. By the way, if you should happen to overtake the Prime Minister, will you be so good as to remind him that we quite forgot to settle that little affair of the proposal of America to annex the British Commonwealth.
BALBUS. By the Lord, so we did! Well, thats a good one! Ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha! [He goes out laughing heartily].
MAGNUS. They dont take it in, Lizzie: not one bit. It is as if another planet were crashing into us. The kingdom and the power and the glory will pass from us and leave us naked, face to face with our real selves at last.
LYSISTRATA. So much the better, if by our real selves you mean the old English stock that was unlike any other. Nowadays men all over the world are as much alike as hotel dinners. It’s no use pretending that the America of George Washington is going to swallow up the England of Queen Anne. The America of George Washington is as dead as Queen Anne. What they call an American is only a wop pretending to be a Pilgrim Father. He is no more Uncle Jonathan than you are John Bull.
MAGNUS. Yes: we live in a world of wops, all melting into one another; and when all the frontiers are down London may be outvoted by Tennessee, and all the other places where we still madly teach our children the mentality of an eighteenth century village school.
LYSISTRATA. Never fear, sir. It is not the most ignorant national crowd that will come out on top, but the best power station; for you cant do without power stations, and you cant run them on patriotic songs and hatred of the foreigner, and guff and bugaboo, though you can run nationalism on nothing else. But I am heartbroken at your not coming into the House with us to keep old England in front and lead a new Party against Breakages [tears come into her eyes].
MAGNUS [patting her consolingly on the back] That would have been splendid, wouldnt it? But I am too old fashioned. This is a farce that younger men must finish.
AMANDA [taking her arm] Come home with me, dear. I will sing to you until you cant help laughing. Come.
Lysistrata pockets her handkerchief; shakes the King’s hands impulsively; and goes with Amanda. The King plunges into deep thought. Presently the Queen comes back.
THE QUEEN. Now Magnus: it’s time to dress for dinner.
MAGNUS [much disturbed] Oh, not now. I have something very big to think about. I dont want any dinner. THE QUEEN [peremptorily] No dinner! Did anyone ever hear of such a thing! You know you will not sleep if you think after seven o’clock.
MAGNUS [worried] But really, Jemima—
THE QUEEN [going to him and taking his arm] Now, now, now! dont be naughty. I musnt be late for dinner. Come on, like a good little boy.
The King, with a grimace of hopeless tenderness, allows himself to be led away.
On the Rocks: A Political Comedy
WITH
Preface
Composition begun 6 February 1933; completed 4 July 1933; Published in Too True to be Good, Village Wooing & On the Rocks, 1934. First presented at the Winter Garden Theatre, London, on 25 November 1933.
Sir Arthur Chavender (Prime Minister) Nicholas Hannen
Hilda Hanways (His Secretary) Phyllis Thomas
Sir Broadfoot Basham (Chief Commissioner of Police) Walter Hudd
Flavia Chavender Marjorie Playfair
Lady Chavender Margaret Macdona
David Chavender Lewis Shaw
Tom Humphries (Mayor of the Isle of Cats) Charles Sewell
Alderwoman Aloysia Brollikins Ellen Pollock
Alderman Blee George E. Bancroft
Viscount Barking Emerton Court
Mr Hipney Edward Rigby
The Lady Fay Davis
Sir Dexter Rightside (Foreign Secretary) Charles Carson
Admiral Sir Bemrose Hotspot (First Lord of the Admiralty) Matthew Boulton
Mr Glenmorison (President of the Board of Trade) Norman MacOwan
Sir Jafna Pandranath Lewis Casson
The Duke of Domesday Lawrence Hanray
Period—The Present
ACT I The Cabinet Room at No. 10 Downing Street, London, S.W.1. July
ACT II The Same. 10 November, 9.30 a.m.
Preface
* * *
Contents
Extermination,
Killing as a Political Function,
The Sacredness of Human Life,
Present Exterminations,
Previous Attempts miss the Point,
King Charles’s Head,
Right to Exterminate conferred by Private Property,
Disguises under which Private Extermination operates,
Private Powers of Life and Death,
Cruelty’s Excuses,
Leading Case of Jesus Christ,
“Crosstianity”,
Christianity and the Sixth Commandment,
The Russian Experiment,
Inadequacy of Penal Codes,
Limited Liability in Morals,
Natural Limit to Extermination,
Incompatibility of Peasantry with Modern Civilization,
A Peasant Victory is a Victory for Private Property,
Preventive Extermination: its Difficulties,
Temperamental Difficulties,
Importance of Laziness for Fallowing,
Standard Religion Indispensable,
Eclectic Religions,
Importance of Free Thought,
Toleration Mostly Illusory,
Leading Cases: Socrates and Jesus,
The Case of Galileo,
Figment of the Selfregarding Action,
Incompleteness of the Great Trials,
A Modern Passion Play Impossible,
Difference Between Reader and Spectator,
The Sacredness of Criticism,
* * *
EXTERMINATION
In this play a reference is made by a Chief of Police to the political necessity for killing people: a necessity so distressing to the statesmen and so terrifying to the common citizen
that nobody except myself (as far as I know) has ventured to examine it directly on its own merits, although every Government is obliged to practise it on a scale varying from the execution of a single murderer to the slaughter of millions of quite innocent persons. Whilst assenting to these proceedings, and even acclaiming and celebrating them, we dare not tell ourselves what we are doing or why we are doing it; and so we call it justice or capital punishment or our duty to king and country or any other convenient verbal whitewash for what we instinctively recoil from as from a dirty job. These childish evasions are revolting. We must strip off the whitewash and find out what is really beneath it. Extermination must be put on a scientific basis if it is ever to be carried out humanely and apologetically as well as thoroughly.
