The Dresser Page #7

I did, that's what I said.

He hobbled away, his head down

and if he was given to muttering,

he'd have muttered.

Darkly.

Are you asleep, Sir?

To be driven thus.

I hate the swines.

Who? Who is it that you hate?

The critics?

The critics? Hate the critics?

I have nothing

but compassion for them.

How can one hate the crippled,

the mentally deficient and the dead?

Bastards. Who then? Who then what?

Who then is it that you hate?

Let me rest, Norman, you must

stop questioning me, let me rest.

But don't leave me till I'm asleep.

Don't leave me alone.

I am a spent force.

My days are numbered.

Is he asleep? I think so, yes.

I'll sit with him.

Well, don't wake him,

Your Ladyship. He's ever so tired.

METAL CLANGS:

Is it my cue?

No, it's still the interval.

I have things to say.

Norman tells me you thought

I was mighty tonight.

I never said anything of the kind.

He makes these things up.

What have you to say?

What I always have to say.

You know my answer.

You've worked hard.

You've saved.

Enough's enough.

Tonight, in your curtain speech,

make the announcement.

I can't.

You won't. I have no choice.

You'll die.

Or end up a vegetable!

Well, that's your affair.

But you're not going to

drag me with you.

I am helpless, P*ssy.

I do what I'm told.

I cower, I'm frightened

of being whipped, I am driven.

Driven? No. Cruel? Yes,

Obstinate? Yes. Ruthless? Yes.

Don't! For an actor, you have

a woeful lack of insight.

Use your great imagination,

use your inspired gifts,

try to imagine what I feel,

what I'm forced to go through.

I do! But I need you beside me,

familiar, real!

I am beside you, darning tights.

Very familiar, quite real.

All I ask, Bonzo, is that we stop.

Now, tonight, the end of the week -

but no more.

I can't take any more.

It's not possible. It is possible.

No. You deceive no-one but yourself.

If that were true, why then am I here, with

bombs falling, risking life and limb? Why?

Not by choice. I have a duty.

I have to keep the faith.

Oh, balls!

What?

You do nothing

without self-interest.

And you drag everyone with you.

Me - chained, not even by law.

Oh, would marriage have made

that much difference to you?

You misunderstand, deliberately.

I should have made her

divorce me, yeah!

You didn't get a divorce

because you wanted a knighthood.

That's not true. True?

You know where your priorities lie.

Whatever you do is to your advantage

and to no-one else's.

Talk about being driven.

You make yourself sound like

a disinterested stagehand.

You do nothing without

self-interest.

You. Self. Alone.

P*ssy, please, I'm sinking.

Do not push me further into the mud.

Sir. Her Ladyship. Fantasies.

For God's sake,

you're a third-rate actor-manager

on a tatty tour of the provinces,

not some Colossus

bestriding the narrow world.

Sir, Her Ladyship(!)

Look at me - darning tights.

Look at you.

Lear's hovel is luxury

compared to this.

I'm not well, I have half

of Lear's life ahead of me,

I have to carry you in my arms,

I have "Howl, howl, howl!"

yet to speak!

"Sir", "Her Ladyship" -

We're a laughing-stock!

You'd never get a knighthood

because the King doesn't possess

a double-edged sword.

Do you remember, years ago,

an actress, one of our Gonerils?

She was a tall, dark, handsome girl

with a Grecian nose.

Flora Bacon.

Was it? Yes, perhaps it was.

Flora.

Do you remember the night

I was rather hard on Norman

because he'd got my tights inside out

during the quick change

in The Wandering Jew?

Or was it The Sign Of The Cross?

Whichever.

She turned on me.

"He may be your servant," she said,

"but he is a human being. "

Then, to Norman, she said,

"Why don't you leave him?

"Why do you put up with it?" And Norman said,

"Don't fuss. He only gives as good as he gets.

"He has to take it out

on someone," he said.

And he was right. Because

Flora Bacon didn't understand.

Slave driver she called me.

Why ever did I employ her?

Her mother was Lady Bacon.

She invested 200 in the company.

I thought tonight I caught sight

of him, or saw myself as he sees me.

Speaking, "Reason not the need. "

"Go on, you bastard,"

I seemed to be saying or hearing.

"Go on, you've more to give.

Don't hold back. More, more, more!"

And I was watching Lear.

Yes!

Each word he spoke

was fresh invented.

I had no knowledge of what came next,

what fate awaited him.

The agony was in

the moment of acting created.

Ha!

And I saw an old man.

And the old man...

.. was me.

Don't leave me.

I'll rest easy if you stay.

But don't ask of me the impossible.

Otherwise...

.. without you, in darkness,

I will see a locked door,

a sign, "Closed", in the window,

"Closed - gone away".

And a drawn blind.

I'll stay till Norman returns.

HE LAUGHS:

I meant longer.

Please.

Oh, please, P*ssy.

HE GASPS:

Reassure me.

I'm sick.

Sick.

Yes, so am I.

Sick.

I'm sick of cold railway trains,

cold waiting rooms,

cold Sundays on Crewe,

and eating cold food late at night.

I'm sick of packing and unpacking

and of darning tights.

I'm sick of the smell of

rotting costumes and naphthalene.

And most of all,

I'm sick of reading week after week

that I'm barely adequate, too old,

the best of a bad supporting cast.

Unequal to you,

unworthy of your gifts.

And I'm sick of having to

put on a brave face.

I should have left you in Baltimore

on the last American tour.

I should have accepted

Mr Feldman's offer

and taken the 20th Century west.

Feldman thought

I wouldn't photograph well.

Swine.

I hate the cinema.

I believe in living things.

How quickly one's looks go.

They haven't built a camera

large enough to record me.

I wouldn't have minded

a modest success.

Why they knighted that dwarf

Arthur Palgrove I shall never know.

"Arise, Sir Arthur," said the King.

"But, Sir, I wasn't kneeling. "

Not once in his whole career

did he put a toe outside London.

I liked America.

I hated the swines.

KNOCK AT DOOR:

'Act Two beginners, please!'

I must rest now, P*ssy.

I want peace.

All you want is

to have your cake and to eat it.

I've never seen any point in having

cake unless one is going to eat it.

Ha-ha(!) Ha-ha ha-ha(!)

Everything jolly?

Don't you know what knocking is?

Oh, please, Sir -

not in front of Her Ladyship.

Well, I've been mingling.

You should hear

what they think out there -

I have never known

an interval like it.

Michelangelo, William Blake -

God knows who else

you reminded them of.

One poor boy...

.. an airman, head bandaged,

was weeping in the stalls bar,

comforted by an older man -

once blonde, now grey,

parchment skin and dainty hands -

who went on saying, "There, there,

Evelyn, it's only a play. "

Which didn't seem to me

any comfort at all

because, if it hadn't been a play,

then "There-there- Evelyn"

wouldn't be so upset.

Michelangelo, did they?

And Blake.

I'm going to my room.

Please stay.

You must rest, Bonzo -

mustn't he Norman?

Yes, he must.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes