The doorway from the public stairs opens immediately
upon the living-room without the
intervening privacy of a small hallway. The
room was, no doubt, more formally pretentious in the
early days of the Williams’ marriage; but the
relics of that time—some rigid mahogany chairs
and stray pieces of staid furniture—have been ruthlessly
pushed against the walls, so that one perceives a
“parlor” transformed into a miscellaneous room upon
which the flat’s overflow has gradually crept. And
with this has come Grant Williams’ plain wooden
work-table, bearing now a writer’s accessories, a desk
lamp, and a mass of manuscripts; one of which is his
unproduced drama, The Lonely Way, bound in
the conventional blue linen cover. His well-worn
typewriter is perched on the end of the table, in easy
reach of his work-chair with its sofa cushions crushed
and shaped to his form. Another chair is near by, so
that it also may catch the flood of light which comes
from the conventional electric bunch-light above. There
is a small black kerosene heater to be used in those
emergencies of temperature which landlords create.
Not far from it, a child’s collapsible go-cart is propped.
On the walls, above some over-flowing bookshelves, are
several tastefully selected etchings. A window in back,
which hides an airshaft, is partly concealed by heavy
curtains that hang tired and limp. There is another
doorway, directly opposite the entrance, which leads
to the other rooms of a characteristically compressed
city flat.
Yet the room is not forbidding: it merely suggests
forced economies that have not quite fringed poverty:
continual adaptation, as it were, to the financial contingencies
of a marriage that has just managed to make
both ends meet.
When the curtain rises Jerry Williams is seated
in the cozy chair reading a number of newspaper clippings.
Jerry is an attractive woman in her thirties. Externally,
there is nothing particularly striking about
her: if there be such a thing as an average wife Jerry
personifies it. She has loved her husband and kept
house for him without a spoken protest; for she has
had no advanced ideas or theories. Yet she has had
her fears and little concealments and dreams—like any
married woman. She has been sustained through the
ten years of hard sledding by the belief in her husband’s
ultimate financial success. And as she reads the
criticisms of his play, The Sand Bar, produced the
night before, she realizes it has come at last. She is
now completely happy and calm in the thought of her
rewards.
She looks at the cheap watch lying on the desk and
indicates it is late. She closes the window, walks over
to the doorway and looks in, apparently to see if the
child is still asleep. Then she closes the door and
stands there, with just a suspicion of impatience.
Several minutes pass. Then she gives a little cry of
joy as she hears the key turn in the lock and she sees
the hall door open slowly—admitting her husband.
Grant Williams is a more striking personality than
his wife; about forty, with a tinge of iron gray on his
temples, he has a strong virile face not without traces of
idealism. His whole appearance is normal and devoid
of any conscious affectation of dress. But a very close
inspection might reveal that his suit, though carefully
pressed, is well worn—as is the overcoat which covers
it. Grant happens to be a man of cultivation and
breeding, with a spark of genius, who has strayed into
strange pastures. At present there lurks an unexpected
depression back of his mood; perhaps it is only the
normal reaction which comes to every artist when success
is won and the critical sense within mocks the
achievement so beneath the dream. Perhaps with
Grant Williams it is something else.
Jerry
Oh, Grant, I thought you’d never come home.
Grant
Best, the house manager, detained me.
Jerry
(Detecting his mood)
There’s nothing the matter with the play?
Grant
Nothing; except it’s an enormous success. (She
smiles again, and he wants to keep her smiling.) We
were sold out to-night. The second night! Think of
that! I had to stand myself.
Jerry
Well, I don’t see why you should be blue about it.
There were always plenty of empty seats at your other
plays. I knew The Sand Bar couldn’t fail.
Grant
(Throwing coat carelessly over chair)
You felt the same about the others.
Jerry
(Trying to cheer him)
They didn’t fail—artistically.
Grant
You mean nobody came to see them—except on
passes. But The Sand Bar! That’s different!
(With a tinge of sarcasm throughout.) You ought
to have seen the way the mob at the National ate it up.
Jerry
I wanted to go but I couldn’t ask Mrs. Hale to
take care of the baby again. Besides, I was anxious to
read all the notices over quietly by myself and....
Grant
(Picking them up and glancing through them)
Great, aren’t they? Not a “roast” among them.
Jerry
Not one. I couldn’t find Arthur Black’s review: he
was always so kind to your other plays, too.
Grant
(Evasively)
I forgot to bring in the Gazette. Best says he never
saw such “money” notices. (Glances at one.) Doran
outdid himself. (Reading the critic’s notice with a
touch of theatrical exaggeration.) “The perception of
human nature evinced by Grant Williams in his profoundly
moving drama The Sand Bar places him in
the front rank of American dramatists!”
Jerry
Just where you belong.
Grant
(Skipping)
“His hero, Tom Robinson, the artist, who deliberately
deserts his highest ideals because his wife’s happiness
is of more value than his own egoistic self-expression,
is a new angle on the much abused artistic
temperament.” (With a wise smile.) That “twist”
seems to have got them. (Reading) “Marie, his wife,
who is willing to risk her honor to test his love and
thus awaken him to a sense of his human responsibility,
is a character which will appeal to every married
woman.”
Jerry
(She nods in approval, without his seeing her)
But read the last paragraph, dear.
Grant
“In fact, all the characters are true to themselves,
never once being bent by the playwright for dramatic
effect out of the inevitable and resistless momentum of
their individual psychologies.” And Doran used to
report prizefights!
Jerry
I hope he doesn’t go back to it. He writes beautifully.
Grant
By the way, I haven’t told you the crowning achievement
of my ten years of writing. Trebaro—the great
Trebaro who would never even read my plays before—asked
me in the lobby to-night to write him a curtain
raiser!
Jerry
(Happily)
That’s splendid!
Grant
I’ve promised to get it done in ten days. His new
play is going to run short. He’s got to have something
to lengthen the evening.
Jerry
Have you an idea?
Grant
No; not yet. But he doesn’t like anything with
ideas in it.
Jerry
(As she sees him go to his typewriter to remove cover)
But, dear, you’re not going to begin it to-night!
(Significantly stopping him.) To-night belongs to me—not
to your work. (Nestling close beside him.)
Dearest....
Grant
All right, Jerry. I’ve only got a few paragraphs of
personal stuff to bang off. Then I’ll be with you. The
Times wants it for a Sunday story—with my photo.
(As her face brightens again.) You see, Mrs. Grant
Williams, your husband is now in the limelight.
Jerry
I’m so glad success has come to you at last.
Grant
Better at last than at first. I’m told it’s bad for
your character to be too successful when you’re young.
So providence nearly starved us a bit, eh?
Jerry
You thought it was going to be so easy when we
were first married. It’s been hard for you, dear. I
know. Writing and writing and seeing other fellows
make money. But now you’ve won out. You ought
to be very happy, as I am.
Grant
You are happy, aren’t you? (He takes her hands
affectionately, then looks at them, turning them over.)
The only hard thing, Jerry, was to see these hands of
yours grow red and rough with the work here.
Jerry
Maybe that’s the only way they could help you.
Grant
(Enigmatically)
It’s because of them and only because of them that
I’ve done it.
Jerry
Done what?
Grant
Oh, nothing. (He puts paper in the machine.)
How about a glass of milk?
Jerry
I’ll get it while the great man reveals himself to an
anxious public.
Grant
And some crackers. (Sitting at machine.) They
want something on: “How I Make My Characters
Live.” (She laughs suddenly: he starts.) Oh; it’s
you?
Jerry
Yes. I was thinking how funny it was to celebrate
a success in milk.
Grant
Yes. But the greatest joke of all is that The Sand
Bar is a success—a real financial success.
Jerry
It’s a very good joke.
(She goes out happily. Then a cynical look
creeps into his face. He reads as he types.)
Grant
“How I Made My Characters in The Sand Bar
Live.”
(He pauses a second, smiling cynically. Then,
as he apparently hears something, he rises and
goes over to the hall door which he opens
quickly. He looks out and apparently sees a
neighbor entering the apartment opposite. A
bibulous “good night” is heard. He closes the
door, turns the key, tests the door and sees it is
locked. As he stands there puzzled, Jerry
enters, with a bottle of milk, some crackers, and
an apple on a small tray.)
You’ll have to get over this habit of waiting on
me now.
Jerry
Don’t ask the impossible.
Grant
But we shall have servants now; plenty of them.
Jerry
Plenty of them? Why how much money are you
going to make out of The Sand Bar?
Grant
Nearly a thousand dollars a week.
Jerry
(Almost inaudibly as she nearly drops the tray)
My God!
Grant
(As he puts tray on table)
It will run forty weeks at the National. Then three
road companies next year: “stock” and the “movies”
after that. I’m going to make as much money in two
weeks now as I ever made before in one year—turning
out hack stuff and book reviews. And all I’ve got to
do is to sit back and let it work for me!
Jerry
It doesn’t seem honest.
Grant
Maybe it isn’t, Jerry. (As he eats.) But when
the public is pleased it pays to be pleased.
Jerry
(Venturing)
The first thing I want is some new clothes.
Grant
(Grandiloquently)
My first week’s royalty is yours.
Jerry
Really?
Grant
Throw away everything that’s darned and patched.
I’m sick of seeing them.
Jerry
I was always so ashamed, too. Just think what
people would have said if I’d been run over or killed
in an accident.
Grant
Now you’ll do the running over—in our new car.
Jerry
(Hardly believing her ears)
A car!
Grant
Every successful playwright has a car.
Jerry
(Joyfully)
Then we’ll have to move from here to live up to
the car?
Grant
We’ve got to move. It’s more important to look
like a success than to be one. (Glancing about flat.)
And the Lord knows this doesn’t look like success.
Jerry
I’m so glad. I’ve grown to hate these five stuffy
rooms without sunlight.
Grant
Nothing to light them up these ten years but the
glow of my genius, eh? Now I’ll have a big house to
shine in.
Jerry
I’ve always dreamed of you having a room off by
yourself.
Grant
Where you could really dream without the sound
of my typewriter waking you and the baby?
Jerry
But it will be splendid for you, too. I don’t see how
you ever wrote here with me always fussing in and out.
Grant
Washing the eternal dish and cooking the eternal
chop.
Jerry
I don’t ever want to look another gas stove in the
face.
Grant
You’ve cooked your last chop.
Jerry
Oh, Grant; my dreams have come true.
Grant
(Enigmatically again)
Yes. Success or failure: it’s all a matter of how you
dream. (She looks up puzzled: he is silent a moment
and then goes to machine again.) But I’ll never get
this done.
Jerry
I’ll put on my old wrapper, for the last time, and
wait up for you. I’m going to get a real négligée to-morrow.
Your favorite color.
Grant
I won’t be long. This is an awful bore and I’m
tired.
(He begins to pound out something on his
machine. Jerry goes over to hang up his coat,
and as she does so, a newspaper clipping falls
out of his pocket, on the floor. She picks it up
unnoticed by Grant. She glances at it; starts
angrily to speak to Grant about it; but seeing
he is absorbed, hesitates and then conceals it.
She hangs up the coat, comes around back of
him as though to speak—but changes her mind.
She kisses him. As she passes the table, she
knocks off the manuscript of a play. She picks
it up.)
Grant
What’s that?
Jerry
The manuscript of The Lonely Way. (He looks
over at it, with a cynical smile.) You’ve learned a lot
about playwrighting since you wrote that, haven’t you,
dear?
Grant
Yes—a lot.
Jerry
(Tentatively)
You used to say it was the best thing you ever did.
Grant
How did you happen to come across it?
Jerry
I found it behind the chest when I was cleaning.
Grant
Oh, yes; I remember. I threw it there the day of
my great decision: The day I made up my mind to
rewrite it and call it The Sand Bar.
Jerry
(As she glances over the pages)
Grant. I’m not going to lose you now that you’re
a success?
Grant
What ever put such a foolish idea in your head?
Jerry
You remember the Tom Robinson you drew in this
play? All you made him think of was his art; he
even threw away his wife to make a success of it.
Grant
That was because his wife didn’t understand. Besides,
dear, you know how much I altered my original
conception of their characters and completely changed
the plot. Look how different it all is in The Sand
Bar.
Jerry
And you think your changes made the play truer to
life? In real life a Tom Robinson wouldn’t have got
rid of her?
Grant
I don’t think anything’s ever going to come between
us, if that’s what you mean.
Jerry
Of course not. (Putting the manuscript on table,
relieved, as she sees him resume his typing.) But I
felt so sure of you when we were poor. Perhaps it was
because you couldn’t afford to be wild.
(She turns off the switch and goes out. The
room is lighted only by the desk lamp, casting
its shadows into the corners of the room. He
takes a cigarette from the box on the table, and
as he smokes he reads half to himself what he
has written.)
Grant
“An author’s characters grow into life out of his
observation and experience. Once they are conceived
by these two parents their first heart beats are the
taps of the author’s typewriter.” Good. “Gradually
they grow into living men and women. They live with
him, yet with a life of their own. In writing The
Sand Bar I ... I....”
(This makes him hesitate to continue. He
glances toward the manuscript of The Lonely
Way. He rises slowly and picks it up cynically.
Then, as though fascinated, he gradually
settles in the cozy chair by his table. He begins
to become absorbed as he reads his earlier play.
He puts his hand over his eyes, he lowers the
manuscript, gives a sigh as though lost in the
thoughts it calls up. The door, which he has
locked, opens noiselessly, and closes as Grant
looks up in surprise and sees a man enter.
Grant immediately discovers there is something
extraordinary about his unexpected visitor.
As he directs the light upon him, Grant perceives
the man’s power which lies both in his
frame and impressive personality. His eyes have
a relentless coldness when they narrow. His
mouth is firm but cruel, with a sarcastic droop
pulling down the corners. In spite of an occasional
uncouth manner of spasmodically blurting
out his words, Grant soon realizes how
keen is the intruder’s penetration when it is
sharpened to the one point which vitally concerns
him—his art. For this man of fifty-five
winters, is a great artist. Grant is too amazed
and puzzled to recognize it is one of his own
creations: Tom Robinson.
The latter comes over to the dramatist and
places a hand on his shoulder.)
Tom
You and I have some scores to settle.
Grant
(Moving away)
Who are you?
Tom
So you don’t recognize me?
Grant
Your manners are familiar.
Tom
So Whistler once said. Look at me closely.
Grant
Is this a dare?
Tom
(Shaking his head slowly)
An author’s brain is indeed a store-house of mixed
impressions: a strange asylum for me to have escaped
from.
Grant
(Starting toward door)
Possibly the police may be able to lead you safely
home.
Tom
I am at home with you.
Grant
Don’t get excited. Keep perfectly cool.
Tom
I am cool because my intention is. (Grant gives him
a look as Tom goes over to the machine and glances at
the heading of the article.) “How I Make My
Characters Live!” You certainly do—some of us.
(Grant suddenly crosses to the door, tries it
and realizes it is still locked. He turns, bewildered,
to Tom.)
Grant
How did you get in here?
Tom
Why shouldn’t I? As your fellow-craftsman once
remarked: “I am a trifle light as air.”
Grant
I can’t say you look it.
Tom
(Eyeing him as he lights one of Grant’s cigarettes)
Since you don’t recognize me perhaps you didn’t do
what you did to me—deliberately.
Grant
But I’ve never done a thing to you.
Tom
Are we so soon forgot? (Puffing) Yet how reminiscent
the odor of this cigarette. I notice you still
smoke the same cheap brand.
Grant
I must say I admire your nerve.
Tom
You ought to admire it. You gave it to me.
Grant
I never gave you anything.
Tom
(Bluntly)
Liar! You gave me life!
Grant
Gave you life?
Tom
Yes; I am your child.
Grant
My child? (He laughs.)
Tom
Many a man before you has tried to deny paternity
with a laugh.
Grant
But you’re old enough to be my father. Are you
accusing me of improving on Nature?
Tom
All artists do. (Picking up manuscript of The
Lonely Way.) Here’s how you described me.
(Reading) “... his eyes have a relentless coldness
when they narrow ... mouth firm but cruel....
Not attractive but impressive.” There I am.
Read it for yourself.
Grant
Then you are—?
Tom
(Sarcastically)
Your child. Your once dearly beloved brain baby.
Grant
(Awed)
Tom Robinson!
Tom
As you originally conceived him here in The
Lonely Way.
Grant
Well, I’m damned.
Tom
I suspect you are. That’s what I’m here to see.
(Ominously) And then if.... (Suddenly casual)
But sit down and we’ll talk it over calmly first.
(Grant sits down astonished. Tom sits also.) Thanks.
Grant
Go on.
Tom
Look at me. Here I am, as you drew me. Tom
Robinson. Your greatest creation!
Grant
I recognize the egotism.
Tom
(Blurting)
I am what my egotism made me. Your egotism also
made you dare to conceive me, here at this very desk,
out of your brain, in the puffs of your cheap cigarettes.
The taps on your typewriter were my first heart beats.
Your birth pains were my own cries of life.
Grant
You certainly gave me a lot of trouble.
Tom
But you never suffered in having me as I did last
night when I went with you to The Sand Bar and
saw what you’d done to Tom Robinson!
Grant
(More and more amused at what seems to be the
childish petulance of an admittedly great man)
You must have had quite a shock.
Tom
Shock? I was disgusted! Why, the actor who’s
interpreting me isn’t even bad looking.
Grant
No. He couldn’t be. He’s a star.
Tom
But I was your original conception. Why did you
alter me into a good-looking fashion plate with charm?
There never was anything charming about me; never.
Grant
(Glancing towards his wife’s door)
Please not so loud. I made you unpleasant, I know;
but don’t pile it on, Tom.
Tom
(With dignity)
Robinson to you.
Grant
(Smiling)
I beg your pardon.
Tom
Why you authors feel you can take liberties with
your characters is beyond me. I, for one, shall be
treated with respect. (His eyes narrow.) Unless
you have lost your capacity to respect a work of art
like me.
Grant
Come, come. I’m afraid it’s you who have lost your
sense of humor.
Tom
(Sarcastically)
Perhaps you didn’t give me as much humor as you
thought.
Grant
But can’t we talk over the object of your visit in a
friendly spirit? (With a smile.) Say, as father to
son?
Tom
You’ll take me seriously before I’m through. I’ll
remind you that I was a force in The Lonely Way
though in The Sand Bar Tom Robinson is merely
a figure. One suit a year was good enough for me.
You make him change his every act.
Grant
(More at ease)
I’m afraid you don’t understand the demands of the
modern theater.
Tom
What have I—a great character—to do with the
modern theater?
Grant
Nothing. That’s why I revised you.
Tom
(Bitterly)
Then why did you give me life at all?
Grant
Because then I was fool enough to think the modern
theater was a place for great creations. I recognize the
conditions better now.
Tom
But in The Lonely Way you didn’t consider me
a fool when I continued to paint great pictures—in
spite of conditions.
Grant
You were a great artist in that play.
Tom
And when you drew me you were a great dramatist.
(Sadly) Now I see you are only a playwright.
Grant
And at the National Tom Robinson has become only
a painter of pot-boilers. (Mockingly) You’ve certainly
come down in the world.
Tom
I don’t need your pity; but I want you to realize
that what you did to me you also did to yourself.
When you made me fall, I brought you down with
me. (He shakes the manuscript before him.) Look!
I had life there in a powerful play.
Grant
I won’t dispute that. It was fine: beautifully articulated
in its subtlety.
Tom
That just describes it. It was nearly as fine as my
Sumatra Sunlight or even my Russian Nocturne.
Grant
Which you never sold.
Tom
But what is painted lives for the future.
Grant
Don’t be sensitive: my Lonely Way is still here.
Nobody would produce it.
Tom
Yet you cared for nobody when you made me live
in it—perfect as the frame that held me. The strength
you gave me in my own relentlessness was also yours.
You glowed when you wrote it; as you made me glow
when I painted. You felt the joy which only a creator
knows when beauty and perfection slowly struggle
out of his inner vision.
Grant
But, my dear fellow....
Tom
Wait. Contrast this play with The Sand Bar!
With your skill as a builder you turned what was a
lonely palace on a peak—aflame with my art—into a
scrambly suburban residence where miserable ordinary
people function. You produced a miserable makeshift
of a play and made Tom Robinson a miserable makeshift
of a man. (Accusing him.) But when you
played tricks on me you played tricks on yourself.
That’s what you did when you took from Tom Robinson
his genius and made him paint pot-boilers at the
National. Pot-boilers! Pot-boilers! Me!! Good
God, man, did you know what you were doing when
you rewrote this play?
Grant
(Slowly)
I knew exactly what I was doing. I was turning it
into a popular success.
Tom
(Outraged)
You had not even the excuse of self-deception?
Grant
No.
Tom
(Eyeing him strangely)
Then you are worse off than we thought!
Grant
We?
Tom
I wonder how far you have fallen! I shall be
patient till we see the depths of your artistic degradation.
Grant
You said “we”?
A Woman’s Voice
(Outside)
Yes. We.
(Grant gives a start towards the door, thinking
the voice has come from his wife’s room.)
Tom
Oh, that isn’t your wife.
Grant
Then if you’ve some friend concealed about your
person, hadn’t you better produce her?
Tom
That isn’t my friend; that’s my wife.
Grant
Your humor isn’t inspiring. I’ve heard that brilliant
retort before.
Tom
Certainly. You wrote it yourself; but you stole it
from Molière. If I had your memory I’d be witty,
too.
Grant
(Looking about)
I don’t seem to see Mrs. Robinson very clearly.
Tom
She says you never did. Come to think of it, she’s no
longer Mrs. Robinson.
Grant
Oh, I forgot. In The Lonely Way you divorced
her.
Tom
Marie and I haven’t been on speaking terms since;
but after she saw The Sand Bar she simply insisted
on coming here.
Grant
Well, I’ll be happy to hear her grievance, too.
Tom
(Ominously)
You won’t think us so amusing when we are through
with you.
Grant
As a dramatist, I admire your talent for suspense.
(Calling) Come in, Mrs. Robinson.
Tom
(Correcting him)
Case. Mrs. Pendleton Case. You’ve also forgotten
that in The Lonely Way you made her marry him.
Grant
To be sure. But in The Sand Bar I made her
stay with you.
Tom
Yes. That’s one of her grievances.
Grant
Come in, Mrs. Case.
(Grant watches Marie come slowly from behind
the curtains, into the light. Then he sees
a handsome woman of thirty-five, bien soignée
to the last degree. Yet somehow to Grant
her manner is an assumption she has acquired
and not inherited. Beneath her vivid personality,
her unrestrained moods glitter with force if
not heat. But now she eyes him steadily with
the greatest contempt. She wears a magnificent
opera cloak, clutched close to her. She
carries a small hand bag.
Though Marie and Tom are aware of each
other’s presence, they never address each other;
they speak to each other through Grant as
though they existed only in him.)
Grant
Do sit down.
Tom
Oh, Marie will sit down. Don’t worry.
(Before she sits she carelessly throws her cloak
over the same chair that Grant had previously
thrown his coat. She stands revealed in a
beautiful evening gown. It seems to proclaim
to Grant her daring and contempt for conventions.)
Marie
After what I’ve just heard I don’t know whether
it’s worth while to waste words on a creature like you.
Grant
(Very politely throughout)
Your husband seems to have succeeded in doing it.
Tom
Her husband? Don’t try to saddle her off on me.
Once was enough.
Marie
It’s only our contempt for you, Mr. Williams, that
finds us two together.
Grant
To be sure. I keep forgetting.
(Marie takes a cigarette out of the hand bag;
Grant offers her a light.)
Permit me.
(She glares at him and refuses it. As she
searches her hand bag for a match, a small
pistol accidentally falls to the floor. Grant
quickly picks it up and hands it to her. She
replaces it. He offers her another light, which
she sullenly accepts.)
Marie
I wouldn’t accept anything from you, only, in my
haste, I forgot my matches. (She crosses one knee
over the other and puffs.) Brr—it’s cold here.
Tom
(Bluntly)
She wants a drink.
Grant
Will she accept it from me?
Tom
She’ll take it from anybody.
Grant
Oh, yes, I remember. I beg your pardon.
Marie
(Seeing him lift up the milk bottle)
Milk!
Grant
(Apologetically)
When I gave you your fondness for alcohol in The
Lonely Way, we didn’t have prohibition.
Marie
Was that the reason you took it away from Marie
when you changed her in The Sand Bar?
Grant
Not exactly. You see no leading lady can ever have
a real thirst. I’m sorry if you’re cold.
Tom
Oh, Mrs. Case will warm up when she remembers
what you’ve done to her. She had a wonderful temper
when she lived with me.
Marie
I had to have. And you also took that away from
me.
Grant
I’m very sorry, Mrs. Case; the leading lady didn’t
like your temper either.
Marie
But I liked it. It was part of my character, as you
originally conceived me.
Grant
Yes; a character touch. It was the only comedy
relief in my play.
Tom
It may have been comedy to you but it was no relief
to me.
Marie
(Emotionally)
My temper was my defense and my attack. It
aroused fear and respect. Through it I got what I
wanted out of life. It was mine! Mine! And you
took it away from me! Oh!
(She rushes angrily towards the milk bottle
and lifts it above her as though to smash it;
but Grant stops her.)
Tom
(As he lights another cigarette)
There you see. Every time she thinks of what a
temper she has she loses it.
Grant
(Still holding the bottle with her)
I concede your temper. I always had a hard time
to control it. (Taking it from her courteously.) It
was one of your most unpleasant traits.
Marie
(Sullenly)
Then why did you change me?
Grant
It’s a professional secret, Mrs. Case. The leading
lady hasn’t the capacity to reach the heights your wonderful
temper demanded. Besides, her specialty is cute
ingénue stuff. She’s a great popular favorite, you
know, and is consequently afraid to lose her following
by playing any part which lacks charm.
Tom
(Bitterly)
Charm! Charm! There it is again, Williams.
You hadn’t a bit of respect for Mrs. Case’s true character
so you made her charming.
Marie
But you gave me a charm all my own before I married
Tom.
Tom
She kept it to herself; I never suspected it after we
were married.
Marie
But, Mr. Williams, you knew no one could live with
Tom Robinson and not lose her charm. All he really
wanted of me was to cook his chops and wash his
dishes.
Tom
She seems to forget she was my wife and that I was
a genius. She wanted me to get my precious fingers
red and rough in a dish pan.
Marie
(Flaring)
No. I wanted him to be a human being, not an
artist.
Grant
(Who has been trying to speak throughout)
Please. Please. Remember you two are no longer
married.
Tom
You see: she’s warming up.
Marie
(Bitterly)
How like old times.
Grant
By Jove. I remember now. (Opening manuscript.)
I remember everything about you.
Marie
Don’t be humorous. There’s lots about your own
characters you authors never know.
Tom
That’s what critics are for.
Marie
So don’t try to make my temper seem trivial, Mr.
Williams. I valued it. It gave me a chance to assert
myself. It kept me alive as an individual. In The
Lonely Way, while I was his wife, you made my
whole fight to keep from being swamped by his personality.
Tom
As a married man yourself, Williams, you know
damn well that women have got to capitulate in marriage.
We husbands have got to close the door on
them when they don’t understand us.
Marie
(Contemptuously)
And in The Sand Bar, Marie didn’t have the
courage to take the things of life that lay outside the
door! She didn’t dare, like me, because you’d changed
her into a sweet simpering woman who loved her
husband.
Tom
But the Tom Robinson she loved there isn’t the Tom
Robinson you see here.
Marie
No. The other is a hero! He’s a halo on legs.
Grant
Your ignorance of theatrical conditions is appalling.
The Sand Bar had to have a happy ending. If I
hadn’t made you both charming the public wouldn’t
have believed in your ultimate happiness together.
Tom
(Bringing his hand down on the table)
Now we’re getting at it. Why the devil did you
bring us together?
Grant
(Trying to explain elementally)
Because I’d turned you into the hero and you into
the heroine. They must always come together for
the final curtain.
Marie
But I wasn’t a heroine.
Tom
No. She’s right there.
Marie
(Emotionally)
I was a bitter, disillusionized woman. I saw how
Tom Robinson succeeded in getting out of life what
he wanted by being relentless. I, too, became relentless
and married Pendleton Case because he could give
me what I most wanted.
Grant
(Beginning from now on to lose his patience)
Yes; but that was too unsympathetic a motive to
use in a popular play. So I had to make Pendleton
Case a villain who took advantage of your trust in him.
Marie
But Penny was only a poor gullible fool consumed
by my egotism. Why were you so unfair to him?
Why did you make him a villain?
Tom
Yes. I want to know why you gave him all my
vices?
Grant
If Case hadn’t had all your vices, Marie wouldn’t
have had all the sympathy.
Marie
I didn’t want sympathy; I wanted clothes!
Grant
(Confused)
But the leading lady has to, have sympathy even
without clothes. I mean——
Tom
(Quickly)
Do you mean that the reason you made me sacrifice
my art in The Sand Bar and rescue her from Case
was because she had to have sympathy?
Grant
Exactly. And, besides, how was an audience going
to know you were a hero unless you sacrificed something?
Tom
But I’m not a hero: I’m an artist. You know the
real reason I got rid of her was because she stood in
the way of my art; because I wouldn’t let a single
human responsibility weaken the vision within me.
Marie
Wasn’t that reason enough why I should leave him?
Grant
But that was too abstract an idea for the audience
to get.
Marie
So you turned an abstraction into a villain!
Grant
Can’t you see your husband couldn’t rescue you
from an abstraction?
Marie
But I didn’t want to be rescued. I wanted to
marry Penny!
Tom
And I was tickled to death to get rid of her.
Marie
Yes. It meant release for us both to be ourselves.
Grant
But, Robinson, you had to rescue her. She was the
leading lady. The manager pays her five hundred
dollars a week to marry the star.
Marie
Well, she earns it.
Grant
She earns it because she draws.
Tom
(Surprised)
Does she paint, too?
Grant
She draws that much money into the box office.
Tom
Money, money! How that runs through your talk.
Marie
(Referring to Tom)
I wish to heaven it had run through his.
Tom
(Lifting his voice angrily)
I was above such things. I am an artist. Money!
Money! I see red when I hear that word. Money!
Money! The curse of true art.
Grant
(Pointing to his wife’s door)
Please, please; not so loud. You’ll wake the baby.
Marie
(With a poignant cry)
Oh!
Grant
What’s the matter with you?
Marie
I forgot all about that. You also took my baby
away from me in The Sand Bar.
Tom
So far as I was concerned that was the only decent
thing you did. I had to make money for the child.
Marie
Have you forgotten that was the other reason I left
him? He didn’t love our child: it was in his way.
Tom
Love a mewling, puking child? Not much.
Grant
(Trying to calm her as she walks up and down)
Sh! Control yourself.
Marie
My love for the child was the only decent thing
about me.
Grant
But I gave you other virtues. I made you love your
husband.
Marie
If I had to love my husband in your revised version
couldn’t I at least have kept my child?
Grant
Don’t be unreasonable. No leading lady wants a
child.
Marie
So you took it away to please the leading lady!
Grant
Can’t you understand if I’d given her a child it
would have complicated matters?
Tom
You’re right. It certainly complicated matters for
me.
Grant
(Trying to explain)
I wanted the struggle to be a simple one between
two men and a woman. A child would have been
a side-issue.
Marie
You call my child a side-issue! (Looking at Tom.)
Hasn’t his father anything to say to that?
Tom
(To Grant)
She can’t get me excited about that brat. It stood
in my way. I’d have killed it myself if necessary.
Marie
(To Grant)
But you killed it instead.
Grant
(Losing patience)
Yes. I killed it for the same reason he would have:
because it would have stood in the way of the play’s
success. Are you a couple of fools? Can’t you both
get into your heads I was writing a play to make
money?
Tom
Money! Money again!
Marie
(Astonished as she comes to Grant)
So you killed it for money?
Grant
Yes. Just as I changed you both for money.
Tom
If you’d killed it for art I would have understood.
But to kill a creature for money! You are a murderer!
Marie
(Sneering)
And how much blood money will you get for what
you have done?
Grant
A thousand dollars a week!
Marie
(Overcome)
My God!
Tom
(Awed)
How much did you say?
Grant
A thousand a week.
Marie
You’re going to get that much for putting me into
a popular success?
Grant
Yes.
Tom
She isn’t worth it.
Grant
(Determined to have it out with them)
It was worth it to me. Think of the exquisite joy
I had in revising my problem drama. Think of how
I turned two hectic, distorted, twisted, selfish, miserable,
little-souled characters into two self-sacrificing,
sugar-coated, lovable beings!
Tom
You are not only a murderer but a hypocrite: you
distorted life to win sympathy for us.
Grant
The theater no longer has anything to do with life.
It’s a palace of personality.
Tom
Well, what’s the matter with my personality?
Marie
Leaving him aside, what about me?
Grant
You wouldn’t draw a cent. There wasn’t a dollar
in either of you.
Marie
Is that my fault? You made us what we are.
Grant
Yes; before I learned that the public pays to be
pleased. Do you think there’s anything pleasing about
either of you? Why, you couldn’t even be happy together.
Tom
This is getting damned personal.
Marie
What right has the public got to be so proud of
itself? There’s many a woman in the audience worse
than I am.
Grant
But they want to be flattered into believing they are
as much like heroes and heroines as you are not. The
successful playwright, like the fashionable portrait
painter, flatters and never reveals.
Tom
While true artists like me starve?
Grant
And dramatists who write “Lonely Ways” also
starve. What are you two kicking so about? Because
I’ve made you respectable, wealthy and happy? Do
you think the general public cares a whoop in Hades
what I think of life, of my peculiar slant on the motives
that mess up the characters that happen to interest me?
No: all they want is what they want life to be.
Tom
How little you know of human nature. If we’d had
a chance to be our true selves we would have been
appreciated.
Grant
By whom, pray? A few professional soul lovers.
And they’d get into the theater on passes. No. You
are caviar; most of the world lives on mush. So I
mixed you in mush, sentimental glue, anything you
want to call it.
Tom
You disgust me.
Marie
But I see hope for you. At heart you despise the
crowd, as I did its smug conventions.
Grant
(Bitterly)
I hate what it has made me suffer.
Tom
Every great artist has despised them. I despise
them.
Grant
(More seriously)
Only I think the public has its rights. They have
the right to laugh, to watch virtue triumph, to behold
success, to feel love win out, to see what they think is
happiness. They have that right because their own
lives are so full of the other things. And maybe they
like to dream a little, too.
Marie
Who’s mushy now?
Grant
Don’t sneer at a popular success. It’s sometimes
more difficult to perform a trick than climb a mountain
peak.
Tom
Have we artists no rights?
Grant
(Wearily)
Only the right to dream and starve.
Marie
But I’m not an artist: I’m one of your creations.
Have I no rights? Must I be turned into a trained
poodle and do tricks for money?
Grant
You are only a phantom, a projection, a figment.
Marie
(With great indignation)
You call me a figment?
Tom
(Rising ominously)
I’m tired of hearing you insult your own flesh and
blood.
Grant
I disowned you both when I rewrote you. I was
thinking then of only one thing: the public.
Tom
Liar! You did deceive yourself! You were thinking
of your wife and child.
Marie
(Seeing Grant is startled)
That gets you. You did this to us for them.
Grant
(Himself serious now throughout)
Yes. I was thinking of them most of all.
Marie
Yet when you created Tom Robinson in The
Lonely Way you did not let him think of his wife
and child.
Tom
That’s where I was bigger than you, Grant
Williams!
Grant
You mean more brutal.
Tom
Mush. Mush. You can’t hide behind that. (Impressively.)
I am you! I could never have lived had
I not been a wish hidden in yourself. I am what you
would have been if you had dared!
Grant
How dare you say a thing like that? I made you.
I knew you inside and out.
Tom
But you didn’t know yourself. I knew when you
wrote me that you wanted to be as relentless as you
made me.
Grant
I hated you. I hated every bone beneath your
miserable hide!
Tom
(With a triumphant smile)
That only proves it! You were afraid to be yourself;
so you created me!
Grant
(Shrinking back)
No.... No....
Tom
You forget people have made gods and devils out of
their own dreams to worship and hate. Look at me,
through the mask you gave me, and see yourself! I
was the worst of what was human in you—the devil
side of you: I was the best of what was the artist in
you—the God within you!
Grant
(As though stunned by the thought)
God and devil. No.... No....
Marie
(Seriously)
Now I see how I came into being. I was your
wife, as part of you saw her! (He protests.) She was
in your way, as I was in his way. You made Tom
close the door on me because, deep in your soul, you
wished to close it on her. She never understood.
Grant
Stop. You shan’t go any further. She stood by me
through all these years of poverty. She loves me and
understands.
Marie
(Relentlessly)
But you thought her a fool for loving you. You
really thought she ought to go. You wanted her to
go, I tell you. You wanted her to see that your art
meant more to you than her love. But you didn’t have
the courage to do to her what you made him do to me!
Grant
(To Tom)
Take her away! I won’t let her say these things.
I did what I did to you for Jerry’s sake. I wanted to
make money so she would be happy. I couldn’t stand
it to see her hands grow rough....
Tom
(Contemptuously)
Bosh! Art denies all human responsibility. You
made me face that truth with my wife, and when I
threw her out I was your own inner answer to that
eternal question!
Grant
I tell you my love for her is greater than for my art.
Marie
Mush. Mush. It’s time to think of punishment.
Grant
Punishment? (Triumphantly) I have a thousand
a week. She will have clothes and comfort. And you
talk of punishment!
Marie
(Drawing a pistol and pointing it at him)
What you did to us means your death.
Tom
(Stopping her)
No. You cannot be killed, Grant Williams. You
are dead already.
Marie
(About to shoot)
I think I’ll make sure.
Tom
(As Grant stares at him spellbound)
When you turned your soul into money you died.
There is a greater punishment. We’ll let what remains
of you live, as we shall live to haunt you in your
dreams.
Grant
(Laughing hysterically)
But you can’t live. I killed you. You’re dead, too.
And the dead cannot dream.
Tom
We are your dreams. We will outlast you.
Marie
We live. We shall go on living. Yes. That is a
greater revenge. We’ll haunt you every time you are
alone....
Grant
You can’t. You can’t....
Tom
Whenever you smoke and think in your new
house....
Marie
Or walk by the sands, you will see only our hands
beckon you from the living waters of the sea....
Grant
(Frantically)
I’ll drown you like rats. I’ll keep you under till
you are dead. You shan’t come back ... ever
... ever ... (They both laugh.) Get out.
You phantoms.... I’ll kill you again....
Tom
Mush.... Mush....
Grant
I’ll kill you forever now. (He picks up the manuscript
of The Lonely Way and savagely tears it
up.) Die. Die forever.... Die....
(They laugh loudly and mockingly at him.)
Tom
You see we still live!
Grant
Ah. I’ll kill you yet. I’ll kill you!
(He rushes towards them and overturns the
lamp. They laugh mockingly farther off in the
complete darkness.)
I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!
Jerry
(As she enters)
Grant!! What is the matter?
(She turns on the switch by the door. The
other lights flare up. She is dressed in a kimono,
with her hair in braids. He rushes towards
her.)
Grant
I’ll kill you!
Jerry
Grant!
(He holds her arms, suddenly realizing who she
is and that they are alone.)
Grant
You are real, aren’t you? You are flesh and blood?
Jerry
Silly boy. What on earth is the matter with you?
I go out of the room for a moment and I come back
to find you yelling and wanting to kill me.
Grant
(Still dazed)
No. It wasn’t true: I don’t want to get rid of you.
I....
Jerry
(In a matter-of-fact tone)
I do wish you’d get over the habit of acting all
your plays out. The neighbors will think you and I
aren’t happy. You’d better come to bed and get some
rest.
Grant
I—I couldn’t sleep just now.
(He goes over to the table and sees the manuscript
of The Lonely Way untouched. He
stands trying to collect himself.)
Jerry
It’s upset you, reading over The Lonely Way?
Grant
(Half to himself)
That’s strange.
Jerry
Then what is the matter?
Grant
(Evasively as he sits down wearily)
I—I was reading over the notices.
Jerry
I should have thought they’d soothe you, not get
you so excited. Though there is one that put me in a
terrible temper. (He looks at her quickly.) Why
did you conceal the Gazette notice from me? (Smiling,
she shows it to him: he takes it.) Did you think
this would worry me because Arthur Black said The
Sand Bar didn’t live up to the promise of your other
plays?
Grant
(Half to himself)
And he was the only one who liked the others that
failed.
Jerry
But it is outrageous of him to say you’d deserted
your ideals. I have half a mind to write to the Editor.
Grant
(With a thought)
Would it mean so very much to you if it were true?
Jerry
Of course it would.
Grant
(Defensively)
But, after all, Jerry, does it make any difference to
anybody but the artist whether he sells out or not?
Jerry
But, dear, I think you’ve just begun to reach your
ideals.
Grant
Just begun?
Jerry
Yes. I never told you before because I didn’t want
to discourage you when we were so hard up. But,
Grant dear, I never liked all those other plays—especially
The Lonely Way. They seemed unworthy
of you. The Sand Bar is the first play
that really seems true to life.
Grant
(Staring at her)
Really true to life?
Jerry
Yes. And I hope from now on you’ll go on writing
the plays that will make people feel happier and....
Grant
(Suddenly bursting out in an ironic laugh)
I’ve got it. I’ve got it.
Jerry
What?
Grant
The curtain raiser Trebaro wants. I’ll call it The
Mask. No. Masks! That’s the title. I’ll show
them whether I’m dead or not.
Jerry
What are you talking of?
Grant
The theme of my play: that so long as an artist
knows what he is doing with his art he is alive: that
the only thing which can kill him is self-deception.
Jerry
Dear me, you’re going to write another play nobody
will understand?
Grant
(Contemptuously)
Why should I care whether anybody will understand
it?
Jerry
But Trebaro won’t produce it, dear.
Grant
Oh yes, he will: he said he’d produce anything I
wrote no matter how good it was.
Jerry
(Seeing him eagerly go to his typewriter)
You’re going to begin it now?
Grant
Yes. Now. I can write it off at a sitting.
Jerry
To-night—of all nights?
Grant
Yes. As Tom said: while the “glow” is here.
Now that I’m free. I’ll show them whether I’m dead
or not. I’ll use their very words. I’ll make it bite.
Jerry
(Completely lost)
I don’t understand you or what you are talking
about.
Grant
(Gives her a look)
You don’t need to understand now, Jerry; The
Sand Bar has released you.
Jerry
(Hurt)
I never heard you talk like this before. You’re
unkind.
Grant
(Putting paper in machine)
I don’t mean to be, dear; only my nerves are on edge.
Jerry
(Begins to cry)
I can see that. You’ve no regard for my feelings.
Grant
I have my work....
Jerry
You seem so far off all of a sudden. To-night of all
nights! Just when you’ve made your first real success!
Grant
(More testily)
Please. Please, Jerry. I won’t be able to write this
if I have to think of anything else.
(He begins to write. He looks about the room
showing he is describing it.)
“The scene is the living-room in a flat. The doorway
from the public stairs opens immediately upon it without
the intervening privacy of a small hallway....”
(He murmurs as he goes on, striking the keys
very rapidly. She stands looking at him—hurt
and wondering what it means: but he is absorbed.
Then she slowly goes to the kerosene
heater and lights it. She looks at him a moment.)
Jerry
I guess I won’t wait up for you to-night. I’m cold.
(She goes out, hardly controlling herself. He
continues for a moment. Then he gets up, still
absorbed, and closes the door after her. He
resumes his work with the glow of intense creation
on his face.)
[Curtain]
