We were arguing that if they were deadly enemies and locked in a room together which one would come out alive. Now I claimed that Jack Dempsey would take one—
ULSA: (Angrily) Rot! He wouldn’t have a—
DIVINE: (Quickly) You win.
ULSA: Then I love you again.
MR. ICKY: So I’m going to lose my little daughter…
ULSA: You’ve still got a houseful of children,
(CHARLES, ULSA’S brother, coming out of the cottage. He is dressed as if to go to sea; a coil of rope is slung about his shoulder and an anchor is hanging from his neck.)
CHARLES: (Not seeing them) I’m going to sea! I’m going to sea!
(His voice is triumphant.)
MR. ICKY: (Sadly) You went to seed long ago.
CHARLES: I’ve been reading “Conrad.”
PETER: (Dreamily) “Conrad,” ah! “Two Years Before the Mast,” by Henry James.
CHARLES: What?
PETER: Walter Pater’s version of “Robinson Crusoe.”
CHARLES: (To his feyther) I can’t stay here and rot with you. I want to live my life. I want to hunt eels.
MR. ICKY: I will be here… when you come back.…
CHARLES: (Contemptuously) Why, the worms are licking their chops already when they hear your name.
(It will be noticed that some of the characters have not spoken for some time. It will improve the technique if they can be rendering a spirited saxophone number.)
MR. ICKY: (Mournfully) These vales, these hills, these McCormick harvesters—they mean nothing to my children. I understand.
CHARLES: (More gently) Then you’ll think of me kindly, feyther. To understand is to forgive.
MR. ICKY: No…no.… We never forgive those we can understand.… We can only forgive those who wound us for no reason at all.…
CHARLES: (Impatiently) I’m so beastly sick of your human nature line. And, anyway, I hate the hours around here.
(Several dozen more of MR. ICKY’S children trip out of the house, trip over the grass, and trip over the pots and dods. They are muttering “We are going away,” and “We are leaving you.”)
MR. ICKY: (His heart breaking) They’re all deserting me. I’ve been too kind. Spare the rod and spoil the fun. Oh, for the glands of a Bismarck.
(There is a honking outside—probably DIVINE’S chauffeur growing impatient for his master.)
MR. ICKY: (In misery) They do not love the soil! They have been faithless to the Great Potato Tradition! (He picks up a handful of soil passionately and rubs it on his bald head. Hair sprouts.) Oh, Wordsworth, Wordsworth, how true you spoke!
“No motion has she now, no force;
She does not hear or feel;
Roll’d round on earth’s diurnal course
In some one’s Oldsmobile.”
(They all groan and shouting “Life” and “Jazz” move slowly toward the wings.)
CHARLES: Back to the soil, yes! I’ve been trying to turn my back to the soil for ten years!
ANOTHER CHILD: The farmers may be the backbone of the country, but who wants to be a backbone?
ANOTHER CHILD: I care not who hoes the lettuce of my country if I can eat the salad!
ALL: Life! Psychic Research! Jazz!
MR. ICKY: (Struggling with himself) I must be quaint. That’s all there is. It’s not life that counts, it’s the quaintness you bring to it.…
ALL: We’re going to slide down the Riviera. We’ve got tickets for Piccadilly Circus. Life! Jazz!
MR. ICKY: Wait. Let me read to you from the Bible. Let me open it at random. One always finds something that bears on the situation.
(He finds a Bible lying in one of the dods and opening it at random begins to read.)
“Ahab and Istemo and Anim, Goson and Olon and Gilo, eleven cities and their villages. Arab, and Ruma, and Esaau—”
CHARLES: (Cruelly) Buy ten more rings and try again.
MR. ICKY: (Trying again) “How beautiful art thou my love, how beautiful art thou! Thy eyes are dove’s eyes, besides what is hid within. Thy hair is as flocks of goats which come up from Mount Galaad—Hm! Rather a coarse passage.… ”
(His children laugh at him rudely, shouting “Jazz!” and “All life is primarily suggestive!”)
MR. ICKY: (Despondently) It won’t work today. (Hopefully) Maybe it’s damp. (He feels it) Yes, it’s damp.… There was water in the dod.… It won’t work.
ALL: It’s damp! It won’t work! Jazz!
ONE OF THE CHILDREN: Come, we must catch the six-thirty.
(Any other cue may be inserted here.)
MR. ICKY: Good-by.…
( They all go out. MR. ICKY is left alone. He sighs and walking over to the cottage steps, lies down, and closes his eyes.)
Twilight has come down and the stage is flooded with such light as never was on land or sea. There is no sound except a sheep-herder’s wife in the distance playing an aria from Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony, on a mouth-organ. The great white and gray moths swoop down and light on the old man until he is completely covered by them. But he does not stir.
The curtain goes up and down several times to denote the lapse of several minutes. A good comedy effect can be obtained by having MR. ICKY cling to the curtain and go up and down with it. Fireflies or fairies on wires can also be introduced at this point.
Then PETER appears, a look of almost imbecile sweetness on his face. In his hand he clutches something and from time to time glances at it in a transport of ecstasy. After a struggle with himself he lays it on the old man’s body and then quietly withdraws.
The moths chatter among themselves and then scurry away in sudden fright. And as night deepens there still sparkles there, small, white and round, breathing a subtle perfume to the West Issacshire breeze, PETER’S gift of love—a mothball.
(The play can end at this point or can go on indefinitely.)
JEMINA, THE MOUNTAIN GIRL
This don’t pretend to be “Literature.” This is just a tale for red-blooded folks who want a story and not just a lot of “psychological” stuff or “analysis.” Boy, you’ll love it! Read it here, see it in the movies, play it on the
