THE DELEGATE WITH THE GRANDFATHER: That’s not the way my grandfather knew it … He said it should go like …
CHAIRMAN: Another time, please. Is everyone ready now?
[He takes his place beside the GUARDIAN. The ASSISTANT TO THE GUARDIAN hands them both garlands, hangs more around their necks. Some music starts up.]
ASSISTANT: Lights down please.
[The TECHNICIANS turn down the lights. The Door can be seen glowing faintly in the half dark.]
CHAIRMAN: There you are, the technicians have got the lighting right – I said they would.
This play was first presented by The English Stage Society, at The Royal Court Theatre, London, on 23 March 1958, with the following cast:
| TONY BOLTON | Colin Jeavons |
| MYRA BOLTON | Valerie Taylor |
| SANDY BOLES | Philip Bond |
| MIKE FERRIS | Vernon Smythe |
| PHILIP DURRANT | Ewen MacDuff |
| ROSEMARY | Sarah Preston |
| MILLY BOLES | Patricia Burke |
Directed by John Dexter
The action takes place in the hall of Myra Bolton’s house in London.
MYRA BOLTON: A middle-aged woman.
TONY BOLTON: Her son, aged 22.
MILLY BOLES: A middle-aged woman, Myra’s friend.
SANDY BOLES: Milly’s son, aged 22.
MIKE FERRIS: An elderly Left Wing politician.
PHILIP DURRANT: A middle-aged architect.
ROSEMARY: A young girl engaged to Philip.
SCENE I
Before the curtain rises, an H-bomb explosion. CURTAIN UP on the sound of blast. Silence. Machine-gun fire. The explosion again. These sounds come from a tape-recording machine which has been left running. This is the hall of MYRA BOLTON’S house in London, stairs ascending L back. Door L into living-room. Door R which is entrance from street. Window R looking into garden at front of the house.
The essential furniture is a divan close to the foot of the stairs. A cupboard in the wall. A mirror. Odd chairs. A small radio.
Everything is extremely untidy: there are files, piles of newspapers, including the New Statesman, posters lying about inscribed BAN THE BOMB, WE WANT LIFE NOT DEATH, etc. A typewriter on the floor. The radio is playing tea-room music behind the war-noises from the tape-recorder.
After the second explosion TONY BOLTON comes in R. He is in Army uniform and has this day finished his Army service. He is a dark, lightly built, rather graceful youth, attractive and aware of it, but uneasy and on the defensive in the same way and for the same reasons as an adolescent girl who makes herself attractive as a form of self-assertion but is afraid when the attention she draws is more than gently chivalrous. His concern for his appearance is also due to the longing for the forms of order common to people who have never known order. He is at bottom deeply uneasy, tense and anxious, fluctuating between the good manners of those who use manners as a defence, the abrupt rudeness of the very young, and a plaintive, almost querulous appeal.
He stands looking at the disorder in the room, first ironically and then with irritation. As the music reaches a climax of bathos, he rushes to the radio and turns it off.
TONY: What a mess. God, what a mess!
[The sound of an H-bomb explosion gathering strength on the tape recorder. He turns to stare, appalled. Listens. Switches it off at explosion. There is a sudden complete silence. TONY breathes it in. He passes his hands over his hair, his eyes. He opens his eyes. He is staring at the window. Sunlight streams across the floor. He dives at the window, draws the curtains, making a half-dark, goes to the divan, lets himself fall limp across it. A moment’s complete silence. The telephone rings.]
[querulously] Oh, no, no, no. [leaps up, goes to telephone] Yes. It’s me, Tony. No, I’m not on leave. I don’t know where my mother is. I haven’t seen her yet. Yes, Philip. I’ll tell her. Who did you say? Who’s Rosemary? OK. [lets receiver fall back and returns to the divan, where he lies as before, eyes closed] [MYRA’S VOICE upstairs, singing: Boohoo, you’ve got me crying for you.]
MYRA’S VOICE: Where are you, darling? [continues singing].
[She comes into sight at the head of the stairs. A good-looking woman of about 45 or 50, and at the moment looking her age. She is wearing bagged trousers and a sweat-shirt. She peers down into the half-lit hall from the top of the stairs, and slowly comes down.]
TONY [languidly]: Well, Mother, how are you?
MYRA: Tony! You might have let me know. [She rushes at the window, pulls back the curtains, turns to look at him, the sunlight behind her.]
TONY [shading his eyes]: Do we have to have that glare?
MYRA: Have you got leave?
TONY [without moving]: I didn’t imagine it was necessary to remind you of the date my National Service finished.
MYRA: Oh, I see.
TONY: But, of course, if my coming is in any way inconvenient to you, I’ll go away again.
MYRA [stares and then laughs]: Oh, Tony … [rushes across at him] Come on, get up out of that sofa.
[He does not move. Then he languidly rises. She impulsively embraces him. He allows himself to be embraced. Then he kisses her gracefully on the cheek.]
MYRA: Ohhh! What an iceberg! [laughs, holding him by the arms] [Suddenly he convulsively embraces her and at once pulls away.] Oh, darling, it is lovely to have you home. We must have a party to celebrate.
TONY: Oh, no.
MYRA: What’s the matter?
TONY: A party. I knew you’d say a party.
MYRA: Oh, very well. [examining him, suddenly irritated] For God’s sake get out of that ghastly uniform. It makes you look like a …
TONY: What?
MYRA: A soldier.
TONY: I’ve