One-Act Plays Part 28

[Footnote 28: Copyright, Feb. 1, 1913, in the United States by Oliphant Down. Reprinted by special arrangement with Gowans & Gray, Ltd., Glasgow.

Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that this play is fully copyrighted under the existing laws of the United States, and no one is allowed to produce this play without first having obtained permission of Samuel French, 28 West 38 Street, New York.]

_The Maker of Dreams_ by the late Oliphant Down was first given at the Royalty Theatre in Glasgow, November 20, 1911. The design for the setting here reproduced was used when the play was acted in March, 1915, at The Neighborhood Playhouse in New York. The picture does not show how touches of red here and there in the scene, and the brilliant blue sky, visible through the quaint windows, enhanced the character of the black and white of the walls and of the flower pots. The back wall of the set was mounted on casters and, while Pierrette slept, moved silently off stage, to disclose to the audience a formal garden at the back, where a miniature Pierrot and a tiny Pierrette did a joyous little dance, thus suggesting to the spectators Pierrette's happy dream.

Pierrot, the hero of this and of the preceding play, has had an interesting stage history. To understand him fully we have to go back to the comedy of masks that had fully developed in Italy by the time of the Renascence. This comedy was a special kind of play, the scenario of which only was written, the dialogue being improvised by the individual players. Each player wore a costume and a mask that never changed, and these fixed his ident.i.ty. Most of the parts had a strong local flavor, the pedant, for example, hailing from Bologna, the overly shrewd merchant, from Venice. Many of the characters have become fixed types and reappear under their old names in various forms of modern drama. Pantaloon, Harlequin, Columbine, Punch and Judy, and Pierrot are among those who live on in modern drama. There is an enchanting play by Granville Barker and Dion Clayton Calthrop called _The Harlequinade_, that describes in a popular way the devious and uncertain paths traveled by these stock characters down the ages.

Pierrot's ancestry is not so clearly Italian as the others. Pedrolino, a mischievous, intriguing buffoon, Pagliaccio, a madcap who wore a painted hat of white wool and a garment of white linen, whose face was covered with flour, and who wore a white mask, have both been cited as types that may have contributed to the figure of Pierrot, whose name makes its first appearance in Moliere's play, _Don Juan ou le Festin de Pierre_. Not that this dull servant of Moliere's is in any sense the counterpart of the Pierrot of our day who is by turns languis.h.i.+ng or vivacious, impish or poetic, but never doltish. From the seventeenth century, Pierrot, his costume borrowed from the Neapolitan mask, Pulcinella, became more and more prominent on both the Italian and the French stage. It was a certain French pantomime actor by the name of Deburau who died a few years before the middle of the nineteenth century, who gave Pierrot the prominence that he enjoys to-day and who dressed the character in the guise that he most often a.s.sumes on the modern stage. "The short woolen tunic, with its great b.u.t.tons and its narrow sleeves, that overhung the hands, soon became an ample calico blouse with wide long sleeves like those of the Italian Pagliaccio. He suppressed the collar, which cast an upward shadow from the footlights on to his face, and interfered with the play of his countenance, and instead of the white skull-cap of his predecessor, he emphasized the pallor of his face by framing it in a cap of black velvet."[29] The Pierrot of our fancy[30] comes to us also through the pictures of Watteau and Pater and the designs of Aubrey Beardsley.

[Footnote 29: Maurice Sand, _The History of the Harlequinade_, London, 1915, Vol. I, p. 219.]

[Footnote 30: _Mon Ami Pierrot._ _Songs and Fantasies_, compiled by Kendall Banning, Chicago, 1917. This book presents the Pierrot of modern poetry and drama.]

A one-act farce, _The Quod Wrangle_, is the only other published play of Oliphant Down's. Its plot, as outlined in _The London Times_ of March 4, 1914, reminds one strongly of O. Henry's _The Cop and the Anthem_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Maker of Dreams_ at The Neighborhood Playhouse, designed by Aline Bernstein.]

THE MAKER OF DREAMS

CHARACTERS

PIERROT.

PIERRETTE.

THE MANUFACTURER.

_Evening. A room in an old cottage, with walls of dark oak, lit only by the moonlight that peers through the long, low cas.e.m.e.nt-window at the back, and the glow from the fire that is burning merrily on the spectator's left. A cobbled street can be seen outside, and a door to the right of the window opens directly on to it. Opposite the fire is a kitchen dresser with cups and plates twinkling in the firelight. A high-backed oak settle, as though afraid of the cold moonlight, has turned its back on the window and warms its old timbers at the fire.

In the middle of the room stands a table with a red cover; there are chairs on either side of it. On the hob, a kettle is keeping itself warm; whilst overhead, on the hood of the chimney-piece, a small lamp is turned very low._

_A figure flits past the window and, with a click of the latch, PIERRETTE enters. She hangs up her cloak by the door, gives a little s.h.i.+ver and runs to warm herself for a moment. Then, having turned up the lamp, she places the kettle on the fire. Crossing the room, she takes a tablecloth from the dresser and proceeds to lay tea, setting out crockery for two. Once she goes to the window and, drawing aside the common red cas.e.m.e.nt-curtains, looks out, but returns to her work, disappointed. She puts a spoonful of tea into the teapot, and another, and a third. Something outside attracts her attention; she listens, her face brightening. A voice is heard singing:_

"Baby, don't wait for the moon, She is caught in a tangle of boughs; And mellow and musical June Is saying 'Good-night' to the cows."

[_The voice draws nearer and a conical white hat goes past the window. PIERROT enters._]

PIERROT [_throwing his hat to PIERRETTE_]. Ugh! How cold it is. My feet are like ice.

PIERRETTE. Here are your slippers. I put them down to warm. [_She kneels beside him, as he sits before the fire and commences to slip off his shoes._]

PIERROT [_singing:_]

"Baby, don't wait for the moon, She will put out her tongue and grimace; And mellow and musical June Is pinning the stars in their place."

Isn't tea ready yet?

PIERRETTE. Nearly. Only waiting for the kettle to boil.

PIERROT. How cold it was in the market-place to-day! I don't believe I sang at all well. I can't sing in the cold.

PIERRETTE. Ah, you're like the kettle. He can't sing when he's cold either. Hurry up, Mr. Kettle, if you please.

PIERROT. I wish it were in love with the sound of its own voice.

PIERRETTE. I believe it is. Now it's singing like a bird. We'll make the tea with the nightingale's tongue. [_She pours the boiling water into the teapot._] Come along.

PIERROT [_looking into the fire_]. I wonder. She had beauty, she had form, but had she soul?

PIERRETTE [_cutting bread and b.u.t.ter at the table_]. Come and be cheerful, instead of grumbling there to the fire.

PIERROT. I was thinking.

PIERRETTE. Come and have tea. When you sit by the fire, thoughts only fly up the chimney.

PIERROT. The whole world's a chimney-piece. Give people a thing as worthless as paper, and it catches fire in them and makes a stir; but real thought, they let it go up with the smoke.

PIERRETTE. Cheer up, Pierrot. See how thick I've spread the b.u.t.ter.

PIERROT. You're always cheerful.

PIERRETTE. I try to be happy.

PIERROT. Ugh! [_He has moved to the table. There is a short silence, during which PIERROT sips his tea moodily._]

PIERRETTE. Tea all right?

PIERROT. Middling.

PIERRETTE. Only middling! I'll pour you out some fresh.

PIERROT. Oh, it's all right! How you do worry a fellow!

PIERRETTE. Heigh-ho! Shall I chain up that big black dog?

PIERROT. I say, did you see that girl to-day?

PIERRETTE. Whereabouts?

PIERROT. Standing by the horse-trough. With a fine air, and a string of great beads.

PIERRETTE. I didn't see her.

PIERROT. I did, though. And she saw me. Watched me all the time I was singing, and clapped her hands like anything each time. I wonder if it is possible for a woman to have a soul as well as such beautiful coloring.