DACHIELL ROWDON
44 Brookwood Road, London SW185BY
rowdluce@aol.com
10 Aelr Lo


ONE
THE SCENE opens on the empty dressing room
ofl MARVIN JAMES at the Vic in the Strand.
Our first impression is ofa bright extravagant
show-biz version of a dressing room that might
be suitable for a musical, and indeed it is a
surprise that MARVIN doesn't open with a
song. Being the size of a stage it is equipped as
one, with a slight rake and a sophisticated light
and sound console, the whole space having once
been a rehearsal room frequently hired out to
ballet companies..
Downstage actor's right there is a dressing
table with the conventional dressing room
mirror framed with naked light bulbs, except
that there is no glass in the frame and we see
MARVIN JAMES through it.
On the dressing table are two wigs, one grey
(for the play which MARVIN won't dare name
but which takes place in Scotland) and the other
a deep blue-black (for HAMLET). They are on
mounts.
At MARVIN's right hand is a further table
containing the elaborate lights and sound
console, together with a land-line phone, a
mobile phone, a loose radio mike and unopened
letters.
This spoiled man is thus connected to every part
of the theatre below him. His swivel chair ris a
soft leather article coloured burgundy.


At roughly centre stage there is a settee partly
covered with play scripts which can easily be
thrown offif sexual dalliance is scripted, and .
there is for this purpose a thick outsize blanket
and an ample supply of gaudy cushions.
The staircase entrance to all this is actor's
right, its doors made of double-glazed
plate glass.
Upstage there is a wide screened-off area with
an inner room whose wide window looks out on
rooftops and affords a view---to those who go
close to it---of the street into which the
backstage entrance far below abuts. This area
consists of an unseen kitchen, bathroom and
changing room.
Downstage actor's left there is a cupboard in
which MARVIN keeps certain props of a
theatrically historical value.
When the action begins the stage is empty.
Then the staircase door is pushed open slowly
by a cane.
The cane is followed by a yellow-gloved
hand and an elegantly cut sleeve owned by
MARVIN JAMES, a handsome man in his (to
say the least) early middle age. He is dressed
urbanely in a striped suit and his hat is set at an
angle last seen in Jack Buchanan's day.
He walks to the console and deftly touches a
button with his stick to cut off the stage noises
and with another touch to bring up the theme
music from one ofhis musical shows, May
Bugs. This music has a highly rhythmic,
dramatic aura like Brian Eno's (The Jezebel
Spirit and Help me Somebody are useful


models).
MARVIN at once goes into his admittedly
extraordinary dance routine from that show. We
don't expect such expertise when combined, as
it is, with a suave dated appearance. Soon his
steps pick up to make a real performance.
At the end he switches the sound off and
deposits his stick in a rack for that purpose near
the door and then sits down at the dressing
table, switching on the lights sO that we
see him dazzlingly framed.
He finds, as usual, a copy ofThe Times before
him and with astonishing rapidity races through
every page and every column and then in fury
screws it up into a ball throws it in the
wastepaper basket.
He returns to perfect calm at once, gazing at
himself with the detachment of an actor who has
been through almost everything. Just as he
begins making himself up the land-line phone
rings. He takes no notice. It stops ringing. He
pencils in wrinkles. He leaves this to try on
his wig for the Scottish Play, as he calls it.
The phone rings again. He nonchalantly fits
the wig. He returns to the wrinkle pencil,
tipping the phone deftly off the hook. There is
the faint crackle of a voice at the other end. As
he paints the face in we see that he clearly
favours a Henry Irving view of the Scottish
Gentleman as sardonic and evil. He then dries
his hands and picks up the phone.
MARVIN:
Hullo?. Yes.. You what? Could you repeat that?. You want a pair
of my socks?. .No you can't, you can bloody well sweat in your own!
What an idea, collecting great actors' socks! How did you get my
number anyway..... What..... Well why in the hell didn't you say so in


the first place?. Ah, you've just had a shock. ..But when were you
anything else? And when were box office receipts anything but
down?.... ...Listen, I told you ages ago, they'll never take another play by
the Old Chap this year, particularly after that lousy Lear. I was all for
doing a Coward revival.. Yes I know there've been three this year but
they are safe. Having once filled the Henry Miller theatre with Present
Laughter I know what I'm talking about.. ..It had nothing to do with
your direction, a Coward play directs itself! They were touting tickets
at hundreds of dollars! Forty percent of my capacity was black, I refer
to the colour of their skin. Coward was pure Wasp until I came
along!. What? It was paper? I've never had paper in a show of
mine, you're delirious!. Well of course it's going to be paper for The
Play, we'll be lucky to sell the first row! It makes me sick, doing The
Play. He's such a miserable old bugger. Murdering people in their beds
and getting on his wife's nerves and having nightmares at the dinner
table. I know what I'd have told him to do with that brief candle ifl'd
been his wife! Anyway, what are the takings?.. .Oh my God! I shan't
go on! Full dress rehearsal this evening and miserable takings, I won't
do it!.. What's that? I'm upset because The Times didn't mention me
this morning? I've told you repeatedly I don't give a damn about The
Times, I don't even take it let alone read it (with a bland glance at the
wastepaper basket). As for you, you're sore because you can't direct, it's
simply not within your range of gifts, it never has been. I shall never
forget the time I stood behind no fewer than fifteen armour-clad
henchmen at the Final Dress and your little voice comes piping up from
the stalls---"Marvin's completely masked!". Masked, I was obliterated!
Nobody could see the top of my head, let alone hear me speak! That's
not blocking, that's blundering!. I see, you're too distraught to speak
are you? And you've heard it all before have you?... Your who?
Your ex-wife? I didn't even know you were married... She
what?... Well of course she left you, you got a divorce didn't
you?... You went back together?. .You married her twice? And
what's the state of play at the moment?. She ran out of the house---?
LIZZY TURNDALE enters right, a cup
of coffee in her hand. She is a bright
attractive young woman with wide black
eyes and she is in a very fine costume.
She stands there uncertainly, glancing
about the dressing room in an inquisitive,


even insatiable manner.
MARVIN (cont.) To what---bring me a cup ofcoffee. Come here? What the devil for?
Because she's in love with me? Oh for God's sake man they all say
that! Anyway I'm not responsible for your domestic skirmishing. As
far as I'm concerned you've cooked your bloody goose this
morning--you've lost your male lead in one fell swoop! I'm certainly
not going to play to a 55% house. But I'll tell you what I am going to
do. I'm going to play Hamlet.
LIZZY nearly drops the coffee with
surprise. He slams the phone down and
only now seems to realise what he has
just said. He leans back in his burgundy
chair gazing before him in a dream.
MARVIN (to himself, mumbling) Ha, are you honest?
LIZZY:
MARVIN (jumping out ofhis skin) Who the---?
He stares at her, then at the cup she is
holding. He rises and courteously takes
it from her, then deposits it on his
dressing table.
Suddenly he turns and grabs her. She is
about to scream but he puts his hand over
her mouth.
MARVIN (cont.) Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?
(Breaking from her) No dammit, itjust won't do!
He returns to his dressing table sulkily
and resumes his making up. But
suddenly he tears off his wig and begins
creaming out his wrinkles.
He puts on a smoother foundation and is
quickly a younger if not young man. He


tries on the blue-black wig and leans
back with some satisfaction.
LIZZY's astonishment gives way to
steady curiosity. She sits down quietly on
the settee.
MARVIN (cont.) Whose idea was that, bringing me coffee? Not our director's by any
chance? Not Nigel Burbage's, your husband's? What a ridiculous
idea to assume the name ofan Elizabethan actor-manager, don'tyou
think so? Burbage my foot! (He sips the coffee) You've put sugar in.
(Resuming his making up) Never put sugar in Marvin James's coffee.
Put it in his tea. Not his coffee. They know it at the Savoy and the
Alconquin but in the theatre where he's been resident star for fifteen
years news is apparently slow to travel. (Without looking in her
direction) Why are you here? Wheedled your way into the job to get
my autograph or something? Are you after my socks? Chap on the
phone this morning was after my socks. You have nice tits, I'll say
that.
LIZZY:
MARVIN:
She speaks but one word---"me'. (Turning to her with a leer) Me, me,
me, me!
LIZZY:
Who the bloody hell do you think you are?
MARVIN:
Oh my God not that line! (Continuing his make-up) Not after Eliza
Doolittle! What's your name anyway? I mean your maiden one.
LIZZY:
Lizzy Turndale.
A stunned silence. He turns towards her
slowly.
MARVIN:
No one's called Lizzy Turndale. It's impossible. And you've made a bad
thing worse by abbreviating the Elizabeth, don't you see that?
However, it's the turn in Turndale I dislike most. Turning round,
turning away, turning up, turning out, it's all bad news, reminding one
of funerals, Wednesday matinees and Number Two tours, not to say the
closing of shows on second nights. It spells something rather worse


than doom---the drab. Elizabeth has been overdone anyway---two
queens and Taylor. No, Lizzy Turndale's completely self-defeating.
What's your real name?
LIZZY:
Jean Stokes.
MARVIN:
That makes me like Lizzy Turndale.
LIZZY (gazing at him) It's exactly what he said. You're completely unreal.
MARVIN (unruffled) Who said?
LIZZY:
Nigel Burbage.
MARVIN:
Who's he?
LIZZY:
He's my husband and he's just directed you in Mac---!
MARVIN (jumping up in wild panic) WHAT did you say? Oh my God! You said it!
You said the word (dragging her up from the settee and pulling her
roughly to the staircase door)!
MARVIN:
Get out, go on! (Pushing her out and closing the door smartly, then at
the top ofhis voice) KNOCK! KNOCK THREE TIMES!
LIZZY (off)
What?
MARVIN:
What, what get off the pot, this is a matter of life and death! Knock on
the fucking door three times!
LIZZY knocks on the door. He is vastly
relieved.
MARVIN (cont.) You may come in.
She reenters.
MARVIN (cont.) Now turn round three times. Turn! QUICK!
He whirls her round three times.


MARVIN (cont., hurrying back to his dressing table) I'll have to tell Nigel about this.
It'll kill him. In fact we can't go on. (Grabbing the phone) Oh my
God. We'll have to do Brighton and all stations to Richmond, oh my
God (dialling), I told him we'd never be able to open cold like this.
Nigel? The woman, God knows who picked her up for the kitchen, she
came in here and named the fucking Play...Yes, she actually named it!
She'll be whistling next, the stupid bitch! I sent her outside but it's a
bad omen Nigel and together with your news of a poor house I don't
think we can open, anyway I've never thought that opening cold was a
good idea on the Play, I think we'd better open at Brighton--trust you to
send your wife up! : What?.. (aghast) She's an---an--
Very quietly he puts the phone down, his eyes
still on her. He leans back in his chair and
takes a leisurely sip of coffee. Then he gets up
and approaches her.
MARVIN (cont., quietly) So you're an actress. (Putting his nose within an inch of hers)
(As she is about to speak) You came here on the pretext of bringing me
my morning coffee and what you really wanted was to put a bad spell
on our production, thus ruining your husband. (Remembering) Hey,
wait a minute! Didn't he tell me you were in love with me? (Sitting
down by her) Now let's go into this methodically. What's the real
reason you're here?
LIZZY:
I'm in love with you.
MARVIN:
Quite normal, but why did you name The Scottish Play?
LIZZY:
Because you don't want to play in it.
MARVIN (rather taken aback) That's perfectly true. Now why don't I want to do it?
LIZZY:
Mostly I think because you don't know how to play him.
MARVIN:
I don't want to play him.
LIZZY:
Because you can't. You're too old-fashioned.
MARVIN:
Old fashioned---I'm the most avant garde man in the business,
students travel from all over the world to see the man who plays the Old


Chap as you've never seen him played before, as a new event!
LIZZY:
But all that's old hat!
MARVIN:
Avant garde means ahead of the time!
LIZZY:
People don't even use the word avant garde any more. They don't
know what it means! And all you do is turn plays on their head---you
make Julius Caesar a fairy, Othello a dwarf and deathly pale and in love
with a Venetian hooker called Desdemona, and the top brass don't like
it, your males always have to be in drag and your females in high boots
carrying whips. It's SO obvious!
MARVIN (gasping for air, hardly audible) But everyone knows---my characterisations
are diaphonous, pellucid--words used by the critics---you see the Old
Chap's plays work far better for the surface being flawed, I play against
the character, don't you see that?
LIZZY (with a touch of compassion) But you've never had a really new idea. Romeo
behaves as ifl he hates Juliet and sneers his way through the tender lines
and in such a rush you can't understand a word, Hamlet says everything
like he's in a pub reciting the sports section, Lear's just had his twenty-
first birthday and has a thing about being old and his daughters are his
sisters and they egg him on to think he really is old and he screwed his
mother and by the end no wonder one of the critics said this was the
Shakespeare interpretation of all time and they looked forward to Lord
and Lady Macbeth as two queens, Hamlet as his father's ghost and A
Midsummer Night's Dream as an ice drama.
MARVIN (weakly) As a matter of fact I did have in mind---he was a bloody awful critic
by the way, drank himselfto death---I did have in mind Lady Mac as a
dike and Mac himself AC DC and they hire somebody else to play Lady
Mac and she takes the rap for the murders because they both want the
next king to be a woman.
A puzzled silence, shared by him.
LIZZY:
But don't you see, everybody's ignorant now? You can't stand
Shakespeare on his head ifthey know nothing about him on his feet! I
mean, they want to know what the words and they don't get it! And all
you do is mess about with the business! If the stage directions say


whisper you've got to scream, when they say creep along like a
sleepwalker you run! It's like the Royal Court fifty years ago, all you
needed to do to get an audience was put your hand in a pram and bring
it out with shit all over it---but the list of outrages has been exhausted
Marvin!
MARVIN (jumping up with a scream) NOT MARVIN! You will not call me Marvin! I
am Mr. James!
LIZZY:
Conversation doesn't move with you, does it? (Opening her eyes)
That's what Nigel said. Itjust goes put-put-putting on but the vehicle
remains stationary.
MARVIN (very quietly) Then why are you in love with me?
LIZZY:
The walls could crack, trees could grow through the auditorium, rats
could overrun the dressing rooms and every other man and woman
could be dead but you'll still be up here recording yourself and looking
in that damned mirror and seeing your audience through it.
MARVIN:
But my acting, you must be in love with that too!
LIZZY:
You see? You can't be other than yourself.
MARVIN (abjectly submitting to his need for an immediate answer) You won't tell me if
you're in love a little bit with my acting??
LIZZY:
I think it's because you never change, never listen. But then the sun
doesn't look at me or listen to me but I love to bask in it. (Gazing at
him with tenderness) But you can't be anything except yourself, can
you? Ifthe earth shrivelled up you'd go on being yourself as a little
spot of grease.
MARVIN:
Tell me how I could be other than myself?
LIZZY:
All my life you've captivated me. In the end people don't care if
Shakespeare's been shot to hell, it's your movements and your voice that
count, you could be saying hickery dickery dock for an hour and forty
minutes, nobody would notice the difference.
MARVIN:
Do I look old, is that your complaint?


LIZZY (sighing) You even talk old, like it was 1900. (Looking round) Do you know
what Nigel calls this dressing room?
MARVIN:
Why don't you tell me?
LIZZY:
The Vic Upstairs. The successful stuff takes place at the Vic
downstairs while Marvin jerks himself off upstairs. Shall I tell you
something? There's an audience downstairs at this moment you
wouldn't believe. There isn't an empty seat. And a man's on th stage
talking to them. Do you know why they're there? I mean it isn't a play
they're looking, just a man with a radio mike clipped on his shirt. Do
you know who he is?
MARVIN:
Not an idea? But I would hope they're being the play that's supposed to
open tomorrow night---I mean lots of schools are invited--perfectly
usual.
LIZZY:
They were all grown up. (A silence) Have I hurt you?
MARVIN (quietly) The question isn't that. (Almost to himself) It's how I'm going to
hurt you.
LIZZY (this passes her by) Ifyou just played straight---! But you play for dirty laughs
when you're supposed to be sterling noble, you're high tragedy when it's
knockabout farce! Your walk and your voice and your fascinating way
of being absolutely nothing--that's what used to draw the crowds!
They were never a real theatre audience but who cares about that? You
don't need to have an inside.
He fixes his eyes on her for a long time, during
which she fidgets uncertainly, and then he rises
briskly.
MARVIN (cont.) Well, to work!
He goes to a drawer at his dressing table and
seizes a bunch of keys then walks smartly to the
staircase door and locks it. There are three
locks and he does the job slowly and precisely.


MARVIN (cont., as he walks back to her, holding up the keys) For the insurance people,
you know. They insist on three locks. Now, Miss Turnout (sitting
close to her), I think we can agree on one thing-- --that I have to change.
Isn't that what you've been suggesting? A rebirth? And then we have
to remember that you too have a career. And that needs a brush up,
doesn't it?
LIZZY:
MARVIN (screaming with quite horrible force) IS THAT RIGHT?
She jumps and backs off.
MARVIN (cont., in a normal voice) It's why you came here isn't it? Let me tell you
something about actors--everything about them is autobiographical,
even their tears at somebody's grave are rehearsed! First of all are you
vulgar enough for the stage?
She is silent.
MARVIN (cont.) Do something vulgar.
She suddenly puts two fingers in her mouth
meaning to produce a deafening whistle.
MARVIN (cont., gripping her round the throat in horror) Stop, stop! That's another no
no, whistling! I'd have to send you out again, turn you round three
times! How is it you know nothing about the theatre- eh (tightening his
grip), eh, eh?
She manages to scream so loud that he loosens
his grip at once.
MARVIN (cont.) What an extraordinary scream. Where were you?
LIZZY:
Iwas saying-
MARVIN:
No for God's 's sake I mean what drama school?
LIZZY:
Oh, RADA.


MARVIN:
It thought that scream was RADA. I'll also say this. For somebody
married to Nigel Burbage you're remarkably intelligent. Not that
intelligence goes with acting awfully well.
LIZZY:
It certainly doesn't get in your way.
MARVIN:
And your repartee's good. Talent for improvisation--in the event of
Marvin James ghosting. You see, my dear, I'm going to call this
Operation Rebirth. No doubt you think you'll be leaving here for
lunch. Nothing of the sort. You'll be lucky to be out of here in a
week. You're going to pay for that line about intelligence not getting
in my way, I'll have your guts on display for it.
LIZZY:
MARVIN:
Now don't start that television-response stuff, you'll be saying let me
out ofhere in a minute.
LIZZY (jumping up) Let me out of here I've got claustrophobial
MARVIN (pushing her roughly back into her seat) The idea isn't to keep you in, Miss
Turnout---it's to keep others out! You see, my dear, I'm going to take
you hostage.
He returns to his dressing table and resumes
making up.
MARVIN (cont.) You're going to be my Ophelia. It's a good part for you because it isn't
really a part at all. So you're going to play it for sex.
LIZZY:
I always do.
MARVIN:
They denied Hamlet to me as a young man. They ridiculed the idea
when, in my early forties, I was still eligible for the part. They said I
was too big in the middle area. Which was true but not any longer.
These days I'm prime Lear material, thin in the shank, I shall give them
a more vital Hamlet than they've ever seen. They say a woman can't
play Juliet until she's too old fori it, the same is true of Hamlet, Miss
Turnout. My mother, I mean the woman playing Gertrude, Hamlet's
mother, will probably be half my age but she shall be seen as a crone
next to my adolescence.


LIZZY:
Don' 't think you're frightening me, all you do is talk.
MARVIN:
You don't witness me at this moment removing Mac and replacing him
with Hamlet? You don't hear me say Mac shamelessly, thus joining
you in the clever bad spell you put upon our production almost the
moment you walked in? You've given me courage my gir!! (Busy
with his face) And I can see you're a marvellous fuck. But why, you
will ask, make up as Hamlet two months before rehearsals can possibly
begin, and when the opening ofThe Scottish Play is billed for the
coming Thursday, namely tomorrow? Because this is REVOLUTION
my dear. Talking time is over. The real screaming will begin. And
you will provide it.
LIZZY:
Nigel says that actors never commit crimes, they're not interested in
anybody enough to murder them.
MARVIN:
The first part's right but not the second. They don't murder because
they murder a thousand times onstage and know what a bore it all is
compared with a nice cup of coffee or a bounce in bed. Don't worry,
my dear, it's all going to be acted.
LIZZY:
And the endless speeches. He mentioned those.
MARVIN:
This time he's going to listen to every word. (With sudden earnestness)
I hope he's still in love with you? A little bit?
His earnestness sweeps her out ofher
scepticism.
LIZZY:
Oh yes! He knows I only run after men who can do without me, that's
why he divorced me, to show he can do without me, which he can't.
MARVIN:
So he will hear your screams with a measure of concern!
He dials a number on the land-line
phone.
MARVIN (cont.) Nigel. Ihave your ex-wife here. Listen carefully.
MARVIN beckons LIZZY towards him.


She comes. He suddenly seizes her and
manages to grip her SO that his arm is
locked round her neck from behind.
MARVIN (cont.) Iintend either to strangle her or plunge a dagger in her neck. I
haven't decided which---you may take this as a joke ifyou like but I
warn you she may be found dead. IfI were you I'd remember your
own words, Marvin James is a madman, you addressed it to my mother,
who agreed..
He tightens the grip and she screams
frantically.
MARVIN (cont.) Did you recognise the voice? But we can do better than that!
He lays the phone on the dressing table
and releases her, leaving her staggering
about clutching her throat. He goes
briskly to the cupboard upstage and pulls
it open. She watches with horror as he
draws out a dagger.
LIZZY (grabbing the phone) Nigel, Nige!! He's mad! He's---!
MARVIN approaches her menacingly,
after a little chase. She tries to bite him
but he plunges the knife into her neck
and blood gushes forth. She screams
blue murder and her dress is covered in
no time.
MARVIN calmly takes the phone again,
wiping some blood from his hand and
throwing the dagger into the wastepaper
basket.
MARVIN (at the phone) All I did was draw a little blood, Nigel. I promise not to kill her
yet. Hadn't you better notify the police? This is serious, not a
rehearsal, Nigel. Not a play. But first let me get your ex-wife seated. I
need to kill her later, you see, which requires her to be alive now, so I
missed the jugular, just.


He helps the sobbing, quivering LIZZY
to the settee.
MARVIN (cont.) Stop blubbering, it was only superficial!
LIZZY (inspecting the blood and tasting it) This is ketchup! You fucking---!
He signals her frantically to silence, then
returns to the phone.
MARVIN (at the phone again) As I said, I managed to avoid the jugular, this is where a
little knowledge of pathology counts, Nigel. Now these are my
demands. First the Final Dress and the previews will not take place.
You will inform not only the police but the media about this. You will
tell them that your ex-wife who left you for good not an hour ago is
being held hostage by an enraged Marvin James in his dressing room at
the Vic on the Strand, and for God's sake don't say New Vic as ifwe're
an imitation of the Old one, you were always such a bloody fool about
that kind of thing. By the way, any attempt to batter down Marvin
James's door will produce an entirely dead Lizzy Turndown in a split
second. How the hell did she get that name by the way? (Turning to
LIZZY) Didn't you tell me Stokes?
LIZZY (trying to speak as she wipes the ketchup off) !
MARVIN:
Understandably she's distraught, Nigel, you can perhaps hear the
gurgles, she must have lost a pint of blood at least. Amazing how
much we have ofit, isn't it? And its brightness, due I believe to the
presence of oxyhemoglobins or did I get my lesson wrong? But to
return to business you will announce this morning a Hamlet production
with me in the title role, at this theatre, at the Vic Downstairs as I
believe you call it... What?. ..Oh for God's sake man youth depends on
the legs and mine are in mint condition.
He crashes the phone down. LIZZY has
in the meantime staggered to the
cupboard and is staring at its contents.
MARVIN (cont.) Imust say that last scream was even better than the first.


LIZZY:
Iv wasn't acting that time.
MARVIN:
You never do otherwise than act, my dear. We are of the same breed.
(Taking her affectionately round the waist) Isuppose you're
wondering what that little display ofknives is about?
LIZZY:
Yes I am.
MARVIN:
It's my little museum. Several of the daggers date back to 1701.
(Pulling one out) Garrick! (Replacing it and pulling out two others)
These were used to murder Duncan in Henry Irving's Lyceum
production in 1888. (Replacing them) And then of course there are
the most up to date ones you can find on the market. I used a 1963
spring dagger on you which quite frankly I didn't expect to work. But,
as you see (indicating her blood) it was most efficient. Now why don't
you slip behind that screen and put on one of my dressing gowns?
(Drawing her to the screen) You'll find a wash basin, hopefully ot
won't stain your too much, put it in soak of course.
She follows his instructions
helplessly, disappearing behind
the screen. We hear running
water.
MARVIN (cont.) That's Clarissa's dress from May Buds isn't it?
LIZZY (off)
Yes.
MARVIN:
Il have eyes in my little asshole don't I? Did you put it on to flatter me?
LIZZY (off)
It thought it might give you pleasure.
MARVIN:
Where did you find it?
LIZZY (off)
Angel's and Berman's. They wanted fifty pounds a day for it.
MARVIN:
Did you give it to them?
LIZZY (off)
Nigel did.
MARVIN:
You see how the plot thickens? (Sitting at his dressing table and gazing


before him with pleasure) I suppose that dress is sort of historical. To
buy it you'd probably have to pay thousands.
LIZZY (off)
Vivien Leigh used it for Antony and Cleopatra.
MARVIN (disregarding this, since it is about another actor, with a characteristic sideways
movement of the head) I suppose your husband has a lot of wonderful
anecdotes about me? For instance how I exhausted three leading ladies
during the Broadway run ofl May Buds?
LIZZY (off)
He said they couldn't stand you always dropping your lines and never
being letter word perfect even by the end of a run. He said you had
half your speeches pinned to the back of the furniture.
MARVIN:
They could have done the same, the silly cows! Acting isn't learning
lines!
LIZZY (off)
He said it was only the Americans kept you alive because of all their
stuff about the Brits and tradition and all that. And they expect
Shakespeare to be boring anyway. He said you're an effigy rather than
an actor and that's why The Scottish Play tomorrow was going to play
to 15% capacity.
MARVIN (quietly) Fifty-five.
LIZZY (off)
Fifteen. That's another thing you do, wishful listening. He said
fifteen.
MARVIN (stunned by this almost to tears) I filled the Henry Miller theatre with Present
Laughter for over a year! And do you see these lights? What actor in
the world has his dressing room equipped with an elaborate light and
sound system by means of which he can simulate a performance in
perfect privacy? (Throwing himself on the console and after plunging
the stage into darkness introducing silver strobe effects). It cost
thousands, thousands!
LIZZY is suddenly there behind him,
naked under his dressing gown, her feet
bare, though she makes a grotesque jerky
figure under the strobe effect.


LIZZY (putting her hand on his shoulder) Marvin... (He becomes still) I didn't know
you could be hurt. He said you couldn't be hurt.
She puts her arms round him and
seems to cry on his shoulder.
LIZZY:
Change the lights to something sweet!
MARVIN:
Look at this! Golden autumnal!
The strobe effect is killed and a mellow
harvest light steals up.
MARVIN (off) Try and beat that.
LIZZY:
I thought you were crying.
MARVIN:
Oh I could never manage that. They used to squirt water in my eyes
from the wings. Ask any actor who has played with me---they used to
say why does old Marvin always walk over to prompt side when about
to shed tears?
LIZZY (walking away) Did you know how you got your nickname?
MARVIN:
LIZZY:
Hamlegs'. From the famous quote 'My legs are in mint condition'!
This is too much for him. With a roar he
jumps up and grabs her by the hair.
MARVIN:
You're a critic aren't you? A fucking reporter! Isuspected it in that
second scream--- (Shaking her) Are you a damned feminist---a
lesbian---a radical--you're a friend of Vanessa Redgraves!
LIZZY (flinging him off with unexpected success SO that he reels away) You're a museum
piece, that's S your trouble, no wonder playwrights fly to the Bahamas
when you announce an interest in one of their scripts! 'Old Marvin',
they say, old Marvin's like a nostalgia record, he's in Madame
Tussaud's already embalmed! (Sticking her face in his) But Hamlet's
more than legs!


they say, old Marvin's like a nostalgia record, he's in Madame
Tussaud' S already embalmed! (Sticking her face in his) But Hamlet's
more than legs!
MARVIN:
Tell me this, you slobbering moist bitch, how is it Nigel keeps me in
this theatre, and my photos in the foyer, and my bust in the circle bar?
LIZZY:
Because he's in love with you! Because he's a fucking pouf!
MARVIN:
The phone rings.
MARVIN (cont., picking the phone up with a furious gesture and bellowing into it)
What is it? (Turning to LIZZY and waving the phone at her) This has
saved your life! (At the phone again, very quietly now) Oh really?
(Again to LIZZY, with sarcastic charm) It's your husband. (At the
phone again) No, my dear, I repeat this isn't a joke. I'm already ankle-
deep in your ex-wife's blood and she happens to be hanging on to life
by the merest thread. Believe me, if you don't get your over-used arse
here in ten minutes flat she will never scream again! Secondly, I'm
going to unplug this phone and you will talk to me from now on, and SO
will the police, by means ofthe intercom system. You will not, repeat
not, negotiate with me through the door because, being an actor, I need
my voice.
He slams down the phone, then detaches
LIZZY (before he can start up again) You're a fucking intellectual without an intellect,
that's what you are! Look at the way you played that scene. You
might have been a radio announcer. You just stalk and talk! (Putting
her face close to his again and shouting as ifhe were deaf) You
remember what Hamlet said? Suit the action'--action, action,
Marvin!--- suit the action to the fucking word, the fucking word to the
action'! All you do is moon around trying to mask everybody else. No
wonder the Scottish Play receipts are five percent of capacity!
MARVIN (frantically) You said fifteen!
LIZZY:
Five! You don't think Nigel would dare tell you that do you? He


wants your arse! (As MARVIN lunges at her and she pushes him
back) Let's go through that scene you always turn into a Purcell Room
recital.
He allows himselfto be led to centre
stage.
LIZZY (cont.) Take it from I did love thee once.
MARVIN:
What?
LIZZY:
Don't say what! Say the line!
MARVIN:
I did love thee once.
LIZZY:
Indeed my lord you made me believe sO.
MARVIN:
You should not have believed me. For virtue cannot so inoculate our
old stock but we shall relish ofit. I loved you not.
LIZZY:
OK now get hold of me---like this (grabbing his hand and putting it
over her mouth, then drawing his head close to her ear).
MARVIN (hissing in her ear, not without personal malice) Get thee to a nunnery.
LIZZY:
Good, now turn it round and smile.
He leers at her.
LIZZY (cont.) Smile!
MARVIN:
That's a Marvin James smile dammit!
She takes his hand and puts it down the
slit in her dressing gown, obliging him to
fondle her breasts.
MARVIN:
Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?
LIZZY:
Not why wouldst thou! It's why comma wouldst thou be a breeder of
sinners?


MARVIN:
That's interpretation!
LIZZY:
Oh shut up and drag me to the floor!
Finally she pulls him down. Then she
draws his hand up her leg, under the
gown.
We hear police sirens in the distance.
LIZZY (cont.) Next line please!
MARVIN:
I am myself indifferent honest but yet I could accuse me of such things
that it were better my mother---
The sound of rushing steps along the
corridor outside, right.
MARVIN (cont.) It were better my mother had not---
A violent hammering on the door.
Shocked out oftheir wits, MARVIN and
LIZZY sit up and stare at each other.
NIGEL BURBAGE's voice comes
blaring over the intercom.
BURBAGE (VO) Lizzy this is Nigel! Are you OK? Talk to me Lizzy! Is it true he's
keeping you hostage? Lizzy!
Suddenly LIZZY screams in the most
bloodcurdling fashion.
MARVIN (hissing at her) What are you doing?
LIZZY (hissing back) Tell him you mean business, go on!
As he fails to act she screams again.
BURBAGE (VO) Oh Marvin, Marvin don't hurt her Marvin! Let her alone for my sake


Marvin!
LIZZY (hissing) Tell him to vacate the corridor outside, not to hammer on the door.
MARVIN (in a quite fantastic bellow) I've given you your directions Burbage! Ifthe
LIZZY grabs the radio mike from the
table. She thrusts it into MARVIN's
hand. He is still on the floor.
MARVIN (cont., into the mike, quiet and collected at once) Ifthe police aren't here in a
jiffy she dies by strangulation! Though she could quite easily die from
loss ofl blood before then!
We hear police sirens in the distance.
LIZZY:
Shit, the police!
BURBAGE (VO) They're on their way Marvin! You can hear them Marvin!
LIZZY screams again.
MARVIN (hissing at her) All right, don't overdo it! Fucking Method acting!
LIZZY (shouting frantically into the mike) He's trying to strange me Nigel (making
throttled noises)!
MARVIN stares at her aghast.
LIZZY (cont.) He's got guns as well Nigel! (Screams) He's got two 45-calibre rifles, a
.357 Magnum pistol, a sawn-off shotgun, a 9mm Walther pistol, an AR-
7 survival rifle, about three .22 calibre pistols, a .30.06 with telescopic
sights!
MARVIN (hissing) What the---?
BURBAGE's answer now comes blaring
over the intercom.
BURBAGE (VO) Marvin, Marvin, don't do anything unwise, we'll have the Hamlet


production--!
LIZZY gives MARVIN an intimate you-
see? expression.
BURBAGE (VO) We'll strike The Scottish set now, there'll be no Final Dress tonight!
(Yelling frantically) Marvin, Marvin, are you there Marvin?
MARVIN (to LIZZY, pulling the mike away from her and sitting on it) Are you trying to
get me in gaol for life dammit? What are you talking about, 1 guns'?
LIZZY:
That was a Bonny and Clyde hash-up I did in rep. (Seizing the mike by
thrusting her hand under him and then speaking into it again) He
wants you to leave the corridor free, Nigel, he doesn't want you
hammering on the door!
Steps on a staircase outside.
BURBAGE (VO, aside to someone, still frantic) Iknew the mother would go mad one
day! (Shouting again) I'm going downstairs, Lizzy, the police have
just arrived, keep calm Marvin, we love you Marvin, we believe in you
Marvin!
LIZZY (to MARVIN) Now. You and I have got lots to talk about.
MARVIN (with menace) I'll say! (Trying to scramble to his feet but she pushes him
back) I'm going to tell them the truth!
LIZZY:
It'll be the first and last time in your life ifyou do!
The intercom cuts in with the urbane
voice ofTHE HOSTAGE
NEGOTIATOR, henceforth to be called
H.N. (VO) Good morning Mr James. Have you a problem? Police are now
surrounding the theatre and I'm your Hostage Negotiator. I've had
considerable experience of this kind of thing Mr. Marvin and if there's
the smallest chance of our coming to terms right now, please state what
the terms are and I'll do my best at this end.


MARVIN (hissing) Who the hell's this prat?
LIZZY (hissing) Tell him T've stated my terms to Nigel Burbage, he knows perfectly
well what I want.'
MARVIN:
What do I want?
LIZZY (hissing) Hamlet with me as Ophelia like you said!
MARVIN (hissing) Fuck you!
She screams again.
Now then Mr Marvin let's talk this over calmly, are you OK MIss
Turndale?
MARVIN (into the mike) I've made my demands, Nigel Burbage knows what they are!
We are impressed by his instant
change of mood for the intercom.
LIZZY (hissing) Good!
MARVIN (hissing) This'll ruin us both!
LIZZY (hissing) Only you! I'm the hostage, remember!
Very Well, Mr James, Mr Burbage is here at my side and corroborates
what you say. We understand you wish to (mumbling to someone)
you wish to cancel the Mac-(interrupted) ah, the Scottish play--you
want the public refunded for the bookings on that show and you wish a
Hamlet production to be scheduled and announced, and the booking to
start as soon as possible, and you will release Miss Lizzy Turndale on
hearing that the show has been fully booked for the first three nights.
Is that correct sir?
MARVIN (hissing) I never said all that!
LIZZY:
It's typical Nigel. He's always helpful in emergencies. Tell him yes,
shithead!


MARVIN (into the mike) Yes it's correct!
Have you been injured Miss Turndale? Do you mind Miss Turndale
talking to us, Mr James?
MARVIN (into the mike) Keep it brief!
LIZZY (into the mike) I'm more in shock! There's a little blood.
Blood Miss Turndale?
LIZZY:
He tried to knife me in the throat!
MARVIN (hissing) You fucking---!
LIZZY (hissing back) Stop being old Mac! Lift your chin up! Look like a man! (Into
the mike) He says you must alert the principal radio and television
stations and press agencies at once. He won't release me until he hears
a news broadcast has gone out on this matter!
I believe news has already gone out Mr James. Ifit's publicity you
need you can trust the media to provide more than is healthy for
anyone, particularly you. Let me assure you Mr James you don't have
to murder anyone for extra publicity. You've already made your point.
On the contrary, ifyou injure this woman, not to say kill her, you will
spend the rest ofyour life in prison. Think it over Mr James. Ifyou
release this young woman now and come out of your dressing room
behind her with your hands in the air there is a strong possibility that
you will receive no more than a few months in prison or a fine for what,
with Miss Turndale's permission, will be classed as an elaborate hoax.
Is it a hoax Mr James?
MARVIN opens his mouth to say yes but LIZZY screams again.
H.N. (VO, cont.) All right Mr James you've made your point. I'm in contact with the
Home Office and they'll be giving their decision about your terms in a
few moments. Meanwhile Mr. James keep very calm because I'm sure
you don't want anything to happen that would hurt your reputation
permanently and put you behind prison bars until the day you die.
Don't risk it Mr. James! Release the young woman. Come out with
your hands in the air and who knows, perhaps no charges will be


preferred against you, provided of course that Miss Turndale is found to
have only light injuries.
LIZZY screams again.
H.N. (VO, cont.) OK Mr James just wait for the Home Secretary's answer calmly.
More police sirens.
MARVIN:
Oh my God... (Trying to grab the mike) I'm going to tell him your
screams are fake!
LIZZY (resisting him) My screams are convincing! They chill to the bone! Do you
think Nigel Burbage believed you when you were said you were taking
me hostage? Of course he didn't! He hasn't believed a word ofyours
in twenty years! It was my screams that saved the day, my screams!
THE HOSTAGE NEGOTIATOR breaks
in again on the intercom.
Mr James there've already been a number of special news broadcasts.
Two television crews are setting up outside this theatre and will give
hourly coverage of what has become known as the Vic siege. We're
told that CNN are running the story with clips from your Coward
season on Broadway. Mr Burbage tells me that the Scottish
production has been cancelled. He has announced your new Hamlet
but SO far the media hasn't taken this up. But he's confident that all this
publicity will ensure early booking, the courts permitting of course.
Thus all you asked for and more has been conceded---
LIZZY screams.
MARVIN (hissing) But they're giving me what I want dammit!
LIZZY:
Fuck what you want! I've got some terms too!
MARVIN (grabbing the mike from under her in a surprise move) She keeps on
screaming, blast her eyes!
Ifyou don't want the lady to scream just take your hands off her Mr
James! Are you all right Miss Turndale?


LIZZY (seizing the mike) He's---he's hurting me (writhing and gurgling)!
H.N. (VO, urgently) Ibegyou Mr James think your position over! Ifat the end of five
minutes-we're going to give you five minutes-ifyou walk out with
your hands above your head no charges will be preferred against you
unless of course Miss Turndale is injured more than superficially and
she wishes to prosecute. There's only one proviso, that you submit to a
medical checkup at St.Thomas's hospital, including a psychiatric
examination.
MARVIN (grabbing the mike) She's the one for psychiatry!
No doubt she is Mr James ifyou've been trying to strangle her. Now
come to your senses, man, you've a great career ahead ofyou, don't
send it up in smoke!
LIZZY (grabbing the mike back) He says he doesn't believe you're real police!
Thank you for clearing that up Miss Turndale. Mr. James, if you don't
believe we're police just take a peep out ofyour window and you'll see
at least a dozen there, fully armed. Will you do that? Please do that
Mr. James.
Together MARVIN and LIZZY race to the
rooftop window upstage and glance below.
Having confirmed the presence of the police they
stare at each other with chastened astonishment
and in this mood steal back to the dressing room
as H.N.'s voice comes over again.
Have you taken a look Mr Marvin?
MARVIN (running to the mike on the floor) Yes I have!
Are you satisfied that the metropolitan police force is here in some
strength?
MARVIN (into the mike) Yes I am.
Very well Mr James. We shall give you five minutes to make up your


mind. After that, if you don't come out peacefully, we must resort to
less friendly methods. I'm afraid this may mean risking Miss
Turndale's life but you will both appreciate that we can hardly tie up so
many policemen indefinitely.
LIZZY (grabbing the mike) He wants to know what these less friendly methods are.
Well Miss Turndale they mean for starters he'll be charged with assault
and battery, kidnapping, resisting arrest and attempted murder. I
needn't tell you what the penalty is for that lot but I can say that if
convicted Mr James will never see the inside of a theatre again.
MARVIN:
Oh my god!
Once again, Mr James, come to your senses. We are giving you five
minutes.
The intercom abruptly switches
out.
MARVIN (grabbing her hair) What the hell are you doing this for?
LIZZY (pushing him away SO that he falls onto the settee into a half-lying position)
That's just what I'm going to explain. Ophelia---what about it?
MARVIN:
You think anybody's going to believe I took you hostage because I want
you as Ophelia?
LIZZY:
Listen, in a short time there won't be a household in England hasn't
heard ofLizzy Turndale even if they've never heard of you. For years
I've been sweating it out in provincial rep with Nigel Burbage looking
on with a smirk. Whenever I said let me meet Marvin James he said
you were too busy but today I clinched it didn'tI? I walked out of the
house and here I am! I said to myself whatever Marvin James wants to
do with me I do---and you took me hostage didn'tyou?
MARVIN:
How is it he knew you were coming, he even announced you!
LIZZY:
I told him! Don't think I was after any famous person---I was after
you---my obsession and daydream since I was fourteen, bad and passé
as Iknew you to be even then!


MARVIN:
Oh my god!
LIZZY:
That's another ofyour nicknames.
MARVIN:
What is?
LIZZY:
Oh my god. They say Oh My God's threatening to do a one-man show
called 'On the Boards'.
MARVIN:
On the b-- --! I discussed it once, in New York, with Merrick---no one
else!
LIZZY:
There isn't much I don't know about you, dammit--another one ofyour
nicknames, Dammit. You're going to end on the rocks and not on the
boards unless you listen to me. You've got five minutes in which to do
MARVIN:
Oh my god!
LIZZY:
All these years, I'm nineteen now (he registers mouthing disbelief),
you've figured in my daydreams, my masturbations! I think I saw
every London production you were in, and several of the Brighton
flops. (As he is about to protest) Ihad to go secretly because mother
would have been furious had she known.
MARVIN:
- And her mother came too'!
LIZZY:
You'll see later just how true that is. But back to business. When that
man comes on the intercom again you're going to tell him you want me
as your Ophelia and, another thing, my name goes next to yours above
the play title.
MARVIN (his mettle up) Ophelia my arse! You can get any actor in the world to put
his hand up your skirt without picking on me! Ophelia isn't a hot-
pants, little lady, just as Hamlet isn't a pair ofl legs! I'm sick and tired
of the word love on the lips of women whose hearts are made ofi fice
cubes! (Striding about dramatically while she watches him with some
curiosity) Why for God's sake was I given sO much charisma? Why
the magnetic personality, the eyes that turn heads with a glance, the
smile that while it hasn't exactly launched a thousand ships has flooded


a thousand hulls with moist thoughts! I never had a leading lady who
didn't fall in love with me! I never knew in all my life a single girl
who didn't buckle at the knees on touching my hand! (Closing in on
her) My mother told me all about your damnéd breed! Yes I too had a
mother! And a finer actress never crossed the boards! She warned me
early what seething cauldrons of manipulation you cunt-people are,
using our natural terror of the mother to install a new reign for
yourselves! Why else do you think Hamlet told her Ifthou wilt marry,
marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make
ofthem'? Ipleaded with mama, for God's sake inhibit my charisma I
said, the girls are going to give me trouble, they'll hang round the stage
doors, solicit my agents, sleep with my managers to get me for life!
Why insist mama that my eyes should be hypnotic, my lips beyond
reproach, my walk, my stance, my gaze, even my way of thinking and
choice of words SO far beyond ordinary capacities that into whatever
drawing room I set foot they will turn towards me as one creature and
ask each other with importuning nudges 'Who is that?".
A dead silence after a speech that
seems to stun even him.
LIZZY:
You see, you really can act when you want to.
MARVIN:
LIZZY:
I mean, you delivered that speech properly for the first time. When the
play was actually running you gobbled up all the words like they were
little balls of arse paper. I saw it as a girl of thirteen. Of course I realise
you were supposed to be a ham actor in it but even ham actors have
natural feelings sometimes. (Gazing at him with some puzzlement)
Even when you were throttling me a little while back it felt like a stage
throttle. And when you were playing with my tits it felt like I was
reading a book about it. So the first didn't scare me and the second
didn't turn me on.
MARVIN:
Would you have wished me to use a real knife? Or make love to you
hardly knowing your name?
LIZZY:
Why shouldn't Ophelia be a hot-pants? That was a very successful
scene! Also it isn't only Ophelia I'm after, it's a production ofHamlet
on my terms, got it? No more talking heads. No more striding round


the stage in that fucking drag I know you're going to bring out, swishing
your dress in all our noses and letting the audience see the good side of
your face and never the bad, which is the most ofit. No wonder Nigel
Burbage always says he directs 'round' you because there's nothing in
you!
MARVIN (drunk with insults now) You're trying to get into my pants, that's all you want
but don't be sO sure you'd like it once you got there---a lot of ladies have
had their little fannies burned, they remained in agony for the rest of
their lives, hoping for a repeat and never getting it! Two suicides,
untold nervous breakdowns, the close of at least five promising stage
careers! Why deliberately invite a situation in which you retire to a
low-rent suburb for the next sixty years with photos and memories to
live on? Oh I admit you're quite intelligent! You can talk like a
character out of George Bernard Shaw but, Miss Turnoff, this won't end
in an upper class drawing room in a gale oflaughter but Wandsworth
prison for me and Wormwood Scrubs for you! Because you're
colluding in the kidnap, which I'm going to tell them right now---
He tries to grab the mike from
between her legs but she manages
to retain it by hitting him in the
balls with it.
LIZZY (as he writhes) I'm going to marry you too!
MARVIN (over his agony) Marry me? Nobody's ever succeeded in doing that!
LIZZY:
Why else do you think we were flung together this morning?
LIZZY:
Don't you see what a wonderful story we're cooking up between us?
World famous actor marries his own hostage! Tries to cut her throat
but suddenly sees her as his leading lady and they play together for the
rest of their lives like Lunt and Fontann! (Approaching him as he
draws away) Darling, I saw the potential the moment that phoney
dagger touched my neck---I thought this is all too ham, no one's going
to believe him---I'm going to have to scream, it'll bring half of Scotland
Yard round! You needed a woman to push you into a knighthood,
Marvin!
MARVIN:
I'd rather die than be a king in your fucking arms!


LIZZY:
Oh nonsense, you go green with envy every time a fag gets hit on the
shoulder with the royal sword! (Imitating his highly individual
pronunciation of English) 'Why no heteros? What's unknightable
about a normal sexual impulse?"
There is a violent hammering on
the door. It looks as ift the door
might cave in. It trembles on his
hinges.
Simultaneously there is a BLACK
OUT.


TWO
The scene opens on the same -
BLACKOUT. We gradually
discern dim street lights at the
upstage window.
The lights suddenly go up.
MARVIN and LIZZY are asleep
on the settee. LIZZY is more or
less on top ofhim.
Her panties are on the floor with
her shoes.
They begin to stir. Blinking awake
they are surprised to find
themselves where they are, and
with whom they are, and at what
degree of proximity.
They slump helplessly back into
sleep.
H.N. (VO, considerably politer than before, almost unctious) Mr James. Miss Turndale.
They fail to wake.


H.N. (VO, cont.) Are you there Mr James?
MARVIN stirs.
MARVIN (mumbling) What happened for christsake?
LIZZY (her eyes still closed) I'm probably pregnant. That's what happened.
MARVIN:
I'm asking him not you.
Mr James, Miss Turndale, the light cables have just been repaired.
Could you report back that your lighting system is working? And the
sound of course? Are you hearing me?
MARVIN fumbles for the mike
under LIZZY.
LIZZY (eyes still closed) God, not again! Do you want my blood as well?
MARVIN:
I'm looking for the fucking mike!
He finds it. LIZZY sighs with
pleasure, still mostly asleep.
MARVIN (cont., into the mike) Yes we've got the lights. What happened?
There was a simple fuse, I'm afraid. Due to all the excitement no doubt.
The police have told me they're rather worried about your arms cache.
They don't want to kill you both first on the assumption that you will
get them first.
MARVIN:
That's damned silly! This idiot Turnstile made it all up! Even her
screams were fake (as LIZZY struggles to get hold of the mike, landing
them both on the floor amid bedclothes)!
Then you're unarmed sir?
MARVIN (clinging to the mike) Well of course I am! The only thing I ever fired in my
whole damned life was a stage gun and that scared my balls off! The
things can backfire and scorch your wrist you know!


So what was Miss Turndale's motive in lying do you think?
MARVIN (they are fighting for the mike now) Publicity! Besides her being a born liar
of course. The fact is she wants to play Ophelia to my Hamlet. Ifyou
ask me she couldn't play Hamlet's skull!
She lands him a blow in his belly
which forbids further speech on
his side but he clings to the mike
with a determination she would
have admired at any other time.
Well sir it's lucky for you both that I didn't know this before. After all,
I told the police you had an arms cache which would make them green
with envy. So in view of the fact that the police might have broken their
way and shot you both dead without argument Miss Turndale's lie has
turned out useful, don'tyou think?.
MARVIN (to the mike) It'll be the first time---(struggle)---she's ever proved useful in a
theatre!
Well I must return to my negotiations at the back of the stalls Mr James.
It might take till morning---
MARVIN:
Why, what's the time?
It's just past midnight. Perhaps we should synchronise our watches Mr
James? Let me give ten seconds to one minute past midnight. Ten,
nine, eight, seven, six, , five, four, three, two, it's precisely one minute
after midnight Mr. James.
MARVIN (to himself) Oh fuck off!
Was it ever your intention, Mr James, to kidnap someone?
MARVIN:
Of course not (dodging everywhere from LIZZY)! Oh the idea came
into my head, the dramatic idea you might say. (Getting under the
dressing table) But this woman Turnabout took it seriously! But I
must say she did her screams pretty well, for RADA anyway!
Well, so far so good, Mr. James. IfMiss Turndale can assure us that she


hasn't been injured or molested, then, I think we can avoid charges will
either of you.
MARVIN (hissing from under the table at LIZZY) Why the hell don't you say
something?
LIZZY (hissing back) I've got nothing to say!
Well I think we should offer a little prayer to God that peace enters the
local magistrate's heart.
LIZZY (hissing) Say Amen!
MARVIN:
Balls!
The intercom cuts out.
MARVIN (cont., from under the table) Wasn't there something once about a ceasefire in
the American civil war so as to get the president elected? An actor was
telling me about it at Sardi's.
LIZZY:
Perhaps.
He crawls out from under the
table.
MARVIN:
Trust a rep actress to get me in the courts. The Home Office'll probably
be years on this. Apparently it takes them two years to file a report.
(Going close to her) But ifwe walk out of this alive, Miss Turnpike, I
may file charges against you.
LIZZY:
Ihave your baby inside. I mean you not only fucked me, you fucked
me as ifyou'd never had a woman. Iknow young men who would
have been hospitalised after less than what you did. It was like one of
those plays which instead of ending develop ever more facets of plot,
making one yearn for the refreshments bar while still rivetted to one's
seat.
MARVIN:
That's out of a show. I don't remember that one.
LIZZY:
You weren't in it, I was. At least I think so, my mind's wandering this


morning.
MARVIN:
It didn't when you were making love.
LIZZY:
Oh, I get hot at the sound of a zip. Where the hell's the loo?
MARVIN:
You are in a state. Straight on and turn left behind the screen.
He paces up and down as we hear
the lid of the loo being slammed
down, followed by the sound of
her peeing and the flushing of the
toilet.
MARVIN (cont., as she returns) Ialways find that women can be divided into two
categories, those who leave the door of the john open and those well-
bred enough not to. I'vej just realised, by the way, who you remind me
LIZZY:
Who except your mother?
MARVIN:
My mother. She used to leave the john door open. And she didn't
wash her hands afterwards either, just like you.
LIZZY:
Soap's bad for the skin.
MARVIN:
That's what she always says. And she talked to her lovers like you talk
to me. To soften them up in case they played opposite her. She played
opposite some of the greatest men---
LIZZY (sneering) And screwed them all, I know! 'Dame Helen James plays offstage
games'. 'Down comes the curtain, up goes her skirt, One thing's
certain, he'll get his little squirt.'
MARVIN:
You perfectly horrible creature!
LIZZY:
'First the play, then the lay, Helen James will have her way.' Helen's
on the hunt, with her outsize-
MARVIN (clutching her throat) This is my mother!


LIZZY:
'She plays little tricks with gentlemen's-
H.N. breaks in quietly over the
intercom.
Are you there Mr James? I've been in conversation with both the
Home Office and the police and I'm relieved to say we've won an hour's
respite. During that time none of us will move from our present
quarters and negotiations can proceed in a more methodical way than
was possible when threats of assault were being exchanged. So the
police outside have withdrawn from the immediate vicinity of the
theatre to a mobile canteen sO from your window you will now see
neither. Do you have provisions Mr James?
MARVIN looks round for the
mike and LIZZY is already
holding it out for him.
MARVIN (into the mike) A few tins of baked beans, a ham, some cheese biscuits, milk
and coffee and tea and there's some booze, also caviar.
Well supplied ifI may say sO Mr James.
H.N. cuts out.
MARVIN:
Listen to me. Here's what I propose. Ifwe leave here safe and sound
I shall give you an income for life and provide for the kid, supposing
you're pregnant, which since you say you are you almost certainly
aren't. But there's to be nothing more intimate than that between us, do
you hear?
LIZZY:
Not even a weekly visit to see the child?
MARVIN:
No phone-calls saying the money hasn't arrived this month and the little
chap has been having a bad time with his teeth---
LIZZY (tenderly) It's going to be a boy?
MARVIN:
It usually is where the woman's an OX and the man sensitive, it's a
genetic reaction. Anyway I don't intend to allow the greatest
dependency syndrome ever devised by female oxen to develop.


LIZZY:
You love me don't you?
MARVIN:
That's precisely why I'm getting all this straight now, to prepare you for
the letdown. The very fact that I make love to you three times in a row
at my age is my cue to pull out much more quickly than even I would
normally do. You see, Miss Turnover, I was my mother's domestic
slave and you've got mother written all over your empty face. From the
age of ten I served her breakfast in bed. I looked after the sheets, a
whole drama in itself considering the number of men she brought home.
Do you know, Lizzy---?
LIZZY (rapture) You called me Lizzy!
MARVIN:
When you were insulting my mother just now I felt a quickening of
emotion-compounded I think of both hatred and sexual excitement.
When she saw me in my first speaking part at the age of fifteen she
walked straight out of the theatre and left a message with her agent to
tell me I stank. She said later that the only character I could play was
my own, which was a bad one. (Gazing at her) When you and I made
love your noises were hers. I inwardly returned to the primal scene
while in your arms. Iheard once again the sounds of my mother's
lovemaking. They dominated my life. Every time my mother bent
down to kiss me goodnight it was like saying good bye. Her perfume,
the powder on her neck, the way she had ofl bunching her lips a little
when she kissed me, the same way you have, these things were the
touch and smell of fear for me. That's why I came three times when I
was making love to you. I was in the primal scene, with my mother.
Coming and fearing are very close to each other for me. The smell of
blood and the smell of come aren't SO distant from each other. My
mother always seemed on the point of abandoning me. Always a new
tour or dinner out or late rehearsals or a plane to catch. Sometimes I
went with her but mostly I stayed, in the hands of a governess who used
to masturbate under the covers when she thought I was asleep.
LIZZY (after a pause) Isn't all that from a show?
MARVIN:
What?
LIZZY:
The long speech from A Man Called Shrink? Nigel produced it
thirteen years ago.


MARVIN:
The sentiments happen to fit. That's why I accepted the script. Why else
should I accept a script?
LIZZY (with great mildness) You're not a man, you're a stage thing. Your mother must
have fucked a theatre to get you.
MARVIN:
My balls literally ached when I walked off after that speech. It was the
longest speech written. I tried it as an extended exit line---you know,
half of me popping off the stage and the other half popping back in. It
always looks bloody silly. Your husband always said you can't keep
bobbing in and out like that, even the RSC doesn't do it any more.
MARVIN (with the milk) Here's to our separation. -
They drink.
LIZZY:
I don't even believe you're Helen James's son. Your mother worked on
the railways. She used to announce the trains. I read it in one of your
programme notes.
MARVIN:
That was for a dramatisation ofEmile Zola's Bête Humaine. We had
to have a hookup with the railways SO we put it out that my mother was
Britain's first train driver. Another time we were doing a show on Dr
Barnardo's homes, not the musical but a play which came to nothing. I
got thousands ofletters suggesting ways of finding my mother. The
PR idiot put it out that I was an orphan and Helen James only adopted
me and Iyearned for my real mum. The mail got SO heavy we had to
make a statement, sO we put it out that my mum had been found. We
got Tilly Armitage to paint in a few wrinkles and put a shawl round her
and we passed her off as my mother who lived in Barnstable and had
been widowed in some war and lived like a recluse out of remorse for
having given me up for adoption but the war had been on and she'd
been forced to work in a munitions factory and had thought it best for
me to be---
LIZZY:
Watch it! When he's nervous he talks, and mostly lies. So who do my
eyes remind you of, if not your ghastly mother?
MARVIN (off) Tilly Armitage as a matter of fact. My favourite leading lady!


LIZZY:
And do you know why that is?
MARVIN:
Why?
LIZZY:
I'm her daughter.
MARVIN:
You said your name was Turnstile!
LIZZY:
Tilly Armitage is my mother.
MARVIN (staring at her) Tilly----! (Staring at her with growing fear) The big eyes!
Shining black grapes! Ifa script had black grapes in it she took it at
once! Why didn't you say SO before for God's sake, I would have
kicked you out at once! (Staring at her hard again) Oh my God! You
know what this means? We're brother and sister! We've committed
incest!
LIZZY (calmly) Could be.
MARVIN:
You'd better keep your mouth shut dammit. And don't tell your bloody
husband. He only has to think and it's all over London in an hour. Of
course I should have seen it! Those unmistakeable vineyard eyes!
LIZZY:
Why don't you sit down and shut up? We've done it now. Lord Byron
was incestuous, SO they say.
MARVIN:
But of course! You said yiur name was Jean Stokes. That's her
husband's name isn't it? Stokes! It's that pot-bellied stockbroker with
the bald patch---!
LIZZY (in her enormous voice) Just you leave daddy out ofit!
MARVIN (leering) I'd love to. And his daughter. Your mother by the way started just
like you. Don't forget Stokes was one of the most generous of the City
angels and he had a proportionate say in the casting of the women---in
general angels aren't interested in the men. You see, I know all about
you. You saw early on when you married Nigel Burbage that it was
better never to let the heart get in the way of a possible contract. In
Lizzy Turntable née Stokes we have a woman who is eminently
woman, in bed woman, in tears woman, in screams woman but in fact is


a player of roles sO adept that even when she plays them badly we say
to ourselves it's because she has a heart, her heart insists sO much that it
takes away her technique!
LIZZY (perfectly tranquil) But it works doesn't it?
MARVIN:
Indeed, yes. What a technique is there, my friend, in the absence of
technique! Even when you're making love I can't tell where your brain
is---just like our mother--her lovers tell how being in Tilly's arms is
like wandering round a fine old country mansion where the table's set
for a banquet and the fires are all alight but there's no host. The fact is
that what she has ticking in her thoracic area is a cardio-calculator
linked to casting agencies, producers and television networks. Just like
you.
LIZZY:
And then she says 'My enemies always succumb in the end'. She's
sitting more or less where I'm sitting. You're a bit further downstage,
with your good side to the audience.
MARVIN (waking up) What? what?
LIZZY:
You played it with mummy, don't you remember A Game Called
Incest?
He looks at her helplessly. There
is a long confused silence.
MARVIN (hushed) I must go to Whites. I lunch there.
LIZZY:
Your club should be the Garrick ifyou're an actor.
MARVIN:
I don't do obvious things.
He continues forlorn.


LIZZY (watching him) You don't do intelligent things either.
MARVIN (hardly audible) Tilly Armitage again... My mother!
LIZZY:
Otherwise you'd have seen long ago that you needed this siege not for
Hamlet but to keep you in a job!
MARVIN (still on his lonely theme) Do you wonder at the success of feminism? We
males quail at the sound of mother's rasping tongue!
LIZZY:
For years now Nigel's been renting this place out to other productions,
it was dark for nine whole months not two years ago!
MARVIN:
Is sometimes needed a rest dammit!
LIZZY:
No one can break through to you! You were offered an off-off-off
Broadway venue last month---off-off-off - Broadway, you the star!
MARVIN:
Times are hard dammit!
LIZZY:
And the Macbeth you were going to play to a ninety-five percent absent
audience was a studio Macbeth, broken down to a two hander, you and
Tilly! Because Nigel can't afford you any more and you drag him
downhill with you--he'll have to sell up soon!
MARVIN:
All he has to sell is me! The theatre isn't his.
LIZZY:
The trust decided to sell within the year unless something dramatic
happens---
MARVIN:
Isn't this dramatic? After this we're eiother dead or playing Hamlet.
LIZZY:
But you're still seeing it in little personal terms. A few hours ago this
siege was a small event in London's theatreland but with three people
killed and the IRA in on it don't you see you have the attention ofthe
world?
MARVIN (with one ofhis great sighs) Lizzy, I've said it often enough-whatever I do I
do in spite of myself. He can't act, my mother said. But did she ever
get a theatre ofher own?


LIZZY gives up.
MARVIN (cont.) I had to act. Theatre was all I knew. I had to cultivate the ways of a
great actor without being one, for no actor ever is a great actor. There
are good moments and bad moments. You see, they used to hold their
breath at my first entrance---and disregard the rest of the play. Funnily
enough, that's still theatre.
LIZZY (staring at him) Are you crying?
MARVIN:
As I said before, that's something I could never do. My mother said
shake your shoulders and hide your face, it's as near as you'll ever get.
LIZZY:
Did you know the trust was thinking of turning this dressing room into
a studio theatre? You could seat about a hundred in here if you broke
down that wall.
He has no reply.
LIZZY (cont., watching him) At a loss for words.
She goes on an impulse and sits on his lap.
LIZZY:
In never opened to a man in my life like to you. You went SO deep I
thought I would faint. That's why I came to you today, a woman can
see ahead.
MARVIN (wriggling uncomfortably) Stop talking like my mother.
LIZZY:
Why didn't she seduce you?
MARVIN (with a leer) She had Stokes.
LIZZY (laughing) What are you talking about? That's Tilly Armitage!
MARVIN:
What's the difference? (Suddenly, gripping her) Which makes you
not her daughter at all! Twenty eight years ago she didn't even know
Stokes!
LIZZY (kissing him) When you're inside it's like having a rich totem in there, quivering


and trembling- --as if all your imagination was there!
MARVIN:
My imagination's here (indicating his head)!
She smiles and kisses him again dreamily.
LIZZY:
Ialways wanted to fuck my father.
MARVIN:
Thank you very much.
LIZZY:
No I mean when you said his pot belly I felt excited. It doesn't matter
his not being my real father.
MARVIN:
You mean that flatulent gasping accountant took you over as a bastard?
LIZZY:
He's a good man and you're not. (Nestling her head in his chest) I
don't care ifthey kill us, I don't care any more.
He gazes before him.
MARVIN:
When I was a child everything was sO charming. People called each
other darling and you went to Brighton for the weekend on the Flying
Fornicator. Ifyou went by car you wore gauntlet gloves and flaps over
your ears and you might do five miles without seeing another vehicle.
There were white and yellow butterflies, and buttercups in the fields,
and the beach at Littlehampton was SO clean it gleamed like salt at low
tide. Shaftesbury Avenue had a couple of Shakespeare productions at
least-commercial ones, mind, not subsidised. There were two or was
it three evening papers and when you opened them you read say an
article by Eevelyn Waugh or a poem by Ezra Pound and it was stuff that
didn't insult you. You could pop round to the Piccadilly hotel or
Odenino's for a cup oft tea and you got fresh toast and gentleman's relish
and cup cakes and some dancing if you felt like it. The world hummed
with pleasure in those days, you heard it when you woke in the morning
but now you hear planes on the descent to London airport.
LIZZY:
But wasn't there an awful lot oft unemployment?
They laugh, squeeze each other with delight.
MARVIN:
It's actually Wasn't there an awful lot ofhunger marches?".


LIZZY:
Is saw it at least four times.
MARVIN (looking at her with admiration) You really did see just about every show of
mine!
LIZZY:
When she let me.
MARVIN:
But surely she wouldn't rob you of a chance to see her!
LIZZY:
She knew I wanted you. You were the only man for me (stroking his
face). This is the first time in all my life I've felt safe, and we're under
a sentence of death.
MARVIN:
You make the most sincere statement sound phoney.
LIZZY:
Why is that?
MARVIN:
Well, you only have one feeling really and that's to land yourself a big
part in a big show and your name above the title and your phone ringing
all day and agents fighting for you and new parts coming up you can
pick and choose from like a rich woman over her jewellery. Anything
else, sex for instance, is counterfeit.
So is the truth, for you. Hence you always sound phoney.
LIZZY:
What feelings other than ambitious ones do you have? I mean your
love-making's thrilling but it's thrilling like a show is thrilling. So?
MARVIN:
Don'tyou see Ophelia was a liar just like you? She only comes out
insipid because people play her truthful and good. I mean her verses
are the bawdiest the Old Chap ever wrote:
Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's Day
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose and donned his clo'es
And dupped the chamber door
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.


TOGETHER: By Gos and by Saint Charity
Alack and fie for shame!
Young men will do't if they come to't,
By cock, they are to blame!
It delights them.
LIZZY:
Quoth she, Before you tumbled me
You promised me to wed'.
MARVIN;
'So would I 'a done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.'
LIZZY:
Is that what you feel?
MARVIN:
What?
LIZZY:
That because you fucked me you have no further interest in me?
MARVIN:
In never had any further interest in you.
They laugh.
LIZZY:
I spent hours pushing my clit up against his belly when I was thirteen or
fourteen. Arthur Stokes, chartered accountant, doesn't get anything but
figures but how I wanted that man!
MARVIN:
The poor man ached for Tilly, not you.
LIZZY:
enever got in before three in the morning and her shows were usually
down by eleven. She could easily have told him pick me up at the
theatre but she never did because her real name was Duchesse de Sade.
MARVIN:
That's what I called her.
LIZZY (sweetly) Iknow. He used to sit drinking whisky and watching the box and I
knew he was good for a cuddle after the third or fourth drink. One
evening when I was sixteen he went to bed early and I started tickling
him and he pulled me into bed with him, I'djust had a bath and only
had a dressing gown on and he started to put it in, I nearly fainted and


would you believe it the front door opens and in she comes, she's never
been home that early before or since, he was halfi in and I swear he was
just about to come and she's suddenly standing there over the bed
screaming 'Leave my child alone!" and tearing all the bedclothes off to
get a better look. Then she puts her arms round me and takes me off to
my room and she rocks me in her arms, the silly cow, and keeps saying
'Poor darling! Poor darling!". She didn't give a damn about me
sleeping with him, she just wanted to keep us both out of the deepest
thrill of our lives. I've never forgiven her for that.
MARVIN:
For doing what any mother would?
LIZZY:
She didn't let him out until dawn.
MARVIN:
Out?
LIZZY:
She let him come inside! He must still be dreaming about that one
night, first me, then her, it extended until dawn and then he fell into the
happiest sleep ofhis life, I could hear him snoring. She makes a sort
of shocked gasp, you know, when she comes. Almost a protest, a
refusal. As if she's in bed for reasonably polite conversation and then
this thrusting begins and she can't account for it and makes that gasp as
ifhe's taking a fearful liberty, but she allows it out of a kind of inability
to quite understand.
He looks away.
LIZZY (cont.) Am I making you jealous?
MARVIN:
Not on your Nelly, I was thinking of what Freud said in A Man Called
Shrink--a lover's always second best for a woman because he isn't her
father. (He shrugs) I've been sO close to Tilly in stage embraces,
stage marriages that we never-
LIZZY:
You see, she let him have it the whole night only to kill his desire for
me. It was pure jealousy, she was just scared of any sex happening that
she wasn't having. It had nothing to do with me being her daughter.
She drugs all her men like that. Drugs them! Not with her body
because she hasn't got much of one, her strength lies between her legs,
she weaves a spell there and they're her prisoners for life. That
efficient organ is such a tunnel of sweets and ecstasies I feel she must


have rehearsed its performances as meticulously as she does all her
stage business. So quiet, SO secretive without being furtive!
MARVIN:
You have a special eloquence when you talk about Tilly.
TILLY:
Imarried Nigel to get free ofl her. I was living in her pleasures.
MARVIN:
Captive of both wife and daughter, poor Arthur Stokes!
TILLY:
When we were asleep I could feel those IRA men downstairs yearning
for a woman in their dreams! Danger does that. Do you remember
that world holocaust play---?
MARVIN:
I'll say! I lost twenty thousand on it.
TILLY:
Where the woman goes round offering herself to the men just before
some battle. The last coitus! That was what it was like between you
and me! And it's always going to be like that! We'll never look at
anybody else (clutching his hand and biting it), let's draw blood like the
gypsies and marry now, whether they kill us or not!
She continues biting him until he jumps up yelling and nursing his
hand.
MARVIN:
What the fuck are you doing? You nearly bit my finger off!
LIZZY (uninfluenced) Let's at least enjoy our last moments darling! All my childhood I
yearned for you and now they want to snatch you away from me! You
melted in with the golden afternoon light and the tea table with its
gleaming white cloth and all the good things, the raisin cake and the fire
crackers and icing with the little terracotta hobgoblins (taking off her
panty hose) and the chrysanthemums in a bowl and the hum ofvoices I
knew and the dark vivid colours of my comics and the sound ofthe
street outside! How can one open one's legs to an outsider? It is a
boy! I can feel him (as she pursues MARVIN), he's kicking!
MARVIN:
I'll kick you ifyou don't get out of my way (jumping around to avoid
her)! AND STOP QUOTING THAT BLOODY WORLD
HOLOCAUST PLAY! (Dodging her) I told, you, I lost a mint on it.
It was Nigel Burbage's fault. He said I get a hundred world holocaust
plays a week and I've got to do one just to show the silly buggers they


don't work. Now listen to me-(gripping her wrists firmly so that she
can't move and pushing her on to the settee) Pull yourselftogether!
You've got your lines mixed up. You've moved on to that bloody
Royal Court disaster, Incest!
He backs away from her as she shivers and comes back to herself,
gazing at the floor.
Everything is hushed. He looks at her in a gingerly way, as if about to
announce something.
MARVIN (cont.) You see, Lizzy, I did have your mother.
She looks up at him blearily.
MARVIN (cont.) It was long before Arthur Stokes. When I thought she was human.
LIZZY:
How long ago?
MARVIN:
Twenty eight years ago. We did it night and day for a week and she
didn't take any precautions.
A long pause during which she sighs, involuntarily picks up her panty
hose, then throws it back on the floor again.
LIZZY:
I always half knew it, wanted it SO deeply!
MARVIN:
I'm not saying it's the case, nothing was proved, she was having others
of course but it's possible,just possible---
LIZZY:
In other words it's definite.
MARVIN:
It could be, yes.
She pulls her panty hose back on and puts on her shoes.
LIZZY:
I'm going to find out.
MARVIN:
Find out what?


LIZZY:
Ifyou're my daddy! You are my daddy aren't you?
MARVIN:
How the hell do I know?
LIZZY:
That's why I'm going to ask her! She's downstairs rehearsing!
She walks towards the exit door. He gapes at her.
MARVIN:
Your watchers are down there too.
LIZZY:
Exactly.
She walks to the door.
LIZZY (cont.) And I wouldn't try and stop me ifI were you.
MARVIN (almost in tears) I don't intend to.
LIZZY:
You see these (opening her blouse), daddy?
He does nothing.
She has gone.
We hear her footsteps echoing down the staircase.
MARVIN (rushing to the exit) Viktoria! Viktoria! I agree to play Hamlet right away.
She reappears.
LIZZY:
Right, let's get to work.