How a play is produced/The First Night

by Karel Čapek

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The First Night

 

BUT let us return to the further current of events.

The first night is the fatal moment in which the play is turned into an event. Up to the very last rehearsal, parts of it might still be altered, and thus save the play from disaster. It was still a work of art in the process of construction, a world in the making, a star which is being born out of chaos. The first night is but the final expression of despairing resolution to allow the whole affair to take its own course, come what may. It is the moment in which both the author and the producer definitely abandon the matter to the care of other hands, at the same time cutting themselves off from the possibility of helping in any way. Neither the author nor the producer will ever feel the satisfaction of, let us say, the carpenter, who can allow the newly-made table to dry as it ought to do, who can then thumb and finger every edge and crack expertly, stroke the surface of it with his hand, knock on it, look the whole thing over, and say: “There’s a good bit of work for you.” Ah! If only there could have been but one more rehearsal.

On the morning before the first night there is a last informal rehearsal. The players gabble through their parts hastily, lifelessly, and in whispered tones so that they may save their voices for “the night”; they reel off the text as though they were crushing sand between their teeth. And every one hurries, gloomy and silent, as though-a corpse were in the theatre. From the depths of the auditorium creeps a sad, stark silence. Nothing more can be done. It is the beginning of the end.

As is well known, the first nights have their own special public. There are people who only go to first nights. It is said that they go to first nights out of a passionate love for the theatre, out of sheer curiosity, for purely snobbish reasons, for the sake of showing off their clothes, or for meeting their friends and acquaintances. But I believe that they attend first nights because they are driven to them by an unconscious and perverse cruelty. They attend them so that they may gloat voluptuously over the stage fright of the actors, the author’s suffering and the producer’s agony. They attend first nights in order that they may take a bloodthirsty delight in the terrible situation on the stage, where every moment something can break down, become confused, and ruin the whole show. One goes to first nights just as the old Romans used to go to the arena to watch the Christians being tortured, and the wild animals tearing each other to pieces, out of a curious pleasure extracted from the agony and the unnatural excitement of those who are sacrificed.

Just at the moment when the first night public is settling itself down, with a rustling of generous conversation, in the gleaming arena, the author, with a strange and unbearable pain in the pit of his stomach, is rushing round the theatre. The players in their make-up peep through the spy-glass in the curtain at the audience, feel quite unwell owing to the usual first night panic, and rage about in their dressing-rooms because they have got an ill-fitting wig, or because their costumes won’t fasten properly. Dressers, both male and female, fly from dressing-room to dressing-room, for something is lacking in each. The producer is rushing about on the stage from left to right, spluttering and groaning, because the last piece of stage property for the first act has not yet arrived from the workshop; angrily refuses to listen to any complaints from the players, and drags chairs on to the stage; the tailor carries off a costume to his workshop; the stage-manager gives the last signal in the dressing-rooms; the firemen are in their proper places; bells ring in the corridors; a stormy row breaks out at the last moment between the property man and the up-holsterer; and three minutes after seven o’clock (the play begins at seven) the last piece of stage furniture finally arrives on the stage.

Meanwhile, you, Mr. First Nighter, are sitting in your stall, looking at your watch, and saying: “It’s high time they began the show.” If, at this moment, you were to place your ear against the curtain, you would hear the sound of hammering and the sound of breathless voices:

“Where shall I put it?”

“Not there, you ox.”

“That must be screwed on.”

“There’s a bracket wanted here.”

“What d’you want here?”

“For Heaven’s sake, do buck up!”

“Be careful there: the whole wing’s falling down.”

“That must be fixed to-morrow.”

“And what about this?”

“Hurry up, you fellows, for Heaven’s sake!”

Ting-a-ling. The first curtain signal goes. The stage becomes dark and silent. One hears a few final blows of the hammer, the moving of heavy furniture, and excited voices:

“Get out of the way.”

“Cut the lath off.”

“Leave it alone, and clear out.”

“Pull it on. But quickly.”

Ting-a-ling. The curtain rises as the last stage-hand slinks off; the lighted stage stands out clear from the darkness, and Clara, already on the stage, quickly makes the sign of the cross for luck. Her partner (over his forehead runs the sweat of excitement, but this is not visible to the audience) enters, and throws his hat on to a chair instead of on to the table. “Good morning, Clara,” he says sonorously, and then stops dead: “Good God! I ought to have said ‘Clara, something unexpected has happened to me,’ at once.”

Clara, meanwhile, is stuck stiff with fright: she has not had her cue. “Good morning,” she extemporizes in despair.

“. . . Something unexpected has happened to me,” hisses the prompter from his little box in the middle of the footlights.

In despair, the actor seeks a way of transition to what he should really say. He has just remembered that the author has fixed the time not in the morning but in the late afternoon.

“Begin . . .” whispers Clara, destroyed.

“Hm . . . yes . . .” the actor flounders, “just imagine, Clara, just . . . yes . . .”

“Perhaps something unexpected has happened to you?” Clara firmly helps him out.

“Yes . . . yes . . .” replies the actor, now enthusiastically, “just imagine, something unexpected has happened to me.”

“Whatever is that?” now asks Clara.

In the author’s box a moment of deadly fear has ended in a great sigh of relief. The situation has been saved. But in the first few moments of the play the author had clutched the ledge of his box convulsively, longing to jump into the stalls, and scream: “Back! You are all wrong. Begin all over again, please.” Now he is gradually calming down once more: for on the stage the dialogue is being rattled off in the smoothest of manners as though it had been well oiled and greased. After a time Clara has to sink on to a chair, as though her legs had failed her, but, good God! her stupid partner has put his hat on to the chair instead of on to the table. Now we are really in for it: now, Clara, in her emotional excitement will sit down on her husband’s hat; the whole act will be spoiled; in Heaven’s name! how can it be prevented? The author’s hands grow moist with fear. He hears and sees nothing but that awful hat on the chair: the moment of catastrophe draws near, slowly but certain. If only a panic would break out in the theatre. Suppose he were to yell out “Fire” at the top of his voice?

At last, at last, the cue falls like lightning; at last Clara will sit down on the damned hat—ah, no, for the divine Clara, with wonderful presence of mind, merely takes up the hat, and then sinks into the chair, with the miserable hat still in her hand. But what will she do with it now? Will she hold it in her hand until the very end of the act? Why doesn’t she put it on to the table? Ah! at last she gets rid of it: she puts it on to the table. But, oh, how awkwardly, and in such a terribly ostentatious manner—the author looks at the audience, sees nothing but coughing, throat-clearing figures. Evidently no one has noticed the calamity of the hat.

The author turns to the stage again: what, the dialogue does not seem to have got any further? Why does this scene last so long? The author gets unpleasantly hot. Perhaps the play is too long. My God! it is dragging along endlessly without any action. The author now perspires in agony; “I ought to have cut it here, it is weak, it is rotten, impossible; meaningless—and why don’t they play it faster? Perhaps it would be better if I were to stand up and scream out: ‘Wait a moment! I will cut it!’”

God be praised! it is over. Now comes the most important part of the exposition, the key to the whole plot, a short, exciting conversation, three pages long, and then a quick finish. But the author’s hair stands on end with horror. For Katie, who should only enter by rights five minutes later, now precipitates herself on to the stage: Katie, who should only enter after the three pages are past. My God! what can be done about it? The author wants to scream out: “Curtain! Let down the curtain!” but his throat is dry with fright. The other two players on the stage stand there like two stuck pigs, while Katie merrily rattles off her lines; then the other two join in, helped by her mood, and the three pages of important explanation are calmly “jumped.” Exactly! Now, not a soul will understand the comedy; no one will know what it is all about; the whole plot, theme and construction, has gone to the devil. God in Heaven! Without these three pages the whole play is a disconnected farrago of nonsense.

What on earth induced Katie to come on too soon? Why did they allow her to come on at all? Now the audience will hiss and boo because the nonsensical plot will only succeed in aggravating it to the highest degree: why, any child could tell you that the play has neither head nor tail now; why hasn’t the producer stopped the play? The author looks at the people in the audience quickly to see if they are protesting already. However, they are only blowing their noses quite naturally, calmly coughing, while from time to time a light laugh floats through the audience: Katie really seems to be making quite a hit with them. Perhaps the people are only waiting until the end of the act before they boo and hiss? But the author would like to sink into the earth. He flees from his box, rushing behind the scenes as though he really intended setting the building on fire. He will never dare to look anyone in the eyes again, he thinks despairingly, as he sits in the dressing-room to which he has fled for refuge. He rings his hands in despair, and buries his head in his hands. Yes, yes, all is lost now.

After an indefinite period, perhaps only after a few hours, he raises his head. What is happening? It sounds just as though somewhere far off water were pouring down on to paving-stones. It is rushing down with a violent splashing sound, rapid and distant. All of a sudden the water splashes louder, becomes one great big noise; some one dashes into the dressing-room, yelling: “Here he is. Here’s the author.” Some one seizes hold of his hands, drags him along at a mad run, while from every side hands reach out to shove and push him; he staggers, sways, stumbles, sees and understands nothing, strikes out bravely at the whirling mass of people, but it bears up under his blows, and only pushes him on and on, further, until, bang !—and he flies as though shot out of a cannon’s mouth on to the stage. Katie and Clara grasp both his hands in their clammy ones, and drag him to the footlights. Down below, the audience is still clapping like a waterfall produced by hydrants. The author sees nothing but thousands of round balls in which human eyes are swimming; he attempts an idiotic smile, and bows jerkily several times.

The curtain falls, and the splashing of water dies away into the distance, but ting-a-ling, and the curtain rises again quickly. The author, stretching his hands out to Katie and Clara, now remains alone and abandoned on the stage, centre for a thousand eyes, bows again, suddenly realizes with horror that he is bowing in a most ridiculous manner, just like a marionette—can’t help it, though—bows right and left, to the gallery and to the stalls, and steps backwards. Friends and strangers standing in the wings shake his perspiring hands furiously, repeating over and over again, “ Congratulations! Congratulations!” Ting-a-ling, the author finds himself on the stage again without knowing how he got there, waves both hands towards the wings, revealing by this gesture that he is a mere nothing, that the players have done all. Well, if you must have it at all costs, then still another and another and another bow—what joy it is, this undeserved success. Pooh! Finally the author is able to stagger from the stage: all at once he is suddenly abandoned, feels himself superfluous, while the scene-shifters tear down the walls of the room (it is but the end of the first act), fix something, carry furniture away, making him feel in the way of every one.

“Hurry up there,” shouts the producer, while the author flings himself into his arms. “Mr. Producer, everything went off splendidly, splendidly.”

“We must be thankful it didn’t go off worse,” replies the producer dryly.

“And listen,” cries the author enthusiastically, seizing the producer by a coat button, “couldn’t Clara sit on the hat in the beginning? I think that it would make the people laugh.”

“But we don’t want them to laugh at the beginning,” replies the producer. “Hurry up there. We don’t want it to last until midnight.”

So the superfluous author hurries to thank the players. The hero is just sitting at his supper, and replies quite modestly to the author’s thanks: “Oh! thank you, but that’s no part at all.” Clara is annoyed because she has torn her frock on a nail. Katie is in her dressing-room sobbing with rage because the producer has been terribly rude to her. “Is it my fault,” she sobs indignantly, “that the same cue comes twice? I have to go on when Clara says the word ‘Never,’ and it’s not my fault that this word is said twice.” The author attempts to console her, but Katie weeps all the more heartbrokenly. “He . . . has been so rude to me . . . just on the first night too . . . how can I go on playing . . .”

So the superfluous author nobly consoles her with “But, my dear young lady, no one noticed that part of the play was missing at all.” And in this respect the author is much nearer the mark than he himself imagines. No one, in fact, did notice that the first act had neither head nor tail. For it is so easy to overlook a little thing like that.

Ting-a-ling, the curtain rises for the second act. The author trips over cables and stage properties through the back stage, bangs into the horizon, and almost pitches headlong through a trap door. All at once he remembers that he can follow the play further from where he is, behind the scenes. But behind the scenes the technical staff is packed closely together like sardines; scene-shifters, tailors, seamstresses, dressers, mechanics, men in overalls, and their wives and aunts; the supers and their cousins and the friends of their cousins; and all kinds of curious, enigmatic habitués, all standing closely packed together watching the play on the stage, joking in loud voices, walking about on tiptoe across the creaking floors, quarrelling with the stage-manager, getting in the way of the players, creating all kinds of noises and disturbances, and it’s a wonder they don’t stick their noses on to the stage. The superfluous author squeezes himself through them and stands on tiptoe, for he wants to see what is taking place on the stage; but he hears instead the voice of a man in a blue overall:

“Lord! Isn’t it dull?”

“It’s much too long,” says another man.

“We shan’t get away before midnight.”

Bang! Some one has knocked over an iron chair behind the scenes. Just at this moment a love scene is being cooed on the stage. So the superfluous author steals off on tiptoe; making the boards creak in a ghostly manner, and it is with difficulty that he finds his way through the labyrinth of passages to the exit, where he flees into the open air. It is night. A few people are hurrying through the streets thinking of Heaven knows what; the trams ring their bells; life murmurs in the distance. In the coolness of the peaceful night the author’s heart aches. He feels himself alone, more alone than he has ever felt himself before in his life—just on the evening of his fame too!

If only it were all over!