How a play is produced/The Play Matures

by Karel Čapek

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The Play Matures

 

ONE can usually count upon the storm of misfortunes bursting on the last day before the dress-rehearsal. Members of the company suddenly contract all kinds of illnesses, such as influenza, angina, pleurisy, etc. “Just see what a fever I have,” the principal player wheezes in the dramatist’s ear, like steam escaping from a tap. “I ought to go and lie down, for a week at least,” he gasps, choking with coughs, and gazing at the dramatist with the reproachful, tear-filled eyes of a sacrificial lamb being led to the altar. “I don’t know my lines at all,” says another player. “Mr. Dramatist, do tell them to postpone the first night.” “I’ve no voice at all,” says Clara hoarsely. “There’s such a draught here on the stage. Mr. Dramatist, do tell them to let me see a doctor, or I shan’t be able to act at all on the first night.” And to crown all, the jovial bon-vivant sends a doctor’s certificate: cramp in the stomach. So there you are.

Let the truth be told: the actor’s trade is far more arduous than military service. So, if any reader is stage-struck (and in loco parentis I warn him most solemnly against this ambition), let him first test his powers of resistance and his patience; let him see how he sweats under a wig or beneath grease-paint; let him try walking about naked in a frost, or running about, wrapped up in wadding, in a Turkish bath; let him see if he can stand eight hours of running, yelling, whispering, eating his meals hurriedly out of pieces of paper, wearing stinking stuff on his nose, being baked by hot reflectors, blown about by hurricanes from trap-doors, seeing about as much real daylight as a miner, being covered with dirt by everything he touches, not daring to sneeze for thirty minutes, wearing a waistcoat impregnated by the sweat of twenty predecessors, throwing off his clothes six times from his overheated, steaming nakedness, acting while he has some troublesome illness or disease—let him suffer these and many other evils that an actor must endure in playing a part : while an actor who has no part to play is even worse off!

“Let us begin, then,” cries the unfeeling producer, and a few wheezing figures begin to reel about the stage reciting, as though with their last gasp, a text which has become more hateful to them than death itself. “But ladies, that won’t do at all,” shouts the producer beside himself. “Once more now from the beginning. Let us have a better tempo, please! And don’t forget, you are supposed to stand near the door! Once more then: Enter Katie!” Katie enters with the droop of a dying consumptive, and stands stock still. “Well, Miss, proceed!” urges the producer. Katie whispers something, her eyes fastened upon the Unknown. “But, you are supposed to cross over to the window,” rages the producer. “Once more now, from the beginning again.” Katie bursts into tears, and runs from the stage. “What’s the matter with her?” asks the dramatist. The producer merely shrugs his shoulders, and hisses like molten iron plunged into ice-cold water. Meanwhile the dramatist pulls himself together, and hurries to the office, declaring that it is impossible to have the first night so soon, that it must be postponed, etc., etc. (Every dramatist feels like this on the day before the first night.) When he returns to the stage, somewhat calmed, half an hour later, he finds that a furious fight is going on between the principal actor and the prompter. The principal actor asserts that the prompter failed to give him a certain cue, which the prompter naturally denies most violently, leaving his book as a sign of protest. The stage-manager now receives a few nice curses, which he proceeds to pass on to the curtain-man: whereupon the row proceeds into a labyrinth of theatrical corridors, fading away somewhere down in the boiler-room. Meanwhile the prompter has been persuaded to return to his little box; but he is so embittered that he does nothing but whisper. “Let us begin then,” cries the producer in broken tones, sitting down, firmly determined not to have anything more to do with the affair, for you must know that the last act has not been rehearsed on the stage at all yet. “Do you think that it will be possible to-morrow?” inquires the dramatist.

“Why, things are going splendidly,” declares the producer; and immediately bursts out with: “Once more now! From the beginning! That’s all wrong! Start from Katie’s entrance!” Katie enters, but at this moment another storm bursts out. “Good God!” rages the producer. “Who the devil’s making that noise? Who’s hammering? Mr. Stage Manager, throw that man out who is making such an awful row under that trap-door!” It soon transpires that the culprit is merely an innocent stage-hand who is putting something to rights under the trap-door: for in every theatre there is always something that is being put right. It further transpires that the stage-hand objects to being sworn at, and that he is quite capable of defending himself with rich, juicy language, and at considerable length. Finally some sort of truce is arranged on condition that the stage-hand wield his hammer a little less noisily. “Let us begin then,” cries the producer hoarsely; but the prompter is now standing on the stage with his watch in his hand: “Twelve o’clock. I’m prompting this afternoon. So I must be off now.” The last rehearsal before the dress-rehearsal usually ends in this manner. It is a close, irritable, stormy, cloud; but to-morrow will arch itself into the wide, radiant, beautiful rainbow of the dress rehearsal.

“Mr. Producer!” remarks the dramatist, “don’t you think that in the first act Clara might . . .”

“It’s too late to change anything now,” interrupts the producer gloomily.

“Mr. Producer,” says Clara, “the dress-maker has just told me that she won’t be able to get my costume finished by the first night. What shall I do about it?”

“Mr. Producer,” cries Katie, “what kind of stockings shall I have to wear?”

“Mr. Producer,” the property-man announces, “we haven’t got no blooming aquarium.”

“Mr. Producer,” says the foreman of the technical staff, “that scenery can’t possibly be ready by to-morrow night.”

“Mr. Producer! You’re wanted in the office.”

“Mr. Producer, what kind of a wig am I to wear?”

“Mr. Producer, should they be grey gloves?”

“Mr. Producer,” the dramatist insists, “don’t you think that we ought to postpone the first night?”

“Mr. Producer, I think I shall wear a green scarf.”

“Mr. Producer, are there supposed to be fish in that there aquarium?”

“Mr. Producer, the theatre will have to pay me for those boots.”

“Mr. Producer, is it absolutely necessary for me to fall down when I faint? I shall make an awful mess of my costume.”

“Mr. Producer, here’s a proof of the advertisements.”

“Mr. Producer, is this material all right for my trousers?”

And the dramatist begins to feel that he is the most superfluous person on earth. Serve him right, anyway! He shouldn’t write plays!