Street Scene (1929)/Act I

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Street Scene (1929)
by Elmer Rice

Act I

Act II

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4713889Street Scene — Act I1929Elmer Rice

Layout 2

ACT ONE

Setting by Jo Mielziner

ACT ONE

SCENE: The exterior of a “walk-up” apartment-house, in a mean quarter of New York. It is of ugly brownstone and was built in the ’90’s. Between the pavement of large, gray flagstones and the front of the house, is a deep and narrow “area-way,” guarded by a rusted, ornamental iron railing. At the right, a steep flight of rotting wooden steps leads down to the cellar and to the janitor’s apartment, the windows of which are just visible above the street level. Spanning the area-way is a “stoop” of four shallow, stone steps, fllanked on either side by a curved stone balustrade. Beyond the broad fourth step, another step leads to the double wooden outer doors of the house; and as these are open, the vestibule, and the wide, heavy glass-panelled entrance door beyond are visible. Above the outer doors, is a glass fanlight, upon which appears the half-obliterated house number. At the left side of the doorway is a sign which reads: “Flat To-Let. 6 Rooms. Steam Heat.”

On either side of the stoop, are the two narrow windows of the ground-floor apartments. In one of the windows, at the left, is a sign bearing the legend: “Prof. Filippo Fiorentino. Music for all occasions. Also instruction.” Above, are the six narrow windows of the first-floor apartments, and above that, the stone sills of the second-floor windows can just be seen.

To the left of the house, part of the adjoining building is visible: the motor entrance to a storage warehouse. Crude boarding across the large driveway and rough planks across the sidewalk and curb indicate that an excavation is in progress. On the boarding is painted in rude lettering: “Keep Out”; and at the curb is a small barrel bearing a sign with the words: “Street Closed.” To the wall of the warehouse is affixed a brass plate, bearing the name: “Patrick Mulcahy Storage Warehouse Co. Inc.”

To the right of the house, scaffolding and a wooden sidewalk indicate that the house next door is being demolished. On the scaffolding is a large, wooden sign reading: “Manhattan House-Wrecking Corp.”

In the close foreground, below the level of the curb, is a mere suggestion of the street.

AT RISE: The house is seen in the white glare of an arc-light, which is just off-stage to the right. The windows in the janitor’s apartment are lighted, as are also those of the ground-floor apartment, at the right, and the two windows at the extreme left of the first-floor. A dim, red light is affixed to the boarding of the excavation at the left.

In the lighted ground-floor window, at the right of the doorway, Abraham Kaplan is seated, in a rocking-chair, reading a Yiddish newspaper. He is a Russian Jew, well past sixty: clean-shaven, thick gray hair, hooked nose, horn-rimmed spectacles. To the left of the doorway, Greta Fiorentino is leaning out of the window. She is forty, blonde, ruddy-faced and stout. She wears a wrapper of light, flowered material and a large pillow supports her left arm and her ample, uncorseted bosom. In her right hand is a folding paper fan, which she waves languidly.

Throughout the act and, indeed, throughout the play, there is constant noise. The noises of the city rise, fall, intermingle: the distant roar of “L” trains, automobile sirens and the whistles of boats on the river; the rattle of trucks and the indeterminate clanking of metals; fire-engines, ambulances, musical instruments, a radio, dogs barking and human voices calling, quarrelling and screaming with laughter. The noises are subdued and in the background, but they never wholly cease.

A moment after the rise of the curtain, an elderly man enters at the right and walks into the house, exchanging a nod with Mrs. Fiorentino. A Man, munching peanuts, crosses the stage from left to right.

A Voice

[Off-stage]: Char-lie!

[Emma Jones appears at the left. She is middle-aged, tall and rather bony. She carries a small parcel.]

Mrs. Fiorentino

[She speaks with a faint German accent]: Good evening, Mrs. Jones.

Mrs. Jones

[Stopping beneath Mrs. Fiorentino’s window]: Good evenin’, Mrs. F. Well, I hope it’s hot enough for you.

Mrs. Fiorentino

Ain’t it joost awful? When I was through with the dishes, you could take my clothes and joost wring them out.

Mrs. Jones

Me, too. I ain’t got a dry stitch on me.

Mrs. Fiorentino

I took off my shoes and my corset and made myself nice and comfortable, and tonight before I go to bed, I take a nice bath.

Mrs. Jones

The trouble with a bath is, by the time you’re all through, you’re as hot as when you started. [As Olga Olsen, a thin, anemic Scandinavian, with untidy fair hair, comes up the cellar steps and onto the sidewalk]: Good evenin’, Mrs. Olsen. Awful hot, ain’t it?

Mrs. Olsen

[Coming over to the front of the stoop]: Yust awful. Mrs. Forentiner, my hoosban’ say vill you put de garbage on de doom-vaider?

Mrs. Fiorentino

Oh, sure, sure! I didn’t hear him vistle. [As Mrs. Jones starts to cross to the stoop]: Don’t go ’vay, Mrs. Jones. [She disappears from the window.]

Mrs. Olsen

[Pushing back some wisps of hair]: I tank is more cooler in de cellar.

Mrs. Jones

[Sitting on the stoop and fanning herself with her parcel]: Phew! I’m just about ready to pass out.

Mrs. Olsen

My baby is crying, crying all day.

Mrs. Jones

Yeah, I often say they mind the heat more’n we do. It’s the same with dogs. My Queenie has jes’ been layin’ aroun’ all day.

Mrs. Olsen

The baby get new teet’, It hurt her.

Mrs. Jones

Don’t tell me! If you was to know what I went t’roo with my Vincent. Half the time, he used to have convulsions.

[Willie Maurrant, a disorderly boy of twelve, appears at the left, on roller skates. He stops at the left of the stoop and takes hold of the railing with both hands.]

Willie

[Raising his head and bawling]: Hey, ma!

Mrs. Jones

[Disapprovingly]: If you want your mother, why don’t you go upstairs, instead o’ yellin’ like that?

Willie

[Without paying the slightest attention to her, bawls louder]: Hey, ma!

Mrs. Maurrant

[Appearing at the one of the lighted first-floor windows]: What do you want, Willie?

[She is a fair woman of forty, who looks her age, but is by no means unattractive.]

Willie

Gimme a dime, will ya? I wanna git a cone.

Mrs. Maurrant

[To Mrs. Olsen and Mrs. Jones]: Good evening.

Mrs. Olsen

Mrs. Jones

Good evenin’, Mrs. Maurrant.

Mrs. Maurrant

[To Willie]: How many cones did you have today, already?

Willie

[Belligerently]: I’m hot! All de other guys is havin’ cones. Come on, gimme a dime.

Mrs. Maurrant

Well, it’s the last one. [She disappears.]

Mrs. Jones

You certainly don’t talk very nice to your mother. [To Mrs. Olsen]: I’d like to hear one o’ mine talkin’ that way to me!

Mrs. Maurrant

[Appearing at the window]: Remember, this is the last one.

Willie

Aw right. T’row it down.

[Mrs. Fiorentino reappears and leans out of the window again.]

Mrs. Maurrant

Catch it!

[She throws out a twist of newspaper. Willie scrambles for it, hastily extracts the dime, drops the newspaper on the pavement and skates off, at the left.]

Mrs. Fiorentino

[Twisting her neck upwards]: Good evening, Mrs. Maurrant.

Mrs. Maurrant

Good evening, Mrs. Fiorentino. [Calling after Willie]: And don’t come home too late, Willie!

[But Willie is already out of earshot.]

Mrs. Fiorentino

Why don’t you come down and be sociable?

Mrs. Maurrant

I’m keeping some supper warm for my husband. [A slight pause]: Well, maybe I will for just a minute.

[She leaves the window. The lights in her apartment go out.]

Mrs. Fiorentino

She has her troubles with dot Willie.

Mrs. Jones

I guess it don’t bother her much. [Significantly]: She’s got her mind on other things.

Mrs. Olsen

[Looking about cautiously and coming over to the left of the stoop between the two women]: He vas comin’ again today to see her.

Mrs. Jones

[Rising excitedly, and leaning over the balustrade]: Who—Sankey?

Mrs. Olsen

[Nodding]: Yes.

Mrs. Fiorentino

Are you sure, Mrs. Olsen?

Mrs. Olsen

I seen him. I vas doostin’ de halls.

Mrs. Fiorentino

Dot’s terrible!

Mrs. Jones

Wouldn’t you think a woman her age, with a grown-up daughter—!

Mrs. Olsen

Two times already dis veek, I see him here.

Mrs. Jones

I seen him, meself, one day last week. He was comin’ out o’ the house, jest as I was comin’ in wit’ de dog. “Good mornin’, Mrs. Jones,” he says to me, as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. “Good mornin’,” says I, lookin’ him straight in the eye—[Breaking off suddenly, as the vestibule door opens]: Be careful, she’s comin’.

[Mrs. Maurrant comes out of the house and stops, for a moment, on the top step.]

Mrs. Maurrant

Goodness, ain’t it hot! I think it’s really cooler upstairs.

[She comes down the steps to the sidewalk.]

Mrs. Jones

Yeah, jes’ what I was sayin’, meself. I feel like a wet dish-rag.

Mrs. Maurrant

I would have liked to go to the Park concert tonight, if Rose had got home in time. I don’t get much chance to go to concerts. My husband don’t care for music. But Rose is more like me—just crazy about it.

Mrs. Jones

Ain’t she home yet?

Mrs. Maurrant

No. I think maybe she had to work overtime.

Mrs. Jones

Well, all mine ever comes home for is to sleep.

Mrs. Fiorentino

The young girls nowadays—!

Mrs. Olsen

My sister was writin’ me in Schweden is same t’ing—

Mrs. Jones

It ain’t only the young ones, either.

[A baby is heard crying in the cellar.]

Olsen’s Voice

[From the cellar]: Ol-ga!

[A Man, in a dinner jacket and straw hat, appears at the left, whistling a jazz tune. He crosses the stage and goes off at the right.]

Mrs. Olsen

[Hurrying to the right]: I betcha the baby, she’s cryin’ again.

Olsen’s Voice

Ol-ga!

Mrs. Olsen

Yes. I come right away.

[She goes down the cellar steps.]

Mrs. Jones

What them foreigners don’t know about bringin’ up babies would fill a book.

Mrs. Fiorentino

[A little huffily]: Foreigners know joost as much as other people, Mrs. Jones. My mother had eight children and she brought up seven.

Mrs. Jones

[Tactfully]: Well, I’m not sayin’ anythin’ about the Joimans. The Joimans is different—more like the Irish. What I’m talkin’ about is all them squareheads an’ Polacks—[With a glance in Kaplan’s direction]:—an’ Jews.

Buchanan’s Voice

[From a third story window]: Good evening, ladies.

The Women

[In unison, looking upward]: Oh, good evening, Mr. Buchanan.

Buchanan’s Voice

Well, is it hot enough for you?

Mrs. Jones

I’ll say!

Buchanan’s Voice

I was just saying to my wife, it’s not the heat I mind as much as it is the humidity.

Mrs. Jones

Yeah, that’s it! Makes everything stick to you.

Mrs. Maurrant

How’s your wife feeling in this weather?

Buchanan’s Voice

She don’t complain about the weather. But she’s afraid to go out of the house. Thinks maybe she couldn’t get back in time, in case—you know.

Mrs. Jones

[To the other women]: I was the same way, with my Vincent—afraid to take a step. But with Mae, I was up an’ out till the very last minute.

Mrs. Fiorentino

[Craning her neck upward]: Mr. Buchanan, do you think she would eat some nice minestrone—good Italian vegetable-soup?

Buchanan’s Voice

Why, much obliged, Mrs. F., but I really can’t get her to eat a thing.

Mrs. Jones

[Rising and looking upward]: Tell her she ought to keep up her strength. She’s got two to feed, you know.

Buchanan’s Voice

Excuse me, she’s calling.

Mrs. Jones

[Crossing to the railing, at the left of Mrs. Fiorentino]: You’d think it was him that was havin’ the baby.

Mrs. Maurrant

She’s such a puny little thing.

Mrs. Fiorentino

[With a sigh]: Well, that’s the way it goes. The little skinny ones have them and the big strong ones don’t.

Mrs. Maurrant

Don’t take it that way, Mrs. Fiorentino. You’re a young woman, yet.

Mrs. Fiorentino

[Shaking her head]: Oh, well!

Mrs. Jones

My aunt, Mrs. Barclay, was forty-two—[Breaking off]: Oh, good evenin’, Mr. Maurrant!

[Frank Maurrant appears, at the left, with his coat on his arm. He is a tall, powerfully-built man of forty-five, with a rugged, grim face.]

Mrs. Fiorentino

Good evening, Mr. Maurrant.

Maurrant

’Evenin’. [He goes to the stoop and seats himself, mopping his face.] Some baby of a day!

Mrs. Maurrant

Have you been working all this while, Frank?

Maurrant

I’ll say I’ve been workin’. Dress-rehearsin’ since twelve o’clock, with lights—in this weather. An’ tomorra I gotta go to Stamford, for the try-out.

Mrs. Maurrant

Oh, you’re going to Stamford tomorrow?

Maurrant

Yeah, the whole crew’s goin’. [Looking at her]: What about it?

Mrs. Maurrant

Why, nothing. Oh, I’ve got some cabbage and potatoes on the stove for you.

Maurrant

I just had a plate o’ beans at the Coffee Pot. All I want is a good wash. I been sweatin’ like a horse, all day.

[He rises and goes up the steps.]

Mrs. Fiorentino

My husband, too; he’s sweating terrible.

Mrs. Jones

Mine don’t. There’s some people that just naturally do, and then there’s others that don’t.

Maurrant

[To Mrs. Maurrant]: Is anybody upstairs?

Mrs. Maurrant

No. Willie’s off playing with the boys. I can’t keep him home.

Maurrant

What about Rose?

Mrs. Maurrant

I think maybe she’s working overtime.

Maurrant

I never heard o’ nobody workin’ nights in a real-estate office.

Mrs. Maurrant

I thought maybe on account of the office being closed to-morrow—[To the others]: Mr. Jacobson, the head of the firm, died Tuesday, and tomorrow’s the funeral, so I thought maybe—

Mrs. Jones

Yeah. Leave it to the Jews not to lose a workin’ day, without makin’ up for it.

Maurrant

[To Mrs. Maurrant]: She shouldn’t be stayin’ out nights without us knowin’ where she is.

Mrs. Maurrant

She didn’t say a word about not coming home.

Maurrant

That’s what I’m sayin’, ain’t it? It’s a mother’s place to know what her daughter’s doin’.

Mrs. Fiorentino

[Soothingly]: Things are different nowadays, Mr. Maurrant, from what they used to be.

Maurrant

Not in my family, they’re. not goin’ to be no different. Not so long as I got somethin’ to say.

A Girl’s Voice

[Off-stage]: Red Rover! Red Rover! Let Freddie come over!

[George Jones, a short, rather plump, red-faced man, cigar in mouth, comes out of the house, as Maurrant enters the vestibule.]

Jones

Hello, Mr. Maurrant.

Maurrant

[Curtly]: ’Evenin’.

[He enters the house. Jones looks after him in surprise, for a moment. Mrs. Maurrant seats herself on the stoop.]