Plays by Susan Glaspell Part 4

THE OUTSIDE

First performed by the Provincetown Players at the Playwrights' Theatre, December 28, 1917.

CAPTAIN (of 'The Bars' Life-Saving Station)

BRADFORD (a Life-Saver)

TONY (a Portuguese Life-Saver)

MRS PATRICK (who lives in the abandoned Station)

ALLIE MAYO (who works for her)

SCENE: _A room in a house which was once a life-saving station. Since ceasing to be that it has taken on no other character, except that of a place which no one cares either to preserve or change. It is painted the life-saving grey, but has not the life-saving freshness. This is one end of what was the big boat room, and at the ceiling is seen a part of the frame work from which the boat once swung. About two thirds of the back wall is open, because of the big sliding door, of the type of barn door, and through this open door are seen the sand dunes, and beyond them the woods. At one point the line where woods and dunes meet stands out clearly and there are indicated the rude things, vines, bushes, which form the outer uneven rim of the woods--the only things that grow in the sand. At another point a sand-hill is menacing the woods. This old life-saving station is at a point where the sea curves, so through the open door the sea also is seen. (The station is located on the outside sh.o.r.e of Cape Cod, at the point, near the tip of the Cape, where it makes that final curve which forms the Provincetown Harbor.) The dunes are hills and strange forms of sand on which, in places, grows the stiff beach gra.s.s--struggle; dogged growing against odds. At right of the big sliding door is a drift of sand and the top of buried beach gra.s.s is seen on this. There is a door left, and at right of big sliding door is a slanting wall. Door in this is ajar at rise of curtain, and through this door_ BRADFORD _and_ TONY, _life-savers, are seen bending over a man's body, attempting to restore respiration. The captain of the life-savers comes into view outside the big open door, at left; he appears to have been hurrying, peers in, sees the men, goes quickly to them._

CAPTAIN: I'll take this now, boys.

BRADFORD: No need for anybody to take it, Capt'n. He was dead when we picked him up.

CAPTAIN: Dannie Sears was dead when we picked him up. But we brought him back. I'll go on awhile.

(_The two men who have been bending over the body rise, stretch to relax, and come into the room._)

BRADFORD: (_pus.h.i.+ng back his arms and putting his hands on his chest_) Work,--tryin to put life in the dead.

CAPTAIN: Where'd you find him, Joe?

BRADFORD: In front of this house. Not forty feet out.

CAPTAIN: What'd you bring him up here for?

(_He speaks in an abstracted way, as if the working part of his mind is on something else, and in the m.u.f.fled voice of one bending over._)

BRADFORD: (_with a sheepish little laugh_) Force of habit, I guess. We brought so many of 'em back up here, (_looks around the room_) And then it was kind of unfriendly down where he was--the wind spittin' the sea onto you till he'd have no way of knowin' he was ash.o.r.e.

TONY: Lucky I was not sooner or later as I walk by from my watch.

BRADFORD: You have accommodating ways, Tony. No sooner or later. I wouldn't say it of many Portagees. But the sea (_calling it in to the_ CAPTAIN) is friendly as a kitten alongside the women that live _here_.

Allie Mayo--they're _both_ crazy--had that door open (_moving his head toward the big sliding door_) sweepin' out, and when we come along she backs off and stands lookin' at us, _lookin_'--Lord, I just wanted to get him somewhere else. So I kicked this door open with my foot (_jerking his hand toward the room where the_ CAPTAIN _is seen bending over the man_) and got him _away. (under his voice_) If he did have any notion of comin' back to life, he wouldn't a come if he'd seen her.

(_more genially_) I wouldn't.

CAPTAIN: You know who he is, Joe?

BRADFORD: I never saw him before.

CAPTAIN: Mitch.e.l.l telephoned from High Head that a dory came ash.o.r.e there.

BRADFORD: Last night wasn't the _best_ night for a dory. (_to_ TONY, _boastfully_) Not that I couldn't 'a' stayed in one. Some men can stay in a dory and some can't. (_going to the inner door_) That boy's dead, Capt'n.

CAPTAIN: Then I'm not doing him any harm.

BRADFORD: (_going over and shaking the frame where the boat once swung_) This the first time you ever been in this place, ain't it, Tony?

TONY: I never was here before.

BRADFORD: Well, _I_ was here before. (_a laugh_) And the old man--(_nodding toward the_ CAPTAIN) he lived here for twenty-seven years. Lord, the things that happened _here_. There've been dead ones carried through _that_ door. (_pointing to the outside door_) Lord--the ones _I've_ carried. I carried in Bill Collins, and Lou Harvey and--huh!

'sall over now. You ain't seen no _wrecks_. Don't ever think you have. I was here the night the Jennie Snow was out there. (_pointing to the sea_) There was a _wreck_. We got the boat that stood here (_again shaking the frame_) down that bank. (_goes to the door and looks out_) Lord, how'd we ever do it? The sand has put his place on the blink all right. And then when it gets too G.o.d-for-saken for a life-savin'

station, a lady takes it for a summer residence--and then spends the winter. She's a cheerful one.

TONY: A woman--she makes things pretty. This not like a place where a woman live. On the floor there is nothing--on the wall there is nothing.

Things--(_trying to express it with his hands_) do not hang on other things.

BRADFORD: (_imitating_ TONY_'s gesture_) No--things do not hang on other things. In my opinion the woman's crazy--sittin' over there on the sand--(_a gesture towards the dunes_) what's she _lookin'_ at? There ain't nothin' to _see_. And I know the woman that works for her's crazy--Allie Mayo. She's a Provincetown girl. She was all right once, but--

(MRS PATRICK _comes in from the hall at the right. She is a 'city woman', a sophisticated person who has been caught into something as unlike the old life as the dunes are unlike a meadow. At the moment she is excited and angry_.)

MRS PATRICK: You have no right here. This isn't the life-saving station any more. Just because it used to be--I don't see why you should think--This is my house! And--I want my house to myself!

CAPTAIN: (_putting his head through the door. One arm of the man he is working with is raised, and the hand reaches through the doorway_) Well I must say, lady, I would think that any house could be a life-saving station when the sea had sent a man to it.

MRS PATRICK: (_who has turned away so she cannot see the hand_) I don't want him here! I--(_defiant, yet choking_) I must have my house to myself!

CAPTAIN: You'll get your house to yourself when I've made up my mind there's no more life in this man. A good many lives have been saved in this house, Mrs Patrick--I believe that's your name--and if there's any chance of bringing one more back from the dead, the fact that you own the house ain't goin' to make a d.a.m.n bit of difference to me!

MRS PATRICK: (_in a thin wild way_) I must have my house to myself.

CAPTAIN: h.e.l.l with such a woman!

(_Moves the man he is working with and slams the door shut. As the_ CAPTAIN _says, 'And if there's any chance of bringing one more back from the dead_', ALLIE MAYO _has appeared outside the wide door which gives on to the dunes, a bleak woman, who at first seems little more than a part of the sand before which she stands. But as she listens to this conflict one suspects in her that peculiar intensity of twisted things which grow in unfavoring places_.)

MRS PATRICK: I--I don't want them here! I must--

(_But suddenly she retreats, and is gone_.)

BRADFORD: Well, I couldn't say, Allie Mayo, that you work for any too kind-hearted a lady. What's the matter with the woman? Does she want folks to die? Appears to break her all up to see somebody trying to save a life. What d'you work for such a fish for? A crazy fish--that's what I call the woman. I've seen her--day after day--settin' over there where the dunes meet the woods, just sittin' there, lookin'. (_suddenly thinking of it_) I believe she _likes_ to see the sand slippin' down on the woods. Pleases her to see somethin' gettin' buried, I guess.

(ALLIE MAYO, _who has stepped inside the door and moved half across the room, toward the corridor at the right, is arrested by this last--stands a moment as if seeing through something, then slowly on, and out_.)

BRADFORD: Some coffee'd taste good. But coffee, in this house? Oh, no.

It might make somebody feel better. (_opening the door that was slammed shut_) Want me now, Capt'n?

CAPTAIN: No.