Dramatic Technique Part 55

When they sent him to the drug store for some medicine he rode up and down past the store for two hours and could not remember what he wanted. So he came back.

(_Subdued laughter. The crying again becomes louder and then dies away. Silence_.)

What has happened to her? Perhaps she is already dead.

No, in that case we should hear weeping. The doctor would run out and begin to talk nonsense, and they would bring out her husband unconscious, and we should have our hands full. No, she is not dead.

Then why are we sitting here?

Ask Him. How should we know?

He won't tell.

He won't tell. He tells nothing.

He drives us here and there. He rouses us from our beds and makes us watch, and then it turns out that there was no need of our coming.

We came of our own accord. Didn't we come of our own accord? You must be fair to Him. There, she is crying again. Aren't you satisfied?

Are _you_?

I am saying nothing. I am saying nothing and waiting.

How kind-hearted you are!

(_Laughter. The cries become louder_.)[8]

Of course every rule has its exception, and it may be urged that the final lines of David Pinski's _The Treasure_ need no a.s.signing to special speakers. This, if true, results from the fact that Mr. Pinski, as the last touch in his study of the universal perversion of man through l.u.s.t for money, wishes to represent even all the dead as sharing in this greed. Even here, however, Mr. Pinski is careful, by his headings "Many" and "The Pious Rabbi," to distinguish among speeches to be given by one person, the chorus, and a figure he wishes specially to individualize, the Rabbi.

_The Dead_

(_In shrouds and praying shawls appear singly and in groups amid the graves. They whisper and breathe their words._) Swiftly into the synagogue!... Hasten!... The hour of midnight is long past....

Hasten....

(_They hasten to the gate. One sees only their silhouettes in the dim light of the veiled moon._)

I thought we would not come out today at all.

The dead fear the breath of the living.

We fear them more than they do us. There is no peace betwixt life and death....

No peace ... no peace....

Indeed life vexed me grievously today.

Vexed is not the word. I lived in their life so really that I shuddered and feared.

Shuddered with fear or with longing? Did you feel a yearning for your money?

(_Ghostly laughter shakes the rows of the dead._)

The distinguished and the wealthy must surely have had a bad day.

It fairly smelled of money and they had to lie with the worms.

It almost threw them out of their graves.

_Many_

Money ... money ... money.... (_Ghostly laughter._)

But you poor devils hadn't a much better time either. It smelled of money and you couldn't even beg. (_Laughter._)

It is high time for all of you to be forgetting life.... Come quickly into the synagogue.... (_Many of the dead vanish._)

It gave me really an exalted feeling to see how little fear of us they felt.

Don't flatter yourself. We would have been no better. We were no better either.

_Many_

(_At the same time._) Money ... Money ... Money....

_Others_

And that is life ... that is life ... that is life....

It exalted me in my grave too. So many women walked about here today. Young ones and pretty ones, I wager.... (_Laughter._)

Who speaks thus? Who opens his mouth to speak such ugly words?

It's the petty field surgeon who lies buried by the wall.

_The Pious Rabbi_

(_In pa.s.sing. His praying shawl hangs but loosely over his left shoulder._) They have dug up my whole grave.... They have dug away my right arm. Woe, how shall I now put on my praying shawl? How shall I appear before G.o.d? (_To a group._) Will not some one help me to put on my praying shawl?

(_They surround and help him. They show signs of deep feeling at the sight of the missing arm. Murmurs of astonishment and compa.s.sion._)

_Many_

Woe ... woe ... woe....

_Others_

Money ... money ... money....