Why is it so gloomy?

Sometime near the end of April, after months of preparation, endless reassessments, substitutions and changes of mind, countless nervous breakdowns and moments of feverish exhilaration, the play assumed its final shape. It was an hour-long collage of selected scenes and monologues from famous plays – Aeschylus to Beckett. All the World’s a Stage was characterised throughout by the darkest pessimism. It began with the monologue of Prometheus chained to his rock and went on with the dialogue between Creon and Haemon from Antigone; then came a few bitter passages from Shakespeare, among them Jaques’s soliloquy from As You Like It about the seven ages of man, beginning with the words we had adopted as our title; then the concluding soliloquy of Molière’s Misanthrope, followed by Faust’s first soliloquy and a fragment of his dialogue with Mephistopheles. Lastly, there was a fragment of Hamm’s soliloquy from Endgame.This script, submitted to the school authorities for inspection, was rejected.

‘Why is it so gloomy?’ the deputy headmaster wanted to know, eyeing it with disfavour. Tall, thin, with a sallow complexion and a slightly tubercular look, he was generally known as the Tapeworm. ‘You feel like killing yourself after reading this. We can’t tolerate defeatism in this school.’

‘But these are classics, sir,’ I ventured, trying to defend my creation. ‘They’re almost all in the syllabus. I’m not the one who drew up the syllabus.’

‘Don’t you try to hide behind the syllabus,’ he replied, frowning as he shuffled through the pages. ‘There’s a reason you’ve selected these particular passages: it’s a deliberate attempt to question every decent value and discourage people from study and work. Here, for instance,’ he said, pointing to the page with Faust’s monologue. He read out the first few lines:

The books I’ve read! Philosophy,
And Law, and Medicine besides;
Even (alas!) Theology.

I’ve searched for knowledge far and wide.
And here I am, poor fool, no more
Enlightened than I was before.

‘Well? How else should this be read, in your opinion? It says that studying is worthless and won’t get you anywhere. Doesn’t it? And you expect us to applaud such a message?!’

‘We had it in literature class,’ I retorted impatiently. ‘Are you saying that it’s all right in class or at home, but not on stage?’

‘It’s different in class,’ the Tapeworm replied, unruffled. ‘In class there’s a teacher to tell you what the author intended.’

‘Well, then, sir, what, in your opinion, did Goethe intend here?’ I asked.

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ he snorted. ‘He was talking about pride: excessive, overweening pride. And arrogance. Just like yours, in fact. Once you start thinking you know everything, you’re bound to come to a bad end. Here you are,’ he said, pointing to a passage further down, ‘it says so here.’

To Magic therefore have I turned
To try the spirits’ power and gain
The knowledge they alone bestow;
No longer will I have to strain
To speak of things I do not know.

‘Well? There you are. Magic, evil powers, pacts with the devil – that’s what happens to the swollen-headed and the proud. But that’s something your script somehow fails to mention. And in any case,’ he said, suddenly changing the subject, ‘why is there no Polish literature represented here? This is a Polish school, after all.’

‘This is a selection from the greatest works in the history of drama –’ I began, but the Tapeworm cut me off in mid-flow and said, in tones of heavy sarcasm, ‘Ah. So you consider, I take it, that our own literature has no drama worthy of note. Mickiewicz, Slowacki, Krasinski – for you they’re small fry, third-rate, second-rate at best . . .?’

‘I didn’t say that,’ I replied. This was an easy thrust to parry. ‘Nevertheless, on the other hand, you must admit that the works of Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Molière and Goethe are performed the world over, while our own classics tend to be appreciated mainly on their home ground.’

‘That’s right – “Exalting the foreign, dismissing your own”, as the saying goes,’ he mocked.

‘Strictly speaking, it’s not a saying; it’s from a poem by Stanislaw Jachowicz, another of our great poets. You know, the one who wrote, “Poor pussy was ill and lying in bed”,’ I supplied helpfully. ‘I’m sure you know it . . .’

‘All right, that’s enough, Mr Know-it-all,’ snapped the Tapeworm, cutting off my show of erudition. ‘Do you realise your attitude is a typical example of “cosmopolitanism”? You know what that means, don’t you?’

‘It means “citizenship of the world”.’

‘No,’ said the deputy headmaster. ‘It means indifference to or even contempt for one’s own culture and traditions. You worship the West; it’s a form of idolatry.’

‘The West?’ I repeated, feigning surprise. ‘As far as I know, Greece, especially before Christ—’

But the Tapeworm didn’t let me finish. ‘It’s a curious thing,’ he said, ‘that in your script you have also omitted Chekhov, Gogol and Tolstoy. Why this strange oversight? You surely don’t intend to claim that their plays are produced only in Russia – I mean, in the Soviet Union. Or do you?’

I could see that further discussion was fruitless. ‘So, what’s the decision?’ I asked. ‘Can we do it or not?’

‘Not as it is, no. Not unless you incorporate the changes I’ve suggested.’

‘I’ll have to think about that,’ I said diplomatically; inwardly I made a gesture expressive of what he could do with his changes and snarled, Not on your life, you bastard.

Insulting the Tapeworm, especially in one’s imagination, was no great feat. Finding a solution was harder. After all the months of rehearsals, after all our hopes and dreams, I couldn’t bring myself to tell the cast about the deputy headmaster’s decision. Yet concealing it, playing for time and making promises I couldn’t keep, was also out of the question.

With nothing more to lose, I made my way, that very afternoon, to the offices of the Warsaw section of the Amateur and School Theatrical Events Board, housed in one of the city’s theatres. I went there intending to enter our play in the competition; but I did not do so lightly. The idea was tempting: to participate in the festival organised by the Board, the most prestigious event of its kind, and at the same time to defy the Tapeworm – but what if it ended in disgrace? What then? Our experience of the stage was very slight; never having faced a live audience, we did not know how we would react. Would stage-fright paralyse us? Would we forget our lines? How would we cope with the unexpected? The idea of making a hash of it was terrifying. And then the competition itself was another unknown factor: perhaps, regardless of how well we acted, our compilation would seem puerile or, worse, boring, or simply ludicrous in its tragic intensity. Failure in these circumstances meant utter humiliation. I felt I was taking an enormous risk.

A sleepy calm reigned in the festival offices. Behind the desk a young secretary sat languidly painting her nails.

‘I’d like to enter our group in this year’s competition,’ I said, a touch uncertainly.
‘On whose behalf?’ inquired the secretary, without looking up from the task on which her attention was bent.

‘What do you mean, on whose behalf?’ I asked, surprised. ‘On my behalf. I mean, on behalf of the group I represent.’

She looked me up and down. ‘You don’t look like a teacher or an instructor to me.’ She returned to her nails.

‘And indeed I’m not – neither one nor the other,’ I admitted, with a pretence of chagrin. ‘Does that mean I can’t enter our group?’

‘The deadline’s passed,’ she replied, noncommittal.

Something in my heart contracted in a spasm of dismay, yet I felt a kind of relief. I’d tried and failed, and perhaps it was for the best. My prospects of victor’s laurels had vanished, but so had the spectre of shame and defeat.

‘The deadline’s passed . . .’ I repeated dully, like an echo. ‘Do you mind telling me when?’

‘At noon today,’ she announced, exuding false regret.

I looked at my watch. It was a quarter past three.

‘I had classes until two . . .’ I said, as if debating with myself.

She spread her hands in a helpless gesture, taking the opportunity as she did so to inspect the results of her work. ‘You should have come yesterday.’

‘Oh, well,’ I muttered, and began to shuffle about resignedly, preparing to leave. But at that moment the door opened, admitting none other than S. – one of the most popular actors of the day – himself, in person. The secretary leapt up to greet him with an ingratiating smile.

S. had distinguished himself not only on stage but also as something of a character: he was known to be moody and capricious, and was generally considered a fascinating personality. Anecdotes about him abounded: how difficult he was to work with, how he would play practical jokes on his fellow actors on stage and yet take pains to make himself agreeable to the theatre staff and, particularly, to his fans. His self-absorption and delusions of grandeur were legendary; his disingenuousness, his transparent attempts to cloak these weaknesses in a veil of false modesty and to portray himself as a timid naïf, were an ever-reliable source of amusement. He craved applause and admiration, and liked to be surrounded by young people, who could be relied upon to provide both; he taught at the drama school and patronised a variety of theatrical events, the festival among them. His latest triumph had been as Prospero in The Tempest, a production for which tickets had been sold out weeks in advance. I had managed to see it several times, and knew it almost by heart.

Now, as he strode in with an arch ‘Buon giorno, cara mia’ for the secretary, I was seeing him close up for the first time. For a moment I was all but struck dumb with the thrill. But when he magnanimously offered me his hand and with his typical disingenuousness hastened to introduce himself, I recovered my wits and hazarded a gambit in which I suddenly perceived the glimmer of a chance: I addressed him in the words of Ariel:

All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come
To answer thy best pleasure; be’t to fly,
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
On the curl’d clouds, to thy strong bidding task
Ariel and all his quality.

Whereupon, sizing me up with a keen glance and finding me apparently to his approval, he assumed his Prospero’s severe and haughty look and, taking up where I’d left off, replied:

Hast thou, spirit,
Performed to point the tempest that I bade thee?
‘To every article,’ I said, and went on:
I boarded the king’s ship; now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flam’d amazement . . .

He took a step toward me and threw an arm around my shoulders:

My brave spirit!
Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil
Would not infect his reason?
I galloped on:
Not a soul . . .

– but then I paused, as if hesitating, and, looking my extraordinary partner straight in the eye, found myself, to my astonishment, continuing in heroic iambics:

But stay, one such there was – alack, the same,
Indeed, who stands before you now, come hither
By dreams of everlasting glory driv’n,
My entry here to register. This pageant,
Liege, on which your justice will ere long pronounce
I would fain enter; but this dread Sycorax –

I gestured in the general direction of the secretary –

This monstrous hag, who here doth sit and paint
Her claws all day, informs me that the deadline
Now is past. It passed at noon, she says –

I glanced at my watch –

’Twas but three hours ago! Thus envious Fortune
Deceitfully hath pierced my hopes, and shot
Her arrows through my flesh. What now, my lord?
My hopes are spread before you, and my fate
In your good graces lies. I do beseech thee,
Give me your hand, and lend me your good favour.
For this, good sir, most humbly do I pray thee.

During this improvised tirade S. had been eyeing me with markedly increasing stupefaction. Now, as I declaimed my final line, he shook himself out of his stunned state and took up my challenge:

’Tis Sycorax, thou sayst, who bars your entry?
Nay, ’twill not do. I’ll bind her with my magic:
Thus will she break. In such a one ’tis folly
To oppose me. She’ll do my bidding.

With a mock-serious scowl he strode toward the secretary, stretched out his arms as if to draw her into the hypnotic coils of his magic, and declaimed:

Attendest thou, cruel queen? Dost thou not hear me?
This youth must be admitted. You’ll see to it.

And she, melting with adoration under his gaze and falling unwittingly into the flow of the rhythm, replied in the same metre:

Yes, sir, at once, of course, I’ll do it now!

Antoni Libera
Madame