The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays Read online

LINDA: Oh, no! How stupid of me! It was an older sister, he said. Just like an older sister!

  MRS. O’FALLON: Hmmm! Yer a bit older than Jim is yerself, ain’t you, Mrs. Flynn!

  LINDA [confused]: Why, yes, I am a little bit older than Jim is . . . but what are you driving at, Mrs. O’Fallon?

  MRS. O’FALLON: I’ll tell yer what I’m driving at! Yer an able-bodied young woman—why don’t yer go back to work?

  LINDA: Go back with the show?

  MRS. O’FALLON: Oh, so it was show business you was workin’ in, was it?

  LINDA [a little defiantly]: Yes, it was.

  MRS. O’FALLON [significantly]: Humph! Well, well! An actress! And did you git fired?

  LINDA [restraining]: Why, no, I did not.

  MRS. O’FALLON: Then take my advice. Go back to yer show business, girl. Jim Flynn ain’t hardly a grown man, yit . . .

  LINDA [quietly]: He’s my husband, Mrs. O’Fallon.

  MRS. O’FALLON: Oh, I’m aware of that. I made him show me the license ere ever I gave him permission to bring you in. I know these young people!

  LINDA [desperately]: Oh, Mrs. O’Fallon! Jim and I are so happy here. So completely happy. Don’t you see—if I went back to the show—all of this would end—we’d be separated—we’d lose each other! [Covers her face with her hands.] This wonderful thing that we’ve made together—this magic tower—would fall to pieces—it would all be ruined!

  MRS. O’FALLON: What kind o’ nonsense is this!

  LINDA: I’m sorry.

  MRS. O’FALLON: You show people! Always putting on an act! I had one before. A Shakespearean actor, he was! Started recitin’ Hamlet’s solitary ev’ry time I ast him for the rent! Couldn’t get a word in edgewise! Humph! I finally had to throw his stuff out the window! Well, I just wanted to warn you, Mrs. Flynn. I have to be more strict about payments from married couples than from single young men—good night! [She starts to leave. Just then Jim enters. He playfully slaps at Mrs. O’Fallon. She instantly thaws.]

  JIM: Hello, old sour puss! What’s up?

  MRS. O’FALLON: Git along with you, Jimmy! Always fooling around, you are! You oughta be trounced! [Mrs. O’Fallon exits rather mincingly. Jim thumbs his nose at her back as she closes the door.]

  LINDA [after a moment]: Oh, that horrible woman! She gives me the creeps!

  JIM: What was it about? The rent? Poor old Linda! She’s always picking on you! Lookit here! [From under his coat he produces a drumstick and an evening paper.] Success! Here! That’s for you!

  LINDA: You eat it, Jim. I’m not hungry.

  JIM: Aren’t you really? Well, I am, all right. [He lies on couch reading the paper and gnawing the drumstick. Linda picks up some sewing. Her face resumes its former quiet smile.]

  LINDA [softly]: I’m glad that you’re back. It’s so much nicer now.

  JIM [absorbed in paper]: Hmmm.

  LINDA: In a minute I’ll forget everything that she said!

  JIM [jumping up suddenly, his face ecstatic]: He’s here, Linda, he’s here!

  LINDA [startled and amused]: What on earth are you howling about? The new chimpanzee at the zoo?

  JIM: A fine way to speak of our future patron!

  LINDA [aroused]: Our future patron?

  JIM [springs toward her, brandishing paper]: T. Anthony Wescott, the most famous art dealer in Europe. The man who discovered half the modern masters. Arrived this morning aboard the Île de France. Stopping at the Waldorf-Astoria. [Reads from the paper.] “I am here on business,” says Mr. Westcott, “My business is to review the best of contemporary American art. I am especially interested in the work of struggling young men of talent who have not yet acquired a reputation. I shall be the Christopher Columbus of modern art!”

  LINDA: Good Heavens!

  JIM [grandiloquently]: And I . . . I, Mr. Wescott, shall be your Virgin Islands!

  LINDA: What on earth do you mean?

  JIM: I’m going to see him at once!

  LINDA: Going to see him—in all this rain—at the Waldorf—How do you know they’ll let you in, darling?

  JIM: Let me in? I’ll break the door down! Where’s my hat! My cane?

  LINDA: Here. [Linda hands him his wide-brimmed hat.]

  JIM: Yes, and my cane! All artists have canes! I’ll break it over his head if he says he’s not in! Oh, he’ll see me! Won’t he, Linda?

  LINDA: Of course he’ll see you, darling! [She hands him his cane.] But don’t get so excited over it. Act very nonchalant. As though you didn’t give a tinker’s damn! As though every art dealer in America were simply clamoring for your work! Hadn’t you better call him first?

  JIM: Call him? Yes, of course! I’ll make an appointment. I’ll tell him I’m President of the National Academy. . . .

  LINDA: Oh, no. Tell him you’re a millionaire. . . .

  JIM: A multi-millionaire who wants an old master to match his new mistress! That’s it! That will make him foam at the mouth—at least till he sees me and the truth comes out! Say, have you got a nickel?

  LINDA: Not a penny, darling.

  JIM: Neither have I. How ghastly poor we are! It should be very easy for us to get into the Kingdom of Heaven!

  LINDA: I think we’re already there.

  JIM: We will be, Linda. If Wescott gives me a break we’ll be made! Never mind the appointment. I’ll take him by surprise!

  LINDA: But what will you do for carfare?

  JIM [ruefully]: Suppose I’ll have to walk.

  LINDA: Through all this rain!

  JIM: Would you rather I borrowed a dime from Mrs. O’Fallon? Maybe I’d better do that. I’ll call her Macushla. . . .

  LINDA: Please don’t! Perhaps you’d better wait till tomorrow morning. He’ll still be in town.

  JIM: No. Not on your life. Rain brimstone for all I care—I’m going right NOW—I’ll think of you all the way—Linda. . . . [Pulling up his collar and turning down his hat-brim.] That will keep me warm and dry!

  LINDA: I’ll think of you, too.

  LINDA: Aren’t you forgetting something?

  JIM [turning back]: Oh, I haven’t kissed you!

  LINDA [laughing]: I meant your pictures!

  JIM [snapping fingers]: Of course. My pictures. [Dashes around room selecting canvases.] Which ones shall I take? I know! The ones of you! I’ll take them to bring me good luck!

  LINDA: I’ve brought you nothing but bad luck, Jim.

  JIM [gaily]: Don’t be silly. You’re my lucky star.

  LINDA: Your evil star!

  JIM [selecting pictures]: This one and this one . . . ah! This one of you in your dancing costume!

  [Humming to herself, Linda goes to the portable. She puts a Strauss waltz on—“The Artist’s Life.”]

  JIM: What are you doing, Linda? This is no time for music.

  LINDA: It’s always time for music. See! He doesn’t deny it. I am his evil star. . . . Dance with me, darling, before you go.

  JIM [taking her in his arms]: Linda! You’re so indifferent!

  LINDA: Indifferent? Oh, if you only knew! How excited I am!

  JIM: Worried?

  LINDA: Not a bit! Why should I be? There’s not a doubt in my mind, I’m so sure of you, Jim!

  JIM [beaming with pride]: Are you really?

  [Pause. Linda takes it up. They dance gaily around the room.]

  LINDA: Remember to ask him for an advance payment, Jim. We’re five weeks behind on the rent!

  JIM: Five weeks? Ho, ho! That’s nothing!

  LINDA: And guess what we’re having for supper tonight?

  JIM: Nightingale tongues! We’ll have nightingale tongues!

  LINDA [shouting]: Half a loaf of stale bread!

  JIM [breaking away and clasping his ears]: Well, half a loaf is better than none!

  LINDA [burying her head on his shoulder and hugging him]: But it’s such stale bread, darling. So dreadfully stale. It would ruin your dental work!

  JIM: Remember the Bishop of Bingen? While everyone else was stricke
n with famine he locked himself up in a tower filled with good grain. Alas, poor fellow! The rats ate him up.

  LINDA [laughing]: What’s the moral, please?

  JIM: We’ll never be eaten by rats! [Picking up canvases.] The filthy little rats of greed will never get into this magic tower of ours, will they, Linda?

  LINDA [smiling]: Of course they won’t!

  JIM: There is something magical about it, isn’t there?

  LINDA: This little room of ours?

  JIM: Yes. Our magic tower. With stairs so long and steep that nobody but you and I can ever reach it! [Goes to door smiling raptly.] It’s like living in a state of enchantment, isn’t it, Linda? [Opening the door.] Don’t you feel that way about it sometimes, Linda?

  LINDA [softly]: Of course I do. I feel it so strongly sometimes that I’m frightened!

  JIM: Why frightened?

  LINDA: I wonder where it will end.

  JIM [laughing]: Then you aren’t really enchanted. In a state of enchantment people are never concerned about endings. They just go on and on and on. Nothing ever happens. Nothing, I mean, that really matters.

  LINDA: How thrilling that sounds! I wonder if it’s true?

  JIM: I’ll prove it to you, Linda!

  LINDA [gently]: I’m sure that you will. [She kisses him and he goes out the door.]

  JIM [going down stairs]: And nightingale tongues for supper! Remember that. Walking in wet weather gives me such an appetite! So long. . . .

  LINDA [standing in doorway]: I wish you weren’t going.

  JIM [from the stairs]: Why?

  LINDA: When you’re gone the magic tower isn’t safe. I have such awful thoughts!

  JIM: About me?

  LINDA: No. About me. I think what a bother I am. How happy you’d be without me. Just think, if it wasn’t for me you’d still be a gay young student without a care in the world!

  JIM: You lovely fool! I’d be the world’s most miserable man! So long. . . .

  LINDA: Goodbye, Jim. Good luck! [She stands in the opened doorway until he is out of sight. Then she closes the door. She leans against it a moment with a faint, brooding smile. Then, advancing to the center of the room and looking slowly around.] Our magic tower! Our lovely, leaking tower!

  [At this point the stage is briefly darkened to indicate the passing of a few hours’ time. During this interval Linda has undergone a transformation. With Jim absent she is no longer the self-contained young woman that she appeared to be in the beginning of the play. The romantic spell is lifted so that she can see more clearly the darker aspects of their situation. She is pacing restlessly around the room, now and then glancing toward the window with a fretful gesture as the lights go on. Someone knocks at the door.]

  LINDA [slightly cringing]: You, Mrs. O’Fallon?

  MOLLY: Naw, it’s me! Ha, ha.

  LINDA [slightly relieved]: Oh, Molly. Come in.

  [Enter Molly, a gangling, freckle-faced girl of fifteen.]

  MOLLY: There’s company to see yuh, Mizz Flynn.

  LINDA [with sudden apprehension]: SHHH!

  MOLLY [loudly]: Whatsamatter?

  [Linda softly closes the door.]

  LINDA: Is it a big fat man with a briefcase?

  MOLLY: A brief case o’ what?

  LINDA [desperately]: Oh, a satchel, a leather case—you know—is he a bill collector or something like that?

  MOLLY [giggling]: Oh! I thought you meant a case o’ measles or something! Ha, ha. Oh, my! Guess what he called you, Mizz Flynn? He called you the Duchess. He says tell the Duchess . . .

  LINDA [delighted]: It’s Mitch! [Throws open the door and runs out on the landing.] MITCH! Is it you?

  MRS. O’FALLON [calling from downstairs]: Molly! Molly!

  MITCH [from below]: Me and the Babe!

  MOLLY: Well, I will be seeing you, Duchess. [Molly leaves.]

  LINDA: Oh, BABE!

  BABE [from below]: Yeah. It’s me. We’re waitin’ for the elevator.

  LINDA [terribly agitated]: How—are you! [She comes back into the room with both hands pressed to her face. She starts to laugh, which laugh rapidly becomes tears. Babe and Mitch are heard climbing the stairs.]

  BABE [puffing, offstage]: Seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty! Whew! My stars and fallen arches! I wouldn’t climb another five flights to Heaven!

  [Enter Babe and Mitch. They are a flashily dressed young couple, good-looking and good-natured but not too sensitive: distinctly theatrical types.]

  BABE: Duchess! Fer cryin’ out loud! [She drops a large, paper-wrapped bundle and flings arms around Linda’s sobbing figure.]

  MITCH: Say, what kind of a reception is this, I’d liketa know. I’ve played to some pretty dead pans in my time, but never, never have they busted out crying the moment I walked on the stage. Not even when me and Sarah Bernhardt . . .

  BABE: Can it, Mitch!

  [Mitch laughs and throws an arm around Linda.]

  LINDA: I’m sorry! It just struck me all of a sudden. . . .

  MITCH: What the devil! Didja think we wasn’t gonna play this town any more? Lookit here, Duchess! A wedding present! [He picks up package Babe dropped.]

  LINDA [taking it]: Oh, how sweet! [Still crying a little she kneels on the floor to unwrap the package.] Oh!

  BABE: Yeah. A traveling bag!

  MITCH [significantly]: Show people can always use an extra piece of luggage once in a while. . . .

  LINDA [slightly embarrassed]: It’s beautiful! Jim and I will use it on our honeymoon. We’re planning to have one some day.

  BABE [surveying the room]: Criminently, what a dump! Parlor, bedroom, and bath all in one!

  LINDA [laughing]: There isn’t any bath. Jim says that baths are an affectation of the idle rich!

  BABE: A what? Hmmm. What kind of a guy is this husband of yours?

  MITCH: No bathtub? Gosh, Duchess, what do you make your gin in? Well— [He looks at leaking places in the roof.] I see you got plenty of running water, anyway!

  LINDA: Isn’t it awful? It’s been leaking all afternoon! But when the sun comes out it’s really very pleasant in here!

  [Mitch seats himself on the floor beside her.]

  MITCH: So this is where you’ve been hiding out since you quit the show?

  LINDA: This is it! [Takes Mitch’s handkerchief to wipe her eyes.] Oh, it really isn’t as bad as it looks! It’s what they call a—a studio apartment! All young artists have places like this!

  BABE: I getcha. Bohemian, huh? Sure. This is really the stuff. Atmosphere. Color. Cockroaches and a leaking roof—well, where’s the master of the house?

  LINDA [proudly]: He’s calling on T. Anthony Wescott at the Waldorf-Astoria. He just arrived this morning aboard the Île de France.

  BABE: The Eel de Frawnce? Well, fawncy that! Don’t you remember, my dear, that’s where we met the Count and Countess De Tootsie! It was simply ripping, you know, how the Count dunked his monocle in Lady Clamfeather’s soup!

  LINDA: Oh, Babe! Crazy as ever—Wescott’s an art—dealer—Jim’s gone to show him some of his pictures and if he’ll just take an interest in Jim’s work it will mean everything for us! It will mean— [She gets up and goes to window.] Just everything! . . . Oh—I wish this rain would stop! Poor Jim will get soaking wet!

  MITCH: So Jim’s the name. What’s the rest of it?

  LINDA: Mr. and Mrs. James Oliver Flynn!

  MITCH: Fancy moniker, that! Look good on a billboard. Mr. and Mrs. Flynn and the Five Little Flying Flynns! How about it, Duchess? What can he do? Dance, patter, croon—adagio?

  LINDA: He’s an artist, you nut! Haven’t you ever heard of an artist before?

  MITCH: Sure. An artist is a guy that’s out of a job and don’t give a damn. [He opens a cigarette case and offers it to Linda. Linda and Babe take cigarettes.] Seriously, Duchess, how are you fixed?

  LINDA: Okay.

  BABE: Come on. No stalling. What’s the real situation. On the rocks, huh?

  LINDA [smiling bravely]: Ever
ything is okay.

  BABE: Yeah. Everything including the roof. You look like you haven’t had a square meal in a couple of weeks!

  MITCH: Come on, Duchess! You don’t have to put on an act with us!

  LINDA [walking back to the window]: Oh, he works so hard, poor Jim! It’s pitiful how hard he works. And nothing ever comes of it! Nothing at all!

  MITCH [harshly]: Just as I thought! He’s a ham! Come on, Duchess, pack up this new traveling bag and let’s get going!

  LINDA: What on earth do you mean?

  BABE: You know that you can get your old job back.

  LINDA: You two must be crazy!

  MITCH: You’re going out on tour with us, Duchess. Bergmann said so. He sent us out here to get you. All is forgiven, come home, he said!

  LINDA: Give Mr. Bergmann my regrets. I’m not available this season—say—what do you all think I am? Do you think I’d walk out on Jim just because things are a little tough right now? I’m not any quitter!

  BABE: You walked out on the show pretty quick!

  LINDA [smiling]: I wasn’t in love with the show.

  BABE: So you’re in love with this sap?

  MITCH: Of course she ain’t. Not the Duchess. She always had too much sense. The smartest girl in the show, Bergmann used to say—

  LINDA: I am in love with him! Of course I am. [She turns her back to them.] And if you’re going to talk about him like that—

  MITCH [good-humoredly]: The same old Duchess! Always on the high horse about something—

  BABE: Be sensible, kid—!

  LINDA [seating herself on the couch]: Oh, it’s like the show business and everything else. You have to work your way up.

  MITCH: Yeah, but in the show business even the back row hoofers get regular pay. What do you folks live off of, huh? Love and a dime?

  LINDA [laughing]: Love and thirty cents!

  BABE [sitting beside Linda]: Thirty cents!

  LINDA: He gets thirty cents an hour posing at the art school where he used to study.

  MITCH: Posies, posies, who will buy my posies?

  LINDA: Once in a while he paints an advertising poster—that helps out some.

  MITCH: Swell. You can give him a job some day painting your signs on Broadway!

  BABE: And so that’s how you live? How do you do it, honey?