A Yiddish Hamlet

II. DRESSING ROOM OF GOLDWATER'S YIDDISH THEATER, DAY

Goldwater is applying his makeup; KLOOT, his brash young assistant is sitting on the table. There are sounds of a scuffle outside.

PINCHAS

(forcing his way in)

Not thus. Not thus shall you treat my Hamlet. Every syllable must be engraved upon the actors' hearts, or God forbid the curtain to go up. Not that it matters, with the foolish play you are now butchering; it is ink vomit, not literature.

(Goldwater is ignoring him and angrily changing his trousers. Kloot remains impassive.)

GOLDWATER

Son of a witch! You come and disturb all my house. What do you want?

PINCHAS

I want to talk to you about rehearsals.

GOLDWATER

(placatingly)

I told you I would let you know when rehearsals begin.

PINCHAS

But you forgot to take my address.

GOLDWATER

As if I don't know where to find you!

KLOOT

Pinchas gets drinks from the whole cafe.

PINCHAS

They drink to the health of Hamlet.

GOLDWATER

All right, Kloot get his address. Good evening.

PINCHAS

But when will it be? I must know.

GOLDWATER

(patiently)

We can't fix it to a day. There's plenty of money in this play yet.

PINCHAS

Money . . . bah! But merit?

GOLDWATER

You authors are jealous as the devil.

PINCHAS

Me! Jealous of donkeys? In Central Park you see giraffes and tortoises too. Central Park has more talent than this scribbler of yours.

GOLDWATER

Ostrovsky wrote it and he's very popular.

PINCHAS

Ostrovsky . . . a pygmy talent. He uses all kinds of American slang. His Yiddish is not pure. His locutions odious. Not to mention the fact he can't write.

KLOOT

I'll write you about rehearsals.

PINCHAS

But I must know weeks ahead. I may go lecturing. The great continent calls for me. In Chicago, in Cincinnati . . .

GOLDWATER

Don't trouble yourself. Make your own plans and go. We know how to put on a play. We can do without you.

PINCHAS

Do without me? A nice mess you will make of it! I must instruct you how to say every line.

GOLDWATER

(astonished)

You, instruct me?

PINCHAS

(realizing that Goldwater is not be trifled with on this point)

I, I don't mean you personally. I mean the company. I will show them the accent, the gesture. I'm a great stage manager as well as a great poet. The 'M' in my name makes manager. There shall be no more prompter.

GOLDWATER

Indeed. And how are you going to get on without a prompter?

PINCHAS

Very simple. A month's rehearsal.

GOLDWATER

(drily)

We usually get by with a week's rehearsal.

KLOOT

(ironically)

It is very good of you to give us a month of your valuable time.

GOLDWATER

(irate)

A month! I could put on six melodramas in a month.

PINCHAS

(shocked)

But Hamlet is not a melodrama.

GOLDWATER

(imperturbably)

Quite so. That's why it's so easy. There is not half the scenery. It's the scenery that takes time rehearsing, not the dialogue.

PINCHAS

(enraged)

You would profane my divine work by gabbling through it with your pack of geese parroting the prompter!

KLOOT

You just come down a peg or two. You do the writing, we do the rest.

PINCHAS

(imperiously)

Silence, impudent face! You are not talking to Ostrovsky. I am a poet and I demand my rights.

(Kloot and Goldwater are astounded by his impudence.)

GOLDWATER

(recovering)

What rights? I paid you twenty dollars and that was too much.

PINCHAS

Twenty dollars? For the masterpiece of the 20th century?

KLOOT

In the twenty-first century you shall have twenty-five dollars.

PINCHAS

(superbly)

Make mock as you please. I shall be living in the fifty-first century even. Poets never die although, alas, they have to live. Twenty dollars too much indeed! It is not a dollar a century for the run of the play.

GOLDWATER

(pacing a bit, then grimly)

Very well. Give those twenty dollars back. We return your play.

PINCHAS

(confused)

No, no, Goldwater . . . I must not disappoint my printer. I have promised him twenty dollars to print my Hebrew "Selections from Nietzsche."

GOLDWATER

(implacably)

You take your manuscript and give me my money.

PINCHAS

(desperately)

Exchange would be a robbing. I will not rob you. Keep your bargain. See. Here's the printer's letter.

(Pinchas rummages excitedly in his pockets and drags forth letters and manuscripts from his overcoat. Goldwater waives a repudiating hand.)

PINCHAS

Be not a fool, man. Goldwater, I and you are the only two people in New York who serve the poetic drama. I, by writing, you by producing.

(Goldwater still shakes his head, but less vigorously. The flattery is appeasing him.)

KLOOT

Your manuscript will be returned to you by the next garbage truck.

PINCHAS

(disregarding Kloot)

I have faith in you, Goldwater. I am willing you shall have only a fortnight's rehearsals.

(trying harder)

I have always said the only genius of the Yiddish stage is Goldwater. Klosterman-bah! He's not a bad producer, but act? My grandmother's hen has a better stage presence. And there is Davidoff-a voice like a frog and a walk like a spider. And these charlatans I only heard of when I came to New York. But you, Goldwater-your fame has blown across the Atlantic. I journeyed from Poland expressly to collaborate with you.

GOLDWATER

(mollified)

Then why do you spoil it all?

PINCHAS

It is my anxiety that Europe shall not be disappointed in you. Let us talk of the cast.

GOLDWATER

It's too early yet.

PINCHAS

The early bird catches the worm.

KLOOT

But all our worms are caught. We keep them penned up on the premises.

PINCHAS

(aghast)

I know. I know.

GOLDWATER

But we don't give all our talent to one play.

PINCHAS

(breathing a breath of hope)

No, of course not.

GOLDWATER

We have to use all our people by turns. We divide our forces. With myself as Hamlet, you will have a cast that should satisfy any author, even the bard himself.

PINCHAS

(with wonderful hypocrisy)

Do I not know it? Were you but to say your lines, leaving all the others to be read by the prompter, the audience would be spellbound.

GOLDWATER

That being so, you have no right to expect to have my wife in the same cast.

PINCHAS

No, indeed. Two such geniuses in the same cast would be beyond all expectation, like the sun and the moon shining together.

(Pinchas is really getting carried away)

Besides Ophelia is such a small part. Really she deserves the part of Hamlet to really show her talent.

GOLDWATER

Heaven forbid my wife should appear in breeches. She would never so lower herself.

PINCHAS

(complacently)

That is what makes it impossible for her to appear in the play.

GOLDWATER

But you lucky man, the impossible has happened. Fanny has decided to sacrifice herself. Two Goldwaters in the cast. Think of it.

PINCHAS

Who am I that I should ask her to sacrifice herself?

KLOOT

Fanny won't sacrifice Ophelia.

PINCHAS

(aside, between his teeth)

She'll execute her.

GOLDWATER

(fortunately not hearing)

You hear? My wife will not sacrifice Ophelia, by leaving her to a minor player. She thinks only of the play.

PINCHAS

(disconcerted, but still trying to be polite)

It is very noble of her. But she worked so hard lately. She must need a rest, a vacation. It is such a trying part.

GOLDWATER

My wife never spares herself.

PINCHAS

(losing his head)

But she might spare Ophelia.

GOLDWATER

(gruffly)

What do you mean? My wife will honor you by playing Ophelia.

(with a wave of his hand)

That is ended.

PINCHAS

(wildly)

No, it is not ended. Your wife is a comedienne, not a tragedienne.

GOLDWATER

(puzzled)

You yourself just called her a genius.

PINCHAS

For comedy. For comedy, I will allow. But Hamlet is not a comedy. Your wife prances, skips and jumps. Rather would I give Ophelia to a kangaroo or jackrabbit!

GOLDWATER

(indignant)

Swine! Compare my wife to a kangaroo or jackrabbit! Take your filthy manuscript and begone . . .

KLOOT

(to himself)

Well, Fanny would provide an element of comic relief! Hey, that's an idea.

PINCHAS

To gratify your wife, you would make her ridiculous and deprive the world of your Hamlet!

GOLDWATER

I can get plenty of Hamlets. Any scribbler can translate Shakespeare.

PINCHAS

(sublimely)

Surely. You can get hundreds. But who can surpass Shakespeare? Who can make him intelligible to the modern soul?

(Goldwater hesitates, thinking perhaps there is something to it. A voice from offstage calls, "Mr. Goldwater, your cue." Goldwater rushes out, glad to escape.)

PINCHAS

(pleading)

You will talk to him, Kloot? You will save Ophelia?

KLOOT

(easily)

Rely on me, if I have to play her myself.

PINCHAS

(worriedly)

But that will be even worse.

KLOOT

How do you know? You've never seen me act. I'm a great female impersonator.

PINCHAS

(soothing, wheedling)

You will not spoil my play. You will get me a maidenly Ophelia. I and you are the only two men in New York who understand how to cast a play.

KLOOT

You leave it to me. I have a wife of my own.

PINCHAS

(alarmed)

What! Don't you dare.

KLOOT

Don't be alarmed. I'll coach her. She's just the age for the part. Mrs. Goldwater could be her mother.

PINCHAS

But can she make an audience cry?

KLOOT

You bet. A regular onion of an Ophelia.

PINCHAS

But I must see her rehearse, then I decide.

KLOOT

Of course.

PINCHAS

And you will seek me in the cafe when rehearsals begin?

KLOOT

That goes without saying. How can we rehearse without you? You shouldn't have worried the boss. We'll call you even if it's the middle of the night.

(Pinchas jumps at Kloot and kisses him on both cheeks.)

PINCHAS

Protector of Poets!

(releasing him)

And you will see that they do not mutilate my play? You will not suffer a single hair of my poesy to be harmed?

KLOOT

Not a hair shall be cut.

PINCHAS

Ahhh, I and you are the only two men in New York who know how to treat poetry.

(hugging Kloot again)

KLOOT

You bet.

(escaping from Pinchas)

Well goodbye.

PINCHAS

(still not convinced)

And you will see it is not adulterated with American slang? In Zion they don't say 'sure' and 'lend me a nickel.'

KLOOT

Didn't I promise? Don't you trust me?

PINCHAS

All the same you might lend me a nickel for carfare.

KLOOT

I'd be honored.

PINCHAS

Goodbye my protector.

(he goes out)

KLOOT

That was a nickel well spent.

(The door opens again, Pinchas' ungainly head reappearing.)

PINCHAS

You promise me all this?

KLOOT

(trying to appear hurt)

Didn't I do it already?

PINCHAS

Save a poet from distraction and swear to me.

KLOOT

Will you go if I swear?

PINCHAS

Yup.

KLOOT

And you won't come back again till rehearsals begin?

PINCHAS

Nup.

KLOOT

Then I swear on my father and mother's life.

PINCHAS

(grinning, satisfied at last)

Thank you! I'm going.

(he leaves, closing the door behind him)

KLOOT

(locks and bolts the door)

I wonder how he'd feel if he knew I'm an orphan? Sure was a good thing we didn't tell him we plan to add music.

(Kloot goes out whistling)

BLACKOUT