The Libertine (NHB Modern Plays) Page 4

  ROCHESTER. Yesterday you created.

  BARRY. Yesterday I was dismissed.

  ROCHESTER. But you played truthfully.

  BARRY. It costs too much to play the truth.

  ROCHESTER. I do not think you have considered this speech at all.

  BARRY. I carry thirty-four parts in my head, the task is learning, not considering.

  ROCHESTER. Well, let us consider now. What does it mean, that speech which Mrs Betterton mangles so?

  BARRY. Graciana’s meaning is… she means she has given away the secrets of her heart too freely. A thing that a woman must not do to a gentleman.

  ROCHESTER. Why not?

  BARRY. Because men will take love for granted and then not prize it.

  ROCHESTER. And is our author right? Do you believe that?

  BARRY. I believe men are hurdles that must be negotiated.

  ROCHESTER. Is that all? Do you never feel passion for us?

  BARRY. I have counterfeited passion in several beds if that is your meaning.

  ROCHESTER. Counterfeit will not serve you on the stage.

  BARRY. Yesterday I was jeered and taunted by four hundred ruffians. I know that will not serve me.

  ROCHESTER. And so you’ll take their word against both of ours and traffic in falsehood from now on.

  BARRY. I don’t know!

  ROCHESTER. Then let us gain knowledge. To the speech again. You played it sweetly. Graciana is not innocent or she would not have such insight. If you had ever loved a man you would say that speech with regret, because you would fear the loss of him.

  BARRY. Supposing I have loved and not told you.

  ROCHESTER. Then show me in the speech. (Cueing her.) ‘Prognosticating ruin and despair.’

  BARRY is within an ace of walking away. Then she directs her anger into her acting. This time the speech is different, cynical and bitter about men.

  BARRY. ‘Sir, you mistake; ’tis not my love I blame,

  But my discretion: here the active flame

  Should yet a longer time have been concealed;

  Too soon, too soon I fear it was revealed.

  Our weaker sex glories in surprise,

  We boast the sudden conquests of our eyes:

  But men esteem a foe that dares contend,

  One that with noble courage does defend

  A wounded heart; the victories men gain

  They prize by their own hazard and their pain.’

  Pause.

  Well? Was there improvement?

  ROCHESTER. It was better, but now you’re too damned angry.

  BARRY. Of course I’m fucking angry! You walk into this theatre in your thirty-shilling boots and tell me how I should set about my work. I warn you now I have a temper and have been known to strike out with the first object to hand and if it be a property blade, well, some have sharper edges than is needful so have a care.

  ROCHESTER. To die on stage at the hands of a lovely woman –

  BARRY. I am no such!

  ROCHESTER. I think I can make you an actress of truth, but I cannot train you unless you give a little towards me.

  BARRY. It is not in my nature to give. I have my talent and I am jealous of it, and though I give you credit that you alone in all the town have seen it, I am not so dazzled by the lord and master in you that I cannot resent you. Yes, you are right, I am intent on doing something that no other has yet done and I lost my purpose yesterday with fear of the Pit, but I will conquer them and it shall not be said when I have my fame and my two pound a week – I am worth no less – that Lord Rochester touched me with the shining wing of his genius and so made me into a little corner of his greatness, NO, I shall be valued for me, and for what I knew I could do upon this stage and how I, Lizzie Barry, took the heat of my own soul and moulded it into a wondrous thing and so triumphed.

  ROCHESTER. If I can help you to that triumph, I am not so devoted to the trumpeting of my works that I would wish to take credit –

  BARRY. So you say now. But in the alehouse, when the play is done and the talk is of my Cleopatra, will you not slide towards your cronies with an ‘I taught her that piece of business’ or ‘She could not be heard in the gallery till I instructed her in a trick or two.’

  ROCHESTER. Madam. I offer my services. If you see no advantage in them, they can as easy be withdrawn.

  BARRY. You can buy my slit for a pound a night, sir. I would not mind that, but I think you would not have it so. What I think you want is power over me which I do bridle at, for it is only I can make myself into what you say I can be, and if you wish to play a part in this, I would strongly know why.

  ROCHESTER. Ask yourself what you want from the theatre.

  BARRY. I want the passionate love of my audience. I want, when I make a sweep of my arm, to carry their hearts away, and when I die that they should sigh for never seeing me again – till the next afternoon.

  ROCHESTER. There is your answer. I want to be one of that multitude. I wish to be moved. I cannot feel in life, I must have others do it for me here.

  BARRY. You are spoken of as a man with a stomach for life.

  ROCHESTER. I am the cynic of our golden age. Life has no purpose, it is everywhere undone by arbitrariness: I do this, but it matters not a jot if I do the opposite. But in the playhouse, every action good or bad has its consequence; drop a handkerchief and it will return to smother you. Outside the playhouse there are for me no crimes and no consequences.

  BARRY. Except in the eyes of God.

  ROCHESTER. God is a thing men have made to frighten themselves with. Once frightened, they find meaning, like children playing in the scarecrow’s field. Well, I am not to be frightened. I have shied my stones at the scarecrow, it is struck down and I am not.

  BARRY. But you are not content.

  ROCHESTER. Contentment is the drug of fools. I prefer truth. And the truth is that we are animals scratching and rutting under an empty sky. Here in this theatre we can pretend that our lives have meaning. But the pretence only holds if we are given the truth. That is why I wish to see you shine on this stage. The theatre is my soothing drug, and my cynic’s illness is so far advanced that my physic must be of the highest quality.

  BARRY. Well, my lord. Upon those terms, I shall endeavour to do what you want.

  ROCHESTER. What I want, is that we meet again tomorrow to consider Ophelia.

  BARRY. This is all for a wager, is it not? I am a filly you have put your shirt on.

  ROCHESTER. You are a damnably suspicious one.

  BARRY. Ophelia then, if you wish. But do not neglect the lesson of Mr Etherege’s speech.

  ROCHESTER. And what is that?

  BARRY. That women should ever treat men with suspicion.

  ROCHESTER. I am happy to return and address our work with that instruction written on the inside of my skull.

  BARRY. Well then, tomorrow.

  ROCHESTER. We’ll study the mad scene. I would have you mad. I shall pick up some flowers from the market.

  ROCHESTER goes. LUSCOMBE comes on, shouting.

  LUSCOMBE. Bring in the curtain for Tamburlaine. Lizzie, you will get off my stage before I strike you.

  BARRY. Yes.

  BARRY does not move. LUSCOMBE looks at her.

  LUSCOMBE. You have not, I hope, made an enemy?

  BARRY. I trust I have not made a friend.

  The lights fade quickly. ROCHESTER returns with a bottle.

  ROCHESTER. What was that? I had travelled Europe, fought in a pair of desperate actions at sea, scribbled, gawped, railed and retched at the indistinguishable beauties and horrors of the world in search of some meaningful sensation, and, at last, I had succeeded. To arrive on the scene a Goliath and to quit it reeling, clutching the head, the heart, the cods, unsure where the stone had hit, but sensing in every part its fatal sting. Something in Elizabeth Barry’s manner spoke with great certainty of the final four-poster. But there was one place in London which dedicated itself to the cauterising even of such d
esperate wounds as these and my topboots knew the way of their own volition. They followed the path to Dog and Bitch Yard.

  The lights fade around him.

  Scene Five – The Imperfect Enjoyment

  Dog and Bitch Yard. Very dark. A quality of nightmare. WHORES are touting for CLIENTS.

  WHORE 1. Five shillings.

  PUNTER. Front or back?

  WHORE 2. Front, back –

  WHORE 1. Anything you can find in between –

  WHORE 2. Long as you got five.

  PUNTER. I got four.

  WHORE 1. Four you can frig your famble.

  WHORE 2. Privy licker!

  ROCHESTER comes in.

  ROCHESTER. Jane! Jane! Are you there?

  MADAM (off). Who wants her?

  ROCHESTER. You know who I am.

  MADAM. Oh, my lord, we are honoured.

  WHORE 1. Gent of the Royal Bedchamber!

  WHORE 2. Royal Bedpan!

  ROCHESTER. Where’s Jane?

  MADAM (off). Becky’s free, won’t she do?

  WHORE 2. I’m free an’ all.

  ROCHESTER. I want my Jane.

  MADAM (off). They’re never ‘my’, Johnny. Should know that.

  ROCHESTER. While I’m having her she is my Jane. And I never think of her any other way. So in my head she is my Jane.

  BOUNCER (off). Who the fuck is that?

  MADAM. Shut your row!

  BOUNCER (off). If he wants to toss himself off in the passage, let him do it quietly.

  JANE (off). Johnny, is that you?

  ROCHESTER. Jane.

  MADAM. Happy now?

  Dimly we see JANE.

  JANE. I’m glad you’re back in London.

  ROCHESTER. Missed me?

  JANE. I missed the money.

  ROCHESTER. Good. Don’t like a whore with sentiment. I like a transaction.

  JANE. Course you do. He was here earlier.

  ROCHESTER. Who?

  JANE. The King.

  ROCHESTER. Old Rowley? Does he not get enough knobbing off the State without having to pay?

  JANE. Everyone likes to pay.

  ROCHESTER. It’s not his money.

  JANE. Don’t come over Republican, Johnny. It don’t suit a gent with houses in the country.

  ROCHESTER. Do you ever do him?

  JANE. Sometimes.

  ROCHESTER. I’ll pay for anything you can get on him.

  JANE. What for?

  ROCHESTER. He wants me to write a play. I’ve decided I’m going to do it. But he will be the hero of the piece.

  JANE. I’ll listen. But only if you let me be in it.

  ROCHESTER. You wouldn’t want that.

  JANE. Wouldn’t I?

  ROCHESTER. Do me.

  JANE. Do you how?

  ROCHESTER. Mouth.

  ROCHESTER gives JANE money.

  JANE. You only want mouth when there’s something wrong.

  ROCHESTER. It’s a transaction. Give me mouth.

  JANE goes down on him. We can see almost nothing.

  CHARLES. Johnny!

  ROCHESTER. Who’s there?

  CHARLES. ‘My sceptre and my prick are of a length.’

  ROCHESTER. Your Majesty.

  CHARLES. Nice to see your wife in London.

  ROCHESTER. I’m just trying to take a nice quiet gobble.

  CHARLES. I’m up Big Dolly, do you fancy a swap?

  ROCHESTER. Oh God.

  CHARLES. John? I’ll leave you alone if you want. Glad you’re back.

  ROCHESTER. Thanks.

  CHARLES. Come and have a drink with me at Whitehall tomorrow.

  ROCHESTER. I thought it was all serious from now.

  CHARLES. No harm in a drink. Bring the boys, I get bored with politics after seven o’clock.

  ROCHESTER. I’ll bring the boys.

  BIG DOLLY. Oh, vivat rex. Vivat rex carolus.

  CHARLES. Thank you, Dolly! One day I’ll make you a duchess.

  JANE. Am I still supposed to be doing this?

  ROCHESTER. Give it your best, Jane.

  She sucks him. Some moments.

  ‘Trembling, confused, despairing, limber, dry,

  A wishing, weak unmoving lump I lie.

  This dart of love, whose piercing point, oft tried,

  With virgin blood ten thousand maids have dyed;

  Now languid lies in this unhappy hour,

  Shrunk up and sapless, like a withered flower.’

  JANE. What you say?

  ROCHESTER. Just quoting myself.

  JANE. I have the feeling this is going nowhere.

  ROCHESTER. I have that feeling too.

  JANE. Not like you, John.

  ROCHESTER. I met this woman. That new actress. Lizzie Barry.

  JANE. Her? She ain’t no looker.

  ROCHESTER. There is… spirit in her.

  JANE. Oh, gawd. John, when you start looking for the spirit and not the eyes or the tits, then a gent is in trouble, believe me.

  ROCHESTER. Button me. I am not the man I was wont to be.

  JANE. It’s nothing. You’re still the king of ’em all, just you been drinking tonight.

  ROCHESTER. I’ve been drinking for three years. I blame Thomas Hobbes.

  JANE. Innkeeper?

  ROCHESTER. Philosopher. Effect’s much the same. Would you call me a cynic, Jane?

  JANE. I would call you a man who pretends to like life more than he does.

  ROCHESTER. Is that a cynic?

  JANE. I’m just a moll-sack, I don’t do questions.

  ROCHESTER. If I am a cynic… how have I fallen in love with a plain woman whom I do not know?

  JANE. You saw her on stage. All the colours and the poems they say. Gives ’em a glow. You seen her out of the theatre?

  ROCHESTER. No.

  JANE. There, that’s you then. They say men fall three times. First is calf love.

  ROCHESTER. Ah yes –

  JANE. Second is the one you marry. Third…

  ROCHESTER. Yes?

  JANE. Third… is your deathbed bride. Sniff her, sniff your own shroud.

  ROCHESTER. How you have cheered me, my dear.

  JANE. John. Go home, sleep and forget.

  ROCHESTER. Don’t want to sleep.

  JANE. Go home, lie down and think.

  ROCHESTER. Don’t want to think. Don’t ever want to think again. Here, have some money.

  JANE. You give me already.

  ROCHESTER. Then I give you again.

  ROCHESTER goes. A dim light comes up on JANE.

  JANE. I hate it when they try to make you care for them. Like they have more to fret over than you do, some hoping. I rather he had come his fetch all over my face than he had left me with this lump of caring for him. A little buzz in the brain saying ‘Johnny ain’t himself.’ Oh, I can use him, a girl can raise herself on the hook she stakes in an earl. But I will not be burdened with his buzz.

  Lights fade quickly to blackout.

  Scene Six – Portrait

  ROCHESTER’s London lodgings. JACOB HUYSMANS is making sketches for a portrait of ROCHESTER and MALET.

  MALET. I remembered in the night why I do not care for London. I go to bed alone at half past nine and am woken a little after one o’clock by a frenzied kicking and pushing and snatching of covers. He smells of his drink and his harlot and then he badgers me with his love. It is such a sorrowful love it makes the heart of me weep. He is so sorry that he has inflicted his drink and harlot on me. I do not care. I would not care if he brought drink, harlot and laddish companions into the bed so long as he was not sorry. If he could have the pleasure he had paid for and come to me, not contrite but satiated, all would be bearable. But he has paid out money and his own lifeblood and has not had pleasure of his pleasure. And he must needs wake me and tell me how miserable a thing was his debauche and how much he would have preferred to spend the evening in my arms. But the next day all is forgotten. Off he forages again and the one o’clock performance is re
peated until I can bear it no longer and return to Adderbury where the quiet of growing trees and the running of a large house and estate and the children compensate loneliness. In the country it is different. We go to bed together and he smells of dogs and horses. And there is no sorrow in his love.

  General lighting comes up.

  ROCHESTER. I do so hate London. I wish we were back in the country.

  MALET. You must not speak, my dear, you render Mr Huysman’s task so difficult.

  ROCHESTER. Only if, at the moment I spoke, he happened to be drawing my mouth.

  MALET. It is not just your mouth, John. You become animated on the topic of your choice and are then perpetually at fidget.

  ROCHESTER. Except that I was speaking of the country, a subject on which it is very hard to be animated.

  MALET. Do not distract, my dear.

  ROCHESTER. Looking out of that window, when occasion permits me to do, I cannot but note that organ-grinder and his monkey and the pair they make together.

  MALET. Animation again, John, hush yourself.

  Pause.

  ROCHESTER. Could you not say something, Mr Huysmans? By way of breaking the silence.

  HUYSMANS. I am working on your eyes. This is an operation as delicate as surgery on the retina. Particularly since your right eye is the eye of an innocent schoolboy while your left is the eye of a man who has recently awoken in a sewer.

  ROCHESTER. Shall I run him through with my sword, Elizabeth?

  MALET. Stay still, my love.

  ALCOCK enters with wine. ROCHESTER has his back to ALCOCK but immediately becomes aware of the presence of drink.

  ROCHESTER. Ah. Is that the good Alcock?

  ALCOCK. It is, my lord.

  ROCHESTER. Bearing strong drink.

  ALCOCK. Indeed, my lord.

  ROCHESTER sniffs.

  ROCHESTER. Claret. Mr Huysmans, would you permit a short interlude?

  HUYSMANS. In five minutes’ time.

  ROCHESTER (anxious). In five minutes. (Pause.) Here’s another thought, Mr Huysmans. Perhaps a bottle and glass would be a handsome adornment to your composition.

  HUYSMANS. They are not appropriate objects in a family portrait, my lord.

  ROCHESTER. Could they not become so? This is the age of experiment after all.

  MALET. No.

  ROCHESTER. Here’s another thought, Huysmans, I have an excellent composition in mind, better than this one. You see that monkey yonder, dancing with the organ-grinder. If you have observed these creatures, you cannot fail to notice how human they are. My conceit is this: to sit the monkey upon a pile of solemn volumes and for him to hold in his hand a scrap of paper, as if it were a poem he has just written, d’you see? And while he is offering me the poem, I am crowning him with the bays: is that not a most excellent fancy?