Look at Any Man / from a Dark Land

By Harding Lemay

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 5, 2005
• ISBN: 9781465332141

Harding Lemay

HARDING LEMAY was born, the fifth of thirteen children, in Northern New York State. He ran away from home at seventeen to New York City where he has lived ever since. He was a delivery boy and elevator operator before serving in the U. S. Army during World War II, then an actor, librarian and book publishing executive before devoting himself full time to writing. He has written over twelve full length plays and two memoirs, Inside, Looking Out, (Harpers Magazine Press, nominated for the National Book Award) and Eight Years in Another World (Atheneum). He was the headwriter of NBC's daytime serial, Another World, for eight years and has been a scriptwriter and story consultant on other serials, including As the World Turns, The Doctors, Ryan's Hope, The Guiding Light and One Life to Live. In New York City, he has taught literature, drama and serial writing at New York University, Hunter College and the New School for Social Research. Other plays by Harding Lemay: Look at Any Man From a Dark Land Little Birds Fly Return Upriver Death of Eagles The Joslyn Circle The Off Season Escape Route Interior Landscape Scrutiny

Book preview

FROM A DARK LAND

AND

LOOK AT ANY MAN

two plays

by

Harding Lemay

Copyright © 1988 by Harding Lemay.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

FROM A DARK LAND

ACT ONE

ACT TWO

ACT THREE

LOOK AT ANY MAN

ACT ONE

ACT TWO

ACT THREE

HARDING LEMAY was born, the fifth of thirteen children, in Northern New York State. He ran away from home at seventeen to New York City where he has lived ever since. After serving in the U. S. Army during World War II, he was an actor, then a librarian and a book publishing executive before devoting himself full time to writing. He has written over twelve full length plays and two memoirs, INSIDE, LOOKING OUT (Harpers Magazine Press) and EIGHT YEARS IN ANOTHER WORLD (Atheneum). He was the headwriter of NBC’s daytime serial, ANOTHER WORLD, for eight years and has been a scriptwriter and story consultant on other serials, including AS THE WORLD TURNS, THE DOCTORS, RYAN’S HOPE, THE GUIDING LIGHT and ONE LIFE TO LIVE.

Other plays by the author:

LITTLE BIRDS FLY

RETURN UPRIVER

DEATH OF EAGLES

THE JOSLYN CIRCLE

THE OFF SEASON

ESCAPE ROUTE

SCRUTINY

INTERIOR LANDSCAPE

FROM A DARK LAND

a play in three acts

FROM A DARK LAND was first performed at The New Dramatists, New York City, April 23, 1967 with the following cast:

Directed by the author

Assisted by Margaret Barker

CAST OF CHARACTERS

In order of their speaking

Countess Madeleine de Polnay

Lise Schiller

Princess Olga Vajos

Prince Imre Vajos

Countess Friedrike von Martels

Sergeant Angus Wyatt

Corporal David Barth

Captain Richard Hartwell

German and American soldiers

All the action of the play takes place on a level area of landscaped ground on the estate of Countess Friedrike von Martels in Southeastern Germany. In the background, past forest lands, are the Bavarian Alps.

Up Stage Right is a detached automobile trailer, with portable steps leading up to its curtained doorway.

Down Stage Right are several folding garden chairs and a footstool grouped around a small table.

Across the stage, from Down Stage Right, and swinging up through Up Stage Left, is a gravel path leading from the village to the von Martels chateau.

The period of the play is from late April, 1945 until mid-summer of the same year.

ACT ONE

ACT ONE

Scene One

A sunny morning, late April, l945

As the curtain rises, voices are heard from the direction of the chateau, speaking English and German, barking military drill commands, interspersed with laughter, shouts, and bits of songs.

LISE SCHILLER, a slightly languid woman of about forty, is seated on one of the garden chairs, applying fingernail polish to her fingers as she listens indifferently to a popular German song on a portable phonograph placed on the table. Extension cords lead from the phonograph into the trailer. LISE is dressed in a flowered wrapper and wears no stockings, but her shoes are stylish, expensive pumps. As she listens to the record, she sings, from time to time, along with it. When the song ends, she turns the record over and, listening half-heartedly, begins to comb her hair.

COUNTESS MADELEINE DE POLNAY enters from the trailer, carrying a tray with a pot of coffee, a cup and saucer, a spoon, and a small jug of milk. She places the tray beside the phonograph. The Countess is a small, frail woman in her late sixties, dressed in black.

Madeleine

Drink your coffee, Fraulein Lise. (LISE does not respond) Come, Fraulein Lise, to begin the day with something hot in your stomach is good. (LISE shrugs) Ja, Ja, listen to the songs you sang and drink hot coffee.

Lise

You drink it, Countess.

Madeleine

I have no time. And much to do. (She looks around hurriedly) Where is Friedrike?

Lise

She was dressed and away before I was awake. She did not sleep well.

Madeleine

Nor did I. (pause) Shall I bring you also something to eat? Bread and jam? Sugar rolls? (LISE shakes her head and then, still listening to the record, sings the song under her breath) That is good, Fraulein Lise. Sing your songs. Be happy.

Lise

I do not sing from happiness. I sing from habit. That is all.

PRINCESS OLGA VAJOS enters from the trailer

A camera hangs by a strap around her neck, and she carries field-glasses in her hands.

A dark-haired, haunted-looking woman in her early thirties, she speaks intensely with little inflection, as if her words have no connection with her thoughts.

Olga

The morning is so bright, Mama. Such a fine day to take photographs.

Madeleine

It is Spring, Olga. The winter is over. (She turns away)

I must get water.

Olga

Imre will get it, Mama. (She calls into the trailer) Imre! We must have water. Imre! (She goes to the door of the trailer) Imre! Come out and help Mama. We must have water. And also wood for burning.

PRINCE IMRE VAJOS comes out of the trailer.

He is in his forties, timid and unprepossessing.

He carries an open book in his hands.

Imre, Imre, leave your book. There is much to be done. Mama can not do it all. Go and get water from the chateau.

Imre

I will not go to the chateau.

Madeleine

It is all right. I will go.

Olga

No, Mama. He must go. (to IMRE) Get a pail and go fetch us the water, Imre.

Imre

I do not wish to. (He seats himself at the table and begins to read his book)

Olga

(Snatching the book from him) Do as I tell you.

Imre

No. No, no, no!

Olga

We are not your servants. I am your wife. She is your belle-mere.

Imre

And I? What am I? Now?

Olga

You are a man in a country of frightened women. (He turns away) We look to you for our protection.

Imre

You go for the water yourself. You are young, and fearless, and a woman. The Americans will let you pass to get water.

There is a sudden burst of gun-fire from the direction of the chateau. American voices are heard shouting as OLGA flings herself to the ground and covers her ears with her hands. IMRE scurries into the trailer and MADELEINE follows him wearily. The gun-fire and shouting continue as OLGA crawls off behind the trailer.

LISE leans forward, listening intently to her phonograph record. Closing her eyes, she hums softly, mechanically to herself, and rubs her arms automatically, as if she were cold. The noise off-stage subsides to the sounds of vehicles and soldiers laughing and shouting, punctuated by that of distant artillery.

COUNTESS FRIEDRIKE VON MARTELS enters. She is a handsome, vigorous woman in her late fifties, erect, self-contained, disciplined in mind and body. She stops by LISE’s chair.

Countess

Liebschen? (There is no answer. The countess shrugs and sits opposite lise) For the first time in forty years, I walked through the village and not a soul came out to greet me. Not a soul bowed to me. Not a child rushed to me with flowers. I saw neither man nor woman nor child.

Lise

They are hiding from the Americans.

Countess

I entered the houses. They are empty.

Lise

Friedl, you might have been shot!

Countess

They have been removed. The Burgomeister, the Gauleiter, the

Commandant. All of them, and their wives and children. Vanished.

Lise

The Americans marched them past us this morning. Didn’t you hear them?

Countess

I was sleeping.

Lise

Oh, Friedl, the world goes up in flames and you say you sleep.

Countess

To where were they marched, our villagers?

Lise

Olga says they were taken to the camp.

Countess

Whatever for?

Lise

To bury the dead, so says Olga. Yesterday, the Captain ordered that we Germans will have the honor of burying the dead.

Countess

The American idea of justice.

Lise

And all night long, they were shooting their pistols, Friedl—

Countess

I heard nothing.

Lise

Out in the open, under the stars, the Americans were shooting

German soldiers. They lined them up in the forest, in your forest, Friedl, and shot them.

Countess

It is the price of defeat.

Lise

And I have been sitting here, listening to American pistols, and American laughter, and American curses—

Countess

And while you were listening, Lise, I was peering through windows. There are strangers sleeping in my bed. And in yours, too, Lise. Strangers in my kitchen, in my garden, and on my terraces. And in my bed.

Lise

What strangers? The Americans?

Countess

Dirty faces on my pillows, muddy feet on my sheets… old men, women, children.

Lise

Ah, yes, they told us yesterday the chateau will be a shelter for the refugees. That is why they drove us out… to this…

Countess

Refugees sleeping on hospital cots in my ball room.

Lise

We are all refugees now, Friedl. We are all in hiding. Every one of us.

Countess

Listen to me, Lise. For a moment only, listen.

Lise

I always listen to you, Friedl.

Countess

The war is over. Only a few more days and it is over. That charlatan in Berlin will surrender. Then we start again, you and I. After all these years. We go to Munich once more, to Vienna, to Berlin—

Lise

Ah, Friedl, shall we stroll arm-in-arm past the gaping holes in the sidewalks into the collapsed, exploded buildings.

Countess

The Americans will depart. Eventually. And you and I will start our life together again. If not in Vienna, if not in Berlin, here, on my land. Here there are no craters, no collapsed buildings. With my hand in yours, we start again and eradicate the past eight years.

Lise

No, Friedl. We can not erase the past. Our ghosts will never depart. Yours and mine. Hugo dead in Egypt.

Countess

Hugo! He would have been thirty one years this Spring.

Lise

And Anna, safe in her distant royal court. And Adelaide—dear little plump, little Adelaide. An English lady now.

Countess

All gone. Hugo, Anna, Adelaide. My children. Nothing remains.

Lise

The ghosts remain, Friedl. They will never leave us. Mine and yours. My songs and fading memories of Paris, London, New York, Vienna, Buenos Aires—the geography of my lost successes. Supper clubs, and recording sessions, opening nights and film sets. And champagne in the evenings, sleepy, young men opening their naked arms to me in the mornings—

Countess

Stop that! At once! (pause) You enjoy torturing me. Always.

Lise

It is not you I enjoy torturing, Friedl, not at all. Never.

Countess

We will forget all that. We are safe. We have come through and we are safe. Here on my land.

Lise

With refugees in your bedroom, and American soldiers in mine? (She rises) No, we are not safe. We merely dream that we are safe. We dream and time takes no notice of the wrinkles on our throats and the gray in our hair. How long is it now, Friedl? Since 1938, was it, when they judged me impure and sent me…

Countess

Don’t ever say that out loud, please!

Lise

And you took me in. And I have been safe. Safe as the dead are safe.

Countess

But you are not dead. You have survived. We can start again.

Lise

No. Let the others start again. I am content to remain as I am.

Countess

If you are content, my dear, I am content. You know that.

There are sounds of pistol shots and shouts from the direction of the chateau. COUNTESS rises and then sits down again. LISE sinks into her chair and switches on the phonograph.

Lise,