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.