Extracts
from Arnold Wesker's Plays:
LONGITUDE
(2002)
"... And while my timekeeper is dismantled and out of function
your priest and professor the very very oh so reverend Neville
Maskelyne will seek a trial of the ridiculous lunar method with
its mad and cumbersome measurements between fixed stars and a
crazy moon. And you'll love that, all of you. Your little heads
will look up and gaze at the magnificence of the heavens and you'll
imagine God is speaking to you, telling you the way, and it won't
matter if there's a cloud or two or three or four you'll wait
till they're passed and waste time calculating when all you need
is my little piece of machinery. But no! Oh no! Too vulgar for
you. What's a little metal, a few springs, and tiny wheels compared
to the stars? Good Lord and little fishes, who is this upstart
from up north with his tick tocking cogs and balances? Oh, yes.
I know only too well why you want my timekeeper dismantled..."
GROUPIE (2001)
"... I was an appendage for him. Something stuck on, but not special.
He didn't need me. There was never any real passion there. To
live a whole life knowing you were not special for anyone ...
craving it ... to be loved and special. Just once in my life,
before I die ..."
BARABBAS (2000)
"But him? Thing',' ...wadjamacallim ... him? 'Loser' I thought
to myself I looked at him as I walked away. born loser. And the
gate clanked and the bar was drawn. horrible sounds if you're
going in - clank! That's it! Sentence! Doom! Clank! But I was
going out and... I mean ... I had to look back. Something made
me look back. There he was, hands on the cell bar, his face between.
Loser. A definite loser. I felt sorry for him. And to make it
worse - he spoke. Well - not spoke, or if he did he was too far
away for me to hear. But! saw. His lips. They moved. And a little
tongue poked out. Made a 'th' shape. I could read the shape. "Th
...Thank you." To me they gave freedom and to him they gave -
God knows what they gave, but he said "Thank you." I mean ...
two Jew boys had it in for both of us..."
THE KITCHEN
MUSICAL (2000)
"There was time when men would make
A thing of beauty just for beauty's sake ..."
BREAK, MY HEART
(1997)
"Christ almighty! Who did I fucking marry? You weren't like this
when I married you. You knew nothing when I married you. When
we stood in front of that registrar you barely knew your mouth
from your cunt and now they're both dry as them rows and rows
of useless books there. Fucking Latin? Think you're cleverer than
me do you? Cleverer? Cleverer? Fucking cleverer than me?"
DENIAL (1997)
"... there exists a certain kind of mean mind that hates the sight
of happiness. In anyone or any form. Loathes it. Difficult to
comprehend how such a mind functions. What could there possibly
be in the nature of happiness to arouse such hostility, such a
demonic desire to destroy it? 'Because it's not mine'? 'I hate
them being happy because I'm not happy'? Could it be that? Does
one person's happiness highlight another's failure? Is that it?
Too dazzling? 'Stars must fall! The mighty laid low! The achievers
denied! The whole God blesséd edifice of joy brought down to ease
the pain of my miserable, insignificant life. How dare you love
your parents when mine were unlovable? How dare your eyes sparkle
with confidence and happiness? Happiness? You want happiness?
I'll give you happiness.' Wham!"
CIRCLES OF PERCEPTION
(1996)
"In all this. how can I concentrate sufficiently to write a play?
There's another factor. This dreaded 'writer's block' is being
inflamed by fiction fatigue'. I'm tired of inventing fictitious
characters with fictitious names, engaging in face-lifts, nose
jobs, bone. restructures, all to hide my characters' original
progenitors. So I'm writing this play about a play I can't write,
and an irresponsible wildness of spirit has descended upon me.
What, I ask myself if I write a play in which everyone is named?
Arnold would be called Arnold, Dusty would be called Dusty, Leah,
my mother, called Leah? Perhaps if I could just once, be relieved
of the need for pretence, the block would shift. Perhaps. It's
an interesting proposition, Arnold. Try it."
BLUEY (1993)
"I didn't ring. Made no contact at all. She'd been so pretty,
such a sweet and generous soul, I just couldn't 'face her dying...
I'd have wept. She'd have seen her dying in my eyes. Wasn't strong
enough for the pain of anything. Nor the pain of anything. Something
had snapped in me. Disaster headlines in the press and I'd move
on. The sight of starving children on television, I'd wee p. If
I saw rudeness in my children or insensitivity I'd rage I was
incapable of giving comfort ... And! was so ashamed. Audrey would
have come to my deathbed. With all her lack of sophistication,
her absence of what's called 'good taste' she would have found
the right tone of voice, pitched her sunniness at the right angle.
Not too high, not too bright, not too hot 'but a cool summer's
evening full of drunk bees and trivia."
THE CONFESSION
(1993)
"Love love love love! Everyone talks to me about love. Love your
neighbour! Love your parents! Love your children! Your husband!
Your country! Nothing works without love! The most important thing
in the world, they say. Love! What's so important about it, tell
me? Tell me what's so lovely about love? What lovely thing hasn't
been corrupted because of love? I'm listening, tell me!"
WILD SPRING (1992)
"Just acting'. Are you aware, Mr Phillips, that society normally
uses the name of our profession as a term of abuse? 'Oh ignore
her, she's just acting!' Are you aware, Mr Phillips, that every
night I go out there in front of an audience and pretend to be
who lam not? Are you aware, Mr Phillips, that if I did that in
public life I'd be shunned, vilified, called a humbug, a fraud,
a sham, a fake, a liar? But up there, made-up, lights bright,
someone else's words of wit and brilliance, I can dissemble to
my heart's content, it's acceptable, no one gives a toss. What
is despised in a person offstage I am deceiving an audience to
praise on stage. And the more convincingly I deceive the more
they praise."
BLOOD LIBEL (1991)
"The ecumenical councils pass edict after edict declaring such
belief in Jewish slaughter false, yet such belief persists. lam
tired of the ignorance and stupidity of the simple flock. The
simple flock chooses superstition for which it needs no learning.
I am tired, yes, and full of contempt. Jesus was a Jew steeped
in the knowledge of the wisest laws. Law, learning, mercy, wisdom
- these are the pillars of the Christian faith. They represent
all that! cherish in this damned existence, they are the only
hope for hopeless mankind, they are what formed my life and what
in life I informed. I will not bow to the fevered red intoxications
of illiterate monks who love more their image before God than
God's meaning to the world."
MEN DIE WOMEN SURVIVE
(1990)
"It's not a crime -to stop loving me. To stop loving me I could
not say with my hand on my heart was a heinous crime. It's everyone's
right to love, not to love, to love less, to stop loving. But
of course it was not so simple, because she liked me, perhaps
even more than liked me. And why not? I was a good man -faithful,
loyal, dependable! I'd given her the best years of my life, her
beloved children, days of roses and wine and verse beneath the
bough. Why shouldn't she like me a little, even a lot? But love?
That searing madness? That insatiable longing? That ache to be
there all the time? That sharp nerve-end sharing of every domestic
detail of the day: she watching him peel her an apple, him watching
her drying her skin, she watching him shaving, swimming together,
walking together, listening to music, watching a movie, just holding
on to one another for the dear last years of life? None of that.
All that dead and gone. Affection in place of passion.... Sad....
Sad and over.... Batteries run out.... Sing lullabies for the
day's end.... Sing lamentations.... For the night has come...."
LETTER TO A DAUGHTER
(1990)
"... You made me feel like a dog on a chain! I had to be free!
"I need my space!" I shouted. "No one is going to hold me back!"
I raged. "This is my one and only life and I'm going to live it
to the full!" Shouted, raged, scolded, and slunk off saturated
with guilt like sweat, leaving you in your room so that I could
be with the others, always traceable, messages with reception
to say where I was, but - this woman, this young woman with energy
and appetites was not going to miss out on the fun, was not going
to miss out on anything life had to offer and - oh my God, Marike,
terrible things happened, terrible awful experiences, traumatic,
which you'll never forget and I'll never forget and! will always
feel guilty for them and - oh my God! Once I was drunk, so drunk..."
BEORHTEL'S HILL (1988)
"Strangers in their midst. Mark that, dearly beloved. I too came
as a stranger to this place. Fought for it, schemed for it, dreamed
for it, invested my best years in ii. But I've a confession make
- I'm lonely here. There are no - poets here. Oh yes, one or two.
There's always one or two - but - mostly - only makers of money.
If I want to feel alive, emotionally charged, inter-bloody-lectually
stimulated, I have to escape to the bleedin' metropolis ... Makers
of money ... Lonely."
THE MISTRESS (1988)
"Virtue, Jessica? Let me tell you about virtue and the ease with
which one lies feeling no guilt whatsoever. Let me tell you about
virtue and the ease with which one is devious and expects virtue
from others. Let me tell you about the virtuous heart that can
harden while the rest remains soft, sweet and tender- because
let there be no misunderstanding, Babushka is all these things.
A fine and lovely and virtuous person, except in this one respect:
she lies to her good friend with the talent of a sublime actress.
Her good friend whom she loves - and let there be no misunderstanding
about that either, her good friend can ask her life of her but
- when she has her good friend's husband in her arms, on her lips
and between those ample, fleshy thighs her good friend is banished
from her thoughts. They no longer exist for each other. Now, ask
her how. How, Sam, how can this be?"
LADY OTHELLO (1987)
"Some people hate them, you know. Lovers. Nothing drives them
madder than to see two people kissing. Love's an affront. You
ever thought about that? Love's an emotion so charged and pure
that it can attract a pure and charged hatred. That's why I don't
think lovers should love in public. Some people have murder in
their eyes when they see lovers, but somewhere out there is a
person so disappointed with their life, so full of self-contempt,
they're carrying murder in their pocket. A gun to blow away lips
that were blowing kisses. (Imitates a gun) Pyeach! Pyeach! 'Put
that tongue back in your mouth, lover!' Pyeach! Pyeach! 'Put them
arms down by your sides, lover!' Pyeach! Pyeach! 'Wipe that shine
from your eyes, lover! Who gave you the right to be happy when
I'm not?' Pyeach! Pyeach! So drink up, lovers. Here you can hold
hands, gaze at each other, touch and blow kisses. In my restaurant
you're safe. Drink!"
LITTLE OLD LADY (1987)
"I suppose he's imagining he's exercising his democratic rights.
Well let me tell you, sir, if you'll forgive me lecturing you,
sir, and I know I'm only a foolish old woman with everything finished
and failed behind me, and you're a splendid young man with everything
brave and shining ahead of him, let me tell you - democratic rights
have their limitations. They have! Your democratic rights are
limited by our democratic rights. And it's our democratic right
not to have to breathe in the foul smoke of your cigarette or
run the risk of going up in flames. What do you say to that?"
SHOESHINE (1987)
"Let me see if I understand you correctly. You think I should
live on dole money which is less than I might earn from shining
shoes because shining shoes is more humiliating than collecting
dole money? (pause) It's not always easy to respect the intelligence
of those who are near and dear to you."
BADENHEIM 1939 (1987)
"Well! If the coaches are so dirty it must mean that we have not
far to go."
WHATEVER HAPPENED
TO BETTY LEMON (1986)
"Was I ever really a socialist? I called myself one in those days
because in those days there was no other name for what I believed.
But- ssssh! Don't let on. I never joined! Wasn't a joiner. Couldn't
accept majority decisions. Never really liked the majority. Not
like Sir James. He loved them. We once went on a goodwill mission
to East Germany. Visited a small industrial town. Can't remember
the name but I'!! never forget the scene. The local councillors
gave us tea. Five of them neatly dressed in suits of lifeless
greys and browns and blues on one side of a long table, Sir James
and Lady Betty Lemon from Dalston Junction with their interpreter
on the other side, and little sandwiches in between, all set in
a clean, polished, bleak room with photos of grim men on the cream
walls. And! remember asking: "Why are all your left-wing leaders
looking to the right?" No one thought that funny."
WHEN GOD WANTED A SON
(1986)
"Ahhhhh! No! Tell him to go! Do you hear how he comes with offence?
Look at him. He walks into everyone's room that way, as though
he were born there, as though he can say anything anywhere anytime.
We agreed. You promised. My home. My decisions. My privacy. Not
everybody wants you around. Not everybody thinks God chose you
to be their neighbour. Tell him to go. Tell him I can't bear anything
about him - his arrogance, his opinions, his irreverence. No reverence
for anything, only what he thinks, what he wants, what he believes.
Him! Him! Him! Don't laugh at me. Do you hear his laughter? Do
you hear his superior laughter? So superior, so confident, so
happy, so eager, so interested, so talkative, so fucking full
of his own fucking self..."
YARDSALE (1983)
"And you should have seen him in bed. Or rather you shouldn't
have seen him in bed. I'm sorry lever saw him in bed. "Tonight's
the night" he'd announce. Subtly. "Faw what, honey?" I used to
put on a shy, southern drawl and pretend! didn't know what he
was on about. "What night's this, sugar plum? You all surely don't
mean - oh my, Sheldon, there's no stopping you I do declare."
And then he'd leap onto the bed in his altogether and start jumping
up and down so's his shlong and spheroids flip-flapped about his
thighs and I'd have to join him and bounce alongside of him so's
my titties went flip-flap too and we made such a right old slap-smacking
sound that I'm certain all the neighbours could hear. Sensuality,
Maxie? He had the sensuality of a rhino stuck in mud, of a crocodile
with false teeth, of a baboon full of fleas, a crab, a snail,
a hyena, a pterodactyl! And all because he said he loved me. What
am I gonna do? What am I gonna do, what? Tell me, what? What,
what, what?"
CINDERS (1983)
"Aggie, you're as plain as a bloody pikestaff but in bed you're
mercurial, anyone ever tell you? She's here, she's there, she's
every bloody where. Full of surprises! Never know where she's
coming from next. Not like my first Earl's Court experience. Imagine!
My Jewish dad with his brilliant Jewish son, all ready and bright
enough to be a doctor but look - no legs! Still, never mind, he
has a mind has this son. With philosophic bent. Reads Plato, Spinoza,
Hegel, Kant - but can't get cunt! So, 'dad' I say, 'help! I'll
get the degrees, you find a way to ease this tumescent, circumcised
spectre I see before me, its handle towards my hand'. 'Son' he
says, 'my heart is heavy'. You know how Jewish fathers are - heavy.
Heavy and sad with this burden God's given them. So Dad buys a
magazine, finds an address on the Earl's Court Road, manoeuvres
son and wheelchair down steps, tells this overworked sexual therapist
he'll call back in an hour, and leaves me there ... can you imagine?"
FOUR PORTRAITS - OF MOTHERS
(1982)
"Me a prisoner? Never! Those poor men, tied to their jobs, tied
to their hours, caught in a rush to a top they'll never reach
in a thousand years - they're the prisoners, they're the slaves!
But not me! I enjoy the freedom of my home too much ...Yes, I
have three of them, and if it wasn't so tiring and costly and
boring to be married to a woman who was always fat and pregnant
I'd have a dozen of them! Love them! Everything about them. I
loved carrying them, giving birth to them, suckling them. I loved
changing their smelly nappies, washing their smelly bums with
smelly oils, powdering their fat bodies with smelly powders-all
of it! Every smelly second of it! It's what I always wanted to
do, what I still want to do, and what I'm supremely equipped to
do. So just let anyone dare bully me into thinking it's me who's
the prisoner."
ANNIE WOBBLER (1982)
"It began with poetry. Why is it that a certain selection of words
arranged in a certain way explode in you and yet, change one word,
one syllable and there's not even a damp spark? I keep getting
this urge, you see, to write poetry. It's a very strong urge and
I become filled with a special kind of... kind of... how can it
be described? A kind of incorporeal expectation - a bit like being
on heat. And out it comes, this poetry, this selection of words
and images I think is poetry. And it's shit. And a pain. Such
a pain. You've no idea the pain it is to begin with this heat,
this fever, this sense that an astonishing assembly is about to
take place and all that assembles is shit!"
BREAKFAST (1981)
"And that's what Munich was like. Everything happened in it. And
you know who I met one day? As I was coming out from the theatre
buying my tickets, you know who I bumped into? Guess. Guess ...
Bertolt Brecht! Yes! And after we said sorry for bumping into
each other, I said 'You're Bertolt Brecht, aren't you?' And he
said 'Sometimes! Sometimes I'm Bertolt Brecht.' So I asked him
'Are you Bertolt Brecht today?' And he said 'It depends who I
meet!' So I said 'Herr Brecht, my name is Anton Mendelssohn, I
run a little secondhand books hop on the Kaiserstrasse, I'm a
great admirer of your work.' And he smiled at me and he said 'Then,
today I'm Bertolt Brecht!"
SULLIED HAND (1981)
"DREAMER! I've heard them before. These plans. I have heard them.
Before! Up to here! A machine to press the slimy remnants of soap
into new bars. An electric motor to re-sharpen old razor blades.
A thumbscrew for squeezing out the last of the toothpaste. All
those best laid schemes and dreams and calculations, those wild
speculations, those demented hopes, those madman's addings and
multiplications, those pathetic promises, those paper riches.
Paper riches! Paper riches!"
PHOENIX (1980)
"Welcome! It's nice to have you come and look after us again.
We Danes are a people crippled with guilts. We feel guilty for
having what the Third World hasn't, our men feel guilty for not
being women, our professors fee! guilty for not being workers,
our actors feel guilty for not being the characters they portray,
in fact we all feel guilty for not being each other! The English,
on the other hand, who 'ye been around for so long without interruption
feel guilty for nothing. So, it's good to have you with us. Welcome!"
CARITAS (1980)
"It's my thoughts, father, I can't put my thoughts on him. I see
him on the cross, I see that sweet face sufferin', I see that
poor body hangin' limp on its nails, an' I feel the pain here
an' here an' here an' here an' here, an' I stand with my back
to the wall, my arms outstretched, my eyes closed, an' I cry out,
'Lord Jesus, sweet Lord, I'm with you, here I stand, I feel the
pain, I'm with you.' An' then, an' then -oh forgive me, father,
forgive me! - but as I stand, my arms outstretched, my eyes closed
- I think new thoughts which I can't deny 'cos, oh, they're sweet,
so sweet. I'm naked. My body open to the sky, my skin in the grass,
sun on my breasts. I feel cool winds bring me the smell of hawthorn
an' the wild mint. An' I see the birds sweep high an' singin'.
An', oh, those clouds, those glorious rollin' shapes, that sweet
scent, that soft air- thaas not the devil's forms, I say. Forgive
me, father, but I say thaas never the devil's forms. An' I'm torn
between shame an' delirium. The spring, father, the spring! L
am crucified upon the spring!"
VOICES ON THE WIND
(1980)
"That taught me. Not everyone can take help, you see. You need
grace. Accepting help is a grace. So I had to learn how to use
my magic in a way that no one knew, in a way that didn't confuse
them or put them under obligation. Dangerous thing, magic. Gave
me many a sleepless night, I can tell you. And then I began to
get lonely. Surely, I thought, there must be others like me in
this world? I can't be the only one who's blessed with this power.
What's so special about me? You should have seen the stupid things
I did with it- picked piles of sweets off apple trees then couldn't
eat them. And when I tried to give them away they accused me of
stealing. Yes! Sounds easy, magic, but it isn't, believe me. Lonely.
So I began to look. Now, how does one magic person look for another
person of magic?"
ONE MORE RIDE ON THE MERRY-GO-ROUND
(1978)
"So there it is! We simply don't need as many people as we once
did in order to run a nation of6o million. Terrible! But it seems
to be a fact. Technology has drained the need for labour and with
it has drained away the work ethic. And if! were younger I'd seek
out my fellow men and think up new work for us to do, gaily, together.
But I'm not younger. I'm not old but I'm older than I'm younger,
and though I love life I'm not too impressed with the living.
Man's goodness cheers me too little to remain un-tormented by
his stupidity."
LOVE LETTERS ON BLUE
PAPER (1976)
"What about the arguments we had? We had our first rows over our
first garden. What shape it should be, what should grow in it,
which way it should face. You would insist the sun came up in
one place while I knew darn well it came up in another. So what
did we do? Daft buggers, we set the alarm to get up before sunrise.
You were wrong of course. You 'ye no idea how important it was
to me to have been right about that. It was my first landmark.
Gave me great confidence that did."
SHYLOCK (1976)
"No, no, NO! I will not have it. I do not want apologies for my
humanity. Plead for me no special pleas. I will not have my humanity
mocked and apologised for. If I am unexceptionally like any man
then I need no exceptional portraiture. I merit no special pleas,
no special cautions, no special gratitudes. My humanity is my
right, not your bestowed and gracious privilege."
THE WEDDING FEAST
(1974)
"Then I'll leave, with a joke about the wedding bed which'!! make
them roar with laughter, and then I'll kiss the bride, gently,
on the forehead, and I know how they'll all look at me because
it's a beautiful gesture, in the right proportion, at the correct
moment, everything correct, most important. For to every action
is a time and place and they see that I know that. And then, in
the factory, next week, the efficient industrialist. Kindly but
firm. Not the place to remember weddings and kisses. Work! The
world must turn on. Men must be fed, houses built, shoes cut out
and sewn up. Two sides! They'll see two sides of me and when they're
old they'll tell their children and I'll be spoken of with affection,
honoured, remembered."
THE JOURNALISTS
(1972)
"Write a book? Ha! I can hardly assemble words for these little
bits of so-called foreign commentary. Conveyor-belt work, harsh,
destructive, written in a hurry. I'm sick of first class travel
and first class hotels and the quick friendships with people about
whom one has finally to write something unsympathetic. Sometimes
I think I'm in journalism because I'm unfit for anything else.
A book? I'd like to resign."
THE FRIENDS (1970)
"Esther's dying, Macey. We're growing old bit by bit. Every word
is a second, passing. It'll never return, never. That's so absolute.
I shall never be young again. I shall never laugh the same way
again. I shall never love for the first time again, never discover
my first sight of the sea, nor climb my first mountain, nor stumble
across literature, never,~ I'll reach out to recapture or remember
- but the first ecstasy of all things? Never again. So, it's important.
I must know. What do I really love? What do I dare say I despise?"
THE OLD ONES (1970)
"Violence! Violence .... Everyone's talking about violence- a
big mystery! What causes it! Whisper, whisper, whisper, pssssss!
Why don't they ask me? Ask me, I'll tell them... They've never
heard of cultural intimidation? I'm not of course referring to
your so-called 'magnificent primitive working man' - we all know
nothing can intimidate him. I'm referring to the men of real inferiority,
men who suspect their own stupidity. That's where violence comes
from. The anger of self-knowledge. Self-knowledge that he's a
pig and then - everything intimidates him: a tone of voice, a
way of dressing, a passion for literature, a passion for music,
for anything! He hates it! One little speck of colour on a man's
personality unleashes such venom, such venom..."
THEIR VERY OWN AND GOLDEN
CITY (1966)
"Do you know what depresses me? Men need leaders, that's what
depresses me. They'll wait another twenty years and then another
leader will come along and they'll build another city. That's
all. Patchwork! Bits and pieces of patchwork. Six cities, twelve
cities, what difference. Oases in the desert, that the sun dries
up ...My lifelong boys! My lifelong boys? Prefects! That's all;
the Labour movement provides prefects to guard other men's principles
for living. ..They need them, we supply them. I don't suppose
there's such a thing as democracy, really, only a democratic way
of manipulating power. And equality? None of that either, only
a gracious way of accepting inequality."
THE FOUR SEASONS (1965)
"Do you think when the millennium comes there won't be lovers
who grow weary of their sad girls, or that wives won't weep over
empty beds? Even when Jerusalem is built friends will grow apart
and mothers will mourn their sons growing old. You want me to
feel for starving children? I feel for them. You want me to protest
at wars that goon in the mountains? I protest. But the heart has
its private aches. You must allow the heart its private aches.
Not all the good great causes in this world can stop me crying
for a passing love."
THE NOTTINGHAM
CAPTAIN (1962)
"You call these men a mob, desperate, dangerous and ignorant;
and seem to think that the only way to quiet them is to lop off
a few of their superfluous heads. But even a mob may be better
reduced to reason by a mixture of conciliation and firmness than
by additional irritation and redoubled penalties. Are we aware
of our obligations to a mob? It is the mob that labour in your
fields and serve in your houses, that man your navy, and recruit
your army, that have enabled you to defy all the world, and can
also defy you when neglect and calamity have driven them to despair."
CHIPS WITH EVERYTHING
(1962)
"It goes right through us, Thompson. Nothing you can do will change
that. We listen but we do not hear, we befriend but do not touch
you, we applaud but do not act - to tolerate is to ignore. What
did you expect, praise from the boys? Devotion from your mates?
Your mates are morons, Thompson, morons. At the slightest hint
from us they will disown you. Or perhaps you wanted a court martial?
Too expensive, boy. Jankers? That's for the yobs. You, we shall
make an officer, as we promised. ... You can't fight us from the
outside. Relent, boy, at least we understand long sentences."
MENACE (1961)
"Why can't you leave? What is there that stops you leaving? You
know how it'll end, you know that we'll row and cut each other
to pieces, so what holds you? Not this room, there's nothing beautiful
about this room, there's no rest here. Not me, there's nothing
beautiful about me. Does it ever occur to you how unbeautiful
you are? Have you ever known a generation to be as unbeautiful
and mediocre as we are? Self-conscious, timid, faceless - content
with little, little, little bits of experience. What is the biggest
thing you've ever done in your life? Look back, Harriet, tell
me, what is the grandest, most glorious thing you've ever done?"
CHICKEN SOUP WITH
BARLEY (1958)
"... All my life I worked with a party that meant glory and freedom
and brotherhood. You want me to give it up now? You want me to
move to Hendon and forget who lam? If the electrician who comes
to mend my fuse blows it instead, so I should stop having electricity?
I should cut off my light? Socialism is my light, can you understand
that? A way of life. A man can be beautiful. I hate ugly people
- I can't bear meanness and fighting and jealousy - I've got to
have light. I'm a simple person, Ronnie, and I've got to have
light and love."
ROOTS
(1959)
"Do you think we really count? You don' wanna take any notice
of what them ole papers say about the workers bein' all-important
these days - that's all squit! 'Cos we aren't. Do you think when
the really talented people in the country get to work they get
to work for us? Hell if they do? Do you think they don't know
we 'ont make the effort? The writers don't write thinkin' we can
understand, nor the painters don't paint expectin' us to be interested
- that they don't, nor don't the composers give out music thinkin'
we can appreciate it. 'Blust,' they say, 'the masses is too stupid
for us to come down to them. Blust,' they say, 'if they don't
make no effort why should we bother?" So you know who come along?
The slop singers and the pop writers and the film makers and the
women's magazines and the tabloid papers and the picture-strip
love stories - thaas who come along, and you don't hey to make
no effort for them, it come easy ... The whole stinkin' commercial
world insults us and we don't care a damn. Well Ronnie's right
- it's our own bloody fault. We want the third-rate - we got it!"
I'M TALKING ABOUT
JERUSALEM (1960)
"What do you think lam, Ronnie? You think I'm an artist's craftsman?
Nothing of the sort. A designer? Not even that. Designers are
ten a penny. I don't mind Ronnie -believe me I don't, (But he
does.) I've reached the point where I can face the fact that I'm
not a prophet. Once I had - I don't know- a - a moment of vision,
and I yelled at your Aunt Esther that I was a prophet. A prophet!
Poor woman, I don't think she understood. All I meant was! was
a sort of spokesman. That's all. But it passed. Look, I'm a bright
boy. There aren't many flies on me and when I was younger I was
even brighter. I was interested and alive to everything, history,
anthropology, philosophy, architecture - I had ideas. But not
now. Not now Ronnie. I don't know. it's sort of sad this what
I'm saying, it's a sad time for both of us, Ada and me, sad, and
yet - you know-it's not all that bad. We came here, we worked
hard, we've loved every minute of it and we're still young..."
THE
KITCHEN (1957)
"... now listen to this, he says 'Did you go on that peace march
yesterday?' So I says, yes, I did go on that peace march yesterday.
So then he turns round to me and he says, 'You know what? A bomb
should have been dropped on the lot of them! It's a pity', he
says, 'that they had children with them 'cos a bomb should have
been dropped on the lot!' And you know what was upsetting him?
The march was holding up the traffic, the buses couldn't move
so fast ... And you should have seen the hate in his eyes, as
if I'd murdered his child..."
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