Fannys First Play | Page 7

of this.
FANNY. Oh no. Why do you say that?
TROTTER. May I remind you that the dinner-bell will ring presently?
FANNY. What does it matter? We're both ready. I havnt told you yet what I want you to do for me.
TROTTER. Nor have you particularly predisposed me to do it, except out of pure magnanimity. What is it?
FANNY. I dont mind this play shocking my father morally. It's good for him to be shocked morally. It's all that the young can do for the old, to shock them and keep them up to date. But I know that this play will shock him artistically; and that terrifies me. No moral consideration could make a breach between us: he would forgive me for anything of that kind sooner or later; but he never gives way on a point of art. I darent let him know that I love Beethoven and Wagner; and as to Strauss, if he heard three bars of Elektra, it'd part us for ever. Now what I want you to do is this. If hes very angry--if he hates the play, because it's a modern play--will you tell him that it's not my fault; that its style and construction, and so forth, are considered the very highest art nowadays; that the author wrote it in the proper way for repertory theatres of the most superior kind--you know the kind of plays I mean?
TROTTER. [emphatically] I think I know the sort of entertainments you mean. But please do not beg a vital question by calling them plays. I dont pretend to be an authority; but I have at least established the fact that these productions, whatever else they may be, are certainly not plays.
FANNY. The authors dont say they are.
TROTTER. [warmly] I am aware that one author, who is, I blush to say, a personal friend of mine, resorts freely to the dastardly subterfuge of calling them conversations, discussions, and so forth, with the express object of evading criticism. But I'm not to be disarmed by such tricks. I say they are not plays. Dialogues, if you will. Exhibitions of character, perhaps: especially the character of the author. Fictions, possibly, though a little decent reticence as to introducing actual persons, and thus violating the sanctity of private life, might not be amiss. But plays, no. I say NO. Not plays. If you will not concede this point I cant continue our conversation. I take this seriously. It's a matter of principle. I must ask you, Miss O'Dowda, before we go a step further, Do you or do you not claim that these works are plays?
FANNY. I assure you I dont.
TROTTER. Not in any sense of the word?
FANNY. Not in any sense of the word. I loathe plays.
TROTTER. [disappointed] That last remark destroys all the value of your admission. You admire these--these theatrical nondescripts? You enjoy them?
FANNY. Dont you?
TROTTER. Of course I do. Do you take me for a fool? Do you suppose I prefer popular melodramas? Have I not written most appreciative notices of them? But I say theyre not plays. Theyre not plays. I cant consent to remain in this house another minute if anything remotely resembling them is to be foisted on me as a play.
FANNY. I fully admit that theyre not plays. I only want you to tell my father that plays are not plays nowadays--not in your sense of the word.
TROTTER. Ah, there you go again! In my sense of the word! You believe that my criticism is merely a personal impression; that--
FANNY. You always said it was.
TROTTER. Pardon me: not on this point. If you had been classically educated--
FANNY. But I have.
TROTTER. Pooh! Cambridge! If you had been educated at Oxford, you would know that the definition of a play has been settled exactly and scientifically for two thousand two hundred and sixty years. When I say that these entertainments are not plays, I dont mean in my sense of the word, but in the sense given to it for all time by the immortal Stagirite.
FANNY. Who is the Stagirite?
TROTTER. [shocked] You dont know who the Stagirite was?
FANNY. Sorry. Never heard of him.
TROTTER. And this is Cambridge education! Well, my dear young lady, I'm delighted to find theres something you don't know; and I shant spoil you by dispelling an ignorance which, in my opinion, is highly becoming to your age and sex. So we'll leave it at that.
FANNY. But you will promise to tell my father that lots of people write plays just like this one--that I havnt selected it out of mere heartlessness?
TROTTER. I cant possibly tell you what I shall say to your father about the play until Ive seen the play. But I'll tell you what I shall say to him about you. I shall say that youre a very foolish young