Fannys First Play | Page 7

me in. You see, I'm much more conscious of what you
really are than you are yourself, because weve discussed you
thoroughly at Cambridge; and youve never discussed yourself, have
you?
TROTTER. I--
FANNY. Of course you havnt; so you see it's no good Trottering at me.
TROTTER. Trottering!
FANNY. Thats what we call it at Cambridge.
TROTTER. If it were not so obviously a stage cliche, I should say
Damn Cambridge. As it is, I blame my kittens. And now let me warn
you. If youre going to be a charming healthy young English girl, you
may coax me. If youre going to be an unsexed Cambridge Fabian
virago, I'll treat you as my intellectual equal, as I would treat a man.
FANNY. [adoringly] But how few men are your intellectual equals, Mr
Trotter!
TROTTER. I'm getting the worst 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