Theft

Theft, by Jack London

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Title: Theft A Play In Four Acts
Author: Jack London
Release Date: June 25, 2007 [EBook #21936]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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Produced by David Widger

THEFT
A Play In Four Acts
By Jack London
1910

ACT I A Room in the House of Senator Chalmers
ACT II Rooms of Howard Knox at Hotel Waltham
ACT III A Room in the Washington House of Anthony Starkweather
ACT IV Same as Act I
Time of Play, To-Day, in Washington, D. C. It Occurs in Twenty
Hours
CHARACTERS
Margaret Chalmers
Howard Knox
Thomas Chalmers
Master Thomas Chalmers
Ellery Jackson Hubbard
Anthony Starkweather
Mrs Starkweather
Connie Starkweather
Felix Dobleman
Linda Davis
Julius Rutland
John Gieford
Matsu Sakari
Dolores Ortega

Senator Dowsett Mrs Dowsett
Housekeeper, Servs
Wife of Senator Chalmers
A Congressman from Oregon
A United States Senator and several times millionaire
Son of Margaret and Senator Chalmers
A Journalist
A great magnate, and father of Margaret Chalmers
His wife
Their younger daughter
Secretary to Anthony Starkweather
Maid to Margaret Chalmers
Episcopalian Minister
Labor Agitator
Secretary of Japanese Embassy
Wife of Peruvian Minister
Agents, etc

ACTORS' DESCRIPTION OF CHARACTERS
Margaret Chalmers. Twenty-seven years of age; a strong, mature
woman, but quite feminine where her heart or sense of beauty are

concerned. Her eyes are wide apart. Has a dazzling smile, which she
knows how to use on occasion. Also, on occasion, she can be firm and
hard, even cynical An intellectual woman, and at the same time a very
womanly woman, capable of sudden tendernesses, flashes of emotion,
and abrupt actions. She is a finished product of high culture and
refinement, and at the same time possesses robust vitality and
instinctive right-promptings that augur well for the future of the race.
Howard Knox. He might have been a poet, but was turned politician.
Inflamed with love for humanity. Thirty-five years of age. He has his
vision, and must follow it. He has suffered ostracism because of it, and
has followed his vision in spite of abuse and ridicule. Physically, a
well-built, powerful man. Strong-featured rather than handsome. Very
much in earnest, and, despite his university training, a trifle awkward in
carriage and demeanor, lacking in social ease. He has been elected to
Congress on a reform ticket, and is almost alone in fight he is making.
He has no party to back him, though he has a following of a few
independents and insurgents.
Thomas Chalmers. Forty-five to fifty years of age. Iron-gray mustache.
Slightly stout. A good liver, much given to Scotch and soda, with a
weak heart. Is liable to collapse any time. If anything, slightly lazy or
lethargic in his emotional life. One of the "owned" senators
representing a decadent New England state, himself master of the state
political machine. Also, he is nobody's fool. He possesses the brain and
strength of character to play his part. His most distinctive feature is his
temperamental opportunism.
Master Thomas Chalmers. Six years of age. Sturdy and healthy despite
his grandmother's belief to the contrary.
Ellery Jackson Hubbard. Thirty-eight to forty years of age.
Smooth-shaven. A star journalist with a national reputation; a large,
heavy-set man, with large head, large hands--everything about him is
large. A man radiating prosperity, optimism and selfishness. Has no
morality whatever. Is a conscious individualist, cold-blooded, pitiless,
working only for himself, and believing in nothing but himself.

Anthony Starkweather. An elderly, well preserved gentleman, slenderly
built, showing all the signs of a man who has lived clean and has been
almost an ascetic. One to whom the joys of the flesh have had little
meaning. A cold, controlled man whose one passion is for power.
Distinctively a man of power. An eagle-like man, who, by keenness of
brain and force of character, has carved out a fortune of hundreds of
millions. In short, an industrial and financial magnate of the first water
and of the finest type to be found in the United States. Essentially a
moral man, his rigid New England morality has suffered a sea change
and developed into the morality of the master-man of affairs, equally
rigid, equally uncompromising, but essentially Jesuitical in that he
believes in doing wrong that right may come of it. He is absolutely
certain that civilization and progress rest on his shoulders and upon the
shoulders of the small group of men like him.
Mrs. Starkweather. Of the helpless, comfortably stout, elderly type. She