Touch and Go | Page 5

'em. Chu Chin Chow for ever!
In spite of them all: A People's Theatre. A People's Theatre shows men,
and not parts. Not bits, nor bundles of bits. A whole bunch of roles tied
into one won't make an individual. Though gaiters perish, we will have
men.
Although most miners may be pick-cum-shovel-cum-ballot implements,
and no more, still, among miners there must be two or three living
individuals. The same among the masters. The majority are suction-
tubes for Bradburys. But is this Sodom of Industrialism there are surely
ten men, all told. My poor little withered grain of mustard seed, I am
half afraid to take you across to the seed-testing department!
And if there are men, there is A People's Theatre.

How many tragic situations did Goethe say were possible? Something
like thirty-two. Which seems a lot. Anyhow, granted that men are men
still, that not all of them are bits, parts, machine-sections, then we have
added another tragic possibility to the list: the Strike situation. As yet
no one tackles this situation. It is a sort of Medusa head, which
turns--no, not to stone, but to sloppy treacle. Mr. Galsworthy had a
peep, and sank down towards bathos.
Granted that men are still men, Labour v. Capitalism is a tragic struggle.
If men are no more than implements, it is non-tragic and merely
disastrous. In tragedy the man is more than his part. Hamlet is more
than Prince of Denmark, Macbeth is more than murderer of Duncan.
The man is caught in the wheels of his part, his fate, he may be torn
asunder. He may be killed, but the resistant, integral soul in him is not
destroyed. He comes through, though he dies. He goes through with his
fate, though death swallows him. And it is in this facing of fate, this
going right through with it, that tragedy lies. Tragedy is not disaster. It
is a disaster when a cart-wheel goes over a frog, but it is not a tragedy,
not the hugest; not the death of ten million men. It is only a cartwheel
going over a frog. There must be a supreme STRUGGLE.
In Shakespeare's time it was the people versus king storm that was
brewing. Majesty was about to have its head off. Come what might,
Hamlet and Macbeth and Goneril and Regan had to see the business
through.
Now a new wind is getting up. We call it Labour versus Capitalism.
We say it is a mere material struggle, a money-grabbing affair. But this
is only one aspect of it. In so far as men are merely mechanical, the
struggle is one which, though it may bring disaster and death to
millions, is no more than accident, an accidental collision of forces. But
in so far as men are men, the situation is tragic. It is not really the bone
we are fighting for. We are fighting to have somebody's head off. The
conflict is in pure, passional antagonism, turning upon the poles of
belief. Majesty was only hors d'oevres to this tragic repast.
So, the strike situation has this dual aspect. First it is a
mechanico-material struggle, two mechanical forces pulling asunder

from the central object, the bone. All it can result in is the pulling
asunder of the fabric of civilisation, and even of life, without any
creative issue. It is no more than a frog under a cart- wheel. The
mechanical forces, rolling on, roll over the body of life and squash it.
The second is the tragic aspect. According to this view, we see more
than two dogs fighting for a bone, and life hopping under the
Juggernaut wheel. The two dogs are making the bone a pretext for a
fight with each other. That old bull-dog, the British capitalist, has got
the bone in his teeth. That unsatisfied mongrel, Plebs, the proletariat,
shivers with rage not so much at the sight of the bone, as at sight of the
great wrinkled jowl that holds it. There is the old dog, with his knowing
look and his massive grip on the bone: and there is the insatiable
mongrel, with his great splay paws. The one is all head and arrogance,
the other all paws and grudge. The bone is only the pretext. A first
condition of the being of Bully is that he shall hate the prowling great
paws of the Plebs, whilst Plebs by inherent nature goes mad at the sight
of Bully's jowl. "Drop it!" cries Plebs. "Hands off!" growls Bully. It is
hands against head, the shambling, servile body in a rage of
insurrection at last against the wrinkled, heavy head.
Labour not only wants his debt. He wants his pound of flesh. It is a
quandary. In our heart of hearts we must admit the