Nathan Cohen is for Mourning:
A Cape Breton Play in Toronto, 1953
by
Ashley Harding
Bachelor of Arts, Cape Breton University, 2008
A Report Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts
in the Graduate Academic Unit of History
Supervisor: David Frank, PhD, History
Examining Board: R. Steven Turner, PhD, History, Chair Gregory S. Kealey, PhD, History Len Falkenstein, PhD, English
This report is accepted by the
Dean of Graduate Studies
THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW BRUNSWICK
September 2009
©Ashley Rhonda Harding, 2009 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition
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1+1 Canada DEDICATION
For my mother
n ABSTRACT
An era is never solely defined by its successes, but on the contrary it is the combination of its successes and its failures that creates a true picture of the time. This report looks in detail at the origins of Nathan Cohen's play "Blue is for Mourning" and its production by the Jupiter Theatre in Toronto in 1953. Considered an unmitigated disaster in its time, the play survives in only one known copy at the Toronto Reference
Library and it has been more than fifty years since the play was first produced. However, it is time for a reassessment of this play. It was a Canadian play produced at a time when few original Canadian plays were seen on stage. Moreover, it was a play about an industrial community in eastern Nova Scotia produced in downtown Toronto by people who, with the exception of the playwright, had little knowledge of the social background of the play. Also, in the early years of the Cold War it was a play on a labour theme by a writer who had for several years written for leftist newspapers before gaining his somewhat severe reputation as a drama critic. For these and other reasons, it is worth looking again at this play. The production of "Blue is for Mourning" represents one of those failed points in history that should be revisited because, despite its supposed deficiency, the origins and production of this play shed light on the period in which it was produced as well as the early work of a leading figure in the history of Canadian theatre.
in ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Writing this report has been a journey, and my passage from the beginning to the end would have been impossible to navigate by myself. I would like to thank Dr. David
Frank for accepting me as a report candidate and offering valued guidance and assistance.
For their financial support, I would like to acknowledge the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada. I am grateful for a travel grant from the H. H.
Stuart Fund which enabled me to travel to Toronto for research. I would like to thank
Professors Greg Kealey and Len Falkenstein for reading this report and to acknowledge the History Department and the University of New Brunswick for their support. I am grateful to my history professors at both the University of New Brunswick and Cape
Breton University for offering their support for the last five years. I am very appreciative of the help I received in locating and accessing sources from the staff of the Harriet
Irving Library, the Toronto Reference Library, and the estate of Nathan Cohen, with special thanks given to Bill Hamade, Department Head, Special Collections, Genealogy and Maps at the Toronto Reference Library who helped me in gaining permission to place "Blue is for Mourning" in the appendix of this report. I would like to thank my family, especially my mother for her continued support and for inspiring my curiosity and encouraging me in my university education. Finally, a heartfelt thanks to the friends I made while completing this report, especially my fellow history graduates and drama friends, who listened to me ramble, became the scaffolding for my sanity and gave me a creative outlet and a place of acceptance.
iv Table of Contents
DEDICATION ii
ABSTRACT iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv
Table of Contents v
List of Images vi
Introduction 1
Chapter One: Canadian Theatre at the Time of the Massey Report 8
Chapter Two: Nathan Cohen's Journey: Cape Breton to Toronto 25
Chapter Three: "Blue is for Mourning": A Play In Three Acts 49
Epilogue 75
Bibliography 81
Appendix: "Blue is For Mourning" by Nathan Cohen 86
Curriculum Vitae
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Source: G/o6e and Mail, 7 February 1953, Entertainment Section. Introduction
Bound in red morocco with fine gold leaf lettering, the only surviving copy of Nathan
Cohen's play "Blue is for Mourning" has sat in the Toronto Reference Library for more than fifty years since the play was first produced. At the time Cohen's play was considered an unmitigated disaster, and the general view was that the play should better collect dust on the shelves than ever see the light of day again. However, it is time for a reassessment of this play. It was a Canadian play produced at a time when few original
Canadian plays were seen on stage. Moreover, it was a play about an industrial community in eastern Nova Scotia produced in downtown Toronto by people who, with the exception of the playwright, had little knowledge of the social background of the play. Also, in the early years of the Cold War it was a play on a labour theme by a writer who had for several years written for leftist newspapers before gaining his somewhat severe reputation as a drama critic. For these and other reasons, it is worth looking again at this play. "Blue is for Mourning" represents one of those failed points in history that
1 should be revisited because they have much to tell us about the history to which they belong.
In seeking to explain Canadian culture in its widest context during the mid- twentieth century no document is more representative of the era than the Report of the
Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences
(commonly referred to as the Massey Report). The Massey Report was a government report commissioned to consider the cultural state of Canada in the emerging society after the Second World War. The five-member committee embarked on a two-year country wide information-gathering tour.1 All this was in an effort by the Canadian government to consider culture not just as a leisure activity but as a nation-building tool. With this in mind it is no wonder that the mass communication tools of radio and television were of the greatest concern and given the most access to public money. However, this meant that other cultural activities, especially theatre, suffered. Canadian theatre was recommended by the Massey Report to receive no public monies for its future growth.2
Despite this the Massey Report inspired the theatre community to pursue nationalistic themes in their art.
In looking at such influential play troupes and festivals of the period as the New
Play Society, the Dominion Drama Festival, and the Jupiter Theatre, it can be noted that theatre undertook other goals than just nationalistic pursuits. Some theatrical efforts in
Albert Shea, Culture in Canada A Study of the Findings of the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences (1949-1951) (Toronto: Canadian Association for Adult Education, 1952), 10. 2 Report Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences 1949-1951 (Ottawa: Edmond Cloutier, 1951), 199. 2 this time also desired to showcase socially relevant drama and to professionalize the art.3
Social relevance was accomplished through the use of art inspired by the style of social realism, which used themes and mediums directed to the working class.
Professionalization came to theatre companies as they gradually progressed from hobbies and distractions to the creation of semi-professional and then professional companies, such as the New Play Society and Jupiter Theatre. Companies developed self-sufficiency through the creation of classes for the education of youth in the field of drama and related studies, such as set design, make-up and directing. In addition, these companies encouraged Canadian playwrights to write plays they could produce. Nathan Cohen would write "Blue is for Mourning" for consideration by Jupiter Theatre in response to this context. However, Cohen was more than an aspiring playwright in the Canadian theatre community by this time.
In 1953 Nathan Cohen was one of the best-known theatre critics in Canada, as he had a nation-wide audience due to his CBC radio show The Theatre Week. While popular, Cohen was widely viewed as controversial due to his frank criticism and refusal to lessen his critical standards. Despite alienating many with his sharp and biting style,
Cohen's dedication to creating an ideal Canadian theatre was never questioned. When not relating his opinions on the latest theatrical production, he would inform his audience by expounding the principles of theatrical criticism and how, in their own small way, informed critics could shape the future of Canadian theatre. While Cohen was clearly in
3 While the above-mentioned theatre groups and festivals did not participate in these goals to the same degree, the culmination of their efforts showed a distinct trend. These three goals are summarized in an article written by Nathan Cohen in his magazine The Critic (September 1950), 3. The same article is quoted 3 his element in theatrical criticism, the path that led him to this lifetime career was never clear. Born to a Jewish family in an Eastern Canada steel town, Cohen had grown up amidst a strong working-class community that valued left-wing political philosophies.
His later work for university newspapers and as a freelance writer in Toronto clearly shows that this background affected his political outlook and that Cohen was deeply committed to writing about these views. While cultural aspirations arose throughout his life, from his childhood in Whitney Pier to his brief acting career at Mount Allison, it was not until a chance suggestion by his future wife to write a theatre review that his life suddenly turned to writing theatrical criticism. Exploring the history of Cohen's journey to theatrical criticism, it is possible to discern the principles that defined his unique style and the influences behind his Cape Breton-set play.
The history of Jupiter Theatre's production of Nathan Cohen's "Blue is for
Mourning" is a story that unfolds in three acts. The first act, called the exposition, is where the world of the story is introduced. "Blue is for Mourning" was very promising when considered in this regard. The cast and crew were all professional and experienced and some were highly respected in the professional community. Such highly talented individuals brought much anticipation for the stage presentation. The second act of any story is where the plot thickens. While the audience of "Blue is for Mourning" was presented with a dramatic work that had both complex and compelling characters and themes, the play presented a left-wing political outlook and was in some ways an elaboration on a classic play from the agitprop genre of the Depression era. When the
by Terry Kotyshyn in "Jupiter Theatre, Inc." (M.A. Thesis, University of Alberta, 1986). 4 curtains fell at the end of the play, the final act, or resolution, of this story begins. The resolution is also known as the "catastrophe", which seems entirely appropriate in the case of the reception of Cohen's play. Contemporary critics as well as recent writers have negatively reviewed or paid little attention to "Blue is for Mourning". Their reasons usually allude to inherent flaws in the text and themes of the play. However, there are other historical factors at work that relate to the quickly changing Canadian cultural outlook in this period. Cohen the playwright emerges as the tragic protagonist who through a series of unfortunate events does not achieve his final objective. Nevertheless
Cohen's play survives as a rare artefact from the dawn of a truly Canadian theatre and can teach us much about the time.
Research for this study is drawn from a number of primary and secondary sources. Primary sources used for this report included the only known copy of "Blue is for Mourning", the Jupiter Theatre Collection, and the Nathan Cohen Collection, all accessed at the Toronto Reference Library and, in the case of the latter source, with the permission of the Estate of Nathan Cohen.4 Other primary sources referenced include
Nathan Cohen's self-published arts magazine The Critic, and articles from his freelance work for Canadian Jewish Weekly, also obtained at the Toronto Reference Library.5
Personal correspondence between Dr. David Frank and Eric House, an actor in "Blue is
4 Nathan Cohen, "Blue is for Mourning." Toronto Reference Library; from the Jupiter Theatre Collection the program from "Blue is for Mourning", 13-28 February 1953 was accessed; from the Nathan Cohen Collection a number of newpaper articles and lectures written by Cohen were accessed. Also accessed in the Nathan Cohen Collection was the review of "Blue is for Mourning" by Malcolm MacKinnon for The Varsity, 16 February 1953. Articles quoted include: "Production Fine, Acting Good But Play Was Inferior Choice," Canadian Jewish Weekly, 4 July 1946; "You Can Quote Me: Let's Abolish Shylock," Canadian Jewish Weekly, 19 June 1947; "Editorial," The Critic, June 1951, 1-3. 5 for Mourning", as well as my personal correspondence with a member of the Whitney
Pier Historical Society, were used to shed light, respectively, on the circumstances surrounding the production of the play and the background for Cohen's early life in Cape
Breton. The Massey Report was used to add specifics on theatre life in Canada during the post-war period.7 Valued secondary material included Wayne Edmonstone's biography of Nathan Cohen as a starting point in researching Cohen's life, and further biographical information was garnered through Allan Gould's 1977 York University PhD thesis on Cohen and his criticism as well as Gould's article for Toronto Life, "Homage to
Cohen: Nathan Cohen Remembered".8 Biographies and autobiographies of other key
Canadian theatre personalities were also used, including sources on Dora Mavor Moore,
Mavor Moore, John Drainie, and Herbert Whittaker.9 The cultural landscape of the post war era was explored in works of Paul Litt and Maria Tippett, and the works of James
Doyle and Michael Denning were used for insight into politically left-wing culture of the era. Finally, in creating a picture of the working-class and ethnically diverse
6 Eric House, correspondence with David Frank, 23 June 1977, copy in author's possession; Whitney Pier Historical Society, correspondence with author, 24 July 2009, copy in author's possession. 7 Report, Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences 1949-1951 (Ottawa: Edmond Cloutier, 1951). O Wayne Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen: The Making of a Critic. (Toronto: Lester and Orpen Limited, 1977); Allan Gould, "A Critical Assessment of the Theatre Criticism of Nathan Cohen with a Bibliography and Selected Anthology" (PhD diss., York University, 1977); Allan Gould, "Homage to Cohen: Nathan Cohen Remembered," Allan Gould website, http://www.allangould.com. Paula Sperdakos, Dora Mavor Moore: Pioneer of the Canadian Theatre (Toronto: ECW Press, 1995); Mavor Moore, Reinventing Myself: Memoirs (Toronto: Stoddart, 1994); Bronwyn Drainie, Living the Part: John Drainie and the Dilemma of Canadian Stardom (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1988); Ronald Bryden and Boyd Neil. "Preface" in Whittaker's Theatre: A Critic Looks at Stages in Canada and Thereabouts 1944-1975 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985). 10 Paul Litt, The Muses, The Masses, and The Massey Commission. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992); MariaTippett, Making Culture: English-Canadian Institutions and the Arts before the Massey Commission. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990); James Doyle, Progressive Heritage: The Evolution of a Politically Radical Literary Tradition in Canada. (Waterloo, Ont: Wilfrid Laurier University 6 atmosphere of Cohen's life, work by David Frank, Donald MacGillivary, George
MacEachern, and Sheva Medjuck was used to understand labour culture in Cape Breton as well as the Jewish connections and interactions in the area.11
A topic so obscure as the play "Blue is for Mourning", a play that ran for two weeks in February 1953 and has not been performed since, is so apparently insignificant as to be considered a mere footnote. However, this research is not based on the common
"liberal-progressive historical narrative" which is, as Kirk Niergarth has put it, "very adept at answering a commonly asked historical question: how did we get to where we are now?" This type of reading of history misses a very important perspective; the history of an era is a combination of both its successes and failures. Niergarth refers to such failures as "unrealized futures" which should be considered when studying the past:
To take these unrealized futures seriously allows not only for a more nuanced understanding of the complex negotiation between individual actors and dominant power structures, but also for the recognition of the fundamentally contingent nature of "how we got to where we are now".13
In this way this report hopes to create a picture of a time which attributes to it a richness and vibrancy in which the ideas that defined the time were shaped and formed and did not
Press, 2002); Michael Denning, The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century. (London: Verso, 1998). David Frank, "Tradition and Culture in the Cape Breton Mining Community in the Early Twentieth Century," in Cape Breton at 200: Historical Essays in Honour of the Island's Bicentennial 1785-1985 (Sydney, N.S.: University College of Cape Breton Press, 1985); Don Macgillivray, "Glace Bay: Images and Impressions." in Mining Photographs and Other Pictures 1948-1968: A Selection from the Negative Archives ofShedden Studio, Glace Bay, Cape Breton ed. Benjamin H.D. Buchloh and Robert Wilkie. (Sydney, N.S.: The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and the University College of Cape Breton Press, 1983); George MacEachern, George MacEachern: An Autobiography: The Story of a Cape Breton Labour Radical (Sydney, N.S.: University College of Cape Breton Press, 1987); Sheva Medjuck, Jews of Atlantic Canada (St.John's, Newfoundland: Breakwater, 1986). 12 Kirk Niergarth, "Art and Democracy: New Brunswick Artists and Canadian Culture between the Great Depression and the Cold War," (Ph.D. Thesis ,University of New Brunswick, 2007), 26. 13 Niergarth, "Art and Democracy," 26. 7 just occur. Studying "Blue is for Mourning" and its reception is an attempt to add to a
greater historical picture of Canadian theatre during its bloom in the post-war period. Chapter One
Canadian Theatre
at the Time of the Massey Report
Canadian cultural identity in the era at the end of the Second World War is associated with one document: The Report of the Royal Commission on National Development of the
Arts, Letters and Sciences 1949-51. Commonly referred to as the Massey Report, it was the result of a two-year country-wide reconnaissance mission which presented a comprehensive picture of the state of the arts communities in Canada. All this was undertaken in an attempt to focus attention on the challenges of national culture-building in the post-war era. While the Massey Report's primary concern lay in the development of radio and television and university funding, the report did present an argument for a developed, professional theatre to help the country achieve cultural maturity. Despite the fact that the Massey Report recommendations for government spending in the cultural arena did little to benefit theatre, they served to validate the concerns of the theatre community.
As a theatre critic and representative of theatre in this era, Nathan Cohen would call the Massey Report "a Canadian declaration of social self-sufficing and cultural
9 independence."1 Dora Mavor Moore and her New Play Society had already undertaken this task by becoming one of the first permanent Canadian theatre groups in English
Canada. However, she was the exception and most theatre entertainment in Canada was accounted for by touring shows from abroad or by the amateur productions encouraged by the Dominion Drama Festival. Nevertheless, the New Play Society was supplemented by what was probably English Canada's first full-time professional theatre group, the
Jupiter Theatre, which took the work to the next level by incorporating a deeper sense of social significance in their work, partly inspired by the social-political theatre of the
Depression era, such as Theatre of Action.2 In the process, these groups created a
Canadian theatre whose aims were at once nationalistic, professional and socially engaged.
Published in 1952, the Massey Report summed up within its pages the fundamental problem facing the Canadian identity at mid-century:
If we as a nation are concerned with the problems of defence, what, we may ask ourselves, are we defending? We are defending civilization, our share of it, our contribution to it. The things with which our inquiry deals are the elements which give civilization its character and its meaning. It would be paradoxical to defend something which we are unwilling to strengthen and enrich, and which we even allow to decline.3
For many Canadians in the post-war era, it became the responsibility of government to help contribute to the creation of this culture. During the Second World War, the
Canadian government had successfully taken over the operations of many services vital
1 Nathan Cohen, "Editorial," The Critic (June 1951), 2. 2 For more information regarding the distinction of Jupiter Theatre as Canada's first full-time English Canadian Theatre group please see Terry Kotyshyn, "Jupiter Theatre, Inc." (M.A. Thesis, University of Alberta, 1986). 3 Massey Report, 21 A. 10 to the war effort, and the country's citizens had became increasingly used to this type of interventionist government. In total the Massey Report collected 462 written briefs, four advisory committee reports, and forty background studies on a variety of topics, and listened to more than 1,200 witnesses.4 Recommendations for the spending of government money in the field were made a year after the investigation into the issue had been completed. Writing with a sense of urgency, Vincent Massey and the other members hoped to work quickly towards alleviating the bleak cultural scene they painted for Canada:
If modern nations were marshalled in the order of the importance which they assign to those things with which this inquiry is concerned, Canada would be found far from the vanguard; she would even be near the end of the procession.5
Just how each of Canada's cultural institutions looked circa 1950 was addressed in the first section of Massey Report where each genre was given separate attention.
The section of the Massey Report entitled "The Theatre" addressed two critical points: first, the lack of professional theatres, especially a National Theatre, and second, the need for better training programs for Canadian theatre artists. The first point was addressed at the beginning with a humorous letter to the fictional Apollo Fishhorn, Esq. written by Samuel Marchbanks, the sharp-tongued alter ego of playwright Robertson
Davies:
Dear Mr. Fishhorn:— You want to be a Canadian playright [sic], and ask me for advice as to how to set about it. Well, Fishhorn, the first thing you had better acquaint yourself with is the physical conditions of the Canadian theatre.
4 Shea, Culture in Canada, 10. 5 Massey Report, 272. 11 Every great drama, as you know, has been shaped by its playhouse. The Greek drama gained grandeur from its marble outdoor theatres; the Elizabethan drama was given fluidity by the extreme adaptability of the Elizabethan playhouse stage; French classical drama took its formal tone from its equisite [sic], candle-lit theatres. You see what I mean. Now what is the Canadian playhouse? Nine times out often, Fishhorn, it is a school hall, smelling of chalk and kids, and decorated in the Early Concrete style. The stage is a small, raised room at one end. And I mean room. If you step into the wings suddenly you will fracture your nose against the wall. There is no place for storing scenery, no place for the actors to dress, and the lighting is designed to warm the stage but not to illuminate it. Write your plays, then, for such a stage. Do not demand any procession of elephants, or dances by the maidens of the Caliph's harem. Keep away from sunsets and storms at sea. Place as many scenes as you can in cellars and kindred spots. And don't have more than three characters on the stage at one time, or the weakest of them is sure to be nudged into the audience. Farewell, and good luck to you.
March 4, 1950 S. Marchbanks.6
The humour in this witty piece lies in the fact that its depiction was not far from the truth. Lacking adequate, affordable theatre space in Canada's largest English- speaking city, Toronto's semi-professional and professional theatre groups such as the
New Play Society and Jupiter Theatre produced their plays in the Royal Ontario Museum
Theatre. Made to facilitate public lectures, not theatre productions, the "theatre" was, according to actor Don Harron, "a small lecture hall in the basement of the Royal Ontario
Museum - no windows, no wing space, no backstage washrooms and no free rent."
In the Report much was made of the fact that drama was being recognized in the school curricula as useful in the attainment of a general education. Furthermore, a few
6 Massey Report, 192. 7 Don Harron quoted in Paula Sperdakos, Dora Mavor Moore: Pioneer of the Canadian Theatre (Toronto: ECW Press, 1995), 148. 12 universities in the country, and increasingly adult educational organizations, were creating full-time departments in drama. Nonetheless, the Massey Report stopped short of endorsing the advancement of such training for actors as well as playwrights, producers, or technicians because, in their view, creating such schools of dramatic arts in
Canada was unnecessary "when present prospects for the employment in Canada of the graduates seem so unfavourable."8
In the end, while stating the need of public money for government run radio and television to protect artistic integrity and guard against commercialism of private sectors, the same argument was used when denying funds to artistic fields such as theatre. Except for a few travel costs and meagre tax breaks, the commission advocated that no contribution of public money should be given to theatre because of the "dangers inherent in attempting to establish and to operate an agency for the advancement of national culture directly under government control."9 According to Cohen, with these recommendations and disregarding the legitimate appeal for the building of new theatre spaces, the Massey Report undermined the theatre that it was meant to aid and assisted instead in stunting theatre's growth.10
Some insight into this dismissal of the major issues handicapping theatre in the country can be traced back to one of the themes that permeated the Massey Report. Lead commissioner Vincent Massey was concerned about the unconscious erosion of
Canadianism by outside influences. The main method of this "invasion" was through
8 Massey Report, 196. 9 Massey Report, 199. 10 Nathan Cohen, "Editorial," The Critic (June 1951), 2. 13 radio and television programs from the United States that, by defying the boundaries of the two countries, affected the minds of Canadians. Massey's message of throwing off our "inferiority complex" and embracing our culture with pride against others was a strong message.'' While Massey himself was a supporter and even participant in
Canadian theatre arts, he found that his main concern was halting the onslaught of foreign culture in the mass media forms of radio and television. At one point the report dismissed the critical issue of employing actors in the theatre craft and turned the need into a self- serving device for the federal government's own agenda to promote the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation:
Probably the most encouraging aspect of the drama in Canada is the work of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.. .Throughout Canada we have learned, from drama groups and from persons competent to speak on these matters, warm tributes to the freedom, the imagination and the artistic integrity of the C.B.C. productions.12
In many ways, the Massey Report's summary of theatre in Canada was more telling not for its recommendations but for the way it articulated the critical issues facing the theatre community.
Even before the Massey Report was published there was evidence to suggest
Canadian theatre had been constantly under threat from competition from foreign artists.
Some years later Nathan Cohen himself would argue that since its inception, Canadian theatre was predominantly foreign influenced, and only in the twentieth century had a truly Canadian theatre begun to emerge:
Discussing the Canadian theatre of the past, it is customary to say.. .that it
11 Massey Report, 126-28. 12 Massey Report, 194. 14 is a blank history, a recital of events and people and organization of no consequence until the end of World War 2... .Last year a book was published which endeavoured to correct this impression about theatre in English language Canada. But the sole effect of Murray D. Edwards' book, A Stage in Our Past, subtitled English-language theatre in Eastern Canada from the 1790's to 1914... .has been to confirm the serious view that, for all practical purposes, the theatre in Canada has no past, no heritage in terms of companies and playwrights which influenced the community, had any independent artistic identity, or bequeathed anything of value to our generation.13
Cohen had also pointed to the weakness of Canadian theatre when writing in 1950 on the same subject. At the time, he pointed out, none of Canada's major English-speaking cities were home to their own professional theatre groups, not even Ottawa or Toronto, and theatre entertainment primarily depended on traveling theatre companies from Britain and the United States. Indeed, even as Canadian theatre was proclaimed to have "arrived" it was only the foreign companies who could hope to attract large enough crowds to fill the concert halls while Canadian groups were sequestered in places such as the small basement museum theatre.14 Yet Cohen could also see signs of hope. Despite being unable to compete with the commercial successes of the traveling productions "from away", it was hard to ignore those small but persistent theatre groups in Canada who were pioneering a different future for theatre:
Since 1945, the men and women capable of forming the nucleus of a virile Canadian theatre have begun to appear. They're not amateurs. I want to stress that. They take their theatre seriously, and they are genuine, not hypocritical, in their desire to make Canadian theatre a reality. They are actors and directors and technicians who are professional, not because they say so themselves but because the work that they do proves it. Intent
13 Nathan Cohen, "Theatre in Canada: An Expendable Commodity?", Manuscripts and lectures 1970-71, Nathan Cohen Collection, Toronto Reference Library. 14 Nathan Cohen, "The Lively Arts," (Radio Script, 27 September 1950), Nathan Cohen Collection, Toronto Reference Library. 15 on raising dramatic standards they aren't discouraged by financial setback and they will pay attention to criticism even when they don't like it... which, I might admit is usually always. In short, they are theatre-minded every hour of the day not just a few nights a week, and they earn their living in the dramatic arts as best they can.15
One of those groups was the New Play Society, founded by Dora Mavor Moore in
1946 after she and her son Mavor Moore had moved their theatre group, the Village
Players, which had performed in Dora's converted barn on the outskirts of Toronto, to the
Royal Ontario Museum Theatre. Over the next 25 years the New Play Society made a significant mark by promoting the goals of national, socially conscious, and professional theatre. Throughout its years in existence the NPS produced more than seventy plays, including eleven by Canadians. From the beginning, it was a goal of the society to introduce Canadians to uniquely Canadian theatre. One off-shoot was a yearly revue called Spring Thaw, created in 1948 to fill in the gap made by a play cancellation. The stories were Canadian, as were the jokes, and, according to historian Paula Sperdakos, the first Spring Thaw showed that "Canadians can indeed laugh at themselves, that in fact they had been just waiting for the chance to laugh at the Canadian - as opposed to the
American or British - view of such matters as prices, fashions, advertising, radio, movies,
[and] politics.. ,"16 The New Play Society was not noted for being particularly radical politically but as Moore's time with the NPS grew longer she found that her greatest interest came when involved in socially significant theatre, such as the two often original plays presented by the NPS in cooperation with the Canadian Mental Health Association
15 Radio Script, 20 February 1949, Nathan Cohen Collection, Toronto Reference Library, 16 Sperdakos, Dora Mavor Moore, 177. 16 during the 1950s. Moore also chose plays that reflected her belief in a no-star system.
She Stoops to Conquer was a play in which the New Play Society was able to show off its talent in group co-operation.
Despite high aspirations the New Play Society never became more than a semi- professional theatre. Based on her starting funds, Moore could offer actors and technical staff only five dollars a week, so it was still necessary for all actors to have secondary jobs. As the New Play Society began to grow, Dora offered an honorarium of fifteen dollars to each "permanent member" of the company per production as long as they agreed to take no other acting parts, excluding radio, without the permission of the director. However, the New Play Society created a solid foundation for professionalization. After numerous successful seasons the company created the NPS
School in 1952. Though times were tough for the school at first, having to relocate five times in its eighteen-year history, the school grew steadily from its original ten students and one teacher, to more than two hundred students and ten teachers by the 1960s.
Classes were taught in acting, speech, mime, play direction, fencing, stage management, lighting, makeup, play-writing, theatre administration, and broadcasting along with special classes for the deaf.
Dora Mavor Moore's success in the theatre world is well known for one main reason: she was the exception not the rule. The Dominion Drama Festival was a more typical example of the condition of Canadian theatre and its uncertainties about what
17 Sperdakos, Dora Mavor Moore, 206. 18 Sperdakos, Dora Mavor Moore, 149. Sperdakos, Dora Mavor Moore, 152. 17 Canadian theatre should be. Created in 1933 but finding its largest successes in the post war years, the Dominion Drama Festival (DDF) was a nation-wide contest that allowed
Canada's many amateur groups to gather and perform their plays for each other. In 1933 the first Dominion Drama Festival, chaired by Vincent Massey, attracted 168 actors, actresses, directors and stage technicians from eight different provinces to packed houses in Ottawa. The festival took the form of a competition where awards were handed out to the best plays in various categories. The festival's first goal was to promote national pride in Canada's theatrical community. However, the awards that defined the organization and brought much prestige and news coverage to the events were also problematic. The trophies were a discouragement to groups wanting to present Canadian material at the festival for fear of jeopardizing their chances of winning by presenting a little-known production. In the end it was author and playwright Robertson Davies who best summed up the DDF's contribution to theatre:
Though the DDF never succeeded in bringing a Canadian drama into being, it kept the whole country aware of what was being done in world theatre... Thanks to the Dominion Drama Festival, Canada was never without a theatre.22
This meant that the entire accomplishment of the Dominion Drama Festival was to keep
Canadian theatre on a metaphysical respirator until other groups could carry the torch in creating a uniquely Canadian theatre.
Not only did the DDF have problems producing Canadian drama but it also had
20 Sperdakos, Dora Mavor Moore, 127. 21 Betty Lee, Love and Whisky: The Story of the Dominion Drama Festival (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1973), 114. 18 difficulty creating socially relevant drama in this atmosphere. The festival was one of the biggest social events of the year; however, it was geared toward the elites. Socially left- wing groups such as the Theatre of Action and the Progressive Arts Club of Vancouver were always hesitantly accepted into the festival because, according to the historian of the
Festival, it was uncertain whether a "play set in a labour union hall was quite suitable for vice-regal viewing." Finally, when questioned about inviting more citizens and fewer dignitaries, the Dominion Drama Festival balked at the idea, insisting that it was through this pomp and ceremony that the DDF was contributing to the professionalization of
Canadian theatre. In the end, however, those involved with the DDF saw professionalization of their craft as no more than an aspiration. In its earliest forms the
Dominion Drama Festival was one of the few outlets across Canada for citizens interested in participating in theatre - professional or not. By the post-war era this was rapidly changing. The New Play Society had given inspiration to other groups who desired to continue carrying on its goals.
Another tradition was represented by the more activist theatre that emerged during the economic crisis of the Great Depression, when many Canadians felt betrayed and abandoned by existing political institutions and business organizations. As Toby
Gordon Ryan puts it, some Canadians looked for a theatre that could "give voice to the shock of mass unemployment and the misery it brought to millions of people."24 Theatre of Action was spawned as part of this artistic response. Theatre of Action's first play,
22 Wayne Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen: The Making of a Critic (Toronto: Lester and Orpen Limited, 1977), 58. 23 Lee, Love and Whisky, 277. 19 Waiting for Lefty, stands as a testament to the kind of theatre they created.
Nationalism was not the founding principle of Theatre of Action, but it aimed to bring socially relevant theatre to Canada. While the cast and crew of the successful
Toronto production of Waiting for Lefty were predominantly Canadians, the play was written by American Clifford Odets. Ryan, a participant in the Theatre of Action, defends the choice by stating that there were not many playwrights in Canada that could provide the theatre with the material they wanted to present. She suggests that the culture of the Great Depression was a unifying experience that did more to bring countries such as the United States and Canada together rather than emphasize their differences. The scripts flowing from the socially-oriented theatres in the United States were "universal and relevant enough to be done in Canada and to be understood by ordinary people facing similar situations here."25
Waiting for Lefty consisted of mostly two-person scenes about a group meeting to plan a labour strike and is framed in such a way that the audience is effectively made part of the meeting.26 This was typical of the kind of play chosen by Theatre of Action. It not only dealt with important political topics of the time, but through its subject matter the theatre group also hoped to appeal to a large working class audience. As Ryan recalls,
Theatre of Action and similar social theatre groups in Canada made great efforts to find the audience they craved:
We played Lefty -1 can't count the performances. We took it all over the
24 Ryan, Toby Gordon, Stage Left: Canadian Workers Theatre 1929-1940 (Toronto: Simon & Pierre, 1981) 10. 25 Ryan, Stage Left, 110. 26 Ryan, Stage Left, 90. 20 city, to the outlying suburbs, to workers on strike. Always, always the response was tremendous.27
It is evident from the audiences they attracted that Theatre of Action stood by its artistic mandate to produce plays which emphasized everyday struggle.
The group itself did not have professional objectives, though some members went on to have careers in theatre and other arts, as was also the case for participants in the amateur productions of the Dominion Drama Festival. Theatre of Action plays were not performed with the goal in mind to make stars or professionals out of its actors, but instead to place importance on the collective rather than the individual.28 However,
Theatre of Action, even though it was a cultural group, was not immune to the backlash that affected left-wing political groups. The group's members felt constantly under attack or ostracized because of their political agenda. Ryan notes that even though
Theatre of Action was a frequent early participant of the Dominion Drama Festival, they were left out of the book by Betty Lee, Love and Whisky, that was supposed to be a history of the festival. The only mention of this kind of theatre in the 1930s was a
Vancouver group, which was unavoidable because their production of Waiting for Lefty
90 won the award for the Best Play in English.
These influences all affected the founding of the Jupiter Theatre in 1950.
According to Bronwyn Drainie, daughter of the Canadian actor John Drainie, the Jupiter
Theatre was founded by a group of actors, writers and theatre admirers out of "great frustration at the folding of the New Play Society, which had been their only outlet for
Ryan, Stage Left, 91. Ryan, Stage Left, 218. 21 legitimate stage work." In addition to John Drainie, the key figures were actor Lome
Greene, playwright and novelist Len Peterson, actor and musical comedy star Paul
Kligman, actor, writer and critic George Robertson, advertising executive Glen
Frankfurter, and business and entertainment executive Edna Slatter.
Established during the time of the Massey Report's reconnaissance of Canadian culture, the Jupiter Theatre's history is closely tied to the nationalistic spirit that document fostered in the public. Jupiter Theatre provided a theatrical outlet for these newfound interests with the threefold aim it enforced from its creation:
[1] to produce plays by Canadians... [2] to produce plays which have not yet been presented in Canada [3] to revive plays which because of long neglect—have not been seen by contemporary Canadian audiences.31
Not only was Jupiter Theatre encouraging Canadian writers to write their own plays but it was also actively exposing them to new ideas through which to define Canada's cultural outlook. Of the fifteen plays that Jupiter Theatre produced during its short, but significant, three-year span, four were Canadian-written: Socrates and The Blood is
Strong by Lister Sinclair, The Money Makers by Ted Allan and Blue is for Mourning by
Nathan Cohen.32 According to Richard Partington, these four plays represent different permutations of the Canadian writer in the period, from attempts to impress with an understanding of classical drama (Socrates), an obsession with American, as opposed to
Canadian, culture (The Money Makers), emphasis on universal issues of class struggle
29 Lee, Love and Whisky, 277; Ryan, Stage Left, 132. 30 Bronwyn Drainie, Living the Part: John Drainie and the Dilemma of Canadian Stardom (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1988), 150. 31 Drainie, Living the Part, 4. 32 Richard Partington, "The Jupiter Theatre's Canadian Content and the Critics, 1951-1954," Theatre Research in Canada Vol. 18, No.l (1997). http://www.lib.unb.ca (accessed 17 July 2009). 22 (Blue is for Mourning) to a focus on Canadian issues (The Blood is Strong). Jupiter
Theatre also produced many plays classified as socially relevant which dealt with controversial political, economic, and social issues of their era.
For Jupiter Theatre's second production of its first season it presented The Biggest
Thief in Town by American playwright Dalton Trumbo. Trumbo, at the time of the play's run, had just been released from a ten-month jail sentence for contempt of Congress. He was convicted "for his 'leftist' views by Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House of Un-
American Activities Committee."34 Though Trumbo had been released, his plays were still blacklisted in the United States. However, Jupiter Theatre was prepared to ignore such things, liking the play for its dark comedy, earthy characters and its social message.
The production was welcomed in the Communist newspaper the Canadian Tribune, where Ron Newton commented that the production put "Jupiter Theatre on a level where it deserves the backing and support of all playgoers anxious to see Canada develop a truly social-minded theatre."35 Building on the activist legacy of Theatre of Action and the professional goals of the New Play Society, the Jupiter Theatre not only produced
Trumbo's The Biggest Thief in Town but was able to help support the playwright with royalty payments.
Terry Kotyshyn is adamant that the Jupiter Theatre represented "the first professional full-time theatre establishment in Toronto." Dismissing Dora Mavor
Moore's New Play Society as only a semi-professional theatre, which could only afford
33 Partington, "The Jupiter Theatre's Canadian Content and the Critics". 34 Kotyshyn, "Jupiter Theatre Inc., 1951-1954," 39. 35 Ron Newton quoted in "Jupiter Theatre Inc., 1951-1954: The Life and Death of Toronto's First 23 minimum payments or wages for the primary actors, he points to Jupiter Theatre with starting funds of slightly less than $2,000 accumulated through donations by the board members themselves, bank loans, and The Friends of Jupiter as a theatre organization that started its first season as a professionally functioning theatre.37 With a handful of very popular and highly praised productions in its first year, Jupiter Theatre continued to expand with each season. Their financial success as a company was apparent, as the length of the seasons were expanded to accommodate more plays and extended performances and Jupiter's board members were quick to reinvest in their enterprise by hiring more staff and theatre technicians to maintain their high standards of production.38
In English Canada at least, it appears that Jupiter Theatre was truly Canada's first professional theatre company.
It is clear that the 1950s was a turning point for cultural production in Canadian theatre. Though the Massey Report had recommended little financial assistance be given to the floundering theatre community, the document was held up as vindication of the hard work Canadian artists had already done and an encouragement to continue to contribute to the nation's culture. The success of Dora Mavor Moore's New Play Society represented the foundations of professional Canadian theatre as it was defined in the era.
It was patriotic in purpose, socially conscious in presentation and professionally minded in the long run. However, when it was first created it was a star in a blackened sky as other organizations such as the Dominion Drama Festival did not have the same
Professional, Full-Time Theatre," by Terry Kotyshyn (MA Thesis, University of Alberta, 1986), 41-42. 36 Kotyshyn, "Jupiter Theatre Inc., 1951-1954," vi. 37 Kotyshyn, "Jupiter Theatre Inc., 1951-1954," 27. 24 objectives and struggled to articulate their aims. Inspired by the goals of the NPS and combining it with more socially-engaged theatre of the Theatre of Action, the Jupiter became the first professional theatre group in Canada to embody those three principles, nationalism, professionalism and the challenge of social relevance, that would define
Canadian theatre objectives for the post-war period. As noted in his commentaries on theatre at the time of the Massey Report, those objectives were also shared by the emerging theatre critic Nathan Cohen, and in 1952 the Jupiter Theatre accepted for its forthcoming season a play that Cohen had written about working-class life in Cape
Breton, Nova Scotia.
Kotyshyn, "Jupiter Theatre Inc., 1951-1954," 114. 25 Chapter Two
Nathan Cohen's Journey:
Cape Breton to Toronto
"What will become of Nathan? All he does is read."1
By 1953 Nathan Cohen had established himself as one of the best-known theatre critics in
Canada. He was also heard on national radio and published a magazine on the arts, and he had recently become the host of a popular new CBC discussion program. Part of his popularity can be attributed to his very distinct style. In terms of theatre criticism in
Canada during the period, Cohen was an anomaly. Separating himself from what Don
Rubin describes as "other more gentlemanly Canadian journalists covering the theatre",
Cohen stood alone by challenging other critics and raising the bar on standards.2
However, this career path was far from predetermined for the strong-willed son of Jewish immigrants growing up in an industrial town in Eastern Canada. The quote at the head of this chapter, which is attributed to his mother Fanny Cohen, denotes a worry for a son
1 Attributed to Fanny Cohen, Nathan Cohen's mother, as overheard by childhood neighbour Evelyn Moraff Davis. Information from Evelyn Moraff Davis provided by Sandra Dunn of Whitney Pier Historical Society, correspondence with author, 24 July 2009. Copy in author's possession. 2 Don Rubin, "Criticism in a Canadian Social Context: Nathan Cohen's Theatre Criticism, 1946-1971." in Establishing Our Boundaries: English-Canadian Theatre Criticism, ed. Anton Wagner (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 235. 26 who shunned group activities such as sports and Boy Scouts in order to read alone in his room. Not even his mother could have imagined the path Cohen's life would take from his start in Cape Breton, through his education in New Brunswick, to his brief but notable return to the island, and then finally to Toronto. When he chose to pursue theatrical criticism as a profession, Cohen made many enemies for his controversial style. While his journey does not unfold like a predestined path, it does allow us to examine the roots of the critical aesthetic that made him one of the most influential theatre critics of his era and contributed to the writing of his own artistic creation "Blue is for Mourning".
Samuel Nathan Cohen was born 16 April 1923 to David and Fanny Cohen, a surname changed from Kaplansky on their immigration to Canada from Poland. Nathan was the Cohens' first child born in Canada. They had two older daughters, Celia and
Bess, both born in Poland, who were later followed by another son, Louis. The Cohens lived above their family grocery store in Whitney Pier, a large working class district in the city of Sydney, Nova Scotia, located in the heart of industrial Cape Breton.
Historians and biographers involved with studying Cohen's past have consistently mentioned his birthplace but have failed to bring the observation forward when accounting for how it helped to shape Cohen's distinct outlook. Allan Gould calls the story of the Cohens the "classic immigrant-Jewish family" and describes Whitney Pier as no more than "a desolate coal-mining and steel area on the outskirts of Sydney." Carmel
Dickson Rothwell glosses over his past,4 taking her cue from Cohen's biographer Wayne
3 Allan Gould, "Homage to Cohen: Nathan Cohen Remembered," Allan Gould website, http://www.allangould.com. 4 Carmel Dickson Rothwell, "Andrew Allan, Nathan Cohen, and Mavor Moore: Cultural Nationalism and 27 Edmonstone, who mentions only that Cohen's aggressive nature may have surfaced on
"feeling different" as a "precocious Jewish boy in the restricted Scots Presbyterian atmosphere of this Cape Breton city in the 1920s and 1930s."5 However, these observations are not only misleading but also fail properly to take into account Cohen's hometown environment.
Whitney Pier is a distinct part of Sydney, Nova Scotia. A triangular area of approximately three square miles, it lies on the northeast corner of the city and is bordered on two sides by the ocean and the steel plant. Sydney itself was far from the
"desolate" town Gould alludes to, as at the time of Cohen's birth Sydney was one of the twenty-five largest cities in Canada.6 Edmonstone's stated belief that Cohen's aggressive nature came from identifying as a minority in a largely homogenous Scottish environment fails to take into account the makeup of the growing industrial town.
Census data for 1921, two years before Cohen was born, does not break down Whitney
Pier separately but does give a report on the ethnic and racial origins of Sydney residents as a whole. Out of a total population of 22,545 people, most were of anglo-celtic origins, but those of Scottish origin account for only 8,600 individuals.7 While this is a significant number of residents with a Scottish background, most were migrants from the rural parts of the Maritimes and it would be misleading to describe Whitney Pier as a
the Growth of English-Canadian Drama 1945 to 1960" (M.A. Thesis, University of Ottawa 1993), 83. 5 Wayne Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen: The Making of a Critic (Toronto: Lester and Orpen Limited, 1977), 3. 6 Census of Canada, 1921 (Ottawa: Printer to the King, 1924-25), Table 28, 542-3. Sydney, Nova Scotia is twenty-first on the list of most populated cities in Canada. 7 Census of Canada, 1921 (Ottawa: Printer to the King, 1924-25), Table 27, 386-7. Other nationalities included in the census of 1921 are: English, 7,061; Irish, 3,187; French, 1,101; Austrian, 143; Dutch, 100; Hebrew/Jewish, 398; Italian, 365; Polish, 423; Russian, 134; Ukrainian, 337. 28 Scottish enclave. It must also be noted that Whitney Pier was considered a distinct part of
Sydney for a reason: the immigrant diversity of its population. Many of these diverse groups settled in Whitney Pier during the period of Cohen's childhood in the first decades of the twentieth century. While each ethnic group developed their own distinct neighbourhoods within Whitney Pier, growing up Cohen encountered a variety of people from different cultures including Newfoundlanders, Ukrainians, Italians, Poles, Blacks,
Acadians, Irish, Croatians, Hungarians, Lebanese, as well as those from his own Jewish community.8
The extent of Cohen's interactions with these various groups is uncertain. Allan
Gould notes that as a child Cohen was a voracious reader who would forgo Boy Scout hikes in favour of sitting in the back of his father's grocery store ploughing through comic books, Liberty magazines, love stories, novels, and plays.9 Childhood neighbour
Evelyn Moraff Davis remembers a slightly different story but with a similar theme, noting that Cohen would help her father Hymie Moraff fetch magazines and books when they came into his store and Cohen would put everything on the racks and then sit in a corner and read them all.10 It was this behaviour that elicited worry from his mother about his future. However, even in his self-imposed isolation Cohen would have been trained in dealing with the customers of his father's grocery shop, a business which he was supposed to inherit but would vehemently refuse to as he grew older.11 Within this environment Cohen might have also fostered what he would later proudly refer to as his
8 From the Pier, Dear! (Sydney, N.S.: Whitney Pier Historical Society, 1993), 2. 9 Gould, "Homage to Cohen." 10 Information from Evelyn Moraff Davis provided by Sandra Dunn of Whitney Pier Historical Society, Jewish-Presbyterian background. The term denotes an integration of ethnically diverse groups to show the solidarity of the whole and in part describes the experience Jewish immigrants might have had.
At the beginning of the twentieth century Jewish immigration to Cape Breton
Island rose rapidly from 162 individuals in 1901 to 939 people in 1931.13 The Jewish community of Cape Breton was subjected to anti-Semitism, including the denial of membership in some local service clubs and country clubs and the docking of a Jewish school teacher for taking time off for the High Holidays and even the smashing the windows of Jewish homes during a Glace Bay mining strike in the 1920s. However,
Sheva Medjuck states that these incidents were minor ones on the whole, especially when taking into account the more common moments of shared perspective.14
Jewish experience in Europe, where they were treated as second-class citizens despite their great economic and cultural contributions to the society, led Jewish immigrants to sympathize with liberal and left-wing politics even more than Protestant or
Catholic immigrants in Canada did. As a result, they shared a unique similarity with workers in the coal and steel towns who stressed the dignity of the individual.15 The
Jewish community found acceptance in Cape Breton. They were respected as intellectual support for the labour movement through study groups carried out by labour leaders, especially since some of the Jews were "1905ers" who had taken part in the Russian
correspondence with author, 24 July 2009. Copy in author's possession. 11 Gould, "Homage to Cohen." 12 Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 3. 13 Sheva Medjuck, Jews of Atlantic Canada (St.John's, Newfoundland: Breakwater, 1986), 35. 14 Medjuck, Jews of Atlantic Canada, 39. 15 J.A. Laponce, "Left or Centre? The Canadian Jewish Electorate, 1953-1983," in The Jews in Canada, ed. 30 Revolution of 1905. During labour strikes Jewish merchants showed dignity and loyalty to unemployed workers by extending credit in their stores. For this, Jewish stores were saved from attacks on company stores during the coal strike of 1925.17 As a grocer in the steel town of Whitney Pier, Cohen's father did not have a direct connection to these events but similar situations of extending credit and the development of inter-ethnic trust through such commerce also occurred during the Great Depression. Furthermore, there were many ways for members of different ethnic groups to interact and develop common bonds through participation in social gatherings. In particular, there was one that held a strong appeal for young Cohen.
In the 1930s there were three movie-houses in the Sydney. The films were changed up to three times a week and admission was but a nickel or a dime for each show. Future labour leader George MacEachern, a decade senior to Cohen's time, remembers the atmosphere in such theatres:
The movies that we'd mainly go to see would be westerns. Saturday afternoon it would be worse than the taverns when you'd get in there. The noise would be fierce. There'd be lots of excitement.19
However, the excitement was not solely spawned by the chance to see a moving picture but the chance for the community to gather and share news with each other.
The movies were a place for social gatherings of many sorts. When not being used to show Westerns, the moviehouses held labour meetings. At these labour meetings
Robert J. Brym, William Shaffir and Morton Weinfeld (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1993) 271. 16 From the Pier, Dear! (Sydney, N.S.: Whitney Pier Historical Society, 1993), 8. Medjuck, Jews of Atlantic Canada, 39. 18 Gould, "Homage to Cohen." 19 George MacEachern, George MacEachern: An Autobiography: The Story of a Cape Breton Labour Radical (Sydney, N.S.: University College of Cape Breton Press, 1987), 9. 31 workers not only shared their opinions through speeches but through the use of stories and songs. Cape Breton had a strong oral culture with many songs and stories based on themes of an industrial nature. These stories provided a standard of values easily accessible to all members of society in which the conditions of the mining or steel working life could be assessed.2 These stories and songs had themes which emphasised the need for better wages, working conditions, and a sense of general respect for workers.
To disseminate these stories after they were originally introduced, they were often repeated at house parties, street corners, and bar-rooms.21 It is not a stretch to assume that because of his frequent outings to the movies (and Cohen prided himself on going to every new picture), Cohen was aware of these stories and perhaps knew a few of the more popular ones.22
Cohen would later comment on the types of entertainment offered in Sydney, stating: "In a small town like that, there's nothing: no ballet, music, theatre— only a cinema. That's why I know about the movies."23 The statement may not be completely true as other contemporary accounts point to more diverse entertainment in the city:
There'd be as many as five vaudeville shows and some of it was pretty good stuff. It wasn't all trash you got there. You'd be surprised at the musicians, the acrobats that showed up there. It was really something.24
Cohen himself was introduced to the art of theatre in Cape Breton, albeit not up to the standards that he would later desire:
20 David Frank, "Tradition and Culture in the Cape Breton Mining Community in the Early Twentieth Century," in Cape Breton at 200: Historical Essays in Honour of the Island's Bicentennial 1785-1985 (Sydney, N.S.: University College of Cape Breton Press, 1985), 213. 21 Frank, "Tradition and Culture in the Cape Breton Mining Community," 214. 22 Gould, "Homage to Cohen." 23 Gould, "Homage to Cohen." 32 Some actors from Boston came to my home town with Uncle Tom s Cabin and I went to see them. They were terrible. Uncle Tom didn't know his lines, the buxom lady that was Little Eva sipped at a bottle and hiccupped all through her death scene, and at one point Simon Legree sneezed so hard his wig flew off, his braces broke, and he ran offstage with his trousers flapping about his knees. Still, bad as the show was, I have fond memories of it. After all, it did introduce me to the theatre.. .and even now I can't help but
be grateful.25
While he would later remember the event with fond memories, at the time the young
Cohen can easily have been said to be more interested in the movies. Cohen remembered one of his first movie experiences, which took place in 1930. According to Cohen the
Western that was shown was not very good and the young Cohen took it upon himself to improve on the Hollywood product by writing a story of his own called Buffalo Bill and the Wild Horse. While the endeavour may have planted the seed in Cohen's head to become a writer it shocked his mother, who was ashamed that her son would work on the
Sabbath for such a frivolous thing. 26
David and Fanny Cohen were strict Orthodox Jews and Cohen's father had even helped to found the local synagogue in Whitney Pier.27 Yiddish was spoken in the home, and according to Gould it was often shouted, as Cohen and his father were both strong- willed and frequently quarrelled. Cohen's younger brother even remembers him getting in trouble during religious schooling when Cohen stood up in Hebrew class and cried out,
"Why is God?" ~ sending the class into an uproar and prompting the rabbi to throw him
MacEachern, George MacEachern, 9. Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 2-3. Rothwell, "Andrew Allan, Nathan Cohen, and Mavor Moore," 83. Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 3. 33 out of class. In considering these factors it might be reasonable to assume that Cohen's later pugnacious approach to his work did not come, as Edmonstone suggests, from
"feeling different" as a Jewish boy in the "restricted Scots Presbyterian atmosphere" of
Cape Breton, but that the multicultural environment of his upbringing gave him the tools to rebel against the strict orthodoxy of his Jewish upbringing.
However, Cohen did face adversity because of his Jewish background when applying to Mount Allison University in 1939 at the young age of sixteen years. Mount
Allison's links to the Jewish communities in the Maritimes were long-established, especially in Cape Breton. However, during the Second World War, concerned about the rising enrolment of students from unfavourable religious denominations, the executive committee of the board at the university voted in favour of maintaining a five percent limit on the population of Jewish students accepted.29 Cohen obtained a scholarship to attend the institution, but the discriminatory outlook of the university would play a part in
Cohen's later experiences at the school. However, his first impressions of Mount Allison were very positive.30 University would open up a whole new world for Cohen. Even though he was rarely in attendance for formal lectures, he self-taught himself by spending hours in the school library: "I went wild when I hit university because there were all these books - all these doors suddenly open to me - all this learning suddenly available to me."31 However, Cohen was also active in many different school activities, including the
28 Gould, "Homage to Cohen." 29 John Reid, Mount Allison University: A History to 1963 Vol. //(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), 190-191. 30 Allan Gould, "A Critical Assessment of the Theatre Criticism of Nathan Cohen with a Bibliography and Selected Anthology" (PhD diss., York University, 1977), 31. 31 Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 1. 34 school newspaper, the Argosy Weekly, which he joined in November 1940, becoming managing editor of the paper by 1942.32 In an excerpt from the Argosy Cohen describes his involvement in other activities:
Has played prominent roles in dramatics and debating. President of Mount Allison Players, member of Eurhetorian Debating Committee, advisor to junior debaters... First senior in several years to be Argosy Editor-in-Chief, a position usually going to a post-graduate. Is originator and producer of a series (it is hoped) of radio dramatics from Mount Allison beginning a week from today. 3
From these activities it is clear that Cohen had a natural affinity for the arts world from an early age, but years later he would still admit: "I was taking an arts degree and thinking of becoming a professor or a lawyer. If someone had suggested that I might become a critic I would have hooted with laughter."34 His work on the school newspaper was of prime importance to him at the time, but Cohen wrote articles that reflected his future path, such as an article entitled "What's wrong with theatre at Mount Allison
University."35
More often than not Cohen was commenting on politics and current affairs such as the war. According to Edmonstone's appraisal, Cohen was tackling issues far beyond the confines of the university and his ideas showed an extreme measure of confidence and what Cohen called his "editorial privilege of expressing my individual opinion." In one example, Cohen took issue with the belief that French Canadians were dividing the country by protesting the use of conscription:
Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 1. Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 1. Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 23. 35 .. .[W]e distrust greatly the motives of those who, in these most crucial of all times, take time out to fulminate against the French-speaking elements and stir up conflict between the Protestants and Catholic portions of the country.3
This article led to direct confrontation with the biases of the university. One of Cohen's history professors took exception to the editorial and argued with Cohen "that a foreign- born Jew couldn't possibly understand the French-English problem in Canada."38 This insulting comment from his professor spurred Cohen to act through the instrument of the paper. Not only was Cohen born in Canada but in response to this criticism he would write:
.. .[W]e most definitely do not think it to the advantage of the university to have a person's ancestry or faith, made the subject of criticism.. .that knowledge, and nothing else, is the criterion for criticism.
Cohen's education was also interrupted by a traumatic experience and ended with a false start in the study of law. Shortly before Christmas 1941 a fire broke out in the men's residence. Cohen jumped naked from a third floor window and suffered third degree burns.40 When he was found wandering around the football grounds below the residence, all he could think of was that he had left his thesis on the Romantic poets of
Canada in his room; three years' work had gone up in smoke.41 Cohen received a "pass
BA" nonetheless and the next year at the age of 19 Cohen's father sent him to continue his education at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto. However, whether it was the
Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 24. Nathan Cohen quoted in Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 8. Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 19. Nathan Cohen quoted in Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 20. Nathan Cohen quoted in Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 20-1. Gould, "Homage to Cohen." Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 13. 36 onset of diabetes or a feigned illness to get out of a hated profession, Cohen was soon found wandering the streets of the city, apparently suffering from amnesia.42
He returned to Cape Breton for an extended period of recuperation but soon went to work as the one-man reporting staff for the Glace Bay Gazette, a daily labour newpaper financed by the United Mine Workers of America.43 The UMWA had asked
Mount Allison University to recommend someone to edit the paper and Professor A.W.
Trueman, the head of the English department at the university, suggested Nathan Cohen for the job. While Trueman admits that he found Cohen's desire to constantly engage in debate irritating, he also prized Cohen as a student and realized it was that ability that made him such a force on The Argosy?5 The controversy involving the history professor was but one of many. Cohen attacked a number of professors on the campus, questioned the entire idea of conscription, and challenged the war itself. In expressing these opinions he displayed a particularly leftist viewpoint which Trueman perhaps considered fit for the editor of a labour newspaper.46
Before his twentieth birthday Cohen became the editor of the only labour-owned daily newspaper in Canada. The paper was run by District 26 of the UMWA, which had in the recent 1942 elections taken a shift to the radical left by electing as president
Freeman Jenkins, who had also attended Mount Allison University around the same time as Cohen. At the time Jenkins was suspected of communist ties and of being in favour of
Gould, "Homage to Cohen." Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 25. Gould, "A Critical Assessment of the Theatre Criticism of Nathan Cohen," 34. Gould, "A Critical Assessment of the Theatre Criticism of Nathan Cohen," 33. Gould, "A Critical Assessment of the Theatre Criticism of Nathan Cohen," 32. 37 militant union action. In Glace Bay Cohen rose to the challenge of working for a radical left-wing paper. During his two years working for the Gazette from 1943 to 1945, Cohen was the driving force behind the paper. He did everything on the eight-page newspaper: according to Gould, "[h]e would arrive at the office each morning at 5 a.m., lay out the front page, read the teletype, call the undertaker, fire and police departments for local news. Twenty-hour days, seven-day weeks, $100 a month."48 Cohen also became known for writing aggressive editorials. One condemned the "conditions in the province's mining industry, which resulted in a call for a national conference on mining and his being publicly denounced in the provincial legislature by the minister of mines."49
Cohen was editor of the Gazette during a difficult time for the coal miners.
During the 1940s coal production levels fell and the coal company laid blame for the loss on the miners, whom they accused of absenteeism and unwillingness to work.50 The union did not deny this but insisted that making money was no longer considered the only incentive to work but that the "social and cultural needs of the worker was what was needed to inspire a good work ethic."51 In the union's view:
Modern living and social standards are essential for the industrial efficiency of any group of people in any industry. However, a particular full measure is required for miners. This is because of their ab-or sub normal working conditions. Workers in a plant comprise a community and gain all the psychological advantages of collective effort. But miners work as individuals, alone or in pairs. They are isolated from one another. Working conditions are unnatural. To work in darkness is itself a
Courtney Maclsaac, "The Coal Miners on Strike: Cape Breton 1947," M.A. Thesis, University of New Brunswick, 2007, 12. 48 Gould, "Homage to Cohen." 49 Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 27. 50 Courtney Maclsaac, "The Coal Miners on Strike: Cape Breton 1947," M.A. Thesis, University of New Brunswick, 2007, 18-19. 51 Maclsaac, "The Coal Miners on Strike," 19. 38 deprivation of man's genetic need for sun and fresh air. Because of the nature of coal mining and the unprecedented situations that arise, grievances inevitably are much more numerous than in most industries. Those working conditions, imposed largely by nature, can be compensated only by particular and skilful attention being given to social, cultural, and recreational life.52
In his role at the newspaper, Cohen tried to facilitate this need in the pages of the
Gazette. For instance, he published an article on "cultural democracy" by Walter Abell in
1944. Abell, throughout his career as a promoter of Maritimes art and eventually the educational supervisor for the National Gallery, was a strong advocate of "cultural democracy," which was a movement to bring art to the masses both through educational efforts for adults and children and encouraging artists to produce pieces in populist forms such as performance, murals, and folk art.53 In his work for the National Gallery Abell asserted these goals by rewriting the Gallery's circulating lecture "Introduction to
Canadian Art". Lamenting Canada's strong attachment to the Group of Seven style,
Abell included art with an "impulse towards large scale forms of community art expression."54 This grassroots style, as opposed to an elite art style, are the ideas he reiterated in his article in the Glace Bay Gazette. These attempts to bring labour and culture into a dialogue were characteristic of the times, though reading Abell's article might have been one of Cohen's first contacts with such intellectual approaches to art.
It was at this time, during his work with the Gazette, that Gould suggests Cohen became a Communist. Edmonstone places it at a time after Cohen left as editor of the
UMWA, Submission to the Royal Commission on Coal, 1945, 17, quoted in Maclsaac, "The Coal Miners on Strike," 19. 53 Kirk Niergarth, ""Missionary for Culture": Walter Abell, Maritime Art and Cultural Democracy, 1928- 1944." Acadiensis, XXXVI, 1 (Autumn 2006), 12. 54 Niergarth, ""Missionary for Culture"", 24. 39 Glace Bay paper, after a short period working for the National Film Board in Ottawa and a failure to obtain a journalistic job with the Globe and Mail. According to Edmonstone,
Cohen attempted to enlist in the class struggle "by joining the Communist Party and going to work for the party's paper, the Canadian Tribune."55 However, Cohen, after his work with the Gazette, had already been identified as a politically active writer and, while
Cohen would later reveal in a 1961 interview in Time magazine that he had been a member of the party for only four months, his writing still hinted at his strong political and intellectual association with the left.56
By 1945 Cohen had left Cape Breton to start his journalistic career in Toronto, flirted with Communism, and had settled on freelance work for a number of left-wing
Jewish publications, including Wochenblatt, the Canadian Jewish Weekly, and New
Voice, which included proclamations from Cohen such as: "The principles of Marxism which have already liberated a sixth of Europe, contain the solution to Jewish problems that face Jewry today."57 This piece was from one of his Canadian Jewish Weekly articles which would eventually publish Cohen's first theatrical review.
One night in July 1946 Cohen attended a theatre show in Toronto with his date and future wife Gloria Bronfman, who suggested that he write a review of the performance they had just seen. Before the show that night he had also been introduced to the woman who had founded the group of players they had just seen— Dora Mavor
Moore. It is not hard to imagine that Moore and Cohen talked about her aspirations for
55 Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 28. 56 Don Rubin, "Criticism in a Canadian Social Context: Nathan Cohen's Theatre Criticism, 1946-1971," in Establishing Our Boundaries: English-Canadian Theatre Criticism, ed. Anton Wagner (Toronto: her group, the New Play Society, to become the first Canadian professional theatre.
Cohen must have been impressed with Moore and her desires because he took up his date's advice and later wrote a review of the production of Eugene O'Neill's Ah
Wilderness! In it he gave the cast high praise: "It was the best-acted, best-directed amateur production we have ever seen in Toronto."58 His admiration for Dora Mavor
Moore carried on throughout his career, and while his sharp critical tongue stung many
Canadian artists Cohen never personally criticized the work of Moore. However, just because Cohen was kind to Moore and the cast did not mean he found no fault with the play:
It is a pity though that a group of such obvious talents as the New Play Society should waste them on a play as weak as Ah, Wilderness! O'Neill is a playwright whose contempt for humanity, sombre hatred for the modern world, and craving for the past has endeared him to pessimists the world over...59
Edmonstone suggests that this early review was a rather clever move. In praising the cast and the production Cohen was able to draw attention from the small, quasi-professional theatre community in Toronto while at the same time, in attacking a playwright as well known as O'Neill, to assert his critical integrity and independence.60 However, Cohen's feelings toward the production were most likely true to his outlook and not designed to get him attention.
With this first review in 1946, Cohen had found the career which he would be
University of Toronto Press, 1999) 240. 57 Nathan Cohen quoted in Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 29. 58 Nathan Cohen, "Production Fine, Acting Good But Play Was Inferior Choice," Canadian Jewish Weekly, 4 July 1946. 59 Cohen, "Production Fine, Acting Good But Play Was Inferior Choice." 60 Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 36. 41 immersed in for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, it was not a clear path to success in the field. By 1947 Cohen was to marry Gloria Bronfman but the couple was struggling financially. Cohen's father-in-law echoed the request of Cohen's own father: become a lawyer. While Cohen enrolled at Osgoode Hall Law School for a year, he attended no classes and wrote no exams.61
Cohen would be rescued from this standstill by Mavor Moore, son of Dora Mavor
Moore, and admirer of Cohen's theatrical reviews. In his first few years as a critic of theatre, Cohen's articles were printed only in small Jewish newspapers, one of which,
Canadian Jewish Weekly, was almost entirely printed in Yiddish except for the one
English page Cohen edited and used to print his theatre reviews. At times finding a compromise between his desire to write about theatre and the tone of the newspaper had an effect on his articles. For example, in 1947 Cohen wrote an article wherein he suggested banning William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice for its anti-Semitic content. However, these same articles also pointed to a desire on Cohen's part not only to review local theatre but to engage his audience in discussions of greater importance, including a play's underlying themes. This is emphasised in his explanation for his case to ban the play. This particular Shakespeare play should be banned not because the villain is Jewish but due to the fact that "Shylock is a villain only because he is a Jew."
This marks a transition in Cohen's style, which led to steadily more substantial reviews of Toronto's theatre scene. For this, Cohen attracted the attention of Canada's most
61 Gould, "Homage to Cohen." 62 Nathan Cohen, "You Can Quote Me: Let's Abolish Shylock," Canadian Jewish Weekly, 19 June 1947. 63 Cohen, "You Can Quote Me: Let's Abolish Shylock," 42 prominent actors and writers. Moore recommended the twenty-three-year-old Cohen for a new CBC Radio program called Across the Footlights that would review plays.64 It would be Cohen's big break and lead, in future years, to Cohen becoming a frequent contributor to the radio magazine of the arts, Critically Speaking, throughout the 1940s and 1950s.65
It was these two radio shows that would shape the direction of theatre criticism in
Canada, as Cohen would later recall:
During the 1950's, these two shows [CJBC Views the Shows and its national incarnation, Critically Speaking] filled a specific and valuable need in Canada. They exerted an influence out of all proportion to the size of their numbers and stimulated the expansion and improvement of the coverage of the arts in the newspapers. In addition, they brought to the fore a number of people who had contributions to make to the esthetics [sic] of criticism. 6
To understand the kind of impact Cohen speaks of in this passage it is necessary to look at the work being done in theatrical criticism in the newspapers.
According to Robert Fulford in Canada "art was still associated with Sunday
School efforts and amateur performances."67 The articles written about the arts reflected this opinion. Herbert Whittaker best embodied a style that represented a stark contrast to
Cohen's own style. Whittaker is noted for having served as the number one theatre critic for English newspapers in Canada's two largest cities, the Montreal Gazette, 1945-
64 Gould, "Homage to Cohen." 65 Gould, "A Critical Assessment of the Theatre Criticism of Nathan Cohen," 39. 66 Nathan Cohen quoted in Gould, "A Critical Assessment of the Theatre Criticism of Nathan Cohen," 40. 67 Robert Fulford quoted in Gould, "A Critical Assessment of the Theatre Criticism of Nathan Cohen," 40. 68 To further highlight this point Don Rubin points out that "in a public tribute to Cohen's long-time colleague and rival at the Globe and Mail, Herbert Whittaker, a toaster referred to Cohen not as Nathan but as 'Nothin" Cohen." See "Criticism in a Canadian Social Context: Nathan Cohen's Theatre Criticism 1946-1971," 235. 43 1949 and Toronto's Globe and Mail, 1949-1975. Whittaker equated his job as a critic to that of a partisan sports announcer: "win or lose, the home team was always the home team."69 He wrote articles that introduced the reader to Canadian theatre but was deliberately ambiguous in his style, never being very critical or harsh. When not writing about theatre he would fill his columns with forthcoming openings, interviews with visiting stage celebrities, and gossip of the theatre in Canada and abroad.70 Whittaker hoped these forms of criticism would help foster Canadian theatre by simply introducing audiences to the art and not giving them the tools to be too critical of the new and growing theatre community. Nathan Cohen strongly disagreed with these methods.
According to his wife Gloria, Cohen approached theatre criticism differently: "He paid theatre in Canada at the time a great compliment - he took it seriously."71 He judged
Canadian and non-Canadian plays by the same standards and, unlike Whittaker, he believed that unequivocal praise, without critical appreciation and advice, would ultimately stunt both the growth of the artist and the art.72 Cohen was adamant that audiences should judge for themselves. Even though he made his living from being a theatre critic, he clearly outlined his standards, when not commenting directly on shows, so that the public could agree with his view or not. Cohen's reputation for harsh critique did not make him a favourite among his theatre peers, and perhaps it may have even harmed him, but in the end Cohen put forth a unique message that lives on: Canadian theatre was important enough to take seriously.
69 Ronald Bryden and Boyd Neil. "Preface." in Whittaker's Theatre: A Critic Looks at Stages in Canada and Thereabouts 1944-1975 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985), xiv. 70 Bryden and Neil. "Preface." in Whittaker's Theatre, xiii. 44 Cohen was so unflinching in his commitment to help create a serious Canadian theatre with his honest, forthright style that he was even unafraid to challenge the man he owed his career to, Mavor Moore. Moore not only suggested Cohen for his job at CBC radio but would later recommend him for his popular role as moderator of the discussion program Fighting Words for CBC television. By 1953 Moore was already a well- known theatre personality and his life was marked by numerous accomplishments in the theatre world, including helping to establish the New Play Society and the annual satirical review Spring Thaw; he was also a founding governor of the Stratford Festival and
National Theatre School. For all these contributions Moore received the Governor
General's Award for lifetime achievement in performing arts.74 Along the way it would be Cohen who kept him humble. Moore would later describe his relationship with Cohen as full of ups and downs: "Cohen and I ran a sort of vaudeville act, playing in turn each other's champion, rival, conscience, and scourge."75
In his battle of words with Moore, Cohen expressed his own opinions in a magazine he personally published called The Critic, which he began as a monthly magazine in 1950. The magazine folded in 1952 but Cohen was able to bring it back for a short time in 1953-54 before it became a complete financial impossibility for him. The magazine published not only drama reviews but articles on ballet, music, film and books.
Despite its short run it stands as a symbol of Cohen's uncompromising desire to aid in the
71 Gloria Cohen quoted in Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 254. 72 Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 12. 73 Gould, "Homage to Cohen." 74 "Arts icon Mavor Moore dies at 87," CBC News, December 21,2006, http://www.cbc.ca (accessed August 10,2009). 75 Mavor Moore, Reinventing Myself: Memoirs (Toronto: Stoddart, 1994), 154. 45 growth of a Canadian culture. One of the most interesting editorial pieces from The
Critic was on the Massey Report. Cohen stated that only one newspaper, The Globe and
Mail, gave its full attention to the Massey Report by devoting two pages to its findings,
including a section on the front page, while other lead Canadian newspapers dismissed it
simply as anti-American and elitist.76 Despite criticizing newspapers for the lack of
attention paid to it, Cohen did not hold back in his opinion of the report itself, stating:
"Considered in its entirety, the Massey Report is by no means as complete a picture of the
Canadian cultural scene as it should be. Its handling of certain fundamental questions is
wholly inadequate; many of its proposals are ambiguous, a few are meaningless."77
Continuing, and focusing on his own art of theatre, Cohen chastised the report for not
providing funding for much-needed theatre buildings and means to foster the publication
of Canadian books, plays, magazines, or periodicals.78 To Cohen it was of paramount
importance to fund these areas because he identified artists in the country as being in a
delicate state where they have just started "to find meaningful Canadian themes for their
work, and also to develop standards of craftsmanship."79
While Cohen based the uncertain future of the Canadian theatre scene on the
amateur nature of Canadian artists at this time, Moore disagreed with his assessment.
Moore blamed the stagnation of theatre on the apathy and ingratitude of the audience and
not on any failure on the performers' part. Cohen dismissed this criticism and suggested
that it was only the lack of effort put into creating high quality plays, both culturally and
76 Nathan Cohen, "Editorial," The Critic, June 1951, 1. 77 Cohen, "Editorial," The Critic, June 1951, 1. 78 Cohen, "Editorial," The Critic, June 1951,2. 46 technically, that led to audience apathy. Cohen could have also accused Moore of too closely associating with the world he attempted to critique. Gould suggests that as Cohen developed as a theatre critic he would warn against external matters that could affect the honesty of a review:
.. .[A] critic should not work as a writer or director in the theatre.. .since this was "likely to alter the critic's point of view and put him on the side of the play-makers.".. .Cohen also felt that a critic must refuse to associate with performers to avoid paternalistic biases, a principle from which he never veered during his career.81
Perhaps, as Gould suggests, Cohen understood that his thinking in this regard was too rigid. This is especially true when taking into account that some of the critics Cohen personally admired, including Harold Clurman, Stark Young, and Eric Bentley, all directed during their careers.82
This fact, coupled with the knowledge that from a young age Cohen had expressed his own ambition was to write, may partly account for Cohen's decision to offer up a play of his own for the judgement of Canadian audiences in 1953.83 By the time "Blue is for Mourning" was produced on the Jupiter Theatre stage in February 1953
Cohen had identified himself as one of the most prominent theatre critics. In a few short year Cohen rapidly moved from the Toronto based radio program "Across the Footlights" to a national audience as host of "The Theatre Week" and by taking a lead role as drama
/9 Cohen, "Editorial," The Critic, June 1951,2. Moore, Reinventing Myself, 153. 81 Gould, "A Critical Assessment of the Theatre Criticism of Nathan Cohen," 44. 82 Gould, "A Critical Assessment of the Theatre Criticism of Nathan Cohen," 44. 83 "In 1971, Cohen stated about these early experiences: 'I always knew I'd be a writer. Always. Even as a kid, if people asked what I wanted to do, I'd say, 'write','" in Gould "A Critical Assessment of the Theatre Criticism of Nathan Cohen," 30. 47 correspondent on "Critically Speaking". More than that, Cohen had just taking on the role of host for what would become the popular television discussion show Fighting
Words which would eventually solidify his career as one of the most identifiable
Of personalities in the Canadian arts world.
Cohen's journey from Cape Breton to Toronto shows the emergence of a young man with considerable determination and intellectual talent who had strong views on cultural matters and found opportunities to apply them to his chosen field of drama criticism. From his beginnings as the son of an immigrant family in the small, but multi ethnic, industrial community of Whitney Pier, Nova Scotia, Cohen grew up in an environment shaped by the experience of workers and immigrants who confronted the unequal power of their employers and, within difficult circumstances, sought to build unions and other expressions of their class and ethnic identities. This included the use of politics, journalism, arts and culture as tools to create social change. Through university at Mount Allison University and his work as an editor in Glace Bay, and then his freelance work as a writer in Toronto, Cohen developed a distinct voice in matters of economic, political, and social policy.
However, it was through his cultural work, and especially through his reviews of theatre, that he found a way to contribute that suited his commitment to the artistic expression of those principles. By the early 1950s Cohen was an integral part of the
Canadian theatre scene. While at times unwanted, Cohen offered his opinion on developing standards and creating drama that could be categorized as distinctly Canadian.
84 Gould, "A Critical Assessment of the Theatre Criticism of Nathan Cohen," 39. 48 By engaging in debates with other professionals and bringing public attention to matters that concerned the theatre community, Cohen's opinions grew in influence and helped to develop the Canadian theatre of his era. It was one of his beliefs that the Canadian arts community, if it hoped to survive, had to engage the public with material based on the experience of Canadians,which led him to support the founding of the Jupiter Theatre.
Accordingly, at some point in 1952 Cohen delivered his own play, "Blue is for
Mourning", based on his personal experiences in a unique Canadian environment, to the
Jupiter Theatre for production.
Gould, "A Critical Assessment of the Theatre Criticism of Nathan Cohen," 56. 49 Chapter Three
"Blue is for Mourning":
A Play In Three Acts
The history of Jupiter Theatre's production of Nathan Cohen's "Blue is for Mourning" is a tale that unfolds in three acts. In classical theatre the first act of any dramatic structure is called the "protasis", or exposition, in which the details of the characters, the conflict, and world of the play are introduced. While the first two chapters of this report endeavour to do just that, there are final details to add before the curtain rises on the
Jupiter Theatre production of Cohen's play for a Toronto audience in 1953. The second act is called the "epitasis", or complication, and in dramatic theory this is where "the plot thickens." The curtain rises and what does the audience see? Of course, many of the specifics of those moments cannot be answered for this production, but by analyzing the text of the play a picture of what the audience was presented with in "Blue is for
Mourning" can be discerned. Finally, the third act is known as the "catastrophe", or resolution, and in the case of the reception for this play, the "catastrophe" seems entirely appropriate. Contemporary critics as well as recent writers have negatively reviewed or
50 paid little attention to Cohen's play. Cohen the playwright emerges as the tragic protagonist who does not achieve his final objective.
On the ominous opening night of Friday 13 February 1953, awaiting the first performance of his play "Blue is for Mourning" in the Royal Ontario Museum Theatre,
Nathan Cohen, sitting with his wife Gloria, most likely had a mix of feelings ranging from excitement to trepidation. Adjusting his bulky frame into his seat in the small space at the Museum Theatre, Cohen most likely had a sense of unfamiliar discomfort. Theatre had become his life, and he had sat in this theatre before to witness the stories that unfolded on its stage. This was different, as it was his own play up for judgement tonight. Although he had written the play, Cohen had had little to no influence on the production. This had partly been his own wish. As a well-known and difficult theatre critic, he felt that his attendance at rehearsals would only be an interference and unprofessional on his part.1
For the first production of this new Canadian play, Jupiter Theatre had hired the distinguished New York director Jerome Mayer. The day before the opening Herbert
Whittaker, the Globe and Mail entertainment critic, had done a short profile on Mayer to heighten awareness of the play. Cohen might have been already aware and comforted by the fact of Mayer's accomplishments as not only as a director but as writer, translator,
1 Gloria Cohen, quoted in Richard Partington, "The Jupiter Theatre's Canadian Content and the Critics, 1951-1954," Theatre Research in Canada Vol. 18, No.l (1997), http://www.lib.unb.ca (accessed 17 July 2009). Gloria Cohen stated that her husband did not attend rehearsals because he thought it would be unprofessional for him as a theatre critic to interfere. However, a letter from Eric House, a lead actor in the play, to historian David Frank, indicates that Cohen may have been in attendance for at least a few rehearsals to witness director Jerome Mayer mercilessly cutting lines from the script and criticizing the play. It remains uncertain which account is correct or if it is perhaps a mix of the two. Perhaps Cohen, disagreeing with the direction Mayer was taking with the production, felt his input as a critic would be a 51 assistant, and producer on many well-known productions, including an acclaimed production of Andre Obey's Noah?
However, as Cohen adjusted himself in his seat he might have been more wary of the actor who had accompanied Mayer from New York, Donald McKee. As a lead in a successful touring production of Her Charming Conscience, McKee had traveled across the country and was well-liked by Canadian audiences, and his presence on the bill was used as a way to promote the production. At least one ad in the Globe and Mail made use of McKee's name as a centrepiece in promoting the play.3 Nonetheless, Cohen was unsure of McKee's casting because he had written his play with a certain actor in mind to play the role of Angus "Blue" McGregor and could not reconcile himself to another actor in the part.4
Despite this misgiving, Cohen must have been impressed that the Jupiter Theatre was giving his production a professional treatment. Many of the names that appear in the program were already familiar to Cohen as a Toronto theatre critic. Douglas Master, as
Sharkey, had just played a role in the previous season of Jupiter Theatre's production of
Socrates, a new Canadian play by Lister Sinclair. Doris Gill, playing the part of Emma
Baker, had recently finished a critically acclaimed role in Jupiter Theatre's production of
Christopher Fry's The Lady is Not for Burning.5 Actor Eric House had also stepped
greater detriment to the production and removed himself from rehearsals after that point. 2 Herbert Whittaker, "Show Business," The Globe and Mail, 12 Februaryl953, Entertainment section. 3 The Globe and Mail, 1 February 1953, Entertainment Section. The ad for the play places only Donald McKee name in bold typeface. This image in reproduced in the front matter for this report. 4 Gloria Cohen, quoted in Richard Partington, "The Jupiter Theatre's Canadian Content and the Critics, 1951-1954." 5 "Blue is for Mourning" program. Jupiter Theatre Incorporated. February 13-28, 1953.; Kotyshyn, "Jupiter Theatre Inc., 1951-1954," 71. 52 directly out of a role in the same play only a month before performing in "Blue is for
Mourning", but no apprehension arose over his ability to take on two roles in such a short space of time because he and fellow actor Jane Graham had recently come from working with The Canadian Repertory Theatre in Ottawa.6 The company prided itself on staging a new play every week, which meant rehearsing one play all day and performing another at night. Working under this rigorous schedule meant both House and Graham were able to put a lot of experience into their roles as Walsh and Cora respectively. Finally,
Cosette Lee in the role of Molly Harris was a veteran Canadian actress with two decades of work starting with lead roles in the earliest radio dramas produced in the country to work with American travelling companies that played across Canada and to packed houses such as the Royal Alexandra Hall.8 There was yet another veteran contributing to the production who must have put Cohen further at ease in his seat as he waited for the curtains to rise.
Sydney Newman created the set design for Nathan Cohen's play. While Newman had started out as a set designer in Toronto and was much remembered for his work there, he had not completed a set for the stage in over a decade, having gone to work as an editor and producer at the National Film Board.9 However, Jupiter Theatre executives
Glen Frankfurter and Len Peterson were eager to hire him for his expertise. While it seems that Newman recalls taking on the assignment with a certain light-heartedness, saying "I thought I'd take a crack at it just for the laughs...", it cannot be doubted that he
6 "Blue is for Mourning" program. Jupiter Theatre Incorporated. February 13-28, 1953. 7 Wyndham Wise, "Eric House," The Canadian Encyclopaedia, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com (accessed July 17, 2009). 53 was not only committed to his task but to the cause of the Jupiter Theatre. Newman is perhaps one of the most famous names linked to Cohen's production. After finishing his work for "Blue is for Mourning" Newman would go on to have an acclaimed career for his pioneering work in creating popular British television dramas of the late 1950s and
1960s. While he initiated the fantasy series The Avengers and Doctor Who he was also responsible for overseeing the production of groundbreaking social realist drama for the
Armchair Theatre series. This was the kind of work he took the most personal satisfaction in, and Cohen no doubt agreed with Newman's desire to create a theatre that featured working people among its protagonists: "I am proud that I played some part in the recognition that the working man was a fit subject for drama, and not just a comic foil in middle-class manners."10
Knowing this background, it is plausible to think of Cohen perhaps taking hold of his wife's hand in anticipation as the lights dimmed and the curtains parted and giving a satisfied smile on getting a first look at his play. The set that greeted him was an impressive one for the small twenty by twenty foot box space of the Museum Theatre stage. Newman recalls that the Jupiter had never "had a set that was a[s] complicated as the one I did for.. .the Nathan Cohen script.. .1 built an entire house, sawed in half, so that you had a downstairs and an upstairs and different playing areas. And the actors had to get upstairs and down."11 Theatre critic Malcolm MacKinnon would later agree, noting:
Sydney Newman's fine naturalistic setting captures all the tawdry
8 "Blue is for Mourning" program. Jupiter Theatre Incorporated. February 13-28, 1953. 9 "Blue is for Mourning" program. Jupiter Theatre Incorporated. February 13-28, 1953. 10 "Sydney Newman," Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com (accessed 17 July 2009). 11 Sydney Newman, quoted in Kotyshyn, "Jupiter Theatre Inc., 1951-1954," 75. 54 familiarity of a Canadian living room. The painted wallpaper, the meticulous details of the furnishing and the varied divisions of the acting area establish this as the finest set yet seen at the Museum.12
As the stage lights brightened, the stage was set for the first production of "Blue is for
Mourning". The story of Nathan Cohen's first, and last, play was just beginning as
Cohen watched the tale unfold.
"Blue is for Mourning" is centred on a workers' strike in his native Cape Breton.
It is not specifically about coal miners or steelworkers but deals with many of the social issues arising in labour conflicts of the times. In his short biographical note written in third person for inclusion in the program, Cohen highlights his life in ways that are reminiscent of the play's themes. He talks about his work as a journalist and mentions his work as editor of the labour-owned Glace Bay Gazette. After mentioning his time studying law at Osgoode Hall, he minimizes the impact of this formal education with a line about his varied work experience: "During his student days he worked for a time as a rigger in a steel plant and as a barker with a touring carnival."13 However, as Cohen moves to the topic of his play he does not attempt to introduce the audience to the themes of the play. Instead he believes "a play should speak for itself and volunteers no comment about what will be presented except to emphasise one point. Cohen wants the spectators to know that his play is undoubtedly Canadian: ".. .he has attempted to place his characters and incidents in a genuinely Canadian environment."14 There is no other information to give away the plot, setting or theme of the play in the program; this is all
12 Malcolm MacKinnon, "Blue is for Nathan," The Varsity, 16 February 1953. 13 "Blue is for Mourning" program. Jupiter Theatre Incorporated. February 13-28, 1953. 14 "Blue is for Mourning" program. Jupiter Theatre Incorporated. February 13-28, 1953. 55 the information the audience is offered, and as they sit in anticipation of what they will see, two characters descend the stairs of Newman's set and attempt to draw the audience into their world.
"Blue is for Mourning" is a play that begins at the end. The first scene opens as two newspapermen from Toronto are searching the empty Baker household looking for individuals to interview for their latest story. The curtains are drawn and the house is clearly in mourning for the death of union leader Jesse Baker, which the newspapermen,
Walsh and Sharkey, had been present for three weeks earlier. The grieving grandfather
Angus "Blue" McGregor returns home with his neighbour, Molly Harris, and demands the two men leave. The scene ends as Blue is left alone to mourn the loss of his grandson. The rest of the play, excluding the last scene, which is a continuation of the first, takes place as a flashback to approximately three weeks earlier when Baker was still alive. The events in the life of Jesse Baker, recounted by the reporters and discussed by his family, push along the plot of the play from his work with the union, to his arrest by the uncompromising owner of the plant, to his night in jail and his release the next morning when Jesse is hit by a wayward rock thrown mistakenly by a fellow union member and his eventual death at home from the head injury. Throughout the play Baker never appears on stage, and instead Cohen has placed principal attention on the domestic life of Baker's family during this time.
This inside look at the family is not without dramatic entanglements of its own.
One of the first relationships introduced to the audience is the bitter feud that has developed between Jesse's mother, Emma, and her father, Blue, who abandoned his daughter as a young girl only to return in old age looking for support. An egotistical and self-righteous old man, Blue is most persistent in his arguments with his daughter when they involve Emma's opinion that her daughter, Cora, should not date a boy because he is
Protestant and not Catholic. Cora is too caught up in the drama of her own life, including later being wooed by the reporter Walsh, to care about her brother's work for the strike and leaves the union office work up to Jesse's pregnant English wife, Sarah. Another character who adds colour and comedy to the play is the Bakers' neighbour and wife of the local bootlegger, Molly Harris, who claims to have the supernatural gift to tell the future and has an amusing scene with Emma when both women polish off a bottle of gin under the guise that the alcohol is good "medicine" for their arthritis. Looking closely at some of these character relationships, it is clear that Cohen meant them as a complex commentary on his own society and the ingrown contradictions of living in a working class culture.
In writing his play Cohen was at least partly inspired by the work of American playwright Clifford Odets. As a young man during the Depression, Odets became famous as a playwright who dealt with the social and political issues of his day. His first produced, and perhaps most widely known, play was the 1935 short play Waiting for
Lefty. Framed by the meeting of cab drivers who are planning a labour strike and based on a real strike which happened in New York City in 1934, the play consists of a series of related vignettes and ends with the reported death of the union leader Lefty, who never appears on stage. In this aspect alone it shares many similarities to "Blue is for
Mourning". Furthermore, Cohen's artistic debt to Odets is dramatized by Rick Salutin in
57 his play "Nathan Cohen: A Review":
COHEN: Reflecting bitterly on that part of his life. People with politics! They think they've got the whole world in a nutshell- society, culture. Except they don't know what they're taking about! Turning in another direction. Not that art is so easy. It's fine to know what you want to say- that a man is noble or his cause will triumph. But you can't just expound a viewpoint at an audience. Not that politics in the theatre has to do damage, or that clear views need to be out of place in the arts-1 don't think. It should be possible.
ODETS: Shh.
COHEN: And you did it! The one playwright of the 30s who combined a social conscience with the things that make drama the stuff of poetry. He rises, enthused, and moves over to join one of his idols. Awake and Sing, Waiting for Lefty, Golden Boy- racy, rhythmic, intimate words. Wistful, passionate care for people. And a sense of class, and progress. Mr. Odets, what an honour-15
Using the Odets technique of keeping a supposed main character off-stage, Cohen is forcing the audience away from the obvious dramatic hero and making them acknowledge the importance of the more realistic characters in the play.
Cohen created a challenge for himself in using this concept by the relationships he created between the characters. In Waiting for Lefty the characters have only tenuous connections to the absent strike leader, while Cohen's cast are predominantly family members who are intimately and strongly linked to Baker. However, Cohen is successful in creating the same detached relationship between Baker and his family as Odets did between Lefty and his other characters. The unique, disconnected bond is established by consistently situating Baker as a leader, not only in the strike but among his family. The usual rules of interaction between mother and son or elder and younger are clearly
15 Rick Salutin, "Nathan Cohen: A Review," Canadian Theatre Review (Spring 1981): 97. 58 twisted as Baker becomes the absent arbitrator in disputes. For example, when arguing amongst themselves Emma and Blue constantly invoke Baker's name as if he is the ultimate paternal, judge-like figure: " I won't have it. I'll tell Jesse", "I'm going to tell
Jesse. He'll know what to do with you", "I'll have a talk with Jesse about it first", "Wait till Jesse hears about this.. ."'6 Furthermore, none of the characters, including Blue, who is employed by Cohen to tell stories about his encounters with his grandson, and Walsh, who changes the course of his life after a brief encounter with him, ever help to define an individual personality for Baker, but rather hold him up as an ideal figure. Jesse is not a character in the play but a name put on a concept. In the same way that Waiting for Lefty is in no way assumed to be a portrait of a man named Lefty, "Blue is for Mourning" is not meant to focus on the absent strike leader but on the complex relationships of those who do inhabit the world of the play.
Similarly, in the way that there is no stress on any individual character over the other in the Odets play, Cohen creates a story where all his characters work together to create a portrait of the time. Each character provides a little piece of how Cohen viewed the world. Despite Blue being the title character, Cohen does not leave the message of the play in his hands. While loveable in his absent-minded storytelling, Blue is also a spying, long-winded, glory-seeking character. Having abandoned his wife and young daughter in his early years to travel around the world seeking out adventures and bed companions, Blue McGregor has returned to his grown daughter and sought shelter and
16 Nathan Cohen, "Blue is for Mourning." Toronto Reference Library, II-9,11-13, III-7,111-16. These examples are only a few of the references where Jesse is portrayed as the great authority on all matters from union work to the petty squabbles within his own family. 59 food under her roof. While filled with experiences, Blue seems to have no value system but haphazardly adopts those of people around him without fully understanding them. In the present case he has developed a great respect for his union leader and war veteran grandson. So, if Jesse is to represent the pure ideal of a Canadian trade union and socialist hero of the postwar world, Blue wants to be credited with the shrewdness to embrace the same concepts inasmuch as this would bring him personal glory. For example, during the play Blue is attempting to write the story of his life and interprets his role in his grandson's actions to wrongly venerate himself:
MCGREGOR: Now then, the strike is over... Lambert's given in and the men have their increase, and the start of an old age pension in the bargain... and they're giving Jesse a cheer. That's only natural, for he's their leader. But suddenly he calls for quiet, and turns to me, and shakes my hand and says, "Blue, we owe it all to you. We could never have won this strike if you hadn't enlightened me on the nature of the class struggle. Let me shake your hand, Blue, for teaching me how to help in the overthrow of the oppressing class"... .It's the truth, isn't it? Wasn't I the one who made him see the light.
CORA: No, you know darned well you weren't.
MCGREGOR: All right, so he had some ideas of his own. But I encouraged him, you can't deny that. I told him he was on the right track, didn't I?17
So, just as his exaggerated stories should not be taken at face value, even if there are grains of truth in them, neither should his overly zealous propaganda be taken as a reflection of his grandson's actual opinions or the theme of the play.
In fact, McGregor is challenged continuously about the hypocrisy of his views throughout the play from various directions. The strongest critic of his actions is his
17 Cohen, "Blue is for Mourning," III-9-10. 60 daughter and caretaker Emma Baker, mother of Jesse. Raised by a single mother in difficult times, Emma clings to her religion, old traditions, and superstitions to give her life meaning and balance. Emma represents those individuals who abide by societal convention and are wary of embracing change for fear of proving their past ideals illegitimate. Emma comes into conflict with her daughter, Cora, throughout the play because she directly challenges Emma's traditional values. Emma believes that Cora should not continue to date a Protestant because it is improper for people of two different religious backgrounds to mix: "But this! Why, you might as well go out with a —
1 X Jew!" Blue interrupts this argument to defend Cora and chastise Emma: Damn it to high heaven, Emma, Jesse fought a war to rid the world of ideas like that. And he comes home to find his mother as bad as any German. You don't listen to her, Cora. Go out with anyone you want.19
The animosity between the two is strong due to the fact that McGregor has never apologized for abandoning Emma as a child. As the argument continues it is clear Blue is neither able to confront his personal demons or defend his newly adopted political convictions:
MRS.BAKER: (Tearfully) Oh, let him rave. I'm used to it. What does it matter. (To MCGREGOR) You're a fine one to reproach me. You seem to forget that when I was a baby, not even a year old, you left mother and me. Left us, and didn't come back until a few months before Sam died— and me, a married woman with two young children on my hands and a sick husband. But that didn't matter to me. I knew my Catholic duty. I took you in and not one word of rebuke passed my lips. Not one. And what thanks did I get for it from you? All you've done in return is humiliate me and try to poison my children against me. You're a fine one to criticize my behaviour—you!
Cohen, "Blue is for Mourning," II-8. 19 Cohen, "Blue is for Mourning," 11-11. 61 MCGREGOR: There you go again—confusing the issue. I'm talking about the class struggle—and you drag in personalities.20
Even though Blue entered the argument in a show of support for Cora, she has little patience for him. Like her mother, Cora does not understand how Blue can support her brother's desire to strike. While Emma rejects her son's actions based on her views on traditional ownership - "It's not a laughing matter. When a man can't even go to his own property—well!"21 - Cora challenges both her brother's ideals and motives. Near the climax of the play Blue is trying to explain to Cora why her brother is respected by the workers but Cora challenges this assessment with her own interpretation:
MCGREGOR: (Earnestly) Individual integrity, that's why. They found out that Jesse is a man of principles- of ideals. (He sits down on the chesterfield) Of course, that's not the only reason. Wouldn't make sense if it were. Jesse's a good organizer- and he knows how to put it up to the men what they're fighting for. Know what I mean? He plucks the ideas that are in their minds and explains those ideas to them- what they mean, what can be done about them. All the same, none of that would amount to a tinker's damn if they thought for a minute he wasn't really one of them, or that he was in it for his own well and good. Damned right, it's integrity. That's the big thing.
CORA: Don't feed me any hogwash. Suppose Jesse is doing his job well- just supposing. That doesn't prove a thing about him. What you seem to forget is that it's a trade.
MCGREGOR: No, no.
CORA: A trade... a job. And Jesse works hard at it. But that's all. All right, so he's entitled to credit for it. Only don't dress it up and make something strange and noble out of what he's doing. Integrity- baloney! It's the pay check that inspires Jesse.22
Baker's opinion is also shared by the cynical newspaperman Sharkey, who believes the
Cohen, "Blue is for Mourning," 11-12. 21 Cohen, "Blue is for Mourning," III-7. 62 union leader is in it only for monetary gain and is not sincere in his convictions. Both
Cora and Sharkey share a similar outlook, as they are both not so much committed to the capitalist system as they believe there is no viable alternative either because the present system is too strong or alternatives are just as corrupt. Sharkey insists that he's heard arguments like Baker's before but nothing has come of it:
SHARKEY: He really dished it out smooth, didn't he? "Economic equality. Fair distribution of the wealth. Charity for welfare is in the national interest. As long as prices go up, wages must, too. Planned use of the natural resources." Know why I didn't take any notes when we talked to him this afternoon? Because I knew in advance every word he was going to say. I can recite it from memory.
Another reason for both Baker and Cora being non-committal on the social issues of the play is because they identify their personal interests as a higher priority. Cora is willing to lose her job because she lost a boyfriend, and Sharkey continues reporting only because it brings in a steady pay check.
Sharkey's snide commentary on Jesse, however, is tempered by the sincere character of Tom Walsh, a junior reporter who joins Sharkey in Cape Breton to write about the strike. Walsh turns out to be the "hero" of the play. While characters such as
Sharkey and Cora are too concerned with their immediate personal problems to appreciate the wider meaning of Jesse's work, and Blue has only attached himself to the idea because he believes it will give him another adventure to write about in the autobiographical radio play he's working on titled "The Last of the Pioneers", Walsh is
Cohen, "Blue is for Mourning," 111-21. Cohen, "Blue is for Mourning," II- 25 63 looking for greater fulfilment in life. Walsh is introduced at the beginning of the play as a man conflicted. He has finally attained his dream of being a full-fledged reporter, but he is haunted by the story of Jesse Baker. Throughout the play he is on the outside of the action but comes into clear focus when talking about how his jail cell encounter with
Baker changed him. He is present at the climax of the play as the union leader dies, and listens as a background character as the news is delivered and the family grieves around him.
Although perhaps a minor character, Walsh is the individual to watch because his character makes the only full transition in the play. While all the other characters remain static, Walsh undergoes a personal change. At the end of the play he confronts Blue and
Cora with his plans to quit his dream job and continue Jesse's work in Cape Breton.
Searching for meaning in life in a growing capitalist system where personal commitment was being sacrificed for conformity, Cohen created in Walsh a character who represents the struggle many Canadians were having in the post-war era. In the end it is the meek, mild-mannered reporter who carries the message of the play. He even "gets the girl", so his victory cannot be denied.
However, let us not forget that Cohen sardonically subtitled his play "A Comedy of Inaction". Cohen sharply deviates from the Waiting for Lefty structure in order to create a form of socially relevant theatre that could work in a post-war Canadian environment. While Cohen may have agreed with the basic concepts expounded by writers like Odets, there are significant differences between the agitprop Communist
Cohen, "Blue is for Mourning," III-5. 64 theatre of the Depression Era and what had come to be accepted in the post-war era.
Waiting for Lefty strictly followed a type of social realist literary ideal which called for the characters, by the play's end, to engage in a revolution against the elites and struggle for a workers' paradise.25 Accordingly, Odets's play ends with a rousing call to strike which even promotes audience involvement. However, many artists in this period were dubious of advocating such revolutionary endings. In the United States playwrights such as Arthur Miller were attempting to create a more naturalistic drama, epitomized by plays such as All My Sons and Death of a Salesman. Cohen was inspired by this work in
American drama and in looking on the Canadian scene he would comment:
.. .while Canadian literature of the 1940s... is dominantly concerned with the realistic depiction of economic injustices most authors have little awareness of the cause of these injustices or of the role of the working class in bringing about redress.26
This kind of commentary left Canadian writers with a conundrum which is clearly seen in the work of writer Len Peterson. Actor John Drainie commented that:
His [Peterson's] protagonists have a socialist vision of equality, justice, peace, plenty, and tolerance which is worth striving for; but that constant striving, in a world that continues to be blind, intolerant, just and violent, eventually destroys his heroes, leaving them isolated, embittered, in many cases insane.27
This same commentary could hold true for Cohen's assessment of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman:
Finally, the play from start to finish is enveloped in a miasma of self-pity, and maudlin resignation, or futility, about the present state and future
James Doyle, Progressive Heritage: The Evolution of a Politically Radical Literary Tradition in Canada. (Waterloo, Ont: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2002) 97. Doyle, Progressive Heritage, 183. Drainie, Living the Part, 86. 65 prospect of the human race.
Cohen attempted to fix this problem in his own play. Odets's kind of rousing ending would not work for Cohen's contemporary Canada because the Depression era sentiment was less relevant and Miller's style was too lost in despair to make the play an effective tool for current social commentary. Instead, Cohen tried to create a dramatic story of personal and dramatic conflicts, related to the growing support for unions during this period in Canadian history and designed to provide an ending filled with hope and seriousness courtesy of a final ambiguous conclusion. Walsh ends up at the Baker household in the final scene prepared to give up his job as a reporter for one in manual labour as a truck driver. The transition seems like a step down even if Walsh does have a budding romance with Cora to accompany his political conversion. In giving the audience the reassurance that Walsh is striving for a goal beyond himself, Cohen has created a Utopian space in his play ~ but one that retreated into the distance and was only apparent as a long-term commitment and not an immediate gratification to the audience at the play's end. This was a courageous attempt by Cohen to bring the concepts of social relevance into a modern context he hoped his audience would appreciate.
In the week following the opening night of "Blue is for Mourning" the board members of the Jupiter Theatre gathered around the radio at founding member John
Drainie's house. Cohen's play was about to be reviewed by Lister Sinclair on the CBC
Radio show "Critically Speaking". Sinclair, who would later go on to host television's
The Nature of Things and radio's Ideas, is remembered as a courtly gentleman; however,
Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 201. 66 his infamous review of "Blue is for Mourning" might have been a little out of character for his polite style:
Nathan Cohen has announced that his new play, Blue is for Mourning, which opened this week at Jupiter Theatre in Toronto, is to be the first of a trilogy. Let us hope he will reconsider this terrible threat.29
What was the group's reaction to this biting criticism? Bronwyn Drainie remembers that
"[t]he Jupiter board members were rolling on my parents' living-room floor, laughing themselves silly."30
Besides this radio criticism there were three other contemporary reviews of the play, one by Herbert Whittaker in The Globe and Mail, another by John Karr in The
Toronto Star and the final one by Malcolm MacKinnon in The Varsity, and the general opinion of all these reviews was that "Blue is for Mourning" was a disaster. However, there are several reasons why they took this opinion, and the first and most obvious reason is explained by Bronwyn Drainie:
This was Nathan Cohen's own attempt to create a truly Canadian play, and after his merciless criticism of others, the entire community of Toronto actors, writers and directors were lying in wait for it.
Certainly that was the idea behind choosing Sinclair to review the play. "Critically
Speaking" was Cohen's own theatrical commentary show at the time, and the show's producer thought it would be a good idea to give the privilege to Sinclair, who was a frequent "victim" of Cohen's criticisms.
Another critic who carried the same sentiment in his review was MacKinnon
29 Drainie, Living the Part, 163. There was no original recording or text of the review, and the only source for the quotation and following comments is John Drainie's recollection of the broadcast. 30Drainie, Living the Part, 163. 67 who started off with "[Blue is for Mourning] is a forceful demonstration of an old
Canadian proverb: critics who throw stones should not write plays" and ends with this parting shot:
[I]f you happen to have a grudge against Cohen I suggest you hurry to the Museum before Jupiter decides to wipe this blot from a hitherto unstained escutcheon.33
And if anyone was unsure if the review was meant as a personal attack on Cohen himself
MacKinnon easily clears up any misunderstanding by titling his article "Blue is for
Nathan".34
Karr of the Toronto Star not only harshly criticized the play but did so in a mocking way, according to Wayne Edmonstone, who suggested that "Karr summoned up an almost Cohen-like tone... 'seldom, it seems to us, has any play worked so hard to make a point, only to discover, at the final curtain, that there was actually very little point to be made in the first place.'"35 Whittaker, with his flair for gossip, could not help pointing out the difficulty Cohen would face because of his reputation:
It is a courageous critic who writes a play, but nobody has ever accused Nathan Cohen of lacking courage. This quality will stand him in good stead in the next few weeks as actors, writers and members of the general public button-hole him to explain what is wrong with Blue is For Mourning, which opened at the Museum Theatre last night.36
Whittaker was correct it seems that some reviewers, such as Lister Sinclair, might have
31 Drainie, Living the Part, 162-3. 32 Drainie, Living the Part, 163. 33 Malcolm MacKinnon, "Blue is for Nathan," The Varsity, 16 February 1953. 34 MacKinnon, "Blue is for Nathan." 35 John Karr, quoted in Wayne Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen: The Making of a Critic. (Toronto: Lester and Orpen Limited, 1977), 106. 35 Herbert Whittaker, "Study of Cape Breton Life Not Quite a Dramatic Entity," The Globe and Mail, 14 February 1953. 68 taken the time to review "Blue is for Mourning" as a chance to exact a more personal revenge. Cohen's status as an exacting theatrical commentator would seem to have been a detriment to the general acceptance of any dramatic entity he could have created.
However, there were legitimate criticisms of the new play. Writing for The Globe and Mail, Whittaker seems to have been the most balanced critic, giving the play both praise and constructive criticism but maintaining that even if it would be the natural inclination of anyone in the theatre community to want to criticize Cohen they had fair reason to do so in this case because "there is something wrong with Blue is For
Mourning, which for all its sincerity, its truth of background, its nice balance between humor and seriousness, makes it difficult to accept as a dramatic entity."37
The most obvious weakness in Cohen's play appears in his ending. As a first time playwright Cohen's desire to solve serious literary problems meant that his own drama suffered from his inexperience. In deviating from the Odets template by trying to create an optimistic but non-revolutionary ending, Cohen felt it best to offer the audience the promise of romance between the characters of Walsh and Cora. However, Cohen created such an inadequate build-up for this conclusion that most of the set-up for the romance happens in the final scene. At the same time Walsh still had to reveal his ambitions for the future to the audience. This created both a relatively trite plot development and a tedious long epilogue which cut down the dramatic impact of the previous scene where
Baker's death was revealed. Perhaps all this action could have been accomplished if
Cohen, as Whittaker points out, had not "allowed the main line of his action to become
Whittaker, "Study of Cape Breton Life Not Quite a Dramatic Entity." 69 cluttered with odd devices - a flood in the cellar, the newspaperman's peculiar trick of leaving his wallet behind, the fortune-telling of the neighbor, etc."38 If this had been accomplished in a skilful rewrite, Cohen's play might have more powerfully projected the messages he was trying to send and not seemed, as it did to critics Karr and
MacKinnon, a rambling, poorly focused tale in which the characters simply shuffled into position for a dreaded sequel.39
The blame for the abysmal reception of "Blue is for Mourning" cannot be placed completely on Cohen's shoulders, however. While brought in to add not only prestige but overall guidance, experience, and talent to the production, the two New York imports, lead actor Donald McKee and director Jerome Mayer, appear to have been a detriment to the production. According to Cohen's wife Gloria, McKee was not the actor for whom
Cohen had written the part of Blue. While she could not recall which actor her husband had envisioned in the role, she clearly remembers that during opening night neither she nor her husband was fond of his portrayal.40 The opinions of the critics were quite similar. While dominating his scenes by playing up the rakish quips of Cohen's character, Whitaker observed, "never did one feel he had a grip of the situation in hand" or the underlying complexities of the character.41 Whittaker attributed this partly to the lack of skill shown by the director:
I do not think Jerome Mayer has served this play too well in his direction for Jupiter Theatre. The director of a brand new play can be a most helpful collaborator, slicing off a bit of extraneous argument at one point,
38 Whittaker, "Study of Cape Breton Life Not Quite a Dramatic Entity." 39 MacKinnon, "Blue is for Nathan" ; John Karr, quoted in Kotyshyn, "Jupiter Theatre Inc., 1951-1954," 73. 40 Partington, "The Jupiter Theatre's Canadian Content and the Critics, 1951-1954." 41 Whittaker, "Study of Cape Breton Life Not Quite a Dramatic Entity." 70 cutting out a cliche at another. Mr Mayer rather supplied the play with an overall restlessness of emphasis as of physical movement.42
Or as The Varsity critic MacKinnon best puts it:
After reading the play he [Mayer] wisely decided that it would be a waste of time to ask the actors to learn their lines and instead drilled them in an intricate routine of changing chairs and lighting cigarettes.43
Even actors in the play commented on Mayer's lack of not only enthusiasm but respect for the play. Actor Eric House, who played the character of Walsh and received mostly favourable reviews for adding purpose and sincerity to his role, was dismayed at the production "Blue is for Mourning" received.44 Some years later, in correspondence addressing the question of why the play had failed to succeed, House recalls:
Nathan's play was, I have always felt, better than the production it was given here. Those were early days when we thought that all good things came only from London or New York and consequently Jupiter Theatre brought in a New York director to do the play despite the fact that it was quite obvious the man had never heard of Cape Breton. He patronized the play and us in it. Whenever he didn't understand a reference or a colloquialism, he simply cut it. 45
House hits on another important point in discussing the response to the play that travels beyond the inadequacies of the director. Was the Cape Breton setting incomprehensible to the New York director, too hard for the urban Toronto theatre audiences to relate to? At first glance this idea seems unfounded since in its third season
Jupiter Theatre successfully produced Lister Sinclair's The Blood is Strong, which had a
19* century rural Cape Breton setting. However, in comparing these Cape Breton-set
Whittaker, "Study of Cape Breton Life Not Quite a Dramatic Entity." MacKinnon, "Blue is for Nathan." Whittaker, "Study of Cape Breton Life Not Quite a Dramatic Entity." Eric House to David Frank, 23 June 1977. Copy in author's possession. 71 plays which garnered such contrasting reactions from audiences, Cohen's play may have suffered in comparison.
In a study of the Canadian plays produced by the Jupiter Theatre, Richard
Partington proposes his reasons why Sinclair's play was the more successful:
I will venture to say that it is this theme of the immigrant which also makes The Blood is Strong the most quintessentially Canadian play of Jupiter's output.. .Blue is for Mourning, while thoroughly imbued with the spirit of its Cape Bretoners, looks outward to more international, socialist concerns. The issues of immigration and homeland permeate the history of Canada— indeed they continue today in the melting pot/multiculturalism controversy, for example—as they permeate The Blood is Strong.
Partington's explanation is inadequate for two reasons. By suggesting that the socialist concerns that run through Cohen's play are not Canadian-specific is to ignore the long history of socialist policy and controversy evident in Canada, especially in the decade before the production of "Blue is for Mourning", when Canada experienced a significant level of labour unrest and relatively high level of votes for parties on the left. However, by 1953 Canada, like most of North America, was deep in the early years of the Cold
War. Rather than his earlier plays that explored the darker sides of American capitalism,
Arthur Miller was now preparing to stage The Crucible, his play about the witchcraft trials of the 17 century, interpreted as a commentary on the contemporary "red scare".
While a mainstream Toronto audience might have been wary of a play that was sympathetic to labour and socialist causes, it is also possible that audiences were more sympathetic to a play, like Sinclair's, that depicted Cape Breton as a site of an anti- modern, pre-industrial society free of social conflict. However, "Blue is for Mourning"
72 represented the Cape Breton history Nathan Cohen grew up with. Founded in a long history of coal and steel industries, the island had a thoroughly modern industrial culture but these representations could be more difficult for some audiences to accept than the image of the "Folk" as non-literate Scottish inhabitants who created gregarious poetry of the primeval horde or "collective soul" which lived on only in their community through oral tradition.47
Perhaps the most interesting ending to the story of "Blue is for Mourning" is
Cohen's reaction to all the negative criticism. Eric House was surprised by what Cohen did:
What amazed me was that Nathan sat there and let him do it without so much as a peep of protest! Nathan as you probably know, had by this time established a reputation as a harsh, even cruel, and unforgiving critic and he showed considerable temerity in presenting a work of his own at that time and in that place.48
It will remain a mystery why Cohen, throughout the rest of his career, never commented publicly on the failure of his play. What was meant to be a trilogy of plays about a- uniquely Canadian set of characters was cut short at one production. Cohen never attempted to write another play. Unlike his critics, he held no personal ill will towards them or their future work in Canadian theatre. Sinclair, who had offered him one of the sharpest personal cuts, later received positive reviews for The Blood is Strong from the supposed ruthless critic.
In the first act of its story "Blue is for Mourning" was a play that started off with
46 Partington, "The Jupiter Theatre's Canadian Content and the Critics, 1951-1954." 47 Ian McKay, The Quest of the Folk: Antimodernism and Cultural Selection in Twentieth-Century Nova Scotia. (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1994), 20-1. 73 much promise. Not only did it represent a bold attempt at an original Canadian play at a time where there were very few to be found, but it was written by an individual whose knowledge of the theatre in his country was unparalleled. The second act of this tale started off in much the same way. The play itself conveyss many strong ideas on the state of Canadian society, and they are subtly presented so as to linger on in the audience's mind long after the final curtain. There is also great ambition to be found in a playwright who attempts with his very first play to correct the problems of a genre.
However, the plot begins to thicken and the promise deteriorates as Cohen awaits the first reviews of his play. Due to his reputation for harshness Cohen's play was not fully appreciated. The literary faults apparent in any first ambitious work were deftly pointed out by critics. Cohen's career as a future playwright was further crushed by the mishandling of the script by the lead actor and director who were imported from New
York to work on a play with a setting they did not understand. Finally, because trials seem to come in threes, Toronto audiences may have been even less forgiving than the director when presented with a working-class play that directly contradicted their widespread assumptions about an anti-modernist Maritime culture. For all these reasons
"Blue is for Mourning" has remained then and since on the shelf. The condition of the script is flawed, the words blurring and fading almost past recognition. Nevertheless, it remains there ready to be picked off the shelves and examined. Nathan Cohen's greatest legacy to national theatre may be his contribution to criticism and his ability to bring
Canada to new levels of excellence in theatre through his comments. However, as the
48 Eric House to David Frank, 23 June 1977. Copy in author's possession. 74 tragic hero of this story, through the failure of his play "Blue is for Mourning" Cohen has also offered a small slice of insight into the growth of Canadian theatre in the post-war era that should not be overlooked.
75 Epilogue
Cohen was a phenomenon with no precedent. Here was a man drunk with allegiance to culture. He approached the subject of art not as a polite pastime for Sunday afternoon pleasure. He was bound to cause trouble and he did. He was working in a setting hostile toward him which questioned the need of forthright criticism. Here was the perfect Biblical role. And Nathan had the form and vitality of an Old Testament prophet.1
In many ways, Nathan Cohen became the critic to lead his country out of the desert of pre-war Canadian theatre to the promised land of proud nationalistic, socially relevant, and professional art. Cohen not only invoked this image but even cultivated the image of himself as a prophet-like figure in his lifetime, explaining to one friend that the role of a critic was as "a shepherd; he has to drive the sheep in the right way."2 Despite the unsuccessful reception of his play, Cohen never wavered in his chosen role or in the standards with which he would "tend to his flock". However, it would be incorrect to suggest that failure of "Blue is for Mourning" did not affect Cohen. Not only would his past affiliations to the Communist Party, a fact that comes through in the themes of his play, affect his future path in the theatre community, but the failure of "Blue is for
1 Willam Krehm, quoted in Allan Gould, "Homage to Cohen: Nathan Cohen Remembered," Allan Gould Website, http://www.allangould.com (accessed 17 July 2009). 76 Mourning" to find a receptive audience would also have an effect on Cohen's outlook and influence the way in which Cohen shaped theatre through his criticism. Hence, despite its absolute, and in many cases forgettable, failure in the eyes of his contemporaries, Cohen's play not only helps define a turbulent time but plays a role in the course of events.
Cohen's professional career following the production of "Blue is for Mourning" took a dramatic decline. Cohen was removed from the short-list of individuals considered for the position of the new theatre critic for The New York Times because of his former ties to the Communist Party.3 Furthermore, after an episode of Fighting Words in 1954, in which panelist Gordon Sinclair attacked the Canadian flag, was mentioned in
Parliament, RCMP officers questioned Cohen's neighbours about his political affiliations. While Cohen was no longer a member of the party at this time, this incident led to Cohen's brief blacklisting, at which time he unsuccessfully tried to find work in
England. It was only due to a successful letter writing campaign by the audience, instigated by the producer of Fighting Words Cliff Soloway, that Cohen was able to return as the chairman of the program within the year.5 In later years, when encountering a co-worker recently back from Cuba he would remark ".. .just back from Cuba I see.
Another disillusioned socialist, eh? Well, don't worry m'boy.. .We've all been through it.. ."6 Cohen had certainly been hurt by his early associations, but his return to the
Canadian theatre scene was triumphant.
2 Gould, "A Critical Assessment of the Theatre Criticism of Nathan Cohen," 41. 3 Len Scher, The Un-Canadians: True Stories of the Blacklist Era (Toronto: Lester, 1992), 57,58,60. 4 Gould, "Homage to Cohen." 77 On 6 December 1958 in a development that can only be marked as a kind of poetic justice, Cohen became the lead drama critic and entertainment editor for the
Toronto Star, a contract which included a travel bonus to finance theatre trips across
Canada and to New York and Europe, ousting former critic Jack Karr from the position.
The transition happened so quickly that Karr, who had mercilessly reviewed "Blue is for
Mourning", learned of his replacement not through official channels but on an elevator ride at work.7 From his position at the Star Cohen continued to enforce his critical standards and attitudes despite the gruelling deadlines of working on a daily newspaper.8
According to Gould the late 1950s was the peak of Cohen's career, and part of the renewed vitality he brought to his work was from coming to grips with the failure of his play. He would admit to fellow theatre critic Robert Fulford that "I can't write plays, but
I can remind us all of what theatre could be."9 However, the reception of the play would also leave a sore spot in the once optimistic critic's heart.
It was Mavor Moore who would first notice the change in Cohen's attitude towards theatre art. In an article that showed his disenchantment with the theatre community that had rejected his work, Cohen recanted his previous insistence that
Canadian theatre would only grow when Canadian artists had developed to a higher standard and instead agreed with Moore, his opponent in this argument, who blamed audience apathy for the floundering state of Canadian theatre:
In Canada the arts matter only to a tiny minority. They continue to be.. .a
5 Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 233. 6 Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 233. 7 Moore, Reinventing Myself, 267-268. 8 Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 238. 9 Gould, "Homage to Cohen." 78 rickety part of a shaky superstructure, maintained by a dedicated few, and recognized, mostly with passivity, by a somewhat larger group eager to prove that they are not entirely absorbed in material pursuits.. .10
This opinion which Cohen expressed on CJCB Views the Shows in March 1954 was not only influenced by his own failure but his frustration with the state of Canadian theatre at the time, which included an imploding Jupiter Theatre company and the commercially successful but not socially engaged Crest Theatre. However, in Moore's estimation when
Cohen pronounced that Canada would have no lasting art "until we develop artists with a clear or significant vision of Canada and Canadian life, and the stamina, the will power to express and keep on expressing it," he was doing his part to stiffen the resolve of dedicated theatre artists such as Dora Mavor Moore who soon after was financially able to resume her work with the New Play Society, which had been absent from the Toronto theatre world for a number of years.1 x
In a time when the Massey Report had heralded a new age of cultural growth in
Canada but had left theatre on the sidelines and where independent groups such as the
New Play Society and Jupiter Theatre had struggled to create sustainable theatre institutions in Canada that were nationalistic, socially relevant, and professional, no one supported that effort more than Nathan Cohen. He had grown up in a relatively multicultural industrial community in Eastern Nova Scotia and had been influenced by his experiences in the working-class community, a background that helped shape his view of the world and of his country. Cohen would become the most devoted, and publicly disliked, advocate of the theatre arts in Canada. In his own attempt to contribute
Moore, Reinventing Myself, 228. 79 as a creator to the theatre he loved so much, Cohen had perhaps built himself a glass house. The ill reception of the play had devastated him - Gould reports him saying "I don't deserve it"12-- but with its failure Cohen came to a greater understanding of his place in Canadian theatre and how he could best contribute to its growth. Cohen's way of coping with the unsuccessful production of "Blue is for Mourning" perhaps manifested itself in an increased sense of bitterness and pessimism in his work as a critic. He worried that Canadian theatre would not grow significantly in his lifetime, although "in another, oh say, generation or two - we can expect the automatic production of great works". His wife believes that his discouragement played a part in his physical illness and early death.14 In his lifetime, Cohen created a vision for the future of Canadian theatre that was never fully realized; however, the ideals he advocated were still sought long after his death. Perhaps, this is why when reading Cohen's work even today, much of what he says about the state of Canadian theatre and how it can be improved is still relevant and desired.15
Cohen's comments about the emergence of playwrights readily acknowledged the role of chance, talent and timing in the emergence of creative forces:
No, the creative artist - and by that I mean the playwright, and not the actor, the composer and not the musician, the choreographer and not the dancer, the creator and not his interpreter- cannot be plucked from air or artificially gestated. Historical forces and his own heaven-sent gift will
" Moore, Reinventing Myself, 228. 12 Gould, "Homage to Cohen." 13 Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 218. 14 Gould, "Homage to Cohen" 15 After quoting from one of Cohen's speeches on the state of Canadian theatre Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 220, reaches a similar conclusion: "As is the case with so much of Cohen's early work, this broadcast, given twenty-three years ago, contains a number of points which are as valid as they were when he originally made them." 80 decide the moment of his appearance.
During his own lifetime, "Blue is for Mourning" was unappreciated for a number of reasons. Certainly Cohen's play lacked dramaturgical polish in places. However, Cohen was writing in a time when Canadian playwrights were just beginning to create truly
Canadian plays. Grappling with form, layout and literary challenges was not uncommon and generally accepted by critics of the time if effort was apparent in the work. In part it was Cohen's forthright criticism of others' work in the same field that led to such a violent backlash.
In addition the production must be placed in its historical context. This was a piece set in an industrial town in Eastern Nova Scotia, a setting and a people dismissed as uninteresting subjects for artistic exploration in a time of increasing centralization and urbanization. Furthermore, a play on a labour theme and quilted with the memories of
Cohen's own history as a labour reporter for the Glace Bay Gazette was increasingly out of fashion as Canada entered the era of the Cold War. Cohen's play emerged at the wrong time for its themes to be accepted, and that contributed to the play's failure.
However, while Cohen's career as a playwright was cut short because "Blue is for
Mourning" was thwarted by "historical forces", this cannot be the final word. The story of the failure of "Blue is for Mourning" to find an audience in its own time tells us much about the Canadian theatre landscape of the post-war era that cannot be easily dismissed.
16 Nathan Cohen, quoted in Edmonstone, Nathan Cohen, 219. 81 Bibliography
Primary Sources
Jupiter Theatre Collection, Toronto Reference Library
"Blue is for Mourning" program. Jupiter Theatre Incorporated. 13-28 February 1953.
Nathan Cohen Collection, Toronto Reference Library
Cohen, Nathan. Radio Script, Nathan Cohen Collection, Toronto Reference Library, 20 February 1949.
Cohen, Nathan.'The Lively Arts." Radio Script, 27 September 1950, Nathan Cohen Collection, Toronto Reference Library.
Cohen, Nathan. "Theatre in Canada: An Expendable Commodity?" Lecture, Nathan Cohen Collection Toronto Reference Library, Manuscripts and lectures 1970-71.
Newspaper Articles
Cohen, Nathan."Production Fine, Acting Good But Play Was Inferior Choice," Canadian Jewish Weekly, 4 July 1946.
Cohen, Nathan."You Can Quote Me: Let's Abolish Shylock," Canadian Jewish Weekly, 19 June 1947.
Cohen, Nathan."Editorial," The Critic, June 1951. 1-3.
MacKinnon, Malcolm MacKinnon. "Blue is for Nathan." The Varsity, 16 February 1953.
Whittaker, Herbert. "Show Business." The Globe and Mail, 12 February 1953.
Whittaker, Herbert. "Study of Cape Breton Life Not Quite a Dramatic Entity," The Globe and Mail, 14 February 1953.
Government Documents
Census of Canada, 1921. Ottawa: Printer to the King, 1924-25.
Report Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences 1941-1951. Ottawa: Edmond Cloutier, 1951. 82 Other Documents
Cohen, Nathan. "Blue is for Mourning." Toronto Reference Library. 1953.
House, Eric, correspondence with David Frank, 23 June 1977. Copy in author's possession.
Whitney Pier Historical Society, correspondence with author, 24 July 2009. Copy in author's possession.
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Articles and Book Chapters
Frank, David. "Tradition and Culture in the Cape Breton Mining Community in the Early Twentieth Century." in Cape Breton at 200: Historical Essays in Honour of the Island's Bicentennial 1785-1985. Sydney, N.S.: University College of Cape Breton Press, 1985.
Laponce, J.A. "Left or Centre? The Canadian Jewish Electorate, 1953-1983." in The Jews in Canada, edited by Robert J. Brym, William Shaffir and Morton Weinfeld, 270- 292. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Macgillivray, Don. "Glace Bay: Images and Impressions." in Mining Photographs and Other Pictures 1948-1968: A Selection from the Negative Archives ofShedden Studio, Glace Bay, Cape Breton ed. Benjamin H.D. Buchloh and Robert Wilkie. Sydney, N.S.: The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and the University College of Cape Breton Press, 1983.
Niergarth, Kirk. ""Missionary for Culture": Walter Abell, Maritime Art and Cultural Democracy, 1928-1944." Acadiensis, XXXVI, 1 (Autumn 2006), 3-28.
Rubin, Don. "Criticism in a Canadian Social Context: Nathan Cohen's Theatre Criticism, 1946-1971." in Establishing Our Boundaries: English-Canadian Theatre Criticism, edited by Anton Wagner, 234- 253. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999.
Salutin, Rick. "Nathan Cohen: A Review." Canadian Theatre Review (Spring 1981), 45- 105.
83 Books
Bryden, Ronald and Boyd Neil. "Preface." in Whittaker's Theatre: A Critic Looks at Stages in Canada and Thereabouts 1944-1975. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985.
Denning, Michael. The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century. London: Verso, 1998.
Doyle, James, Progressive Heritage: The Evolution of a Politically Radical Literary Tradition in Canada. Waterloo, Ont: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2002.
Drainie, Bronwyn. Living the Part: John Drainie and the Dilemma of Canadian Stardom. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1988.
Earle, Michael, ed.. Workers and the State in Twentieth Century Nova Scotia. Fredericton, N.B.: Acadiensis Press, 1989.
Edmonstone, Wayne. Nathan Cohen: The Making of a Critic. Toronto: Lester and Orpen Limited, 1977.
From the Pier, Dear!. Sydney, N.S.: Whitney Pier Historical Society, 1993.
Lee, Betty. Love and Whisky: The Story of the Dominion Drama Festival. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1973.
Litt, Paul. The Muses, The Masses, and The Massey Commission. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992.
MacEachern, George. George MacEachern: An Autobiography The Story of a Cape Breton Labour Radical. Sydney, N.S.: University College of Cape Breton Press, 1987.
Massey, Vincent. On Being Canadian. Toronto: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1948.
McKay, Ian. The Quest of the Folk: Antimodernism and Cultural Selection in Twentieth- Century Nova Scotia. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1994.
McKay, Ian. Rebels, Reds, Radicals: Rethinking Canada's Left History. Toronto: Between the Lines, 1995. Medjuck, Sheva. Jews of Atlantic Canada. St.John's, Newfoundland: Breakwater, 1986.
Moore, Mavor. Reinventing Myself: Memoirs. Toronto: Stoddart, 1994.
84 Odets, Clifford. "Waiting for Lefty." in Six Plays of Clifford Odets by Clifford Odets. New York: Grove Press Inc., 1979.
Reid, John. Mount Allison University: A History to 1963 Vol. II. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984.
Ryan, Toby Gordon. Stage Left: Canadian Workers Theatre 1929-1940. Toronto: Simon & Pierre, 1981.
Scher, Len. The Un-Canadians: True Stories of the Blacklist Era. Toronto: Lester, 1992.
Shea, Albert. Culture in Canada: A Study of the Findings of the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences, (1949-1951). Toronto: Canadian Association for Adult Education, 1952.
Sinclair, Lister. The Blood is Strong: A Drama of Early Scottish Settlement in Cape Breton. Agincourt, Canada: The Book Society of Canada Limited, 1956.
Sperdakos, Paula. Dora Mavor Moore: Pioneer of Canadian Theatre. Toronto: ECW Press, 1995.
Tippett, Maria. Making Culture: English-Canadian Institutions and the Arts before the Massey Commission. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990.
Unpublished Theses
Gould, Allan. "A Critical Assessment of the Theatre Criticism of Nathan Cohen with a Bibliography and Selected Anthology." PhD diss., York University, 1977.
Kotyshyn, Terry. "Jupiter Theatre Inc., 1951-1954: The Life and Death of Toronto's First Professional, Full-Time Theatre." MA Thesis, University of Alberta, 1986.
Maclsaac, Courtney. "The Coal Miners on Strike: Cape Breton 1947." M.A. Thesis, University of New Brunswick, 2007.
Niergarth, Kirk. "Art and Democracy: New Brunswick Artist and Canadian Culture between the Great Depression and the Cold War". Ph.D Thesis, University of New Brunswick, 2007.
Rothwell, Carmel Dickson. "Andrew Allan, Nathan Cohen, and Mavor Moore: Cultural Nationalism and the Growth of English-Canadian Drama 1945 to 1960." M.A. Thesis, University of Ottawa 1993.
Internet Sources 85 "Arts icon Mavor Moore dies at 87." CBC News, December 21, 2006, http://www.cbc.ca (accessed 10 August 2009).
Gould, Allan. "Homage to Cohen: Nathan Cohen Remembered." Allan Gould. http://www.allangould.com (accessed 17 July 2009).
Partington, Richard. "The Jupiter Theatre's Canadian Content and the Critics, 1951- 1954." Theatre Research in Canada Vol. 18, No.l (1997). http://www.lib.unb.ca (accessed 17 July 2009).
"Sydney Newman." Internet Movie Database http://www.imdb.com (accessed 17 July 2009).
Wise, Wyndham. "Eric House." The Canadian Encyclopaedia, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com (accessed 17 July 2009).
Writers and Players Club (Ottawa). "Brief to the Royal Commission on the National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences." Library and Archives Canada, http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca (accessedlO August 2009).
86 Blue is for Mourning
A Comedy
Of Inaction
By
Nathan Cohen
Note: This version of "Blue is for Mourning" was personally transcribed by the author at the Toronto Reference Library and may contain minor errors or misreading of the original typescript. The play is included with this report by permission of the Estate of
Nathan Cohen. Anyone seeking to republish this text or produce this play for the stage must gain permission from the Estate of Nathan Cohen. Information regarding contacting the Estate of Nathan Cohen may be secured through the Toronto Reference
Library.
87 The Scene:
The living-room of the Baker house.
Cast of Characters:
Emma Baker Jesse's mother
Cora Baker Jesse's sister
Sarah Baker Jesse's wife
Angus 'Blue' McGregor Jesse's grandfather
Molly Harris a neighbor
Walsh a reporter
Sharkey a reporter
88 Scene One
(SHARKEY is coming down the stairs. WALSH stands beside the chesterfield)
SHARKEY: Nobody around all right. It's deserted.
WALSH: The place is like a crypt.
SHARKEY: That's what it is all right. Imagine, they still have the blinds down.
WALSH: Local custom I suppose
SHARKEY: (with a mock shiver) If you ask me, they had the right idea in the old days. Know what they used to do? They cried when a man was born and laughed when he died. Now that made sense.
WALSH: Somebody must be around. The door was open.
SHARKEY: People in small towns are like that— friendly. They trust one another more than they do in the cities. Didn't you ever notice that? Jeez, my wife wouldn't leave the door open if she was putting out the garbage. Not that she does. No, sire, I'm the one to do that. 'Joe, you didn't put out the garbage.' She never forgets. I was halfway down the block once and she called me back to remind me. (He looks around.) Say, it is quiet here, isn't it? I wonder where everyone is.
WALSH: I doubt if they'll be glad to see us.
SHARKEY: (Glancing toward the window) I don't see why not. It isn't as if we had anything to do with it. They know we were just doing a job. (WALSH shrugs, examines Jesse's photo on the mantle) (SHARKEY adds pointedly) At least, that's all I was doing. Personally, I bet they don't even remember us. (Offers WALSH his flask but WALSH refuses) You will soon. Now that you're a regular reporter, it's a must. Hell, people won't believe you're in the business unless you prove you can drink. They got the idea from the movies. Besides, its good for you. Come on, have one. I hate drinking alone.
WALSH: (He resumes his examination of the photo) It's hard to believe that the two of us were here in this same room— less than three weeks ago.
SHARKEY: (Unscrewing the flask) That all it was? Jeez, it seems more like three years. Far away and long ago. (As he starts the drink) Well, cheers, kid. Here's to the day you go off the wagon.
WALSH: (Softly) Only three weeks. 89 SHARKEY: (Licking his lips) That was good. Had a real kick to it. (As he puts the flask away) The trouble with you is, you're green yet. You still haven't the objective approach. You take these things too personally. After all, it wasn't as if you really knew the guy.
WALSH: I can't get over what happened. It was such a rotten business.
SHARKEY: (crossing over to McGregor's room, and opening the door) His dying, you mean?
WALSH: That— and the way he died.
SHARKEY: (Looking inside) Empty all right. I wonder where they are. They can't be far. ( He closes the door) Yeah, that's true. I didn't count on anything like that. Still it made a nice story. And you should be grateful. If it hadn't been for that, you'd still be a picture-pusher (He says the next sardonically) instead of a member of the fourth estate.
WALSH: (Who hardly hears this) All I did was write a follow-up to your story. He was born the same month I was, you know.
SHARKEY: ( He saunters up front left) Who? Oh, Baker. (With mild irony) Think of that.
WALSH: November 14. I was born on the 22nd.
SHARKEY: (Sitting down in the armchair) I'll make a note of what you say. Anything special you want for your birthday? (WALSH does not answer. He comes from behind the chesterfield and sits down) Forget about it. It isn't that important.
WALSH: (Sombrely) I can't help it. Damn it, Joe, we were here when he died.
SHARKEY: (Repressing a yawn) Well, he's dead all right. Dead as mackerel on Friday.
WALSH: (With morose intensity) Maybe they had the coffin in here. Right over in the corner where you are.
SHARKEY: (Jumping up) What kind of crack is that? Cut it out, will you? You keep on this way, and you'll wind up in an asylum. You act if this is the first time you saw a man die. Hell, you took plenty of shots of corpses in your day.
WALSH: He was different.
SHARKEY: Bull. 90 WALSH: (Obdurately) He was different.
SHARKEY: (Patiently) He was a trade union organizer, and he had an unlucky break. So what?
WALSH: That's all it is to you. He meant a hell of a lot to the people in this town. More than you ever said he did.
SHARKEY: Sure that's all he meant. So yesterday he was words on a keyboard, and his name got on page one. Okay, okay. But today the type's been recast, and nobody remembers him. That's all it means to us. (A trifle more easily) Hell, this is the last story we'll ever do about him and this lousy town and this lousy strike. Now, grow up. Keep on this way, and you'll have me bawling. ( He rummages around in his pockets) Give me a smoke, will you? I must have left mine at the hotel.
WALSH: I use a pipe, you know that.
SHARKEY: Yeah, I forgot.
WALSH: (Musing) All the same, you can't just brush him off like that. He had a life of his own— a family.
SHARKEY: What concern of mine is that? Besides, I never saw a crazier menagerie in my life. That old man, especially. A character!
WALSH: And he had ideas.. Jesse, I mean.
SHARKEY: Oh, its Jesse now.
WALSH: (Defiantly) Well, they made sense. I wish I'd had more time to talk with him. He made sense.
SHARKEY: (Disgustedly) Next thing I know you'll be saying we didn't treat him right in the paper.
WALSH: Well, no we didn't, did we? We sort of made a joke about the whole business. There's nothing funny about a man's death, no matter who he is.
SHARKEY: I wrote the stuff as I saw it. So did you, for that matter. (Tolerantly) That's what we get paid for, kid. How many times do I have to pound it into your head that you're a reporter, not a crusader?
WALSH: (Bitterly) They're not the same? 91 SHARKEY: (Sharply) No, they're not. A crusader doesn't make a living. He can't support a home or satisfy his wife. If it's crusading you want, you'd better get into another kind of business. But if you like the rustle of green paper every Friday, just shut your mouth, keep your ideas strictly to yourself, and do what the desk tells you.
WALSH: (Stubbornly) It's all wrong. You can put it any way you like. It's still all wrong.
SHARKEY: (Pityingly) I swear I don't know what's got into you. It can't be the heat. You were this way when he left Toronto. Now look, let's drop it. We've got those last couple of places to visit, and then we're all through here. We'll be back in Toronto tomorrow morning. (He motions toward his inside pocket) You sure you won't have a snort? (WALSH shakes his head) In that case, I won't either. There's no fun in drinking alone. Once in a while, maybe, but not all the time. That's no good. (He looks inside the recorder, and reads) "Jungle Fantasy," by Jess Morales. Now, who'd play that in this house? Couldn't be the old man. Must be the girl—the sister, you remember her. (WALSH jerks his head up) The one with the shape. (SHARKEY whistles. The younger man clenches his fists) What I'd like to know is, where were all the good-looking women when I was single? It's a funny thing, but it seems you never meet any beautiful dames until you're married. My wife has eyes like a beagle. Every time I see a woman on a story, she wants to know all the details. I've got to account for every minute. But that Baker doll! She'd be welcome in my room any time. (He turns the switch) Might as well have some music while we're waiting. (The music begins: it's Afro-Cuban, erotic, obscene)
WALSH: (Getting to his feet) Lay off, Joe, they're still in mourning here.
SHARKEY: (Casually) Well, we're not. What the heck, he was no relative of mine. (He snaps his fingers) Say, I remember where I heard this before. It was at a movie. Yeah, with this—what's her name?— de Carlo, that's it, Yvonne de Carlo. She was dancing, see, all hot and bothered, and her hair kept falling down over her eyes. She was all right. Course, she can't act, but who cares? With all that to show (He makes motions with his hands), she's okay now.
WALSH: (Commandingly) Turn the damn thing off. Turn it off.
SHARKEY: (Amiably) We'll just play it through this time, huh? (WALSH crosses, turns the switch. The music stops instantly) Now look, kid, enough is enough. I've taken an awful lot of gaff from you today! Suppose you stop getting in my hair? (Sarcastically) That's not asking too much, is it?
WALSH: There was no need for that. It was like dancing on a dead man's grave.
92 SHARKEY: Oh nuts, you'll learn for yourself. (He stares at WALSH curiously) I just can't figure out what's biting you. It can't be that he's dead. Hell, you were covering a murder story only last Tuesday.
WALSH: That wasn't the same.
SHARKEY: (Enthusiastically) It certainly wasn't. It had guts. It was a real story—a honey. A doctor and a nurse get together at a seaside cottage at midnight. Both are married, and neither can get a divorce. So he shoots her, than turns the gun into his own mouth— and, wham! Murder, suicide. (He pounds the top of the recorder) Why can't I do stories like that? That's the kind of thing I like. No complications. No social angles. Just sex. The public loves it, and I love it. But what happens? A cub like you is at the station when it happens... and me, I'm covering a flee-bitten labour convention. You know what the trouble with him was?
WALSH: (startled by the abrupt change) Who?
SHARKEY: Baker. He read the wrong kind of hard-covered book, the one with no pictures in them—no women— no nothing. They gave him ideas. That was bad, getting ideas. Look where it landed him.
WALSH: (Coldly) You've got him all flopped down, haven't you, Joe? Every time you talk about him, you've got it all figured out.
SHARKEY: (Thoughtfully) He sure didn't seem like an organizer, though. He was so damned quiet. And those glasses we wore. They made him look like a misfit. He should have been... (He frowns, searching for the right phrase.)
WALSH: A chartered accountant?
SHARKEY: That's right. You hit it on the nose that time. (He laughs) Too bad he wasn't. He'd be six feet above the ground 'stead of six feet under, anyway.
WALSH: That's not funny.
SHARKEY: (Flaring up) Okay, so it's not. What do you want for nothing—Olsen and Johnson? I don't get you. If I didn't know better, I'd say you'd fallen for (He pauses, and says suspiciously) —fallen for his sister. You were making sheep-eyes like crazy the minute you saw her.
WALSH: You'd better quit drinking. Next thing, you'll be seeing pink elephants.
SHARKEY: Come on, kid, is that it? I can understand it. Happened to me plenty of times.. .I'd start getting ideas about some women. Hell, once, I was covering this dame's 93 trial. They said she'd cut her husband's throat. She was a little thing... not even five feet. But her figure—cut of this world. I was for her all the way. Well, they convicted her and I wasn't out on a binge with her lawyer, and he told me she really did it. I almost killed him. (He claps WALSH on the shoulder) Yeah, you'll be okay once we get out of here. It's the heat mostly. Me, all I can think about are these damned corns of mine.. I've just got to get new shoes. (He hears footsteps) Oh, oh, here they come.
(The door opens, and we hear Mrs. Harris say)
MRS. HARRIS: You see, here you are, safe and sound.
(MCGREGOR enters first, Mrs. Harris following)
You didn't need me just for this, you know.
(The old man sees the reporters. His gaze become vindictive)
SHARKEY: How are you, pop?
WALSH: (Simultaneously) Hello, Mr. McGregor.
MRS.HARRIS: (As she shuts the door) There's visitors. ( She peers myopically) I can see, but I can't make you out. I left my glasses in the house. He made me take him in, not that he needed it.. .but I can't see very well without my glasses. Who is it, Blue?
MCGREGOR: (Slowly) It's those reporters again— the ones from Toronto.
MRS. HARRIS: (Squinting) I can't see them. They're just blurs.
MCGREGOR: You're more fortunate than I am. I have to look at the faces of the vultures, and hold my hands still.
MRS. HARRIS: (To the reporters) Now see what you've done. He's in a fuss for sure. It was bad enough at the cemetery the way he was carrying on—but it'll be worse now.
SHARKEY: We won't bother you, pop. It's the women we want to see.
MRS.HARRIS: Emma and Sarah went away, you know. They needed a rest.
WALSH: (Swiftly) But, Cora... Miss Baker...
MRS. HARRIS: Yes, she's here. But she's not at home right now. I don't know where she went.
94 MCGREGOR: (Scornfully) Carrion, that's what you are. You've no respect for the dead. Can't you let the living alone?
SHARKEY: Think of your blood pressure, pop. You're not helping any.
MRS.HARRIS: (Tugging at Blue's arm) Sit down and rest. You're in a tempest all over again. (To the reporters) It's those trips to the cemetery. He goes every day.. .every day.
MCGREGOR: (Sitting down on the chesterfield) My head is sore. A man's head gets sore from too much weeping. Jesse gone! It's not possible.
MRS.HARRIS: You shouldn't have come. You've made it worse for him (To Blue) Now, take it easy. I'll make you some tea.
MCGREGOR: (Plaintively) Tea, yea. Tea. A sad drink for a sad man.
MRS.HARRIS: (She gropes toward the kitchen) I should have brought my glasses. I can't see a thing without them.
MCGREGOR: (Staring at the reporters) You're deaf perhaps. Or maybe you didn't hear me. Go away. We don't want you here.
SHARKEY: Now, you don't want to take on this way, pop. This is positively the last time you'll see either of us.
MCGREGOR: Good.
SHARKEY: We have this one last story to do.
MCGREGOR: To hell with your story! Jesse is dead. That's story enough. His poor, young heart has stopped beating, and his body is at rest. That's what you wanted, and now you've got it. Now, get out of here... (He half rises, then sinks back) You're vermin, pigs. Get out, or I'll throw you out myself.
SHARKEY: (Beckoning to WALSH) We won't get much from him, that's for sure.
WALSH: I told you we shouldn't have come here.
SHARKEY: Okay, okay. It was just an idea. Anyway, we can pick up all we want downtown. They'll have the dope on the family. Well, what do you say?
WALSH: Fine, it's fine with me.
SHARKEY: (Sourly) I didn't think you'd mind. (To BLUE) Well, old-timer, you're 95 going to get your way. We're leaving.
MCGREGOR: (Grunting) Good.
SHARKEY: Come on, kid. So long, pop. Who knows? Maybe I'll see you again some time.
MCGREGOR: In hell.
SHARKEY: (Affably) Sure, sure, why not? (He laughs, as he opens the door) You'd like me to write up all the things you told Walsh, wouldn't you? They might make good reading—for children (He exits. WALSH does not move)
MCGREGOR: (To WALSH) You too. I meant you, too.
WALSH: (Coming forward slightly) I'm sorry. I didn't want us to meet again this way.
MCGREGOR: (Stonily) Can't you get out?
WALSH: I just thought.. .well— (He shrugs, crosses, pauses at the door).. .1 thought you'd like to know I'm a reporter now. (He exits)
(As he does so, the kitchen door opens, MRS.HARRIS enters)
MRS. HARRIS: There's not a thing to eat. Not even a cracker. It's all bare. (She comes to the centre of the room, peering around)
MCGREGOR: It's all right.
MRS. HARRIS: Are they gone? I can't see them. I can hardly see anything without my glasses.
MCGREGOR: They left.
MRS. HARRIS: It was wrong for them to come. They brought it all back. It was bad enough at the grave, but now—oh, its all back in my mind.
MCGREGOR: Is he dead so long anyone should forget?
MRS. HARRIS: (She begins to sniffle, and dubs at her eyes with a handkerchief) I've got to go home. My old one must be sore now. I said I'd only take another minute. Where's the door. I can't see!
MCGREGOR: Why don't you ask the stars? Or don't they tell you anything any more? 96 MRS.HARRIS: (Sobbing) I can't believe myself he'd dead. I keep expecting the door to open, and for him to come in.
MCGREGOR: Go ahead and cry. There's reason for you to cry. If I had tears left, I'd cry with you. But I can't. My eyes are dry. I've no tears more. They've taken my Jesse away, and I'm beyond crying.
MRS.HARRIS: You shouldn't talk like that. You only make me bawl the harder.
MCGREGOR: (Far away with his own thoughts) Will there ever be the like of him again? Oh, Jesse, Jesse, you had a heart, and a conscience, and they led you right to the grave.
MRS.HARRIS: I wish Emma and Sarah would come home. It's lonely without them.
MCGREGOR: It should have been me. I was willing to go. I was ready. My time is up.
MRS.HARRIS: (At the door) And the baby.. .The father dead, and the baby not even born yet.
MCGREGOR: (Fiercely) I wouldn't have minded dying.
MRS.HARRIS: (She opens the door, and looks out) I can't see a thing. It's as if it was night all the time, all the time (She exits)
(The lights begin to dim)
MCGREGOR: (Lamenting, as in a chant) I loved him like a son. He was more than a son to me— a brother, a teacher, a friend—the boy I never had. (He speaks disbelievingly) Gone! Jess gone! (He stares around him, until he is looking directly at the photo on the shelf) Is that what's left of Jesse Baker? A picture? A story in a newspaper? A failing memory in the minds of an old man and a few women? (He cannot believe it; he will not believe it; he asks wonderingly, gazing upward, not out of religious conviction, but in mechanical deference to a convention) Dear Lord in heaven, are we to be his only monuments?
(The lights go out altogether; the last words are faint sigh) Dear Lord...
97 Scene Two
(The lights go on again, almost immediately, and the room is exactly the same, except that the window blind is up, and there is no picture of Jesse Baker on the shelf. (CORA and JESSE have been quarrelling. Before the curtain goes up, we hear her say
CORA: That's the absolute limit! It's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of! You think you know everything about everything, don't you, mister high-and-mighty Jesse Baker? Well, you don't. You can fool other people, but I'm your sister— and I know better. (Her voice gets shriller) Once and for all, you mind your own business do you hear? (As the curtain goes up, the front door slams shut- hard. CORA is at the foot of the stairs) Just leave me alone. That's all I want from you. (She runs across, opens the door, and shouts after the departing JESSE, who obviously can't hear her) What you say means no more to me than what Blue says. How do you like that? (She shuts the door, leans against it, pleased with herself. She feels she has really told her brother off this time)
(CORA is a girl of 20-31, good-looking in a mild sort of way, the kind you take a second look at once you take a good, first look. She is not, in any sense, a bad girl—quite the opposite, in fact—but she does not like to take orders from anyone. With her, independence is a religion.. .and she prefers to learn things in her own way.
(A second after her final remark, "BLUE" MCGREGOR comes out of his room He has a tarnished reputation as a story-teller, but he's not altogether a liar; he really had done most of the things he has said he did. He is NOT a garrulous pioneer, reminiscing about the old days who has lost touch with present events. On the contrary, he is active, inquisitive and spry. He speaks good English, and has a pleasant manner. But his mildness has a hard core, and when you know him better, you detect in his person an overwhelming egotism, directed chiefly against his daughter, EMMA, mother of CORA and JESSE.
(It is just after supper. His shirtsleeves are rolled up, and he has a pipe in his mouth. He takes it out to speak)
MCGREGOR: Somebody calling me?
CORA: What?
MCGREGOR: Thought I heard you calling me.
CORA: (Shaking her head) Oh no, no.
MCGREGOR: I could have sworn I heard you speak my name. It sounded as if you did.
CORA: Not me. (She goes over to the shelf, and takes a cigarette from the package on 98 the shelf)
MCGREGOR: (With bland tenacity) Now, you know I'm not hard of hearing, Cora. I'm not a young man any more, but I have all my faculties. You sure you didn't call me?
CORA: (Looking around for a match) Positive!
MCGREGOR: Hm. Well, if you put it like that, I must've made a mistake. It doesn't seem likely but if you say so...
CORA: (She sits down on the chesterfield and gestures to him) Light?
(MCGREGOR is used to this; CORA never has any matches. He puts his pipe away, produces a box of matches, and strikes a light for her. There is an ash-tray stand beside the chesterfield) Thanks.
MCGREGOR: (He examines her critically as she inhales) Going out tonight?
CORA: How did you guess?
MCGREGOR: Oh, I know you wouldn't get togged up if you were going to stay home. Going to give Jesse a hand perhaps?
CORA: (Blowing smoke) Could be.
MCGREGOR: (Insinuatingly) You should, you know. He needs all the help he can get. He doesn't even have a girl in the office part-time. It's a wonder to me how he manages.
CORA: Maybe I should quit my job. Would you like that?
MCGREGOR: Now you're making fun of me. You shouldn't make fun of your own grandfather. It's not as if he's a stranger—he's your own brother. And he did get you that job with Khattar.
CORA: Jesse can get along without me. He's done so up to now. Anyway, there's Sarah. She's over there all the time.
MCGREGOR: She's not up to doing too much work anymore. She'll have to take it easy soon.
CORA: Well, the strike won't last forever. By the time she has the baby, it will be all over (as he shrugs)— or will it? Khattar says it can't go on much longer.
99 MCGREGOR: You can't tell with that man Lambert. He's stubborn. The men were out three months before he even recognized the unions— and five weeks before he agreed to the check-off. And now that they want a dollar extra of pay a day— well, you can't tell.
CORA: (Putting out her cigarette) That's Jesse's worry, not mine. I have other things to do.
MCGREGOR: (Pouncing) Than you've got a date for tonight?
CORA: (Admitting defeat) Yes.
MCGREGOR: (Complacently) That's what I thought. (He yawns) I think I'll finish my nap. (He starts over to his room then stops) You sure you didn't call me?
CORA: I know I didn't. I'll stake my life on it. Does that satisfy you?
MCGREGOR: Well, all right, no need to get excited. (He opens the door, then turns around) But you ought to do as he says, you know.
CORA: Who?
MCGREGOR: Jesse, it's the truth. You have got too much make-up on.
CORA: My God! You were eavesdropping again.
MCGREGOR: No, I wasn't. I was sound asleep, but you were yelling so loud I woke up. I couldn't help hearing, that was all.
CORA: (Scornfully) "Rabbit Ears" "Rabbit Ears" McGregor.
MCGREGOR: You pay attention to what Jesse tells you. He's got a head on his shoulders.
CORA: (Disgustedly) Oh, go to sleep!
MCGREGOR: (Maliciously) Let me know how you make out with the fellow. I'll probably be up when you get home. (She raises a threatening hand; he scurries into his room and disappears)
(CORA gets up, and looks at her reflection in the oval mirror over the shelf. She wonders, does she use too much make-up? As a matter of fact, she does! She has on entirely too much lipstick, and the wrong shade at that. Her dress is somewhere extreme. She wear a tight, white blouse, a flaring red skirt slit at the knee, and toeless shoes. But CORA is not too wise in matters of taste, and she like what she sees) 100 CORA: A fat lot they know about it!
(MRS. BAKER comes out of the kitchen. She is in an amiable mood.)
MRS.BAKER: Who are you talking to, dear?
CORA: No one, I was thinking out loud.
MRS. BAKER: That's a bad habit. Do you know what people said in my day?
CORA: I can imagine.
MRS. BAKER: They said it was moon-madness. Of course, I don't suppose there was much truth in it—they were so superstitious when I was a child, But Molly tells me—
CORA: (Crossing room toward recorder) Then it's not true. Molly peddles a lot of tripe, and all you do is swallow it.
MRS. BAKER: (Forgivingly) You shouldn't say things like that, dear. Molly Harris had been my neighbor for three years. We see each other every day. If there's anyone who should know if she has the power or not, I'm the one.
CORA: (Looking through the records in the cabinet) The power, my foot! Honestly, mama, Molly's never been right once. And if she can foretell the future for others, why can't she do it for herself?
MRS. BAKER: But I've explained that to you. The power to read her own future is denied her. That's the penalty she must pay for having the power at all. You can't have everything, you know.
CORA: ( She has found the record she wants) Here it is. ( She straightens up, and reverts to subject) Name me one time when she knew what she was talking about. Name one time.
MRS.BAKER: Well, she told me about Sarah, didn't she? She prepared me for Sarah!
CORA: She said Jesse would bring us a surprise when he came back from overseas.
MRS. BAKER: And so he did. He brought home a wife.
CORA: But we already knew he was married. He'd written and told us.
MRS. BAKER: (Sitting down on the chesterfield) That's quite beside the point. What's important was that she predicted it. Just as she predicted the strike.
CORA: Everybody knew there'd be a strike after Mr. Lambert and Jesse broke off negotiations.
MRS. BAKER: (assertively) That's enough, Cora. I've told you a hundred times if I told you once—you don't have to believe if you don't want to. But please don't make fun of Molly and me because we happen to have faith.
CORA: (Putting on the record) Why couldn't you have taken up bridge for a hobby?
MRS.BAKER: (Comfortably complaining) The saints know I don't ask much from you and Jesse. The least you can do is show me a little kindness... a little understanding.
CORA: From Jesse? Not on your life.
MRS.BAKER: He's become so set lately. Why, only this morning, I was telling him he should have a talk with Molly about the strike. And he told me not to waste his time. But a talk with Molly couldn't do him any harm, could it?
CORA: Him it might do some good.
MRS.BAKER: Exactly. He wouldn't listen though. Just laughed, and said, in spite of it, I was the best mother a man could want. Sometimes, it worries me! He's so like father,
CORA: There's no point talking to Jesse about anything now anyway. He won't listen. All he does is lecture. He knows all the answers.
MRS.BAKER: (Sighing) You two were arguing again, weren't you?
CORA: We were.
MRS.BAKER: (Hopefully) Was it about tonight?
CORA: (Stiffening) It was.
MRS.BAKER: (Even more hopefully) The same thing I told you? (CORA shakes her head. MRS.BAKER is crestfallen) Oh! Thren, what...?
CORA: My make-up, if you please. I use too much lipstick to please him. He's got a nerve. The next thing you know he'll be deciding what kind of dresses I should wear.
MRS.BAKER: (Anxiously) But he knows who's taking you out, doesn't he?
102 CORA: Sure.
MRS.BAKER: And he said nothing about—that.
CORA: Why should he?
MRS.BAKER: Well, I didn't expect this. And after I asked him to have a talk with you.
CORA: What about? It's no one's business but mine.
MRS.BAKER: (Placatingly) You know yourself, I'm not the sort of mother who tries to dictate to her children. I let you and Jesse go your own way, you know that, Cora...
CORA: Yes, (She turns the recorder on)... and I wish you'd keep on doing it.
(The music of "Jungle Fantasy" fills the room)
It's better for everyone concerned.
MRS.BAKER: (Striving to speak above the music) But this! Why, you might as well go out with a — Jew! Cora, please turn that thing off. I can't hear myself talk.
CORA: What?
MRS.BAKER: (Pointing) Turn it off! I want to have a serious talk with you. (CORA obliges with a shrug MRS. BAKER is still shouting) The other boys you went out with were bad enough... (She realizes that the music has stopped, and lowers her voice).. .but a Protestant. That's going to far, altogether, too far.
CORA: I'm glad you dropped your voice, mum. Suppose Sarah heard and told Jesse. You know what he'd do. He'd give you the lecture of your life.
MRS.BAKER: (Distressed) The things you say...
CORA: (Challengingly) I don't know what you object to about him. He comes from a nice family.
MRS.BAKER: I know that.
CORA: You've been dealing with his father for years.
MRS.BAKER: That has nothing to do with it, absolutely nothing! And I have nothing against Max Simpson either, except that he's a Protestant. All I'm saying, dear, is that you ought to go out with nice Catholic boys, that's all. After all, what will people think? CORA: It makes no never mind what they think. Let's drop the subject. You worry too much about me.
MRS.BAKER: And if I don't, who will? I tell you, Cora you listen to me. I know what I'm saying. Oh, if I could only teach you to look ahead. (She is off on a favorite subject) You young people today are so restless. All you crave is pleasure and excitement. You never think of the consequences. But wait till you're older. You'll regret your foolishness. You'll be sorry then you didn't listen to me. You wait.
CORA: Don't you ever get tired of telling me that?
MRS.BAKER: I'm only doing my duty as a mother.
CORA: (Impishly) But what's the good? If the stars decide how we're to behave—well, that's how we'll behave.
MRS.BAKER: You don't need talk to me in that tone. I wont have it. I'll tell Jesse.
CORA: (Flopping into armchair) Well, then, let's drop it. The way you talk— you'd think I'd been sleeping with Max!
MRS.BAKER: (Scandalized) Cora!
(MCGREGOR comes out and listens unashamedly)
What kind of thing is that to say? Your father used to say I didn't know what I was talking about either when I told him to sell the store. He insisted on keeping it. And what happened? He went bankrupt. It's a good thing the house was in my name, or we'd have lost that too. (She shakes her head ruefully) And if Jesse had only listened to me. I told him not to get mixed up with the union. All you'll get out of it is trouble, I said, and heaven knows I was right. But he thought he knew better. And now look at him. He's so obsessed with beating Mr. Lambert he won't even take the salary coming to him— and Sarah with a baby on the way. What's going to come of all this. Where will it end?
CORA: (Scanning her fingernails) Why don't you ask Molly?
MRS. BAKER: Still, boys must go their own way, I suppose. When a boy grows up, he drifts away. That's to be expected. But a daughter is different, Cora. You ought to listen to me. I've had my share of hard knocks, you know. It hasn't been easy for me, at any time.
CORA: (Exasperated) You're not helping yourself any.
104 MRS.BAKER: (Fingering her cross) I don't want to see you make a terrible mistake. You have no idea how it looks to descent people. Why, think for a moment. Will any respectable Catholic boy want to marry a girl who's been seen with Protestants?
CORA: (Gritting her teeth) One Protestant. One.
MRS.BAKER: What will he think? What will he say? How will he treat you?
MCGREGOR: (Who has been silent long enough) Like a decent girl, that's how.
MRS.BAKER: (Blankly) Father, I thought you were sleeping.
(The animosity between them is immediate and intense)
MCGREGOR: You were wrong.
CORA: He's had his ear to the keyhole again.
MCGREGOR: You people won't let me sleep, that's what it is. After I've been on the picket line all day...
MRS.BAKER: You come home and poke your nose into things that don't concern you, yes. I know.
CORA: (Pointedly) Blue, this isn't any business of yours.
MCGREGOR: (Righteously) Certainly it is. You're my grandchild, aren't you? A fine grandfather I'd be if I didn't take an interest is your doings.
(CORA sighs)
MRS.BAKER: (Bitterly) You're rather late.
MCGREGOR: (Stabbing the air in front of him with his pipe) As for you, Emma, I'm ashamed. Talking to Cora like that. Do you know what you are? A chauvinist. An honest-to-goodness red-blooded chauvinist!
CORA: That's enough, Blue. Mum and I are having a private talk.
MCGREGOR: You can't fool me, girl. I know how you resent your mother's attitude. Damn it to high heaven, Emma, Jesse fought a war to rid the world of ideas like that. And he comes home to find his mother as bad as any German. You don't listen to her, Cora. Go out with anyone you want.
105 CORA: I don't need your advice, Blue.
MRS.BAKER: (Shrilly) That's it. Don't listen to him. Never listen to him.
MCGREGOR: You don't know how to get along with your children, Emma. I guess it didn't matter one way or another when Sam was alive, but now that you're on your own, you're getting the same way as your poor mother used to. Doing everything wrong.
MRS.BAKER: I knew you'd say that. I was wondering how long it would be until you came out with that.
MCGREGOR: (Floridly) It's the truth. You take a tip from me, Emma. Leave Jesse and Cora alone. Why, when I hear the way you torment the boy—trying to make him give up his mission and get a job in an office or something—it's a miracle he doesn't get up and leave here.
MRS.BAKER: Have you ever heard such nonsense? Have you, Cora?
MCGREGOR: Jesse's lucky. He's got Sarah and me. We make it a little easier for him.
CORA: Oh yes, you help him a lot.
MCGREGOR: (Smugly) Well, I don't hinder him any. You two women, though, you don't even know what Jesse is trying to do. By God, it's a good thing Sam's dead. He might have been a store-keeper, but he was on the right side when it counted. I'm sorry I only knew him such a short time. (Viciously) Too bad he was the one who had to pass on.
CORA: (Furiously) Now see here.
MRS.BAKER: (Tearfully) Oh, let him rave. I'm used to it. What does it matter. (To MCGREGOR) You're a fine one to reproach me. You seem to forget that when I was a baby, not even a year old, you left mother and me. Left us, and didn't come back until a few months before Sam died— and me, a married woman with two young children on my hands and a sick husband. But that didn't matter to me. I knew my Catholic duty. I took you in and not one word of rebuke passed my lips. Not one. And what thanks did I get for it from you? All you've done in return is humiliate me and try to poison my children against me. You're a fine one to criticize my behaviour—you!
MCGREGOR: There you go again—confusing the issue. I'm talking about the class struggle—and you drag in personalities.
MRS.BAKER: (Shaking with rage, gasping) "Class struggle." You heard him say it, Cora. (She fingers her cross frantically) No wonder Father Dugan says he's lost forever.
106 CORA: (She runs over, and puts her arms around her mother, who is shaking) Mum, he isn't worth it. Please, take it easy.
MRS.BAKER: (Wailing) Oh, why did he have to come back?
CORA: Both of you— stop it!
MRS.BAKER: I can't stand it anymore.
MCGREGOR: Of course I'm grateful to you for taking me in the way you did. I wasn't a good husband or father, that's true.
MRS.BAKER: (Hysterically) You're no good now. You never were.
MCGREGOR: I had the wanderlust. I wanted to see the world.
MRS.BAKER: I'm going to tell Jesse. He'll know what to do with you. There's old home institutions for people like you. (This time, she has hit home)
MCGREGOR: (He purples, and explains wrafhfully) Christ, you're a fool!
MRS.BAKER: I won't stand for any more of this. If I stay around him, I'll wind up a lunatic. (She marches up the stairs, sobbing)
MCGREGOR: (Indignantly and self-righteously, to CORA) She wants to ship me off to a home. She wants to get rid of me, that's what she wants.
CORA: Why do you talk to her that way? Why can't you let her alone?
MCGREGOR: (Guiltlessly) I was standing up for you.
CORA: (Shortly) Thanks for nothing. I can look after myself.
MCGREGOR: Hell, you'd better go up and pacify her. She's upset. It won't take her long to cool down though, if she's got company. She's in a bad way, Cora.. .neurotic.
CORA: Sometimes I think that's why you came back, so you could drive her crazy. (She starts for the stairs) The way you two jee-jaw all the time— it's indecent. And for what? (As he starts to answer, she puts out a restraining hand) No, don't tell me. You'll have me as rattled as mum in a minute. Blue, you're a heel.
MCGREGOR: (He watches her disappear, a contented smile on his face, and becomes aware that somebody is watching him. He turns around. SARAH has just come out of the kitchen. He says casually) Hello, Sarah. 107 SARAH: (Her arms folded) Blue you are a heel!
(SARAH is not even remotely pretty. She has a nice enough figure, but the belly has begun to show, and so even this asset is denied her. There are two important things to note about her: she has strong reserves of character and her life is completely wrapped up in Jesse's. She speaks with a slight British accent, just enough to make her sound authentically English, and not Victorian)
MCGREGOR: Oh. (Then, tentatively, foraging) How much did you hear?
SARAH: (Coming forward) Enough. I'm surprised the whole neighborhood isn't here too, waiting for you and mother to come to blows. You were shouting loud enough.
MCGREGOR: (Hastily) Not me. I never raise my voice. You know that.
SARAH: You've no right to hound her that way.
MCGREGOR: (Virtuously) Why, you don't know what she was up to, Sarah. She was being chauvinistic again. Didn't want Cora to go out with that Simpson boy because he's a Protestant. That's not right now, is it? You and Jesse wouldn't stand for that would you? (She stares him down: he confesses) I can't help it, Sarah. She makes me mad. If I don't tell her off every once in a while, I'd burst- so help me...
SARAH: (Crisply) Mother has her worries. It wasn't so bad when both Jesse and Cora were bringing in money, but after Jesse decided not to take any wages while the strike was on—it upset her. She hasn't had an easy time this last month. The least you can do is not make it any harder for her. We've got to live together—we might as well get along while we're at it.
MCGREGOR: Are you turning against Jesse too?
SARAH: (Sharply, a little too sharply) No, I'm not. I simply mean that I understand why mother is so much on edge. (A little helplessly) Good Lord, Blue, for a man who knew so many women— you don't know a thing about them.
(The strain is over, the equilibrium restored)
MCGREGOR: Now isn't that like a female? Every time you can't win an argument with a man, you pretend women are too mysterious for men to understand. The only mystery about females is that men believe they're a mystery. (He chuckles) Know who told me that? Jesse. Want to know what else he told me?
SARAH: (Turning back toward kitchen) No. 108 MCGREGOR: Not through with the dishes yet?
SARAH: I've a few left to do. Not much.
MCGREGOR: Be glad to help you. It will be a pleasure to—
SARAH: (Cutting in) No you won't. Whenever you help me, the pantry winds up minus another plate. You've wrecked enough dishes. Stay where you are.
MCGREGOR: You're tired. When a woman's pregnant, she tires easily.
SARAH: (Disappearing into kitchen) My health is good, thank you. (She is heard rustling the dishes. There is a knock on the door). Oh damn, who can that be?
MCGREGOR: Probably the fellow for Cora.
SARAH: (Busy with the dishes) No, no—he's not due until eight. Answer it, will you? And shut this door. The kitchen isn't fit for company.
MCGREGOR: (Resignedly) All right. I guess that's about all an old man like me is good for now, answering doors. (He shuts the kitchen door, and crosses to front door, opening it) Well?
SHARKEY: (Standing squarely in the doorway) This where the Bakers live?
MCGREGOR: It is.
SHARKEY: (Exuberantly, brushes past MCGREGOR) Glad to hear it. I was beginning to have my doubts. What ails people down here, pop? Don't they believe in marking the street-numbers on houses? And these street-lights—whew! Haven't they heard about electricity yet?
(MCGREGOR stares open-mouthed)
Okay, kid, we've made it. Come on it.
(WALSH, loaded down with camera equipment—flash bulbs, etc. enters)
MCGREGOR: That's right (To WALSH) Come on in.
SHARKEY: (Looking around) What a town, what a town. No taxis, but you can rent a car for a day. (He points to the chesterfield) Take the load off, kid. Park.
109 MCGREGOR: (Shutting the door) Make yourselves at home.
WALSH: (Breathing heavily, he deposits paraphernalia) How many pictures do you figure we'll need.
MCGREGOR: (Galvanized) Pictures?
SHARKEY: (Pursing his lips) I'm not sure yet. A couple of her, anyway. I don't know; we've got so many already. (He turns to MCGREGOR) Okay, pop, where is she?
MCGREGOR: (Still absorbing the other feet) You from a newspaper?
SHARKEY: That's the two-dollar question. Want to try for the four? Now, come on, pop, we don't have all night. Where do we find her?
MCGREGOR: (Slowly) Find who?
SHARKEY: (Elaborately explanatory) Mrs. Baker.
MCGREGOR: (Fiddling with his pipe) That depends.
SHARKEY: (Giving WALSH a meaningful "see what these yokels are like" glance) Okay, pop, now you're Doctor I. R. Now then, on what does it depend?
MCGREGOR: (Sucking on his pipe) Depends on which Mrs. Baker you're looking for.
SHARKEY: (Spacing the words out) I am looking for— now, tell me if I'm right—Mrs. Jesse Baker.
MCGREGOR: Oh, Sarah. (Curiously) You doing a story about Jesse.
SHARKEY: We want to. That's the general idea. Now, if you'll just tell Mrs. Baker that—
MCGREGOR: (Reminiscently) I knew a reporter once. That was in Argentina— in, let's see now— must have been 1910; or maybe it was 1911. I can't say for sure, some time around then. He worked for the New York Times.
SHARKEY: Well, what do you know?
MCGREGOR: The liquor got him though. "Cal," I told him, "Cal, you quit that stuff... because it will never quit you." He wouldn't listen to me. He thought he could best John Barleycorn. He was wrong. I sure felt bad when we buried him. I don't believe in drinking myself. 110 SHARKEY: (Doggedly) Is she around tonight?
MCGREGOR: Then there was this other feller— Danzer, A German, Big, fat guy who always carried a gold watch chain. He didn't have a watch, but—
SHARKEY: Pop, you deaf or something? All I want to know is, where's Mrs. Baker? Can I see her?
MCGREGOR: (Gently) Don't see why not. (Points with his pipe) She's in the kitchen.
SHARKEY: (Sarcastically) Thanks.
MCGREGOR: I'll introduce you to her.
SHARKEY: (Quickly) Don't bother. I'll attend to it myself. Say, kid, you be ready when I whistle.
WALSH: (Screwing in a bulb) I'm ready now.
(SHARKEY knocks on the door)
SARAH: Come in.
SHARKEY: (Going in) Mrs. Baker? My name is Joe Sharkey, and I'm... (The door closes behind him. MCGREGOR comes over and starts to give WALSH the eye. WALSH squirms some, and mops his brow)
MCGREGOR: (Sympathetically) Warm?
WALSH: I've never been through a heat wave like this before. Have you? MCGREGOR: (Reflecting) Well, I have and I haven't. Depends on what you mean by hot. Matter of degree. I recollect when our patrol in the Legion—that's the French Foreign Legion, I stayed a spell with them once.. .deserted though—well, we got lost out there in French North Africa.. .and (completely forgetting this he switches topics) ... what paper did you say you were from?
WALSH: (Proudly) The World.
MCGREGOR: The World.. .the World...
WALSH: (Impressively) The Toronto World.
Ill MCGREGOR: (Crossing room for a chair) Well, as you've come down all the way from Toronto. Well now, that's something. (He drags the chair back, and plants himself in front of WALSH) From the World? The Toronto World?
WALSH: Yes.
MCGREGOR: I was afraid of that. Don't like it. You know what the World is? A fascist sheet—a dirty, fascist sheet.
WALSH: (Earnestly) Oh, that's not so. We're a Liberal paper.
MCGREGOR: (Kindly) I can see you've got plenty to learn yet. Oh well, it makes no difference. Newspapers are all the same today. No news (He inhales on his pipe and then recalls it isn't lit. As he looks for a match, WALSH produces one) So, you're here to do a story about Jesse? (WALSH nods, and is about to answer, but doesn't get the chance) Uh-huh. Well, there's plenty for you to find out about Jesse. He's been darned helpful to me. I can see quite a future for him. He's got a lot of my blood. He's my grandson, you know. A fine boy. Quiet, but fine. A leader. (He leans forward, blowing smoke in WALSH's face) Say, it just occurred to me... (He points to the equipment)... Is that all you do? Or do you write too?
WALSH: (Eagerly) If you have any news. I do some writing— not much, but some.
MCGREGOR: I thought so. Now it may be that I can help you out. It just may be.
WALSH: We can use anything about the strikes.
MCGREGOR: What? Oh, you mean, back here in town? (He confides, with an air of great candour) Well now, I'll tell you. I came back to die—yes, to die. I'm not young anymore, and when a man realizes he hasn't long to live, a great yearning comes over him. There's only one thing to do, and that's go home— the way elephants do— back to the graveyard. It's only right. I was born here. I ought to die here. That's sensible wouldn't you say?
WALSH: I suppose so.
MCGREGOR: Sure it is. By the bye, speaking about elephants, it happens I'm the only white man who ever set foot in their graveyard.
WALSH: There's no such thing. It's just an old wives' tale.
MCGREGOR: (With in indigent, superior smile) That's what ignorant people say— people who don't know better. But I was there. Me and a score of niggers—beg pardon, Negroes... "nigger" is a chauvinist word, and Jesse and I don't approve of 112 chauvinism.. .well, we saw it: tons of elephant bones, bleached skeletons a mile wide and a half-mile high—and the tusks son, there was enough ivory there to blind a man.
WALSH: (Derisively) But you couldn't take any of it with you?
MCGREGOR: Why sure I could. I hauled out as much of the stuff as I could. Cashed it in and collected myself $87,000— U.S.A. currency. They never even heard of Canadian money over there. $87,000. Biggest wad of money I ever had in one piece. Then I made a mistake. I went down to Persia with it. You ever been to Persia? Well now, you're lucky. Take my tip, son, and don't ever go there. It's a smelly place to start, and the women down there—the walls are a heap more beautiful to ride. Know what she did? She took the money from me. Waited till I was asleep, and then lifted the belt from me as calm as you please, and— pphtt! Not that she was bad, mind you. She was plenty all right. But $87,000 for one night of fun was too steep, even for me.
(A horn blows outside.)
WALSH: (Trying to get up) Is that our car?
MCGREGOR: (He pushes WALSH back with the point of his pipe) That's Cora's date. He's telling her he's waiting.
(CORA comes dashing down the stairs. She pauses long enough to say to MCGREGOR)
CORA: Now, don't cause any more trouble. (With that, she rushes out)
MCGREGOR: That was Jesse's sister. Nice girl. Kind of high-strung, like her mother, but nicer. Well now, young fellow— (He gets up, and crosses with his chair)— let's go to my room, where we won't be interrupted, and I'll tell you about myself.
WALSH: Well, I don't know...
MCGREGOR: (Misunderstanding) It won't cost you anything. It's free. You might say, I'm doing it for your own good.
WALSH: (Worriedly, not knowing what to do) It's awfully generous of you, but— (He is relieved to see SHARKEY come out)— it's up to him really.
SHARKEY: (Affably) It is. What is?
MCGREGOR: (Resentfully) Him? No, sir, not him. He wouldn't believe me if I had all the witnesses swear on twenty stacks of Bibles. He's not the believing kind.
SHARKEY: Will somebody please tell me—? 113 MCGREGOR: (Cutting in ) You drink, don't you?
SHARKEY: Sure I do. Why, you want a drink?
MCGREGOR: No, sir, not me. But I can tell. I can always tell a drinking man. He's got the smell.
WALSH: Mr. McGregor has had a lot of adventures.
MCGREGOR: I had them all right. I can prove it.
SHARKEY: (In a grand mood) Let me in on them. I drink, but I'm a good reporter all the same.
MCGREGOR: Huh! Never you mind, you have your fun. One of these days I'll be laughing at you. Did you get what you wanted from Sarah?
SHARKEY: I think so. (WALSH starts. SHARKEY motions him to be silent)
MCGREGOR: No picture?
SHARKEY: (Finitely) Well, not tonight. You know how it is: we're concentrating on the story itself right now. Human interest stuff. How come a guy who won the DFO gets tied up with a labour outfit? That sort of thing. You know.
MCGREGOR: You be sure you tell the truth. I don't want you twisting the facts up about Jesse.
SHARKEY: (Business-like now) You leave that to me, pop. Baker himself gave me most of what I wanted to know, and his wife gave me the rest. Hey, she's not bad for a Limey, is she? Boy! These overseas marriages— meet on Tuesday morning, marry on Tuesday afternoon, and bust up Tuesday night— jet propulsion, huh?
MCGREGOR: If you have what you want., there's the door.
SHARKEY: Whoa, pop, you're rushing me.
MCGREGOR: You said you were in a hurry.
SHARKEY: Yeah sure, but Mrs. Baker is on her way over to the union office, and since we've got a car, I offered her a drive.
MCGREGOR: Say, that's decent of you. Sarah's carrying, and she can't stand the 114 streetcar. Well...( He crosses to the front door) ... I think I'll take a walk myself.
SHARKEY: Want a ride too?
MCGREGOR: Not me, I'm going out to get some fresh air. (He exits)
SHARKEY: (Laughing) Wow! A character.
WALSH: You were lucky. You should hear him when he really gets going. Gosh, I never heard so many lies told in my life— not by one man, anyway.
SHARKEY: Yeah, I know how it is. People try to make an impression on reporters. They spread themselves all out, and if the truth isn't good enough, they dredge up every lie they can think of. Did you get anything from him about Baker.
WALSH: (Quoting) He's got quite a future.
SHARKEY: (Taking out his flask) Yeah, you've got to give Jesse Baker credit. He does a nice job of selling himself. (He swallows a drink) Hell, I guess if I was collecting that much pay, I could do the same. Or you. Or anybody.
( SARAH comes out and crosses. SHARKEY tries to hide the flask)
SARAH: (Pleasantly) I'll only be a minute.
SHARKEY: (Grimacing) Fine, fine.
(SARAH goes up the stairs, WALSH, who has jumped to his feet, sits down. SHARKEY puts the flask away)
WALSH: (When she is gone) Joe, you didn't tell her.
SHARKEY: (He does not answer for a second, and when he speaks it's with regard to the previous point) I don't suppose you can blame him. It's a nice racket— a heads I win tails you lose proposition. And that decision not to take any money as wages for the duration of the strike—that was bright, real bright. But you can bet your bottom dollar that when the strike is over, win or lose, Jesse Baker won't be out a cent. He'll get everything he meant to get. It's smart, though, you can't deny that. It makes a good impression— makes the strikers feel their leaders are making the same sacrifices they are ( He scowls, punches the air with his fist) I tell you, the longer I'm on this labour beat, the sicker I get. Jeez, in the old days they were honest. They admitted they were in it for the dough. They didn't split hairs. But not now. No, sir. Money had nothing to do with it.. .they say. They're working for the cause. Yeah, sure—the cause of padding their pockets. They're not even honest hypocrites. 115 WALSH: I think you've got Baker wrong. He didn't strike me that way at all. He seemed to believe what he said.
SHARKEY: He really dished it out smooth, didn't he? "Economic equality. Fair distribution of the wealth. Charity for welfare is in the national interest. As long as prices go up, wages must, too. Planned use of the natural resources." Know why I didn't take any notes when we talked to him this afternoon? Because I knew in advance every word he was going to say. I can recite it from memory.
WALSH: But what about his wife? You're not forgetting about her, are you?
SHARKEY: Of course not.
WALSH: But you haven't told her. Why?
SHARKEY: Because I've got brains, that's why. As soon as I saw her, it hit me. Listen! Lambert told us he's slapping that warrant on Baker in less than an hour from now. The cops are going to arrest Baker in his own office. So what's the point to my telling her now. What kind of story do we got? What kind of shot? We're going to do it differently. Suppose she's in the office with her husband when the cops come... suppose you get a shot of her face when it happens...
WALSH: (With evident misgivings) That doesn't seem fair somehow. (SHARKEY snorts, and he adds hastily) But I guess we can do it all right.
SHARKEY: Damned right we can. This here is an angle, kid, a twist. You always need a twist, (he rubs his hands) Yeah, things are shaping up. We'll get a decent, front-page story out of it yet. It was a nice break that Baker should have been there himself when the pickets stopped Lambert and his staff from going into the plant. That hit Lambert where it hurt him most—and when he gets sore, he gets sore! So he's having Baker arrested—and, bam! The fat's in the fire.
WALSH: It's going to cause a lot of trouble.
SHARKEY: I hope so. That's what we're down here for, to get a big story, and we're getting it. We're in town only one day and things are popping all over. Take my word for it, kid, we're going to have something hot to send back to Toronto.
(WALSH sees SARAH descending. He gestures to SHARKEY who understands and nods. SARAH comes down. She has washed, brushed her hair, but wears the same dress.
SARAH: Did I keep you waiting? 116 SHARKEY: No, you didn't waste a minute. Okay, kid, let's get going.
(SARAH opens the door for them. WALSH and SHARKEY take the equipment, and leave. Meanwhile MRS.BAKER comes down. She is red-eyed, weary)
MRS.BAKER: Sarah, who are those men? What did they want?
SARAH: Mother, I thought you were lying down.
MRS.BAKER: Why were they here?
SARAH: They're just reporters. I'm going over to the offices with them. They have a car.
MRS.BAKER: (Listlessly) Oh! (As SARAH starts to go out) I suppose you know father insulted me again tonight.
SARAH: You mustn't mind what Blue says. He's an old man. You can't do much with people when they're old— just pay no attention to them.
MRS.BAKER: (Tearfully) He's getting worse all the time. He should be sent away. Sarah, you must talk to him He might listen to you. Or if you could get Jesse—
SARAH: We'll talk about it later. I have to fly (She kisses MRS.BAKER on the forehead) And don't you worry. (She exits, leaving the door open)
MRS. BAKER: (She shuts the door, shaking her head mechanically) I won't stand for it any more. I won't. This is my house. I'm entitled to some respect. I'm going to have it out with him, once and for all. Father! (When there is no answer, she strides over to McGregor's door) I know you're not sleeping, so you may as well come out. I want to talk to you. Do you hear me? Very well then. You won't get away from me this time. If you won't come out, I'll ( She flings open the door, sees that he's gone) Oh, they're all gone. I'm alone. It's not fair. (She crosses, sits in the armchair) I'm all alone. (Moodily) I'm might as well get used to it. That's the way it's going to be. A mother starves and slaves, and when she deserves a little cheer, a little company — she's abandoned. That's how it is.
(The doorbell rings)
Come in, come in, whoever you are. I'm just too worn out to go to the door.
(The front door opens, and MOLLY HARRIS enters. She is a short, wizened little woman who walks with a stiff trot. She carries a large purse, almost like a shopping bag. 117 MRS.HARRIS: It's me, dearie, Molly.
MRS.BAKER: (Wanly) Hello, Molly. I'm glad to see you.
MRS.HARRIS: Having trouble with the old man again?
MRS.BAKER: Again? No, always. Just more trouble tonight than usual.
MRS. HARRIS: (She places the straight-back chair so that she's facing MRS.BAKER, and makes herself comfortable.) I thought you'd be coming in to see me tonight. When you didn't, I figured you was having trouble with him again.
MRS.BAKER: With him? With everyone. He's just part of my burden. There's Jesse and his strike, and Cora went out with that— that Simpson boy again. A Protestant, Molly—a Protestant. I feel I could cry for a year.
MRS.HARRIS: It's just as well you couldn't come. My old one decided not to open up tonight. The strike's killed all his business (She leans forward, and hisses) Say, dearie, you all alone? (MRS.BAKER nods) Not expecting anyone?
MRS.BAKER: (Excitedly) Not a soul. Oh, Molly, you didn't.. .I'd hoped... but I never dreamed you'd bring it with you. Where is it?
MRS.HARRIS: (Waving her purse) Here!
MRS.BAKER: No! Oh, that's clever. I never would have thought of that.
MRS.HARRIS: (She digs into her purse and produces a pint of gin) Best damn medicine in the world.
MRS.BAKER: (Reaching out for the bottle) It's three days since I've had a drop. I daren't take any around here. My father would know about it at once— you know what he's like on the matter, so prejudiced— and Jesse was home practically every night. And I've been in such pain. My arthritis, you know, terrible, terrible.
MRS.HARRIS: Don't I know it? Now you take my old one. He's a bootlegger, but he gets sore as blazes when he sees me taking a drink. It don't make sense. "Harris," I say to him, "it don't make sense." But all he does is beat the daylight out of me. One of these days I'm going to tell him off.
MRS.BAKER: (Licking her lips, trying to get the bottle) And this weather, so warm. It makes it even worse. Oh, it's a terrible thing to be sick, Molly.
118 MRS.HARRIS: Well... (She uncorks the bottle, and hands it over to MRS.BAKER.. The latter seizes it, swallows rapidly. MRS.HARRIS is alarmed) Here now, here now.. .remember that's my medicine. (MRS.BAKER hands the bottle back reluctantly. MRS.HARRIS takes a long, unhurried swallow) Aaagh! That hit me where I needed it.
MRS.BAKER: It does have a marvellous effect, doesn't it?
MRS.HARRIS: (Succintly) It warmed my guts.
MRS.BAKER: (Dreamly) It has such marvellous curative powers.
MRS.HARRIS: Gin cures everything. That's the beauty of it. (She holds the bottle up; it is nearly empty) Guess we might as well finish it.
MRS.BAKER: (Eagerly, putting out her hand) Yes, we might as well. (But MRS.HARRIS finishes the drink herself, and then puts the bottle back in her purse. Now she makes herself at home)
MRS. HARRIS: (Lighting a cigarette) Anything new on the strike?
MRS.BAKER: (Grumpily) I wouldn't know. Jesse doesn't tell me a thing. He says I don't need to worry.
MRS. HARRIS: I wish it was over. My old one says it's ruined his business. The men don't have any money to buy stuff with. They just don't have any money.
MRS.BAKER: Well, I certainly want to see it over. Why, it's a shame, Molly, here's Jesse wasting his time, that's all it is, wasting his time, and then this business yesterday— not letting Mr. Lambert go into his own plant. If an owner can't go in, who can? It's ridiculous. Next thing, the strikers will be saying they own the plant.
MRS.HARRIS: (Blowing smoke) Bad business.
MRS. BAKER: I'm having such a hard time, Molly, and it's getting worse. It's just isn't right.
MRS. HARRIS: That's true, dearie.
MRS.BAKER: You're an understanding friend, Molly. We mothers have a heavy load to carry.
MRS.HARRIS: That's why I never had any kids myself. (She cackles) I told my old one- — if it was kids he wanted, he could get someone else. But he didn't want anyone else— then. 119 MRS.BAKER: Well, of course, as a Catholic, I know a family is never complete until there's children. Still...
MRS.HARRIS: Well, don't fret, dearie. It makes no never mind. I was reading your horoscope and—
MRS.BAKER: (Breathlessly) You did. Oh, Molly.
MRS.HARRIS: Say, where's the ashtray?
MRS. BAKER: Oh, drop the ashes on the floor. I'll sweep up later. Tell me—
MRS. HARRIS: There's a turn coming.
MRS.BAKER: (Rapturously) A turn! (Then, practically) good or bad?
MRS.HARRIS: Can't tell. There's a lot of interference with the stars right now. Strange matter in the skies. Makes it hard to tell exactly what's going to happen. All I know for sure— something is going to happen.
MRS.BAKER: Well, whatever it is, it can't be bad. All that's happened to me for years has been bad; it can't be worse. Ever since my father came back, one bad turn after another. But there will be a turn, you're sure of that?
MRS.HARRIS: Sure as sin.
MRS.BAKER: I just want to be certain. Remember when you told me Cora was due for a change of scene?
MRS.HARRIS: (Offended) And ain't that what happened? She got herself a new job three days later.
MRS.BAKER: Yes, but that's not quite .. .oh, well...
MRS.HARRIS: That's how it is, dearie. We do whatever destiny decides. The stars command. You're but to obey.
MRS.BAKER: A turn, you say? That does sound encouraging, though. Nothing definite.
MRS.HARRIS: Not a thing...
MRS.BAKER: It will probably be for the best. Yes, I can feel that in my bones. (She stands up, clasping her hands together) A good turn, with good tidings.. .the strike over, 120 Jesse settling down... and Cora married to a good Catholic boy—
MRS.HARRIS: Mind you, I'm not making any guarantee.
MRS.BAKER: Oh but it will be that way. I know. And we'll be happy again, the way we were before father showed up. It's got to be, Molly. The stars owe me that much. Oh, I'm glad you came over. You've cheered me up no end. You've brought me good news, and the saints only know I've been getting very little of that. So very little...
(MRS.HARRIS shrugs, and flicks more ashes onto the floor. MRS.BAKER gazes straight ahead with a rapt, blissful expectation as the curtain falls. Scene Three
The Song:
My father sold whisky, My mother her favors, And we were the envy Of all of our neighbors.
Hee O! Soon I will see them; Hee O! See them, O see! Yes, soon I shall see them And the mist-cov'r'd mountains of home.
I'll shake the hand Of my hard-visaged father, And just once again With my kind-hearted mother Sweet is my heart as I come approachin' The misty blue-mountains of my tender home.
Hee O! soon I will see them; Hee O! see them, O see! Yes, soon I shall see them And the mist-cov'r'd mountains of home
O, soon then I'll see The places of my birth, The home of my merriment, The site of my mirth, And there I'll hear the music and laughter And the wistful echoes of my careless youth.
Then hee, O! for to see them, Yee, for to see them again, Horo! Soon I shall see them Waiting for me in the glen
(The time is early the next morning, and MCGGREGOR is upstairs singing the Scotch- haunted song. As the curtain goes up, MRS.BAKER comes out of the kitchen. She goes over to the stairs and calls.)
MRS.BAKER: Breakfast. Breakfast, everyone. It's all ready. Father, stop that foolish singing and come to the table. 122 MCGREGOR: Coming
MRS.BAKER: (Going back into the kitchen) Don't take all day. I've got plenty to do besides feed you.
MCGREGOR: (Coming down the stairs) Always rushing me. I said I'm coming. (He resumes his singing. He has shaved and washed, and carries his shaving equipment in an ancient cigar-box. He wears tattered pyjamas, the oldest slippers imaginable and a faded but gaudy kimono. Still singing, he goes into his own room.
MRS.BAKER: (In the kitchen) What's wrong with everyone today? Cora! (She comes out again, goes back to the stairs. Her tone is sarcastic) Pardon me for bothering you, Miss Cora Baker, but it's almost eight o'clock, and I seem to remember your telling me that Mr.Khattar likes his stenographer to be in the office by nine. I know I shouldn't remind you of this, but he does pay for the inconvenience. (This gets no response) Cora, for heaven's own sake, get up! (She fidgets with her hands) Very well then. Go ahead and lose your job. Cora, you simply can't stay in bed forever just because it's raining. Oh! It's always the same way. You malinger till the last minute, and then you blame me for not waking you up early. You're rested, I know that. The saints know you came home early enough. (She turns to MCGREGOR'S door) Father, stop dawdling in there. Come and eat. The porridge is turning cold.
MCGREGOR: Be out in a minute.
MRS.BAKER: Make sure it's that.
MCGREGOR: (He comes out, decently dressed, and says genially) Lovely day.
MRS.BAKER: If you looked outside the window, you'd see soon enough it's nothing of the sort.
MCGREGOR: The rain doesn't worry me none. I like rain. Always did. Always will.
MRS.BAKER: (Sniffing) I'm sure.
MCGREGOR: Comes from the days when I was a seaman, the way I figure it. I like to see the fog roll in and feel the water sliding down my cheeks. Anyway, you don't call this rain. Now, when I was down in New Guinea, it really rained. Why, down there, it rains for months at a time. They're so used to it down there they don't know what to do with themselves when the sun comes out.
MRS.BAKER: The weather forecast didn't say a thing about rain. I read the paper yesterday and it said, continuing warm, that's what it said. MCGREGOR: So you're talking to me today? I was sort of worried when I got up.
MRS.BAKER: (With a forced smile) Well, you don't seem so cranky yourself.
MCGREGOR: Guess that's true, too.
MRS.BAKER: I'm glad you feel that way, because—
MCGREGOR: (He opens the front door, picks up the newspaper, and sticks it under his arm) Damned rain. Paper's all wet. (He shuts the door) To tell the truth, I got an idea last night. It came to me suddenly. There I was in the carpenters' hall, listening to the news over the radio, and I got to thinking about a program that I heard earlier—so I rushed right home.
MRS.BAKER: I really don't know—
MCGREGOR: (Sitting down on the chesterfield) Thought about it half the night. I shouldn't have much trouble selling it to them. Why, they ought to be glad I'm giving them the chance.
MRS.BAKER: Father, please!
MCGREGOR: (About to unfold the paper) What? (He puts the paper under his arm again) I'm coming, I'm coming. Just wanted to read the headlines, that was all. Seems to me you could wait that long.
MRS.BAKER: (Placatingly) There was something I wanted to talk to you about, before the children came down.
MCGREGOR: (Instantly on guard) Now there's nothing to blame me about. I came right home last night and went to bed. You and that Harris female saw me come in, and I didn't bother you none, not a bit. Went right to my room. (Sulkily) Damn, Emma, here it is, first thing in the morning, and you're picking on me already. I'd just as soon you didn't talk to me at all.
MRS.BAKER: (Gritting her teeth) You didn't do a thing, father.
MCGREGOR: Ah, so you admit it.
MRS.BAKER: I only wanted to apologize.
MCGREGOR: (Thunderstruck) To me! MRS.BAKER: Yes.
MCGREGOR: (Thoughtfully) Well, well- to me?
MRS.BAKER: (Quickly) Of course, you and I don't see eye to eye on everything. That's natural. We were apart so long, and it is hard for me to forget how you mistreated mother, not to mention me.
MCGREGOR: (Ominously) If you're going to bring all that up again—
MRS.BAKER: (Swallowing) What I wanted to say is, I'm sorry for the way I talked to you last night.
MCGREGOR: And so you should be. There's not excuse for you insulting me the way you did, no excuse.
MRS.BAKER: (Miserably) I was upset, I didn't know what I was saying. You know I never acted like that before.
MCGREGOR: That's your story.
MRS.BAKER: (Pleadingly) You're only making this harder for me.
MCGREGOR: Oh, I'm not complaining. I'm in no position to say a thing. After all, I did leave you and your mother, under circumstances that no bourgeois could understand, and it's true that when I came back, without a penny to my name, you took me in. But if that's how you feel about it, I'll go to the old folks' home— no matter what Jesse says. Go ahead and do it. I don't aim to be a burden anymore.
MRS.BAKER: I wish you wouldn't say things like that. I'm only trying to do what's right. I don't want to argue with you, father, but Cora's got me so upset, you've no idea.
MCGREGOR: (Starting to think of his own idea) Don't you say a word against her. Cora's a good girl.
MRS.BAKER: Well, I know that. I'm her mother. If there's anyone who knows that, I guess I'm the one. But what am I going to do with her? Jesse and Sarah don't seem to have the time to spend with her, and I've just got to talk to somebody about it, or I don't know what I'll do. She came home right after you did last night, and when I tried to talk to her, she told me to mind my own business, and rushed up to her room. I must talk to you about it, father, I'm really worried. I'm sure she's thinking improperly about this Simpson boy— but she's so strong-headed. I can't get her to confide in me at all anymore. (She wrings her hands) I was different when Sam was alive. She wouldn't have dared do anything that he didn't allow. Well, you know yourself nothing good can come of this business. And it's not that I have anything against Protestants. Many's the time Mr. Simpson gave us credit — and was nice as you please about the payments— and the sainted mother herself will tell you I try to be as broadminded as Jesse and Sarah want me to be, only—
MCGREGOR: (Explosively) The Path of the Pioneers. (She stares at him in astonishment) No, that's not right. Not the "path." Wait, I've got it. The last of the Pioneers. Yes, that's much better.
MRS.BAKER: Father.
MCGREGOR: (He writes in the air with the folded newspaper) The Last of the Pioneers, the exciting true story of Angus "Blue" McGregor, told by Angus "Blue" McGregor himself. Sounds good, doesn't it?
MRS.BAKER: (Lips trembling) You haven't heard a word I said. And I wanted so much—
MCGREGOR: (Enthusiastically) With a title like that, they'll buy it for sure.
MRS.BAKER: What on earth are you talking about?
MCGREGOR: Why, I told you. My radio play.
MRS.BAKER: (With rising inflection) Told me when? What radio play?
MCGREGOR: My God, Emma, if you'd only pay attention when somebody's telling you something, and not let your mind drift away on some daydream—damn it! I've been trying to explain...
MRS.BAKER: Me in a daydream? Me....!
MCGREGON: But it does sound pretty good, you can't deny that. An hour radio play. Of course an hour isn't long enough, not really, but I guess it'll have to do. Or maybe I can make a serial of it. They have series on the radio, too. I've heard them.
MRS.BAKER: Oh, fine, wonderful. And what, I'd like to know, do you know about radio? You writing a radio play. If you ask me—
MCGREGOR: (Nastily) Well, I'm not.
MRS.BAKER: (Hopelessly) I was going to make a suggestion.
MCGREGOR: (Truculently) Don't need it. I'll do this myself, thank you. I wonder what 126 I'll get for it. I hear they pay big money in Toronto. A hundred, two hundred, maybe three hundred dollars! By God, it's a long time since I've had three hundred pennies that were my own. And you'd have no need to bother me then, Emma Baker. I wouldn't have to live on your charity then.
MRS.BAKER: (Snappishly) And when do you intend to begin your masterpiece? I suppose that's what it is.
MCGREGOR: (Vaguely) Soon, soon. Maybe today, since there won't be any picket line in this weather. Say, Emma, too bad you didn't see old Lambert when we wouldn't let him past the gate. His face was as red as a lobster's. Funniest damned thing I ever saw.
MRS.BAKER: It's not a laughing matter. When a man can't even go to his own property—well!
MCGREGOR: (Back to his 'idea') Meantime, there's some things to straighten out in my mind. Most of it happened so long ago. I can't remember if I went to Alaska first and then to Denver, or if I was in Japan, and then went to Denver, and then went to Alaska. It's all a bit hazy now.
MRS.BAKER: As long as it keeps you out of mischief, I won't complain, I can tell you that. Be thankful for every mercy, I always say. Come and have breakfast. Where are the children? Oh, that Cora. She'll be fired this time for sure. How much patience does she expect Mr. Khattar to show? And after all the trouble Jesse went to to get her the job. Mr. Khattar would never have hired her except that he's the union lawyer and Jesse asked him personally. Some thanks Jesse gets from her for it. It's always the same. Whenever she gets a good job, she simply loafs and loafs until she loses it.
MCGREGOR: (Standing up) I'll have a talk with Jesse about it first. He can advise me how to bring in the class struggle. I'll have to work that in somewhere.. .maybe when I was in Russia—
MRS.BAKER: (Calling upstairs) Cora! Cora Baker!
CORA: (Sleepily) Yes, mum.
MRS.BAKER: So, you're up. That's something. I thought perhaps you decided we can get along without money in this house, and so you could sleep every day till noon. Now, stop dawdling and come on down. It's after eight. If you're late one more time, it's the end for you, the end.
CORA: All right, all right, don't nag.
MRS.BAKER: "Nag." Did you hear that? "Nag." Oh, that girl. Something's possessed 127 them all today. Even Jesse and Sarah are still in bed. It's not like them, especially Sarah. She's always been up first, until today.
MCGREGOR: It's the baby. When a woman's carrying...
MRS.BAKER: Yes, it could be that. Probably is. Believe me, I'm suffering with her, every minute. Pregnancy does affect a woman so. Not that any ordinary man could understand that. He doesn't know what a woman goes through to deliver her baby. He can't realize the pain she endures.
MCGREGOR: Heresy, Emma. That's heresy you're spouting.
MRS.BAKER: If you only knew.
MCGREGOR: (Reminiscently) Your mother used to talk to me like that. She thought I should let her walk all over me just because I was the father of her child.
MRS.BAKER: (Fiercely) A woman's got rights.
MCGREGOR: (Tolerantly) Certainly she had. But why tell me about it? I'm over my fatherhood days. Jesse's the one to tell about female rights.
MRS.BAKER: (Proudly) I don't have to tell him. He's no ordinary man. He understands. He's just about the best husband there is. The best husband... the best son...
MCGREGOR: You're a talkative one this morning, and no mistake. By God, Molly Harris must have cheered you up plenty last night. The way you two were giggling when I came in. Oh well.... (He feels in his pockets) Must have left my pipe in the room...on the bureau ( He wags the paper at her) Taking stock in what she says about the future. I'm amazed, Emma. Why, that's almost as bad as drinking.
MRS.BAKER: (Nervously) You stop gabbing, and eat.
MCGREGOR: (Benignly) Liquor spoils the body, and fortune-telling deadens the mind.
MRS.BAKER: (Flaring up) It's not as bad as these filthy songs you're always making up. (At his threatening expression, she feels she has gone too far, and laughs affectedly) Honestly, I don't know why you resent her. She doesn't have anything to do with you.
MCGREGOR: Oh, I have nothing against her, not much, anyway. But fortune- telling. . .why, dammit, that's plain fakery.
MRS.BAKER: There are people who can pierce the future. I've heard you admit that yourself. 128 MCGREGOR: People with the power of divination, yes. I've known old men in India.. ..hermits .. .priests.. .exists, men that lived in the hills, just skin and bones.. .praying day in and day out, and they had an inkling of the power, but that's all. And you dare to compare holy men with—
MRS.BAKER: (Loyally) If they say they can do it, then so can Molly. So can she.
MCGREGOR: Well, point me down by the fickle finger of fate, you've got it bad. Now, see here, Emma, you are my daughter and the mother of my grandchildren—
MRS.BAKER: Fortune-telling is as old as history.
MCGREGOR: —and I don't want to see you be any more of a fool than you naturally are...
MRS.BAKER: (Angrily) That's kind of you, very kind.
MCGREGOR: But you take my advice. Stop fretting about Cora, and come to earth about Molly. Jeez, everyone in town's laughing at you for hanging around with the wife of a bootlegger. (She gasps in outrage) I know she's your neighbor, and of course you can't turn your nose up at her altogether.. .that wouldn't be fitting either.. .but you can't go on making a bosom friend out of a gin-soaked old hag.
MRS.BAKER: Molly Harris is a wonderful woman. If she takes a drink once in a while, it's because she's sick.
MCGREGOR: Sick! She's stewed, that's what it is. She lives on gin and moonshine!
MRS.BAKER: (Obdurately) You can't stand that she has gifts that you don't have.
MCGREGOR: (Indulgently) Woman, woman. You're talking to someone who knows. Why, I've conversed with Egyptians who trace their ancestry back three thousand years, and even they agree that fortune-telling, except in a few cases, is trumpery. Goddamn it to hell, if she knows so much...
MRS.BAKER: No cursing. You know I don't tolerate cursing in my house.
MCGREGOR: .. .then let her tell us something useful, like when the strike will end, or if Sarah will have a boy or a girl, or if Cora really does like the Simpson boy. She can't even tell you that, can she? Huh? She's a fake, a four-eyed, liquor-swigging tramp. (He pauses, and adds mildly) Why, even Jesse has no use for her. You heard him say so only yesterday.
129 MRS.BAKER: He didn't say it like that. He's too decent to insult me the way you do.
MCGREGOR: (Jealously) Trouble with the boy is that he thinks too much of your health and your peace of mind. No reason why he should.
MRS.BAKER: (Triumphantly) He respects me, because I've always been a good mother. (She gestures impatiently) Oh, there's no use talking to you about anything. You never listen to reason. I can talk to you till I'm blue in the face, I humble myself to keep peace in the family, but you take delight in hurting me. That's your greatest pleasure. Well, I've had plenty of crosses to bear, and I've been faithful to them, as a good Catholic woman should. I've stood you up till now, and I'll keep on doing it. The blessed Mother knows what I've taken from you, and I'll get my reward in heaven. (Suddenly, she holds one hand up to her face in dismay) Oh, my goodness!
MCGREGOR: Now, what? Whatever it is I'm to blame. I did it to you. Go ahead, take it out on me.
MRS.BAKER: (Her eyes bulging) The windows are open in the cellar.
MCGREGOR: (Delighted) It's probably flooded.. .everything floating around (She rushes from the room) Must be a foot of water down there by now. Maybe two. (The door shuts behind her. It's your own fault, too. (He grins, starts to feel for his pipe again, then remembers) Oh, yes... (He goes into his room)
(At the same moment, SARAH comes down the stairs. She wears a tarn and a raincoat, and carries an umbrella. She looks about to see if the room is empty, and , seeing that it is, continues her descent with firmer steps. Just as she reaches the bottom stair, MCGREGOR comes out, the paper still under his arm, and making motions in the air with his pipe. He is thinking about his play again)
MCGREGOR: The Days of a Pioneer? Or, a Pioneer's Story? No, they're no good. The Last of the Pioneers! (He is about to unfold the paper when he see SARAH) Say, Sarah, where's Jesse? I have to talk about an important matter to him. It's for his own good.
SARAH: (She stops, but does not turn) I thought you were having breakfast.
MCGREGOR: Just going to. (He notices how she is dressed) You going somewhere? In this rain?
SARAH: (She turns around, and sighs) Where's mother?
MCGREGOR: (Happily) In the cellar. The windows were open all night. She must be swimming around down there by now.
130 SARAH: That's awful. (She glances around) Mother must have been very energetic after she got up. This place was like a pigsty when I came home last night.
MCGREGOR: (Resentfully) It's remorse. She gets that way every once in a while. She thinks of how hard you and Cora work to keep the house clean, and she decides to do it too. But it won't last. It's her nature to be sloppy. She's like her mother. I tell you, Sarah, it used to drive me crazy. I'd come home, and there'd be dirt on the kitchen floor, and the breakfast dishes still in the sink, and flies around the molasses jar.. .mind you, Emma isn't that bad, but her mother! Fact is, I think that's why I left her. (Anxiously) Don't let on I told you that, will you? (He explains) Emma and her always imagined it was another female. Seems the undertaker's wife ran off the same day, and, of course, everyone thought us went off together. Can't even remember her name now. She wasn't bad, as I remember her, but not my type. I liked them less buxom generally. Now, there was a woman in Paris—
SARAH: (With a rare smile) Blue, it's a good thing Jesse confirms you really did travel the world. Sometimes, I...
MCGREGOR: (Pleased) Oh I'm quite a fellow. Jesse knows all right. Say, where is he? Eating? (Curiously) Come to think of it, where are you heading? You oughtn't to go outside. It's pretty bad, you know.
SARAH: (Evasively) I have an umbrella.
MCGREGOR: You going alone?
SARAH: As you see.
MCGREGOR: (Crumbling) I don't like this. You shouldn't go into the streets in this weather. You've got to be careful, Sarah, remember what the doctor said. It must be important if you can't—say, where are you going?
SARAH: (Resignedly) To the jail. (She comes up front slowly)
MCGREGOR: Jesse knows that. I've got a mind too... (And then, absorbing)— What? (The paper slips from under his arm and fall to the floor) Jail!
SARAH: Not so loud.
MCGREGOR: And why would you be going to the jail?
SARAH: To see Jesse.
MCGREGOR: (Taking a deep breath) My old age is catching up with me. I thought I 131 heard you say you're going to see Jesse in jail.
SARAH: (Turning toward him) I did.
MCGREGOR: (Pointing upstairs, then to kitchen) But... (She shakes her head) Dammit, there's not a thing in the — oh, dammit, where the hell...? (He stoops, picks up the paper, and looks at the headline) You know, I've been carrying this thing in my hand since half-past seven. Sarah, when did it happen?
SARAH: Last night, around ten-thirty. Too late to get bail.
MCGREGOR: Yes, but why? What did he do?
SARAH: I'm not quite sure myself. Something about inciting a riot.. .1 don't know. But it's connected with not letting Mr.Lambert into the plant yesterday.
MCGREGOR: So, he's the one behind it. I should have known. He can't break the strike any other way, and he thinks this might turn the trick. I always said that Lambert was no good. His father was the same. A snake from the word go.
SARAH: Anyway, there it is.
MCGREGOR: (He sits on the chesterfield, and laughs) Jesse— in jail!
SARAH: (Coldly) Does it amuse you?
MCGREGOR: (Sobering ) I was just thinking about Emma when she finds out. She doesn't have the vaguest idea.
SARAH: (Firmly) And she's not to know either.
MCGREGOR: You can't keep a thing like this secret. It's a wonder we didn't hear about it yet. You'd think the telephone...
SARAH: The receiver is off. It's been off all night.
MCGREGOR: By God, so- - but, Sarah, she's bound to find out.
SARAH: She's not to know until Jesse comes home. That will be up to you.
MCGREGOR: No?
SARAH: I've already explained things to Cora, and— MCGREGOR: (Petulantly) You told her before you did me. You weren't going to tell me at all. But you forgot I'd read the paper. I'd have known.
SARAH: Cora was going to tell you, I thought you were eating with mother. But since you're here— you'll be home, Blue, there's no picket parade today, and if mother asks, simply say Jesse and I had to rush off to a meeting. I've made the bed. She won't suspect a thing.
MCGREGOR: (Still aggrieved) Someone's bound to tell her. That Harris female. Someone.
SARAH: Keep them out. (Urgently) It's only for a few hours. Mr. Khattar and I are going down to pay the bail right now.
MCGREGOR: But the union has no money. It's all gone to relief.
SARAH: Mr.Khattar is going to bond Jesse himself. Now listen, if there's no hitch, Jesse will be out by ten o'clock, ten-thirty at the latest. All you have to do is make sure she doesn't find out till we get back. Jesse wants to tell her about it himself. Mother won't mind it so much, if she hears it from him.
MCGREGOR: Seems to me she might as well be told. Why should it be kept from her? She's a grown-up woman. This your idea, or Jesse's?
SARAH: It was mine too. Mother's had enough bad news lately. (She starts for the door, and adds bitterly) Jess is worried about her health. ( She pauses at the door) You'll do it, won't you, Blue? Jesse and I are counting on you. You're a man of experience. You know how to handle these things.
MCGREGOR: Well, I guess so. (Mollified) It does take a man with experience to keep anything from Emma.
SARAH: I knew you'd help.
MCGREGOR: By God, this sort of takes me back when I was chumming around with that Mexican fellow, Fanche Villa. One of his men was in jail, and we didn't want him to know because he might have blamed us for it.. .we were supposed to protect him. Well, I played cribbage with Villa for sixteen hours until we got the guy out. Had to let Villa win every game too. He hated losing. He sure was a bad loser.
SARAH: Make sure she doesn't see the paper.
MCGREGOR: Oh, sure...sure.
133 SARAH: And don't turn the radio on. (She opens the door) Well, wish me luck.
MCGREGOR: You tell Jesse not to worry.
SARAH: (Pulling open her umbrella) I will.
MCGREGOR: I'm looking after the home front. He can count on me (SARAH leaves) Well, sir, this is going to be some morning. Yes, sir, some morning. ( He looks around the room) Telephone? Uh-huh. Radio? Oh yes, radio. (He crosses yanks the plug out) That takes care of that. (He turns around; just then, MRS.BAKER re-enters)
MRS.BAKER: Oh, it's dreadful down there, dreadful, and my arthritis—Father, you haven't eaten yet.. .no one has. What's wrong with everyone? You should see the cellar, I begged Sam not to buy a house near the top of a hill. When the water pours in there's no stopping it. We were swindled when we bought this house. Where's the pump? The drain is blocked. Now, where is it? You had it last.
MCGREGOR: (Frowning) Pump? Yes, that's right. I did have it. The toilet was...
MRS.BAKER: Father, please. Your language. (Impatiently) Well, go and get it. (She looks around) My, how quiet it is. (She sighs) It goes to show. Here I get up at seven o'clock , and clean this room, and get breakfast ready, and does anyone appreciate it? No. That's gratitude for you.
MCGREGOR: (who hasn't budged) Jesse and Sarah had to go off in a hurry. Some kind of meeting.
MRS.BAKER: Sarah too? Well, that's the first time she went away in the morning, and left all the house-cleaning for me. And today of all days.
MCGREGOR: Of course Cora hasn't come down yet.
MRS.BAKER: (Aghast) But she must have. It's nearly nine o'clock now. Oh, that girl, that girl. Wait till Jesse hears about this — and after all the trouble he went to to get her the job. I know what it is: she wants to get fired. Cora! (She crosses, and goes up the stairs) Well, you're going to work today, even if I have to call you a taxi.
MCGREGOR: Yes, Blue my boy, some morning. (He opens up the paper, walks over to the chesterfield, and sits down) Let's see what it says (He reads only for a second) Reactionary muck! (He wrinkles up the paper, starts to think of his play) Angus 'Blue' McGregor, the last of the Pioneers. That's not bad. Not bad at all. (He pushes the paper under the seat, and as he does so finds the wallet) What's this? It's not mine. I don't have one. And it's not Jesse's. His is brown colored. Must be identification here—ah! Thomas Walsh, and his picture be, Walsh. Say, that's the young one who was here last 134 night. Well! (He fingers the money) Thirty, forty—one, two... forty-three dollars. (He is awed) Forty-three dollars! (CORA and MRS.BAKER can be heard quarrelling) In cash. (He puts the billfold away swiftly as the two women come down, CORA in the lead)
CORA: (adamantly) I'm not going. I'm not going. I'm not going.
MRS.BAKER: The girl's unhinged. Her mind is gone. (CORA goes for a cigarette. MRS.BAKER right behind her) She's looney.
CORA: (Unconvincingly) I'm sick. (She takes a cigarette)
MRS.BAKER: You've never looked better in your whole life. You wait. I'm going to tell Jesse. I've got a good mind to call him up right now and tell him.
MCGREGOR: Oh, I wouldn't...
CORA: Light. Blue, light. (He accommodates her)
MRS.BAKER: (Breathlessly) You're driving me to my grave do you hear? To my grave. (CORA circles, crosses up front left, MRS.BAKER still following) What's to become of me now that you're out of work? Have you thought of that?
CORA: (Sitting down in armchair) I'll get another job.
MRS.BAKER: (Sarcastically) Who with? That's what I want to know. Why there's no one left in town to hire you. Every job you've lost because you're lazy— absolutely, madly LAZY. Oh, this is the last straw. Jesse working for nothing. Cora not working at all, five mouths in this house to feed, Sarah pregnant... the cellar flooded... (To MCGREGOR) Yes, go ahead and laugh. I'm sure you're enjoying this. You know how hard I've worked to give my children a home and raise them like good, decent Catholics. But it's been a waste of time with you, Cora Baker, and if I never see you again, it'll be too soon for me. Go. Go and sleep with that Protestant of yours. That's all you're good for. I curse the day you were born (She bursts into tears, rushes into kitchen).
MCGREGOR: (He gets up, says conversationally) Nice day.
CORA: (Viciously) Oh, go to blazes.
MCGREGOR: (He takes the ashtray and crosses with it, placing it before her) I was thinking out loud. I do that some times. You know, when a man has a lot on his mind he finds relief by talking out loud. Know what a psychologist told me once.. .Austrian fellow. He said that talking out loud was a symptom of a sex obsession. Can you imagine that. Sex, sex, sex... all the time. Seems some people never think of anything else. 135 CORA: You, for instance.
MCGREGOR: You get to sound more like your mother all the time. (He lowers his voice) Sarah told me about Jesse. Isn't that something?
CORA: (Moodly) I guess. He'll remember it anyway.
MCGREGOR: Everyone should remember it. This is an example of the tyranny of the ruling class striking out to further subjugate the exploited masses.
CORA: (Carelessly) Yes.
MCGREGOR: Whenever the masses threaten to upset the equilibrium of the economic system—
CORA: What the dickens, Blue? You're enjoying this!
MCGREGOR: No, I'm not. I'm trying to teach you a fact or two. Of course, now this isn't much. Paper says Jesse will probably only have to pay a fine. But it's an example. You mark my words, the old days are coming back. Why, when the cops wanted to bust a strike then, they went after everybody, from the president of the union all the way down, every living soul in sight. God, they crowded the cells so tight some of the men had to sleep in the toilet. How I was—
CORA: Let me guess. You were in charge of the strike. Right?
MCGREGOR: (Sheepishly) Hell, no, not that time. Happened that time I was on the police force. I was broke; it was the only job I could get. Besides I didn't know much then. Didn't know a thing about the class struggle. I guess I was still pretty simple.
CORA: (Dousing her cigarette) "Was".
MCGREGOR: (Nettled) It appears to me you're taking the fact lightly that your brother's been in jail all night.
CORA: He's all right, Sarah told me. Besides, I have other things on my mind. When you've got troubles of your own, what happens to someone else doesn't count for so much. You should know that.
MCGREGOR: (Perking up) Troubles? Big troubles?
CORA: It makes no never mind to you.
136 MCGREGOR: Is it Max Simpson?
CORA: (Irritably) Stop pestering me. You heard me. I'm sick.
MCGREGOR: Don't give me that. You're healthy as a hog. Never been sick a day since I've known you.
CORA: (Getting up) You can't let go. You'll just keep on asking and talking until I tell you. You're like a leech, Blue... and every damn thing is your business. ( She walks over to the recorder) ... An old man peeping Tom... (She switches on the record) .. .that's you... (There is of course no music).. .Now what?
MCGREGOR: (Midly) Plug's out.
CORA: It's as well. I don't feel like any kind of music this day, (She stares at him, locking eyes; her's fall first.) You see, mother wasn't the only one to object. Max's father had something to say about it, too. Know what? He doesn't approve of Catholic girls. Doesn't want his boy to mix with them, not socially. That's why Max took me out last night.. .to tell me he couldn't see me any more. His father won't allow it. Okay, so now you can laugh. It's a joke, isn't it? (She laughs stridently) he hoped I wouldn't mind. After all, we were just together for the fun of it. We were never serious.
MCGREGOR: I think...
CORA: (Harshly) Yes, Blue, what do you think?
MCGREGOR: (Lamely) Eats are getting cold. Let's have breakfast.
CORA: I'll pass it by. Not in the mood. I think I'll go upstairs and clean my room. It's a mess. (Crookedly) My pillow is wet.
MCGREGOR: (Awkwardly) Cora. (Then, ferociously) By God, I need a smoke... (He starts to go through his pocket, and inadvertently produces the billfold. He opens it, and then, to cover his error, coughs and tries to conceal it. Too late.)
CORA: (Sharply) What's that? Where did you get that?
MCGREGOR: (Spluttering) It's nothing. Empty. Picked it up on my way home last night.
CORA: It didn't look empty.
MCGREGOR: (Putting the wallet away, and changing the subject) Good thing you weren't down here earlier. Your mother and I were at it again. Over that Harris female. 137 By God, Cora, we've got to do something. First thing you know Emma'll be telling fortunes, too. She's got it that bad.
CORA: Oh, Molly is all right, I guess. She's harmless.
MCGREGOR: (Seizing on this) No, she isn't, she isn't, that's the whole point. Course, no drinking person has it anyway, but when you get a person who drinks and tells fortunes, too, then she has even less of it, that's the point.
CORA: Has what?
MCGREGOR: (Flamboyantly) Integrity. Individual integrity. She hasn't any.
CORA: But you have. And Jesse. Is that it?
MCGREGOR: That's right. You do have a brain in that pretty head of yours. Sure you have. I always said you took after me. That's what it is exactly-integrity!
CORA: Come off it, Blue. I'm not Sarah. How she stands your tripe, I don't know. But don't pull it on me. (She starts to leave, but he motions to her and she pauses.)
MCGREGOR: No, I'm serious. Now, now you take Jesse himself, yes, Jesse. What's he got that's so special. Well, of course, he's bright- there's no denying that- a man who rises from shop steward to union organizer in two years has to have a head on him. But look at his background as a worker. Why, it's terrible. He never even worked until 1946, and he comes from a middle-class family. Mind you, Sam wasn't a bad fellow, but no proletarian. But for all that, there hasn't ever been a man at the plant who commands the respect that Jesse does... and that's from men twice his age. Why? Tell me that. Why?
CORA: How should I know. Look, Blue...
MCGREGOR: ( Earnestly) Individual integrity, that's why. They found out that Jesse is a man of principles- of ideals. (He sits down on the chesterfield) Of course, that's not the only reason. Wouldn't make sense if it were. Jesse's a good organizer- and he knows how to put it up to the men what they're fighting for. Know what I mean? He plucks the ideas that are in their minds and explains those ideas to them- what they mean, what can be done about them. All the same, none of that would amount to a tinker's damn if they thought for a minute he wasn't really one of them, or that he was in it for his own well and good. Damned right, it's integrity. That's the big thing.
CORA: Don't feed me any hogwash. Suppose Jesse is doing his job well- just supposing. That doesn't prove a thing about him. What you seem to forget is that it's a trade.
MCGREGOR: No, no. 138 CORA: A trade... a job. And Jesse works hard at it. But that's all. All right, so he's entitled to credit for it. Only don't dress it up and make something strange and noble out of what he's doing. Integrity- baloney! It's the pay check that inspires Jesse.
MCGREGOR: Girl, girl- you don't know him in the least.
CORA: I've known him all my life, Blue. How long have you known him? Three years, four. He was overseas when you came along, remember.
MCGREGOR: Yes, yes, you've seen more of him than I have. You remember when he put on his first pair of long pants and sang in the choir. You remember when he pushed the swing you were sitting on and helped you with your homework. And to you there's no difference between the boy that was- that Jesse- and the Jesse you see now. You know the boy, Jesse, but I know the man. That's what confounds you and Emma- why you can't make head or tail of Jesse. I tell you, he's not the same fellow who went away. And that's why I know him the better, because I met the man, with his boyhood around him.
CORA: (Sitting on the bottom step, face cupped in hands) A man? What's manly about refusing to take the salary you work for, when you have a pregnant wife on your hands? I'm dense. I don't care what the workers think of it. I think it's silly.
MCGREGOR: But, don't you see... (Obviously, she doesn't, he starts again) Look here, Cora, one time when Jesse and I were talking, I was recollecting about the time I climbed the Alps. God, what a climb that was. I lost my footing and fell more than eighty feet. Still don't see why I didn't tumble over the side. I guess my time hadn't come. Anyway, know what Jesse said to me when I was through? Why did I climb that mountain? So help me. Why? Yes, he said to me, why did you want to do it? Well, it made me think. First time anybody ever asked me that. So I thought and thought and then I had it. You see, there was the peak- way up there- and a point of ice suspended in the sky- waiting to be reached, to be touched. The goddamn thing was a challenge to me. I had to get to it. I had to get up there to prove to myself that it wasn't there at all. (As she starts to speak) Hold on, hold on now, I'm not finished. It didn't satisfy Jesse. Yes, that's so, Blue, he said to me, only it isn't exactly so. Sure you wanted to conquer that mountain for your own sake, but not just to prove that you were so tough. It was something else that goaded you on. Do you know what that was, Blue? No, Jesse, I don't know. All right, Blue- he said- I'll tell you. You wanted to get there because you wanted to know what was up there. That point of ice had something that was important to you- you didn't know what it was, you still don't know- but you were hell-bent on finding out. Well, he carried it right on from there, that's the way it is with me, Blue. I'm climbing a mountain too. All of us spend our lives climbing mountains- but I know what's up there on top of mine. Oh, so you know? Yes- he said, calm as you please-1 know. Well, tell me what's up there? Why it's as obvious as A-B-C, Blue, I'll find happiness. 139 CORA: (Contemptuously) Words. Words he read in a book. Big, fat stupid words that don't mean anything.
MCGREGOR: Happiness, he said, and then he said something else. Blue- he said-1 don't like this world. Not one bit. It's a bad place- too many things wrong with it- too many people who can't afford to go to a hospital when they're sick- too many kids who wear hand-me-downs and have to share a meal not big enough for one with others- too many people who can't afford to buy a house for themselves, no matter, how long they work, no matter how hard too many old people who don't know where their next meal will come from-
CORA: Did he mean you? He must have meant you there!
MCGREGOR: — too many folk who haven't even saved enough money to pay for their own funeral expenses. It's no good, Blue- he said to me. It's wrong. There's no sense to it- no need for things to be that way. And that's what I'll find on my moun... (He breaks off as the door opens and MRS.BAKER comes in. CORA scrambles to her feet. There is a moment of embarrassed silence. MRS.BAKER averts her eyes.) .. .Well, Emma, everything under control?
MRS.BAKER: No, it isn't. You didn't give me the pump. I need the pump.
CORA: I'll give you a hand, mum.
MRS.BAKER: (To MCGREGOR) It's a good thing I can do some work myself. I may be of no use otherwise, so my children go to a good deal of trouble to prove, but at least I'm still useful at manual labour. That's one thing in my favour.
MCGREGOR: Careful, Emma. You're laying it on too thick.
MRS.BAKER: I'm comfortable downstairs, me and my arthritis. Nobody torments me. I'm alone as I should be.
MCGREGOR: I want to tell you, Emma...
MRS.BAKER: (Bridling) I didn't come up here to be lectured by you, father, or by anyone else who happens to be around. But the drain is still clogged up, and if you could just pull yourself up long enough to go get it for me, if I'm not imposing on you too much...
MCGRGOR: (Getting up) Oh, yes, the pump— right away— I think it's under the bed.. .I'll get it right away.
140 MRS.BAKER: (Frigidly) Please
(MCGREGOR pulls a long face and exits. The two women stand. MRS.BAKER seethes with anger. The day has gone all wrong, not at all as she expected and CORA's refusal to go to work is, from every angle, unpardonable. At last CORA speaks)
CORA: I was going upstairs anyway.
MRS.BAKER: You don't need to leave on my account.
CORA: I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.
MRS.BAKER: (To the world) She quit her job- the only one in the family that's earning money- but she doesn't mind that.
CORA: I said I'm sorry.
MRS.BAKER: Sorry? I should think so. I should think you're sorry. It probably never dawned on you, Miss Cora Baker- since you never think about anyone but yourself- but how are we going to live now that you've retired from your job? You wait until Jesse hears of this. Oh, dear God. At least he told me in advance of his plans. But you- well, maybe I can't force you to see sense, but Jesse will put his foot down-
CORA: I'll get another job.
MRS.BAKER: Father Dugan himself will tell you I'm not selfish. It's not about myself I'm thinking- not even now.
CORA: I'm a good stenographer. I'll bet I'm back at a desk by Monday. Khattar isn't the only lawyer in town.
MRS.BAKER: Do as you wish. You're of age and it's no concern of mine any more. Oh, don't worry. I'll manage. I've been through hard times before. I can wash floors or — Cora Baker, where are you going?
CORA: (Bluntly) Upstairs- I've had my fill.
MRS.BAKER: Yes, go ahead. Don't listen. But some day, after you've tasted of all that needless suffering you're getting ready for yourself- you'll think back to this day and you'll wish that you'd done as I advised, and been a good Catholic girl the way your poor mother begged you to be.
CORA: (Tensely) Don't you ever get tired of making a scene? Last night- Angus. Now- me. Who is next? Jesse? No, you wouldn't dare talk to him the way you nag at me all 141 the time. No wonder Blue can't stand you.
MRS.BAKER: Oh! How dare you talk to me like that? I won't have it. I- refuse-to- stand— for- it! (MCGREGOR appears with the pump.)
MCGREGOR: (Giving it to MRS.BAKER) It rolled under the bed. Say, I wish you'd sweep the floor once in a while. Look at my pants. They're so dirty—
MRS.BAKER: (She snatches the pump and strides toward the kitchen. At the door, she pauses and says with poisonous sweetness) I'm sure the two of you will have a wonderful time together. You can tell her all about the whores you knew, father, and she can tell you about her Protestant. Yes, you should be very happy! (The door slams behind her.)
CORA: Dammit, Blue, this is your fault. She was never like this till you came.
MCGREGOR: You're all upset. You've had a double shock, Cora, and-
CORA: Oh, why don't you shut up. Just for once, close that trap of yours tight! (The doorbell rings.) Jesse?
MCGREGOR: Can't be. Too early. I bet it's the Harris woman. Well, I'll get rid of her in a hurry. You watch me. I've been waiting a long time to light the fire under her behind, and this is my chance. I'm sorry, but— (As he swings open the door, his face drops) You!
WALSH: (He stand in the doorway, a gabardine over his arm.) Hello, Mr. McGregor, I see you remember me.
MCGREGOR: (Hastily) Never saw you before in my life. (Trying to shut the door) There's nobody here. You've got the wrong place. Go away.
WALSH: (His foot in the doorway) That woman in Persia- the elephant's graveyard- remember? I'm Walsh, the Toronto World. Can I come in? I'm not wet. I dried my shoes first.
MCGREGOR: (Hoarsely) Well- (And admits WALSH) - Yes. (Very quickly) Thishere- is Walsh- from- Toronto- paper- she's- Jesse's- sister- Cora. (And, after shutting the door, rushes over and sits down on the chesterfield.) He's a reporter.
WALSH: (Politely) Miss Baker.
MCGREGOR: (Sulkily) I thought you'd be over at the jail, young fellow.
WALSH: No, we took so many shots last night, there didn't seem to be much point to it- especially with this weather— so Sharkey's covering that himself. I've more or less got the morning off. (To CORA) Your brother is a very remarkable man, Miss Baker.
CORA: (Her eyes on MCGREGOR who is squirming around) You met him then?
WALSH: Oh, yes, three times. We saw him directly after we arrived yesterday, and then when the police took him in last night. (He flushes) You see, we'd driven Mrs. Baker- his wife- over. We-er- just happened to be there.
CORA: (Absently, watching MCGREGOR still) That's only twice.
WALSH: Well, I saw him later last night- this morning, really. You see, I couldn't sleep- tossed and counted cows, but couldn't sleep. So I went over to the police station to talk to the desk sergeant.
MCGREGOR: (Who is all finished) To a cop. Sure, you don't drink, son?
WALSH: Me? (He shakes his head.) Can't stand the stuff.
MCGREGOR: Huh!
WALSH: I gather you don't like the police. Of course, it's different with me. You see my father was in the force.
MCGREGOR: Cops are strike-breakers. They can't wash the blood of the workers from their hands.
WALSH: It wasn't that way with my father. He was a county constable, and only part- time at that. He was a blacksmith, you see, and there wasn't much demand for it and so- I didn't know him very well, though. Anyway (To CORA, directly) Your brother couldn't sleep either, so the sergeant let me into his cell, and we talked- oh, for more than an hour. Yes, it must have been an hour. It didn't seem that long, though.
CORA: (Indifferently) I suppose he did most of the talking. He always does.
WALSH: Well, he asked me a couple of questions, but I guess this time I did most of the talking. It was very interesting, especially what he said to me just before I left.
CORA: (Grimly) Likely it didn't make sense. Not much anyone around here says nowadays makes sense.
WALSH: You see, mostly we'd talked about me- he hardly mentioned the strike. His mind seemed to be elsewhere. But just as the sergeant was letting me out, he said that he was sorry for me. When I asked him what he meant, he told me to figure it out for 143 myself.
MCGREGOR: Young fellow, you just do that. What do you want us to do, explain Jesse to you?
WALSH: But I'm not here about that. (MCGREGOR sits upright, hands conspicuously in front.)
CORA: What is it you want, Mr. Walsh?
WALSH: It's this way. The truth is I didn't notice it until after I came back to the hotel and of course it was too late then to check it with anyone- but I've been retracing all the places I was to yesterday, and this is the last-
CORA: What is "it"?
WALSH: I beg your pardon. I haven't explained myself, have I? It's a billfold. I thought - perhaps, it's here.
CORA: (With dawning suspicion) A wallet. What color?
WALSH: Black. Calfskin-black.
CORA: (To MCGREGOR, pointedly) Think of that. Calfskin - black.
MCGREGOR: (Innocently) Was it empty? I found one on the street last night- black, sure enough - but it was empty.
WALSH: Gosh, no. There was more than forty bucks in mine.
MCGREGOR: It's not that one, then. Now, where were you when you were here last night!
WALSH: Why, right where you are.
MCGREGOR: Well, now, so it was.
CORA: A coincidence!
MCGREGOR: (Pretending to look) It might have fallen out. That happens sometimes. You've got to be careful when you sit down. I remember - ah! (He produces the wallet with a flourish. ) This it?
WALSH: Yes. 144 MCGREGOR: Money seems to be all here. Forty-one- two- forty-three dollars. (The last is said regretfully)
CORA: Are you sure it's all there? Perhaps he should check.
MCGREGOR: She's keen, isn't she? Don't mind her too much, son. She had her heart broken last night, and she's just getting over it. (Handing wallet to WALSH) Good thing you lost it here. In another house, you wouldn't have been as lucky. Teh, teh. People don't seem to care about honesty any more.
CORA: (Acidly) That's easily understood, Blue. They don't have your integrity. (She goes up the stairs.) I've got housecleaning to do. Goodbye, Mr. Walsh. I'm glad you found your money. Blue, I want to see you later, when you have time.
MCGREGOR: Of course. (WALSH seems to have his eyes riveted on CORA, as she disappears.) Say, young fellow, remember what I was telling you last night? (WALSH is oblivious.) Say, young fellow —
WALSH: (Turning himself away) What? Mr. McGregor, she's very good-looking, isn't she?
MCGREGOR: If you like the style, yes, probably. Too skinny for me, though. But never mind that. Sit down, young fellow. You in a hurry?
WALSH: Well, I supposed to see the mayor at his office in an hour or so. Is she engaged?
MCGREGOR: (Impatiently) Who? No, of course not. Now, sit down. (As WALSH wonders where to sit) The armchair. It's the most comfortable one in the whole house. That's the one Jesse uses.
WALSH: (Sitting down.) This is fine.
MCGREGOR: (he stand up and comes over, until he is towering over WALSH) The Last of the Pioneers!
WALSH: Huh? (blinking)
MCGREGOR: The Last of the Pioneers. That's what I'm going to call it. You're lucky, young fellow. It so happens that there was a lot of pressure on me after I saw you to turn my life into a radio play, but I said... no, I said... Walsh asked me first, and it wouldn't be fair for me to turn him down, even though I could make more money out of it. It's a matter of integrity, I said, of loyalty. Now the way I've got it figured, you can simply 145 write down what I dictate, and after that, we'll take the pictures... all sorts of pictures. Why, I still have the outfit I used when I went prospecting for gold in Alaska. Well, no, I never did get to prospect, come to think of it. I was all set and then I got into a poker game, and that was the end of that. See here, young fellow you're not harking a word.
WASLH: (Thoughtfully) You don't suppose he was joking when he said he was sorry for me?
MCGREGOR: Jesse? There's one thing my boy doesn't have, and that's a sense of humor. He's not the kind. But listen, why worry about that? This here is more important. You write up this story about me, and the whole country will know about it. You'll be a great reporter. Isn't that what you want?
WALSH: (Dubiously) It is. At least, I think it is. You know, what's what I was saying to him last night. I've always hankered to be on a paper, but, you see, every time I looked for a job I was too late, or I didn't have the educational requirements, or I didn't have the experience. Whatever it was they wanted, yours truly didn't have it. That's why I took up photography. I figured I might use it as an "in" to a big town newspaper. But that's the funny part of it. That's what I was telling him.
MCGREGOR: Sure, sure, young fellow, you tell me all about it, after I'm done. Now the way it was with me—
WALSH: (Argumentatively) Only it doesn't seem to matter any more. I mean, alright, I've done pretty well at my work and the desk said I'd get a crack at writing pretty soon but I don't seem to care whether I do or not, it doesn't bother me any more. I just don't care about anything. Now that bothers me, Mr. McGregor, it does. It's not that I'm lazy, I'm not. I work hard, and I always figured once I get into a big newspaper I'd work like blazes. I'd be so damned good that in a couple of years they'd be ready to make me some kind of an editor. But that isn't what's happening at all. Nothing seems to be worthwhile to me anymore.
MCGREGOR: As I figure it, we'll start with when I left here. No, we can't do that. I'd have to mention my wife, and some people'd have trouble understanding.
WALSH: (Twisting his hands) D'you suppose that's what Jesse meant.
MCGREGOR: (Querulously) To hell with Jesse! It's not him we're talking about, but "Blue" McGregor, the last of the pioneers. You can always write about Jesse, but my time is starting to run short...
WASLH: Well, there's nothing I can do about your story today. Jesse was telling me you really did have a lot of adventures...
146 MCGREGOR: (Snarling) Of course I did. Haven't I been telling you so?
WALSH: (Glancing at his wristwatch) But gosh I'd better get going. It's almost ten- thirty now. (Gets to his feet, struggles on with his gabardine) Lucky thing I brought this down with me.
MCGREGOR: Ten-thirty, you say. Jesse should be home any minute now.
(The door of the kitchen opens, and MRS.BAKER comes out)
MRS.BAKER: What was that about Jesse? (She sees WALSH) Oh!
MCGREGOR: (Hurriedly) He's just leaving, Emma. He came over here to see Jesse.
WALSH: No, I didn't...
MCGREGOR: (He starts to push WALSH toward the door) He's one of the men from Toronto who was here last night.
MRS.BAKER: Oh yes, I believe Sarah mentioned it to me. Well, I'm sorry, Jesse isn't here today. He had to rush off to a meeting this morning. An urgent one, it appears.
WALSH: But...
MCGREGOR: (Loudly; he has WALSH at the door) That's so. Urgent meeting. Too bad you can't see him, young fellow. (He winks ferociously, but of course WALSH doesn't understand)Well, good-bye, and think over what I told you. It'll be the making of you. And it all happened to me, too. There's not a word of exaggeration anywhere. (He is pushing WALSH through) It was a real pleasure, a real pleasure.
WALSH: Yes, well... (As he leaves) Goodbye. Maybe I'll see you again.
MCGREGOR: Of course, you will. Of course (Then WALSH, before he realizes it, is out. MCGREGOR shuts the door, sighing in relief)
MRS.BAKER: Really, father, there was no need for you to be so brusque with him. Perhaps he wants to have a word with me, too.
MCGREGOR: You didn't want to talk to him, Emma. You know what those big city reporters are like. Press prostitutes.
MRS.BAKER: All the same, you shoved him. Don't deny it. I saw you. You shoved him.
147 MCGREGOR: All finished in the cellar?
MRS.BAKER: No thanks to you I am. It wasn't as bad as it first looked, and now that it's stopped raining.. .but oh, my arthritis. I'll have to go to bed for a week. (She looks around the room) Where is- she? (And he looks puzzled) Cora.
MCGREGOR: Upstairs. Cleaning.
MRS.BAKER: Good. (She starts to cross)
MCGREGOR: Here, you're not going to start again with her.
MRS.BAKER: Oh no, I'm done with that. I'll let Jesse handle this. I'm going to call him up right now, and—
MCGREGOR: (Rushing over, blocking her way to the telephone) But you can't do that. He's tied up. You know he doesn't like your calling him at the office.
MRS.BAKER: Please, father, he's got to be told. It's his right to know.
MCGREGOR: Oh, for God's sake, Emma... (The doorbell rings.) It's Jesse now. Thank heaven. This is getting to be too much.
MRS.BAKER: Jesse! Why, that's impossible. What do you mean?
MCGREGOR: (Affably) All right, all right, you'll find out all about it now. (Only it is WALSH who crosses the thresh hold.) What do you want?
WALSH: (Civilly) Hello. I forgot to say, will you tell Mr. Baker- Jesse, that I'll send the prints to him as soon as I get back to Toronto?
MCGREGOR: (Hand thrust out.) Fine, young fellow. Now, we're busy. Can't you see? (CORA appears on the stairs. When she sees WASLH, she stops.)
MRS.BAKER: Prints? What are they?
WALSH: Prints of him being docked at the police station. (And, quite unaware of his bombshell) Well, good-bye again. (The door shuts behind him)
MRS.BAKER: (To MCGREGOR) Police station.
MCGREGOR: (Nervously) Hold on there, now.
MRS.BAKER: There's something wrong. Something happened to my boy! (She goes over to the telephone)
MCGREGOR: Now, Emma...
CORA: Let her alone.
MCGREGOR: But—
CORA: I told Sarah it was useless. You can't keep a thing like that secret.
MRS.BAKER: The line is open. Somebody left the receiver off the hook. (She jiggles the receiver.) Hello, hello. Operator. (The phone rings. She takes it.) Hello, Jesse? Oh, Mr.Khattar! Yes — I'll get — what, of course I can tell her. Yes, right away. Of course. (She hangs up)
MCGREGOR: What was it?
MRS.BAKER: (Coming forward) It was for Cora. Mr. Khattar. Where is... (As she sees CORA) Oh, there you are. Well, you're lucky. It seems you're not fired. Mr.Khattar's been calling you for the last half-hour.
MCGREGOR: What did he say?
MRS.BAKER: No need to be huffy, father. It wasn't for you. Cora, he wants you to get right over to the jail. He says to hurry. (CORA turns white, clutches the railing.)
MCGREGOR: Jesse.
MRS.BAKER: It has nothing to do with Jesse. Cora, for heaven's sake, you heard what he said. Get over right away. Now then, father, what's happened to Jesse? I know something has- Cora, what's wrong with you. You heard what he said, Hurry!
(The phone rings again. It is ringing insistently as the curtain falls.)
149 Scene Four
(The time is evening of the same day. The sun is going down, and pink twilight fills the room. When the curtain goes up, MRS. HARRIS and MCGREGOR are alone on stage. He is in the armchair, and she sits facing him. Her glasses perched on the top of her nose, she holds one of his hands, palm upward, and looks at it intently. He tries to pull away, but she perseveres.)
MCGREGOR: Stop it, I say. Stop this foolishness.
MRS.HARRIS: Be still, won't you? I can't be expected to do a thing long as you keep on wriggling around.
MCGREGOR: You can't do a thing anyway. You're a fake, Molly Harris.
MRS.HARRIS: Eh, you sounded just like my old one then and there. Being in the business, as you might say, he can flush out a phoney faster than—
MCGREGOR: You're both crooks, and he's the worse of the two.
MRS.HARRIS: (Grabbing his wrist) For land's sake, be quiet. I won't do you no harm.
MCGREGOR: If that damned doctor hadn't made me come downstairs, you'd never have trapped me into this. By God, it's a good thing Jesse doesn't know of it. I'd never hear the end of it from him.
MRS.HARRIS: Talk, talk, talk. You'll wake the poor boy up with your talking.
MCGREGOR: He'll be all right, won't he? Doctor would have said if he won't be.
MRS.HARRIS: (Shrugging) How should I know? I ain't a doctor.
MCGREGOR: No, you're not. You're a female lush that hasn't been sober since the first time she inhaled the fumes of alcohol. That's what you are. (Trying to convince himself) There can't be anything really wrong, or they'd have taken him to the hospital. I'm just spinning fears in my mind, for no purpose. That's what happens when you live around too many women. You can't tell between big and little worries any more. Here! (As she touches his arm) What's this? What are you doing?
MRS.HARRIS: I told you, I'm reading your character.
MCGREGOR: Even if you could, and I know you can't, a man like me would be too much for you. I'm a complicated person.
150 MRS.HARRIS: Jeez, you're a hard one, you are. I've never had a tougher one then you, not even when I was doing this for a living, and I had some beauties then.
MCGREGOR: (Spitefully) How did you charge them? By the bottle?
MRS.HARRIS: (Heartily) Lord, no. I was never that dumb. Cash I asked for, and cash I got. My that was a long while ago. I might have to go back into it again, things are so bad with my old one now. Hasn't been as bad as this since they first did away with prohibition, and ruined our trade with the Yankees. But I don't know if my old one will let me. He doesn't approve of it much; says it's not fitting for a woman of my position. (She see something, and exclaims) Well, don't this about beat everything! Don't this beat all!
MCGREGOR: (Glancing upstairs) I'd surely like to know what's going on up there.
MRS.HARRIS: (Enthusiastically) I think this is the first time I've ever run across this. The first time. (Professionally) You see this line here... the one by your thumb?
MCGREGOR: Of course I see it. It's not me that's wearing the glasses.
MRS.HARRIS: Well now, it tells me about the normal "you." The "you" that everybody knows. And it tells that you're a brave and steadfast soul, a man who likes to get around and do things. You're a man of patience. Adversity don't fizzle you. When you were younger and wanted something, or someone... (She leers salaciously)... you didn't stop till you got what you wanted.
MCGREGOR: (Loftily) Doesn't take any special power to know that about me. Everyone in town knows my history.
MRS.HARRIS: Oh, but that ain't what's important. It's the other line, the one that crosses the other in a circle, sort of... see it?
MCGREGOR: I've know about that for over seventy years. (Glancing upstairs, half- rising) You'd think they'd let me know what's happening. No consideration for their elders, none at all. That doctor— ordering me out of the room. I've got a mind on me to tell him—
MRS.HARRIS: (Forcing him to sit down) Why, this line here contradicts the other. It takes in your whole personality, and shows the "you" that's been hidden from the world, the "you" who can even yet express himself. Do you know what it says to the world, "Blue"? It says that you're a thinking man, at heart, a phil— a philosopher!
MCGREGOR: And haven't I said the same thing a thousand times, with you in the room 151 when I said it?
MRS.HARRIS: Oh, the poor line. Faded and worn out, it is, from neglect. A shameful thing, Blue, and you've let it die, and, the you, the man who could have been a painter, or a piano player, or a writer... (He starts, and she smiles wisely)... if only you'd sat down to it. But wait a see! Here, this line, here. It shows what your real destiny is to be. Blue, old man, you've still time to make yourself the immortal one.
MCGREGOR: (Sarcastically) And how would that be?
MRS.HARRIS: By being a writer. Oh yes, that's what it says here, clear as can be. A writer.
MCGREGOR: (Impressed despite himself) A writer, you say? (He muses) Well now, I have had it on my mind lately to try the pen. And you say that's what I'm destined to do.
MRS.HARRIS: See for yourself.
MCGREGOR: (Snatching his hand away) Aaggh, you foolish female, Emma's been telling you about my plans. A fat lot you know, stacked up with gin and pipe dreams as you are. Trying to make a man like me swallow your gaff! (He jumps up, goes over to the stairs) More than six hours they've been up there. What's going on with my Jesse? (He pounds on the railing) It's the anxiety. I don't mind the rest of it, but the waiting ! Waiting and waiting, and no one saying a word. I'm going up there to tell that doctor off. (MRS.HARRIS begins to fiddle with her purse) Worthless young idiot. We need specialists to attend to Jesse.
MRS.HARRIS: Oh, oh.
MCGREGOR: What's that? What did you say?
MRS.HARRIS: I feel faint... my heart.
MCGREGOR: What's the trouble? You're not sick too. You can't be. There's too many sick people in this house as it is.
MRS.HARRIS: I feel... I'll be all right... just a glass of water, that's all.
MCGREGOR: Water! By God, the female really is sick. How... you stay where you are.. .don't go away.. .don't move! (As soon as he exits into the kitchen, she sits in the armchair, hastily pulls a bottle of gin from her purse, takes a swig, and then puts the bottle away. He come back in, and give her the glass of water) Drink it down, now, all of it. (She takes the glass, tastes the water screws up her face, spits the water out, the glass is about to fall, he grabs for it, the water spills all over him, and he yells) Too much, do 152 you hear? This is too much.
MRS.HARRIS: Oh, I'm sorry, Blue. Come here and I'll dry it.
MCGREGOR: (Picking up the glass) Woman, don't you dare touch me. I'll dry myself off. There's a clean towel in the kitchen. (He goes toward the kitchen) It's my own fault. I shouldn't have given you the water.
MRS.HARRIS: (She sticks her tongue out at his departing back. Then, looking around, she debates whether she can have another drink. She opens her purse, and is about to take out the bottle when she sees CORA coming down. She snaps the purse shut) Hello, dearie. How's Jesse now?
CORA: The same. There's no change.
MRS.HARRIS: Still unconscious?
CORA: (Wearily) Where's everyone?
MRS.HARRIS: Gone, dearie, all gone. It's suppertime. You know how people are. Their guts come first. That reminds me, I've got to tend to the old one. He's probably cursing 'cause the table ain't set yet.
CORA: What about Blue? Where is he? Has he been bothering you?
MRS.HARRIS: (Sniggering) He's been no trouble at all. I read his palm for him, and he was so busy giving me hell, he sort of forgot about Jesse.
CORA: He was such a nuisance up there.
MRS.HARRIS: You should have heard me tell him his fortune, dearie, What's Emma doing?
CORA: She's asleep now. She wanted to stay with Jesse, but the doctor would only let Sarah and the nurse stay. I put mum to bed.
MRS.HARRIS: You ought to get some rest too. You've been on the go all day. Sit down, and don't you worry. His being still unconscious doesn't mean a thing, not a thing. Why, it's probably a good sign. You know, my old one got beaten up in an alley fight once... oh, not against one man, he could have beaten one man.. .there must have been half a dozen anyway. Well, he was out for two days. Forty-eight hours. Never even opened his eyes. But when he came out of it, he was as fit as when I first married him. He was running the cargo into the States again by the end of the week. (She is at the door now. CORA takes a cigarette from the shelf) You know, sometimes I'd like to 153 see them prohibition days back An honest bootlegger had a chance then. And it wasn't crooked. Not real crooked. Why, the best customers my old one had was the policeman. (She opens the door) I'll be back soon as I can, dearie.
CORA: You've been a great help, Molly.
MRS.HARRIS: (Gruffly) What's a neighbor for, if not to help when she's needed? (She leaves. CORA sits down on the chesterfield, exhausted)
MCGREGOR: (Returning from the kitchen, still angry) Damned lucky for you it was only water woman.
CORA: What?
MCGREGOR: (Seeing MRS.HARRIS is gone, he waves his hand) Never mind, it was nothing. Jesse come to yet? (She shakes her head) Any change at all? (Again, she shakes her head) Oh, it's terrible, terrible. Ten weeks the strike's been on, and in all that time, not a whiff of trouble even, and then in one day— this! (He is in the center of the room. He takes his pipe out, and fills it with tobacco) Emma with him?
CORA: Mum's asleep.
MCGREGOR: Good. It was the shock she had. I know we should have told her Jesse was in jail.
CORA: You didn't have to break it to her the way you did.
MCGREGOR: It was at your own suggestion. Besides, when Khattar called, I knew there was more trouble.
CORA: Oh well.. .make no never mind now.
MCGREGOR: (He tries to light his pipe, but he is nervous, and his hands tremble) I must be getting rheumatoid. It's the weather. Can't move a muscle.
CORA: (Factually) You're getting old, Blue. There's old blood in you.
MCGREGOR: (Raising his hands casually) This, you mean? I'll tell you. It's turned cold outside and the house is damp. Crazy weather today. It's only a touch of the rheumatoid nothing more.
CORA: Sure. (She hold up her cigarette) Light? ( He comes over. But his hands tremble. She studies him)
154 MCGREGOR: Maybe you're right. A man who has grandchildren can't pretend he's only a buck himself anymore, Cora? (She takes the burnt match from him, puts it in the ashtray) There's no danger, is there? I mean, Jesse's not going to ... (He can't finish)
CORA: You know what the doctor said.
MCGREGOR: I don't care what he said. I'm asking you.
CORA: How should I know? You saw him when he was brought it. How did he look to you?
MCGREGOR: (Shamefaced) I didn't look. I couldn't. I was afraid.
CORA: You're building it all up in your mind. The rock that hit him wasn't very big. He'll be all right.
MCGREGOR: Yes, yes, I am exaggerating, I suppose. Still...
CORA: Sit down, Blue. You make me nervous.
MCGREGOR: (Vaguely) What? Oh, all right. (He sits in the armchair) I guess we should keep our minds off it. They say that's best.
CORA: (Agreeably) Okay. Let's talk. What about?
MCGREGOR: That Austrian fellow, he told me if you talk enough, you can forget whatever is bothering you— for a few minutes, anyway.
CORA: Maybe he's right. There's plenty I'd like to forget.
MCGREGOR: (Gloomily) Now you take me. Only this morning I was all hot up about an idea I had. Told Emma about it, too, only of course she didn't appreciate it. Know what I was thinking of doing? I was going to write a play... a play for radio.
CORA: Oh?
MCGREGOR: Come to me last night. Had a name picked out for it too. The Last of the Pioneers.
CORA: Not bad. What is it? The old west... a cowboy story?
MCGREGOR: No, certainly not. It's all about me, the story of my life. That's why it's called the Last of the Pioneers, because, you see, that's what I am... the Last of a species. The exciting, complete, true life story of Angus "Blue" McGregor, told by Angus "Blue" 155 McGregor himself. Why, with all the things that happened to me, I could sell it in no time. (As he talks, he gradually forgets the circumstances of the conversation and is carried away by his own fancy) I figure I'd begin with when I left town. What do you think of that?
CORA: And mention mum and grandma?
MCGREGOR: Now see here, Cora, as I've told you before, that whole business is misunderstood. I didn't desert them. It was nothing like that. It was, more or less, a mutual parting. Yes, that's exactly what it was. She didn't want to see any more of me, and I obliged her.
CORA: Swear to that?
MCGREGOR: (Hastily) Mind you, I was thinking myself, it might not be the best place to start. All right. So we leave that out. But the way I have it figured, what people would be most interested in is the women I used to know. People always like to know that sort of thing. Well, I can tell them plenty!
CORA: (Negatively) Uh-uh.
MCGREGOR: What now?
CORA: It wouldn't sound right. A married man gallivanting over the world with women. What would people say?
MCGREGOR: Don't have to say I'm married.
CORA: Of course not. But what about us? How would you explain us?
MCGREGOR: Hey, that's right.
CORA: Doesn't leave you with much, does it?
MCGREGOR: I wouldn't say that. Women didn't take up all my time. There's other things I can talk about.
CORA: Such as....?
MCGREGOR: Lots of things. The stretch I did in the Legion, and the time I got caught in the middle of that feud in Albania. And how about the time I had the cell next to Hitler in Munich? ... Anyway, I've got the ending worked out, too. That's really something.
156 CORA: (Caustically) Tell me more.
MCGREGOR: Now then, the strike is over... Lambert's given in and the men have their increase, and the start of an old age pension in the bargain... and they're giving Jesse a cheer. That's only natural, for he's their leader. But suddenly he calls for quiet, and turns to me, and shakes my hand and says, "Blue, we owe it all to you. We could never have won this strike if you hadn't enlightened me on the nature of the class struggle. Let me shake your hand, Blue, for teaching me how to help in the overthrow of the oppressing class."
CORA: Well?
MCGREGOR: That's it. That's the end. You get the idea. The last of the pioneers has bequeathed his knowledge to the later generation. I've passed my torch along to Jesse, for him to honor and to hold.
CORA: That's damned think, Blue.
MCGREGOR: It's the truth, isn't it? Wasn't I the one who made him see the light.
CORA: No, you know darned well you weren't.
MCGREGOR: All right, so he had some ideas of his own. But I encouraged him, you can't deny that. I told him he was on the right track, didn't I?
CORA: Blue McGregor, you had no more with Jesse going into Labor work than I had with the.. .with the change in the weather.
MCGREGOR: Girl, you don't understand. If Jesse didn't need me, why did he ask me to join the picket line? It was at his personal request, remember?
CORA: He did it to get you away from mum for a while. He couldn't stand the two of you jabbering at each other like two old crows.
MCGREGOR: Even if that's so, and I'm not saying it is, mind you.. .nobody has to know it. It sounds much better the way I put it, and it could be true. My life could have been an object lesson to Jesse. Hey, damn it, it stays the way I tell it— long as Jesse doesn't object.
CORA: So you've decided to write it.
MCGREGOR: (Uneasily) Well, I figured, if everything is all right, I would put my hand to it. A man can't be idle all the time. (He starts up) Did you hear anything? I thought I heard someone moving about upstairs, a door opening. 157 CORA: It must have been the nurse.
MCGREGOR: (Relaxing) Probably. Say, where did the doctor pick it up. She reminds me of a witch-woman I knew in New Orleans. Jesse deserves a better-looking nurse than that. If he sees her first when he wakes, there's no telling what might happen. He could even have a relapse. Now, then, Cora, when I do write the play...
CORA: Here it comes. I knew I'd be dragged into it.
MCGREGOR: (Suavely) When do you pick up your pay?
CORA: I bought you a pouch of tobacco yesterday. That should keep till Friday.
MCGREGOR: This has nothing to do with tobacco. I'm asking you a question.
CORA: I'm not sure. I thought, tomorrow, but Mr.Khattar seems to think I'm still working for him, I guess I'll go back. Why?
MCGREGOR: (Pursing his lips) You got any money on you now?
CORA: About a dollar. And I need every cent of it. It's not for you.
MCGREGOR: There you go again, rushing to conclusions. Why don't you hear me out?
CORA: You're not getting any money. I know you. Try someone else. Look for another billfold.
MCGREGOR: (Plaintively) Haven't I told you ten times already that wasn't Walsh's wallet I had? The one I had was lying on the street, and it was empty. It was just a coincidence.
CORA: That's what you say.
MCGREGOR: What I'm trying to say, if you'll only let me, is that the next time you have some spare money in your purse, I'd like you to buy me some writing paper to do my play on.
CORA: Why? There's lots stationary in the house.
MCGREGOR: That stuff is good enough for ordinary writing, but a work like this one of mine needs a special kind of paper. I saw some down at the bookstore the other week. Beautiful stuff, vellum.
158 CORA: No dice. I've got better ways to spend my money. You can use the paper that's here.
MCGREGOR: I don't know why you talk to me like that. It's only a little favor I'm asking. Considering... considering the news I have for you, it seems little enough for you to do for your poor old grandfather in return.
CORA: No.
MCGREGOR: Don't you want to know what the news is?
CORA: You're not going to get around me. ( She extinguishes the cigarette) I know your tricks. (He beams. She is curious) I can tell you're lying. You always get that smug expression when you're dreaming up a fib. (Finally, anxious to know) Well, what is it?
MCGREGOR: (Swiftly) Promise to get me the paper?
CORA: When I get my pay— yes.
MCGREGOR: Mind, the vellum. (He chuckles) You're a good girl, Cora. (With satisfaction) I always said you're a good girl.
CORA: Now, what's the news?
MCGREGOR: Remember that fellow who was here in the morning.. .that reporter, Walsh...
CORA: What about him?
MCGREGOR: He likes you.
CORA: You've had a stroke.
MCGREGOR: Gospel truth. He kept asking me about you, and all the time you were down here, he kept staring at you. Didn't you notice? Couldn't drag his eyes away. I know that look. Used to have it myself when I was his age.
CORA: And for the same reason.
MCGREGOR: No, no. He's not that way at all. You saw him yourself. He's polite, sincere, respectful. His type only gets that look once. It's love. (CORA start to get up) Where you going?
CORA: To get the doctor. You're the one who needs to be examined. You're senile. 159 MCGREGOR: All right, all right, don't believe me. But he'll be back again and it won't be to take pictures either.
CORA: (Subsiding) Let me alone, will you, Blue?
MCGREGOR: Wait and see. (His smoke has gone out. He reaches for a match) You'd think some smart fellow would invent a lighter inside a pipe, so you wouldn't need matches... (He produces an envelope) Well, say. I forgot all about this.
CORA: Well?
MCGREGOR: It's from the chief of police. Sour-faced son of a bitch was here this afternoon too. Guess half the town was here. Guess the other half will be here tonight. He said I should give it to Jesse as soon as he comes to.
CORA: Is it important? Perhaps Sarah should see it?
MCGREGOR: (Throwing the letter to her) It just says they've got Billy Bowler.
CORA: (Catching the letter) Who's he?
(On MCGREGGOR's next speech, MRS.BAKER appears at the head of the stairs. She is dishevelled in dress, and starts to descend slowly)
MCGREGOR: You know, he's the one who threw the rock. Too bad. He's a nice fellow. No better man in the union than Billy.
CORA: What's going to happen to him?
MCGREGOR: Hard to say. The chief said it was up to the attorney-general. Now, if it was up to me they wouldn't do a thing. It was an accident. Billy didn't mean to hit Jesse. Like I told the chief, he was throwing the rock at the sergeant. (MRS.BAKER pauses, listens)
CORA: That helps a lot. That was some idea- throwing rocks. Even kids have more sense than that.
MCGREGOR: These things happen. All the men had in mind was to welcome Jesse when he came out. You know how it is. There was no picket line because of the rain, and nothing much to do at home.. .and, besides, they wanted to show Jesse old Lambert wasn't going to get away with it. So they went down to the station. Well, maybe they were excited, but nothing would have happened if the chief hadn't told them to break it up, and then started to push them away when they insisted on staying. Damn it, Cora, 160 they weren't doing anything. Just waiting. If the chief hadn't gone tough, there'd have been no trouble at all. He's the one to blame. I tell you, that's what Jesse will say too. He won't want them to prosecute Billy. He knows Billy didn't mean any harm.
MRS.BAKER: (Faintly) Father. (The turn and see her)
CORA: (Standing up) You know you should be in bed.
MRS.BAKER: (To MCGREGOR) If you have any amount of decency left, you'll have the goodness not to say things like that.
MCGREGOR: I was only-
MRS.BAKER: It's bad enough to know that my son was in jail all night, that he was beaten up by one of his friends, but I won't stand for you defending the man who tried to kill him. That's too much. Hate me as you please, but spare my children. In Jesus' name!
MCGREGOR: There's no need to go on like that. I was just trying to be objective about the whole thing.
CORA: Never mind. Go to your room, Blue. (She leads her mother by the hand to the chesterfield) Come and sit down. (To MCGREGOR) I told you to go to your room.
MCGREGOR: She's getting hysterical again. You better talk some sense into her.
MRS.BAKER: (Meaning, fingers clutching cross) Mary, Mother of God, have mercy. Take him away.
CORA: Please, mum, please. (To MCGREGOR, with authority) Will you go?
MCGREGOR: All right, all right, but don't you let her fool you. It's not Jesse she's thinking of. It's herself. (As he opens the door to this room) Too bad she's not up there, instead of him. (CORA gasps. He slams the door)
MRS.BAKER: You see? Oh, he's heartless. He wears a mask for the rest of the world, but when it comes to me, he shows himself as he really is. He's cruel, Cora, wicked. He'd kill me if he could. And for what? Haven't I been a decent daughter to him? Haven't I been as merciful as could be? Did you hear what he said? He wants me to die.
CORA: He's not worth you're getting excited. Please try to control yourself, mum, please.
MRS.BAKER: (Clutching her hand) I couldn't sleep. I dozed but I couldn't sleep. And 161 then I thought I heard Molly.. .she was here.
CORA: She was, but she had to go away. She'll be back soon. Come on, mum, there's going to be a lot of people here tonight.
MRS.BAKER: What will happen to us? Jesse can't go, he mustn't.
CORA: (Crooning) He's going to be fine. In a few days he'll be up and around, you watch.
MRS.BAKER: The doctor is still up there. Jesse hasn't recovered consciousness. He's been lying in bed all afternoon, and he's unconscious. We should have taken him to the hospital.
CORA: (Reasonably) Well, it's too late for that now. The doctor says he can't be moved. And the doctor did say to bring him here. Look how about some tea- hot tea with lemon, you like that.
MRS.BAKER: Molly will be back, won't she?
CORA: Soon, very soon.
MRS.BAKER: That's good. I miss her. Molly's a good woman... no matter what he says, she's fine... even if she does drink once in a while. And she does have a cure for my arthritis. Her medicine— oh, Cora, I don't feel well.
CORA: I'll get the tea. It will do you good.
SARAH: (She appears on the stairway, her manner phlegmatic) Mrs.Baker.. .mother. (They both look up) Come up at once.
CORA: What is it?
SARAH: Jesse's moving. Please.. .mother.
MRS.BAKER: (Going up the stairs) Yes, yes. Oh, my boy. My poor, poor boy.
CORA: He's better, mum. You heard what Sarah said: he's moving. Sarah, he is better, isn't he? (But SARAH is gone and MRS.BAKER shuffles out of sight. CORA sighs) God, what a day.
MCGREGOR: (Coming out of his room, thunderstruck) Am I the dumb one!
CORA: Blue, you should be horsewhipped! 162 MCGREGOR: You know what I think?
CORA: How could you say a thing like that to her? It was monstrous.
MCGREGOR: Her and Molly Harris...
CORA: You've been listening again.
MCGREGOR: I always thought there was something fishy about that whole business. They're just not the type to be close friends. Well now, listen! When did Harris move in next door? Three years ago. And when did your mother get her arthritis? Three years ago. Don't you see, Cora, it's not just fortune-telling they've got in common. I knew it, all the time I knew it, only it didn't seem possible. (He hoots with laughter) Special medicine for arthritis. That's rich. Huh! You know what, Cora. Your mother drinks. That sanctimonious mother of yours, who's been lording it over me, is a tank!
CORA: She's right. You really do hate her. It's real hate. Why, Blue? Why do you say such awful things about her? What have you got against her?
MCGREGOR: Wait till I tell Jesse. My daughter an alcoholic. And he so worried about her, he didn't want her to know he was in jail. It made no difference how I found out, but he didn't want her to be upset. Oh, ho! Wait till he finds out!
CORA: You won't say a word, do you hear!
MCGREGOR: Don't be silly, girl. I've been waiting for this my whole life.
CORA: If she drinks, and I'm not saying that she does, but if she does, Lord knows you've driven her to it. Now, you be quiet. I don't want you to say anything to anybody.
MCGREGOR: (Softly, murderously) You advising me?
CORA: I'm telling you. This is all the family I've got, and we've enough worries as it is. I don't want any more, not any more.
MCGREGOR: I do as I please. You're getting too hell-fired superior for your own good.
CORA: Blue, so help me, if you dare to mention it to anyone, I'll- I'll commit you to the old folks home. I mean it. I'm not joking.
MCGREGOR: (Taken aback) You couldn't. Jesse wouldn't let you.
CORA: It won't be up to him. It'll be up to me. And if you dare.. .I'll do it, do you 163 understand? (Suddenly, harshly, the doorbell rings) Now what? (She flings open the door) Oh, it's you. (WALSH is clearly visible in the doorway. CORA look from him to MCGREGOR, startled)
WALSH: Hello, Miss Baker. Well, here we are again, both of us this time. This is Mr. Sharkey.
CORA: Oh. (After a pause) Come in. (Both men enter. WALSH has no equipment)
SHARKEY: (Smoothly) We're sorry to bother you at a time like this. (He sees MCGREGOR) Hey there, old-timer... how you feeling? I guess you're wondering why were we're here again. But that's newspaper work, you know. Here today, and- here tomorrow.
CORA: What do you want?
WALSH: Well, you see, Miss Baker...
SHARKEY: (Sharply) I'll handle this, kid. This is a ticklish business. I've been up against it before. (Affably) No reason why we should all be standing, is there? Guess we'll be here for a while, so we might as well rest our weary feet. Sit down, kid, park. (He sits on the chesterfield. WALSH throws CORA an imploring look) Not a bad seat, you know. Well, it's like this. The home office called. They're very pleased the way the story has been coming along. We came down at the right time. It's getting to be big you know. Now Red.. .that's the editor; I don't know why they call him Red, he's as bald as a coot.. .well, he thought we should get a statement from your brother. We don't want very much, just a short statement, maybe a one-paragraph quote or so.. .about the fact that it was a striker who hit him (He mistakes her expression) Oh, we won't take long. We don't want to bother him. So, if you could go up and tell him we'd like to have a couple of words.. .ten minutes of his time, that's all.
WALSH: For God's sake, Joe. I told you they wouldn't stand for this. Can't you see—?
SHARKEY: I tell you it will be all right. Stop getting goose pimples, (to CORA) You understand the public is vitally interested in your brother.
CORA: (Composedly) I'm afraid it's impossible to see him. He hasn't recovered consciousness yet.
SHARKEY: (Unperturbed) I expected that. In these cases, a guy can be stiff for a week. Well, Red figured on that, too. So if we can't see your brother, we'd like to see Mrs.Baker, both Mrs.Bakers. Next to a statement from him, theirs would be the best. We've already seen Lambert and the police chief and the poor gink who threw the rock.. .he's in a bad way, crying all the time. He doesn't seem to know yet what 164 happened. (He laughs) You know, it's quite an angle. I mean.. .that a labour organizer should be injured by one of his own union members. This is one time they can't blame private enterprise. Well, can I see them? (No one answers) I know they're here. They must be. If you'd tell them.
MCGREGOR: He drinks. He drinks.
SHARKEY: Sure I do. How can you tell, pop? Do I have a red nose?
WALSH: (He puts his hand on SHARKEY shoulder) Listen Joe, there's no point staying here.
SHARKEY: (Shaking him off) Stop bothering me. (To CORA) Please try to see reason. This is an important story. We don't like to intrude on anyone's privacy, but it does become necessary sometimes.
CORA: You'd better leave. I think that would be best.
SHARKEY: Miss Baker, it doesn't do any good to take that attitude. After all, you owe my paper some co-operation. We've given your brother a lot of publicity since the strike started, and ours is the only paper to send men down to the scene itself. We come all the way from Toronto. We've sent back more than 10,000 words already, and pictures too, plenty of pictures. I don't want to—
CORA: Please go.
WALSH: You can see they don't want to talk. What's the point?
SHARKEY: Will you shut up? Look, Miss Baker...
MCGREGOR: (Shrilly) He drinks, he drinks.
SHARKEY: Say, what goes (Then his expression changes) I'll tell you what. Suppose we leave it to the women themselves?
CORA: What?
SHARKEY: (Getting up) Here they are now (MRS.BAKER and SARAH both come down. SHARKEY places himself in front of them.) You must be Mrs. Baker, his mother. My name is Sharkey, form the Toronto World. I was here last night. (SARAH ignores him. She walks over to the armchair)
CORA: (She takes a step forward) Jesse... MRS.BAKER: Sharkey? I knew a man by that name once. He had a tailor shop on George Street.
SHARKEY: No one I know. What I wanted to ask you, Mrs. Baker, is... well, I'm sorry about your son, but was hoping...
MRS.BAKER: My son. Oh, you know him.
SHARKEY: I know we can't see him, but I thought...
MRS.BAKER: (Interrupting) Yes, you can see him if you like. The doctor will be down shortly. I imagine it will be all right then. (CORA groans)
SHARKEY: That's fine. Is he able to talk?
CORA: Oh, Sarah... (She crosses and kneels beside SARAH who sits rigidly)
MRS.BAKER: (Blandly) My only son. But he's gone now. He's dead. Just now. We were with him, Sarah and I, but it was no good. He didn't even know we were there. He just—died. (The doorbell rings) He didn't say a word. (SHARKEY rushes over to the phone, and calls urgently, "long distance.")
MRS.HARRIS: (She comes in) Well, here I am. I'd have been here earlier, but my old one was so hungry... (She sees the tableaux and stops) What is it? Emma...
(WHAT FOLLOWS IS SIMULTANEOUS)
SHARKEY: Yeah, that's right. The Toronto World.. .Now, rush it, will you? This is an emergency. (He waits in a fever of impatience)
MRS.BAKER: Oh, Molly.. .did you know.. .my arthritis...
MCGREGOR: (Hollowly) I can't.. ..my head. Not so. I'm an old man and infirm. My head. I can't hear. (He starts toward his room, and pushes open the door) I... my boy... Jesse...
(The lights begin to dim)
MRS.BAKER: He's dead, Molly. Molly! I'm not well.. .Molly.. .could you.. .dead! He's just lay there and died. He didn't even take the last rites! (Her voice cracks, and fades away) He didn't even know we were there.
(The stage is almost dark, and as her words fade away, the people freeze. WALSH stands, one hand outstretched. SHARKEY is at the telephone talking, MRS.BAKER and 166 MRS.HARRIS face each other, the former's words an incoherent murmur. CORA sits on the floor, her head against SARAH's leg. Then, gradually, SHARKEY's voice becomes louder)
SHARKEY: Red, Red! Here's the latest. It's a honey! No, no, I've no time now. Just take this. Ready? Okay. "The rock that striker Billy Bowler intended for a policeman and which caught labour organizer Jesse Baker on the side of the temple this morning was responsible for the latter's death tonight.. ."Yeah, yeah,.. .he's dead. (His voice fades away)
SARAH: (She has been sitting motionless, but now turns her head toward SHARKEY. Then she raises her hands slowly, up to her face, quivering. She sits upright. As the curtain falls, she cries, with terribly naked emotion) Jesse! Jesse, my darling. Jesse!
167 Scene Five
(This is the conclusion of SCENE ONE. The blind is down again over the window, MCGREGOR again seated on the chesterfield. The photograph is back on the shelf. Gradually the stage, which was pitch black at the end of the fourth scene, lightens until at last MCGREGOR speaks)
MCGREGOR: I loved him like a son. He was more than a son to me, a brother, a teacher, a friend... the boy I never had. Gone! Jesse gone! (He stares at the photograph) Is that all that's left of Jesse Baker? A picture? A story in a newspaper? A fading memory in the minds of an old man and a few women? Dear Lord in heaven, are we to be his only monuments? Dear Lord... (He lapses into silence, sighing heavily)
CORA: (She enters, carrying a heaving shopping-bag) That you, Blue? (She kicks the door shut with her foot) What have you been up to today? (She comes to the center of the room, and indicates the shopping-bag) Groceries. Heaps of them. There's enough in that bag, and more coming, to feed the two of us all month. Say, it's dark in here. You put the blind down. Upstairs too, I suppose.
MCGREGOR: You. They're supposed to be down... to remind us that we're still in mourning.
CORA: (Accusingly) You went to the cemetery again. And you promised me you wouldn't go without me.
MCGREGOR: (Blurting out) Had to go. Had to.
CORA: It's Molly's fault. She's butter in your hands. All you have to say is you want to go and she takes you.
MCGREGOR: (Weakly) Now, now, none of that. She's a good woman, with a fine heart.
CORA: Mum should only hear that. It would make up for everything. (Softly) There's a letter from her in my purse somewhere. She wants to know why you haven't written. Sarah is worried about your health.
MCGREGOR: Did they write? What did they say?
CORA: Nothing much. Sarah still has to be in bed. But mum is feeling better.
MCGREGOR: Yes, she'll soon forget.
CORA: (Sardonically) Certainly she will. What was he to her? Only her son. 168 MCGREGOR: But my friend. Her son, but my friend. (Gloomily) No more, now. Only a body in a coffin, now, soon to be forgotten by this dark filthy world.
CORA: What do you want to say things like that for? Honestly, Blue, sometimes I get the feeling that you're not half so grieved as you make out. It seems to me that you're over-doing the whole business. (She is immediately contrite) I shouldn't have said that. It slipped out.
MCGREGOR: (Self-pityingly) But you've been thinking it. That's why it did slip out.
CORA: (Hurriedly, she has been through this before) Want to know how I could afford to buy these groceries? Well, you can thank Mr.Khattar. Un-huh. I was in to see him. He was very decent, showed me every consideration. (She goes into the kitchen, continuing form there) I go back to work Monday. Imagine, he's been holding my job for me all this time. And that's not all. He said two of the weeks I was off counted for my vacation. Un-huh. He made out a cheque on the spot. You know, I've done him an injustice. (She reappears) He's not so bad at all. Here, this one is for you. (She throws the note pad and he, instinctively, catches it) That was one of the first things I bought. It's the vellum paper you wanted.. .for your radio play.
MCGREGOR: What, what? Oh yes. I'd forgotten (He lays aside the pad, mutters) A foolish notion.
CORA: (Crossing the room) I'll have to clean up in here tomorrow. The dust gathers so fast. Say, who's been at the recorder?
MCGREGOR: No one.
CORA: But there must have been
MCGREGOR: Maybe the reporters. They were here again. The ones from Toronto.
CORA: What did they want?
MCGREGOR: I told them to get out. I didn't want to talk to them.
CORA: Good. (She takes a cigarette from her purse) Light? (He shrugs unresponsively) Never mind. I have matches here somewhere. (She lights the cigarette) Oh, I bumped into Father Martin on the streetcar. He wanted to know when Sarah was coming home.
MCGREGOR: What for? She doesn't want to see him.
CORA: Why not? Oh, you mean because he has Jesse's job. Well, you didn't think the 169 union was going to fold, did you?
MCGREGOR: It would have been better if it had. Then at least we wouldn't have to know Jesse died for nothing. (He shakes his head) Think of it.. .all that struggle, all that pain.. .and for what? So that they could go back to work under the old contract. Ah, there's a bitter pill for any honest worker to swallow.
CORA: Let's not start that again, please, Blue. Anyway, Peter told me the union has established a fund for Sarah and the baby. Everyone at the plant is donating a day's pay. Old man Lambert is giving something too.
MCGREGOR: Blood money.
CORA: Peter expects to raise more than $5,000.
MCGREGOR: Thirty pieces of silver.. .to be shared by the victims of Judas.
CORA: (Irritably) Now lay off that, will you? That money means Sarah can have her own room at the hospital when the baby comes, and a private nurse... (She pulls up the blind) I think I'll write Sarah about it before supper. (He winces at the light) Any message?
MCGREGOR: From me? Tell her I'm fine. About as fine as any man can be whose time on earth is so short.
CORA: Like hell. She wants some cheerful news.
MCGREGOR: (He waits till she is halfway up the stairs) What did he have to say?
CORA: (Pausing) Who?
MCGREGOR: (Impatiently) You went shopping, didn't you? And we still deal with Simpson, don't we? Then you must have seen him.
CORA: Max, you mean?
MCGREGOR: I don't mean his ghost.
CORA: Yes, he was there. In fact, he served me.
MCGREGOR: Was it bad? Did your throat choke up? Did it revive everything?
CORA: (Laughing) Oh, Blue. (Seriously) There was nothing to bring back. He's being married after New Year's. 170 MCGREGOR: But not to you. He won't hold you in his arms on his wedding night.
CORA: (Dispassionately) You do have a nasty mind, don't you? You know very well I was never in love with him.
MCGREGOR: Ah, you say that now. But in this very room, I remember...
CORA: I didn't understand myself then that it was nothing. (He glowers resentfully) But when I saw him today.. .it was all far away and distant and silly. A teenager's infatuation. (She takes a quick puff on the cigarette) I won't be long.
MCGREGOR: (Magnanimously) Take your time. I'll be here. I've got nothing to do till Molly comes over, and that won't be till after supper.
CORA: You and Molly... (She slowly disappears)
MCGREGOR: (Mimicking her) You and Molly... (The doorbell rings, but he doesn't hear it) ...A nasty bird. Huh, no respect, that's what it is. She's getting bossier by the day... more and more like her mother. (The door opens, and WALSH enters. MCGREGOR fiddles in his pockets) You know you don't have any tobacco, Blue. But she didn't by you any either. No, she wastes money on writing-paper, but doesn't think of tobacco. No consideration.
WALSH: (Producing his own pouch) Would you like to try mine? It's cheap, but the flavor is nice. Tangy. And it burns well.
MCGREGOR: (Squinting at him) Oh, its you. You're back.
WALSH: (Pressing the pouch on him) Go ahead. Try it. It can't do you any harm. (MCGREGOR takes the pouch. He packs the bowl of the pipe with deft, automatic motions, never taking his eye off WALSH who coughs) You see, Joe.. .that's Sharkey... he told me to talk to the neighbors while he went to see Lambert and have a talk with him. I was in the house across the street before I noticed it. You know, it's very odd. This is the only place where it ever happens. I guess that shows it's subconscious, that I want to lose it here. Anyway, I put my hand in my pocket, and it wasn't there, so I came right back.
MCGREGOR: I don't know what you're talking about.
WALSH: (Puzzled, then realizing) Oh, I haven't explained. (He takes the pouch, and puts it away.) The truth is, I left my billfold here again. And in the same place, too.
MCGREGOR: (Ferverenly) Couldn't be. I'd know. I know about things like that — 171 right away.
WALSH: (Biting his lip) But it must be. I had it when I was here before, I know. If you'd only look...
MCGREGOR: No point to it... a waste of time. Just to prove it to you... (He looks, and of course finds it at once)
WALSH: (Gratefully) That's it. I knew it was there. (As he recovers it.) Thanks, thanks a lot.
MCGREGOR: It's all right.
WALSH: I didn't get a chance to tell you earlier. But I'm a reporter now. That story I wrote about Jesse did the trick. They liked it so much they took me on right away. Of course I still take pictures, but... well, I've done it at last. I'm a member of the fourth estate.
MCGREGOR: (Casually) That was what you wanted, wasn't it.
WALSH: (Just as casually) That was what I thought I wanted. (He crosses the room) The trouble with me is, I'm slow. Some guys—Joe, now— they understand things right away; it takes them a minute, and they're on to it. Not me, though. God, I remember how it was with arithmetic problems in school. I used to work hours on one of them. And that wasn't enough. I'd have to figure out a dozen more before I'd see the principle behind it. The teachers all said I'd never set the world on fire, and I never will, I guess. (He turned around to face MCGREGOR) That's why I came down here, you know. I didn't have to come. But I asked to be sent down.
MCGREGOR: (Standing up, showing no interest) I must have a match on me somewhere.
WALSH: Let me (As he comes over and strikes a light MCGREGOR'S hands tremble. WALSH steadies them. MCGREGOR sucks on his pipe. WALSH continues with the same quiet deliberation) It's a funny thing. All my life I knew where I was going. From the time I was a kid I had my heart set on being a reporter. Not a big ambition, but mine, all mine. Then one day I talk to a stranger and he says one sentence to me— he feel sorry for me— and that ambition doesn't add up to a row of beans anymore. Nothing adds up any more. You think you've got the answers, and then suddenly you not only don't know what the answers are, but you don't even know the questions. I wish I was smarter.
MCGREGOR: (Whispering) All over again. By God, I knew it. I had a feeling. The first time I saw you.. It was like a haunt.
172 WALSH: But now.. .now I don't know. If a man doesn't know where's the road ahead, if he doesn't know where he's going.. .well, he's not worth very much, the way I see it. The way I see it, a man has to have purpose. He has to know himself. He has to know the world he lives in. That sounds pretty big doesn't it? Well, you know what I mean.
MCGREGOR: So you figured out what Jesse meant?
WALSH: (Thoughtfully) No, sir. But I know he was right in feeling sorry for me.
MCGREGOR: (Abruptly violent) That's where you're wrong. Son, tell me something, you're thinking of quitting your job, aren't you?
WALSH: (Troubled) I'll tell you you know it is. I've a bit of money saved up, and I've never had a vacation. If it hasn't been one thing, it's another. I've never had time to take it easy and think. Really think, if you get me. Now, I rather like this town.. .the people in it are friendly; I like that. I like friendly people.. .and I thought maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to spend some time here.. .call it a vacation, if you like.
MCGREGOR: And what would you do?
WALSH: I don't know. Write. Think. Get myself some kind of daytime job that wouldn't involve any mental strain. Truck-driving! I'm a handy man around a truck. There's always a need for drivers. (Embarrassed) Look, I hope you don't mind my talking to you like this. But you see I don't have any friends, and I know you better than anybody else in the town. Besides, you being Jesse's grandfather... I thought you could see—
MCGREGOR: You want to live here?
WALSH: Well, for a time...
MCGREGOR: To straighten yourself out?
WALSH: (Brightening) Yes.
MCGREGOR: You're sure it's not because of Cora. Oh, I know you have a hankering for her ( He stares at WALSH grimly) You want to save the world?
WALSH: (Grinning) Me? No, sir. I'm not the type. I only want to save myself.
MCGREGOR: You want my advice? Well... (He points to the door).. .You just skeedaddle out of here, and out of town, as fast as you can.
WALSH: I don't follow you. 173 MCGREGOR: (His voice rising) If you want to save yourself, you do as I say. I know you quiet fellows. Jesse was the same way. I remember when he came back from overseas. He had to straighten himself out, too.
WALSH: But, I'm not Jesse. And I'm hardly the labour leader type, would you say? If that's what you're thinking, forget it.
MCGREGOR: You forget it, do you hear? You're a nice young fellow, but you're not yourself any more. Been thinking, haven't you? About all sorts of queer things.. .about politics and why some people are poor, and why others are rich, and why some people work all their lives to help other people, and why they don't get—
WASLH: Something like that.
MCGREGOR: (Breathing heavily) Now you forget all about it, and go back to Toronto. You'll be better off.
WALSH: Wait a minute. You make it sound like a crime, my thinking about these matters. Okay, I know I'm not very old... and I've only voted once, but—
MCGREGOR: Not a crime, no. Worse, much worse. It's stupid.
WALSH: By why?
MCGREGOR: Why? I'll show you. Here. (He brandishes Jesse's photo at WALSH) You see that? My boy started thinking, too. And he was smarter than you. He came from a working-class town. All his life he'd felt the breath of the class-struggle down his neck, hot and ugly and burning. And when he figured out all the answers, he knew the questions, he set out to do something about them. And he did. He could have been anything he wanted ... he could have made a nice living, had a home— a family— but not my boy, no, he had to do something. And where did it take him? Posthaste to the graveyard.
WALSH: These things happen.
MCGREGOR: Let them happen to strangers. Not to you. I tell you, this is a world of carrion, and the wise men stays out of the fight and go their own way.
WALSH: You mean Jesse shouldn't have done what he did? But, Mr. McGregor, I remember, in your room, after he died... how you—
MCGREGOR: What I said then was soft, sentimental.. .an old man knocked down by shock and grief. I'm speaking to you now with cold reason.. .the world's not worth 174 saving.
WALSH: (Exasperated) But I don't want to save it. Haven't I made that clear?
MCGREGOR: Stop talking boy and get out of here. Erase this whole business from your mind. Be smart... if things are wrong, it's not your business to correct them. Let the others be fools and struggle to die unrewarded. Don't you be like that.
WALSH: Wait a minute. If what Jesse was fighting for was right, and I know it's right, are you telling me I should do nothing about it? Is that what you mean? But you can't. Why, that's elementary. I couldn't face myself if I knew someone was in trouble, and that I could help him, but instead I do nothing. That's terrible.
MCGREGOR: What concern is it of yours? You're not the one in trouble. You stay out of it. Be smart.
WALSH: Be smart. Be a coward, you mean. That's what you're advising me. (Sits down in armchair)
MCGREGOR: I'm telling you what I should have told Jesse.
WALSH: Nuts! You're telling me what you're telling yourself. I'm sorry, I don't want to be rude but you're forcing me to be. (Wonderingly) And I remember.. .when I came into your room and you talked to me for hours about Jesse.. .why I wrote my story on the basis of what you told me. But you didn't believe a word of it. You couldn't have. You never did believe in what Jesse was fighting for. You were pretending. Mr. McGregor, you're a fraud.
(CORA starts to descend. She sees the two men, pauses)
MCGREGOR: No, no, it wasn't like that. I loved Jesse. I knew what went on in his heart.
WALSH: No you didn't. You couldn't have lied to him if you did. But why? Why did you put on an act like that? Why did you let him think you were on his side?
MCGREGOR: (Hoarsely) I encouraged him, because I thought perhaps he was right. But he wasn't. Doesn't his death prove that?
WALSH: And all that you told me about the poor people in the world.. .yes, you see, I remember what you told me about him... and about discrimination and injustice.. .words, weren't they words? You use all that— the strike, Jesse's faith— you weren't sincere about any of it. But why? I can't imagine why you'd do anything as cheap as that. To pretend to Jesse... and you say you loved him! Why, you're the worst enemy he ever 175 had.
CORA: (Tensely) I know why he did it.
WALSH: (Jumping to his feet) Miss Baker.. .gosh, I didn't know.
CORA: (To MCGREGOR) You did it to get at mum. It was another way to hurt her. That's why you did it.
MCGREGOR: (Groaning) No, no. I tell you, he was my boy. (Trapped behind the chesterfield, he is on the defensive, caught in the web of his own argument. He comes forward hesitantly.) You're children, both of you. You don't know what living is really like... how ugly the world is, so that men like Jesse need ideals or else they have nothing. That was why, don't you see? After all he went through.. .but it's not the way he thought. There's no top to the mountain. You climb and you climb, and you don't get anywhere. Some day, you'll understand why I did it. (WALSH starts to cross the room)
CORA: You're not leaving?
WALSH: Yes, I am. I made a mistake coming here. I thought— well, what does it matter what I thought? I'll have to do it myself.
MCGREGOR: (Jeering, bobbing a finger at him) You know what this baby wants to do? He wants to quit his job and become the servant of the working-class.
WALSH: You're way ahead of me. I only want to find out what the working-class is.
MCGREGOR: He doesn't know what he wants. He's all seaweed upstairs.
CORA: (To WALSH) Quit your job? What would you do?
MCGREGOR: (Prancing up and down) He wants to live here and be a truck-driver. Oh, the bloody nerve of it. The nerve of it.
WALSH: (To CORA) I'd better go. Really, I—
CORA: No, wait. (She comes to the foot of the stairs) What, exactly, is this all about?
MCGREGOR: (Feeling safe again) Oh, let him go.
CORA: Be quiet. Speak up, Mr. Walsh.
WALSH: Honestly, it's nothing.
176 CORA: (Wearily) Now see here, when an argument goes on inside the house, and its conducted so loudly I can hear it upstairs surely it's only fair I should know what its about.
MCGREGOR: He's the queerest specimen I've ever seen. David going to fight Goliath. But he doesn't know where Goliath is. He doesn't even know what Goliath look like. The nerve of it. He wants to walk up to the workers, and say, "Comrades, I've come to take you to the Promise Land. Will you please tell me what direction to take?" The nerve of it!
CORA: (Seriously) What's wrong with it?
MCGREGOR: Are you crazy, too? It's the heat that's made you all crazy.
CORA: But if that's what he wants to do, why shouldn't he?
MCGREGOR: Because it's not worth it, that's why. Because people don't know what's good for them, that's why. Because the poor kill their leaders, and then appease their consciousness by glorifying them. Because the poor are no better than the rich. Because he'll be no better off than Jesse, if it's to one hundred and twenty that he lives. And what good was his belief to Jesse?
CORA: He did what he felt he had to do, what he knew was necessary. Would have he been better off if, knowing that, he'd done nothing?
MCGREGOR: He'd be alive. Sarah wouldn't be crying, and her baby would have a father. There'd be a man in the house for you to scream at, and your mother too.
CORA: (Quietly) Would he have had the happiness he wanted?
MCGREGOR: Aaagh, you're beyond the saving. Besides, that's not why he wants to stay here. It's because of you. It's not society he wants, but your own self. (WALSH blushes)
CORA: (In the same quiet tone) You haven't answered me.
MCGREGOR: (Sulkily) My stomach's as empty as the insides of a rain barrel in August. Instead of idling my time away like this, you should be thinking of my hunger pangs. I haven't eaten at all today, not as much as a crumb of bread.
CORA: (Placidly) Yes, I should start supper. Mr. Walsh, would you care to join me? I'd like to hear more of your argument with Blue. It isn't often anyone tells him off.
MCGREGOR: He'll get the nonsense pounded out of him in a hurry. 177 WALSH: (Stuttering with excitement) I'd like to, very much, but.. .Sharkey must be wondering where I am. (CORA look disappointed)
MCGREGOR: (Gloating) Now you're using your brains. You stay with Sharkey, you fellow. Go back to Toronto with him. Stay there.
(The telephone rings. CORA answers)
CORA: Hello. Yes, he's here. (To WALSH) For you.
WALSH: (Taking the receiver) Must be Sharkey.. Joe? How'd you know where I was? No, I lost my billfold here again, so help me.. .it's true. What? (He stiffens, swallows, and speaks very slowly) Don't count on me.. .I'm not coming. You can handle it without me. I'm quitting. No , I'm not drunk. You know I never touch the stuff. I'm serious. Why? I'm going to be a truck driver! (He hangs up quickly, saying to MCGREGOR) It's your fault. You get me so steamed up... I was only thinking! I didn't mean to move this fast. (He laughs) Lucky for me I collected my pay before I came down here. I'd be in a bad fix otherwise.
MCGREGOR: Go ahead and laugh. You think you're brave— you're challenging the world. In a week you'll know better.
CORA: (To no one in particular) Well, that seems to be that.
MCGREGOR: A hero in diapers.
CORA: (To WALSH) What will you do now?
WASLH: First of all, I'm going to accept that supper invitation. And then—
MCGREGOR: You're going to look for that truck-driving job. The paper's around here. I'll find the want-ad section for you.
WALSH: — I'm going to write my room-mate in Toronto, and ask him to send me my belonging. Hrm, is it all right if I give this as my address? Temporary?
CORA: Of course.
MCGREGOR: Why don't you ask him to stay here, too?
CORA: Why not? There's plenty of space. You can come upstairs, and he'll take your room. You can stay here until you find a room for yourself.
178 WALSH: (Glowing) Oh, say, that's very kind. (He feels happy and elated) ... I must remember to ask Paddy, he's my room-mate, to send me down my scripts. (CORA looks puzzled) Radio plays. I've written about five in the last two weeks. I haven't submitted any of them yet, but I think, before I look around for work, I'd like to polish them up and submit them to the CBC. You never can tell. If I get some accepted, the money will come in useful, and if I don't... well, I can always drive that truck, can't I?
MCGREGOR: (Dubiously) Young fellow, you sure you know what you're doing?
WALSH: No, sir. All I know is what I don't want to do. That's a sign of progress, isn't it?
MCGREGOR: (Grudgingly, to CORA) Well, if he's found to make a fool of himself, I suppose he'll need friends. When the crash comes, someone will have to look after him.
CORA: (Smiling) I'll get the supper on.
MCGREGOR: I'd better change. Shouldn't eat in my cemetery-going clothes. That's not proper. (He starts to cross the room, and then looks at WALSH. He is torn between anger and remorse and scheming.) Yes, it's the young who plunge ahead and fight the forces that are too big for them. And it's the old who wait and warn.. .and never learn. (He exits)
(CORA and WALSH are left self-consciously alone)
CORA: Mr. Walsh.. .Tom...
WALSH: (Simultaneously) Miss Baker... Cora.. (They both stop)
CORA: I wanted to...
WALSH: (Simultaneously) I'm glad you under— (They stop, laugh)
CORA: (Nervously) I wanted to thank you for that article about Jesse. I cut it out and sent it to Sarah and mum. WALSH: (He crosses toward CORA who is near the kitchen door) Oh.. .oh, that. Look, I'm glad you understand what I was saying to your grandfather. I'm not as radical as he makes out to be. It's just that—well, a man had to know where he's going.
CORA: (More nervously still) The supper.. .I've got to get it ready.. .1—
WALSH: (Taking her hand) I appreciate the way you stood up for me.
MCGREGOR: (Thrusting his head out) I told you he had a hankering. (WALSH let go 179 of her hand) And you said I was shooting my mouth off. Huh! (The door slams shut)
CORA: That's a good sign. He's listening to keyholes again.
WALSH: (Earnestly) You've had a hard time of it, all alone, but you won't be alone anymore. You mustn't let set backs discourage you. As long as you remember that, and keep on fighting, we can make things better.
(CORA stands for a moment, look at him. He faces her, young, confident, with no idea of the importance of what he is saying, with no idea of the future that he is this very minute creating for them. Abruptly, she turns and goes into the kitchen. In his room MCGREGOR has begun to sing. WALSH come to the center of the room, whistling. Then he takes out his pipe, packs the bowl with tobacco, and puts the pipe in his mouth. MCGREGOR comes out. He has taken off his jacket, and his shirtsleeves are rolled up. He makes straight for WALSH)
MCGREGOR: (Pleasantly) Say, young fellow, you really a radio writer?
WALSH: (Somewhat startled) Technically, I suppose not. You see, I've never had anything produced.
MCGREGOR: (Slapping him on the back) Now you're being modest. I like that. It shows you're sincere. (He stares WALSH in the eye) You've got integrity. I'll tell you why I ask. Since you're going to be around for a few days anyway, I thought we might get together on an idea of mine. See, I've been figuring on writing my life story, you know that. There's been a lot of pressure for me to go it for the newspapers, but I've been thinking.. .seems to me like it would make a fine radio play. We could call it.. .let's see now ... "The Last of the Pioneers," the exciting life story of Angus "Blue" McGregor, told by Angus "Blue" McGregor himself, and you, of course, you. (WALSH, simply bowled over, saying nothing)... We'd begin with when I left this town.. .no dammit we can't do that; my wife stays out if it. Tell you want. We'll begin with my shipping out for Africa. You see, this friend of mine, Jamie MacDonald, told me about this tribe where a man could have as many wives as he wanted. Huh! Best part of it was that if he got tired of one, all he had to say to her was, "Go home you black—", no, didn't mean that; that's chauvinist—"Go home, woman," and by God and Mary, she went. Now, ain't that something to appeal to a man with a nagging wife and no chance for divorce either. (He breaks off to shout) Say, Cora, mind if we come in and watch you?
CORA: Suit yourselves
MCGREGOR: Good girl, Cora. A bit like her mother, but a good girl all the same. Make some young man an upstanding wife, eh? (He pokes WALSH in the ribs) Well now, where was I? Oh, you.. .that tribe in Africa...
180 WALSH: There's one thing. (Gravely) If we're to be collaborators, I think you should tell me how you came by that nickname of yours.
MCGREGOR: Nickname? I've no- oh, you mean "Blue." Well... (He scratches his head)... To tell you the truth, I don't know. Always had it. Don't remember anyone ever calling me anything else. Must be some reason for it, though. You leave that to me. There must be some living folk who know. Some of the old-timers. Well now, to get back. I made a mistake son. Boarded a bad ship. The captain was the dirtiest pig who ever walled a deck. Used to make us work twenty hours a day, and then complain we weren't doing enough. I took it long as I could, but one day this little French-Canadian and me.. .he couldn't speak a word of English, and I couldn't speak a word of French— what was his name now? ... well, we got together anyway and decided we'd had enough. We were men, not beasts. So we get the rest of the crew together, and force the captain's doors open ... (He takes out his pipe) Let me more of that tobacco of yours, will you? It didn't taste at all bad.
WALSH: I knew you'd like it.
MCGREGOR: Thanks (He packs the bowl) Well now where was I? Oh yes. I was all for throwing the bastard overboard to swim back to Halifax, but the others figured we were in enough trouble already. Why, we'd committed mutiny, barratry, anything you want to name. So we put the man in chains and changed our course. Know where we landed? We were pretty bad sailors, I can tell you that. Finished up in Haiti. Turned out to be a nice sort of place, though. They have voodoo down there.. .real voodoo, you understand.. .and I got tangled up with this witch-doctor. Well sir, that was the funniest thing ever happened...
(They are now almost at the kitchen door. MCGREGOR is talking animatedly and WALSH listens but with some skepticism. Things are coming back to normal in the BAKER household. And is the sacrifice of Jesse Baker forgotten? Is Jess himself forgotten? But men like Jess don't disappear. They are always around, too young to realize the enormities of their gambles, too young to listen to the sage service of elders, too determined to give in to the overwhelming odds against them—men who fight and win, because they know what is on the mountain-top, know it, even when they can't put it into words, know it, and won't stop until they get there.)
181 Curriculum Vitae
Candidate's full name: Ashley Rhonda Harding
Universities attended:
Cape Breton University
Bachelor of Arts, 2008
Double Major in History and English and Theatre Certificate
Conference Presentations:
"Touch" One act play presented in part at the Annual Atlantic Undergraduate English Conference, University of New Brunswick, 2007 "Nathan Cohen is for Mourning: A Cape Breton Play in Toronto 1953" Paper presented at the 11th Annual University of Maine/University of New Brunswick International Graduate Student Conference, University of New Brunswick, 2009