Tales of the Jazz Age

Mr. Icky

THE QUINTESSENCE OF QUAINTNESS IN ONE ACT

The Scene is the Exterior of a Cottage in West Issacshire on a

desperately Arcadian afternoon in August. MR. ICKY, quaintly

dressed in the costume of an Elizabethan peasant, is pottering and

doddering among the pots and dods. He is an old man, well past the

prime of life, no longer young, From the fact that there is a burr in

his speech and that he has absent-mindedly put on his coat wrongside

out, we surmise that he is either above or below the ordinary

superficialities of life.

Near him on the grass lies _PETER_, a little boy.

_PETER_, of course, has his chin on his palm like the pictures

of the young Sir Walter Raleigh. He has a complete set of features,

including serious, sombre, even funereal, gray eyes--and radiates that

alluring air of never having eaten food. This air can best be radiated

during the afterglow of a beef dinner. Be is looking at _MR.

ICKY_, fascinated._

_Silence. . . . The song of birds._

PETER: Often at night I sit at my window and regard the stars.

Sometimes I think they're my stars.... (_Gravely_) I think I

shall be a star some day....

ME. ICKY: (_Whimsically_) Yes, yes ... yes....

PETER: I know them all: Venus, Mars, Neptune, Gloria Swanson.

MR. ICKY: I don't take no stock in astronomy.... I've been thinking o'

Lunnon, laddie. And calling to mind my daughter, who has gone for to

be a typewriter.... (_He sighs._)

PETER: I liked Ulsa, Mr. Icky; she was so plump, so round, so buxom.

MR. ICKY: Not worth the paper she was padded with, laddie. (_He

stumbles over a pile of pots and dods._)

PETER: How is your asthma, Mr. Icky?

MR. ICKY: Worse, thank God!...(_Gloomily.)_ I'm a hundred years

old... I'm getting brittle.

PETER: I suppose life has been pretty tame since you gave up petty

arson.

MR. ICKY: Yes... yes.... You see, Peter, laddie, when I was fifty I

reformed once--in prison.

PETER: You went wrong again?

MR. ICKY: Worse than that. The week before my term expired they

insisted on transferring to me the glands of a healthy young prisoner

they were executing.

PETER: And it renovated you?

MR. ICKY: Renovated me! It put the Old Nick back into me! This young

criminal was evidently a suburban burglar and a kleptomaniac. What was

a little playful arson in comparison!

PETER: (_Awed_) How ghastly! Science is the bunk.

MR. ICKY: (_Sighing_) I got him pretty well subdued now. 'Tisn't

every one who has to tire out two sets o' glands in his lifetime. I

wouldn't take another set for all the animal spirits in an orphan

asylum.

PETER: (_Considering_) I shouldn't think you'd object to a nice

quiet old clergyman's set.

MR. ICKY: Clergymen haven't got glands--they have souls.

(_There is a low, sonorous honking off stage to indicate that a

large motor-car has stopped in the immediate vicinity. Then a young

man handsomely attired in a dress-suit and a patent-leather silk hat

comes onto the stage. He is very mundane. His contrast to the

spirituality of the other two is observable as far back as the first

row of the balcony. This is_ RODNEY DIVINE.)

DIVINE: I am looking for Ulsa Icky.

(MR. ICKY _rises and stands tremulously between two dods._)

MR. ICKY: My daughter is in Lunnon.

DIVINE: She has left London. She is coming here. I have followed her.

(_He reaches into the little mother-of-pearl satchel that hangs at

his side for cigarettes. He selects one and scratching a match touches

it to the cigarette. The cigarette instantly lights._)

DIVINE: I shall wait.

(_He waits. Several hours pass. There is no sound except an

occasional cackle or hiss from the dods as they quarrel among

themselves. Several songs can be introduced here or some card tricks

by_ DIVINE _or a tumbling act, as desired._)

DIVINE: It's very quiet here.

MR. ICKY: Yes, very quiet....

(_Suddenly a loudly dressed girl appears; she is very worldly. It

is _ULSA ICKY._ On her is one of those shapeless faces peculiar to

early Italian painting._)

ULSA: (_In a coarse, worldly voice_) Feyther! Here I am! Ulsa did

what?

MR. ICKY: (_Tremulously_) Ulsa, little Ulsa. (_They embrace

each other's torsos._)

MR. ICKY: (_Hopefully_) You've come back to help with the

ploughing.

ULSA: (_Sullenly_) No, feyther; ploughing's such a beyther. I'd

reyther not.

(_Though her accent is broad, the content of her speech is sweet and

clean._)

DIVINE: (_Conciliatingly_) See here, Ulsa. Let's come to an

understanding.

(_He advances toward her with the graceful, even stride that made

him captain of the striding team at Cambridge._)

ULSA: You still say it would be Jack?

MR. ICKY: What does she mean?

DIVINE: (_Kindly_) My dear, of course, it would be Jack. It

couldn't be Frank.

MR. ICKY: Frank who?

ULSA: It _would_ be Frank!

(_Some risqu joke can be introduced here._)

MR. ICKY: (_Whimsically_) No good fighting...no good fighting...

DIVINE: (_Reaching out to stroke her arm with the powerful movement

that made him stroke of the crew at Oxford_) You'd better marry me.

ULSA: (_Scornfully_) Why, they wouldn't let me in through the

servants' entrance of your house.

DIVINE: (_Angrily_) They wouldn't! Never fear--you shall come in

through the mistress' entrance.

ULSA: Sir!

DIVINE: (_In confusion_) I beg your pardon. You know what I mean?

MR. ICKY: (_Aching with whimsey_) You want to marry my little

Ulsa?...

DIVINE: I do.

MR. ICKY: Your record is clean.

DIVINE: Excellent. I have the best constitution in the world---

ULSA: And the worst by-laws.

DIVINE: At Eton I was a member at Pop; at Rugby I belonged to

Near-beer. As a younger son I was destined for the police force---

MR. ICKY: Skip that.... Have you money?...

DIVINE: Wads of it. I should expect Ulsa to go down town in sections

every morning--in two Rolls Royces. I have also a kiddy-car and a

converted tank. I have seats at the opera---

ULSA: (_Sullenly_) I can't sleep except in a box. And I've heard

that you were cashiered from your club.

MR. ICKY: A cashier? ...

DIVINE: (_Hanging his head_) I was cashiered.

ULSA: What for?

DIVINE: (_Almost inaudibly_) I hid the polo bails one day for a

joke.

MR. ICKY: Is your mind in good shape?

DIVINE: (_Gloomily_) Fair. After all what is brilliance? Merely

the tact to sow when no one is looking and reap when every one is.

ME. ICKY; Be careful. ... I will-not marry my daughter to an epigram....

DIVINE: (_More gloomily_) I assure you I'm a mere platitude. I

often descend to the level of an innate idea.

ULSA: (_Dully_) None of what you're saying matters. I can't marry

a man who thinks it would be Jack. Why Frank would--

DIVINE: (_Interrupting_) Nonsense!

ULSA: (_Emphatically_) You're a fool!

MR. ICKY: Tut-tut! ... One should not judge ... Charity, my girl. What

was it Nero said?--"With malice toward none, with charity toward

all---"

PETER: That wasn't Nero. That was John Drinkwater.

MR. ICKY: Come! Who is this Frank? Who is this Jack?

DIVINE: (_Morosely_) Gotch.

ULSA: Dempsey.

DIVINE: We were arguing that if they were deadly enemies and locked in

a room together which one would come out alive. Now I claimed that

Jack Dempsey would take one---

ULSA: (_Angrily_) Rot! He wouldn't have a---

DIVINE: (_Quickly_) You win.

ULSA: Then I love you again.

MR. ICKY: So I'm going to lose my little daughter...

ULSA: You've still got a houseful of children,

(CHARLES, ULSA'S _brother, coming out of the cottage. He is dressed

as if to go to sea; a coil of rope is slung about his shoulder and an

anchor is hanging from his neck._)

CHARLES: (_Not seeing them_) I'm going to sea! I'm going to sea!

(_His voice is triumphant._)

MR. ICKY: (_Sadly_) You went to seed long ago.

CHARLES: I've been reading "Conrad."

PETER: (_Dreamily_) "Conrad," ah! "Two Years Before the Mast," by

Henry James.

CHARLES: What?

PETER: Walter Pater's version of "Robinson Crusoe."

CHARLES: (_To his feyther_) I can't stay here and rot with you. I

want to live my life. I want to hunt eels.

MR. ICKY: I will be here... when you come back....

CHARLES: (_Contemptuously_) Why, the worms are licking their

chops already when they hear your name.

(_It will be noticed that some of the characters have not spoken for

some time. It will improve the technique if they can be rendering a

spirited saxophone number._)

MR. ICKY: (_Mournfully_) These vales, these hills, these

McCormick harvesters--they mean nothing to my children. I understand.

CHARLES: (_More gently_) Then you'll think of me kindly, feyther.

To understand is to forgive.

MR. ICKY: No...no....We never forgive those we can understand....We

can only forgive those who wound us for no reason at all....

CHARLES: (_Impatiently_) I'm so beastly sick of your human nature

line. And, anyway, I hate the hours around here.

(_Several dozen more of _MR. ICKY'S_ children trip out of the

house, trip over the grass, and trip over the pots and dods. They are

muttering "We are going away," and "We are leaving you."_)

MR. ICKY: (_His heart breaking_) They're all deserting me. I've

been too kind. Spare the rod and spoil the fun. Oh, for the glands of

a Bismarck.

(_There is a honking outside--probably _DIVINE'S_ chauffeur

growing impatient for his master._)

MR. ICKY: (_In misery_) They do not love the soil! They have been

faithless to the Great Potato Tradition! (_He picks up a handful of

soil passionately and rubs it on his bald head. Hair sprouts._) Oh,

Wordsworth, Wordsworth, how true you spoke!

_"No motion has she now, no force;

She does not hear or feel;

Roll'd round on earth's diurnal course

In some one's Oldsmobile."_

(_They all groan and shouting "Life" and "Jazz" move slowly toward

the wings._)

CHARLES: Back to the soil, yes! I've been trying to turn my back to

the soil for ten years!

ANOTHER CHILD: The farmers may be the backbone of the country, but who

wants to be a backbone?

ANOTHER CHILD: I care not who hoes the lettuce of my country if I can

eat the salad!

ALL: Life! Psychic Research! Jazz!

MR. ICKY: (_Struggling with himself_) I must be quaint. That's

all there is. It's not life that counts, it's the quaintness you bring

to it....

ALL: We're going to slide down the Riviera. We've got tickets for

Piccadilly Circus. Life! Jazz!

MR. ICKY: Wait. Let me read to you from the Bible. Let me open it at

random. One always finds something that bears on the situation.

(_He finds a Bible lying in one of the dods and opening it at random

begins to read._)

"Ahab and Istemo and Anim, Goson and Olon and Gilo, eleven cities and

their villages. Arab, and Ruma, and Esaau--"

CHARLES: (_Cruelly_) Buy ten more rings and try again.

MR. ICKY: (_Trying again_) "How beautiful art thou my love, how

beautiful art thou! Thy eyes are dove's eyes, besides what is hid

within. Thy hair is as flocks of goats which come up from Mount

Galaad--Hm! Rather a coarse passage...."

(_His children laugh at him rudely, shouting "Jazz!" and "All life

is primarily suggestive!"_)

MR. ICKY: (_Despondently_) It won't work to-day.

(_Hopefully_) Maybe it's damp. (_He feels it_) Yes, it's

damp.... There was water in the dod.... It won't work.

ALL: It's damp! It won't work! Jazz!

ONE OF THE CHILDREN: Come, we must catch the six-thirty.

(_Any other cue may be inserted here._)

MR. ICKY: Good-by....

(_ They all go out._ MR. ICKY _is left alone. He sighs and

walking over to the cottage steps, lies down, and closes his eyes._)

_Twilight has come down and the stage is flooded with such light as

never was on land or sea. There is no sound except a sheep-herder's

wife in the distance playing an aria from Beethoven's Tenth Symphony,

on a mouth-organ. The great white and gray moths swoop down and light

on the old man until he is completely covered by them. But he does not

stir._

_The curtain goes up and down several times to denote the lapse of

several minutes. A good comedy effect can be obtained by having

_MR. ICKY_ cling to the curtain and go up and down with it.

Fireflies or fairies on wires can also be introduced at this

point._

_Then _PETER_ appears, a look of almost imbecile sweetness on

his face. In his hand he clutches something and from time to time

glances at it in a transport of ecstasy. After a struggle with himself

he lays it on the old man's body and then quietly withdraws._

_The moths chatter among themselves and then scurry away in sudden

fright. And as night deepens there still sparkles there, small, white

and round, breathing a subtle perfume to the West Issacshire breeze,

_PETER'S_ gift of love--a moth-ball._

(The play can end at this point or can go on indefinitely.)