Contemporary One-Act Plays Part 33

MRS. DELANE. Maybe so.

MR. QUIRKE. The preserver of the poor! Talk of the holy martyrs! They are nothing at all to what he is! Will you look at him! To save that poor boy he is going! To take the blame on himself he is going! To say he, himself, did the robbery he is going! Before the magistrate he is going! To jail he is going! Taking the blame on his own head! Putting the sin on his own shoulders! Letting on to have done a robbery! Telling a lie--that it may be forgiven him--to his own injury! Doing all that, I tell you, to save the character of a miserable slack lad, that rose in poverty.

[_Murmur of admiration from all._

MR. QUIRKE. Now, what do you say?

SERGEANT. [_Pressing his hand._] Mr. Halvey, you have given us all a lesson. To please you, I will make no information against the boy, [_Shakes him and helps him up._] I will put back the half-crown in the poor-box next Sunday. [_To_ FARDY.] What have you to say to your benefactor?

FARDY. I'm obliged to you, Mr. Halvey. You behaved very decent to me, very decent indeed. I'll never let a word be said against you if I live to be a hundred years.

SERGEANT. [_Wiping eyes with a blue handkerchief._] I will tell it at the meeting. It will be a great encouragement to them to build up their character. I'll tell it to the priest and he taking the chair----

HYACINTH. Oh, stop, will you----

MR. QUIRKE. The chair. It's in the chair he, himself, should be. It's in a chair we will put him now. It's to chair him through the streets we will. Sure he'll be an example and a blessing to the whole of the town.

[_Seizes_ HALVEY _and seats him in chair_.] Now, Sergeant, give a hand.

Here. Fardy.

[_They all lift the chair with_ HALVEY _in it, wildly protesting_.

MR. QUIRKE. Come along now to the court-house. Three cheers for Hyacinth Halvey! Hip! hip! hoora!

[_Cheers heard in the distance as the curtain drops._

THE GAZING GLOBE

BY

EUGENE PILLOT

_The Gazing Globe_ is reprinted by special permission of Eugene Pillot.

All rights are retained by the author. This play is protected by copyright and must not be used without the permission of and payment of royalty to Eugene Pillot, who may be reached through The 47 Workshop, Cambridge, Ma.s.sachusetts.

EUGENE PILLOT

Eugene Pillot, one of the well-known contemporary writers of one-act plays, was born in Houston, Texas. He was educated in the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts, at the University of Texas, at Cornell University, and at Harvard University. While at Harvard, he partic.i.p.ated in the activities of The 47 Workshop.

Mr. Pillot's one-act plays are always characterized by excellent and well-sustained technic. Among his best-known one-act plays are _The Gazing Globe_, _Two Crooks and a Lady_, _Telephone Number One_ (a prize play), _Hunger_, and _My Lady Dreams_. Mr. Pillot's plays have been produced frequently in schools and Little Theatres of America.

_The Gazing Globe_ originally appeared in _The Stratford Journal_, and was first produced by the Boston Community Players, February 26, 1920, with the following cast: ZAMA, Rosalie Manning; OHANO, Beulah Auerbach; and NIJO, Eugene Pillot. _The Gazing Globe_ has unusually sustained tone and dramatic suspense.

CHARACTERS

ZAMA OHANO NIJO

THE GAZING GLOBE[F]

SCENE: _A soft cream-colored room, bare walled and unfurnished except for dull-blue gra.s.s mats on the floor and brilliant cushions. In the centre of rear wall is a great circular window with a dais before it, so that it may be used as a doorway. A gathered shade of soft blue silk covers the opening of the window._

PLACE: _An island in a southern sea._

TIME: _Not so long ago._

[_The curtain rises on an empty stage._ ZAMA, _an old servant woman dressed in dull purples and grays, hurries in from the right. She stops at centre stage and glances about searchingly, then calls in a weazen voice._

ZAMA. Ohano--Ohano! Where do you be, child?

[_Listens, looks about, sees drawn shade at the rear, and sighs as she goes to it and starts to raise it._

[_As the shade rolls out of sight we see through the open window a bit of quaint cliff garden that overlooks a sea of green. The rocks are higher on the left, near the window, where a purple-pink vine in full blossom has started to climb. At the right the rocks slope down to the sea. At centre, stone steps lead up to a slender stone pedestal that holds a gazing globe, now a brilliant gold in the late afternoon sunlight._ OHANO, _with hands clasped round the globe, is gazing at it. She is a woman of the early twenties, beautiful and gowned in a flowing kimono-like robe of green with embroideries of white and blue._

ZAMA. [_In a chiding, motherly way._] Ohano, my child, you must not be so much at that evil ball! How many times be I not telling you it is an _enchanted_ ball?

OHANO. Yes, Zama, I hope it is enchanted. I've tried every other means to gain the way to my heart's desire--and they've all failed me. The story these islanders have woven round this gazing globe may be but a myth--but if it shows me the way to my freedom, I shall not have looked at it in vain.

ZAMA. Be you forgetting, child, 'tis said that evil ball shows only the way to destruction!

OHANO. Yes, these island people will create any myth, go any length, to keep one thinking, living in their narrow way. You are destined for evil if you try to follow the urge of your own heart--oh, yes, I know.

ZAMA. But _your_ heart, child, should only be wanting the love of Nijo.

OHANO. Nijo--I am hoping that he will be big enough to help me--but my lover has been away so long----

ZAMA. But to-day he be coming back--I came to tell you I think I saw his boat----

OHANO. Nijo's boat? Where?

ZAMA. It be near the edge of the island just where----

OHANO. Why didn't you tell me before?

ZAMA. I came to--but I be forgetting when I see you at that evil ball again.

OHANO. [_All eagerness._] Perhaps we can see him land--from here on the rocks--come, Zama, I hear the sound of voices down near the sea--come!

[_They climb to the highest rock._] Look, Zama, the boat is there!

Already there in the green water against the sh.o.r.e!