Read The Habit of Art: A Play for Free Online Page B

‘…in their very essence…’
    Auden Men are incongruously equipped in their very essence…
    Fitz I cannot learn this fucking stuff. I cannot do it.
    Awkward pause.
    Author Mr Fitzpatrick. Is it me? Do I make you nervous?
    Fitz No, but you are in my eyeline.
    Author I’m sorry. I will remove myself.
    He moves and sits down again.
    Fitz Oh, I thought you meant you were going.
    Author No fear.
    Fitz This stuff about circumcision: this is you, I take it?
    Author No. Him. It’s in his notebooks. Why?
    Fitz I just feel it diminishes him.
    Author ‘The facts of a life are the truth of a life.’
    Fitz It’s like the peeing in the basin. We keep focusing on his frailties, putting a frame around them. It’s – as he says himself – impudent. It’s impertinent.
    Author The words are his, not mine.
    Fitz There’s no nobility to him. No…grandeur.
    Author He’s human. He’s old.
    Fitz And he talks about dicks. Where – this is what the audience will be thinking – where is the poetry?
    Kay Shall we take five?
    Donald You see this is where I think my speech about biography that Stephen cut would come in. ‘I want to hear about the shortcomings of great men…’
    Kay Tomorrow.
    She talks aside to Fitz.
    Is what’s bothering you that they won’t like you?
    Fitz No. Though they won’t. I hadn’t realised how unsympathetic he is. How…coarse. You see, this is why I think he should be reading all the time to give him more…credence.
    Kay No, darling. The reason why you think he should be reading all the time is so that you can keep a crib in the book.
    Fitz No.
    Kay You did it in Hedda Gabler .
    Fitz Did I?
    Kay You did it in Vanya . If he hadn’t been blind you’d have done it in Oedipus .
    Fitz You don’t know what it’s like.
    Kay I know it’s always like this…until you learn it.
    Fitz He doesn’t help, sitting there. ‘Mr Fitzpatrick.’ They don’t realise, playwrights, that you’ve got to come to it, find a way through. I’ll spend a penny. I may be some time.
    Kay hugs him. Fitz goes out.
    Tim Why doesn’t he just…well…learn it?
    Kay It gets harder as you get older. There’s more in your head already.
    Kay is now with the Author.
    He was much better yesterday. You make him nervous.
    Author He doesn’t know it.
    Kay But he’s getting there. We haven’t had a run before.
    Author A run? You call this a run ? My eighty-year-old grandmother with two plastic hips and crippled with arthritis could do a better run than this. Besides –
    Kay Besides what, darling?
    Author He just doesn’t look like Auden.
    Kay Well, I agree he’s a bit on the big side, but this is theatre, darling. It’s not about appearance. Stephen wants to get away from facile resemblance in favour of the reality beneath. Henry doesn’t look like Britten. He’s tall, but that’s as far as it goes. And Humphrey Carpenter was quite good-looking.
    A remark which Donald overhears, though he’s not meant to, and is unsurprisingly depressed. Kay now takes it out on the ASM.
    You don’t ever do what you did.
    ASM What did I do?
    Kay Correct the actor. Give him the line, yes – The Sea and the Mirror or whatever – but don’t make him look a fool.
    ASM Sorry.
    Kay You wouldn’t do it to a child, and that’s what actors are, children. You keep them happy.
    Author Nobody wants to keep me happy.
    Kay You don’t have to face the audience. You don’t have to go over the top like they do. ( Suddenly turning on Tim. ) Are you wearing makeup?
    Tim Not so’s you’d notice.
    Kay But why, darling?
    Tim I’m too old.
    Kay Darling, you’re twenty-five.
    Tim I’m twenty-nine. I’m supposed to be a rent boy. I’m not a boy at all.
    Kay It’s only a phrase. You’re a…you’re a rent person. It’s theatre, love, the magic of. Look at Edith Evans. She thought she was young so she was.
    Tim She wasn’t playing a rent boy.
    Fitz comes back.
    Kay Now, where had we got to?
    Fitz Oh. I’m still on about dicks, surprise, surprise.