from
The Play’s the Thing
by
Ferenc Molnar
Adapted by P. G. Wodehouse

Mansky:
It’s silly to let your job become an obsession.

Turai:
Well, that’s the theatre for you. And of all the brain-racking things in the world, beginning a play is the worst. Take this scene here, for instance. We three—Curtain goes up on three ordinary men in ordinary dinner jackets. How is anybody to know even that this room we’re sitting in is a room in a castle? And how are they to know who we are? If this were a play we would have to start jabbering about a lot of thoroughly uninteresting things—to the accompaniment of slamming seats—until the audience gradually found out who we were?

Mansky:
Well? Why not?

Turai:
Think how much simpler it would be if we were to cut out all that stuff and just introduce ourselves? Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. We three arrived tonight to spend a couple of weeks at this castle. We’ve just left dinner where we did ourselves remarkably well with some excellent champagne. My name is Sandor Turai. I am a playwright. I have been a playwright for thirty years. I make a very good thing of it. I bow and step back leaving the stage to you.

Mansky:
Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Mansky.—I, too, am a playwright, and this gentleman’s life-long collaborator. We are probably the best-known firm in the business.

Turai:
Come to Mansky and Turai for all comedies, farces and operettas. Satisfaction guaranteed.

Adam:
I have done the score for the latest operetta by these two kind gentlemen. My first effort. They discovered me. Without them I am a complete nonentity. I have no parents, no reputation, and no money.

Turai:
But—he’s young.

Mansky:
And gifted.

Adam:
And in love with the prima donna.

Turai:
You don’t have to tell them that. An audience takes it for granted that the young composer is in love with the prima donna. That’s tradition, isn’t it?

Turai:
[...] When a composer is happy, he writes song hits. When a prima donna is happy, she occasionally sings on key. And the librettists gather royalties from the resulting triumphs.

Mansky:
Sordid brute. You’ve no poetry in your soul.

Turai:
But I have a balance in my bank account, and that’s far more important.

Mansky:
[...] I may be a pessimist, but unfortunately, I’m a tender-hearted pessimist. When I am proved right, I do not enjoy the fact.

Turai:
[...] Ilona’s in love and she’s engaged to be married. And you know how passionately an actress can be engaged to be married.

Turai:
[...] Never surprise a woman. On several occasions in a longish life I have prepared a joyful surprise for a woman, and every time I was the one surprised. The telegraph was invented for no other purpose than that woman should not get surprises.

Turai:
What’s your name?

Footman:
Mine, sir?

Turai:
Yes, yours.

Footman:
Johann Dwornitschek, sir.

Turai:
Johann?

Footman:
Dwornitschek.

Turai:
Ah— Age?

Dwornitschek:
Fifty-two, sir.

Turai:
Born?

Dwornitschek:
Yes, sir.

Turai:
I should have said, where were you born?

Dwornitschek:
Podmokly. In Bohemia, sir.

Turai:
Nice place.

Dwornitschek:
No, sir.

Turai:
Ah—married?

Dwornitschek:
Yes, sir, thank you, sir.

Turai:
Wife living?

Dwornitschek:
Well, in a sense.—She ran away two years ago with a soldier, sir—thank you, sir.

Turai:
Don’t thank me—thank the soldier.

Dwornitschek:
Excuse me, sir. Would it be taking a liberty if I inquired why—

Turai:
Why I began by asking you all those personal questions?

Dwornitschek:
Exactly, sir.

Turai:
Quite simple. It’s a little matter of psychology. When you want a man to speak the truth, begin by making him tell you all about himself. It gives him a feeling of responsibility and makes him afraid to lie later on. That is from a little detective play by Mansky and Turai. You may take the tip as some slight return for your trouble.

Dwornitschek:
At what hour do you desire breakfast, sir?

Turai:
What hour is it now?

Dwornitschek:
Quarter past four, sir.

Turai:
Then let us say at seven—or, no—make it six.

Dwornitschek:
Very good, sir. At six precisely.

Turai:
Look here, Dwornitschek,—when do you sleep?

Dwornitschek:
In the winter, sir!

Ilona:
But he’ll be asleep.

Turai:
Oh, no, my dear. Not after this telephone bell has rung once or twice.

Ilona:
[...] Why a French piece?

Turai:
So that nobody will know who wrote it. That’s the beauty of French literature. There’s so much of it. Besides, one has one’s conscience, you know. I’ve stolen so much from the French in my time that it’s only fair I should give them something for a change.

Turai:
Very bad. My dear young fellow. You simply can’t wipe out the young love interest at the end of the second act with a bread knife. That’s crude. And there are the critics. The critics dislike bloodshed. If there is to be any slaughter, they prefer to attend to it themselves.

Mell:
How can I help worrying with all the responsibility there is on my shoulders?

Dwornitschek:
What I always say is—never worry too much today. Things may be worse tomorrow, and then you can worry twice as hard.

Almady:
How—how did you get this?

Ilona:
Never mind. Always remember letters are like spent arrows. You never can tell where they are going to drop.