dreams, exposed my love for the divine Melpomene to the harshest trials.
Anyone who has ever been in a play knows how rehearsals, particularly walk-throughs, can sap morale: how easily every shortcoming – lack of sets and costumes, absence of lights and props, lines imperfectly learnt and woodenly rendered, clumsy movements and artificial gestures – can breed discouragement. When one considers that in the present case these elements were supplemented by two further factors, namely the amateurishness of a school production and a lack of real motivation on the part of the participants, the full extent of my torment becomes apparent. On the one hand, the cast seemed to believe I knew what I was doing: I fed them the illusions they needed, and they appeared to trust in our ultimate success. On the other hand, when they saw what I saw, they would lose faith and relapse, which meant that standards fell and the temptation returned to give up then and there.
‘We’re wasting our time,’ they would say, ‘we’ll never get anywhere. We’ll only end up looking ridiculous. And even if we do get somewhere, how many performances will we have? One, maybe two. Is all this worth it for just one performance?’
‘Of course it’s worth it,’ I would reply. ‘If it works, it would be worth it just for one moment. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about . . .’ (I was thinking, of course, of the Quartet’s swan song.)
‘Oh, that’s just talk,’ they’d say, shaking their heads and dispersing in mute resignation.
Sometime near the end of April, after months of preparation, endless reassessments, substitutions and changes of mind, countless nervous breakdowns and moments of feverish exhilaration, the play assumed its final shape. It was an hour-long collage of selected scenes and monologues from famous plays – Aeschylus to Beckett. All the World’s a Stage was characterised throughout by the darkest pessimism. It began with the monologue of Prometheus chained to his rock and went on with the dialogue between Creon and Haemon from Antigone; then came a few bitter passages from Shakespeare, among them Jaques’s soliloquy from As You Like It about the seven ages of man, beginning with the words we had adopted as our title; then the concluding soliloquy of Molière’s Misanthrope, followed by Faust’s first soliloquy and a fragment of his dialogue with Mephistopheles. Lastly, there was a fragment of Hamm’s soliloquy from Endgame.
This script, submitted to the school authorities for inspection, was rejected.
‘Why is it so gloomy?’ the deputy headmaster wanted to know, eyeing it with disfavour. Tall, thin, with a sallow complexion and a slightly tubercular look, he was generally known as the Tapeworm. ‘You feel like killing yourself after reading this. We can’t tolerate defeatism in this school.’
‘But these are classics, sir,’ I ventured, trying to defend my creation. ‘They’re almost all in the syllabus. I’m not the one who drew up the syllabus.’
‘Don’t you try to hide behind the syllabus,’ he replied, frowning as he shuffled through the pages. ‘There’s a reason you’ve selected these particular passages: it’s a deliberate attempt to question every decent value and discourage people from study and work. Here, for instance,’ he said, pointing to the page with Faust’s monologue. He read out the first few lines:
The books I’ve read! Philosophy,
And Law, and Medicine besides;
Even (alas!) Theology.
I’ve searched for knowledge far and wide.
And here I am, poor fool, no more
Enlightened than I was before.
‘Well? How else should this be read, in your opinion? It says that studying is worthless and won’t get you anywhere. Doesn’t it? And you expect us to applaud such a message?!’
‘We had it in literature class,’ I retorted impatiently. ‘Are you saying that it’s all right in class or at home, but not on stage?’
‘It’s different in class,’ the Tapeworm replied, unruffled. ‘In class there’s a teacher to tell you what the author intended.’
‘Well, then, sir, what, in your opinion, did Goethe intend here?’ I asked.
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ he snorted. ‘He was talking about pride: excessive, overweening pride. And arrogance. Just like yours, in fact. Once you start thinking you know everything, you’re bound to come to a bad end. Here you are,’ he said, pointing to a passage further down, ‘it says so here.’
To Magic therefore have I turned
To try the spirits’ power and gain
The knowledge they alone bestow;
No longer will I have to strain
To speak of things I do not know.
‘Well? There you are. Magic, evil powers, pacts with the devil – that’s what happens to the swollen-headed and the proud. But that’s something your script somehow fails to mention. And in any case,’ he said, suddenly changing the subject, ‘why is there no Polish literature represented here? This is a Polish school, after all.’
‘This is a selection from the greatest works in the history of drama –’ I began, but the Tapeworm cut me off in mid-flow and said, in tones of heavy sarcasm, ‘Ah. So you consider, I take it, that our own literature has no drama worthy of note. Mickiewicz, Slowacki, Krasinski – for you they’re small fry, third-rate, second-rate at best . . .?’
‘I didn’t say that,’ I replied. This was an easy thrust to parry. ‘Nevertheless, on the other hand, you must admit that the works of Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Molière and Goethe are performed the world over, while our own classics tend to be appreciated mainly on their home ground.’
‘That’s right – “Exalting the foreign, dismissing your own”, as the saying goes,’ he mocked.
‘Strictly speaking, it’s not a saying; it’s from a poem by Stanislaw Jachowicz, another of our great poets. You know, the one who wrote, “Poor pussy was ill and lying in bed”,’ I supplied helpfully. ‘I’m sure you know it . . .’
‘All right, that’s enough, Mr Know-it-all,’ snapped the Tapeworm, cutting off my show of erudition. ‘Do you realise your attitude is a typical example of “cosmopolitanism”? You know what that means, don’t you?’
‘It means “citizenship of the world”.’
‘No,’ said the deputy headmaster. ‘It means indifference to or even contempt for one’s own culture and traditions. You worship the West; it’s a form of idolatry.’
‘The West?’ I repeated, feigning surprise. ‘As far as I know, Greece, especially before Christ—’
But the Tapeworm didn’t let me finish. ‘It’s a curious thing,’ he said, ‘that in your script you have also omitted Chekhov, Gogol and Tolstoy. Why this strange oversight? You surely don’t intend to claim that their plays are produced only in Russia – I mean, in the Soviet Union. Or do you?’
I could see that further discussion was fruitless. ‘So, what’s the decision?’ I asked. ‘Can we do it or not?’
‘Not as it is, no. Not unless you incorporate the changes I’ve suggested.’
‘I’ll have to think about that,’ I said diplomatically; inwardly I made a gesture expressive of what he could do with his changes and snarled, Not on your life, you bastard.
Insulting the Tapeworm, especially in one’s imagination, was no great feat. Finding a solution was harder. After all the months of rehearsals, after all our hopes and dreams, I couldn’t bring myself to tell the cast about the deputy headmaster’s decision. Yet concealing it, playing for time and making promises I couldn’t keep, was also out of the question.
With