Molyanka
drama from the Soviet era
by Christian Lanciai (2005)
The characters: colonel captain two soldiers a duchess an old man
two other old men
Peter Ignaz Potowski, his father
Dorotea Potowska, his mother
Henryk, his brother
Angelica, his sister
Jan, another brother
actors of the Krakow theatre a Gestapo chief with soldiers
two German border guards Magda her father her mother Jac the clown the circus director another clown two other circus artists two politruks a commissar a soldier
The action takes place after the Second World War with flashbacks from the 30s and afterwards in eastern Europe.
Copyright © Christian Lanciai 2005 Ankargatan 2 A 414 61 Göteborg Molyanka Act I scene 1.
1 How many today?
2 Only fifty-eight.
1 Good. Then there will be no thronging.
2 Where will they be sent on?
1 Who knows? The east is everything we know. We just obey orders. We collect them and spread them. Where they end up non one knows.The only certain thing is that no one will come back.
2 I feel like in a waste station.
1 Yes, that’s our job in the sanitation plant: to sort out wasted humans.
2 Are they all really criminals?
1 Don’t ask silly questions. They are condemned. That’s enough. What they have done or haven’t done is of no importance.
2 Many are women and children and old ones…
1 That doesn’t matter either. They are condemned. That’s the point. (watches the time) It’s time to take them in. Are they all here?
2 Yes, colonel. They have been delivered and are standing outside waiting.
1 Let them in, then. The cell is waiting. Better for them to freeze inside than outside.
2 Yes, colonel. (whistles. Enter two other soldiers.)
Bring in the prisoners. The cell is waiting.
Soldier 1 Yes, captain.
(The doors are opened, and a double row of prisoners are let in, old, tired, harassed, worn out, a deplorable collection of ordinary people who all look quite innocent.)
2 We can’t take them in one by one. Let them all directly in to the cell and be content with counting them and make sure the number is correct.
Soldier 2 Two by two! Straight into the cell! There you will have to wait for further transport.
Duchess (a prisoner) How long do we have to wait?
soldier 2 Only this night.
2 All conversation with the prisoners is forbidden!
soldier 2 Yes, captain! (to soldier 1) Are you counting them?
Soldier 1 I hope you are doing it as well, to make sure.
(All prisoners pass them by into the cell.)
Soldier 2 (when they have all passed) How many did you make them?
soldier 1 Thirty-eight.
soldier 2 Me too. That’s too little.
2 How many did you make them?
soldier 2 Thirty-eight.
2 Where are the rest? Twenty are missing.
soldier 1 We don’t know, captain. The freight train is empty and there’s no one left. Perhaps they jumped out on the way. Perhaps they perished and were pushed out.
Fast They should have been fifty-eight.
soldier 2 Perhaps someone made a three look like a five.
soldier 1 That’s also possible.
Fast We will have to content ourselves with that explanation.
colonel How many are missing?
Fast Twenty.
colonel That’s unusually many. There never used to be more than 10 percent.
Fast The loss cannot be explained, colonel.
colonel The harsh winter? Cholera? Dysentery? Plague? There are always a few casualties on the way, but twenty is an unusual number. It does not look good in the protocol. We will have to change the five into a three to make it look better.
Fast I was just going to suggest that, colonel.
colonel Good. The problem is solved. Close the cell. We are done for today. Let’s go to the mess-room. (throws his pen on the desk)
Fast Yes, colonel. (to the soldiers) Seal the cell until tomorrow morning! Nothing more to do here today.
(The soldiers close up the cell, bolt the door and march off.)
soldier 1 I wonder how many will still be alive in there tomorrow.
soldier 2 It will be a cold night.
soldier 1 They have straw and a heater.
soldier 2 And they have each other.
soldier 1 They will probably manage.
soldier 2 At least most of them.
soldier 1 Come! The vodka is waiting for us in the mess-room.
soldier 2 That’s the only thing making life endurable.
soldier 1 For us.
soldier 2 And the officers.
soldier 1 Come!
(The soldiers march off. The command has already left. Everything gets dark and quiet. The stage revolves and shows the large cell with the prisoners.)
Scene 2. The cell of the prisoners.
(All sit quiet and huddled. Some are freezing and shivering and rubbing their hands and limbs. Some are playing cards. A grandmother is dandling her grandchild.)
duchess Here we all sit passive like sacks of meal as if we were accustomed to be executed every day.
An old man What can we do? We were all innocent. another Of what?
Old man Yes, what were we accused of?
The other Counter revolutionary activities, I think.
Old man What’s the meaning of that crime?
The other Nothing.
Old man That’s what I mean.
A third one We just happened to stand in the way of authority. That’s all.
Old man The Russian steamroller got bogged down at Tannenberg, but it’s still running people over all over the world.
The other That was a counter revolutionary statement.
Old man Everything is that deals with the truth.
Duchess You all speak but rubbish, old boys. Here we will all freeze to death tonight.
Old man We will never be that lucky.
Duchess Are you looking forward to what is to come?
Old man You could in spite of all survive.
Duchess Surely you don’t imagine that you one day could come back home?
The third What could you have to come home to? A life in shambles? Your confiscated property? Your ruined and destroyed family? Your widow and fatherless children? A condemned father is worse than a dead father.
Duchess That’s what I mean. Better to freeze to death at once.
Old man You have to live as far as it goes.
Duchess Why?
Old man For the sake of life.
Duchess You are so gaga and senile that you want to go on living.
Old man That’s in spite of all your last human right in life, condemned or not.
The third I think most of us here haven’t even been condemned or learned what they have been sentenced or accused of.
Old man Of course. That’s how society works.
The third What society? That of Stalin or the whole world?
Old man The society of our brave new world, presented by Kafka. The other Yes, that’s our society. The universal Kafkaization.
Old man It’s better than no society at all.
Duchess I strongly doubt it.
Peter (a quite young man) I am at least a murderer and not ashamed of it. the other At last an honest man, who is condemned for having actually committed a crime.
Duchess He looks like a revolutionary. I hope the one you murdered deserved it. Old man What were you sentenced for, young man?
Peter Murder of an agent of the secret police.
Duchess He is innocent, like all the rest of us.
The other The risk is you committed a heroic achievement. Why did you murder him?
Peter He had killed my brother.
Duchess He constantly grows more innocent.
Old man While at the same time his case looks constantly more hopeless. What is your sentence?
Peter Penal servitude for life.
old man To such a young man it’s crueler than death.
Peter I would have considered it an honour to be executed.
Old man Maybe you will be. There is still hope. We’ll never know what happens to us at the end of the line. This is a Kafka society, you know, where we all disappear out into nowhere.
Magda I am also a murderess.
The other More and more honest people. Hopefully you also murdered a policeman?
Magda No, I murdered my own mother.
Duchess Then you should have been sent to a mental hospital, my girl
Magda I was.
Old man But how could a daughter murder her own mother?
Magda I don’t know.
The other She must be innocent since she doesn’t know why she did it.
Duchess She also ended up in the funhouse.
Magda No, it was before. It was when I was released that my mother harassed me to death, and then I responded to her once and for all.
Old man Poor girl.
Peter (to Magda) You strongly remind me of my sister, who was murdered.
Magda I studied you all the time for the same reason. You look like my brother. What could be the meaning of that?
Peter I wonder that as well.
Magda You are far too young and fine and sensitive to be a murderer. You must have been driven to the extreme to be able to do something so desperate that.
Peter You too. You can’t have been mentally ill for serious.
Magda What did you do in your civil life?
Peter I was a musician.
Magda Which instrument?
Peter Violin.
Magda My brother played the trumpet.
Peter Were you also as musical family?
Magda No, I was a farmer girl, but I eloped with a musician and his circus. Was your family well known?
Peter In all Vienna. My father was Ignaz Potowski at the Krakowtheatre.
Duchess The famous Potowskis at the Krakow theatre? And the new society turned you into a murderer!
Magda Don’t mind her. Tell me more. Tell me about your family. I have to have something bright to think of. All my life has almost only been darkness.
Peter We were all musical and played different instruments, but the greatest talent of us all was was my father Ignaz Potowski....
(The scene turns over into next one some years earlier.)
Scene 3. A happy family reunion in Vienna.
Ignaz (clinks his glass and rises) Where is that damned Peter? I can't wait for him any longer just for the sake of my speech, which must come out on the lips as irrepressibly as all the beautiful music in the whole world! My brilliant family, we have made an incredible success together and put the whole of Vienna at our feet through our adorable Krakow Theatre, which has lived high from the beginning only on our spontaneous musical madness with roots torn from the good old Krakow with its old conservative synagogues and stolidly pietistic people.... wife Don’t revive our old sins again, Ignaz!
Ignaz But that’s where it all began, Dorotea, just by our shameless sins, when we defied our orthodox and bourgeois families to commit the unpardonable crime of running away together here to Vienna to start our own business here to win or lose
with nothing but our funny music in the luggage, which gave us no less than twelve children in as many years, a world historical record as far as I can remember of everything I've been through in Krakow and Vienna at least....
Angelica Not right, father, since we did not all survive.
Ignaz No, I know, six of your poor little siblings passed away before they got over the diaper age, which only meant that you six who survived and all became musicians became all the more dear and more valuable to all of us and to the whole of Vienna! (Peter shows up)
Henryk At last, Peter! Father has already delivered his speech!
Ignaz Where the devil have you been, my most incorrigible son? We have been sitting here waiting for you all evening!
Peter Did you forget, father, that I had to close the theatre tonight and that we had an extra rehearsal for “The Circus Princess”?
Ignaz He always has his excuses, that darned wastrel! Come in my arms, my boy, so that I may embrace you with all my tender father’s heart in a toast for all our happily so incredibly successful family! (raises his glass beaming with joy. All follow his example.)
Peter We would all be even better off if you kept a little more sober, father..
Ignaz Only puritan bores preach sobriety, Peter! Whatever you do in life, never fall down to sobriety! That’s the most mortal trap of all!
Henryk What is really the secret of the tremendous success of our theatre, Peter? Could you explain it?
Ignaz I can explain it! We took over a theatre in decay and restored it exclusively with our most delicate Polish piety, so that nothing changed, but only the most necessary modernizations were carried out with, mind you, the greatest possible consideration for the traditions, moods and history of the theatre – we took well care of all the theatre ghosts! Then we only staged works that we liked ourselves and knew that any audience must love, and as far as the music is concerned, we ignored perfection as long as only the musicians loved to play and did it with pleasure. That is why we never had strikes but only full houses, therefore we never had failures no matter what happened on stage and whoever made a fool of themselves, and in doing so we managed to create this unique charm and atmosphere in the theatre, which has been its unique hallmark and has been Vienna's most irresistible attraction for the crowds....
Peter You forget, father, that we also always worked more than just hard.
Ignaz But with lust and joy, which never can be exhausted and which never must be exhausted! Consider that, my son, when one day you will have to take over the leading violin from me. (clutches his heart in pain)
Angelica Are you ill, father?
Ignaz It’s just the ordinary thing. It will pass, Angelica, it will pass.
Henryk Father always overworked.
Peter The stress will break him one day.
Ignaz If I am to die, may it be in the sign of music to the tunes of the waltzes by Strauss or the Rose Cavalier or the White Horse or whatever if only it is beautiful and gay!
Dorotea He has had too much to drink.
Angelica We had better put you to bed, father. You have been going on all evening. Ignaz It was only ruined by my darned son’s too late arrival! Had he been home earlier, we could have carried on much longer!
Peter Yes, everything is my fault, father.
Ignaz Take care of the theatre and the family when I am gone, Peter. You are the only one with patience in the family.
Peter But not even my patience will last forever.
Ignaz When once the string breaks, Peter, the only thing that matters to a true musician is to go on playing like Paganini until he died.
Peter Fortunately we are not like Paganini.
Ignaz No, we are just amateurs.
Henryk Except Angelica, who now will make her career in England.
Ignaz What kind of an outhouse is Covent Garden in comparison with us?
Angelica Just the finest opera stage in the world, father.
Ignaz Yes, warble in the sky to make everybody happy, but your heart always belongs to Vienna. You will only be at home here in our Krakow theatre
Angelica But that theatre belongs to all the world.
Ignaz That’s what I mean. Sing to all the world, my heart, to make your daddy happy!
Angelica I will.
Peter To bed now, father, before you explode of happiness.
Ignaz Can you die in any better way than of happiness?
(The family leads Ignaz out in exhilarated joy and relaxed happiness.)
Act II scene 1. In the office of the theatre.
Peter (sits by the desk as Henryk enters) How serious is it?
Henryk We have no chance, Peter. Both time and the world are against us.
Peter Disasters really seem to pursue us by some chain reaction. First father, then mother, then nazism, and now the bankruptcy…
Henryk We are not bankrupt yet. We could move all our business to Poland There are no nazis there.
Peter You mean home to Krakow?
Henryk Exactly. We have all our relatives there, life is cheap, and we could make as great a success there as here.
Peter Would we then give up our Krakow theatre in Vienna? Father would never have forgiven us.
Henryk He is gone, Peter. He left the responsibility into your hands. You must consider the demands of the present. time. In his time he could hover far from earth and wage only on optimism and comedy, but unfortunately we have a different reality now.
Peter If we abandon the Krakow theatre no one will be able go on with it.
Henryk We can create a new one in Krakow.
Peter But here in Vienna father’s life’s work will be liquidated, perhaps looted, possibly burnt down.
Henryk He will keep backing us up in Krakow.
Peter Do you know what the worst of it all is?
Henryk No?
Peter That you are right. That we have to go bankrupt to survive. We will move to Krakow. Inform the relatives and Angelica in England. We have no choice. (with a sigh) Father has abandoned us, and however reluctantly we must now abandon him.
Henryk He will not die from it anyway.
Peter I hope you are right, Henryk.
Scene 2. Krakow.
Angelica You have succeeded again, Peter.
Peter And you have made success in England.
Angelica But your success is greater. Father would have been proud of you.
Peter They burned down our Jewish theatre in Vienna, Angelica Angelica But it resurrected here in Krakow thanks to you.
Peter If there is anything I was always good at it was working hard.
Angelica How is Henryk doing?
Peter Here he is. (enter Henryk.) Ask him yourself.
Angelica Henryk! (They rush into each other's arms.) Congratulations to all the successes!
Henryk That's what we should say to you, Angelica. You are the star of the family who made an international breakthrough. Here we have only been working.
Angelica But you have succeeded! The Krakow theatre has moved from Vienna to Krakow and is doing even better in Krakow!
Peter We will never reach the splendour of our father's days, Angelica. Vienna was after all Vienna.
Angelica Vienna is lost. Forget about Vienna. Dollfuss is murdered by the nazis. Vienna and Austria does not exist any more. Forget it and bury it, until it resurrects without nazis.
Peter How could we forget Vienna, Angelica, when we buried both our parents and two of our brothers there?
Angelica You and Henryk are alive, and that means more. And you were both successful, just like me, who put Vienna to shame, who threw you out. You have elevated the theatre, Peter, into a position of leadership for Krakow, and Henryk is making success as a concert pianist. What more can you ask for?
Peter Exoneration, Angelica, for their burning our theatre in Vienna and for all the Jews in the world whom they persecuted and humiliated without reason.
Angelica Music is more important. Never forget your father's last word, Peter, that whatever strings are broken, the music must play on.
Peter We have reached far by that indication, Angelica. Angelica And we could reach even farther. We have only started laying the world to our feet. We have only to carry on triumphing.
Peter And if there will be war?
Angelica As long as there is no war it's more worth to live for that possibility. Henryk Peter always keeps anticipating the worst.
Angelica No, he is just trying to be realistic, and that's why he is so successful, although he isn't at all as funny as our father, since he has so long antennae that he can see into the future.
Peter It doesn't bode any good, Angelica. If we managed fairly well so far, it will inevitably become harder later on.
Angelica Are you getting old?
Peter No, but my antennae tend to grow even longer.
Angelica No harm in that, as long as you don't make any mistake, which I hope you won’t do.
Peter I hope so too.
Henryk Come now, brother and sister, and let's go out to party! It's not to often we have Angelica home for a visit. You will come again, Angelica, no matter how seldom it will be, but continuously?
Angelica Of course, Henryk.
Henryk We are grateful for that.
Peter We take you up on yor word, Henryk. We had better celebrate as long as we can, and a small glass now and then can never do any harm. On the contrary it usually drives off the devil himself.
Angelica Now you sounded exactly like father.
Peter I can never become like him.
Angelica You don't have the same sense of humour, you aren't equally funny, but fortunately you are still his son.
Peter So is Henryk.
Angelica Come, Henryk let's go out celebrating with Peter!
Henryk Yes, it's about time!
(They go out all three with their arms around each other in the best of moods.)
Scene 3.
Jan I have asked you all to come here tonight because we have to close the theatre. My brothers will be here shortly and explain the situation. I hope you all understand that it is not possible to run a Jewish theater during a burning war and Nazi occupation.
An old actor We would have liked to continue acting here anyway, and many of us are actually not even Jewish. For us actors, it matters less who occupies us and why and whether we get paid or not, as long as we may act. All people of culture know that all theatre is above all politics, burning war and Nazi occupation.
Jan Of course. Thanks for your reliable faithfulness, uncle Fryderyk. Becausee of the war we have to unfortunately make survival itself a top priority, which we didn't want ourselves but which we have been compelled to.
Another actor We could still carry on performing underground.
Jan Exactly. (enter Peter) Here is Peter now.
Peter I heard the last. That might be the very solution to the problem. We can only continue our business if we close down the theatre but carry on underground. As long as the war is going on, the underground audience will be larger than the official one, and thus also the underground repertoire will be more interesting than the conventional one. There we have our immediate future. (enter Angelica.) Angelica, are you here?
Angelica (dressed as a resistance fighter) The moment of truth is here, comrades! Now is the moment and possibility for us to make a historical contribution in spreading our mission of freedom and resistance against nazism and dictatorship!
Actor 2 Shouldn't you be in England for opera performances at Covent Garden, Angelica Potowska?
Angelica I was here when the war broke out and couldn't get back to England. It's just for me to make the best of it, and I might as well sing here. I can even choose my audience here and attend to the essentials called for, which is resistance, resistance, resistance!
Henryk (has entered) Sing for us, Angelica, and inspire us by your song to unbreakable fighting spirit and will to life, whatever the villains do!
Angelica That's exactly my intention.
Jan Thanks, Angelica. You have already gathered a new underground theatre around you.
Henryk We will lay the world to our feet with our art and music directly from the underworld in its heroic struggle against all false authorities!
Jan Exactly!
(All actors catch on applauding and crying "Hurray!" and "Vivat!")
Old man We stand by, Peter, until we die.
Jan And we can only be successful, for we will have the entire Polish people with us!
Henryk Precisely!
The other one Let's start working immediately! May I suggest "William Tell" or "The Sicilian Vespers"?
Jan Why not both?
Peter For culture and imagination nothing is impossible Angelica We will sing us out of the oppression!
Henryk And survive all the murderers!
Old man The only advantage of war is that it is always followed by peace. The other one The only disadvantage of peace is that it spoils people to make them wish for war.
Jan To the point! Let's get to work!
all (with enthusiastic applause in unison) Yes! a young actor (comes forth, goes down on one knee and spreads his hands) Let us improvise at once!
several Yes! Yes!
a Pole (acting a downtrodden worker) Oh, don't hit me so hard, Sir! I really do my best to work only for you and for your beloved Vaterland! I have only the welfare of the German people in mind, as you required! We live only to serve our master race and please you!
another (puts on a German helmet) How dare you such insolence, you wretched creep! Here we are the ones who decide, we the chosen lords, who have been chosen by providence to cleansweep the whole world! So don't try any phoney tricks! We are not served by any simple antics and creeping piggies! So if you do not immediately return to your well-deserved slave labour, we will whip the arse out of you!
another Alas, most merciful lord, let us only worship and adore you, our worshipped master people, who have shown us the great grace of granting us your peaceful liberation from the inhuman oppression of our democracy! We are so glad we got rid of all our freedom! Now, at last, we have no one to vote for but your single beatific Führer, who does us the honor of bombing all our cities to ashes!
The young (first actor) Bring on the primadonnas!
A young mother with a small child Alas, dear Colonel, let me just give my last edge of bread to my last child, my poor fatherless son, who is happy to continue to slave for you in the mine and in your heaviest children's industry, if he can only gnaw a little on this bread edge first, so that he can work for your war, and then I will gladly sell my body to you for a few zlotys all night. If you just promise to kill me later!
"German" What are you doing, you underdeveloped Polish sub-humans and cretins, who are not even worthy to look us in the eye with our divine splendour! Have you not heard what the Führer has said? All sub-races must be exterminated, and this applies not only to all Jews and gypsies and other insane freaks, but to the same category naturally belong all those people on whom we have graciously granted our peaceful liberation from the oppression of their self-chosen form of government! There must be no other order than my own order! I am infallible! Nothing can go wrong where Germanism is allowed to prevail and establish its eternal millennial kingdom!
Jan (appearing as a Jew) Excuse me, most gracious sir, but I wonder if you possibly happen to know where my relatives have gone. They followed the German road signs and your instructions about waiting paradises of happiness reserved
exclusively for us Jews, but they must have had such a good time there that we never heard from them again.
"German" What do you think we have ghettos for, you dumkopf?
Jan I thought ghettos were abolished in the middle ages.
"German" We have resurrected and restored them, you nut, just to give you Jews a paradise in which to be happy and blessed for eternity, and we give them to you for nothing! We pay for them ourselves, and you don't have to pay a zloty there for board and lodging forever! Aren't we generous? Shouldn't you show us gratitude for all eternity? Has any ruler been so liberal towards the Jews in all the history of the world?
Jan You are then truly our ultimate benefactors, and we are most grateful to all of your hyper-modern walled-in ghettos with all facilities including sewers wide enough to flush the bodies whole, heating plants running around the clock with perfumed smoke just for us Jews, limitless work opportunities for volunteers in every concentration camp, electrified barbed wire fences for enthusiastic suicide candidates who want to rush to the finish line immediately, shower devices so effective that a single delousing is enough for a lifetime, and special orphanages and old people's homes that take care of all children and elderly people immediately so that their families do not have to worry about them.....
"German" You've got it all right, my friend. We have simply set up our concentration camps for people to come together! Heinrich Himmler and his Ministry of Welfare have accomplished this marvel of planning and organization just to make people feel comfortable together! A model for all times, directly supervised and protected by the most gracious Führer himself! It can't get any better because he's the one who has done it!
The mother We Jews are especially grateful, that you keep your military brothels' beds without mattresses, so that we hard-working thralls under your porky masturbations are honored with memories for life through abrasions on our backs and legs....
(Suddenly a troupe of real Germans march in,)
Gestapo chief Halt! Your performance is interrupted right here! You have no licence to rehearse and perform in a Jewish theatre! The whole building must immediately be evacuated!
Old man But your gracefulness, we were’t even rehearsing for serious!
Gestapo chief The greater reason for interrupting the performance before it grew serious!
The young one But where should we act then?
Gestapo chief Anywhere but not in a Jewish theatre! This Jewish building must never show another performance! Either you go home to bed, or you continue the show somewhere else, anywhere but not here! Where do we have the director of the theatre?
The young one He took leave and went abroad. That’s why we rehearse by improvising.
Gestapo chief I understand. No one is responsible. Just pack your things and get away! We are closing the theatre!
A soldier Shouldn’t we while we are at it gun down the whole lot of trash while we are here? They are most certainly Jews all of them.
Gestapo chief SS will take care of the Jews. Those who are Jews will sooner or later be interred. My only order is to dissolve and close the theatre. There will be military quarters here instead.
soldier Then we will have the order implemented!
Gestapo chief Yes, and we will have the whole world for our audience! (takes a self-glorious position to supervise the operation while the theatre is evacuated.)
Act III scene 1.
The same company but in much shabbier and worn out premises.
The young one The Germans don’t play jokes on us any more.
mother What does the resistance say?
The young one They are organizing and trying to get in touch with the Russians, but they wait. What’s more interesting is what is going on inside the Warsaw ghetto. Old man Didn’t they take away its entire population?
The young one Only those who allowed themselves to be taken away. About fifty thousand are left and preparing active resistance. We expect a report from Angelica who has been there.
"German" (without helmet) I think she is coming here.
The young one Yes, it is she. (enter Angelica, even more obvious a resistance fighter) Angelica I have good news, comrades. The resistance in the Warsaw ghetto is getting organized and collecting weapons and bombs.
Old man What are they thinking of?
Angelica Rebellion.
Old man
A small handful of poor Jews against the German supremacy?
Angelica The German defeat has to start somewhere.
The young one Explain what you mean. They are one against hundreds if not against some thousand. They are walled in and can’t support themselves. All supplies have to be smuggled in to them by the sewers. They have no hygienics, and the whole ghetto is infected with typhoid and other diseases.
Angelica After the emptying of the ghetto the strongest have remained and organized themselves. Their sufferings have formed them into something of the toughest of all elite units. No German entering the ghetto gets out alive.
The young one Has the rebellion already started?
Angelica There was an uprising already in January which failed. This time determination is hard as steel.
The young one And they have guns and self-manufactured bombs. What else have they got? Do they have ammunition?
Angelica The resistance has even provided them with automatic weapons. They have ammunition and weapons for at least a week.
Another Is it in any way synchronised with the resistance? I mean, will the resistance launch a rebellion at the same time?
Angelica No, they can’t do that yet.
the other That means the Jewish rebellion of the Warsaw ghetto will be a pure collective suicide.
Jan Rather that than Majdanek, Treblinka, Auschwitz and Sobibor. The other You mean that, instead of going up in smoke by the fault of others, they set fire themselves to the furnace they are sitting in?
Angelica Yes, but they would take a number of Germans with them, and above all, the Germans would get a slap in the back from within and from the least expected of all sides. It could be a real kick in the rear of those who can make them crouch, and that signal could be a trigger for all resistance movements throughout Europe from the Baltic States to Bordeaux.
The young one It sounds to good to be true.
Angelica Still it is true.
Old man How could we contribute to messing up the lives of the Germans?
Angelica There is only one thing we can do, and that is the best we can do, and that is not to give up. Maintain all contact networks, spread the word about all the German defeats on the Eastern Front, encourage all opponents and recruit new ones, and make bombs. It's the easiest of all. You need a wick, a bottle and cheap petrol.
Jan You preach violence, Angelica, and with honour.
Angelica No one has taught us to take to violence except the Germans. It’s their own medicine the side effects of which we return to them.
The young one That’s no more than just.
"German" Give them the damn! Exterminate all Germans from Poland! Didn’t Dostoievsky say that we one day would move our border to the Oder? Now is the time! The Germans have themselves set up the greatest defeat in their history, and that hell is of their own doing!
the other The German has spoken.
Angelica May it be exactly as you have said, Wolfgang, and may we never give in before we have prevailed!
the young one You are our goddess of victory, Angelica. Angelica I am still mortal, but victory is not. the young one We will never surrender.
Jan Good. We cancel all rehearsals until further to exclusively devote ourselves to the armed resistance against the war.
Old man So that we then some time may raise the curtain again.
Jan Exactly!
(All are quite agreed.)
Scene 2. Among the ruins of the Warsaw ghetto.
Peter The war is over, but what good is it when everything is already destroyed? Nothing remains but ruined cities and ruined lives, the worst ruin of all being the smoking Germany, finally annihilated to no avail at all. Twenty-three of our relatives have been murdered, my brother Jan was shot against a wall here among other Jewish resistance fighters from the Warsaw ghetto to no avail, and only I and my little brother Henryk and our sister Angelica are left, who are still singing among the ruins. We are just stranded wrecks, all three like everyone else who has outlived themselves in this, the most unnecessary and destructive of all wars. Who has the energy to rebuild an entire destroyed world when we all have more to mourn than to take care of among the survivors? To no avail at all, Hitler went to war against an idea, and how can you destroy an idea that just has to grow stronger if you even try? To our own damnation and misfortune, we Jews have survived Hitler, and God
knows that we certainly did not wish for that ourselves. It just happened, and God's meaning for our destiny appears more incomprehensible than ever.
Henryk (appears) I think the meaning was a kind of second Exodus from Europe, so that we at last could have our own country back, which is happening now.
Peter So much suffering of the entire world for just such a small matter? In that case, Henryk, is God mad.
Henryk He always was.
Peter You know him better than I.
Henryk No one knows him. We can only guess at his nature.
Peter What do you guess then that he thinks about us standing here and blaspheming him for what he has done to Warsaw and us Jews? How can he tolerate the course of this world and that we dare to openly reproach him?
Henryk We are Jews, Peter. We belong to him. When so few people today even concern themselves with him, let alone take him seriously, he probably just feels flattered that we pay him any attention at all.
Peter I prefer not to. We have enough trouble with the results anyway. The whole world has never been more crazy.
Henryk But we are alive, Peter, and we must stay alive.
Peter Yes, until further, no matter how more meaningless it seems than ever.
Henryk Angelica is waiting for us, Peter.
Peter You are right. She is actually still performing.
Henryk Remember father’s broken strings, Peter. No matter how many will break, the music still must go on playing.
Peter But if practically all of them have broken?
Henryk You are left and I and Angelica. We have at least three strings left to sound.
Peter Come, Henryk. Angelica is waiting for us with her performance to the ruins. Henryk We must not disappoint her. (They leave.)
Scene 3. After a concert
The young one You shouldn't be performing here, Angelica. Angelica What are you trying to warn me of?
The young one Your outspokenness has raised the attention of our new occupiers. Angelica You mean our brothers the Russians?
The young one You choose your friends but unfortunately not your brothers. Angelica What have I to fear? We stand as victors, Valdemar! I have never been afraid during the entire occupation, and that's why we have made it all the way up to the liberation! I am a hero and star both among Jews and Poles. So what bother could then the Russians bring?
Valdemar They didn't move a finger when they stood outside Warsaw and let the resistance be massacred in the uprising against the Germans.
Angelica We have peace now, Valdemar.
Valdemar Do we? In Czechoslovakia the American general wanted to continue making war against the Russians.
Angelica But there was peace instead.
Valdemar Here are your brothers.
Peter You sing more divinely than ever, Angelica. Angelica It's intentional.
Peter But your popularity displeases our new lords.
Valdemar I tried to warn her, Peter.
Henryk You need more than warnings to make Angelica listen to reason. Angelica I don't understand what ails you. What could our new masters object against a successful singer who stays at home?
Peter Exactly, Angelica. You should return to England now for your own sake while it is still possible.
Valdemar Only there you will be safe against politics.
Angelica If all musicians allowed themselves to be scared by politics all music would fall silent.
Henryk That's exactly what happened in Soviet Russia. Look at Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Khachaturian.
Angelica This is not Russia, Henryk. It is Poland and the home country of Chopin.
Henryk Exactly, and already then the Poles suffered under the Russians.
Valdemar I fear we have visitors. (Two commissars have entered.)
Henryk You can't joke with such jokers.
Peter No, they are not funny at all.
Angelica We had enough of uninvited guests all through the war. commissar 1 Angelica Potowska?
Angelica What do you wish, gentlemen? commissar 2 May we just ask you to follow us to the station for a few questions. Angelica What am I accused of?
Commissar 1 Nothing. It is just a formality. Commissar 2 We are just interested in your contacts with England. Angelica I have no contacts with England. Commissar 1 But you had.
Angelica Yes, before the war. Commissar 2 Then you still have. Come along now.
Angelica There must be some misunderstanding. Commissar 1 Yes, if you believe it is more than just a formality. Commissar 2 It will only be for a moment.
Valdemar You had better follow them, Angelica.
Angelica I be back presently. (takes her shoulderbag and follows the policemen.)
Peter Do you think she will be back?
Valdemar If she is lucky.
Henryk They must not do anything to her!
Valdemar All Polish people love her. They can't move a hair on her head.
Peter I hope you are right. I don't trust Russian commissars without humour.
Henryk Neither do I.
Valdemar Neither do I.
Peter What have you learned? "German" Unfortunately I have learned everything.
Peter Well?
Wolfgang She was deported instantly.
Peter Where?
Wolfgang To "Little Lubyanka" of Warsaw.
Peter And?
Wolfgang They didn't even give her a trial. They didn't even question her.
Peter What did they do?
Wolfgang They had her shot.
Scene 4.
Peter Just like that?
Wolfgang Yes, together with a group of other former members of the resistance, with blindfolds.
Peter But why?
Wolfgang She had contacts with England. That was her only crime. That was enough. That was reasons enough for direct excecution. Since she could tell her English friends about the conditions in Poland.
Peter (darkly) They are worse than the Nazis.
Wolfgang No, but exactly the same. There is no difference between dictatorships. They only consist of cynical monsters without souls.
Peter We must go underground, Henryk, and disappear. We will be next.
Wolfgang It would be best for us to leave Poland. That's what Angelica should have done.
Peter You are right. Let's leave at once, Henryk.
Henryk But the theatre? And the music?
Peter Angelica was shot for her faithfulness to music. Would you share the same fate?
Henryk Not yet.
Peter There you are. We had better leave.
Wolfgang We'll get you false papers at once. They way west is still open.
Peter We had better hurry.
Wolfgang We'll fix it tonight. (breaking up.)
Scene 5. The police station at Dresden.
1 What are they?
2 Polish refugees.
1 Do they have documents?
2 Their documents seem to be faked.
1 It’s always like that. Didn’t they know the border was closed?
2 Obviously not.
1 Bring them in.
(Peter and Henryk are brought in dressed in typical refugee outfits and just one bag each.)
Didn’t you know the border was closed?
Henryk Are Poles forbidden to go to Dresden?
1 No, but you intended to go on.
Henryk How do you know?
1 All Polish refugess do.
Henryk How do you know we are refugees?
1 It is too obvious.
Henryk Prove it!
1 Every day we arrest twenty or more.
Henryk How can you prove that we intended to escape?
Peter Don’t provoke them. Just send us back to Poland, officer, and all will be well.
2 It is not that easy. We must first find out who you are.
Peter Don’t you believe our word?
1 Everything mut be confirmed before we can believe it. All refugees are suspected as spies. You have to prove that you are not.
Peter We are both musicians and only intended to go to Eisenach to visit the birthplace of the great Bach.
1 And you want us to believe that?
Peter We are innocent. If we are guilty of anything you will have to prove it.
1 Not necessarily, since your papers are false. They compromise you totally.
Henryk That’s a lie!
Peter Take it easy, Henryk.
1 Who are you? And what did you do during the war? That’s what we want to know.
Peter We are Jewish musicians who only devoted ourselves to music and the theatre throughout the war.
1 So you are not then brothers of the executed spy Angelica Potowska, who collaborated with the British during the war and regularly gave them information about what the resistance movement learned about the Russian manoeuvres?
Henryk You bloody dog, she was innocent! You executed a female heroic resistance fighter who fought you in the Warsaw ghetto when you levelled it with the ground and burnt all living innocents alive who still were in there!
Peter Control yourself, Henryk.
1 Too late. We know who he is. Unfortunately we have to arrest both of you. Take them away.
Henryk Will you have us shot without a trial like you did to our sister? (attacks him and takes his gun from his holster, raises it to aim, when 2 shoots him from behind.)
1 That was unnecessary.
2 He gave me no choice.
1 We could have obtained a lot of useful information from him. (concerned, to Peter) I am sorry, Mr Poniatowski, since that must be your name, about what happened. It was not intentional. The only intention was to detain you for questioning and then to send you back to Warsaw. I assure you that we had no other intentions.
Peter How could we Poles ever trust any authority again after having seen the German authorities destroy our whole country and now the communist authorities replace it with the same autocracy methods?
1 Don’t challenge the party, my good man.
Peter No, it is your authority who is challenging us! (snatches the gun of 2 and shoots him down) Measure for measure.
1 (susprised, catches his breath) Aren’t you going to shoot me down as well?
Peter One is e nough. We are even. All I wanted was justice.
1 You must understand that you can’t get away with this?
Peter Of course. (puts the gun on the table) (Other soldiers rush in after having heard the shots.)
soldier 1 (with loaded machine gun) We heard shots. Is everything all right?
1 Yes. Just bring out the bodies. They are both dead. And put this poor man on the train east.
Peter I never killed anyone before.
1 I understand, my friend, and I very much regret what has happened, which does not give me any choice. Happy journey. Take him out. (The soldiers are off with Peter.)
1 Two more lives lost for nothing. Will politics then never stop going berserk with humanity? No, that seems to be all that politics are good for. (resigns)
Scene 6. Back in the cell (like in act I scene 2)
Magda So that’s how you got here.
Peter Yes. How did you get here?
Magda I was a quite ordinary lass in the country, but I was rather fanciful and used to dream a lot. What romantic young girl does not long for her knight in shining armour? And one day he actually turned up. It was a travelling circus company…
The scene shifts to
Act IV scene 1. A primitive farmer’s cottage.
father Have you fetched water yet, Magda?
Magda Oh yes.
father Have you watered the horses? Have you given the cows their hay? Have you fed the pigs? Have you manured the potato field?
Magda Yes, father, I have done all that.
father What is it then you haven't done?
mother Don't drive her so hard, Istvan. Let har catch her breath between her labours.
father She must learn to work, so that she'll never stop doing it!
mother Come in!
(A knock on the door.)
(The door opens, and a clown shows up, not in complete outfit but still a clown.)
clown God's peace to your home! Is there any doctor oin this village?
father Why would you need a doctor? You look well enough.
clown I am not the one in need. It's the director of the circus who is stirred up.
mother A circus? Has a circus come to the village?
clown Almost. It keeps away.
father We have no doctor in this village.
Magda But there is one living in the next village.
father Shut up, girl! Just for that you will have to run to fetch him.
clown Is it far?
father A few miles
mother But have a seat. You can't be in such a hurry. And Magda can't walk alone all that way with master Clown to the neighbouring village. You will have to go with her, Istvan.
father Yes, there can't be such a hurry then. Surely we still have some old Tokay wine left, don’t we, wife?
mother There always is.
father Offer our guest a glass, so that he recovers.
clown Thanks a lot, and then our walk will be swifter.
Magda Is it a large circus?
clown No, we are very small and poor, but we have everything, and we travel everywhere. We have seen everything and know everything.
Magda Do you have horses?
mother You ask too many questions, Magda.
Magda I am just curious. I have never seen a circus before.
father You never will, girl, for you will have to work hard all your life.
clown Are only we boys allowed to drink? Don't you grant your women a little wine sometimes, governor?
father Fill up for the daughter and for yourself too, my wife. We don't always get far off guests.
clown Thank you, thank you.
Magda Do you have sea lions and elephants?
clow Nay, no elephants, just sea lions.
father Don't ask such silly questions, Magda. Soon you'll ask if they have ostriches as well.
Magda Do you have ostriches as well?
clown No, only primadonnas.
Magda What kind of a strange animal is that? Is it a bird?
clown What do you think?
Magda A sort of pelican? It almost sounds like that.
clown Think of giraffes.
father What do primadonnas and giraffes have in common?
clown Both attract attention wherever and however they appear.
Magda But what are primadonnas?
father They are human ostriches who always make noise and cause troubles, and they are always female.
Magda It almost sounds like some kind of vermin.
clown We have all kinds of vermin in the arena, but the primadonnas are probably the worst.
Magda What do they look like?
father Like women but worse. A primadonna, Magda, is a woman who places herself first of all ignoring all others.
Magda Then I never want to be a primadonna.
father You won't have to as long as you work.
mother What about the doctor? Shouldn't you fetch him?
father (rises) I'll take the horse and collect him. Then we all three will go to the circus. Our clown here can amuse you primadonnas in the meanwhile.
clown May we finish your bottle?
father Be my guest. There are always new bottles to be emptied. (leaves)
Magda (interested) Tell me more about the circus. Are you always travelling around clown If we do.
Magda Then you must be seeing many other wanderers as well, like for instance gipsies?
clown Yes, they are everywhere.
Magda I always loved their music.
clown Me too.
Magda Do you have much music at the circus?
clown Day and night. I play the trumpet myself.
Magda How fun! Have you brought the trumpet with you?
clown No, unfortunately, I could not make room for it in my back pocket. And my trumpet sound is really just sound illustrations, like when other clowns and primadonnas go farting.
Magda What fun you must have at the circus!
clown Yes, it’s fun almost all the time. Only the director sometimes disturbs the rhythm, but now he is fortunately sick of indigestion after having quarrelled too much again with the primadonnas…
Magda I would so much like to see the circus. Couldn’t we go to it in advance? If father gets home with the doctor he will probably not allow me to see it.
clown What does the mistress of the house say?
mother It would be a pity if Magda would miss the first circus of her life. Just go ahead. I will send Istvan along after you.
clown Thanks, madam.
Magda Thanks, mother my love! And thanks for wanting to bring me with you, dear little clown! I will come back with father later, mother.
mother Yes, you will have to do that.
clown Then we’ll leave at once. Thanks for the wine, madam.
mother It was my husband who invited you.
Magda (aside to the clown) We have a horse in the stables, which would make it quicker. Do you know how to ride?
clown Who does not know how to ride at a circus?
Magda Let’s go then.
clown Thanks, madam, for your bounty.
mother Thanks yourself for the visit. It happens so seldom. (Magda and the clown leave.)
I just hope Istvan will not get angry because I let them go. Alas, it is almost the first time in her life my girl gets the chance to have some fun! (Short pause before the old man returns.)
father Where is Magda and the gipsy?
mother They made it for the circus in advance.
father There is no circus.
mother What do you mean?
father The doctor was gone for a journey, and when I came back I learned that the circus had left, and no one knows where.
mother With our Magda!
father She has escaped, Zsa Zsa! She has abandoned us, our only daughter!
mother How could she do a thing like that?
father Or else that gipsy seduced her. He fooled us all with his tricks. He must have enticed her to follow.
mother Alas, she is lost!
father One day she will be back, and then she will see the devil!
mother How could she, the dear heart! (sits down beside herself, and cries out in her apron)
father Gipsy trash! (hits the table, incurably angry)
director Excellent that you returned so quickly. We are breaking up at once.
clown What about your fit then? Is it over?
director Yes, thanks goodness. It was no heart attack this time either.
clown Are we in a hurry, since we all seem to be packed?
director If we are. Hurry on. But who have you brought with you?
clown A helper.
director What does she know?
clown Anything. And she can learn anything.
director Yes, she can. She is young. How old are you, girl?
Magda Seventeen. May I follow you?
director If you work hard.
clown But what will your father say?
Magda He will hit me when he sees me. Therefore I would rather come along with you.
clown He has probably got lost in the country with that doctor he believed existed somewhere.
Scene 2. A the circus.
director Come along, girl. You look talented. You could surely make an attraction.
clown She shall be my assistant.
Magda I would love that.
director Good. Then it’s all settled. No contract is needed with someone under age. Let’s get going! We are off!
clown Welcome to your new family, Magda.
Magda Thanks, my new dear brother! (embraces him, and he carefully responds.)
Scene 3. The director in his tent at his desk.
director They are like vultures and hyenas just waiting to attack! Damn it! No one has ever ruled over me! I refuse to be politicized! I don't give a damn which party drives the country down the drain, because whichever party does so, the result will still be the same that the country will be driven down the drain! Then at least let my dear circus continue to gasp for air to at least keep our noses above the water!
Good of you to come, Jac. We have concerns.
clown Is it the usual thing?
director Yes, it’s the usual thing, but it is constantly getting worse. They could come and get me at any time.
clown For non-compliance with the directives of the party book?
Director The party imagines they can decide over everything, even in a circus! You and I know that no one can master a whole circus! We must trust each one to keep his own balls in the air, because no one else can do it for him! But the party reasons in the opposite way in its megalomaniacal immaturity, and therefore all the responsible initiators of the country drop all their balls in the ground! This will not work!
clown What’s the worst that could happen?
director That they come and pick me up for forced re-education and correction in an unwanted direction, which will end anywhere. I see it’s getting more inevitable every day as they sharpen the tone of their demands for transparency in our operations. If I disappear, only you will be able to take over, Jac.
clown No one could lead the circus better than you.
director The party does not care. They demand that we obtain permits for everything, but if we were to spend all the time required on bureaucracy, we would have no air left to breathe! The whole country is being throttled by party bureaucracy! I refuse to put up with it! Thank goodness for your new number. Who invented with it?
clown We came up with it together. I taught her to play the trumpet, and the rest came by itself.
director It’s really hilarious when she plays ”Black Eyes” triggering your perfect show of sentimentality!
clown I was always good at overdoing it.
director You will go far together if only they will let you.
clown I hope so. She is so moving.
director And so young. Almost like a female Chaplin. clown Yes.
director That’s all. Good luck, Jac. Remember: the show must go on. No cancellations ever!
clown Yes, boss. (leaves) director (resumes his position at the desk, sighs, studies his papers nervously, then turns around) There. You can let them in now. (Soon two politruk stone faces enter.)
1 It’s time, buddy. The commissar is waiting. Director (rises) I am ready. Let’s use the back door. I don’t want anyone in the circus watch me disappear.
2 We are used to handling matters discreetly. director Let’s go then. (the politruks lead out the director.)
Scene 4. The whole circus assembled.
Another clown Is there anything more wonderful than working against the current and finding that you can manage, while everyone who follows the current goes to hell? Since our beloved circus director left us, we have lived in constant flight from the bureaucratic laws, but managed by never stopping but just going on and at the same time getting better and better thanks to our wonderful joker in the game, our Jac, who without hesitation took over the whip from our director and transformed it into a magic wand of ever more breathtaking power. I must ask you all to join me in my stupid tribute to Jac the Clown!
(All agree, cheer and applaud.)
Jac (modest as ever) On our flight from the stupid justice of the stupid party, we have seen many countries and cities, our roads have taken us all the way along the Danube from the Black Sea and Bulgaria to the borders of Austria, and from Prague to Kosice into Poland and criss-cross throughout Yugoslavia, where we have been constantly drowned in the more than generous receptions of more exuberant audiences. We know that our circus is doomed, we have no legal right to exist according to the ruling party in all these countries that we are confined to, but just as we have also met happy gypsies on our journey, we have also had happy clowns to show up.
(cheers and applause.)
Second clown You're just understating, you incorrigible clown! We have only had success everywhere, we have become the most legendary circus in the Balkans and that mostly thanks to your wonderfully inspiring ability to infuse us with poetry and quality! Our former director handled the whip and with honor and all success, but your silk gloves have had a greater and deeper effect in that you have managed to bring out the best in all of us. You have given free rein to our imagination and creativity, you have welcomed every new idea and encouraged it and made it a reality, in short, your kindness has opened all doors to our possibilities!
Jac It all began with this little girl. (presents Magda, also in clown costume) It was our little trumpeter who carried the wand all the way from Budapest to Turnu Severin, from Timisoara to Plovdiv and from Sarajevo to Prague and Warsaw. She is
our good fairy and our miracle working angel who has managed to bring the best even out of me!
Magda But you were the one who taught me, Jac.
Jac You had it all in your blood. All you needed was a stage. Magda And you gave it to me. all (applauding, cheering, enthusiastically) Hurray! Hurray!
Jac Is it not shameful and devastating then that we should be allowed to flourish in a unique development and expansion with the constant sword of Damocles of politics hanging over us? When will art finally be free from the paralyzing millstone around the neck of all human activity called the human slavery of established stupidity?
The other Don’t mind the authorities, Jac. So far it has worked out fine by our just ignoring them.
Jac Still they took care of our director, (two secret policemen appear in the background) and now I see that they have also caught up with me. (Suddenly policemen turn up from everywhere and seem to surround the company. A commissar turns Jac over to the two agents and takes his place.)
commissar I regret the intermezzo, dear artists, but you have all been deceived for years by your leader here, who calls himself Jac, who has constantly cheated you of your merits and deprived the state of its fair share by consistently acting without permission. Thanks to your irresponsible leader, everyone is now under arrest. Bring them all in!
(The policemen round up the whole company with dwarfs, trapeze-artists, primadonnas and athletes. Also Magda is taken care of.)
Magda But what harm have we done except to bring the amusement of joy to the people?
commissar You are too young to have any share in this. Get away while you can.
Magda I will never abandon my clown who gave me my life! commissar Blame yourself then. Take care of her. (She is arrested with the others.) the other What will you do to us?
commissar Dissolve your illegal circus. Then you all have to start working for society or end up in jail for unemployment or perhaps be transported somewhere. the other You are inhuman! commissar No, we follow the book.
The other In blindness down to hell! commissar That’s not our business. We have to obey orders. The other Robots!
commissar No, you are the ones who are weak enough to be human. Take them away!
(All are taken away, and the policemen demolish the circus.)
Scene 5.
commissar We can’t collect all vagrants in he country and keep them locked up at the expense of the state.
soldier Especially not if they are artists and used to perform. It is like clipping their wings to put them in cages. commissar Exactly. Are they all released? soldier Yes, all except the girl.
commissar Yes, since she is constantly making trouble. Bring her in to me. I have to try to talk some sense into her one last time. Or else we will have to give her over to other authorities.
soldier Yes, commissar. (leaves) commissar Poor girl. She knows nothing. If she just will accept her release, everything will be all right. (the soldier brings Magda in.)
soldier Here she is. commissar Good. Leave us my friend. (Soldier leaves.) Miss Magda, you are free and may leave. We invite you for your journey home to your parents under escort all the way. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Magda (terrified) No, anything but not that! commissar What do you hold against your own family?
Magda All I want is to see Jac again. commissar That’s impossible.
Magda Why? commissar He is dead.
Magda You are lying! commissar Why would I lie?
Magda How did he die? commissar He was shot when he tried to escape.
Magda You are lying! Tell me the truth at least! commissar If you cooperate.
Magda I’ll do anything if you just give me the truth. commissar We tried to make him cooperate. We wanted to save your circus. All we asked for was to allow the party to have insight in its activites by politruks.
Magda That’s what the old director refused. What did you do to him? commissar I believe he died of heart failure.
Magda You are lying! commissar Don’t give me that, little girl, one more time. I am standing here telling you the truth.
Magda Then tell me how you mishandled my Jac to death! commissar It is true that he was tortured, which only made him more spiteful, so that his torturers were compelled to quicken his process. It was his own fault.
Magda Murderer! commissar He was guilty of breaking the law, like his director before him. The law always delivers infallible punishment. But we have no issue with you. Therefore we demand that you return home to your parents.
Magda Never! (attacks the commissar with a knife she has kept hidden.) commissar She is crazy! (falls over with her furious over him. He succeeds in blowing a whistle. The soldier comes rushing in and succeeds in dragging Magda away. Together they get her pinioned and gagged.)
We had better gag her in case she would start biting. What shall we do with her? soldier I believe there is only one option. We have an institution for reeducation of such people. commissar Exactly. She must be brought there at once. She is raving mad. Some electroshocks and heavy medication until she calms down will do her good. soldier Her own kin will then not be able to recognize her any more. commissar Exactly. Just get her out of here. (The soldier gets Magda out.)
Our mental hospitals will be crowded with living tragedies for nothing. Nothing doing. It’s just to build some more. (sits down to work at the desk.)
Scene 6. The farm cottage (like in scene 1)
mother How could she bring such a shame on our farm! We will never get over it, and the village will never forget it.
father It's just for us to chastize her and teach her to work again. It will take time, but in the end I will have whipped the mischief out of her.
mother Such damages will never be healed even by operation. She is marked for life.
father It can't be helped. She has to work anyway.
mother She will not get better by being locked up in the cellar.
father She's only been sitting there for twenty-four hours. She must learn to behave before I release her from the rats. She must not stick up against her parents.
mother At least release her before she dies.
father She will not die that easily. She is my daughter.
mother She is my daughter also. I have also the right to chastize her in my own way.
father Do as you wish. (goes to unlock the cellar door. Magda comes up, dirty and almost unrecognizably miserable.)
mother My daughter, you must have something to eat.
Magda (cowed) There were potatoes in the cellar.
mother But only raw ones gnawed on by the rats.
Magda You banished me to their company.
father You ought to be grateful girl, that we accepted you back at all! If we hadn't you would still be sitting locked up at the hospital!
Magda That would perhaps have been better for both you and me.
father Know your manners, shameless slut!
mother Leave her in peace, Istvan. Let me speak alone with her.
father As you wish. I have more important things to do than to share women's nonsense. I give you the damn in the meantime. (leaves, banging the door)
mother Eat now, dearest. You have to live, you know.
Magda I would have been better off dead. (takes a piece of bread)
mother We are in spite of all happy that you are back and whole again.
Magda I can't agree. Your treatment has not been any milder than that of the hospital. Father welcomed me by almost lashing me to death.
mother You have after all thoroughly shamed yourself, dearest, and us as well.
Magda By abandoning a slave life for a better life?
mother That's not what matters. You allowed yourself to be taken without being married.
Magda Jac treated me with higher respect than anyone else.
mother But he was not your husband.
Magda What do you think, mum? Do you think he took me?
mother He must have. All men do.
Magda On the contrary. He defended and protected me.
mother You say that only to protect him.
Magda He was like a brother to me and a teacher at the same time.
mother All your three brothers died at an early age, and you never went to school. Our curse was that we only had a daughter who instead of carrying on the farm put it to shame and escaped.
Magda Mother, the only happiness I ever experienced in life was with him. Don't trample on it.
mother He was the one who trampled on you and us.
Magda Stop it!
mother He snuck in here and lured you away from us just to hurt you and make you a piece of shit like him.
Magda Mother, I already told you that he never knew me but only respected me.
mother Are you trying to make me believe you are still a virgin after having known such a man?
Magda Of course I am.
mother Prove it! No one would believe you!
Magda He never did me any harm.
mother You are just protecting the filthy adventurer.
Magda He was a gentleman and an artist at that!
mother Ha! He taught you to be a whore and a scapegrace! You will never become normal again after his treatment! That's why they locked you up in a hospital!
Magda Stop abusing him at last! He was the only good man I have ever known! mother He seduced you and shamed us!
Magda Mother, the only thing you ever gave me was work, and the only thing you ever taught me was to serve as a slave. Jac taught me something else. He gave me poetry and beauty and something to live for. He gave me music and a human dignity. He taught me to love life for the first time in my life. At home, I was only beaten by father and harassed by your jealousy because I wasn't a son, as if I was guilty of all your miscarriages.
mother You're so crazy that you don't even notice how crazy he's made you. But your father will probably over the years beat all the mad ideas out of your head and maybe make you work like a decent girl again, but you will probably never get married when your reputation is ruined and you are labeled a whore.
Magda Mother, you go too far. He was the only sacred thing I have known in life, and you just trample down his memory.
mother The police did right in murdering him.
Magda Mother!
mother He got what he deserved.
(Furious, Magda grabs a meat cleaver and flies at her mother. They tumble over and disappear behind the table, so that you can't see the struggle.)
mother Magda! Magda!
Magda (cuts and cuts again) I didn’t think the meanness of the police and of the hospital could be surpassed, but your insidiousness excels them all! (cuts and cuts again. The blood is spurting.)
(Finally Magda gets calm and backs down slowly rising, still with the cleaver in her hand, all bloody, and she is completely smeared in blood.) Mother, you went too far.
(She considers her butchered mother still with the cleaver in her hand when the father suddenly enters. He immediately grasps the whole situation.)
father Daughter, what have you done?
Magda I have killed my mother. father (quaking with shock) Let go of the axe, girl. Magda (drops the axe. She has hardly dropped it when her father attacks her, throws her to the floor, takes a piece of rope, pinions her, takes another piece of rope and binds her feet.)
Will you torture me to death now, father, by force like she tried by her cruelty? father You have murdered your mother, Magda. Therefore you must back to the hospital and stay there. You will never come back here again.
Magda Violence won’t help me, father. They tried all kinds of violent methods at the police and at the mental hospital, but it only turned me harder. But mother’s cruelty was harder, since it pierced my soul in its outrage, as words can cut deeper than any action. Therefore I laugh at you, father, who imagines violence could do me any good.
father Shut up, you slut! (gags her) You are going back to the hospital! I will personally bring you there in our wheelbarrow, and all the village shall see how I disown you! It’s the last time we’ll see each other, and it’s the last time anyone here will see you! But they will all see you bound like a wolf in the wheelbarrow, and they will watch it with relish! For the last time! (brings the wheelbarrow, throws her down into it, opens the door and drives her out in it.) Try now to find yourself a lover after this! (drives out with her and bangs the door behind.)
Act V scene 1. Back in the cell.
Magda For three years I was moved around from hospital to hospital and made myself just as impossible everywhere when no treatments helped, when my friend and brother the clown Jac was dead and could not be brought back to life. They had murdered him for nothing, and after his death they had continued to insult him for nothing, as if they could insult him by insulting me. Such things required sacrifice, and I was not enough and never ran out of energy of harm, so I continued to take revenge on the whole world. In the end, the hospitals had enough of me, and the prison industry didn't want me either, so I ended up here.
duchess I remember your circus. I experienced it in Mährisches Ostrau and in Karlsbad. It was some experience. I remember your clown. He was very touching. But your dwarfs were the funniest.
Magda I wonder what they did to the circus princess, who took care of the horses, and the knife thrower, who threw knives at his wife and never missed, and the pie-throwers, and the tightrope walkers, and the trapeze artists, who flew in the air.... They probably all went to jail or ended up like me or in the gutter or in a worse place.
Duchess Everyone is gathered in Molyanka.
Magda Molyanka?
duchess Yes, that’s where we are now, the place for bringing people together.
Peter To separate them again and dispose of them.
Magda Artists and clowns and poets and musicians, all of whom were born to a better world. Why did the world start excluding anyone who dared to have imagination and use it creatively, as if it were something dangerous and punishable worth criminalizing?
Another It’s a consequence of the general Kafkaization.
Magda What’s that? Is it some kind of disease?
The other No, it's worse. It is the great human universal process of decay, from which no one can escape in this denaturalized world of the living dead only.
Magda That was too difficult for me.
Old man Stop naggjng at last, and let another doomed at least get some sleep the last night of his life.
A third If we are lucky we’ll all freeze to death.
Old man Keep quiet now. Or else we’ll have no chance. (All quiet down, cowering, and try to a get lost in sleep.)
Magda (to Peter) Pity that you never could become that famous musician you deserved.
Peter We were not alone. All musicians had a hard time in the war, and many were the ones who were murdered, no matter how good musicians they were. Already in the First World War, many amazing talents perished in the trenches, who had a future written in the stars as poets or poets or pianists and conductors. We will never know how many immortal geniuses with the muses as godmothers disappeared in the hysterical manifestations of human folly. The bad guys were not only destroying the world for themselves but for all the good guys as well, and the good guys were too good to do anything about it.
Magda If the world had listened more to music it never would have derailed.
Peter The world has never listened to musicians who played in tune. It prefers to listen to those who play out of tune, for nothing cuts through everything else like a false-tuned violin. What is pure and genuine is considered boring, because it is not remarkable. It's just regular.
Magda No, Peter, the purest music is the most remarkable, for it is the rarest one.
Peter Tell that to the dictators. Tell that to Hitler, who considered himself a divine artistic genius, but he could never paint a picture properly. He scrapped all of his country's best writers, such as Erich Maria Remarque, Stefan Zweig and Thomas Mann, precisely because they wrote books and stories equipped to withstand the test of time and adapted to timelessness.
Magda They also wrote for us. For we have entered timelessness together here and now. We belong to the future. The present time has rejected us, forsaken us, scrapped us and condemned us, for having done nothing else than to devote ourselves to our right of timelessness.
Peter Imagine that we would become so philosophical here.
Magda It's not philosophy. It is just realism.
Peter But in that case it is philosophical.
Magda Only realistic philosophy turns out consistent and general.
Peter You sound like Einstein.
Magda We are probably both wiser than Einstein. He made himself guilty of the atomic bomb, while we preferred to perish in the destruction of the world by stupid dictators.
Peter Yes, Maria, you are probably right, because we know music and poetry, but Einstein knew nothing about poetry. He only knew math. Therefore he gave the world the atomic bomb, but poetry will survive not only the atomic bomb but this whole world.
Magda And ourselves as well.
Peter Do you think so?
Magda I know it. When they come to murder us or carry us away, whatever they choose to do, threy will not find us, because we managed to get out of here.
Peter How?
Magda By our dreams. We are alive, Peter, and have lived more than any dictator. The lords of the world can only drive their fellow beings over and kill them, but we have lived with them instead by simply just being their fellow beings.
Peter Alas, Magda, we did not meet one day too early.
Magda We met on the threshold of eternity. And imagine that we would be such idealists even at the crossing to death.
Peter That's the only meaning of life, Magda. The most stupid way of wasting and abusing life is to expose yourself to the risk of being bored, and idealism is all the fun of life. And the only innocent and harmless idealism is the esthetical one with beauty and truth as the direction and aim of all aspiration.
Magda That's us.
Peter Yes, it is our innocent love.
Magda How quiet everything has grown around us.
Peter It is cold. I think most of them have gone to sleep and are gradually freezing to death.
Magda But we are not cold, for we have each other. In you I have found my brother again, Peter.
Peter And in you I have found my entire lost family. But it is just for a moment, for tomorrow we will be dispatched further on into eternity.
Magda We have time to freeze to death before that.
Peter We are too warm.
Magda I have discovered something. Come along. (She rises and takes Peter by the hand. He rises and follows. They go aside.)
Here is a small loophole hardly visible from the cell. No one else is there. There we can stretch out and rest.
Peter A way of escape out of this world.
Magda It is waiting for us.
Peter Let us enter.
(They enter the sideroom and stretch out on the floor beside each other without doing anything further, but they hold each other's hands.)
Are you comfortable, little Magda?
Magda For the first time in my life.
Peter Then stay put, and let me lie here with you forever.
Magda Yes.
(They lie quite relaxed without moving. The light of the entire scene grows colder, and you suspect frost. The scene slightly shifts, so that the loophole with Magda and Peter comes out of sight. A bell angrily strikes six. People slowly start to move. The soldiers turn up to the right.)
soldier 1 So it's time again to empty the cell soldier 2 I don't think anyone has frozen to death tonight.
1 That's good for statistics.
2 Open the gates and get some life into the condemned.
1 (kicks up the cell door) Get out, all of you! By pairs!
Old man (wakes up) Damn, I am still alive.
Duchess You are not alone, I am afraid.
The other Yet another day filled with the only question mark whether you will survive it or not.
A third The question should as usual be ajourned in the on-going Kafkaization. The other We all end up as question marks in the statistics.
1 Everybody out! Get in there and kick them up!
2 (enters the cell, kicking people up, shaking them to life, and so on.) Get up there! Slugabed! Time to wake up! Don't sleep yourself to death! Ragamuffins! Up and jump! The train is leaving! (etc.)
(All are forced on their feet. When all are gone: )
1 I can only make them thirty-six.
2 There is no one left. You must have counted wrong.
1 Perhaps that eight was a six.
2 Yes, that's how it must be. There are no more in here. That's the only possible explanantion.
1 Fortunately all statistics can be adjusted.
2 Statistics exist to be adjusted and adapted to reality.
1 That's good. Close the cell.
(2 comes out and the cell door is closed. The soldiers clamp away.)
(When they are gone the scene is turned back, showing Magda and Peter again. They lie still quite motionless and untouched, and (very cold light is suggested) it is obvious that they are dead. You barely have time to completely catch sight of them, before the curtain falls.)
The End.
(Finland 14.6.2005, translated in Gothenburg, November 2024)