"In the beginning was the Deed!"

PRELUDE IN THE THEATER

Manager, Poet, Clown

MANAGER. You two who've always stood by me
When times were hard and the playhouse empty,
What do you think we may hope for
From this tour of ours through German country?
I'd like to please the crowd here, for
They're really so easy-going, so patient,
The posts are up, the floorboards laid,
And all looking forward to the entertainment.
Staring about, composed, at ease,
They hope for a real surprise, each one,
I know with this audience how to please,
But I've never been in a fix like this one.
It's true what they're used to is pretty bad
But Lord, what a terrible lot they've read.
So how surprise them with something lively and new,
A piece with some meaning that amuses them too?
I don't deny what pleases me most
Are droves of people, a great host,
Trying with all their might to squeeze
Through the strait gate to our paradise,
When it's daylight still, not even four,
Using elbow and fist to get to the ticket seller,
Like starving men rushing the baker's door—
For the sake of a seat prepared to commit murder.
Who works such a wonder on such a mixture
Of people? Why, of course it's the poet,
So fall to, dear colleague, and let's see you do it!

POET. Don't talk to me about that crazy crowd,
One look at them and all my wits desert me!
Oh shield me from that shoving, shouting horde That swallows you up against your will completely!
No, lead me to some quiet, remote place
Where poets only know real happiness,
Where love and precious friends inspire and nurse
The blessed gift that is the power of verse.

Oh dear, what struggles up from deep inside us,
Syllables our lips shape hesitantly
Into scenes ineffective now, and now effective,
Is drowned out in the present's hurlyburly;
Years must pass till, seen in time's perspective,
Its shape and soul shine forth as they are truly.
What's all flash and glitter lives a day,
The real thing's treasured by posterity.

CLOWN. Posterity! Oh that word—don't let's start a row!
If all I ever thought of was the hereafter,
Who'd set the audience laughing in the here and now?
To be amused, that's their hearts' desire.
Having a clown on the stage who knows what his business is
Is not to be sneezed at—it matters to know how to please. When yours is the stuff to delight and content a whole
theaterful,
You don't sourly mutter the public's a mob, always changeable.
What you want's a full house, the sign out saying Standing
Room Only,
For the bigger the house, the better the response you can
count on,
So be a good fellow and show us what true drama is really.
Your imagination, let it pour out like a fountain,
Its wonders matched by wisdom, good sense, feeling,
By passion too—but mind you, show us some fooling!

MANAGER. But what's the first requirement? Plenty of action!
They're spectators so what they want to see is things happen.
If you've got business going on every minute
That catches people's attention, their roving eyes rivet,
Then you don't have to worry, they're yours, they're won over,
When the curtain comes down they'll shout "Author! Author!"
With a public so large you need an abundance to please
them all.
Something for everyone, that's how to seize them all,
The last thing you want is to be classically economical.
In the theater today only scenes and set pieces do,
The way to succeed is to serve up a stew,
You can cook it up fast, dish it out easy too.
Now tell me, what good is your artistic unity,
The public will only make hash of it anyway.

POET. You don't understand—all that's just hackwork,
A true artist never stoops to such stuff!
Those fine purveyors of cheap patchwork
For you are the measure of dramatic truth.

MANAGER. Go ahead, scold me. I don't mind your censure.
To do a job right you use the tools that are called for.
Remember, it's soft wood you've got to split,
Consider the people for whom you write:
One's here because he's bored, another
Comes stuffed from eating a seven-course dinner,
But worst by far are the ones who come to us
Straight from reading the latest newspapers.
The crowd arrives here distracted, distrait,
Thinking of this and that, not of a play.
The reason they come is mere curiosity,
The ladies exhibit their shoulders and finery,
Put on a great show without asking a salary.
Oh, the dreams poets dream in their ivory tower!
Flattered, are you, to see the house full?
Well, take a good look at our clientele,
The half vulgar and loud, half unmoved and sour,
One's mind's on his card game after the play,
Another's on tumbling a girl in the hay.
It's for people like that you fools torture the Muses?
Listen to me: You'll never go wrong
If you pile it on, pile it on, and still pile it on.
Bewilder, confound them with all your variety,
The public's the public, they're a hard lot to satisfy.
But goodness, how worked up you seem to be!
What's wrong? I can't tell if it's anguish or ecstasy.

POET. Go out and find yourself some other lackey!
You expect the poet, do you, frivolously,
For the sake of your blue eyes to debase
Nature's finest gift to the human race?
How does he teach humankind feeling,
Master the elements, every one?
I'll tell you, by the music pealing
Forth from his breast orphically,
Which then by reflux back on him returning
Reverberates as Nature's deep-voiced harmony.
When Nature winds life's endless thread
Indifferently on the bobbin, when
The noisy cries of her countless creatures
No music make, uproar instead,
Who melodizes the monotonous din
And makes all move in living measures?
Who calls each mute particular
To sing its part in the general chorus
In a glorious concord of myriad voices?
Who links our passions to wild tempests,
Our solemn moods to fading sunsets?
Unrolls before the feet of lovers
A lovely carpet of spring flowers?
Twines green leaves meaning nothing at all
To crown those proven most worthy of all?
Assures us of Olympus, upon it assembled the gods?—
That revelation of man's powers, the poet, does!

CLOWN. Then go on and use them, your marvelous powers!
Go at your business of making verses
The way you go at a love adventure:
A chance encounter, you're attracted, linger,
And little by little you find yourself caught.
You're so happy, later you're not;
First you're enraptured, then it's nothing but trouble,
And before you know it it's a whole novel,
Write the play we want that way, you know how to do it!
Jump right into life's richness and riot,
All of us live life, few have an idea about it,
And my, how it interests wherever you scratch it!
Color, confusion, a wild hurlyburly,
With a glimmer of truth amid errors' obscurity,
And there you have it,...