The Curious Savage

LILY BELLE. We wait to say good-bye to you mother.

MRS. SAVAGE. (Turns and looks at LILY BELLE.)

I do not like thee, Lily Belle,

The reason why, I cannot tell;

But this I know and know full well,

I do not like thee, Lily Belle

Dr. Emmett. Your children are leaving, Mrs. Savage. Wouldn't you like to say goodbye to them? They would like to say goodbye to you, Mrs. Savage.

The fireflies are out. How lovely. (Turns to Dr. Emmett.) What makes the fireflies light up, Doctor? Are they mating?

DE: I really couldn't say, Mrs. Savage.

Savage: I thought you'd know, isn't this a bughouse?

DE: This is the "The Cloisters." This is to be your home. I am Doctor Emmett.

Savage: Wouldn't it be fascinating if human beings glowed like fireflies while they were mating? Do you light up when you're mating, Lily Belle? Lord knows your flighty.

Titus: Surely, Mother, you're not going to let us depart in an atmosphere of bitterness?

Savage: Fifty needles and fifty pins and fifty dirty republi-kins.

Miss Willie: We've a lovely garden out there- you'll be able to see it in the morning When I was a child-we always said-thirty needles and thirty pins. You've added twenty more dirty republicans.

Savage: It's a fault of mine—exaggeration. It's stupid of me to try to irritate them like this— I just irritate myself. Well, I suppose it has to be exasperating now to be funny later.

Miss Willie: I notice one of your eyes is gone. It must have dropped out in the office. I'll look as soon as they go.

Savage: Don't bother. It fell out last fall at the opera. I would have found but the usher was so nasty about my lighting matches during the Magic Fire music. You know what this is, don't you?

Miss Willie: Suppose you tell me.

Savage: It's a teddy bear. Surely you've seen one before?

Miss Willie: Not that big.

Savage: Do you know what I do with it?

Miss Willie: I couldn't possibly guess.

Savage: I sleep with it.

Miss Willie: Do you?

Savage: Yes, are you going to speak to me as if I were an imbecile, too?

Miss Willie: Here—Here— we mustn't be hostile.

Savage: Of course not—you haven't harmed me. Would you care to know why I sleep with it?

Miss Willie: If you'd care to tell me.

Savage: I don't care. And I'll tell you. I get lonely. I'm too old for a lover and too fastidious to sleep with a cat.

Miss Willie: Then, by all means, you must take it to bed with you here. Would you care to take off your hat?

Savage: If I'm going to spend the rest of my life here— I might as well.

MW: It's a mighty saucy hat.

Savage: A ten-cent piece of felt and three chicken feathers. 85 dollars! Why economy should be expensive, I don't know.

MW: It takes imagination.

Savage: And the blood of pirates. But I wanted it. I wanted a hat like this since I was sixteen. For all the good it does me now. Well— I won't need a hat here. Maybe you could use it for something—I don't know at all what.

MW: Oh, you'd better keep it. You might need it.

Savage: Oh dear dear! My head looks like the matted end of a coconut.

MW: Oh I don't think so. It's a heavenly color.

Savage: You should have seen it last year. It was bright red. Then, just to be different, I dyed it black with a white streak in the middle. I looked like a skunk. Finally, I just gave up and tinted it blue. It goes with everything.

MW: It'll certainly go with your room. Wouldn't you like to go up and get settled?

Savage: Is it time to lock me up?

MW: I wouldn't dream of locking you up. Did you bring a suitcase?

Savage: My daughter did. I wasn't consulted.

MW: I'll get it and take you up. There'll be time to explore your surroundings tomorrow. You can wait here.

Savage: Alone?

MW: Of course.

Savage: No handcuffs?

MW: We have the honor system.

Honor system, indeed!

Florence: Now, fairy—you must stop frightening yourself!

Savage: The poor thing's quite harmless.

Fairy: It won't bite?

Savage: It won't shed, lay eggs or bark. And—to the best of my knowledge— it's unvexed by sex. It couldn't be less trouble.

Florence: Perhaps, we should introduce ourselves. You must be Mrs. Savage. I'm Florence Williams.

Savage: How do you do?

Fairy: Say you love me.

Savage: But— we've just met.

Fairy: You don't have to mean it. I feel wonderful when people say they love me.

Savage: Well—I'm sure everyone loves you.

Fairy: You see— I told you she wouldn't be spoiled. Welcome to The Cloisters. Climate best by government test.

Savage: Thank you.

Florence: And this is Hannibal. And this is our Mrs. Paddy.

Savage: How do you do, Mrs. Paddy?

Paddy: i hate everything in the world but most of all I hate lighting, skunk, cabbage, custard, mustard, spiders, blisters, girdles, mice, bees, keys, ragweed, chloroform, rhubarb, barnacles, bats, broken glass, eels, crumbs, drunks, tombstones, gallstones, salt and thunder.

Savage: Why don't you like rhubarb?

Florence: Mrs. Paddy stopped talking about twenty years ago.

Savage: Why?

Fairy: But she is only giving up electricity for Lent.

Savage: You're a woman of wisdom, Mrs. Paddy. There is only one thing wiser than saying very little, and that is saying nothing at all. Would you like to hold it?

Fairy: She likes you.

Savage: I like her.

Jeff: Please excuse my left hand.

Savage: Certainly, is it a toothache?

Florence: Jeff's face is scarred and he likes to spare people.

Savage: Well, you don't have to spare me. I have to look at myself every morning.

Jeff: Doctor Emmett refuses to let me wear a bandage.

Savage: Well, we have to humor our doctors every once in a while.

Fairy: You won't hurt her, will you?

Savage: Gracious! Why should I?

J: You won't object, will you?

Savage: Well—what is John Thomas?

Hannibal: Her son. What did you think?

Savage: Here?

Fa: You like children, don't you?

Savage: Everyone's but my own. How—old is he?

Fl: Five

Savage: He's big for five months.

Fl: No. No. Five years.

I meant years.

H: Poor Florence isn't well. We pretend for her sake. We hope you will, too.

Savage: Oh— I will.

Fa: Tyrant!

Savage: What is that?

J: Well— "Ours not to reason why—" I wonder why no one ever quotes the first line. It's "someone blundered".

Savage: Good night.

J: I didn't hear you. We never say that. It means there's no more.

Savage: No more what?

H: Don't let Jeff's manner disturb you. During the war his plane was shot down in flames. He hasn't quite recovered yet.

Savage: Was his face badly burned?

H: Fairy has the gift of the good for saying the wrong thing.

Savage: I should think it would take a bit of doing to apologize to someone who won't talk and sulks anyhow.

H: She's happy at her easel.

Savage: Is she an artist?

H: I don't know whether she is an artist or not. But she paints.

Savage: Portraits?

Fa: I forgot to warn you, Mrs. Savage. Stay awake. If you go to your room—don't sleep!

Savage: What did she mean about not sleeping?

H: None of us sleeps here.

Where do you sleep?

H: ... Could anything be simpler?

Savage: Not—much

MW: Did they all come in to meet you?

Savage: Well there was a Mrs. Paddy, and four others who have no business being here at their age.

MW: I quite agree.

Savage: Do you think I belong here?

MW: We're understaffed, Mrs. Savage. I'm kept too busy to have any opinions.

Savage: I'd like to know what they told you about me.

MW: Was there anything to tell?

Savage: Did they mention my Memorial Fund?

MW: Not to me.

Savage: Then they probably told you that my husbands death affected my reason.

MW: That would be understandable.

Savage: But untrue.

MW: Why— weren't you happy with your husband?

Savage: I married Jonathan when I was sixteen. I loved him from the moment I met him to the moment he died. Do you know what that meant?

MW: I think so.

Savage: Well you don't, my dear. It meant that my only aim in life was to make him happy—to want what he wanted—to anticipate what would please him. And that meant that all the other things I ever wanted had to be forgotten.

MW: But surely you had no regrets.

Savage: None, while he lived. But after he was gone— I remembered all of the foolish things I'd always wanted to do.

MW: What had you always want to do?

Savage: Things that would have shocked poor Jonathan.

MW: Such as dying your hair blue?

Savage: That—and studying French, and ballet dancing , and people. As a girl, I was sure I could have been a great actress. So, with no responsibilities and time running out—I decided to be one.

MW: But don't you think you waited to long, Mrs. Savage?

Savage: I certainly do. Had I been a fool in my youth—no one would have noticed the difference in my old age.

MW: Oh— I'd never think of you as old, Mrs. Savage.

Savage: Well, having kicked over the traces myself, and learned once again the importance of unimportant things— I decided to I'd help others have the foolish things they'd always wanted.

MW: How were you going to do that?

Savage: By establishing the Jonathan Savage Memorial Fund—a foundation for giving money away in memory of my husband. And that insane idea has brought me here.

MW: Well, you won't find it too unpleasant here. Shall we go up your room now?

Savage: Well, at least I learned one thing from my French lessons.

MW: What's that?

Savage: What I am, a mort conard. That's a dead duck —I think .

MW: Now it's not as bad as that.

Savage: Yes it is. Some day you'll realize that a great injustice was done to me. You'll know that I was always quite sane. But here I am and here they'll try to keep me with my few foolish years taken from me. — if people would walk around the edge of the carpet once in a while it would save wearing it out in the middle.

J: I trust you had a pleasant sleepless night?

Savage: Lovely, thank you. Not a wink.

Fl: You've just missed Hannibal's recital.

Savage: Oh I heard it. As a matter of fact it's what brought me out of my room.

Fl: You wouldn't believe it, Mrs. Savage, but Hannibal never touched a violin until last year.

Savage: What makes you think I wouldn't believe it, my dear. Was it something you composed yourself, Hannibal?

Fa: Mathematics loss was certainly our gain.

Savage: Now, I don't quite follow that fairy.

H: Fairy know that I used to be a statistician

Savage: Thank you, now I am straight.

Fa: Give him a fraction to multiply

Savage: I'm afraid I wouldn't know if he was right or not.

H: My last position was with the government, charting trends. I was supposed to keep my finger on the pulse of the public and my ear to the ground.

Savage: A rather vulnerable position. Was it not?

H: Very, I was fired and replaced by an electronic calculator.

Savage: I should think you would hate electricity, too.

Fa: Oh! That reminds me. May we ask you a personal question, Mrs. Savage?

Savage: They are the only questions worth asking, my dear.

Fl: A little bird told us that you used to be an actress. We're bursting with curiosity. Is it true?

Savage: Oh—that. Well if being on the stage makes you an actress, then I guess it's true.

H: I wonder if we have ever seen you, Mrs. Savage?

Savage: Not unless you were quick. Actually, I was only in two plays. The first was Macbeth.

J: I should think you would have been a novel departure as Lady Macbeth.

Savage: I can't tell you how much I agree with you—but they cast me as a witch.

Fa: But you're a perfect witch!

Savage: Thank you, dear.

Fa: Please speak some witch talk for us.

Savage: I didn't have any lines. If I had it probably would have cost me twice as much.

J: Why did it cost you anything?

Savage: I backed the show. If I hadn't put up the money— I couldn't have even played the mute witch. But we made history. It was the play that ever closed before the reviews we're out.

Fa: Was it expensive?

Savage: Extremely— but worth it.

Fl: What a pity. Weren't you discouraged?

Savage: Bitterly. But man is by nature optimistic. If he weren't, he'd eat his young. So I decided I'd write a play and star myself.

Fa: You wrote a play?

Savage: I did indeed. With a courage born of ignorance and a plot out of wedlock.

Fl: What part did you play then?

Savage: Naturally—the lead. "Not Guilty" starring Ethel P. Savage.

J: What does the "P" stand for?

Savage: I haven't the faintest idea. My numerologist said I needed it in my name for luck. He was right, we ran a year.

Fa: What was the play about?

Savage: A mother who's murdered a man and was defended by a young woman lawyer who turns out to be her own daughter. I had red hair and died in my daughters arms every night and two matinees a week just as the curtain came down and the jury whispered—"not guilty" Oh I've never had a better time in my life.

H: I gather the notices were good that time?

Savage: Well, they were sincere. But it didn't make any difference.

Fl: What did they say?

Savage: The Times said that my okay set the theatre back 50 years. It couldn't possibly, because I stole the plot from "Madame X" and that's only forty years old.

Fa: Wouldn't you think they'd know?

Savage: But the Wall Street Journal was wonderful. It said I brought something new to the theatre.

J: What did Wall Street say?

It said I had a "tenacious mediocrity unhampered by taste."

J: But that wasn't good.

Savage: It was perfect. In our ads we simply said "tenacious" and "unhampered."

J: And you ran a year?

Savage: We'd have been running yet if my daughter hadn't come home and stopped me. Oh, I know I was bad and audiences only came to laugh at me. But we both had a good time. What more can you ask? I do miss it. Oh, well. My turn is coming.

Fl: Oh—oh! (Everyone nervous)

Savage: What's the matter?

Fa: It will only make you unhappy.

Savage: Now just a moment. I know what the paper is going to say so there is nothing you can hide from me. I've just been waiting for it to happen.