In
so far as it was effectual, it operated as a measure of relief to
those critics and playgoers who are so obsessed by my strained
legendary reputation that they approach my plays in a condition which
is really one of derangement, and are quite unable to conceive a play
of mine as anything but a trap baited with paradoxes, and designed to
compass their ethical perversion and intellectual confusion. If it
were possible, I should put forward all my plays anonymously, or hire
some less disturbing person, as Bacon is said to have hired
Shakespear, to father my plays for me.
Fanny's First Play was performed for the first time at the Little
Theatre in the Adelphi, London, on the afternoon of Wednesday, April
19th 1911.
FANNY'S FIRST PLAY
INDUCTION
_The end of a saloon in an old-fashioned country house (Florence
Towers, the property of Count O'Dowda) has been curtained off to form
a stage for a private theatrical performance. A footman in grandiose
Spanish livery enters before the curtain, on its O.P. side._
FOOTMAN. [announcing] Mr Cecil Savoyard. [Cecil Savoyard comes
in: a middle-aged man in evening dress and a fur-lined overcoat. He
is surprised to find nobody to receive him. So is the Footman]. Oh,
beg pardon, sir: I thought the Count was here. He was when I took up
your name. He must have gone through the stage into the library.
This way, sir. [He moves towards the division in the middle of the
curtains].
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25