Although the play draws heavily on Dumas’ Kean to allow a skilled character actor a field day, it still encompasses a particularly Chekhovian theme — coming to terms with life. Svetlovidov, in the course of fifteen minutes, passes from self-pity as a ruined tragedian to self-contempt as a hammy clown to self-acceptance as an attendant lord, like T. S. Eliot’s Prufrock, who can “swell a progress, start a scene or two.” At the height of his delusion, he spouts Lear’s storm speech; but by the end, he exits with a pettish repudiation of society from Griboedov’s classic comedy Woe from Wit. This diminuendo suggests a small-scale enlightenment, a compressed version of the awareness that tragic heroes take five acts to achieve.
SWAN SONG
(Calchas)
Лe·e ‰ инaя пecня (Kaлxac)
A Dramatic Study in One Act
CHARACTERS
VASILY VASILYICH SVETLOVIDOV,1 a comic actor, an old man of sixty-eight
NIKITA IVANYCH, a prompter, an old man
The action takes place on the stage of a provincial theater, at night, after the performance.
The empty stage of an ordinary provincial theater. At right, a row of unpainted, badly jerry-built doors, leading to the dressing rooms; the left- and upstage areas are cluttered with junk. Center stage is an overturned stool. —Night. Darkness.
1
SVETLOVIDOV in the costume of Calchas,2 holding a candle, enters from his dressing room and bursts into laughter.
SVETLOVIDOV. Here’s a how-de-do! A fine state of affairs. I fell asleep in my dressing room! The show ended ages ago, everyone’s left the theater, and I’m sawing wood as neat as you please. Ah, you old fool, old fool! You old hound! So, looks like, you got so sploshified you fell asleep sitting up! Clever boy! Pin a medal on you, sweetheart. (Shouts.) Yegorka! Yegorka, what the hell! Petrushka! They’re asleep, damn and blast ‘em, hell’s bells! Yegorka! (Picks up the stool, sits on it and puts the candle on the floor.) Can’t hear a sound . . . Naught but the answering echo . . . Yegorka and Petrushka got a three-ruble note from me today to keep an eye on things— and now you can’t find them with bloodhounds . . . They’ve gone out, I suppose, the so-and-so’s, and locked up the theater . . . (Twists his head around.) Am I drunk! Oof! The wines and spirits I downed today to celebrate my benefit performance,3 my God! My whole body reeks of it, and a regiment’s pitched camp in my mouth . . . Disgusting . . .
Pause.
Stupid . . . The old nitwit got drunk and doesn’t even know what he’s supposed to be celebrating . . . Oof, good God! My back aches, and my skull’s splitting, and I’m all over chills, and my soul is as cold and dark as a dungeon. Even if you don’t care about your health, you might at least show some pity to your old age, Mister Funny Man . . .
Pause.
Old age . . . However much you try to give it the slip, however much you bluster or play the fool, your life’s been lived . . . sixty-eight years gone bye-bye, my dear sir! You won’t get them back . . . The cup’s been drained, and there’s only the tiniest drop left at the very bottom . . . Just the lees and the dregs . . . That’s how it goes . . . That’s the way things go, Vasya my boy . . . Like it or not, it’s time to rehearse the role of a dead man. Old lady Death is just around the corner . . . (Stares out.) Even though I’ve been on stage for forty-five years, I think this is the first time I’ve seen the theater by night . . . Yes, the very first time . . . This is most peculiar, blast it . . . (Walks down to the footlights.) Can’t see a thing . . . Well, the prompter’s box is just visible . . . there’s that stage-box with an initial on it, a music stand . . . and beyond that—darkness! A black, bottomless pit, like a grave, where Death herself is lurking . . . Brr! . . . It’s cold! A draft’s coming from the auditorium, like down a chimney flue . . . Couldn’t wish for a better spot for calling up ghosts! Spooky, damn it . . . Gives me the creeps . . . (Shouts.) Yegorka! Petrushka! Where are you, you devils? Lord, why did I have to mention the foul fiend? For heaven’s sake, give up bad language, give up drinking, after all you’re an old man, it’s time to die . . . When people are sixty-eight, they go to morning mass, prepare for death, while you . . . O Lord! Cursing, drunk as a skunk, this ridiculous costume . . . What a sight! I’d better go change my clothes right now . . . Spooky! If I really have to spend all night here, I may drop dead with fright . . . (Goes to his dressing room.)
Meanwhile from the dressing room farthest upstage appears NIKITA IVANYCH in a white dressing gown.
2
SVETLOVIDOV and NIKITA IVANYCH.
SVETLOVIDOV (on seeing Nikita Ivanych, cries out in horror and recoils). Who are you? What’s going on? What do you want? (Stamps his feet.) Who are you?
NIKITA IVANYCH. It’s me, sir!
SVETLOVIDOV. Who are you?
NIKITA IVANYCH (slowly draws near him). It’s me, sir . . . The prompter, Nikita Ivanych . . . Vasil Vasilych, it’s me, sir! . . .
SVETLOVIDOV (collapses in exhaustion on to the stool, breathes hard and trembles all over). My God! Who is it? Is that you . . . you, Nikitushka? Wh . . . why are you here?
NIKITA IVANYCH. I sleep over in the dressing rooms, sir. Only, please do me a favor, don’t tell Aleksey Fomich, sir . . . I’ve nowhere else to spend the night, it’s the God’s own truth.
SVETLOVIDOV. You, Nikitushka . . . My God, my God! I got sixteen curtain calls, three wreaths, and lots of other things . . . Everyone was so excited, but not a soul bothered to wake up a drunken old man and take him home . . . I am an old man, Nikitushka . . . I’m sixty-eight years of age . . . I’m sick! My feeble soul is weary . . . (Falls into the prompter’s arms and weeps.) Don’t go, Nikitushka . . . Old, impotent, at death’s door . . . It’s terrible, terrible! . . .
NIKITA IVANYCH (tenderly and respectfully). It’s time you went home, Vasil Vasilych, sir!
SVETLOVIDOV. I won’t go! I have no home, — no, no, no!
NIKITA IVANYCH. Good Lord! Has the gent forgotten where he lives?
SVETLOVIDOV. I won’t go there, I won’t! I’m all alone there . . . there’s nobody at my place, Nikitushka, no family, no old woman, no children . . . Solitary as the wind across the plains . . . I’ll die, and there’ll be nobody to remember . . . I’m terrified to be left alone . . . No one to warm me, to show me any affection, to tuck a drunken man into bed . . . Who cares for me? Who needs me? Who loves me? Nobody loves me, Nikitushka!
NIKITA IVANYCH (through tears). The public loves you, Vasil Vasilych!
SVETLVIDOV. The public has gone home, it’s fast asleep and forgot about its funny man! No, nobody needs me, nobody loves me . . . I’ve got no wife, no children . . .