Play With a Tiger and Other Plays. Doris Lessing

make sense.

      ANNA: And the baby? Just another little casualty in the sex war? She’s a nice respectable middle-class girl, you can’t say to her, have an illegitimate baby, it will be an interesting experience for you – you could have said it to me.

      DAVE: Very nice, and very respectable.

      ANNA: You said you loved her.

      DAVE: Extraordinary. You’re not at all shocked that she lied to me all along the line?

      ANNA: You told her you loved her.

      DAVE: I’ll admit it’s time I learned to define my terms … you’re worried about Janet’s respectability? If the marriage certificate is what is important to her I’ll give her one. No problems.

      ANNA: No problems!

      DAVE: I’ll fix it. Anna, you know what? You’ve been using Janet to break off with me because you haven’t the guts to do it for yourself? I don’t come through for you so you punish me by marrying me off to Janet Stevens?

      ANNA: OK, then why don’t you come through for me? Here you are, Dave Miller, lecturing women all the time about how they should live – women should be free, they should be independent, etc., etc. None of these dishonest female ruses. But if that’s what you really want what are you doing with Janet Stevens – and all the other Janets? Well? The truth is you can’t take us, you can’t take me. I go through every kind of bloody misery trying to be what you say you want, but …

      DAVE: OK, some of the time I can’t take you.

      ANNA: And what am I supposed to do when you’re off with the Janets?

      DAVE [with confidence]: Well you can always finally kick me out.

      ANNA: And in a few months’ time when you’ve got tired of yourself in the role of a father, there’ll be a knock on the door … ‘Hi, Anna, do you love me? Let’s have six months’ peace and quiet, let’s have a truce … ’ and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on …

      [The telephone rings.]

      DAVE [at telephone]: Hi, Janet. Yeah. OK, baby. OK, I’m on my way. Don’t cry baby. [He puts down receiver.]

      [They look at each other.]

      DAVE: Well baby?

      ANNA: Well?

      [He goes out. Now ANNA has a few moments of indecision, of unco-ordination. She begins to cry, but at once stops herself. She goes to the cupboard, brings out Scotch and a glass. She nearly fills the glass with Scotch. With this in her hand she goes to the mirror, carefully drapes the black cloth over it. Goes to the carpet, where she sits as if she were still sitting opposite Dave. The Scotch is on the carpet beside her. She has not drunk any yet. ANNA sits holding herself together, because if she cracked up now, it would be too terrible. She rocks herself a little, perhaps, picks a bit of fluff off her trousers, makes restless, unco-ordinated movements. MARY comes in.]

      MARY: I must have fallen asleep. I don’t know what Harry thought, me falling asleep like that … what did you say? I don’t usually … Where’s Dave?

      ANNA: He’s gone to get married.

      MARY: Oh. Well he was bound to get married some time, wasn’t he?

      [Now she looks closely at ANNA for the first time.]

      MARY: I must have been pretty drunk. I still am if it comes to that.

      [She looks at the glass of Scotch beside Anna, then at the black cloth over the mirror.]

      MARY: Hadn’t you better get up?

      [MARY goes to the mirror, takes off the black cloth and begins to fold it up. She should do this like a housewife folding a tablecloth, very practical.]

      MARY: I suppose some people will never have any more sense than they were born with.

      [She lays down the cloth, folded neatly. Now she comes to Anna, takes up the glass of Scotch, and pours it back into the bottle.]

      MARY: God only knows how I’m going to get myself to work today, but I suppose I shall.

      [She comes and stands over ANNA. ANNA slowly picks herself off the floor and goes to the window.]

      MARY: That’s right. Anna, have you forgotten your boy’ll be home in a few days? [as ANNA responds] That’s right. Well we always say we shouldn’t live like this, but we do, don’t we, so what’s the point … [She is now on her way to the door.] I was talking to my boy this morning Twenty-four. He knows everything. What I wouldn’t give to be back at twenty-four, knowing everything …

      [MARY goes out. Now ANNA slowly goes towards the bed. As she does so, the city comes up around her, and the curtain comes down.]

      THE END

THE SINGING DOOR

       CHARACTERS

      CHAIRMAN

      FIFTH PRECEPT

      FOURTH PRECEPT

      SECRETARY

      GUARDIAN OF THE DOOR

      DELEGATES

      TWO DISSIDENT DELEGATES

      ATTENDANTS

      GUARDS

      FIRST LOW-LEVELLER

      SECOND LOW-LEVELLER

      THIRD LOW-LEVELLER

      FOURTH LOW-LEVELLER

      TWO MEDICAL ASSISTANTS

      DOCTOR

      ASSISTANT TO GUARDIAN OF THE DOOR

      A GROUP OF PEOPLE FROM VARIOUS LEVELS

      TWO LATE-COMERS

      ASSISTANTS AND HELPERS AT THE ALTAR

      TECHNICIAN

       The Singing Door

      SCENE: Is this a cave? If so, it is a cave into which has been fitted technical equipment. Perhaps it is an underground shelter for time of war? At any rate, this place combines a rawness of earth and rock with advanced gadgetry. This last is piled up at centre back in a way which suggests an altar or a sacred place: computer, radio receiving apparatus, television set, electronic devices – any or all of these. None of these things is working. In the middle of this arrangement is set, in the place of honour, an unattached wooden door. Every item is much garlanded and decorated, but the flowers and greenery are artificial. The altar’s ATTENDANTS are wearing technicians’ uniforms. They are in attitudes of worship, telling beads, muttering mantras, and so on.

       At left is a rough rocky exit into the deeper levels of this underground place.

       At right is a large door, much more than man-size. It has a look of complicated and manifold function, and seems as if it might be organic, for it is hard to see how the thing is fastened into the rock. There is no jamb, lintel or frame. It seems more as if all that part of the rocky wall is, simply, door. And while it might be of brass, or bronze, or perhaps gold – any metal that by age comes to soften and glisten so that it coaxes and beguiles the eye – it might equally be made of some modern substance, glass, or plastic, or sound waves made visible. A faint humming sound can be heard, but it is more reasonable to assume that such a noise must come from the machines,