Play With a Tiger and Other Plays. Doris Lessing

my opening lines. [as if delivering a sennon, but rather fast] Many thousands of years ago, no one knows how many, a natural disaster or a war sealed us in this Under Place. We understand from the old records that a few survivors, known to us as The First People, laid the basis of this our society, excavating the First Level of the Under City. Water supplies were discovered and ensured, and the cultivation of mushrooms, our staple food, begun. The Sacred Machines were placed here, at the gate of the Outside, for it was revealed to the First People that it will be the Sacred Machines which will announce to the Door the moment it must open … Etcetera and so on.

      A DELEGATE: Lovely old stuff, isn’t it?

      ANOTHER: I’ve done this so often I could do it in my sleep.

      ANOTHER: If the Door did actually open some of us would get the shock of our lives.

      ANOTHER: We take it for granted there is something outside.

      ANOTHER: Speak for yourself. I, for my part, am quite sure there is not.

      ANOTHER: My attitude is that since we don’t know, we should keep an open mind.

      ANOTHER: Then why are you in this Ceremony at all? It is just hypocrisy.

      CHAIRMAN: Nonsense, it is part of our ethic. Part of the fabric of our society.

      DELEGATE: It does no harm and it may do some good.

      SECRETARY: Refusing to take part in the Ceremony creates a disturbance. It is anti-social. It just draws attention to yourself, that’s all.

      GUARDIAN: Your reasons for being here are not important. There are many paths to the Door. [to his ASSISTANT] The regalia?

      ASSISTANT: Here. [He hands GUARDIAN the regalia, and assists him – a plastic smock with silver lightning flashes, a mitre, a small transistor radio in one hand, a telephone in the other. The latter is a child’s toy, in a bright colour.]

      GUARDIAN: I think that’s all. Assistant?

      ASSISTANT: Lights. Lights. Turn down the lights.

      [A TECHNICIAN vainly clicks switches on the side of the computer.]

      TECHNICIAN: Sorry, but they don’t seem to work. I’ve turned off the usual number of lights but it is no darker.

      FOURTH PRECEPT: Look at the Door.

      A MEDICAL ATTENDANT: It’s much brighter.

      DOCTOR: It’s an optical illusion.

      [But now there is no doubt that the Door is brighter.]

      ONE OF THE NEW GROUP: It’s getting brighter all the time.

      GUARDIAN: Well, never mind. I’m sure the technicians will get everything right in time.

      ANOTHER OF THE NEW GROUP: ‘Wait and watch for the sudden time,

      The song that’s bright, The singing light.’

      [ASSISTANT TO THE GUARDIAN tries to push FIRST and SECOND LOW-LEVELLERS to the back of the procession. They resist. He tries with the THIRD and FOURTH LOW-LEVELLERS.]

      FIRST LOW-LEVELLER: You don’t seem to have got the point. Those days are over.

      ASSISTANT: Everyone has to go where he is allocated.

      FOURTH LOW-LEVELLER: No. Take your hands off.

      CHAIRMAN: Move up here, behind me. We have got the point, I assure you.

      [ASSISTANT pushes FIRST and SECOND LOW-LEVELLERS up to the head of the procession behind GUARDIAN.]

      THIRD LOW-LEVELLER: Very nice.

      ASSISTANT: You can’t all four be up at the front.

      GUARDIAN: Of course they can. The youth are our most precious possession, the gold of our future. Let them come.

      [ASSISTANT pushes THIRD and FOURTH into the procession behind FIRST and SECOND LOW-LEVELLERS.]

      THIRD LOW-LEVELLER: I’m sorry, but our status is just as relevant as their status.

      FOURTH LOW-LEVELLER: It’s not fair to those we represent.

      ASSISTANT [to FIRST and SECOND LOW-LEVELLERS]: I am sure you are much too mature to mind. [He pushes THIRD and FOURTH in front of them.]

      FIRST LOW-LEVELLER: No, I’m sorry. That won’t do.

      SECOND LOW-LEVELLER: It’s the principle of the thing.

      A DELEGATE: What is that noise?

      [All now look at the big Door, now glowing brilliantly. But is it responsible for that soft deep note?]

      THE SAME DELEGATE: Remember the old saying:

      ‘When the Door begins to sing,

      That’s a sign of coming spring.’

      GUARDIAN: We all know these old tales. But remember, there is no agreement about their origin.

      ONE OF THE NEW GROUP: The First People left them for us as a signpost.

      A DELEGATE: No. My father, and he was an expert in the field, said they were anonymous. They come spontaneously from the populace.

      A DELEGATE: What is spring?

      ANOTHER: They say that Outside it is beautiful in spring.

      ANOTHER: What is beautiful? We all use the word, but what does it mean?

      ANOTHER: Anything gets called beautiful.

      ANOTHER: It was flowers and leaves. [holding up some paper flowers] Like this.

      GUARDIAN: We have flowers and leaves.

      THE DELEGATE WITH THE FATHER: My father said spring was a metaphor.

      ANOTHER: My grandfather who was an expert said that flowers and leaves Outside are not like this, they are made of flesh.

      THE DELEGATES, VARIOUSLY: Oh how disgusting. Revolting. Horrible. Repulsive. Ugh!

      DELEGATE WITH THE GRANDFATHER: My grandfather had the theory that the word spring meant when Outside was covered all over with live tissue in different colours. You know, like our flesh, but different.

      A DELEGATE [shuddering]: Like a sort of cancer.

      DELEGATE: That would take a lot of getting used to for a start.

      ANOTHER: That’s what I’ve always said. I mean, we take it for granted that Outside would be better than here. But, ugh, flowers and leaves made of flesh, living flowers and leaves, I mean to say. [He looks as if he is going to be sick.]

      FIRST LOW-LEVELLER: My father spent all his life studying the old sayings. His version of the spring verse is quite different.

      SECRETARY: You have scholarship down on the Lower Levels? Yes, yes of course you do …

      [SECRETARY exchanges a tolerant grimace with the CHAIRMAN.]

      FIRST LOW-LEVELLER: He said it should go:

      ‘The Door will sing,

      Then through it spring.’

      THIRD LOW-LEVELLER: I like the other one better.

      FIRST LOW-LEVELLER: Here, you two can’t stay there. You can’t be in front of us. I don’t care for myself but it is an insult to the 56th Level.

      FOURTH LOW-LEVELLER: We aren’t moving back and that’s final.

      CHAIRMAN: I do hope you will forgive me intruding, but I have a suggestion. You can’t have been Hereditary Exalted Chairman all your life without learning something of the arts of compromise. [He whispers to ASSISTANT.]

      ASSISTANT: You move there … [He pushes FIRST LOW-LEVELLER with FOURTH.] … and you there … [He pushes THIRD with SECOND.]