Fanny\'s First Play

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Scanned and proofed by Ron Burkey (rburkey@heads-up.com) and Amy Thomte.

This text was taken from a printed volume containing the plays
"Misalliance", "The Dark Lady of the Sonnets", "Fanny's First Play",
and the essay "A Treatise on Parents and Children".

Notes on the editing: Italicized text is delimited with underlines
("_"). Punctuation and spelling retained as in the printed text.
Shaw intentionally spelled many words according to a non-standard
system. For example, "don't" is given as "dont" (without apostrophe),
"Dr." is given as "Dr" (without a period at the end), and
"Shakespeare" is given as "Shakespear" (no "e" at the end). Where
several characters in the play are speaking at once, I have indicated
it with vertical bars ("|"). The pound (currency) symbol has been
replaced by the word "pounds".

FANNY'S FIRST PLAY

BY BERNARD SHAW

1911

PREFACE TO FANNY'S FIRST PLAY

Fanny's First Play, being but a potboiler, needs no preface. But its
lesson is not, I am sorry to say, unneeded. Mere morality, or the
substitution of custom for conscience was once accounted a shameful
and cynical thing: people talked of right and wrong, of honor and
dishonor, of sin and grace, of salvation and damnation, not of
morality and immorality. The word morality, if we met it in the
Bible, would surprise us as much as the word telephone or motor car.
Nowadays we do not seem to know that there is any other test of
conduct except morality; and the result is that the young had better
have their souls awakened by disgrace, capture by the police, and a
month's hard labor, than drift along from their cradles to their
graves doing what other people do for no other reason than that other
people do it, and knowing nothing of good and evil, of courage and
cowardice, or indeed anything but how to keep hunger and concupiscence
and fashionable dressing within the bounds of good taste except when
their excesses can be concealed. Is it any wonder that I am driven to
offer to young people in our suburbs the desperate advice: Do
something that will get you into trouble? But please do not suppose
that I defend a state of things which makes such advice the best that
can be given under the circumstances, or that I do not know how
difficult it is to find out a way of getting into trouble that will
combine loss of respectability with integrity of self-respect and
reasonable consideration for other peoples' feelings and interests on
every point except their dread of losing their own respectability.
But when there's a will there's a way. I hate to see dead people
walking about: it is unnatural. And our respectable middle class
people are all as dead as mutton. Out of the mouth of Mrs Knox I have
delivered on them the judgment of her God.

The critics whom I have lampooned in the induction to this play under
the names of Trotter, Vaughan, and Gunn will forgive me: in fact Mr
Trotter forgave me beforehand, and assisted the make-up by which Mr
Claude King so successfully simulated his personal appearance. The
critics whom I did not introduce were somewhat hurt, as I should have
been myself under the same circumstances; but I had not room for them
all; so I can only apologize and assure them that I meant no
disrespect.

The concealment of the authorship, if a _secret de Polichinelle_ can
be said to involve concealment, was a necessary part of the play. 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].

SAVOYARD. Half a mo. [The Footman stops]. When does the play
begin? Half-past eight?

FOOTMAN. Nine, sir.

SAVOYARD. Oh, good. Well, will you telephone to my wife at the
George that it's not until nine?

FOOTMAN. Right, sir. Mrs Cecil Savoyard, sir?

SAVOYARD. No: Mrs William Tinkler. Dont forget.

THE FOOTMAN. Mrs Tinkler, sir. Right, sir. [The Count comes in
through the curtains]. Here is the Count, sir. [Announcing] Mr
Cecil Savoyard, sir. [He withdraws].

COUNT O'DOWDA. [A handsome man of fifty, dressed with studied
elegance a hundred years out of date, advancing cordially to shake
hands with his visitor] Pray excuse me, Mr Savoyard. I suddenly
recollected that all the bookcases in the library were locked--in fact
theyve never been opened since we came from Venice--and as our
literary guests will probably use the library a good deal, I just ran
in to unlock everything.

SAVOYARD. Oh, you mean the dramatic critics. M'yes. I suppose
theres a smoking room?

THE COUNT. My study is available. An old-fashioned house, you
understand. Wont you sit down, Mr Savoyard?

SAVOYARD. Thanks. [They sit. Savoyard, looking at his host's
obsolete costume, continues] I had no idea you were going to appear
in the piece yourself.

THE COUNT. I am not. I wear this costume because--well, perhaps I
had better explain the position, if it interests you.

SAVOYARD. Certainly.

THE COUNT. Well, you see, Mr Savoyard, I'm rather a stranger in your
world. I am not, I hope, a modern man in any sense of the word. I'm
not really an Englishman: my family is Irish: Ive lived all my life
in Italy--in Venice mostly--my very title is a foreign one: I am a
Count of the Holy Roman Empire.

SAVOYARD. Where's that?

THE COUNT. At present, nowhere, except as a memory and an ideal.
[Savoyard inclines his head respectfully to the ideal]. But I am by
no means an idealogue. I am not content with beautiful dreams: I
want beautiful realities.

SAVOYARD. Hear, hear! I'm all with you there--when you can get them.

THE COUNT. Why not get them? The difficulty is not that there are no
beautiful realities, Mr Savoyard: the difficulty is that so few of us
know them when we see them. We have inherited from the past a vast
treasure of beauty--of imperishable masterpieces of poetry, of
painting, of sculpture, of architecture, of music, of exquisite
fashions in dress, in furniture, in domestic decoration. We can
contemplate these treasures. We can reproduce many of them. We can
buy a few inimitable originals. We can shut out the nineteenth
century--

SAVOYARD. [correcting him] The twentieth.

THE COUNT. To me the century I shut out will always be the nineteenth
century, just as your national anthem will always be God Save the
Queen, no matter how many kings may succeed. I found England befouled
with industrialism: well, I did what Byron did: I simply refused to
live in it. You remember Byron's words: "I am sure my bones would
not rest in an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that
country. I believe the thought would drive me mad on my deathbed
could I suppose that any of my friends would be base enough to convey
my carcase back to her soil. I would not even feed her worms if I
could help it."

SAVOYARD. Did Byron say that?

THE COUNT. He did, sir.

SAVOYARD. It dont sound like him. I saw a good deal of him at one
time.

THE COUNT. You! But how is that possible? You are too young.

SAVOYARD. I was quite a lad, of course. But I had a job in the
original production of Our Boys.

THE COUNT. My dear sir, not that Byron. Lord Byron, the poet.

SAVOYARD. Oh, I beg your pardon. I thought you were talking of the
Byron. So you prefer living abroad?

THE COUNT. I find England ugly and Philistine. Well, I dont live in
it. I find modern houses ugly. I dont live in them: I have a palace
on the grand canal. I find modern clothes prosaic. I dont wear them,
except, of course, in the street. My ears are offended by the Cockney
twang: I keep out of hearing of it and speak and listen to Italian.
I find Beethoven's music coarse and restless, and Wagner's senseless
and detestable. I do not listen to them. I listen to Cimarosa, to
Pergolesi, to Gluck and Mozart. Nothing simpler, sir.

SAVOYARD. It's all right when you can afford it.

THE COUNT. Afford it! My dear Mr Savoyard, if you are a man with a
sense of beauty you can make an earthly paradise for yourself in
Venice on 1500 pounds a year, whilst our wretched vulgar industrial
millionaires are spending twenty thousand on the amusements of
billiard markers. I assure you I am a poor man according to modern
ideas. But I have never had anything less than the very best that
life has produced. It is my good fortune to have a beautiful and
lovable daughter; and that girl, sir, has never seen an ugly sight or
heard an ugly sound that I could spare her; and she has certainly
never worn an ugly dress or tasted coarse food or bad wine in her
life. She has lived in a palace; and her perambulator was a gondola.
Now you know the sort of people we are, Mr Savoyard. You can imagine
how we feel here.

SAVOYARD. Rather out of it, eh?

THE COUNT. Out of it, sir! Out of what?

SAVOYARD. Well, out of everything.

THE COUNT. Out of soot and fog and mud and east wind; out of
vulgarity and ugliness, hypocrisy and greed, superstition and
stupidity. Out of all this, and in the sunshine, in the enchanted
region of which great artists alone have had the secret, in the sacred
footsteps of Byron, of Shelley, of the Brownings, of Turner and
Ruskin. Dont you envy me, Mr Savoyard?

SAVOYARD. Some of us must live in England, you know, just to keep the
place going. Besides--though, mind you, I dont say it isnt all right
from the high art point of view and all that--three weeks of it would
drive me melancholy mad. However, I'm glad you told me, because it
explains why it is you dont seem to know your way about much in
England. I hope, by the way, that everything has given satisfaction
to your daughter.

THE COUNT. She seems quite satisfied. She tells me that the actors
you sent down are perfectly suited to their parts, and very nice
people to work with. I understand she had some difficulties at the
first rehearsals with the gentleman you call the producer, because he
hadnt read the play; but the moment he found out what it was all about
everything went smoothly.

SAVOYARD. Havnt you seen the rehearsals?

THE COUNT. Oh no. I havnt been allowed even to meet any of the
company. All I can tell you is that the hero is a Frenchman
[Savoyard is rather scandalized]: I asked her not to have an
English hero. That is all I know. [Ruefully] I havnt been
consulted even about the costumes, though there, I think, I could have
been some use.

SAVOYARD. [puzzled] But there arnt any costumes.

THE COUNT. [seriously shocked] What! No costumes! Do you mean to
say it is a modern play?

SAVOYARD. I dont know: I didnt read it. I handed it to Billy
Burjoyce--the producer, you know--and left it to him to select the
company and so on. But I should have had to order the costumes if
there had been any. There wernt.

THE COUNT. [smiling as he recovers from his alarm] I understand.
She has taken the costumes into her own hands. She is an expert in
beautiful costumes. I venture to promise you, Mr Savoyard, that what
you are about to see will be like a Louis Quatorze ballet painted by
Watteau. The heroine will be an exquisite Columbine, her lover a
dainty Harlequin, her father a picturesque Pantaloon, and the valet
who hoodwinks the father and brings about the happiness of the lovers
a grotesque but perfectly tasteful Punchinello or Mascarille or
Sganarelle.

SAVOYARD. I see. That makes three men; and the clown and policeman
will make five. Thats why you wanted five men in the company.

THE COUNT. My dear sir, you dont suppose I mean that vulgar, ugly,
silly, senseless, malicious and destructive thing, the harlequinade of
a nineteenth century English Christmas pantomime! What was it after
all but a stupid attempt to imitate the success made by the genius of
Grimaldi a hundred years ago? My daughter does not know of the
existence of such a thing. I refer to the graceful and charming
fantasies of the Italian and French stages of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries.

SAVOYARD. Oh, I beg pardon. I quite agree that harlequinades are
rot. Theyve been dropped at all smart theatres. But from what Billy
Burjoyce told me I got the idea that your daughter knew her way about
here, and had seen a lot of plays. He had no idea she'd been away in
Venice all the time.

THE COUNT. Oh, she has not been. I should have explained that two
years ago my daughter left me to complete her education at Cambridge.
Cambridge was my own University; and though of course there were no
women there in my time, I felt confident that if the atmosphere of the
eighteenth century still existed anywhere in England, it would be at
Cambridge. About three months ago she wrote to me and asked whether I
wished to give her a present on her next birthday. Of course I said
yes; and she then astonished and delighted me by telling me that she
had written a play, and that the present she wanted was a private
performance of it with real actors and real critics.

SAVOYARD. Yes: thats what staggered me. It was easy enough to
engage a company for a private performance: it's done often enough.
But the notion of having critics was new. I hardly knew how to set
about it. They dont expect private engagements; and so they have no
agents. Besides, I didnt know what to offer them. I knew that they
were cheaper than actors, because they get long engagements: forty
years sometimes; but thats no rule for a single job. Then theres such
a lot of them: on first nights they run away with all your stalls:
you cant find a decent place for your own mother. It would have cost
a fortune to bring the lot.

THE COUNT. Of course I never dreamt of having them all. Only a few
first-rate representative men.

SAVOYARD. Just so. All you want is a few sample opinions. Out of a
hundred notices you wont find more than four at the outside that say
anything different. Well, Ive got just the right four for you. And
what do you think it has cost me?

THE COUNT. [shrugging his shoulders] I cannot guess.

SAVOYARD. Ten guineas, and expenses. I had to give Flawner Bannal
ten. He wouldnt come for less; and he asked fifty. I had to give it,
because if we hadnt had him we might just as well have had nobody at
all.

THE COUNT. But what about the others, if Mr Flannel--

SAVOYARD. [shocked] Flawner Bannal.

THE COUNT. --if Mr Bannal got the whole ten?

SAVOYARD. Oh, I managed that. As this is a high-class sort of thing,
the first man I went for was Trotter.

THE COUNT. Oh indeed. I am very glad you have secured Mr Trotter. I
have read his Playful Impressions.

SAVOYARD. Well, I was rather in a funk about him. Hes not exactly
what I call approachable; and he was a bit stand-off at first. But
when I explained and told him your daughter--

THE COUNT. [interrupting in alarm] You did not say that the play
was by her, I hope?

SAVOYARD. No: thats been kept a dead secret. I just said your
daughter has asked for a real play with a real author and a real
critic and all the rest of it. The moment I mentioned the daughter I
had him. He has a daughter of his own. Wouldnt hear of payment!
Offered to come just to please her! Quite human. I was surprised.

THE COUNT. Extremely kind of him.

SAVOYARD. Then I went to Vaughan, because he does music as well as
the drama: and you said you thought there would be music. I told him
Trotter would feel lonely without him; so he promised like a bird.
Then I thought youd like one of the latest sort: the chaps that go
for the newest things and swear theyre oldfashioned. So I nailed
Gilbert Gunn. The four will give you a representative team. By the
way [looking at his watch] theyll be here presently.

THE COUNT. Before they come, Mr Savoyard, could you give me any hints
about them that would help me to make a little conversation with them?
I am, as you said, rather out of it in England; and I might
unwittingly say something tactless.

SAVOYARD. Well, let me see. As you dont like English people, I dont
know that youll get on with Trotter, because hes thoroughly English:
never happy except when hes in Paris, and speaks French so
unnecessarily well that everybody there spots him as an Englishman the
moment he opens his mouth. Very witty and all that. Pretends to turn
up his nose at the theatre and says people make too much fuss about
art [the Count is extremely indignant]. But thats only his modesty,
because art is his own line, you understand. Mind you dont chaff him
about Aristotle.

THE COUNT. Why should I chaff him about Aristotle?

SAVOYARD. Well, I dont know; but its one of the recognized ways of
chaffing him. However, youll get on with him all right: hes a man of
the world and a man of sense. The one youll have to be careful about
is Vaughan.

THE COUNT. In what way, may I ask?

SAVOYARD. Well, Vaughan has no sense of humor; and if you joke with
him he'll think youre insulting him on purpose. Mind: it's not that
he doesnt see a joke: he does; and it hurts him. A comedy scene
makes him sore all over: he goes away black and blue, and pitches
into the play for all hes worth.

THE COUNT. But surely that is a very serious defect in a man of his
profession?

SAVOYARD. Yes it is, and no mistake. But Vaughan is honest, and dont
care a brass farthing what he says, or whether it pleases anybody or
not; and you must have one man of that sort to say the things that
nobody else will say.

THE COUNT. It seems to me to carry the principle of division of labor
too far, this keeping of the honesty and the other qualities in
separate compartments. What is Mr Gunn's speciality, if I may ask?

SAVOYARD. Gunn is one of the intellectuals.

THE COUNT. But arnt they all intellectuals?

SAVOYARD. Lord! no: heaven forbid! You must be careful what you say
about that: I shouldnt like anyone to call me an Intellectual: I
dont think any Englishman would! They dont count really, you know;
but still it's rather the thing to have them. Gunn is one of the
young intellectuals: he writes plays himself. Hes useful because he
pitches into the older intellectuals who are standing in his way. But
you may take it from me that none of these chaps really matter.
Flawner Bannal's your man. Bannal really represents the British
playgoer. When he likes a thing, you may take your oath there are a
hundred thousand people in London thatll like it if they can only be
got to know about it. Besides, Bannal's knowledge of the theatre is
an inside knowledge. We know him; and he knows us. He knows the
ropes: he knows his way about: he knows what hes talking about.

THE COUNT. [with a little sigh] Age and experience, I suppose?

SAVOYARD. Age! I should put him at twenty at the very outside,
myself. It's not an old man's job after all, is it? Bannal may not
ride the literary high horse like Trotter and the rest; but I'd take
his opinion before any other in London. Hes the man in the street;
and thats what you want.

THE COUNT. I am almost sorry you didnt give the gentleman his full
terms. I should not have grudged the fifty guineas for a sound
opinion. He may feel shabbily treated.

SAVOYARD. Well, let him. It was a bit of side, his asking fifty.
After all, what is he? Only a pressman. Jolly good business for him
to earn ten guineas: hes done the same job often enough for half a
quid, I expect.

_Fanny O'Dowda comes precipitately through the curtains, excited and
nervous. A girl of nineteen in a dress synchronous with her
father's._

FANNY. Papa, papa, the critics have come. And one of them has a
cocked hat and sword like a-- [she notices Savoyard] Oh, I beg
your pardon.

THE COUNT. This is Mr Savoyard, your impresario, my dear.

FANNY. [shaking hands] How do you do?

SAVOYARD. Pleased to meet you, Miss O'Dowda. The cocked hat is all
right. Trotter is a member of the new Academic Committee. He induced
them to go in for a uniform like the French Academy; and I asked him
to wear it.

THE FOOTMAN. [announcing] Mr Trotter, Mr Vaughan, Mr Gunn, Mr
Flawner Bannal. [The four critics enter. Trotter wears a diplomatic
dress, with sword and three-cornered hat. His age is about 50.
Vaughan is 40. Gunn is 30. Flawner Bannal is 20 and is quite unlike
the others. They can be classed at sight as professional men: Bannal
is obviously one of those unemployables of the business class who
manage to pick up a living by a sort of courage which gives him
cheerfulness, conviviality, and bounce, and is helped out positively
by a slight turn for writing, and negatively by a comfortable
ignorance and lack of intuition which hides from him all the dangers
and disgraces that keep men of finer perception in check. The Count
approaches them hospitably].

SAVOYARD. Count O'Dowda, gentlemen. Mr Trotter.

TROTTER. [looking at the Count's costume] Have I the pleasure of
meeting a confrere?

THE COUNT. No, sir: I have no right to my costume except the right
of a lover of the arts to dress myself handsomely. You are most
welcome, Mr Trotter. [Trotter bows in the French manner].

SAVOYARD. Mr Vaughan.

THE COUNT. How do you do, Mr Vaughan?

VAUGHAN. Quite well, thanks.

SAVOYARD. Mr Gunn.

THE COUNT. Delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr Gunn.

GUNN. Very pleased.

SAVOYARD. Mr Flawner Bannal.

THE COUNT. Very kind of you to come, Mr Bannal.

BANNAL. Dont mention it.

THE COUNT. Gentlemen, my daughter. [They all bow]. We are very
greatly indebted to you, gentlemen, for so kindly indulging her whim.
[The dressing bell sounds. The Count looks at his watch]. Ah! The
dressing bell, gentlemen. As our play begins at nine, I have had to
put forward the dinner hour a little. May I shew you to your rooms?
[He goes out, followed by all the men, except Trotter, who, going
last, is detained by Fanny].

FANNY. Mr Trotter: I want to say something to you about this play.

TROTTER. No: thats forbidden. You must not attempt to _souffler_
the critic.

FANNY. Oh, I would not for the world try to influence your opinion.

TROTTER. But you do: you are influencing me very shockingly. You
invite me to this charming house, where I'm about to enjoy a charming
dinner. And just before the dinner I'm taken aside by a charming
young lady to be talked to about the play. How can you expect me to
be impartial? God forbid that I should set up to be a judge, or do
more than record an impression; but my impressions can be influenced;
and in this case youre influencing them shamelessly all the time.

FANNY. Dont make me more nervous than I am already, Mr Trotter. If
you knew how I feel!

TROTTER. Naturally: your first party: your first appearance in
England as hostess. But youre doing it beautifully. Dont be afraid.
Every _nuance_ is perfect.

FANNY. It's so kind of you to say so, Mr Trotter. But that isnt
whats the matter. The truth is, this play is going to give my father
a dreadful shock.

TROTTER. Nothing unusual in that, I'm sorry to say. Half the young
ladies in London spend their evenings making their fathers take them
to plays that are not fit for elderly people to see.

FANNY. Oh, I know all about that; but you cant understand what it
means to Papa. Youre not so innocent as he is.

TROTTER. [remonstrating] My dear young lady--

FANNY. I dont mean morally innocent: everybody who reads your
articles knows youre as innocent as a lamb.

TROTTER. What!

FANNY. Yes, Mr Trotter: Ive seen a good deal of life since I came to
England; and I assure you that to me youre a mere baby: a dear, good,
well-meaning, delightful, witty, charming baby; but still just a wee
lamb in a world of wolves. Cambridge is not what it was in my
father's time.

TROTTER. Well, I must say!

FANNY. Just so. Thats one of our classifications in the Cambridge
Fabian Society.

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