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  (John has struggled to his feet. One phrase scratches through the fog of his brain …)

  Uncle John: Drown? Let him drown? We never let nobody drown – dog-fish got’n. Skipper … (He looks uncertainly round for Pete. Confused. Looks back at his wife.) I never let nobody … Let who drown?

  Woman: (Fiercely) Jimmy Fogarty, that’s who. (Lets it sink in) Little Jimmy with the freckles and the foxy hair and the big smile with no front teeth. Well – the waters filled that gap now and the connors’ll be mouthing at his eyes. And the pair of ye …

  Skipper Pete: (Very sharply) Absalom!

  (Throughout this interchange Absalom has been sitting at the table, knife and fork raised, ready to eat the fish but he won’t eat until his father does. Slowly he puts the knife and fork down.)

  Absalom: Yes, father?

  Skipper Pete: Go bail the punt, my son.

  Absalom: (Surprised) But the fish, father.

  Skipper Pete: (Surprisingly gentle) We’ll have it when ye get back. Put it in the pot now, back on the stove.

  Absalom: (Puzzled, but obedient. Almost to himself) This morning all shining. When I had that dream of fishes. (He just pours the fish back and replaces the pot on stove. Turns to Skipper Pete) Father. It’s all broken … the fish … And this morning it was whole.

  Skipper Pete: (Impatient) It’ll keep. Fer Chrissake it’s kept for a year. We’ll have it when ye get back. All of us. We’ll have it together. When she’s gone.

  (Absalom turns and goes out up stage centre. The woman crosses up to Pete and confronts him across the table.)

  Woman: Ye knew, didn’t ye? All the time. The little feller was in beggin’ and pleadin’ wit’ yer. But ye’d filled that fool of mine with your dirty ravings of a dead past. Dead … dead … that past. And now ye’ve added another little body to yer tally. If we ever find him, we should hang him round your neck, so we should, until he’s rotted away like an ould fish.

  (John crosses up to Skipper Pete, still a bit dazed.)

  Uncle John: What are ye saying, woman?

  (He is confused now. And a little afraid. That recollection which nearly emerged as he looked out at the crowd at the wharf is stirring.)

  Uncle John: Say it’s not true, Skipper. (He pauses, struggling) Tell her. (He puts an arm round him, as if trying to recapture the truth of the dance.) Tell her! Nobody came. We didn’t see nobody.

  (Pete stands up suddenly shaking himself free and goes upstage left, turning his back, looking out of the window.)

  Woman: (Softly) He can’t tell you. He only lies in the head. But never out loud. Never. (Shouts) Go on! Tell him! Tell him that nobody came! That Jimmy Fogarty didn’t drown! That ye didn’t know!

  (Skipper Pete does not move.)

  Uncle John: (An agonized shout) Skipper!

  (A silence. In the silence the fog drifts away and John confronts the truth he always knew …)

  Uncle John: My God. (A pause) He did come. (A pause) The little feller.

  (A pause) Pulling at me leg. (A pause) Shouting, he was. (Horrified at himself) Why didn’t I go. Why didn’t we … (He crosses up behind Skipper Pete.) Skipper. Why didn’t we – hear him? Why?

  (No response from Skipper Pete. Suddenly, like a man demented, John spins him round.)

  Ye’ve got to say, Skipper. This is real. We owe it to him. Young Fogarty. We owe it to us. You owe me!

  (Pete stares at John, crosses down below him to the table. Pours himself a drink.)

  Skipper Pete: I don’t owe ye a thing. (Spins on him) Don’t ye ever forgit it. I don’t owe a living soul a thing.

  Woman: No. They’re all dead, that’s why. Your bad debts are people, and they’re all dead.

  (Absalom enters from the rear. In his arms he carries Jimmy Fogarty. He is quite happy and excited.)

  Absalom: Look, father. Look what I caught by the side of the boat.

  Woman: Oh Lord bless us.

  Absalom: I nivir caught a boy before. (He advances down stage towards his father.) What shall I do wid him, Father.

  (For a moment all are paralysed, a terrible tableau. Then the woman rushes out calling …)

  Woman: (Off) Aiden … Aiden … Lew … They’ve found him. Absalom’s found him … they’ve found him …

  (Absalom is facing Skipper Pete, the dead boy in his arms. The grandson he might have had! Skipper Pete puts out his hand slowly, traces the blind, wet face with his horny hands. Then he turns, the hand that touched the dead child’s face to his throat, as if it is a weight that will choke him. He crosses John and goes back up to the window, facing out. Two men, Aiden and Lew, come in right. They are both wearing waders which are wet. They pause a moment.)

  Aiden: (Advancing slightly) Here, Absalom. Here, boy … (A silence. Absalom looks uncertainly between the men and the turned back of his father.)

  Aiden: Bring him to me, Absalom.

  (There is an element of urgent anger in his voice. Outside, the murmur of a crowd, men and women. John crosses quickly, and restrains Aiden who is about to move to Absalom to take the boy from him.)

  Absalom: What shall I do, father?

  (A silence.)

  Lew: (In a whisper – as if anything louder would snap a thread that seems to have tied them all and provoke violent reaction.) Fer Chrissake, John. We’ve got to do something.

  Absalom: He is mine, isn’t he father. I caught him. I nivir caught a boy before. Can I have him?

  (A silence. Is there a quiver from Pete? John crosses slowly to Absalom.)

  Uncle John: Go wid them Absalom. Ye can take him. Ye caught him. Go on now. (Gently he turns him in the direction of the door.)

  Absalom: Father …

  Uncle John: Don’t matter what he says. Not any more. Anyways, he don’t know nothing about boys. Only fish. Go on now … (Slowly he propels Absalom towards the door. He crosses the two men and goes on out. Lew follows him. Aiden turns to go, then turns back.)

  Aiden: We wants to talk to ye, John. And Skipper there.

  Uncle John: Aye. I know.

  (Aiden goes out. John turns.)

  Uncle John: Skipper, are ye coming? (No answer) Skipper? No – they’s nothing out there b’y. (No answer) I ’low it wasn’t too bad a day after all, Skipper. One hell of a catch. But I don’t think I’ll be shareman wid ye any longer. (He is nearly crying.) I’m going home, ye see. Home …

  (He pauses one last time waiting for a response, or any indication from Pete that they have ever known each other at all. But there is nothing. John crosses to the killick. Picks it up. Goes to the door right. And then, a flash of the old sardonic mirth returns …)

  Uncle John: I’m taking the killick. I’m going to tie it to me goddamn leg, that’s what. In Memoriam, dat’s what they say …

  (He goes out. The murmur of the crowd dies away. After a pause Pete turns. Slowly goes across right and shuts the door. He pauses. Comes across to stove, checks it for flame. Checks the fish. Goes back up stage and disappears partially from view as he undoes and fastens the upstage door. There’s just a shaft of light left now coming in through the church window. He goes right and finds an oil lamp, lights it and puts it on the table. He begins to sing … two or three lines of the opening song. Stops. Takes the fish off the stove, fills his plate and begins to eat …)

  THE END

  Henrik Ibsen on the Necessity of Producing Norwegian Drama

  John Palmer

  As a director and playwright, John Palmer was a major force in the formation of the alternative theatre movement in Toronto during the late 1960s and early 1970s. With Martin Kinch he co-founded the brief lived Canadian Place Theatre in Stratford, where his play Memories for My Brother, Part I premièred in 1969. In 1971 he was one of the co-founders of Toronto Free Theatre (TFT) (along with Kinch and Tom Hendry). His plays at TFT include The End in 1972 and the collective The Pits, which he directed. John Palmer was also closely involved with the other experimental theatres in Toronto, including Factory Theatre Lab, which premièred his A Touc
h of God in the Golden Age in 1971 and Henrik Ibsen in 1976, and Theatre Passe Muraille, where he directed a celebrated production of Fabian Jenning’s Charles Manson a.k.a. Jesus Christ in 1972. His most recent play is A Day at the Beach, produced in 1987.

  PHOTO CREDIT: STEVEN JACK

  Henrik Ibsen on the Necessity of Producing Norwegian Drama was first produced on 10 October 1976 at Factory Theatre Lab. The play was originally conceived as a curtain-raiser for George F. Walker’s Bagdad Saloon.

  PRODUCTION

  Director / Martin Kinch

  Designer / Miro Kinch

  CAST

  Chapelle Jaffe / Henrik Ibsen

  CHARACTERS

  Ibsen

  A woman

  A man

  A plain wooden podium. On the front of it, facing the audience, is a simple sign attached to the podium. The sign reads: “The Society For The Encouragement Of The Norwegian Theatre.” On the top of the podium, to the right, is a small Norwegian flag inserted in a little stand. Under the top of the podium and not visible to the audience is a Union Jack the same size as the Norwegian flag. Beside the podium is a plain glass jug of water and a perfectly plain shapeless glass on a small pewter tray. Beside this is a small wooden gavel.

  Ibsen should be introduced by a Woman in modern dress, i.e. a costume similar to whatever the audience is wearing. She is a very timid woman, obviously out of place before others. She carries a little white card on which her “introduction” is written. She stands beside the podium, not at it. She tries to smile at all times. She gets the audience’s attention by waiting silently for it. When everyone is quiet she bangs the gavel once.

  Woman: I have the privilege this evening of introducing to you … (She checks her card) … one of our Norwegian playwrights and lecturers … (She checks her card) … Mr Henrik Ibsen who will speak to us on the subject of … (She checks her card) … the necessity of producing Norwegian drama. Mr Ibsen has written a number of plays and has travelled extensively in Italy. I know you will appreciate what he has to say. (She checks her card.) Thank you. (She steps away, applauding silently.)

  Henrik Ibsen takes the podium. He is a short giant of about seventy, a vile, crotchety, condescending, glowering, impatient, and explosive man. He is the very cliché of aged genius. He is dressed in his own period, very conservatively (c. 1900). If he ever smiles, it is the malicious glint of one who knows that his audience will have difficulty following him. And yet he loves what he is doing, what he is talking about. He looks quickly about and starts talking. During the course of his speech he will work up to fever pitches, loosen his tie and collar, take off his coat, and have to take frequent drinks to calm himself down.

  Ibsen: I should like to thank Miss – for her magnificently accurate introduction. The question that has disturbed my waking hours for the last two weeks is both tangential and relevant: shall I prefix this address with “Ladies and Gentlemen”?

  The reality in the prefix “Ladies and Gentlemen” is a complex system of repression and psychological absurdity; a clever subterfuge by which the speaker and the audience are placed under the illusion that the speaker is in fact addressing, in the same way, both ladies and gentlemen; but as any serious discussion is not considered fit for female ears and as no real power has been delegated to women and since men do not listen to these other folk in the same way as to the images of god himself, the exercise of addressing women on any other subject than strudel seems pointless.

  The problem is not solved by shortening the prefix to “gentlemen” which I consider an ironic term for success in business or luck in ancestry or both. It also excludes the ladies in a profoundly puerile sense. But perhaps the main excuse for dispensing with the prefix altogether is that except for the 25 Kronen I need and am being paid as a token of your appreciation which I neither expect nor require, I consider none of you gentlemen and I am aware that I am wasting my time.

  I therefore find myself in the untenable position of trying to address something vital to a gathering of no one, for no equitable reward, to no apparent purpose. However, since my subject is the necessity of producing Norwegian drama, all is in its place.

  It is not necessary to produce Norwegian drama: it is hardly necessary to produce anything. A bushel of potatoes, the odd musk-ox, and a cave ensure a kind of survival. What civilization has presumed to be about is an improvement in the quality of survival, or existence as we call it, having replaced caves with houses. This social order has now developed into what we call nations.

  It seems to me that we in Norway are having difficulty with the definition of a nation. This is not surprising as we have been a part of first Denmark and then Sweden up until the present year. We have not, in fact, been a nation since the middle ages, long enough to have forgotten the sensation.

  What is a nation? Sardines? Reindeer? Is it the quality of sunsets or the funny head-dresses of peasants? But I speak to an educated audience who cannot possibly confuse these banal sentimentalities with the harsh necessities of nationhood, an audience who no doubt demands a sterner definition of that sacred state of independence in which they claim to abide. A nation is numbers of people either of diverse backgrounds or sharing a common history, language, and aspirations etc., living in a territory defined by specific boundaries. The soul of humanity is in its diversity and each nation’s uniqueness is an added happy factor to the sum total of the human genius. It should therefore cause little mental effort to see that while art in general is an international commodity, it is produced by an artist of a particular culture and there is, in fact, no such thing as an international work of art. (He takes a drink of water.)

  I proceed.

  It is presumably in the interest of most nations to concern themselves with their own self-preservation. I am stating the obvious because it seems to me that most Norwegians are labouring under the illusion that a nation is a very peculiar sort of tree needing only boundaries and no water to sustain it. Self-preservation is manifested by nations in three basic areas: the political which is a concern for boundaries, the economic which is a concern for material prosperity and may involve boundaries, and the cultural which is a concern for being ourselves as opposed to others and which keeps us from reverting entirely to the first two concerns, that is from becoming ordinary animals such as sheep. Thus it is no accident that the great nations of the world have taken the greatest care in the protection of all three areas. While there is no proof positive that indigenous drama is a necessity to a great and civilized state, there is conclusive evidence to show that historically a nation has not achieved recognition in the world solely on the basis of its armed might or successful economy. Thermopylae and Marathon have become mere thorns for schoolboys; Epidaurus will live forever. Louis XIV flattened Europe and bankrupted France but made her diadem of the world by establishing for all time a significant body of dramatic literature for the stage – oh yes, and funding a little painting and sculpture as well. We have yet to hear anything of import from those United States of the New World except to remark that, being but a century old, they have exhibited neither unity, nor any inclination to exert an influence on the rest of mankind, nor the least spark of indigenous drama, all of which, when considered in the same breath, must lead one to speculate on what must go hand in hand with what in the development of new societies, if they are not to be mere appendages of the old.

  Self preservation in all its aspects is the cornerstone of any national policy. (He takes a drink of water.) It is, in fact, the only logical approach to social existence. Now that we in Norway have finally decided on independence in the recent plebiscite, it is crucial to see that more is involved than boundaries and a flag, indeed, that these are only trappings: the true test of our existence is in the art of self-preservation: it is nothing more nor less than nationalism itself. Do not be fooled by the sanctimonious and hysterical cries of those Norwegians who seek to brand nationalism as evidence of the devil. Look closely and see if their interests are not with Denmark
or Sweden or Germany or even England; powerful interests, my friends, in search of more civilized colonies than Africa or Asia. What they are doing is a malicious attempt to confuse a just and natural set of aspirations felt by every people on the fact of the earth and I mean nationalism, with a scurrilous monster called patriotism, which is indeed the last refuge of the scoundrels who seek to allow our integration with those nations such as England and Germany who in the name of this same patriotism of which they accuse us, are gobbling up the globe whether it will or no. The attempt to subvert and pervert nationalism in Norway is nothing less than a call to national suicide. It is nonsense. It is greed. In any sane society it is perfect treason. (He dabs his handkerchief in the water and touches his forehead with it.) A nation that does not covet and cherish its own culture does not deserve to be a nation, nor will it so exist for long. A nation that emulates all but itself is the true homeland of decadence and dictatorship. (He fills his glass which should now be empty, full. He does not drink.)

  I am almost ready to discuss Norwegian drama, which, if you remember was purportedly my subject for this evening. First, however, I must reassure you that I am not a socialist and secondly I wish to perform a modest little act involving our flag, which, if you remember, is Norwegian. I would like to show you first the flag of another nation, oh any other one will do, it doesn’t matter which – a random flag. (He takes out a small Union Jack from behind the podium.) I have obtained this flag at my own expense to make a point although I must in all honesty tell you that it was more easily obtained than our own which you have provided. This is a Union Jack. It is the flag of Great Britain although you may see it waving over approximately 27 other territories round the globe whose inhabitants are presumably too stupid to have invented their own. This … (He points carefully to the little Norwegian flag on the podium) … is our flag, the flag of Norway. Please note that while the resemblance between these two flags is so uncannily exact as to make a perusal of it esoteric there are a few small differences such as colour, intensity, and design. It is important to remember these inconsequential variants when one sees a flag in public, if only to ease anxiety as to one’s location. Now this random flag … (He holds up the Union Jack) … is reasonably attractive if a little cluttered and may understandably hold more fascination than our own. (He points to the Norwegian flag.) How pitiful it must be to wander about under the constant blandness of this flag … (He points to the Norwegian flag) … when what truly waves in your heart is the dashing familiarity of this one. (He points to the Union Jack.) I would suggest that a movement be initiated to convince the Norwegian parliament to adopt the flag of your choice. After all, a flag ought not to be merely a scrap of quilting to be waved about for parades, but a true indication of the aspirations and determination of a people to exist. A second solution is more radical: that is to give up the luxury of Norway and go where the flag of your choice legitimately flies. Norway must cease its terrible coercion of would-be emigrants. I hope not to cause undue alarm as I put away this flag … (He replaces the Union Jack where he got it. Out of sight.) … so I will remind you that it can easily be recalled should it be needed and that I am not a socialist. Now as you will note, I shall take in my hand our own flag, that of Norway. (He picks up the Norwegian flag.) You will find absolutely no need for smelling salts. I am aware there are ladies present and I have no wish to be called out by any of the gentlemen – I warn you that I am about to wave this Norwegian flag. I warn you so that any who wish to do so may leave the room. I assume you are prepared. I shall count from five. Five, four, three, two, one … (He gives the Norwegian flag a small quick wave and replaces it on its stand on the podium.) There now, that wasn’t so bad, was it? (He slowly drinks the whole glass of water.)