Osborne John Osborne Plays 3

A Patriot for Me; Luther; Inadmissible Evidence
Main
ISBN: 978-0-571-30085-3
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 288 Seiten

This third collection of John Osborne's dramatic work includes three classic plays for the stage which confirm his reputation as one of the greatest British playwrights of the twentieth century. A Patriot for Me 'It is a landmark play in its open treatment of homosexuality and in the breadth of its historical canvas... few post-war plays have dealt so brilliantly with the way the individual, in rejecting the ethos of his society, also uncannily reflects it.' Guardian Luther 'The language is urgent and sinewy, packed with images that derive from bone, blood and marrow; the prose, especially in Luther's sermons, throbs with a rhetorical zeal that has not been heard in English historical drama since the seventeenth century.' Kenneth Tynan Inadmissible Evidence 'This is a work of stunning and intemperate power, a great bellow of rage and pain... there is a self-lacerating honesty about his writing that few other playwrights have come close to matching.' Daily Telegraph

John Osborne was born in London in 1929. Before becoming a playwright he worked as a journalist, assistant stage manager and repertory theatre actor. Seeing an advertisement for new plays in The Stage in 1956, Osborne submitted Look Back in Anger. Not only was the play produced, but it was to become considered as the turning point in post-war British theatre. Osborne's protagonist, Jimmy Porter, captured the rebelliousness of an entire post-war generation of 'angry young men'. His other plays include The Entertainer (1957), Luther (1961), Inadmissible Evidence (1964), and A Patriot for Me (1966). He also wrote two volumes of autobiography, A Better Class of Person (1981) and Almost a Gentleman (1991) published together as Looking Back: Never Explain, Never Apologise. His last play, Deja Vu (1991), returns to the characters of Look Back in Anger, over thirty years later. Both Look Back in Anger and The Entertainer were adapted for film, and in 1963 Osborne won an Academy Award for his screenplay for Tom Jones. John Osborne died on 24 December 1994.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Osborne, John

Leseproben

ACT TWO
SCENE ONE
The market place, Juterbög, 1517. The sound of loud music, bells as a procession approaches the centre of the market place, which is covered in the banners of welcoming trade guilds. At the head of the slow-moving procession, with its lighted tapers and to the accompaniment of singing, prayers and the smoke of incense, is carried the Pontiff’s bull of grace on a cushion and cloth of gold. Behind this the arms of the Pope and the Medici. After this, carrying a large red wooden cross, comes the focus of the procession, JOHN TETZEL, Dominican, inquisitor and most famed and successful indulgence vendor of his day. He is splendidly equipped to be an ecclesiastical huckster, with alive, silver hair, the powerfully calculating voice, range and technique of a trained orator, the terrible, riveting charm of a dedicated professional able to winkle coppers out of the pockets of the poor and desperate. The red cross is taken from TETZEL and established prominently behind him, and, from it are suspended the arms of the Pope. TETZEL: Are you wondering who I am, or what I am? Is there anyone here among you, any small child, any cripple, or any sick idiot who hasn’t heard of me, and doesn’t know why I am here? No? No? Well, speak up then if there is? What, no one? Do you all know me then? Do you all know who I am? If it’s true, it’s very good, and just as it should be. Just as it should be, and no more than that! However, however – just in case – just in case, mind, there is one blind, maimed midget among you today who can’t hear, I will open his ears and wash them out with sacred soap for him! And, as for the rest of you. I know I can rely on you all to listen patiently while I instruct him. Is that right? Can I go on? I’m asking you, is that right, can I go on? I say ‘can I go on’? (Pause.) Thank you. And what is there to tell this blind, maimed midget who’s down there somewhere among you? No, don’t look round for him, you’ll only scare him and then he’ll lose his one great chance, and it’s not likely to come again, or if it does come, maybe it’ll be too late. Well, what’s the good news on this bright day? What’s the information you want? It’s this! Who is this friar with his red cross? Who sent him, and what’s he here for? Don’t try to work it out for yourself because I’m going to tell you now, this very minute. I am John Tetzel, Dominican, inquisitor, sub-commissioner to the Archbishop of Mainz, and what I bring you is indulgences. Indulgences made possible by the red blood of Jesus Christ, and the red cross you see standing up here behind me is the standard of those who carry them. Look at it! Go on, look at it! What else do you see hanging from the red cross? Well, what do they look like? Why, it’s the arms of his holiness, because why? Because it’s him who sent me here. Yes, my friend, the Pope himself has sent me with indulgences for you! Fine, you say, but what are indulgences? And what are they to me? What are indulgences? They’re only the most precious and noble of God’s gifts to men, that’s all they are! Before God, I tell you I wouldn’t swap my privilege at this moment with that of St. Peter in Heaven because I’ve already saved more souls with my indulgences than he could ever have done with all his sermons. You think that’s bragging, do you? Well, listen a little more carefully, my friend, because this concerns you! Just look at it this way. For every mortal sin you commit, the Church says that after confession and contrition, you’ve got to do penance – either in this life or in purgatory – for seven years. Seven years! Right? Are you with me? Good. Now then, how many mortal sins are committed by you – by you – in a single day? Just think for one moment: in one single day of your life. Do you know the answer? Oh, not so much as one a day. Very well then, how many in a month? How many in six months? How many in a year? And how many in a whole lifetime? Yes, you needn’t shuffle your feet – it doesn’t bear thinking about, does it? You couldn’t even add up all those years without a merchant’s clerk to do it for you! Try and add up all the years of torment piling up! What about it? And isn’t there anything you can do about this terrible situation you’re in? Do you really want to know? Yes! There is something, and that something I have here with me now up here, letters, letters of indulgence. Hold up the letters so that everyone can see them. Is there anyone so small he can’t see? Look at them, all properly sealed, an indulgence in every envelope, and one of them can be yours today, now, before it’s too late! Come on, come up as close as you like, you won’t squash me so easily. Take a good look. There isn’t any one sin so big that one of these letters can’t remit it. I challenge any one here, one member of this audience, to present me with a sin, anything, any kind of a sin, I don’t care what it is, that I can’t settle for him with one of these precious little envelopes. Why, if any one had ever offered violence to the blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, if he’d only pay up – as long as he paid up all he could – he’d find himself forgiven. You think I’m exaggerating? You do, do you? Well, I’m authorized to go even further than that. Not only am I empowered to give you these letters of pardon for the sins you’ve already committed, I can give you pardon for those sins you haven’t even committed (pause … then slowly) but, which, however you intend to commit! But, you ask – and it’s a fair question – but, you ask, why is our Holy Lord prepared to distribute such a rich grace to me? The answer, my friends, is all too simple. It’s so that we can restore the ruined church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Rome! So that it won’t have its equal anywhere in the world. This great church contains the bodies not only of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, but of a hundred thousand martyrs and no less than forty-six popes! To say nothing of the relics like St. Veronica’s handkerchief, the burning bush of Moses and the very rope with which Judas Iscariot hanged himself! But, alas, this fine old building is threatened with destruction, and all these things with it, if a sufficient restoration fund isn’t raised, and raised soon. (With passionate irony.) … Will anyone dare to say that the cause is not a good one? (Pause.) … Very well, and won’t you, for as little as one quarter of a florin, my friend, buy yourself one of these letters, so that in the hour of death, the gate through which sinners enter the world of torment shall be closed against you, and the gate leading to the joy of paradise be flung open for you? And, remember this, these letters aren’t just for the living but for the dead too. There can’t be one amongst you who hasn’t at least one dear one who has departed – and to who knows what? Why, these letters are for them too. It isn’t even necessary to repent. So don’t hold back, come forward, think of your dear ones, think of yourselves! For twelve groats, or whatever it is we think you can afford, you can rescue your father from agony and yourself from certain disaster. And if you only have the coat on your back to call your own, then strip it off, strip it off now so that you too can obtain grace. For remember: As soon as your money rattles in the box and the cash bell rings, the soul flies out of purgatory and sings! So, come on then. Get your money out! What is it then, have your wits flown away with your faith? Listen then, soon, I shall take down the cross, shut the gates of heaven, and put out the brightness of this sun of grace that shines on you here today. (He flings a large coin into the open strong box, where it rattles furiously.) The Lord our God reigns no longer. He has resigned all power to the Pope. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. (The sound of coins clattering like rain into a great coffer as the light fades.) (End of Act Two – Scene One.) SCENE TWO
The Eremite Cloister, Wittenberg. 1517. Seated beneath a...