American Playhouse

Mysterious Man:
Every knot was once straight rope.

Cinderella:
Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor.

The Bakers Wife:
You may know what you need, but to get what you want, better see that you keep what you have.

Narrator:
You need an objective observer to pass the story along.

Witch:
Some of us don't like the way you've been telling it.

The Bakers Wife:
If the end is right it justifies the beans.

Cinderella's Prince, Rapunzel's Prince:
Near may be better than far, but it still isn't there.

Steward:
Who are you, old man?

Mysterious Man:
[with a suppressed sigh] When first I appear, I seem deleterious, but when explained -

Steward:
Shut up!

Mysterious Man:
When first I appear, I seem delirious, but when explained, I'm nothing serious.

Mysterious Man:
When first I appear, I seem deleterious, but when explained, I'm nothing serious.

[a giant is running around the kingdom]

Witch:
[to the baker and his wife] With a giant, We all have to go to battle! A giant's the worst! A giant has a brain. Hard to outwit a giant. A giant's just like us, only bigger. Much, much bigger! So big that we are just an expendable

[sees a bug on the floor]

Witch:
bug, beneath it's feet.

[steps on the bug and cruelly drives her foot into it]

Witch:
Boom! Crush!

[eats the bug and leaves]

The Bakers Wife:
We are moving!

Cinderella's Stepmother:
When going to hide, know how to get there.

Cinderella's Father:
And how to get back.

Lucinda, Florinda:
And eat first.

Cinderella:
Now it's he and not you who is stuck with the shoe... in a stew... in the goo... and you've learned something too... something you never knew... on the steps of the palace!

Cinderella's Mother:
Do you know what you wish? Are you certain what you wish is what you want? If you know what you want, then make a wish.

Cinderella:
But then how do you know who you are till you know what you want? Which you don't. So then which do you pick? Where you're safe, out of sight, and yourself, but where everything's wrong? Or where everything's right and you know that you'll never belong? But whichever you pick, do it quick, 'cause you're starting to stick to the steps of the palace!

The Bakers Wife:
Please! I need your shoe to have a child!

The Baker:
It takes care, it takes patience and fear and despair to change. Though you swear to change, who can tell if you do? It takes two.

Witch:
Careful the things you say, children will listen. Careful the things you do, children will see. And learn. Children may not obey, but children will listen. Children will look to you for which way to turn, to learn what to be. Careful before you say, "Listen to me." Children will listen.

All:
Careful the wish you make, wishes are children. Careful the path they take - wishes come true, not free. Careful the spell you cast, not just on children. Sometimes the spell may last beyond what you can see and turn against you.

Witch:
Careful the tale you tell. That is the spell. Children will listen.

Witch:
You're so nice. You're not good, you're not bad, you're just nice. I'm not good, I'm not nice, I'm just right. I'm the Witch. You're the world.

The Bakers Wife:
Oh if life were made of moments, even now and then a bad one, but if life were made of moments then you'd never know you'd had one.

Cinderella's Prince:
Rapunzel! Rapunzel! What kind of a name is that?

Cinderella's Prince:
I was raised to be charming, not sincere.

The Bakers Wife:
She went that way. I... I was trying to hold her here for you, but...

Cinderella's Prince:
I can capture my own damsel, thank you.

The Baker:
I'd have kept those beans, but our house was cursed. She made us get a cow to get the curse reversed!

Witch:
It's his father's fault that the curse got placed, and the place got cursed in the first place!

Jack's Mother:
Children can be very queer about their animals. You be careful with your children.

The Bakers Wife:
[mournfully] I have no children.

Jack's Mother:
That's okay too.

Jack's Mother:
Giants never strike the same house twice.

Little Red Riding Hood:
A wolf and a person aren't the same thing.

Witch:
Ask a wolf's mother.

Little Red Riding Hood:
You can talk to birds?

Little Red Riding Hood:
[to Cinderella] You can talk to birds?

Cinderella's Prince:
If it weren't for the thicket...

Rapunzel's Prince:
A thicket's no trick, is it thick?

Cinderella's Prince:
It's the thickest.

Rapunzel's Prince:
The quickest is pick it apart with a stick.

Cinderella's Prince:
Yes, but even one prick, it's my thing about blood...

Rapunzel's Prince:
Well it's sick.

Cinderella's Prince:
No sicker than your thing with dwarves.

Rapunzel's Prince:
Dwarfs.

Cinderella's Prince:
Dwarfs.

Rapunzel's Prince:
Dwarfs are very upsetting.

Cinderella's Prince, Rapunzel's Prince:
Always in thrall most to anything, almost, or something asleep.

Wolf:
There's no possible way to describe what you feel... when you're talking to your meal.

[Seeing the door to her Granny's cottage open]

Little Red Riding Hood:
Oh dear. How uneasy I feel...

Lucinda:
Never wear mauve to a ball.

Florinda:
...or pink!

Cinderella's Stepmother:
...or open your mouth.

Cinderella:
[singing] He's a very smart Prince, he's a Prince who prepares. Knowing this time I'd run from him He spread pitch on the stairs. I was caught unawares. And I thought "Well, He cares." This is more than just malice! Better take stock while you're standing here stuck on the steps of the palace.

Rapunzel's Prince:
High in her tower she sits by the hour maintaining her hair, blythe and becoming and frequently humming a light-hearted air, ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah Agony! Far more painful than yours, When you know she would go with you, if there only were doors

Rapunzel's Prince, Cinderella's Prince:
Agony! Oh the torture they teach

Rapunzel's Prince:
What's as intriguing

Cinderella's Prince:
Or half so fatiguing

Rapunzel's Prince, Cinderella's Prince:
As what's out of reach!

Little Red Riding Hood:
Nice is different than Good.

Cinderella's Prince:
Life is often so unpleasant, you must know that as a peasant, best to take the moment present as a present for the moment.

Witch:
What's the matter?

Rapunzel:
Oh, nothing! You just locked me in a tower without company for fourteen years, then you blinded my Prince and banished me to a desert where I had little to eat, and again no company, and then bore twins! Because of the way you treated me, I'll never, never be happy! [she cries]

Witch:
[pause] I was just trying to be a good mother.

The Bakers Wife:
...You have a princess.

Cinderella's Prince:
Yes.

The Bakers Wife:
And I... I have a... a baker.

Jack's Mother:
We've no time to sit and dither while her withers wither with her!

Jack's Mother:
Slotted spoons don't hold much soup.

Jack's Mother:
The slotted spoon can catch the potato.

Cinderella's Prince:
[Prince is "looking" for the giant, and the Baker's Wife is looking for Jack] Anything can happen in the woods... May I kiss you?

[Baker's Wife gasps]

Cinderella's Prince:
Any moment we could be crushed!

The Bakers Wife:
Uh...

Cinderella's Prince:
Don't feel rushed.

[He kisses her, she pulls away for just a moment to look at the audience]

The Bakers Wife:
This is ridicuous, what am I doing here, I'm in the wrong story!

[goes back to kiss him again]

All:
I wish...

Cinderella's Prince:
Did you learn her name?

Rapunzel's Prince:
No there's a dwarf standing guard!

The Baker:
[trying to guess what destroyed the witch's garden] Do you think it was a bear?

Witch:
A bear? No, bears are sweet! Besides, you ever see a bear with forty-foot feet?

The Bakers Wife:
A dragon?

Witch:
No scorch marks. Usually they're linked.

The Baker:
Manticore?

Witch:
Imaginary!

The Bakers Wife:
Gryphon?

Witch:
Extinct.

The Baker:
Giant?

Witch:
[pauses] Possible. Very, very possible.

Little Red Riding Hood:
Into the woods to bring some bread to Granny who is sick in bed. Never can tell what lies ahead - for all that I know, she's already dead.

Jack:
Into the woods to sell a friend.

Jack's Mother:
Someday, you'll have a real pet, Jack.

Jack:
[eagerly] A piggy?

Jack's Mother:
No!

Mysterious Man:
You'd be lucky to exchange her for a sack of beans!

Narrator:
And scarcely had the wolf said this, than with a single bound he was devouring the little girl. [laughs] Well, it was a full day of eating for both.

Witch:
My mother warned me that I'd be severely punished if I were to lose any of the beans!

The Bakers Wife, The Baker:
Beans?

Witch:
The special beans! I let him go, I didn't know he'd stolen my beans! I was watching him crawl back over the wall when BANG! CRASH! The lighting flashed! And... well, that's another story, nevermind.

Steward:
We must be gone if we're to arrive before nightfall.

The Baker:
Where are you going?

Lucinda:
We're off to a hidden kingdom.

Cinderella's Stepmother:
Shhh. We can't take everyone.

Witch:
Fools! There is nowhere to hide!

The Baker:
You'll never get there. We have to stay and find our way out of this together.

Cinderella's Stepmother:
Some people are cut out to battle Giants, and others are not. I don't have the constitution. And as long as I can be of no help, I'm going to hide. Everything will work out fine in the end.

[Cinderella's father, stepmother, stepsisters and the steward exit]

Little Red Riding Hood:
I hope the giant steps on them all.

The Bakers Wife:
You shouldn't say that!

Witch:
You were thinking the same thing.

[upon seeing his wife in the woods, after he has forbidden it]

The Baker:
What are you doing here now?

The Bakers Wife:
[ignoring him] I see you've the red cape!

The Baker:
Yes! Yes, I've the cape! I've only two items left to locate!

The Bakers Wife:
Three!

The Baker:
Two! I've the cow and the cape!

The Bakers Wife:
[triumphantly] You've the cape!

[her smile fades, as she has lost the cow...]

The Baker, The Bakers Wife, Cinderella's Mother, Florinda, Lucinda, Jack, Jack's Mother:
Wishes may bring problems, such that you regret them, better that though than to never get them.

Witch:
[to the giantess] Would you like a blind girl insread?

Cinderella's Stepmother:
How dare you?

Witch:
Put them out of their misery!

Lucinda, Florinda:
We're not that miserable

Lillian Cage:
I confess to the murder of Phyllis Dean. I confess to the murder of Phyllis Dean! I grabbed the gun, I aimed it, I shot her through the head! I killed the woman, period. I didn't like her very much.

Lt. Angel:
What would you like to talk about, Mrs. Cage? Your daughter's divorce? Your husband's shirts? I'm interested, Mrs. Cage, I'm fascinated, because I can tell you're different! You're not like that scum who shot the grocery boy, are you, Mrs. Cage?

Aram Fingal:
I got 47 credits. What kind of a dopple do you think that buys?

Train passenger:
An anteater? Maybe.

Appollonia:
Electrons don't dance, Fingal. They don't make love.

Teacher:
Oh, Desiree... You could have got mustard all over his brain!

Appollonia:
I wouldn't wish that no good drone on anyone. Now he has started playing around with himself!

Appollonia:
Listen to me, Fingal... Your navel is very deep. I can't even see to the bottom of it. If you fall in, I can't guarantee to pull you out.

Appollonia:
Thou shalt not screw around with things thou dost not understand.

Fingal:
I guess I made some waves.

Pierre:
It is a pleasure, dear sir, to see the waves you make.

the Fatman:
I don't make threats, Mr. Fingal. Only promises!

Fingal:
[shouts] I?m interfacing!

Fingal:
At least I'm not an anteater.

Fingal:
I'm taking care of the Chairman. He's going on a month's compulsory rehab.

Appollonia:
You're putting him in Daisy!

Fingal:
Daisy's too good for the bastard. He's going on as an anteater!

Aram Fingal:
Mom... am I nuts?

Marco:
What are these?

Teacher:
These are tags, red for the slumber room, green for the organ transplant and so on and so on.

Marco:
What about this one?

Teacher:
Well that one is intresting we will talk about it later.

Marco:
Is it sexy?

Lola:
Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night!

Clara:
[singing, to her baby] Summertime, And the livin' is easy, Fish are jumpin' And de cotton is high, Oh, your daddy's rich, and your ma is good-lookin', So, hush, little baby, don't you cry.

Jake:
[singing, to the baby] Listen to your daddy warn you, 'Fore you starts a-travelin' Women may born you, love you, and mourn you, But a woman is a sometime thing, Yes, a woman is a sometime thing.

Porgy:
[singing] Oh, I got plenty o' nuttin', An' nuttin's plenty for me.

Porgy:
[singing] Bess, you is my woman now, You is, you is, And you must sing and dance and play for two instead of one. Want no wrinkle on your brow, No-how, Because the sorrow of the past is all done done, Oh, Bess, my Bess, The real happiness is just begun.

Crown:
[singing to Bess] You're telling me that you'd rather have that cripple than Crown?

Sportin' Life:
[singing to Bess] Picnics is all right for these small town suckers, but we is used to the high life, you know. You an' me, we understands each other. I can't see for the life of me what you is hangin' round this place for. Why, with your looks Bess, and your way with the boys, there's big money for you and me in New York.

Bess:
[singing] I can't remember meetin' nuttin' that I likes less than I does you!

Frazier:
[singing]It take extra to divorce woman what ain't married, (speaking) And it'll cost you a dollar-and-a-half.

Porgy:
[singing] If there weren't no Crown, Bess, If there was only just you and Porgy, what then?

Bess:
[singing] I loves you, Porgy, Don't let him take me, Don't let him handle me, And drive me mad. If you can keep me, I wants to stay here, With you forever, And I'll be glad.

Serena:
[singing] My man's gone now. / Ain't no use a-lis'nin' / For his tired footsteps / Climbin' up the stairs.

Detective:
Oh, hell, you may as well argue with a parrot. But you'll never break their story.

Porgy:
[singing] Can't you keep your mouth off Bess? Between the Gawd-fearing ladies and the Gawd-damnin' men, That girl ain't got a chance!

Jake:
[singing] Ain't I tell you Porgy's sof' on her?

Porgy:
[singing] No,no, brother! Porgy ain't sof' on no woman.

[sadly, still singing]

Porgy:
They pass by singin', They pass by cryin', Always lookin'. They look in my door. And they keep on movin'! When God make cripple, He mean him to be lonely. Night time, daytime, He got to travel that lonesome road. Night time, day time, He gotta travel that lonesome road.

Sportin' Life:
[singing] It ain't necessarily so!

Chorus:
[singing] It ain't necessarily so!

Sportin' Life:
[singing] The things that your li'ble To read in the Bible, It ain't necessarily so!

Sportin' Life:
[singing] I ain't telling you nothin', But a woman that's got just one man, maybe she got him for keeps. But when she got two men, there's mighty apt to be a carvin'. Then the cops come in and takes the leavin's. And pretty soon, she ain't got none!

Dennis:
I'm going back to NASA. There's just too much pressure in this line of work.

Franz:
Work is what you do for others, liebchen... Art is what you do for yourself.

Dot:
Yes, George, run to your work. Hide behind your painting. I have come to tell you I am leaving because I thought you might care to know. Foolish of me, because you care about nothing.

Georges Seurat:
I care about many things.

Dot:
Things, not people.

Georges Seurat:
People too. I cannot divide my feelings up as neatly as you, and I am not hiding behind my canvas, I am living in it!

Dot:
What you care for is yourself.

Georges Seurat:
I care for this painting. You will be in this painting.

Dot:
I am something you can use.

Georges Seurat:
I had thought you understood...

Dot:
It's because I understand that I left, that I am leaving.

Georges Seurat:
Well, there's nothing I can say, is there?

Dot:
Yes, George, there is! You could tell me not to go. Say it to me. Tell me not to go. Tell me that you're hurt, tell me you're relieved... tell me that you're bored, anything, but don't assume I know. Tell me what you feel.

Georges Seurat:
What I feel? You know exactly how I feel. Why do you insist you must hear the words when you know I cannot give you words? Not the ones you need...

Georges Seurat:
Order. Design. Tension. Balance. Harmony.

Georges Seurat:
Look, I made a hat where there never was a hat.

Dot:
I Chose and my world was shaken, So what? The choice may have been mistaken... the Choosing was not...

Marie:
There are only two worthwhile things to leave behind when you depart this world of ours: children and art.

Dot:
We lose things and then we choose things. And there are Louis' and there are Georges... well, Louis' and George. But George has George, and I need someone!

Dot:
Artists are bizarre.

George:
I've nothing to say.

Dot:
You have many things...

George:
Well, nothing that's not been said.

Dot:
Said by you, though, George.

George:
I do not know where to go.

Dot:
And nor did I.

George:
I want to make things that count, Things that will be new...

Dot:
I did what I had to do:

George:
What am I to do?

Dot:
Move on.

Georges Seurat:
It Isn't so much that you do as you like that you like what you do.

Abernathy:
Had he stayed, a posse would have come... not thirsting for justice, but thirsting for his blood.

Boone Choate:
I'm about sick of this senseless killin'. What are we gonna do about it?

Boone Choate:
Well, you know how it is in this business. One slipup... adios!

Captain Rogers:
Well, out here if it crawls, it'll bite ya, if it flies, it'll sting ya and if it grows it'll stick ya!

Aaron:
There are synagogues on almost every block. tiny ones on the side streets, large temples on the Avenue. Over the years I have spoken in most of them. I also know the funeral parlors. Sometimes I imagine they're a kind of cafeteria where one can get a quick eulogy or kaddish on the way to eternity.

Esther:
[to Aaron] How many women have you had affairs with between 72nd Street and 96th Street?

Rabbi:
People come... people go... death... Los Angeles...

Aaron:
[after Esther kisses him in the cafeteria] You catch fire very easy.

translator:
Believe me, it is not easy to translate Gertrude stein into Yiddish.

Critic:
Who needs Gertrude Stein in Yiddish?

Aaron:
[Narrating about Esther's vision] It had seemed utter nonsense, but now I began to reappraise the idea. If time and space are nothing more than forms of perception as Kant argues, why shouldn't Hitler confer with his Nazis in a cafeteria on Broadway?

Esther:
[to Aaron about her strange vision in the cafeteria] Those are the plain facts. Why would I make up such queer things?

Aaron:
I have played with the idea that all humanity suffers from schizophrenia.

Aaron:
Esther, hope in itself is proof there is no death.

Gruenwald:
[to Aaaron and Esther] The Nazis are gone, but the German bureaucrats are still with us.

Sabina:
Here it is the middle of August and the coldest day of the year, it's simply freezing. The dogs are sticking to the sidewalks! Can anybody explain that? No!

Jean Shepherd:
The Old Man. He always said, 'There has to be a God if there's beer. All that goodness just ain't accidental.' There are all kinds of religions.

Lee:
She had green eyes. You know what green eyes do to me.

Austin:
Yeah, I know.

Lee:
Well then... shut up.

Austin:
There's going to be a general lack of toast in the neighbourhood this morning. Many many bewildered breakfast faces.

Lee:
Do you think... there is enough... Goddamn gas... in your car?

Austin:
Sure! [He falls backward into the sink]

[In the phone company office, George can't help noticing that Helene is a nice-looking lady. He lowers his voice]

George Johnson:
Uh, excuse me, um, have you, have you ever... acted?

[She stares at him with what might be hostility but is more likely bafflement]

George Johnson:
Um, what do you do? With the machine?

Helene Shaw:
I teach the local girls how to operate them.

George Johnson:
Ahh. How long are you gonna be in North Crawford?

Helene Shaw:
[still officious] I stay in each place eight weeks, sir, then I take a new machine to a new town.

George Johnson:
You see, the reason I'm asking is, uh, well, I've got this idea. You see, we're having auditions for our Dramatic Club. We're doing a new play, and, uh... Why don't you come over? There's a part in there that'd be perfect for you!

[Helene looks down, and then looks up, but does not quite meet his eyes for a few seconds, as she is having a revelation]

Helene Shaw:
I've been going from town to town for two years. That's the very first time anyone has ever approached me about participating in any community thing.

[Helene is auditioning for "A Streetcar named Desire," but she reads the lines stiltedly]

Doris:
With a little feeling. Now, pretend that George is Stanley, and that you love him very passionately.

[George smiles flirtatiously - in a rugged, manly way, of course]

Doris:
On second thought, just try to imagine Stanley. Now, let's take it from where we left off.

[George frowns at Doris, then looks down at the desk, deflated]

[after trying to audition, Helene leaves the room, sobs, and then returns]

Helene Shaw:
I'm terrible, aren't I?

George Johnson:
No! No, you're not, you're fine.

Helene Shaw:
[attempting a laugh] No, I'm not. It was awful. I...

George Johnson:
You were...

Helene Shaw:
- It's like I'm a walking ice-box or something.

Doris:
Oh, nobody could look at you and say that, dearie.

Helene Shaw:
When people get to know me, that's when they *do* say it. I don't want to be the way that I am. I just can't help it. I feel like I'm in... Well, when I get to know somebody nice, you know, like, like in real life? I feel like I'm in... Like I'm...

[She lifts her hands and mimes being trapped in glass]

Helene Shaw:
...in some, some kind of, um, a bottle, a-a-as though I can't touch that person, no matter how hard I try. I know what this play is about. I know what's Stella's feeling, I - [shakes her head] - I know I should feel it, I, I just...

[She raises her hands again, pressing against the imaginary bottle, and lowers them]

Doris:
You what, dear?

Helene Shaw:
I, I just, I don't know how to begin!

[Right after Helene has sobbed her self-confession to George and Doris, they hear Harry shout from the doorway - in full Stanley Kowalski mode]

Harry Nash:
Are you ready for me yet, George? There's nobody else outside!

George Johnson:
Harry, come here. I'm, I'm sorry I kept you waiting, Harry. Excuse me.

[Helene surreptitiously wipes her eyes]

George Johnson:
Uh, Harry, this is Helene Shaw. Helene, this is Harry Nash. Ehh, now, if you get the part of Stella, he'll be your husband in the play.

[Helene turns to look at Harry and her eyes widen. Music suggesting imminent romance begins to play. Harry is still in his dorky hardware-store outfit, with glasses, hat, and bow-tie, but he removes his glasses and smiles slightly as he looks her up and down appreciatively]

George Johnson:
Say, I, uh, I wonder if, uh, if you two would read a scene for me from this play, all right? Right here.

[Helene tears her eyes away from Harry to look at the playbook]

George Johnson:
Could you do that?

Harry Nash:
Sure! If Stella's game.

[She looks up, still wide-eyed]

Helene Shaw:
Huh?

Harry Nash:
Stella! Stella, that's you. [then, gently:] Stella's my wife.

Helene Shaw:
[weakly] Oh.

[He turns away to remove his vest and shirt, and a heartbeat rhythm replaces the music. Stella sees Harry's muscular back and she can't look away. He begins shadow-boxing, and she begins to fall in love]

[as Stanley Kowalski, in the audition]

Harry Nash:
[shouting] Pearls, ropes of 'em. What is this sister of yours - a deep-sea diver?

[after Harry and Helene have just given a dynamic performance of a scene at the audition, Harry has returned to his dorky clothes and leans over to whisper to Harry]

Harry Nash:
Was that all right?

[George pretends that he hasn't already determined that Harry will play the part of Stanley Kowalski]

George Johnson:
Oh, uh, for a first reading, that, that wasn't too bad, Harry, yeah.

Harry Nash:
Is there a chance I'll get the part?

George Johnson:
Uh, I think we can safely say that we, we're leaning powerfully in your direction, Harry.

[after a rehearsal that has gone very well, with Helene and Harry acting powerfully, and almost erotically, with each other:
]

George Johnson:
Lydia. Do we have a play, or do we have a play?

Lydia:
What play? There isn't any play going on now.

George Johnson:
What?

Harry Nash:
[still in Kowalski mode, though with that undeniable Walken accent:] Hey, you!

[George points toward himself questioningly, to be sure that Harry is speaking to him]

Harry Nash:
You t'rough wit' me?

George Johnson:
What?

Harry Nash:
[shouting] Can I go home now?

George Johnson:
Sure, Harry, yeah.

[Harry waves his hand in a sort of angry farewell and turns away]

Lydia:
You aren't directing this play, George.

George Johnson:
What do you - What are you saying, what do you mean, "I'm not directing this play"? Who is?

Lydia:
Mother Nature at her worst.

[Helene is watching Harry leave with a hungry, almost feral look. Harry turns back to give Helene a predatory, seductive smile]

Lydia:
What's going to happen to that girl when she discovers what Harry really is? What Harry really *isn't*.

[last lines]

[Harry is proposing to Helene, and they quote - or paraphrase - "The Importance of Being Earnest."]

Harry Nash:
I've never loved anyone in the world but you.

Helene Shaw:
I hope that after we marry, you'll always look at me just like this...

[They kiss passionately. Then Helene realizes that they have drawn a crowd:
George, Doris, and their other friends. She laughs in embarrassment]

Helene Shaw:
...especially in front of other people!

[the others gather around, clapping and laughing]

Helene Shaw:
How are you all?

George Johnson:
Obviously, not as happy as you two are.

Helene Shaw:
Well, George, you know, this week I've been pursued by Marc Antony, and romanced by Henry Higgins, loved by Henry the Fifth, and I was just proposed to by Ernest Worthing.

[the others laugh and clap again, with exclamations of "awww!" and the like]

Helene Shaw:
Now, don't you think I'm just about the luckiest girl in town?

George Johnson:
Listen, not only do I think so, but most of the women in town think so too, may I say, hmm?

[Two young ladies pass by, glaring jealously at Helene]

Helene Shaw:
Well, they had their chance!

Doris:
Probably most of them couldn't stand the excitement.

George Johnson:
See, I don't think, I don't know if you've heard or not, but I've been asked to direct the next play.

Helene Shaw:
George, that's wonderful!

George Johnson:
Thank you. I, uh, I was just wondering if you two might be available for the cast?

[Harry whispers into her ear]

Helene Shaw:
[grinning with delight] Who are we this time?

[George finds Harry in the hardware store. They are both nervous:
George because he will be directing a play for the first time, Harry because he is always nervous. First thing, Harry spills a box of nails from the shelf and they crash upon the floor]

George Johnson:
Anyway, I suppose you heard about the, uh, the next play!

[pause. Harry's face is blank, giving nothing away, good or bad]

George Johnson:
Well, they asked me to direct, Harry! And I, I know you've only worked with Doris before, so I hope that isn't a problem.

[Another pause. Harry does a hilarious, spasmodic job of nervousness:
looking away, rearranging his glasses, adjusting cap, causing George in turn to tug his ears, twitch, and stammer]

George Johnson:
You've seen me act, Harry. Directing can only be a step up. You know? [He chuckles, then gets serious] That club needs you, Harry. I mean, uh, actually, I need you, Harry. I don't even know if I can direct traffic, let alone a play!

[Harry is silent throughout, gazing at him]

George Johnson:
Would you consider playing the lead in this one, Harry?

[Harry takes off his cap and runs his hand through his hair, looking almost distressed]

Harry Nash:
Who am I this time?

Nora Watson:
Most of us have jobs that are too small for our spirit. Our real imaginations have not yet been challenged.

Song Lyric:
Hey somebody, do you wanna hear the story of my life?