based on “Proof of the Pudding,”
a short story by O. HENRY
PUBLIC DOMAIN: “Proof of the Pudding,” which was included in O. Henry’s 1910 short story collection, “Strictly Business,” is in the public domain.
© 2017 Roy Proctor
Inquiries regarding performance rights for “The Writer and the Editor” should be addressed to the author at royproctor@aol.com.
TIME
A pretty afternoon in Spring 1908
PLACE
Madison Square, a small park in Manhattan, and the entrance hall in a nearby apartment.
CHARACTERS
WILLARD WESTBROOK, editor of Minerva Magazine, mid-30s, spiffily dressed in dark suit, with pince-nez clamped halfway down his nose
SHACKLEFORD DAWE, mid-30s, unlucky investor, aspiring fiction writer, handsome, slightly unkempt, dressed more threadbare than shabby
SETTING
ESSENTIAL: Stage right, a park bench; down left, a hat rack, chair and hall table. OPTIONAL: Other furnishings and scenery to suggest a park and the entrance hall of a Manhattan apartment.
INCIDENTAL MUSIC
No music is indicated in the script. However, composer Scott Joplin’s immense popularity paralleled O. Henry’s in the first decade of the 20th century. Both men captured the spirit of their age. Directors might want to consider using Joplin’s rags, all of which are in the public domain, as incidental music in their productions.
DAWE
(reaching out for WESTBROOK’s sleeve)
Willard?
WESTBROOK
(wheeling on DAWE, squinting at him through pince-nez)
I don’t —
DAWE
Don’t tell me you don’t remember me.
WESTBROOK
(after studying DAWE’s face)
Why, Shack, is that you?
DAWE
None other.
WESTBROOK
(looking DAWE up and down)
Are you all right?
DAWE
Let’s sit down for a minute. (sits on bench and pats space beside him as if to invite WESTBROOK to join him) This bench is my office now, Willard. I can’t come to yours, looking as I do. Oh, do sit down. You won’t be disgraced by associating with me. These half-plucked birds on the other benches will take you for a peacock. They won’t know you’re only an editor.
WESTBROOK
(sitting reluctantly)
My God, what’s happened to you, my friend?
DAWE
One day, just for amusement, an octopus reached out its tentacles, grabbed my capital and thrust me into the street. My wife and I have a modest flat near here.
WESTBROOK
But –
DAWE
I’m on my way back to prosperity.
WESTBROOK
I hope so. Mrs. Westbrook – Cora – and I remember you and Louise so fondly. We had such grand times as newlyweds living next door to each other on the Upper West Side.
DAWE
I lost everything, Willard. That’s when I started writing fiction and sending you short stories. You published a couple, and I’m grateful for that.
WESTBROOK
How is Louise? She and Cora were the best of friends.
DAWE
Still are. Louise tells me she and Cora are aspiring opera singers now.
WESTBROOK
Really? Funny that Cora hasn’t mentioned that. (embarrassed) Do you remember how we used to attend the opera and dine together?
DAWE
Eons ago, Willard.
WILLARD
(glancing at his wristwatch)
I don’t have much time, Shack. I have —
DAWE
Oh, I know. You only have 10 minutes to spare.
WESTBROOK
Maybe some other time, for old time’s sake –
DAWE
Oh, I know, don’t finish. I can read your thoughts. You’re wondering how you managed to get past my office-boy and invade my sanctum. Oh, look! There goes my office boy now, throwing his club at a dog who can’t read the “Keep Off the Grass” sign.
WESTBROOK
(embarrassed)
How goes the writing, Shack?
DAWE
Look at me for your answer. Just don’t put on that embarrassed, friendly but honest look and ask me why I didn’t get a job as a cab driver. I’m in this fight to the finish, Willard. I know I can write good fiction, and I’ll force you fellows to admit it yet. I’ll make you turn those regrets into checks before I’m done with you. (as WESTBROOK peers down his pince-nez and raps his fingers on his knees) Have you read the last story I sent you, the one titled “The Alarum of the Soul”?
WESTBROOK
Carefully, Shack. I hesitated over that story, really I did. It had some good points. I’m writing you a letter about it. I regret –
DAWE
(grimly)
Never mind the regrets. There’s neither comfort nor sting in them anymore. What I want to know is – why? Come now. Out with the good points first.
WESTBROOK
(glancing at his watch again)
Really, Shack, I don’t have time –
DAWE
The hell you don’t!
WESTBROOK
(taken aback)
Well, the story has an almost original plot. Characterization – the best you’ve done. Construction – almost as good, except for a few weak joints that can be strengthened easily. It was a good story, except –
DAWE
I can write English, can’t I?
WESTBROOK
I’ve always told you that you have a distinctive style.
DAWE
Then the trouble is –
WESTBROOK
Same old thing, Shack. You work up to your climax like an artist, then turn yourself into a photographer. I don’t know what perverse madness possesses you, but you do that with everything you write.
DAWE
(increasingly hot under the collar)
But –
WESTBROOK
OK. Let me retract the comparison with the photographer. Now and then photography does manage to record a fleeting moment of inner truth. But you, Shack, spoil every denouement by those flat, drab, obliterating strokes of your literary brush. If you would rise to the literary pinnacle in your dramatic scenes, and paint them in the high colors that art requires, the postman would leave fewer bulky, self-addressed envelopes at your door.
DAWE
Nonsense!
WESTBROOK
Reality!
DAWE
Willard, your brain is mired in cheap melodrama. When the man with the black moustache kidnaps little Bessie, you are bound to have the mother kneel and raise her hands and cry out: “May high heaven witness that I will rest neither night nor day till the heartless villain that has stolen my child feels the weight of this mother’s vengeance!”
WESTBROOK
Yes, I think the woman would express herself in just those words in the real world.
DAWE
Nowhere but on the stage, Willard. I’ll tell you what that mother would say in real life. She’d say: “What! Bessie lured away by a strange, evil man! Good Lord! It’s one trouble after another! Get my other hat. I must hurry around to the police station. Why wasn’t somebody looking after little Bessie, I’d like to know. For God’s sake, get out of my way or I’ll never get ready. Not that hat – the brown one with the velvet bows. Bessie must have been crazy. She’s usually shy with strangers. Am I dabbing on too much powder? Lordy, I’m upset!”
WESTBROOK
You’re upsetting yourself, Shack.
DAWE
But that’s the way she’d talk, Willard. People in real life don’t fly into heroic blank verse in emotional crises. If they talk at all on such occasions, they draw from the same vocabulary they use every day. They just muddle up their words and ideas a little more, that’s all.
WESTBROOK
Shack, did you ever pick up a lifeless a child from under the fender of a street car and carry the child in your arms to the panic-stricken mother? Did you ever listen to the grief and despair flowing spontaneously from her lips?
DAWE
No, I never did. Did you?
WESTBROOK
Well, no. But I can imagine what that mother might say.
DAWE
So can I.
WESTBROOK
My dear Shack, if I know anything of life, I know that every tragic emotion in the human heart calls for a proportionate expression of feeling. How much of this accord between expression and feeling should be attributed to nature and how much to the influence of art, I can’t say. But it happens nonetheless.
DAWE
So where, in the name of thunder, where did the stage and literature get that artificial nonsense?
WESTBROOK
From life.
DAWE
(at length)
Tell me, then, what special faults in “The Alarum of the Soul” caused you to throw it down?
WESTBROOK
When Gabriel Murray goes to his telephone and is told that his fiancée has been shot by a burglar, he says – I don’t recall the exact words, but –
DAWE
I do recall. Gabriel says, “Damn the operator! She always cuts me off.” And then he says to his friend, “Say, Tommy, does a thirty-two bullet make a big hole? It’s kind of hard luck, ain’t it? Could you get me a drink from the sideboard, Tommy? No. Straight. Nothing on the side.”
WESTBROOK
And again, when Bernice opens the letter from her husband informing her that he has fled with the manicure girl, her words are – let me see –
DAWE
She says, “Well, what do you think of that?”
WESTBROOK
Those are absurdly inappropriate words. Don’t you see? They’re anticlimactic and dull. Worse yet, they mirror life falsely. No human being ever uttered banal colloquialisms when confronted by sudden tragedy.
DAWE
Dead wrong. I say no man or woman ever spouts high-fallutin’ talk when they go up against the real trials of life. They talk naturally and a little worse. (grabbing WILLARD by the lapel as WILLARD rises from the bench) Say, Willard, would you have accepted “The Alarum of the Soul” if you had believed that the actions and words of the characters were true to life?
WESTBROOK
Very likely.
DAWE
What if I could prove to you that I am right?
WESTBROOK
I’m sorry, Shack, but I don’t want to continue this argument.
DAWE
I don’t want to argue, either. I want to demonstrate to you from life that my view is correct.
WESTBROOK
How would you do that?
DAWE
I know a way. It’s important to me that my theory of true-to-life fiction is recognized as correct by the magazines. I’ve fought for it for three years. Now I’m down to my last dollar, with two months’ rent due.
WESTBROOK
I’ve applied the opposite of your theory in selecting fiction for the Minerva Magazine. The circulation has gone up from 90,000 to –
DAWE
Four hundred thousand. I know, but it should have shot past a million.
WESTBROOK
You said you wanted to demonstrate your pet theory.
DAWE
I do. Give me half an hour of your time, and I’ll prove I’m right. I’ll prove it by Louise.
WESTBROOK
How?
DAWE
Well, not exactly by Louise, but with her. Now, you know how devoted and loving Louise has always been. She hates the penury in which we find ourselves, but she’s been fonder and more faithful to me than ever since I’ve cast myself in the budding genius role as a writer.
WESTBROOK
I grant you that, Shack. Louise is a charming life companion. We’re lucky chaps. Very few men have such loving wives. You must bring Louise up some evening soon. We’ll have another of those informal chafing dish suppers we used to enjoy so much.
DAWE
Later, Willard, when I can afford another shirt.
WESTBROOK
So what’s your scheme?
DAWE
When I was leaving home after breakfast – if you can call tea and oatmeal breakfast – Louise told me she was going to visit her aunt on Eighty-ninth Street. She said she would return at 3 o’clock. She’s always on time to the minute. It is now –
WESTBROOK
Seventeen minutes to three.
DAWE
We have just enough time. We’ll go to my flat at once. I’ll write a note, address it to Louise and leave it on the hall table. She’ll see it when she opens the door. You and I will be hidden in the dining room.
WESTBROOK
What will the note say?
DAWE
It will say that I’ve fled forever with a woman who understands the needs of my artistic soul better than she ever did. When Louise reads it, we’ll observe her actions and her words. Then we’ll know which theory is correct – yours or mine.
WESTBROOK
(aghast)
But leaving such a note would be inexcusably cruel, Shack. I could never consent to your playing with Louise’s feelings like that.
DAWE
(astounded at WESTBROOK’s reaction)
Brace up, Willard. I love Louise. This is for her benefit as well as mine. I’ve got to find a market for my stories some way, and this won’t hurt Louise. She’s healthy and sound. Her heart ticks as strong as a ninety-eight-cent watch.
WESTBROOK
But –
DAWE
The shock’ll last only a minute, and then I’ll step out and explain everything to her. Willard, you really owe it to me to give this a chance to work.
WESTBROOK
I give up. (extending his arm) You lead the way.
DAWE
Louise? (long pause) Louise, are you back?
WESTBROOK
She must not be.
DAWE
Good! Have a seat, Willard. I’ll find some stationary to write the note.
WESTBROOK
(sits down and notices a folded piece of paper on the table)
What’s this? (picking up the piece of paper) Your name’s on it.
DAWE
Let me see that. (takes piece of paper and unfolds it) It’s a note from Louise.
WESTBROOK
What does it say?
DAWE
(reading)
Dear Shackleford,
By the time you read this, I will be in Pennsylvania heading west. I’ve got a place in the chorus of the Occidental Opera Co., and we are going on the road today at 12 o’clock. I don’t want to starve to death, so I’ve decided to make my own living. I’m not coming back.
WESTBROOK
(standing up, deeply moved, and putting his hand on DAWE’s shoulder)
Shack, I’m so sorry. If there’s anything Cora and I can do, please let us —
DAWE
Wait, there’s more.
WESTBROOK
More?
DAWE
Yes. (reading) Cora Westbrook is going with me. She said she was tired of living with a combination phonograph and dictionary encased in an iceberg. She’s not coming back, either.
WESTBROOK
(incredulous)
You’ve got to be joking. (grabbing the note from DAWE) Let me see that. (reading silently, in disbelief) I can’t believe this.
DAWE
What else does it say?
WESTBROOK
(reading aloud)
We’ve been practicing our songs and dances for two months on the quiet. I hope you will be a huge success as a writer and get along all right. Goodbye. Louise.
DAWE
(falling to his knees and praying with his hands outstretched)
My God, why hast though given me this cup to drink? Since she is false, then let Thy Heaven’s fairest gifts, faith and love, become the jesting bywords of traitors and fiends!
WESTBROOK
(blurting out as his pince-nez falls to the floor)
“Say, Shack, ain’t that a hell of a note? It’s enough to knock both of us off our perch. Ain’t it hell now, Shack? Ain’t it?
END OF PLAY
ROY PROCTOR wrote his first play in 2012 after retiring from a 30-year career as the staff theater critic on the two daily newspapers in Richmond, Va. He has completed 65 short plays that, at last count, had been performed in 34 productions and 42 staged readings in an arc stretching from Los Angeles to Chicago, New York, London, Bangalore (India) and Misawa (Japan). He is best known for his adaptations of Chekhov short stories. Proctor grew up in Thomasville, N.C., lives in Richmond and is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.
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