The Acceptance World - Anthony Powell [66]
He turned away in the direction of the model theatre. Taking no further notice of us, he began to manipulate the scenery, or play about in some other manner with the equipment at the back of the stage.
‘Werner is writing a play,’ explained Mrs. Andriadis, speaking now in a much more placatory manner. ‘We sometimes run through the First Act in the evening. How is it going, Werner?’
‘Oh, are you?’ said Anne Stepney. ‘I’m terribly interested in the Theatre. Do tell us what it is about.’
Guggenbühl turned his head at this.
‘I think it would not interest you,’ he said. ‘We have done with old theatre of bourgeoisie and capitalists. Here is Volksbühnen—for actor that is worker like industrial worker—actor that is machine of machines.’
‘Isn’t it too thrilling?’ said Mrs. Andriadis. ‘You know the October Revolution was the real turning point in the history of the Theatre.’
‘Oh, I’m sure it was,’ said Anne Stepney. ‘I’ve read a lot about the Moscow Art Theatre.’
Guggenbühl made a hissing sound with his lips, expressing considerable contempt.
‘Moscow Art Theatre is just to tolerate,’ he said, ‘but what of biomechanics, of Trümmer-Kunst, has it? Then Shakespeare’s Ein Sommernachtstraum or Toller’s Masse-Mensch will you take? The modern ethico-social play I think you do not like. Hauptmann, Kaiser, plays to Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, yes. The new corporate life. The socially conscious form. Drama as highest of arts we Germans know. No mere entertainment, please. Lebens-stimmung it is. But it is workers untouched by middle class that will make spontaneous. Of Moscow Art Theatre you speak. So there was founded at Revolution both Theatre and Art Soviet, millions, billions of roubles set aside by Moscow Soviet of Soldier Deputies. Hundreds, thousands of persons. Actors, singers, clowns, dancers, musicians, craftsmen, designers, mechanics, electricians, scene-shifters, all kinds of manual workers, all trained, yes, and supplying themselves to make. Two years to have one perfect single production—if needed so, three, four, five, ten years. At other time, fifty plays on fifty successive nights. It is not be getting money, no.’
His cold, hard voice, offering instruction, stopped abruptly.
‘Any ventriloquists?’ Umfraville asked.
The remark passed unnoticed, because Anne Stepney broke in again.
‘I can’t think why we don’t have a revolution here,’ she said, ‘and start something of that sort.’
‘You would have a revolution here?’ said Guggenbühl , smiling rather grimly. ‘So? Then I am in agreement with you.’
‘Werner thinks the time has come to act,’ said Mrs. Andriadis, returning to her more decisive manner. ‘He says we have been talking for too long.’
‘Oh, I do agree,’ said Anne Stepney.
I asked Guggenbühl if he had come across St. John Clarke that afternoon. At this question his manner at once changed.
‘You know him? The writer.’
‘I know the man and the girl who were pushing him.’
‘Ach, so.’
He seemed uncertain what line to take about St. John Clarke. Perhaps he was displeased with himself for having made disparaging remarks about the procession in front of someone who knew two of the participants and might report his words.
‘He is a famous author, I think.’
‘Quite well known.’
‘He ask me to visit him.’
‘Are you going?’
‘Of course.’
‘Did you meet Quiggin—his secretary—my friend?’
‘I think he goes away soon to get married.’
‘To the girl he was with?’
‘I think so. Mr. Clarke ask me to visit him when your friend is gone for some weeks. He says he will be lonely and would like to talk.’
Probably feeling that he had wasted enough time already with the company assembled in the room, and at the same time unwilling to give too much away to someone he did not know, Guggenbühl returned, after saying this, to the model theatre. Ostentatiously, he continued to play about with its accessories. We drank our beer. Even Umfraville seemed a little put out of countenance by Guggenbühl , who had certainly brought an atmosphere of peculiar unfriendliness and disquiet into the room. Mrs. Andriadis herself perhaps took some pleasure in the general discomfiture for which he was responsible. The imposition of one kind of a guest upon another is a form of exercising power that appeals to most persons who have devoted a good deal of their life to entertaining. Mrs. Andriadis, as a hostess of long standing and varied experience, was probably no exception. In addition to that, she, like St. John Clarke, had evidently succumbed recently to a political conversion, using Guggenb