WITBERG
Well, someone has to perform it, in order to test your ideas.
PINCHAS
No doubt the leading man who plays my Hamlet will think he is more important than the playwright. Woe be to the mummer that dares tamper with a single syllable.
OSTROVSKY
Your Hamlet! Since when?
PINCHAS
Since I recreated him for the modern world without tinsel and pasteboard; since I conceived him in fire and bore him in agony; since . . . (biting into his cream tart and making a face) even this cream tart is sour!-since I carried him to and fro in my pocket as a young kangaroo in the pouch of its mother.
HEATHEN JOURNALIST
Why didn't Iselmann produce it in London?
PINCHAS
Because of the ghost. (disgusted) I have changed Iselmann's name to Eselmann, the donkey man. I had hardly read him ten lines before he brayed out, 'Where is the ghost?' I said, 'I have laid him. He cannot walk on the modern stage.' Eselmann tore his hair. 'But it is for the ghost that I was interested. Yiddish audiences love a ghost.' 'They love your acting too,' I replied. He failed to comprehend the withering irony of that retort. Oh, I gave that donkey man a piece of my mind.
GRUNBITZ (jesting)
But he didn't take a piece.
PINCHAS
As if a great poet were to consider the tastes of the mob. Bah! These managers are all men of the earth. Crass materialists. (rising)
Once, in my days of obscurity, I was made to put a bosom into a play, and it swept all my genius off the boards. But I am glad Eselmann gave me my Hamlet back, for before giving it to Goldwater, I made it even more subtle. No vulgar nonsense of fencing and poison at the end . . . a pure mental tragedy, for in life it is the soul alone that counts. My play is the eternal tragedy of the thinker. (turning to Witberg) Another bagel.
(Witberg goes in search of a waiter.)
HEATHEN JOURNALIST
Strikes me, Pin'cuss, you're giving us Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.
PINCHAS
Better than the Prince of Denmark without Hamlet as he is usually played. In my version the Prince of Denmark indeed vanishes, for Hamlet is a Jew and the Prince of Palestine.
(General consternation in the cafe.)
VON MIESES
You have made him a Jew?
PINCHAS
If he is to be the ideal thinker, let him belong to a nation of thinkers. In fact, (confidentially) the play is virtually an autobiography.
HEATHEN JOURNALIST
You still call it Hamlet?
PINCHAS
Why not? True, it is virtually a new work and vastly superior to the original. But Shakespeare borrowed his story from an older play and treated it to suit himself, why therefore should I not treat Shakespeare as it suits me?
HEATHEN JOURNALIST
But wouldn't it be better to modify the title so people don't get confused?
PINCHAS
If I were to call it by another name, some learned fool would pretend it was stolen from Shakespeare; this way it challenges comparison.
TUCH (drily)
And Shakespeare suffers.
PINCHAS (placidly)
Only as a medieval alchemist or astrologer suffers in comparison with a modern chemist or astronomer. The muddle-headedness of Shakespeare . . . which incidentally is the cause of the muddle in Hamlet's character . . . has given way to the clear vision of the modern. How could Shakespeare describe a thinker? The Elizabethans could not think. They were like our politicians.
GRUNBITZ
Why should you expect thought from a politician? (Tuch looks angry) That's like expecting money from an economist. Besides only youth thinks.
PINCHAS
That is well said. He who is ever thinking never grows old. I shall die young like all those whom the gods love. Waiter, give Mr. Grunbitz a cup of chocolate and a cream tart.
GRUNBITZ
Thank you . . . no.
PINCHAS
You cannot refuse. You will pain Witberg who is paying.
VON MIESES (embarrassed)
I wonder if you could look at these poems.
PINCHAS (graciously)
I'll be glad to give you my opinion, but I warn you I am a severe critic.
OSTROVSKY (to Schneeman)
Ohh! He's a critic too.
SCHNEEMAN (to Ostrovsky)
What a pompous ass.
OSTROVSKY
Do you suppose he has any talent at all?
SCHNEEMAN
He's a Yiddish Bernard Shaw, no doubt. (laughing) Wait till Goldwater gets through with him.
PINCHAS (who has been perusing Mieses' poems joyfully)
But it is full of genius! I might have written it myself. The third stanza is a masterpiece.
VON MIESES
Perhaps I, too, shall write a play one day. My initial 'M' makes master too.
PINCHAS (graciously)
It may be that you are destined to wear my mantle.
(Mieses looks uneasily at Pinchas' ill-fitting and ragged cloak.)
PINCHAS
And now Mieses, you must give me carfare. I have to go and talk to Goldwater about rehearsals. That pumpkin-head of an actor manager is capable of any crime. Even altering my best lines.
OSTROVSKY (maliciously)
I suppose Goldwater plays Hamlet.
PINCHAS (airily)
We have not discussed it yet.
OSTROVSKY
He'll be all right. So long as Fanny Goldwater doesn't play Ophelia.
PINCHAS
