Still got your theatre ticket?
HEATHEN JOURNALIST
What for?
PINCHAS
Give it to me. With that I can get in.
HEATHEN JOURNALIST
Sure, take it.
(He gives the ticket to Pinchas who rushes out, yelling, 'Now, Goldwater'.)
OSTROVSKY
(to the Journalist)
You may just have become an accessory to murder.
HEATHEN JOURNALIST
Hey, would that make a headline. 'Poet slays leading man.' I better go and see.
(he rushes out after Pinchas)
OSTROVSKY
What about your deadline?
HEATHEN JOURNALIST
It can wait.
(They all stare after Pinchas and the Journalist.)
BLACKOUT
IV. GOLDWATER'S JEWISH THEATRE, DAY
We are at a slightly different perspective. We can see the stage in the background, looking from the wings. Hamlet is with his Mother.
QUEEN
'I made you some nice food. You should eat something. You never eat, that's why you have these morbid ideas.'
HAMLET
'I must meet this spectre on the ramparts.'
QUEEN
'You should look out for the ghost. I don't want you getting hurt. Besides it's very damp tonight. If you must go, you should wear your galoshes.'
(Hamlet/Goldwater exits to where Kloot is standing in the wings, observing.)
QUEEN
'That kid never listened to his mother. Never.'
(Loud applause, whistles, etc.)
GOLDWATER
They're loving it Kloot. They're swallowing it like ice cream soda.
(The Hamlet play continues in mime. We cannot hear what they are saying but the audience in Goldwater's theatre can, and they titter, roar, and laugh. Ophelia enters, a buxom, comical woman and pirouettes to applause. She carries a Palm Branch and shakes it to every point in the compass. Thunderous applause.)
GOLDWATER
This Pinchas is a genius after all.
KLOOT
We got our money's worth.
GOLDWATER
Next I'm going to commission Pinchas to adapt MacBeth. Don't you think Fanny would make a fantastic Lady MacBeth?
KLOOT
I see her more as Desdemona.
GOLDWATER
A genius. That's what you are. A genius.
KLOOT
(modestly)
I know it.
(Pinchas is seen stealthily approaching along the wall.)
KLOOT
That's your cue.
(Goldwater returns to greet the ghost, a figure in a white sheet that cakewalks across the stage. Pinchas tries to bound onto the stage shouting 'Villains' but Kloot has seen him and collars him in an iron grip.)
KLOOT
(unruffled)
You don't take your call yet.
PINCHAS
(in a fury)
Let me go. I must speak to the people. They think me, Melchitzedek Pinchas, guilty of this drek. My star will set. I'll be laughed at from the Hudson to the Jordan.
(struggling)
KLOOT
(impudently)
Hush, hush, you're interrupting the poesy.
PINCHAS
Who has drawn and quartered my play? Speak.
KLOOT
I've only arranged it for the stage.
PINCHAS
(flabbergasted)
You!
KLOOT
(with great assurance)
You said you and I are the only two men who understand how to treat poesy.
PINCHAS
You understand drek not poesy. You conspire to keep me out of the theatre. . . . I will summons you.
KLOOT
(imperturbably)
We had to keep all the authors out. Suppose Shakespeare had complained of you?
PINCHAS
(modestly)
Shakespeare would have been only too grateful.
