Doris Lessing - Play With a Tiger and Other Plays

FIRST LOW-LEVELLER: My father spent all his life studying the old sayings. His version of the spring verse is quite different.

SECRETARY: You have scholarship down on the Lower Levels? Yes, yes of course you do …

[SECRETARY exchanges a tolerant grimace with the CHAIRMAN.]

FIRST LOW-LEVELLER: He said it should go:

‘The Door will sing,

Then through it spring.’

THIRD LOW-LEVELLER: I like the other one better.

FIRST LOW-LEVELLER: Here, you two can’t stay there. You can’t be in front of us. I don’t care for myself but it is an insult to the 56th Level.

FOURTH LOW-LEVELLER: We aren’t moving back and that’s final.

CHAIRMAN: I do hope you will forgive me intruding, but I have a suggestion. You can’t have been Hereditary Exalted Chairman all your life without learning something of the arts of compromise. [ He whispers to ASSISTANT.]

ASSISTANT: You move there … [ He pushes FIRST LOW-LEVELLER with FOURTH.] … and you there … [ He pushes THIRD with SECOND.]

[ There is violent scuffling and disorder. ]

FIRST LOW-LEVELLER: I’m not going to be with him. Look at his hair, if there wasn’t anything else wrong.

THIRD LOW-LEVELLER: He makes me sick.

THE DELEGATE WHO COMPLAINED OF THE NOISE BEFORE: I’m sorry but I can’t stand it. I have always been sensitive to noise. [ This one runs out, left, hands clapped to ears. ]

[ The Door, glowing brilliantly, is sending out a strong sweet sound. ]

FOURTH PRECEPT: ‘The Door will sing.’

ONE OF THIS GROUP: ‘The Door is singing, chanting, ringing,

The Door is shining, burning clear,

Leave your prison, the time is here!’

DELEGATE WHOSE FATHER WAS AN EXPERT: That’s not the right version. I’m sorry.

ANOTHER FROM THE GROUP: ‘The Door will glow, It’s time to go.’

SAME DELEGATE: No, that’s wrong.

ANOTHER: No, it isn’t, I’ve heard that version often.

[ A babble of quarrelling breaks out in the procession. At the same time, all the group near the door, including the DOCTOR and MEDICAL ATTENDANTS, press closer to it. The ATTENDANTS, at a sign from FOURTH PRECEPT, pick up the stretcher with FIFTH PRECEPT.]

GUARDIAN [ taking command of the procession ]: This is a procession of Peace. Peace, I tell you.

FIRST LOW-LEVELLER [ grabbing SECOND LOW-LEVELLER and pulling him beside himself ]: You belong here.

GUARDIAN: Arrest the Low-Levellers.

[GUARDS come forward to arrest them, but the four LOW-LEVELLERS spring out of the procession and stand in a group facing the GUARDS, weapons at ready. ]

FIRST LOW-LEVELLER: We’ll blow the whole place up.

FOURTH LOW-LEVELLER: And don’t think we don’t mean it.

DOCTOR: This must be a mass hallucination. It’s hypnosis. It’s a trick.

[ The Door is now a flood of brilliant light, while from it comes a beautiful deep note. ]

ONE OF THIS GROUP: ‘The atoms dance,

The Door’s on fire,

The electrons sing,

Now seize your chance.’

ANOTHER: ‘Watch and wait,

Know the time,

A singing Door,

That’s the sign.’

FOURTH PRECEPT: Come on. [ He signals the MEDICAL ATTENDANTS to the Door. ]

DOCTOR: Stop.

[ The MEDICAL ATTENDANTS stop with the stretcher at the Door. All this group press up close, almost touching the Door. The DOCTOR hangs back a little, but he is being drawn slowly forward. ]

GUARDIAN: In the name of the Door I command you to disarm.

FIRST LOW-LEVELLER: Silly old fools. Scared. Like a lot of sheep.

SECRETARY: Not sheep. Ship. Scared like a lot of ship. Ship, plural of sheep.

SECOND LOW-LEVELLER: What’s a sheep anyway? What’s it matter?

SECRETARY: It matters very much. We must preserve standards. When we do eventually leave this Underplace and go out again, into Outside, then we’ll need to know these things.

FOURTH LOW-LEVELLER: We don’t even know what the Door is for. It’s just there.

[ He rushes over and kicks the Door on the altar. ]

THIRD LOW-LEVELLER: There, you see? Nothing happens. [ He kicks the Door too. Stands defying it. ] Go on, punish me then!

FOURTH PRECEPT: ‘A singing Door, That’s the time … ’

[ He walks into the blaze of the Door and disappears. The others of that group follow, the MEDICAL ATTENDANTS taking the stretcher through last. ]

DOCTOR: I must be mad!

[ He goes into the Door like the others. A couple of people rush across from the left, ignoring the procession, going straight to the Door. ]

THESE SHOUT: Are we too late?

[ They jump into the light and vanish. ]

FOURTH LOW-LEVELLER: Did you see that? Did you?

[ He rushes across and jumps into the light. FIRST LOW-LEVELLER does the same. One of the GUARDS goes after him. But are we imagining it, or is the light slightly less, the deep note a little higher and fainter? ]

GUARDIAN [ he has noticed nothing ]: As Guardian of the Door, I command you, finally, to submit to me.

CHAIRMAN: As Exalted Chairman I order you to give yourselves up.

GUARDIAN’S ASSISTANT: According to Regulation 37d you have no alternative but to disarm.

SECOND LOW-LEVELLER: Silly old ships.

[ He throws his grenade at the computer. It explodes in smoke and flying fragments. There is indiscriminate scuffling, shouting.

The Door is now fading rapidly, and the sound is nearly back to its normal low humming.

Order is being restored over by the altar. SECOND and THIRD LOW-LEVELLERS are disarmed and under arrest. A delegate lies dead. ]

CHAIRMAN: That’s over. We didn’t allow ourselves to be intimidated.

GUARDIAN: I’m delighted to see that my authority still has force. And now I must make a plea for clemency.

CHAIRMAN: Of course, they were misguided, that’s all. And perhaps we were not without faults ourselves. We are perhaps too ignorant of what goes on in the Levels below 50.

DELEGATES: Hear, hear.

CHAIRMAN: I move that we appoint a commission to investigate ways and means to strengthen our ties with the levels below 50.

ASSISTANT TO GUARDIAN: But where are the other two Low-Levellers?

DELEGATE: When it came to the point, they got scared!

CHAIRMAN: Doctor, take these two young people into your care, will you? I am sure you don’t mind a couple of extra patients … Where is the Doctor? Where have they all gone?

A DELEGATE: I saw them all run through the light. I mean, through the Door. They ran through the singing … I saw them.

CHAIRMAN: You saw what?

THIS DELEGATE: I saw them. I saw what happened. They’ve escaped! They’ve got out. They’ve left this Underplace for Outside! [ He runs to the Door and beats his hands on it, trying to press himself through. ] They are free, I tell you. Free, free, free!

CHAIRMAN: Guard, take this poor man to the hospital … where’s the other guard? Oh never mind. And the two Low-Levellers as well.

[GUARD takes this DELEGATE, and two LOW-LEVELLERS out left. ]

THIS DELEGATE: But I did see it. I did. Oh why was I such a fool? Why did I forget? … [ he recites as he is pulled out of sight ]

‘If you miss the place and time,

The Door again will sing and shine.’

THE DELEGATE WITH THE FATHER: That’s not how that goes. It should go like this:

‘The song was sung,

The moment’s gone,

Light and sound together came,

Those who did not catch the time,