The Play

Fanny’s First Play

An Easy Play for a Little Theatre

Induction

The end of a saloon in an old-fashioned country house (Florence Towers, the property of Count O’Dowda) has been curtained off to form a stage for a private theatrical performance. A footman in grandiose Spanish livery enters before the curtain, on its O.P. side.

The Play

Act I

In the dining room of a house in Denmark Hill, an elderly lady sits at breakfast reading the newspaper. Her chair is at the end of the oblong dining table furthest from the fire. There is an empty chair at the other end. The fireplace is behind this chair; and the door is next the fireplace, between it and the corner. An armchair stands beside the coal scuttle. In the middle of the back wall is the sideboard, parallel to the table. The rest of the furniture is mostly dining room chairs, ranged against the walls, and including a baby rocking chair on the lady’s side of the room. The lady is a placid person. Her husband, Mr. Robin Gilbey, not at all placid, bursts violently into the room with a letter in his hand.

Act II

On the afternoon of the same day, Mrs. Knox is writing notes in her drawing room, at a writing table which stands against the wall. Anyone placed so as to see Mrs. Knox’s left profile, will have the door on the right and the window on the left, both further away than Mrs. Knox, whose back is presented to an obsolete upright piano at the opposite side of the room. The sofa is near the piano. There is a small table in the middle of the room, with some gilt-edged books and albums on it, and chairs near it.

Mr. Knox comes in almost furtively, a troubled man of fifty, thinner, harder, and uglier than his partner, Gilbey, Gilbey being a soft stoutish man with white hair and thin smooth skin, whilst Knox has coarse black hair, and blue jaws which no diligence in shaving can whiten. Mrs. Knox is a plain woman, dressed without regard to fashion, with thoughtful eyes and thoughtful ways that make an atmosphere of peace and some solemnity. She is surprised to see her husband at home during business hours.

Act III

Again in the Gilbeys’ dining room. Afternoon. The table is not laid: it is draped in its ordinary cloth, with pen and ink, an exercise book, and schoolbooks on it. Bobby Gilbey is in the armchair, crouching over the fire, reading an illustrated paper. He is a pretty youth, of very suburban gentility, strong and manly enough by nature, but untrained and unsatisfactory, his parents having imagined that domestic restriction is what they call “bringing up.” He has learnt nothing from it except a habit of evading it by deceit.

He gets up to ring the bell; then resumes his crouch. Juggins answers the bell.

Epilogue

Before the curtain. The Count, dazed and agitated, hurries to the 4 critics, as they rise, bored and weary, from their seats.

Ayot St. Lawrence, March 1911.