Keith Waterhouse - Collected Plays

Send in the Clowns, Stephen Sondheim, copyright Revelation Music Publishing Corp. & Rilting Music.

Rights administered by WB Music Corp.

All rights reserved. Used by permission.

First performed at the Apollo Theatre, London, on 3rd November 1992 with the following cast:

ROGER PIPER, Peter OToole

ANGELA CAXTON, Tara Fitzgerald

JUDITH PIPER, Lucy Fleming

BELLE PARSONS, Cara Konig

CHARLES PECK, Jack Watling

GUNBY T. GUNBY, Donald Pickering

MAITRE DE LHOTEL, William Sleigh

Director, Ned Sherrin

Designer, Tim Goodchild

ROGER PIPER: An advertising executive, in his 50s

ANGELA CAXTON: His mistress, in her late 20s

JUDITH PIPER: His wife

CHARLES PECK: His partner

GUNBY T. GUNBY: Owner of a hotel guide

BELLE PARSONS: A friend of Angelas

MAITRE DE LHOTEL:

We discover ROGER pecking away on a portable typewriter at a small table. After some moments he addresses the absent ANGIE (to whom he will be talking constantly throughout the play.)

ROGER: She thinks Im writing a novel. A splendid idea, she calls it therapy. And so it is, but for a different trauma than the one she imagines Im going through. At my age the experience is shattering, bruising and the ultimate disillusion but it isnt terminal. I can tell, simply by putting our affair on the scales and comparing it with all the lightweight, short-weight, make-weight relationships Ive had before, that youll be with me now until my death. But you wont be the cause of it. Relax. This is the last and longest letter Ill ever write you, and you can take that pained little smile off your face its not what you used to call one of my whingeograms. Its a love letter, Angie. Therapy.

The patio of ROGERs house in Ealing.

A christening party has spilled out on to the patio, where several guests are sipping champagne and chatting. A young woman dressed all in black, with a black veil, talks to another guest, her back to ROGER.

ROGER enters the scene, still addressing ANGIE.

ROGER: You were born, I once said and you were not amused with a silver cock in your mouth. My count on your ex-sleeping partners at Tims christening party stands at half a dozen confirmed and two suspected, and none of them arrived in anything less than a Porsche. Was it by choice or chance that you set your sights at the advertising racket?

The young woman now turns, spots ROGER across the patio, raises her veil and her glass and favours him with a ravishing smile. As he responds, his wife JUDITH turns away from another guest and joins him.

JUDITH: Roger, who is that extraordinary creature dressed all in black?

ROGER: Angela Caxton? I suppose shes what you might call a freelance factotum.

JUDITH: Is that what theyre known as these days? Who brought her?

ROGER: I dont think anybody did.

JUDITH: Did you invite her?

ROGER: Certainly not.

JUDITH: But she cant just have walked up the drive thinking, Hallo, theres a party, Ill just wiggle in on my stiletto heels and help myself to champagne.

ROGER: From what Ive heard, its exactly the kind of thing she would do.

JUDITH: And youd find that amusing, would you? What does she think this is Breakfast at Tiffanys?

ROGER: (As a narrative aside.) To tell you the truth I was with Judith on that one. I hate, quote, characters. But I was falling in love with you, wasnt I? Across an uncrowded patio.

JUDITH: In black from tip to toe and top tobottom, I shouldnt wonder. Do you suppose she meant to gatecrash a funeral and came to the wrong house?

ROGER: (As a narrative aside.) I guessed that the black outfit was your only set of what you called your dressing-up clothes. My heart lurched in pity the first constituent of my love. (To JUDITH.) When women dress to startle its usually because they lack confidence.

JUDITH: Its more often because they lack taste. So come on, Roger what does she want?

ROGER: (As a narrative aside, looking across at ANGIE.) Me, its to be hoped (To JUDITH.) I can only imagine shes meeting someone here.

JUDITH: Its Timothys christening party, not a place of assignation. How does she come to know you anyway? Or you her?

ROGER: (To himself.) Luigis (As a narrative aside.) It should have been Our Restaurant by now, but we never had one, did we? Or an Our Pub or Our Wine Bar or Our Hotel. We did have an Our Song, though, but you didnt know the words. Did you, my dear?

JUDITH: Well?

ROGER: I hardly know her at all. We were introduced by Hugh Kitchener

His partner CHARLES PECK, who has been hovering, joins in the conversation.

CHARLES:and Associates. When they were celebrating taking the Chepstows Choccy-Mints account from under our noses.

ROGER: (As a narrative aside.) There were six of you, all moderately pissed by the time Charles and I came in for your late lunch. (To CHARLES.) I wasnt quite sure where she fitted in. Market research, I believe.

CHARLES: Summer temp, Id say.

JUDITH: Office bicycle? (She moves away to greet other guests.)

ROGER: You were sitting between Hugh and that bearded Old Etonian in graphics correction, young Etonian, sod him whom you rather wittily characterized as

ANGIE now turns from her conversation to provide unheard by the others the remembered line

ANGIE: Pont Streetwise.

ROGER: He struck me as the kind of man who would pee in your sink And while you were giving me the eye he was trying, so you told me later, to touch you up under the tablecloth.

ANGIE: He was.

ROGER: Trying? Since you had a cigarette in one hand and a glass in the other you must have been fighting him off with your thigh muscles.

Taking offence, ANGIE turns her back on him. ROGER sits at a table, where CHARLES comes to join him. The party guests, including ANGIE, drift into the background during the following.

The first thing I noticed about you was the flattering fact that you were noticing me. And Charles said:

A restaurant.

CHARLES: Roger, something tells me youre in with a very good chance of making a raging fool of yourself.

ROGER: Very possibly. (As a narrative aside.) Youd gone off to powder your nose. When you came back, it was not to Hughs table and Oliver the Old Etonian groper but to ours.

ANGIE crosses boldly to their table. ROGER and CHARLES rise.

ANGIE: Please dont get up.

CHARLES: Ill get you a chair.

ANGIE: There isnt one. (Gazing at ROGER, she kneels on the floor, her elbows on the table.) There. Now Im your apostle, kneeling at your feet.

ROGER: Disciple.

ANGIE: I thought they were the same thing.

CHARLES: (Introducing.) Piper and Peck.

ROGER: Of Peck and Piper.

ANGIE: I know. Since weve been pointed out to one another I thought Id come over and say hallo. I hope you dont mind.

ROGER: (Touching her hair.) Lovely hair.

ANGIE: It needs washing.

Kneeling, she allows ROGER to trickle wine into her mouth from her glass during the following: