Orson Welles, Vol I (23 page)

The final scene shows Brown ascending the hill to the gallows
(a theatrical and symbolic transposition; the reality was a wooden structure in the middle of the square at Charlestown, Virginia). He hears, alternately, the marching we’ve heard throughout the play and the mad laughter of John Junior. He makes his famous speech from the top of the Hill. Then: ‘the sound of marching feet grows louder, louder, louder. But the note is gradually changing. The chains
are gone and a martial ring has taken their place. The drum and bugle insinuate themselves. The tempo has quickened and the cadence is now that of a great army of free men – marching. Marching – Marching – Indomitable … now the bugle sound has melted into a vaster harmony, the full chords of a song … and as the play
ends the whole theatre is filled with the song.
JOHN BROWN’S BODY LIES A’MOULDERING
IN THE GRAVE, BUT HIS SOUL GOES MARCHING ON.’
This is the overlap of play and production.

Welles’s use of sound is everywhere in evidence, from the beginning, played with voices off for nearly the whole of the scene, through the constant marching, to a number of felicitous touches – offstage choruses, Schubert’s
Serenade
playing underneath a scene and so on. Welles’s setting, of which he draws
an exuberant sketch, shows the essentially straightforward four-walled set divided two ways – by a full curtain which functions as a front cloth (he calls it
THE GRAND DRAPE
‘in the
grand manner
. Note cut-out tassels!’) and by traverse curtains, clearly made from something light and loose, white cotton or silk. These curtains are drawn between scenes, and serve as a screen for projections of kaleidoscopic
images ‘depicting newspaper headlines and views of immediate surroundings’ from an implement called a stereopticon. Elsewhere he refers to the stereopticon as a magic lantern, which suggests he may be attempting a form of Victorian theatre – a form contemporary with the events depicted. It is also of course a version of techniques being developed in Berlin by Piscator.

It is all very ambitious.
Welles never saw it staged, though in the 1970s, by an irony that both of them will not have failed to appreciate, his arch-enemy Hascy Tarbox, then teaching at Todd, designed and directed a trimmed-down version in the Opera House at Woodstock. It was a modest success. The only reason that it was staged was, of course, because of Orson’s co-authorship, though from that point of view it must
have proved a disappointment for anyone looking for traces of his hand. With the exception of those few elements noted, it is essentially impersonal, a public play depicting public events. The newspaper headlines, and indeed the presence in the play of investigative journalists, inevitably seem to pre-echo
Citizen Kane
, but the structure of the play owes little to them; they convey information
neatly and confirm the emblematic value of Brown. The mystery, the void at the centre of
Kane
, is nowhere to be found. But in the marshalling of the material and the increasing mastery of the narrative, he had learned an enormous amount. The very fact that he had risen to the challenge that he set himself was no mean achievement.

At the same time as he was writing this public play, and the
shamelessly commercial
Dark Room
, he was writing, during this remarkably productive summer, a third play which is among the most curious and personal documents of his that we have:
Bright
Lucifer
. Set on an Indian reservation, full of the local colour mentioned in his letters from Lac du Flambeau, it contains as malign a self-portrait as can ever have been written. The play is in three acts, in
a single simple setting: a holiday cabin on the reservation in the North Woods. There are three characters: Morgan Flynn, addressed as Jack, a star of horror movies; Bill Flynn, his elder brother, editor of the
National Weekly
; and Eldred Brand, Bill’s ward, who is on the reservation because of his hay-fever. Bill has come up to the North Woods for a break (‘Haven’t had fish like that in four
years, and
AIR.
They breathe gas in Hollywood’
¹⁰
). The air is heavy with the throbbing of the drums, the drums. Bill frets that the furniture is meagre: an army cot doesn’t seem right for a movie star. Jack: Are you calling your brother a sissy? They laugh, then discuss Jack’s broken romance: his girl ran off with a cameraman. Took dope, too. They also discuss Eldred. Is Bill, Jack wants to know,
as fond of him as ever? Suddenly he asks why Eldred hates him; Bill poo-poos the idea. They bicker. The drums insist. Somebody must be dead or dying, says Bill; the drums are supposed to scare away the
DEVILS.
Jack laughs; surely Bill can’t believe in Devil drums?

As he says this, Eldred comes in. He stands there, silent, unseen. Jack and Bill discuss devils and whether they exist. The atmosphere
is uneasy. Bill, seeing Eldred, asks him what he believes. I don’t believe in anything, says Eldred. I only believe in myself. To break this impasse Jack heartily asks Eldred what his preferences are, to which he replies: I like them high-breasted and virgin. I like them in wet silk dresses licking my galoshes. Understandably,
there is
, says the stage direction,
a silence
. The subject goes back
to ghosts. Jack describes a seance he attended at which he played a spirit … ‘like a magician discovering that the beautiful lady in the box is really cut in half’. Jack says that he has always wanted to scare people on a big scale: a huge practical joke. Eldred quibbles about something; Bill asks him why he always gets everything wrong? Somebody’s got to, says Eldred, since you’re always right.
Bill throws his head back and laughs. His big, wonderful laugh
, the stage direction tells us. He goes to bed. Eldred eggs Jack on to describe the practical joke he had in mind, to scare the fishermen. Jack’s idea, it transpires, is to dress up in a black robe, sitting in the back of a boat with a muffled motor, then to ask the fisherman the time: not the hour – the year.
Eldred shrieks with shrill
hard laughter. Then abruptly he stops
. Eldred suggests that it might be fun to try it on the Indians. He knows that Jack has his make-up with him; why not use it? Jack demurs; he’s played too many monsters. ‘And you’ve got to get it out of you,’
says Eldred. ‘Not run away from it.’ By God! says Jack, I’ll show you! He laughs: forced and just a trifle frenzied, then leaves. Eldred laughs, then,
again, stops suddenly. ‘By
God
?’ he asks, blowing out the lantern. Enter Bill, who tells him, forgivably, that he’s crazy. You’ve said that once! says Eldred. They fight about Jack. Don’t be silly, says Bill. Eldred screams back:
WILL YOU STOP INSULTING ME?

Then ensues an extraordinary scene in which Eldred accuses Bill of loving Jack more than him. He’s my brother, says Bill, to which Eldred
replies: ‘you never miss a chance, do you, to remind me that I’m an orphan, an adopted orphan? … if it had just happened that you were my father instead of the man that beat you to it … you’ve tried to be just like a father to me, haven’t you? All those years tucking me into bed. I have my mother’s eyes, haven’t I? I used to wear bangs and we went on little walks together and you taught me the
alphabet.’ Bill weakly protests that Eldred has no right to – at which Eldred again screams: ‘I have no right! I have no right to anything; money, friends, anything. I haven’t the right to breathe, have I, my adored old stepmother?’ He calls his guardian his step
mother
, which is exactly what Dadda with his fussy loving must have felt like. Eldred continues, of Bill’s wife Martha: ‘She hates me!
… she’s jealous of our love for each other. So’s Jack.’ Bill sternly tells him that they have to cheer Jack up, and goes. There is a gust of wind; drums; the click of a latch; the door opens slowly. it’s The Ghoul.
The thing is dark and hairy, the head like a great crazy, cracking egg, punctured with two blind eyes. The nose a greedy claw, grabbing the hungry mouth that grins under it, full of
red, dripping teeth
. Eldred screams; Bill runs in. Eldred has cut his own hand to justify the scream. Where’s Jack? asks Bill. I thought it was Jack coming out. Eldred:
GOD, BILL, I HOPE IT WAS.
Act One Curtain.

Act Two takes place early the next night: there are shouts, yells, and a low excited murmur off. Jack is drinking; Bill comes in with a lantern. They can’t find the body. ‘Eldred’s
loving this,’ says Bill. Jack asks what school he’s going to. None, says Bill. ‘He doesn’t believe in them. I don’t know what he wants to do. Hasn’t made his mind up yet … he’s young.’ There’s nothing young about Eldred, says Jack. ‘He’s as old as Egypt.’ There isn’t a generation or a world for
busy little bitch boys
!’ There is a curious, sexually charged atmosphere between Jack and Eldred throughout
the play. Jack seems on the brink of a revelation (Bill: Eldred’s my boy. Jack:
Your boy!
I’ve half a mind to tell you –) when Eldred returns. Bill walks out. Eldred and Jack discuss what’s happened:
Jack as The Ghoul has terrified the mourners; the body of the dead squaw they are mourning has disappeared. ‘My God,’ says Jack in one of many seeming anticipations of
The War of the Worlds
furore,
‘the whole country’s up in arms.’ Jack describes how The Ghoul took him over. ‘
Delicious
,’ says Eldred. ‘The Brands were always mad.’
After a moment, Jack laughs wildly. Eldred joins him and the sound of his laugh stops Jack. Eldred stops laughing
. There are several of these laughing duels in the course of the action. Eldred prescribes ‘a grain of reality’ to cure Jack’s raving. He offers him
another drink. Jack: ‘You’re a persuasive little bitch.’
Eldred smiles
. Bill comes back, tries to josh Jack, who storms off. Bill and Eldred discuss spirits. Eldred says:

There’s evil on this earth! In holy days, men fought it – there were charms and chants and bells and books and candles, and good men fought for good. But now they don’t believe! Vampires fatten, were-wolves range and witches
go unburnt – they aren’t believed! Thicker and quicker flows the force and tide of evil. Strong with a million years’ momentum, since the great flaming fall when all the hosts of Lucifer showered down out of the sky like comets … they
are – everywhere!
… there – there, behind you! Or there –

There at the door The Ghoul appears. Bill rushes out. Jack, without mask, returns. Eldred asks if Bill’s
laughing. ‘No,’ says Jack. ‘He’s dead.’ Curtain.

Act Three starts with Jack raving, wanting to know what he looks like, unable to find a mirror. (Much play is made throughout of the lack of a mirror; an allusion to Dracula, presumably.) ‘If there was a mirror and I looked in it … what would I
see
?’

ELDRED

Nothing … [you’re] a ghost … I’m the host – The master of ceremonies. I call
the dances … the heavens are bright, I see – my star. I must follow it. Last night there was no power on earth but me. Nothing anywhere, I stowed the cosmos in a casserole of my five senses. I made a Morse Code of eternity and got a mess of blots and blurs. That was my world … Tonight I’m sane. I see! Now that Bill’s dead. He left a hole to see through in the night. And Jack Flynn left a reflection
… I see my face in it, but something more – behind – bright as my star and big as my shadow – leaning over me and whispering a reason.

Jack realises (not perhaps the quickest, our Jack) that Eldred has manipulated all these events – that he killed Bill. Eldred:
(Very quietly)
‘Perhaps.
(Almost to himself)
I had to. I loved him so.
(Almost musingly)
Bill was destroyed with love.
(Very sincerely)
I loved – him so much – he had to die.’ Jack understands.
He has become, finally, a new man
. He goes to get a pistol. Eldred hands him a box of shells.
The drums, the drums
. Jack returns with his loaded gun. Eldred: ‘I show you all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And I say unto you, all this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever
I will give it. And I’ll throw in some immortality … if thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.’
‘ASMOEDELIUS
!’ screams Jack. Eldred: ‘It was God’s apple! His bastard – whining! The wriggling Christ! Snivelling and screaming on the cross! Let’s make him pay!’ – Jack shoots him: ‘You’re losing Eldred Satan Brand.’ Eldred’s dying speech predicts eternal restlessness for Jack. ‘
The whole
world will be your haunted house
… devils don’t [die] –
I won’t. The evil that we do lives after us
…
my demon will never die
.’ Jack shoots and shoots and shoots. He stands motionless. Across the lake, sound of the jazz band
but the notes come over the distance strangely, weirdly, piping like a gnomes’ accompaniment to some tiny cabal
. The door opens slowly: it’s The Ghoul. Jack runs after it,
shouting hysterically Eldred! Eldred!
The drums, the drums. Something old and dark has got its way
.

Eldred, the bitch boy, is one of the most breathtakingly unpleasant characters in the whole of twentieth-century dramatic literature. What makes it doubly disturbing is that it is so self-evidently a detailed self-portrait; the intensity of the feeling, the loathing for Dr Bernstein and his
wife are absolutely real. Of course, it may be said that it simply betrays a lack of invention and a lack of imagination: he reached for events, people from his own life and squeezed them into the plot of his melodrama. But whether accidentally or consciously, he has summoned a degree of emotion that is quite shocking. It seems to be self-loathing that Welles is expressing in his delineation of Eldred:
he is the guilty one, the inhuman, the not as others – tainted, or just monstrous? The autobiographical elements of the play sing out: in the details, but also in a more general sense of evil, of nightmares, of self-loathing. Until the final twist, Eldred is a Nietzschean figure, rejecting love as weakness, asserting his independence of morality and religion. He exists to destroy. His instinctive
grasp of Jack’s weakness enables him to
use him as his puppet – to do his evil for him. This could be mere fantasy of adolescent omnipotence; or some deeper more personal feeling of Welles’s that a fundamental weakness and dependency in himself needed to be overcome. He had, after all, from an early age, been dependent on people other than his parents. The most shocking thing in the play is Eldred’s
hatred of his guardian; one can only hope that he never showed it to Maurice Bernstein.