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Wappin' Wharf: A Frightful Comedy of Pirates, a play by Charles S. Brooks |
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On Choosing A Title |
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_ I find difficulty in selecting a name for my pirate play. Children seem so easy in comparison--John or Gretchen, or Gwendolyn for parents of romantic taste. Gwendolyn I myself dislike, and I have thought I would give it to a cow if ever I owned a farm. But this is prejudice. To name a child, I repeat, one needs only to run his finger down the column of his acquaintance, or think which aunt will have the looser purse-strings in her will. An unhappy choice, after all, is rare. Here and there a chocolate Pearl or a dusky crinkle-headed Blanche escapes our logic; but who can think of a sullen Nancy? Its very sound, tossed about the nursery, would brighten a maiden even if she were peevish at the start. I once knew an excellent couple of the name of Bottom, who chose Ruby for their offspring; but I have no doubt that the infelicity was altered at the font. The fact is that most of our names grow in time to fit our figure and our character. Margaret and Helen sound thin or fat, agreeable or dull, as our friends and neighbors rise before us; and any newcomer to our affection quickly erases the aspect of its former ugly tenant. I confess that till lately a certain name brought to my fancy a bouncing, red-armed creature; but that by a change of lease upon our street it has acquired an alien grace and beauty. Perhaps a scrawny neighbor by the name of Falstaff might remain inconsequent, but I am sure that if a lady called Messilina moved in next door and were of charming manner, a month would blur the bad suggestion of her name; which presently--if our gardens ran together--would come to sound sweetly in my ears. But a play (more than a child or neighbor) is offered for a sudden judgment--to sink or swim upon a first impression--and its christening is an especial peril. I have fretted for a month to find a title for my comedy. My first choice was _A Frightful Play of Pirates_. In the word _frightful_ lay the double meaning that I wanted. It held up my hands, as it were, for mercy. It is an old device. Did not Keats, when a novice in his art, attempt by a modest preface to disarm the critics of his Endymion? "It is just," he wrote, "that this youngster should die away." Yet my title was too long. I could not hope, if my comedy reached the boards, that a manager could afford such a long display of electric lights above the door. It would require more than a barrel of lamps. _The Pirates of Clovelly_ was not bad, except for length, but it was too obviously stolen from Gilbert's opera. I could feel my guilty fingers in his pocket. _'S Death_ was suggested, but it was too flippant, too farcical. _'S Blood_, although effective in red lights, met the same objection. _The Spittin' Devil_, named for our pirate ship, lacked refinement. Certainly no lady in silk and lace would admit acquaintance with so gross a personage. _Darlin'_ was offered to me--the name of the old lady with one tooth who cooks and mixes the grog for my sailormen. And I still think that with better spelling it would be an excellent title for musical comedy. But it was naught for a pirate play. Its anemia would soften the vigor of my lines. One could as well call the tale of Bluebeard by the name of his casual cook. Then _Clovelly_ seemed enough. At the very least--if my publisher were energetic--it ensured a brisk sale of the printed play among the American tourists on the Devon coast, who travel by boat or char-a-banc to this ancient fishing village where we set our plot. For even a trivial book sells to trippers if its story is laid around the corner. Would it not be pleasant, I thought, when I visit the place again, to see them thumbing me as they waited for the steamer--to see a whole window of myself placed in equal prominence with picture postal cards? When I registered at the inn alongside the wharf might I not hope that the landlady would recognize my name and give me, as an honored guest, a front room that looks upon the ocean? Perhaps, as I had my tea and clotted cream on the village staircase, I might mention casually to a pretty tourist that I was the author of the book that protruded from her handbag--and fetch my dishes to her table. It is so seldom that an obscure author catches anyone _flagrante dilicto_ on his book. Will no one ever read a book of mine in the subway, that I may tap him on the shoulder? Do travelers never put me in their grips? Must everyone read in public the latest novel, and reserve all plays and essays for their solitary hours? At the club I shuffle to the top any periodical that contains my name, but the crowded noon buries me deep again. At best, maybe, in a lending library, I see a date stamped inside my cover; but, although I linger near the shelf, no one comes to draw me down. I think that hunters must look with equal hunger on the bear's tread. 'T is here! 'T is there! But the cunning creature has escaped. Blackmore's pleasant ghost frequents the shadowy church at Porlock where he married Lorna and John Ridd, or roams the Valley of the Rocks to see the studious pilgrims at his pages. Stevenson haunts the gloomy inlet where the Admiral Benbow stood and where old Pew came tapping in the night. In the flesh I shall join their revels as an equal comrade. _Clovelly_, however, although its lilt was pleasant to the ear, was an insufficient title. _Skull and Crossbones_ was too obvious, and my next choice was _The Gibbet_. But there was the disadvantage of scaring the timid. Old ladies would pass me by. It would check the sale of tickets. My nephew, who is fourteen and not at all timid, was stout in its defense. He pronounces it as if the _g_ were the hard kind that starts off gurgle. _G_ibbet! He asked me if I had a hanging in the piece. If so, he knew how the business could be managed without chance of accident--an extra rope fastened to the belt behind. I told him that it was none of his business how I ended up the pirates. I would hang them or not, as I saw fit. He would have to pay his quarter like anybody else and sit it through. He suggested From _Dish-Pan to Matrimony_--obviously a jest. The sly rogue laughs at me. I must confess, however, that he has given me some of my best lines. "Villainy 's afoot!" for example, and "Sink me stern up!" His peaceful school breeds a wealth of pungent English. I was in despair. _Revenge!_ Would that have done? I see a maddened father stand with smoking revolver above the body of a silky-whiskered villain. "Doris," the panting parent cries, "the butcher boy knows all and wants you for his bride." And down comes the happy curtain on the lovers. _The Wreckers_ belongs to Stevenson. _The Pirates' Nest!_ It is too ornithological. The Natural History Museum might buy a copy and think I had cheated them. And then _Channel Lights_! It sends us sharply to the days of the older melodrama--days when we exchanged a ten-cent piece for a gallery seat and hissed the villain. Do you recall the breathless moment when the heroine implored the villain to give her back her stolen child? For answer the cruel fellow tied the darling to the buzz-saw. Or that darker scene when he tossed the lady to the black waters of the Thames, with the splash of a dipper up behind? Hurry, master hero! Your horse's hoofs clatter in the wings. Gallop, Dobbin! A precious life depends upon your speed. Our dangerous plot hangs by a single thread. It is quite a task to find a sufficient title. I have wavered for a month. But now my efforts seem rewarded. There is a wharf in London below the Tower, not far from the India docks. It has now sunk to common week-day uses, and I suppose its rotten timbers are piled with honest, unromantic merchandise. But once pirates were hanged there. It was the first convenient place for inbound ships to dispose of this dirty, deep-sea cargo. Doubtless hereabout the lanes and building-tops were crowded with an idle throng as on a holiday, and wherries to the bankside and the play paused with suspended oar for a sight of the happy festival. Did Hamlet wait upon this ghastly prologue? Shakespeare himself, unplayed script in hand, mused how tragedy and farce go hand in hand. In those golden days with which our comedy concerns itself, a gibbet stood on Wapping wharf and pirates stepped off the fatal cart to a hangman's jest. We may hear the shouts of the 'prentice lads echoing across the centuries. I cannot hope that many persons--except dusty scholars--will know of the district's ancient ill-repute, yet Wapping wharf figures often in my dialogue as the somber motif of a pirate's life. It conveys to the plot the sense of mystery. It needs but a handful of electric lamps. If no one offers me a better title I shall let it stand. _ |
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