King of Thieves
For Susan
Table of Contents
Cover
FIRST PRODUCTION NOTES
ARTISTIC CREDITS
SETTING
SCENE 1 • SCENE 2 • SCENE 3
SCENE 4 • SCENE 5 • SCENE 6
SCENE 7 • SCENE 8 • SCENE 9
SCENE 10 • SCENE 11 • SCENE 12
SCENE 13 • SCENE 14 • SCENE 15
SCENE 16 • SCENE 17 • SCENE 18
SCENE 19 • SCENE 20 • SCENE 21
SCENE 22 • SCENE 23 • SCENE 24
SCENE 25 • SCENE 26 • SCENE 27
SCENE 28 • SCENE 29
Also by George F. Walker
About Talonbooks
Copyright Information
FIRST PRODUCTION NOTES
King of Thieves was first performed at the Stratford Festival Studio Theatre August 12 to September 10, 2010, with the following cast:
CAST
MAC: Evan Buliung
POLLY: Laura Condlin
PORK: Oliver Becker
PEACHUM: Jay Brazeau
MYRNA: Nora McLellan
BROWN: Nigel Bennett
STRINGER: Paul Fauteux
JENNY: Stephanie Roth
TINA: Mary Antonini
IVES: Cyrus Lane
VINNIE: Seán Cullen
CHRISTIE: Trent Pardy
GREEN: Shane Carty
MERCER: Sandy Winsby
HALLIWELL: Scott A. Hurst
Waiters, Beggars, and other roles: Richard Lee, Jennifer Patterson, Jay T. Schramek
ARTISTIC CREDITS
DIRECTOR: Jennifer Tarver
DESIGNER: Peter Hartwell
LIGHTING DESIGNER: Michael Walton
SOUND DESIGNER: Thomas Ryder Payne
DRAMATURGE: Bob White
MOVEMENT: Kate Alton
FIGHT CAPTAIN: Richard Lee
MOVEMENT CAPTAIN: Mary Antonini
FIREARMS ADVISOR: Daniel Levinson
FIGHT DIRECTOR: Todd Campbell
ASSISTANT FIGHT DIRECTOR: Michael Dufays
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Ravi Jain
ASSISTANT DESIGNER: A.W. Nadine Grant (Ian and Molly Lindsay Young Design Fellow)
ASSISTANT LIGHTING DESIGNER: Tristan Tidswell
STAGE MANAGER: Anne Murphy
ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER: Emma Laird
APPRENTICE STAGE MANAGER: Elizabeth McDermott
PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER: Marylu Moyer
MUSICAL DIRECTOR: John Roby
MUSICAL STAGING: Tracey Flye
ASSOCIATE MUSICAL DIRECTOR: Laura Burton
MUSICAL ASSISTANT: Britta Johnson
PRODUCTION ASSISTANT: Jessica Stinson
SETTING
New York City. Fall of 1928.
PEOPLE
MAC: a thief
POLLY: his wife, also a thief
PORK: one of his crew
PEACHUM: a fence
MYRNA: his wife, also a fence
BROWN: FBI supervisor
STRINGER: FBI agent
JENNY: a singer, and a thief
TINA: a singer, and a thief
IVES: Pinkerton agent
VINNIE: speakeasy owner
CHRISTIE: a beggar
GREEN: a banker
MERCER: a banker
HALLIWELL: a banker
And a number of Waiters, Beggars, a Socialite, an Innocent Civilian, and two Federal Agents
SCENE 1
The hall of a large house belonging to GREEN, the banker. MAC, eating sunflower seeds and reading from a pamphlet, waits while his henchman, PORK, nervously prepares to cut a canvas out of a frame he is holding.
MAC
This guy lived most of his life in poverty …
PORK
Well, he sure made a killing at some point. Look at all the stuff in here.
MAC
Not the owner of the house. The painter. Tuberculosis, cataracts, wife died, son killed in the war … and the few paintings he sold, he sold for pennies … He croaks and, two years later, they’re going for thousands.
PORK is about to start cutting.
MAC
Slowly, slowly … it’s not much good to us if you carve it up.
PORK
I’m a little nervous. Maybe you should do it.
MAC
If I keep doing it, how you ever gonna learn? You want to be a snatch-and-grab artist your whole life?
PORK
It’s what I’m good at.
MAC
If you’re so good at it, how come you spent most of the past ten years in the slammer? (gestures to painting) Just be patient. If you butcher it, the master of the house isn’t gonna want it back.
PORK
That’s the plan? You’re gonna try to sell it back to him?
MAC
Guys who owns houses like this, they love their art, especially if it’s from Europe. They probably love it more than they love their kids.
PORK
Or I guess we’d be stealing their kids.
MAC
If we were the kind of people who stole kids … which we’re not. (hears something) Shhhh … What was –
PORK reaches inside his coat, reveals a gun. MAC shakes his head. PORK drops his hand, leaving the gun in his jacket.
IVES
(from the darkness) Okay … stop right there … and just stay … very still. (approaches while holding his own gun) You. Drop the knife and step away from the painting.
PORK looks at MAC. MAC just smiles and steps a little towards IVES.
MAC
He can’t do that.
IVES
Why not?
MAC
He’s not finished yet.
PORK
You want me to drop him?
MAC
Not yet …
IVES
Hey, if anybody’s gonna be dropping people here, pal … You think I don’t know how to use this thing or something?
MAC
No. If Pinkerton agents know anything, they know how to shoot people.
PORK
One of them shot my brother for no reason.
MAC
Well, he was beating the crap out of someone at the time.
PORK
Yeah, a goddamn strikebreaker.
MAC
Right. Yeah … (to IVES) He means for no good reason.
IVES
(to PORK) I told you to step away from that painting.
MAC
Look, I need to ask you a question. Do you have a family … people who need your financial support?
IVES
Yeah, my mother. What of it?
MAC
Well, who’s gonna take care of her if you’re not around?
IVES
You keep talking like I’m the one in danger here.
MAC
And you should probably start asking yourself why that is. (nods at PORK)
PORK shows IVES the gun in his jacket.
MAC
Now, you gonna let us finish our work here … and offer you a tidy sum to let us be on our way, or do you want to play this thing out to its conclusion?
IVES
When you say … “a tidy sum,” what would you have in mind?
MAC nods to PORK. PORK continues cutting.
MAC
Well, that’s something to be negotiated … (smiling and approaching IVES) You’re a good man, aren’t you? I mean you consider yourself to be a good man.
IVES
Well, I –
MAC
The point is, don’t let this change that opinion of yourself. Morality is just something that got made up to stop everyone from getting their fair share.
PORK
&n
bsp; (rolling up the canvas) Done …
MAC
Okay, then. Let’s go. It’s time to celebrate.
MAC puts arm around IVES.
IVES
You celebrate every time you steal something?
MAC
No. Just whenever we make a new friend.
They all leave.
Blackout.
SCENE 2
1928. A federal office in New York City. BROWN moves about confidently. PEACHUM watches apprehensively.
BROWN
… There’s a level of theft that is hard to imagine let alone police. And the truth is, there aren’t many police officers who couldn’t be bought off in the blink of an eye by the people who perpetrate those thefts. It’s not that cops are all dishonest, they’re just human. And if one of these thieving bastards said something to them like “Here’s the deed to an island in the Caribbean. It’s all yours … plus a yearly stipend of, say, two hundred grand. Now get lost and leave me alone” – could they turn that down?
PEACHUM
I don’t see that as a possibility, no.
BROWN
So obviously we can’t turn to the police in this situation, can we? By the way, did you know there was a time when there weren’t any policemen?
PEACHUM
Well, back when there was no law, sure.
BROWN
There was plenty of law. I’m talking just a couple hundred years ago … There were courts, magistrates, prisons, executioners … in short, a justice system. A raggedy-ass, brutally indifferent one, but a system nevertheless … just no real cops. And do you know who was largely responsible for turning the criminals over to this system? Other criminals.
PEACHUM
Really. They turned in their own kind?
BROWN
Well, it made a certain kind of sense. First of all, there were rewards …
PEACHUM
Yeah. It’d be a way of getting rid of the competition, wouldn’t it?
BROWN
You learn fast, just like I thought. And that’s why you’re the criminal I came to.
PEACHUM
Except the truth is, I’ve never actually been convicted of anything.
BROWN
But the actual truth is much more complicated. Your so-called legitimate business, your calling card into the world of the unimaginably wealthy, was built on the foundations of a criminal empire of low-life theft, bootlegging, and other and varied forms of illegality.
PEACHUM
This might be the right time for me to ask for a lawyer.
BROWN
Then it’s also the time for me to tell you we’ve spent nine months gathering enough evidence to put you away for twenty years. Which is what I intend to do unless you co-operate.
PEACHUM
Unless you might be interested in an island yourself. You know the kind you referred to earlier. Plus that yearly … bonus. Is that something you could get intrigued by? Is that another way we can go with this?
BROWN
No. Sorry.
PEACHUM
Are you sure? You know, having that kind of luxury, maybe some people think, “Who needs all that, that’s too much” … but when they actually get it, then it’s a different thing altogether. Then they think, “Who can live without this?” I’m offering you something that would make life worth living.
BROWN
Let me offer you something instead. You see, I can make sure that you’re sent to the kind of prison that will devour you and spit you out as an entirely new kind of animal … Not a human being, more like a ground-sniffing rodent … So what I’m offering is an option that will keep you out of that kind of prison. Are you interested in that option?
PEACHUM
Well, if it came to that …
BROWN
(handing him a file) Here. It’s your file.
PEACHUM
(flipping through) It’s very big.
BROWN
Well, you’ve been a busy fellow … So here’s the thing. Your rich pals, all those bankers and businessmen you know … they’ve ignored the rules of fair play and the need for a reasonable distribution of wealth by taking more than they had any right to and placing it beyond the reach of everyone else. That is, in their own pockets …
PEACHUM
So you’re saying they broke the law, and you want me to help you prove it.
BROWN
The law doesn’t care nearly enough about what they did in that regard. In fact, much of the law was designed to help them do it. But they’re planning something very dangerous, and we have to get to them before they carry it off.
PEACHUM
And this very dangerous thing is?
BROWN
Something too preposterously evil and complex for you to understand.
PEACHUM
Give me a chance. It sounds terrific.
BROWN
No, all I need you to do is introduce them to another part of the law, the one that concerns your other social circle … the thieves and whoremongers that made you a wealthy man.
PEACHUM
If by “whoremonger” you mean “pimp” … I have known some of them, but I myself was never in that line of work.
BROWN
(pointing to the file) Pages 12 through 15.
PEACHUM
(as he flips through) Okay, this is all based on the word of one very nasty woman who as well as being a prostitute was also for a time my mistress and is still obviously bitter about being left for –
BROWN
Left for the other embittered prostitute referred to on page 15? … End of the page. (looking over PEACHUM ’s shoulder) “He hired every girl he could find. Twenty, thirty of us working out of my fourth-floor walk-up and another ten or so in a place across the street. And a lot of those girls worked as pickpockets too. Peachum trained them himself.”
PEACHUM
I gave them a skill that’d be useful to them in their old age. I guess I’ll get no credit for that, though, will I?
BROWN
Well, it won’t keep you out of that prison we were talking about. Look, it’s simple. All I want you to do is drag your rich friends down into your criminal world and keep them there for a while.
PEACHUM
And how am I supposed to do that?
BROWN
By offering to make them even richer.
PEACHUM
They don’t need to be any richer. They’ve all got more money than God.
BROWN
They don’t want to have more money than God. They only want to have more money than each other.
Blackout.
SCENE 3
The Bluebird Club. MAC, his wife POLLY, and MAC’s associates PORK and IVES all sit at a table. VINNIE, owner of the speakeasy, approaches their table. JENNY is at the microphone.
VINNIE
How are we doing tonight, folks?
PORK
My steak was overcooked. How many times have I told your cook not to overdo my goddamn steak?
VINNIE
And how many times have I told you not to bother my goddamn cook? (to MAC) He’s in there all the time giving instructions … like he knows shit about food.
PORK
I know when it’s no good. And in here, that’s what it usually is.
VINNIE
Mac, can you help me out with this guy?
MAC
(to PORK) Stay out of his kitchen. And stop insulting him and his staff. He’s been a loyal customer.
PORK
And we’ve been good suppliers. So I don’t see why I should have to –
MAC
Because I ask, okay. And I ask for so little.
MAC nods to VINNIE. JENNY approaches just as VINNIE turns to leave.
JENNY
(to VINNIE) So what did you think?
VINNIE
(passing by) You were great.
IVES
(in love) Yes. Great.
/>
JENNY
(they’ve never met) Thanks.
IVES
Absolutely … great.
PORK
Yeah. Thanks. And what about you, Mac? What did you think?
POLLY
He was probably wondering why all your songs were about being a whore.
JENNY
Because I was singing about you, honey.
POLLY goes to get up. MAC grabs her arm.
MAC
(to JENNY) Maybe you should apologize for that.
JENNY
Maybe she should learn not to offer an opinion unless it’s asked for.
POLLY
(smiling) She’s right. It was rude. (to JENNY) I’m very sorry, Jenny.
JENNY
Then so am I. So, Mac … how did I sound? I was kinda nervous on account of being off the stage for almost a year … recovering.
POLLY
You were ill? I thought you’d just gone on a long vacation.
JENNY
No. I had an accident … (to PORK) Some slob pushed me out of a moving car. Messed me up pretty good.
MAC
Yeah well, you’re back now. So don’t be living in the past and you’ll be okay.
PORK
He’s giving you solid advice there, Jenny. If I was you, I’d take it.
JENNY
And if I was you, I’d slit my wrists.
PORK
Hey, watch your mouth. That thing happened to you because of your act of betrayal. If that judge wasn’t in Mac’s pocket, he’d still be in the cooler. So you should just forget all about that incident with the moving car … which was hardly moving at all, by the way.
JENNY
Yeah? Well, I got a “by the way” myself. I didn’t betray no one. People were given the wrong information about me. Mac, can I have a word? (smiling at POLLY) Strictly business, Polly.
POLLY
What kind of business?
JENNY
Well, none of your business for one thing.
MAC
Jenny.
POLLY
No, she’s right. What you do or don’t do with her is none of my concern. Give her a quick tumble, pat her on the head, throw her in the garbage … all the same to me.
JENNY
Aren’t you a sweetie?
JENNY leads MAC away. PORK is looking at POLLY.
POLLY
No reason not to be polite. At least up to the moment when I cut the little slut’s throat.
Blackout.
SCENE 4
The PEACHUM garden. MYRNA is cleaning a disassembled and very old pistol. Agent STRINGER stands nearby.