Lost Paradise A play based on Jan Havicksz Steen's painting "Merry Company on a Terrace" post 1670 "Steen, who at various times kept a brewery and an inn in addition to his activity as a painter, delighted in depicting scenes of boisterous merrymaking. Here he has used his own features for the laughing man at far left. The man behind him dressed in a fool's costume impersonates Hans Wurst, a stock character of Dutch comedy. There may also be generalized references to comedy in the old-fashioned costumes of some of the other figures. his picture dates from a late pahse of Steen's carrer..." Characters Niclas, a fool Jan, an aging man Hans, his close friend Sarah, his daughter Milt, Sarah's beloved, and Others SCENE ONE Jan's tavern. A celebration. The noise of a crowd can be heard. Milt, a poet, plays a lute off to the side as Sarah watches. Niclas bangs a glass to get everyone's attention. The crowd quiets. NICLAS Welcome!! All of you, welcome, to this glorious establishment owned by our dear friend, known the world round for his jolly demeanor and fine hospitality - Jan. [Cheers from the crowd.] HANS And to the fine bunch of women we've got here, too. SARAH Get your dirty hands off me, Hans. NICLAS I've not finished. Furthermore a toast! [Cheers] HANS To Sarah, the beauteous and fair. If you don't mind me saying, Jan. JAN Hans, dear Hans. NICLAS To our most dear young ones, charmed by Cupid, and soon joined in everlasting matrimony. [Cheers] JAN Sarah!! Tell that poet of yours to stop his silly crooning. Fill the empty pitchers with wine, so that my guests may revel again without the poet plucking away with his plodding dirges [Milt stops playing.] MILT If you wish, Sir. HANS A toast to the host! JAN My dear Hans! HANS Without you, dear friend, paradise would not be fit. [Cheers.] ALL Speech! Speech!! JAN I will speak... to remind everyone... that I have not yet said yeah to this marriage. [Gasps all around.] NICLAS Then what with all the merrymaking? JAN To a poet... daresay... I have decided I cannot. NICLAS But you said...Dear Jan - JAN I know damn well what I said, Fool! Must I clarify before all my guests for your benefit? SARAH =46ather... please... JAN I said we would celebrate my daughter's future wedding... as I am sure she will be married. To whom I said not. NICLAS 'Twas clear to the young ones we were amidst their prenuptual feast. JAN I've said nothing about taking a poet with poor musical taste into my family= . NICLAS But, Jan, Sir, the boy's heart plays strongly for your daughter's heart, and for that very reason he has charmed your guests this very evening like the Pied Piper himself. JAN He must play for me, Fool! Doubly hard he'll have to play! And then I'll decide if he's played hard enough.. . to earn my approval. HANS Now there's a right bargain... pay the entertainment with your daughter's love. But not unless the goods are worthy... no... certainly not. SARAH Dirty drunk!! HANS Oh! Had I only one worthy talent such that I could be paid with your love. NICLAS Sir, if I may interject further. JAN Certainly, Fool. NICLAS It has been seven months since my nephew Milton the poet began courting Sarah. He's had the utmost patience, Sir. His love is pure, I warrant that. JAN How pure, Fool? NICLAS As pure as any I've seen, and I've seen the purest... it's purer than pure his love is. JAN A fool who says he's seen the purest of pure. Pah! HANS He's a fop, Sir, this lute player. I've seen him fopping about. Before my very own eyes, I have. NICLAS But I, Sir, have seen him as perhaps not the purest of pure, for I know the biggest of fools is the one purest in pure love. And the purest in pure love are the quickest in foolery. but poor Milton, dear Sir, while neither, has a heart of gold and is too young and sincere to be an old fool. JAN Then he is certainly a young fool, as any poet I've ever seen is a fool beyond a doubt... and I'll question any fool of poesy until he's blue in the face before he marries a daughter of mine. More wine for everyone! SARAH You've had enough, father. JAN What did you say? NICLAS She said you've had enough... JAN Enough?!! NICLAS Enough wine! You've had enough. JAN So says that whore... and so says you. But tell me, Fool, how much is enough? Can you tell me exactly just how much is enough? NICLAS Enough is exactly enough. JAN Ah? And how is that? NICLAS Well, with less than enough there's never enough to be satisfied, and with more than enough today there'll be less than enough tomorrow, which applies to mental capacity as well as physical quantity. So, enough is exactly enough. JAN But who decides on "exactly," Fool?! Tell me that! NICLAS Certainly not the one who buries the pains of excess behind the pleasures of enough and is blind of his own capacities. JAN I see clearly! NICLAS Then it is obvious you cannot decide. JAN Enough of your foolery, Fool. Poet! MILTON Yes, Sir. JAN Play something! MILTON What would you like? JAN Anything! Something to feast my ears upon. Something soothing. [MILT begins to play. JAN puts his hands to his ears.] Stop! Not that! What was that? I ask for soothing and you give me that? You want to drive away the patrons? Or put them to sleep? Plays something else. [MILT plays something else.] SARAH =46ather... JAN Don't you Father me. My own daughter... SARAH Yes, Father, I am. JAN Trying to tell me when I've had enough! SARAH I'm grown now, Father, I can do as I wish. JAN What? SARAH Niclas and I will be together, Father. We can have it no other way. JAN Whore! [Milt stops.] Play, poet! [Milt plays.] Listen to that rotten cacophany the bless=E9d fop bangs out. Pathetic... Disgusting. [Milt stops.] What are you doing? Play! MILTON I won't anymore, Sir. JAN Did I hear correctly? MILTON Yes... Sir. JAN You want to marry my daughter and you won't play? MILTON You've insulted... my love. JAN I insulted you! MIILTON Yes. JAN Yes, what? Yes, Sir? MILTON Sir...yes, Sir... you insulted my playing...Sir. JAN I insulted his playing. Did you hear that everyone?!! I INSULTED THE POOR POET'S PLAYING!!! SARAH Come on, Milt. [JAN grabs on to SARAH's arm.] JAN You're not going anywhere until I say so. SARAH Let go! [He lets go. They exit.] JAN Go then!! And don't come back. The both of you. You'll never marry without my saying so!! END OF SCENE SCENE TWO MILT and SARAH stand naked together beneath a pear tree. There is a basket of pears on the ground next to them. The sound of birds and jungle animals can be heard. JAN [Offstage] Unhand her you indecent bastard! HANS [Offstage] There's the fop, Sir! He's stripped bare. MILT [wrapping cloth around himself] He'll surely kill us. SARAH Stop! Take it off... JAN I'll kill you both!! SARAH Don't let him destroy the beauty my eyes feast upon. MILT Get dressed, my love, or we'll never see tommorrow. SARAH [wrapping herself.] Oh, that this terrible day never should have come. [JAN and HANS enter.] JAN Aha! You thought the elopement was complete. HANS But no sir! We found 'em, Sir. Stopped 'em just before the heinous deed. JAN The fop and the whore! Thought you were finally together, eh? What do you have to say for youself? MILT Well...ah... JAN And you!! Silence you! HANS Silence he says. JAN Well? SARAH We're staying here. JAN But what business have you here, where there is nothing, not even an oven to bake bread for daily sustenance HANS Not a pub to make merry in! JAN Not even, Hans. SARAH But here, there is this tree. JAN This tree? HANS It's an odd tree. SARAH And here is Milt, and here I am, and no one here to bother or be bothered. Before you arrived it was paradise. [Fruit drops from the tree.] JAN And you plan to run about naked as I found you? SARAH Yes. JAN It's immorral. HANS Disgusting. JAN It's ghastly of you! All of your doings!! You would spend your days here with him... and a tree... and allow your father to die a lonely love-sick old man. MILTON You sent us away, Sir. JAN Ah! To hear such mutinous words! I never sent you away. HANS He never sent you away. SARAH I will never turn away from love to be for you like a dog, a piece of property to buy and sell as you wish. Go home to your tavern, father. Both of you go ... and leave me here with my love... in paradise. [Fruits drop from the tree.] JAN Hmphph!! Paradise... [Fruits drop.] Paradise!! [More fruits drop.] HANS It's a strange tree, that is. JAN Very odd. SARAH Don't go near the tree. HANS [Looking into the tree.] You said... JAN Paradise! [Fruits drop.] HANS These are for certain the biggest, plumpest, most golden pears I have ever seen. JAN Indeed they are, Hans. Yes indeedy. HANS I warrant there's the hand of a brilliant trickster behind all this. What do you think? JAN More than meets the eye, I'd say. SARAH Be careful not to harm it. JAN What do you see up there? HANS I will go up and find the magician that makes light of us... [He hops into the tree.] And when I find him, I'll slide him down the trunk head first... JAN And then we'll all have a good laugh! [HANS has climbed out of sight.] Careful now. MILT Yes. Do be careful. JAN How long should we wait? I'm worried for him. SARAH It'll be okay, father. MILT I could play, Sir. JAN [weeping] Yes... do that... poet, do that. [MILT plays the lute.] Hans?! Hans!! He's not answering. SARAH Hans!! JAN I can't see him. ALL Hans!! Hans!!! JAN Hans!! Oh, it's no use. The bugger's almost as old as I. Probably caught his neck on a limb... lynched himself or somthing. SARAH He'll probably be back, father. JAN But I've lost sight of him. I can't see him anywhere. Oh... my companion... my companion since childhood... Hans. MILT I'll go after him, Sir. SARAH Milt! No!! You mustn't. MILT I will. He's just snagged his bloomers on a limb, I warrant. I'll set him free and we can all return to the tavern. [He climbs into the tree and disappears.] SARAH Oh, my love, he is the finest, indeed. JAN Take care, now, boy!! SARAH Milt! Wait!! He didn't kiss me. He didn't say goodbye. JAN He didn't did he? [SARAH looks up into the tree.] SARAH Milt? Oh, Milt? He's gone... nowhere to be seen... disappeared into thin air= . [She starts to cry.] JAN There there, now, dear... and he didn't say goodbye... and he didn't kiss you... there. there... SARAH And you... you have lost your childhood companion... poor thing... poor father... We are all alone. JAN We have forsaken paradise. [They look up into the tree. It rustles, but no fruit falls.] As I was saying... paradise...[rustling] paradise... [rustling] we have forsaken it. SARAH There is no more fruit, father. JAN No more fruit! Nonsense. You mean we have been left with no food in our barrenness? SARAH Perhaps our proclaiming of paradise has destroyed its magic. [There is a great rustling in the tree, and NICLAS suddenly drops down.] Niclas! JAN It's the fool! We have not been completely forgotten. NICLAS Hello there! SARAH But where is Milton? JAN And Hans... SARAH Have you seen them? NICLAS Have I seen whom? JAN Your nephew and my dear friend Hans. NICLAS I was once up on the highest branch. And I have come all the way down to this lowest point. In my travels, I have seen many many people. I cannot recall the familiar faces of Milton and Hans, but it's quite possible they are crawling at this very minute across a precarious branch of this great tree, in awe of all there is to see and understand. JAN But when will they come back? NICLAS It is my experience that few except fools and requited lovers have the will power to return from paradise before a year's time... at which point it becomes unbearably boring as the cycle begins again. SARAH And this tree has stopped bearing fruit because of our obstinence. NICLAS It is winter, my dear, and therefore the tree will bear no more. In the spring they will return in abundance and perhaps acquired wisdom will be yous by then, as well. JAN Such insolence, Fool! NICLAS Be it so, Sir. We cannot go but forward. JAN And I cannot return home without Hans. SARAH Nor me without Milt. NICLAS Then go forward. Climb this tree as I have and see for yourself. JAN I am too old. Perhaps you, my dear... SARAH I will stay with you, father. I will wait it out with you until my Milton tires of paradise and desires me again at least as much as a place in this great tree. JAN And in the spring when both he and Hans return, I promise the greatest wedding ever, so that paradise can be brought home to everyone through our requited hearts. NICLAS Let it be, then. I go on, Sir. END OF PLAY Milton Lost A play based on Jan Havicksz Steen's painting "Merry Company on a Terrace" post 1670 By Peter Collins