my brother paul: the musical life of paul dresser brother paul script.pdf · romantic ballads which...

MY BROTHER PAUL:

THE MUSICAL LIFE OF PAUL DRESSER

A Play with Music

Book by Donald E. Baker

Based on the Writings of Theodore Dreiser

Music and Lyrics by Paul Dresser

Edited and with Additional Lyrics by Donald E. Baker

3M, 1W (doubling)

“Paul, the good son, the loving brother…. Jailbird, writer of

pointless ballads, singer of trivial songs—even so, write his

name large as one who loved his fellowmen!”

Theodore Dreiser, Dawn

109 Ella Kinley Circle Unit 401

Myrtle Beach, SC 29588

Copyright © 2018 by Donald E. Baker 910.228.1734

All rights reserved [email protected]

ii

Copyright © 2018 by Donald E. Baker. All rights reserved.

SYNOPSIS

Paul Dresser was one of the most popular American song writers of the late nineteenth

century. His compositions include “My Gal Sal” and “On the Banks of the Wabash”

among many others. He was the oldest of ten surviving children of a strict German-

Catholic father and an indulgent Mennonite mother. One of his younger siblings was the

novelist Theodore Dreiser; there was both love and rivalry between them.

The play uses Paul’s songs and Theodore’s memoirs to chronicle Paul’s escape from his

stifling Indiana childhood; his rise as a vaudeville comedian and theatrical character

actor; the successes that brought him wealth and fame; and his prominence as one of the

lions of the New York theater world. It also explores his relationships with four women

in his life: Sarah Dreiser, his ever-forgiving mother; Sally Walker, bordello madam and

the love of his life; May Howard, burlesque queen and mother of Paul’s child; and Louise

Dresser, the protégé whose career he helped by loaning her his last name.

Paul’s career declined rapidly when musical tastes changed and ragtime eclipsed the

romantic ballads which were his stock in trade. He gave away much of his wealth and

died young, at age forty-seven.

PAUL DRESSER DESCRIPTION

Paul Dresser was a warm, generous, and genuinely tender man, spirited and bubbly and

emotional, but he could also be a bit vulgar in his storytelling and personal habits. He was

attractive to women, despite tipping the scales at 300 pounds. And he was welcome

anyplace people could laugh at a funny story or shed a tear over a sentimental song about

home or mother or lost sweethearts.

PERMISSIONS

The songs of Paul Dresser are in the public domain, but the use of material from the

autobiographical writings of Theodore Dreiser requires special arrangements with the

Dreiser Estate prior to performance:

Dramatic Permissions

Curtis Brown Ltd.

Ten Astor Place

New York NY 10003

iii


AUTHOR’S NOTE

In dramatizing Paul Dresser’s life I admit to taking a few liberties. For example, there is

no proof that Paul and May Howard actually had a child together, although Paul’s

biographer makes the case for the possibility. For dramatic reasons I chose to accept it as

fact, and I believe I have depicted Paul’s actions as honorable in the circumstances.

Some of Paul’s songs I have edited for length. “The Curse” is one example. The original

goes on and on as Paul vents his wrath. Also for length, or to avoid too much repetition of

Paul’s favorite images (old home, mother at the window, etc.), I have made cuts or

recombined elements of the verses of some of the songs.

Finally, I have altered a few of Paul’s lyrics to settle them more comfortably into the

narrative. “The Path That Leads the Other Way” is an example, as is “The Pardon Came

Too Late,” which originally concerned a soldier facing a firing squad after going AWOL

to visit his sick mother.

I hope Paul’s spirit will forgive my dramatic and musical choices in presenting a portrait

intended to be admiring and respectful.

iv


CHARACTERS

Minimum 3M, 1W

PAUL DRESSER (baritone***): Age 47. Tin pan alley composer. Dresses in the

fashion of a Broadway dandy ca. 1900. Lives only in

his brother’s memory, having died thirteen years

before the time of the play. Sings most of the songs.

Performs some material in a German accent. If the

actor is capable, could sometimes accompany himself

and others at the piano.

THEODORE DREISER: Age 48. Paul’s brother, despite the difference in

spelling of the last name. Important American novelist

of the early twentieth century. Age about 48. Dialogue

only, no songs except to participate in the envoi.

MAX HOFFMAN (Tenor***): Age 30’s-40’s. Pianist* and Paul’s music arranger.

May accompany the singers. Also plays minor male

characters requiring no costume or makeup changes.

AN ACTRESS** (Soprano***): Age 30+. Plays the women in Paul’s life, including:

LOUISE (KERLIN) DRESSER, Paul’s protégé, brunette

SARAH DREISER, Paul’s mother, gray-haired

SALLY WALKER, Bordello madame, Paul’s lover, redhead

MAY HOWARD, Burlesque queen, mother of Paul’s child, blonde

A GIRL SINGER

NOTE ON CASTING

*If a non-acting accompanist other than Max is to play the piano, he or she should

perform offstage and the stage should be arranged so that Max appears to be playing.

**The Actress can change costume and wig onstage, in semi-darkness. Costume and wig

changes need not be elaborate but should be distinctive. If a sufficiently versatile Actress

is not available, the female roles can be distributed among two or more actresses.

However, the actresses should then to be able to exit and enter their area, perhaps behind

a dressing screen, so as not to require them to remain onstage for long periods between

appearances. In that case costume changes would not need to be made onstage.

***The voice-range specifications are flexible. The author has the score on the computer

program MuseScore, so it would be relatively easy for him to transpose the keys of the

songs to accommodate the singers who are actually cast.

v


SETTING

Theodore Dreiser’s study and in his memory and imagination.

TIME

1919, evening, when memory steals from the shadows.

SET

In the author’s mind’s eye the play is presented on a single set divided into three distinct

areas which can be lit independently, although the actors can move freely among them:

Theodore’s area suggests a writer’s study, 1919; there is a desk reconstructed from an

old-time square piano, a telephone, and a coat rack holding a fur overcoat, a silk top hat,

and a gold-topped cane.

Paul’s and Max’s area includes a parlor spinet or upright piano with bench; “enter” and

“exit” in the script refer to this area. If the director wishes Max to indicate changes of

character through minor changes of clothing or accessories, provision should be made for

those items, perhaps a vaudevillian’s traveling trunk with the name “Dresser” stenciled

on it.

The actress’s area serves as a boarding house parlor, a bordello sitting room, a vaudeville

dressing room, and the outer office of a music company. It is furnished with generic

middle-class Victorian furniture, a settee, a small desk/dressing table plus whatever extra

furniture (armoire, coat rack, screen) is needed for the changes of costume and

accessories with which she will indicate her various characters.

vi


MUSICAL NUMBERS

Words and Music by Paul Dresser

*Additional Lyrics by Donald E. Baker

ACT ONE

Act I Introduction (On the Banks of the Wabash Far Away) Paul

Way Down in Old Indiana Paul

She Went to the City Paul

Liza Jane Paul

The Path That Leads the Other Way* Paul (as Johann Dreiser) and Sarah Dreiser

Come Tell Me What’s Your Answer, Yes or No Paul

The Convict and the Bird Paul

You’re Going Far Away, Lad Sarah Dreiser and Paul

Your Mother Wants You Home, Boy Max

My Gal Sal Paul

The Old Flame Flickers, and I Wonder Why Sally Walker and Paul

ACT TWO

Act II Introduction (My Gal Sal) Instrumental

The Curse Paul

The Letter That Never Came (words by Paul Dresser,

music by Paul Dresser and/or Max Sturm) May Howard

The Curse (Reprise) Paul

One Night Stand* Paul and Max

Just to See Mother’s Face Once Again* Paul

Just Tell Them That You Saw Me Paul and Girl Singer

On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away Paul, Max, Girl Singer

On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away (Reprise) Max and Girl Singer

The Pardon Came Too Late* Paul

The Town Where I Was Born Louise Dresser

Back Home Again in Indiana (by Ballad MacDonald and James F. Hanley) Max

Where Are the Friends of Other Days? Paul

My Gal Sal (Reprise) Louise Dresser

The Judgement Is At Hand Max

Just Tell Them That You Saw Me/On the Banks of the Wabash Far Away (Reprise) Paul

MUSIC FOR BOWS & ENVOI

Envoi* Entire Cast

I - 1


ACT I

SETTING: Theodore Dreiser’s study

and in his memory and imagination,

as described in the preliminary

material.

AT RISE: The stage is in darkness. A

piano is heard.

I. (Song: “ON THE BANKS OF THE WABASH” [Instrumental])

Music continues as lights come up to reveal THEODORE

DREISER at work at his desk. He turns and reads what he

has written, speaking over the piano underscore.

THEODORE

I loved my brother Paul Dresser. More than once he rescued me from despair. But I

resented him, too. His music brought him public adulation, earned him personal wealth,

and made him the toast of Broadway. Meanwhile my novels were bringing me critical

scorn, earning me no income, and consigning me to the dark backstreets of Brooklyn.

Lights come up to reveal PAUL DRESSER, with MAX

HOFFMAN at the piano. PAUL has available a cigar to

puff on and a glass of whiskey to sip on whenever he

wishes. PAUL adds his voice to the piano.

(Song [Cont.]: “ON THE BANKS OF THE WABASH.)”

PAUL (singing)

OH, THE MOONLIGHT'S FAIR TONIGHT

ALONG THE WABASH.

FROM THE FIELDS THERE COMES

THE BREATH OF NEW-MOWN HAY.

THROUGH THE SYCAMORES

THE CANDLE-LIGHT IS GLEAMING

ON THE BANKS OF THE WABASH FAR AWAY.

PAUL

Ah, the great author at work. Always writing books. One after another. O.K., Theodore

Herman Dreiser, where’s my book? But before you answer that, how about a hug for your

older brother?

THEODORE

Paul, you’ve been dead thirteen years. Technically we’re the same age.

I - 2


PAUL

Well, you’ll always be my little brother. C’mere.

They embrace. PAUL is effusive; THEODORE is reluctant,

stiff, and awkward.

PAUL (cont.)

I can’t believe you turned my piano into a desk, Thee.

THEODORE

Paul, you know those old square pianos never could stay in tune. It’s a better desk.

PAUL

In tune or not, I churned out a lot of songs on that piano. You don’t seem surprised to see

me.

THEODORE

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about you, about your life and career—jailbird, runaway

seminarian, snake-oil huckster, minstrel showman, actor, playwright, song writer, darling

of the theater district. But your sudden appearance right this moment is very

inconvenient. My publisher has given me a deadline to produce a book—any book—or

else.

PAUL

Or else, what?

THEODORE

Or else he’ll sue for the return of the advance payment, which I have already spent.

PAUL

A sea of troubles to be sure, troubles from which I am prepared to deliver you—just like

the old days, huh? On my deathbed you said my life would make a terrific book. You

promised you’d write it. But you never did. That’s why I’ve been in your head and that’s

why I’m back here now. To provoke your memory. Disturb your guilty conscience.

Suggest a solution to your current difficulties.

THEODORE

I’m sure you have good intentions but I haven’t really got time for this. However,

speaking of memory—as I recall, you used to be a somewhat more imposing presence—

300 pounds or more.

LOUISE DRESSER (off)

When we met, I thought, “I have never seen such a fat man.”

I - 3


PAUL

At this moment of eternity, I am a mere ghost of my former self. In life I tried every diet

and spa treatment and mineral water purge there was. Nothing worked. Let’s just say, in

the Great Somewhere, where I currently reside, all things are possible.

THEODORE

Who’s the girl?

PAUL

Our sister Louise.

THEODORE

We didn’t have a sister Louise. She was one of your protégés. We had sisters enough

without her.

PAUL

And enough brothers for that matter.

THEODORE

Ten of us kids, five boys, five girls.

PAUL

Thirteen if you count the first three boys who died as infants.

THEODORE

That’s why my memories of our homes in Terre Haute in the late 1800s have nothing to

do with your idealized rural images. We moved from one crowded house to another,

whenever the landlords tired of late rent payments.

PAUL

No one wants to sing a song about an over-sized family, in an undersized working-class

house, in some poor, sorrowful neighborhood. Sometimes you have to give the people the

memories they wish they had.

II. (Song: “WAY DOWN IN OLD INDIANA”)

PAUL (singing)

WITH A HEART FULL OF LONGING, MY THOUGHTS TURN TONIGHT

BACK TO OLD INDIANA,

THE SAME WAYWARD LAD IN THE MELLOW MOONLIGHT

THEODORE

Moonlight, again!

I - 4


PAUL (Continuing song)

WAY DOWN IN OLD INDIANA.

THERE LIE THE SCENES OF A LIFETIME THE BEST,

THERE’S WHERE I WATCHED THE SUN SINK IN THE WEST,

AND WHEN I AM GONE IT IS THERE I WOULD REST,


THERE’S WHERE THE OLD FOLKS HAVE SLEPT MANY YEARS,

THERE AS A CHILD I LEARNED LIFE’S JOYS AND TEARS,

IN FANCY I SEE MOTHER CALMING MY FEARS,


THEODORE

Our “old folks” do not sleep in old Indiana. They’re buried in Chicago. So are you, for

that matter.

PAUL

In Illinois! A travesty! I should be wrapped in the soil of Indiana I loved.

THEODORE (increasing bitterness)

And Indiana loved you. Oh, when you left town they were glad to see the back of you.

But after you started to make it on the stage, Terre Haute welcomed you back every time

one of your shows played there. They’d throw you banquets whenever they got a chance.

Not so your brother, of course. You know, the one who writes dirty books about fallen

women? Indiana is proud of its native-born writers. Lew Wallace? Ben-Hur: A Tale of

The Christ. Proof that Hoosiers will even read a book about a Jew as long as Jesus makes

a cameo appearance. Booth Tarkington? They just handed him the Pulitzer Prize for The

Magnificent Ambersons. Apparently it’s acceptable to write social commentary as long as

the author comes from a family of rich Republicans. But when English professors make

lists of Indiana authors, guess who gets left out? “Theodore Dreiser? The kind of books

he writes? You can’t really call him a Hoosier writer, if you know what I mean.” They

want guys who will glorify the state. Guys like James Whitcomb Riley. … Guys like you.

PAUL

A little glorification never hurts. Like Indiana or not, we’re two if its products. Though

how we could grow up in the same house, breathe the same air, and yet become two such

different people I’ll never understand.

THEODORE

Mis-matched products of mis-matched parents.

PAUL

Johann and Sarah.

I - 5


THEODORE

Our father was born in Alsace and trained in woolen manufacturing. He was not long in

this country when, passing through Ohio, he encountered a young Mennonite girl. She

was nearly sixteen, slender, with hair the color of ripe wheat. And schoolgirl fantasies of

chivalrous knights rescuing fair damsels.

Lights come up on the SARAH DREISER in the actress’s

area

SARAH

I dreamed that a Lancelot or Lochinvar would come and carry me away—and suddenly

there he was! An exotic foreigner with courtly old-world manners and a charming

German accent. And a Catholic!

THEODORE

To her he was the very embodiment of courageous love and daring elopement. She

followed after him as soon as she was old enough to marry without her parents’ consent.

PAUL

They were furious. Not just because she ran away but because she became a Catholic like

her lover.

SARAH

My parents never forgave me. They never spoke to me again.

THEODORE

She did always cling to one token of her past. I remember her outside working in the

garden, always wearing a Mennonite bonnet. Perhaps it was a small act of rebellion, after

she discovered she had attached herself to the narrowest, most hidebound sort of

dogmatist. Our father worked, ate, slept, and dreamed the strictest Roman Catholicism. It

was all real to him—heaven for the righteous, purgatory for the salvageable, and never-

ending tortures of hell for the sinners. Among those sinners was every one of his

wayward children. And at home, the noble knight soon proved himself a domestic

autocrat—irritable, crotchety, and domineering.

PAUL

Mama’s open, wandering, dreamy mind became her refuge. Fairies and elves kept her

company in the garden. The Virgin Mary appeared in the front yard and became her

confidant.

THEODORE

I think if she had had a better education, she would have become a poet. You and I alone

of all her children inherited her vivid imagination.

I - 6


PAUL

And for Mama, her children could do no wrong—at least no wrong that could not be

forgiven.

THEODORE

But the romance of being carried off by a handsome Teutonic Lochinvar soon vanished

entirely.

PAUL

Three children in four years will do that.

SARAH

I was so tired that one day I went out into the back yard and wished out loud that

someone would relieve me of all the draining demands of home and family. As soon as

the words were out of my mouth, I saw three little lights bobbing above the grass. They

were the spirits of my babies. God was going to take them from me because I wasn’t

worthy to be their mother.

PAUL

And so it came to pass.

SARAH

When we buried the last one, I fell to my knees and begged God to discipline my dark,

disobedient soul. I swore I would never complain again—even if He gave me five more

children. Or eight. Or ten. I would do my best to bear every burden and never again ask

for the load to be lightened.

PAUL

And her prayers were answered.

SARAH

I had no idea what I was asking. With ten of you pulling me every which way, I found

out what exhaustion really was. And most of you inherited that same rebellious spirit I

was trying so hard to tame in myself. Daughters with wandering eyes. Sons with restless

feet. I was heartsick with worry. But I kept my promise to God. I never complained. I

never prayed for relief—only strength.

PAUL

I came along in 1858.

SARAH

You were chubby and pink, with good healthy lungs that you put to use whenever we

were separated. When I picked you up, your blue eyes would look into mine and you’d

grin and gurgle with all the pleasure of being alive. God had truly forgiven me. We

named you Johann Paul Dreiser, Jr., after your father.

I - 7


Lights fade on SARAH DREISER

THEODORE

But we always called you Paul.

PAUL

Bigger I got—bigger in every way—less sense it made to call me “little Johann.”

Thirteen years and six kids later, we welcomed to the family—you, Theodore Herman…

THEODORE

Enough with the “Herman.” By the time I came along you older ones were mostly out of

the house. I say mostly, because every time we thought we were rid of one of you, back

you would come for a week or a month or a year.

PAUL

Sounds pathetic, but we missed our mother. The thought of her always drew us back.

From wherever we’d gone. To wherever home was at the time.

THEODORE

What a family! I smile to think of them, with their illusions, vanities, quarrels, shames…

PAUL

Just like most families, I imagine.

THEODORE

Ah, but as I say, among all our five sisters, no Louise.

PAUL

No “Sister Carrie” either.

THEODORE

Well, no. She was the heroine of my first book.

PAUL

Interesting heroine. In your book, the attractive, naïve, Sister Carrie, leaves her small

town and goes off to the big city of Chicago. There she is led astray by a married man

who leaves his wife and family, steals money from his employer, and gets her to run

away with him to New York.

THEODORE

So you read it.

PAUL

Yes. Didn’t like it much, though.

I - 8


THEODORE

Neither did the critics. Or even my publisher, for that matter. They were shocked.

Thought there was too much realism and too little art.

PAUL

Did our sister Emma read it? After all, your fiction was her real life. And your second

book, Jenny Gerhardt was it called? The destitute young heroine meets a well-to-do man

and has his illegitimate child. That’s our sister Mame’s story.

THEODORE

But you wrote about our sisters, too. Admit it. We both mined our family situation for

material.

PAUL

Yes, but I did it in my own way. Less realism, more sentiment.

III. (Song: “SHE WENT TO THE CITY”)

PAUL (singing)

I SAUNTERED DOWN THE OLD LANE WHERE I USED TO STROLL,

ARM AND ARM WITH SWEETHEART NELL,

AGAIN I MET THE OLD FOLKS AND ASKED ABOUT MY LOVE,

BUT THIS WAS ALL THAT THEY WOULD TELL:

SHE WENT TO THE CITY, ‘TWAS ALL THEY WOULD SAY,

SHE WENT TO THE CITY, FAR, FAR AWAY.

AND THEN I HEARD JUST THE FAINTEST SIGH

FROM TWO HEARTS THAT YEARNED…

SHE GREW KIND O’ RESTLESS AND WANTED TO GO,

SAID SHE’D BE BACK IN A FEW WEEKS OR SO.

SHE WENT TO THE CITY WITH A TEAR IN HER EYE,

BUT SHE NEVER RETURNED.

THEODORE

In reality, they always did return. We could not stay rid of them. But be fair, Paul. I put

myself in my books, too.

PAUL

Oh, yes, especially that real big one. What was it called?

THEODORE

The Genius

PAUL

Of course. So Emma got a book. Mame got a book. You got a real big book. Where’s my

book, Thee?

Tension rises between them

I - 9


THEODORE

If I did write a book about you, what should I call it? How about The Mediocrity?

PAUL

How about, The Success?

They glare at each other for a moment. The conversation

hovers on the brink of the abyss. THEODORE veers away

from further confrontation.

THEODORE (with a tentative smile)

Or perhaps The Mediocre Success?

PAUL (with a relieved grin)

I’ll settle for The Successful Mediocrity. … So…..

THEODORE

So, anyhow, all the while we kids were coming along in unbroken line, Father was

sinking into disaster and defeat. He built a woolen mill in Sullivan, south of Terre Haute.

The family seemed on the brink of prosperity. But the mill burned to the ground one

night. There were investors. There were farmers who had supplied the wool and not been

paid. There were vendors who had bills owed them. He swore he would pay them all

back, every cent.

PAUL

You have to admire that sense of ethics and obligation.

THEODORE

You mean that German stubbornness. When he tried to rebuild the mill, he was terribly

injured when a beam fell on him. He never really recovered. The business was wiped out.

Oh, he got other jobs, but never anything permanent. And whatever he earned went first

to his church, second to his creditors, and only then, whatever little might be left, to his

family. The crushing burden of repayment pressed down on all of us. Our patrimony was

ethical, upright poverty.

PAUL

But, Thee—before all that, Sullivan was a great place for a kid like me. Father was

making enough to keep us fed and decently clothed. We had respect in the community.

He helped build a little Catholic church, so small it felt like we Dreisers filled up half of

it. In good weather we boys would swim in the creek and play ball in the schoolyard. In

winter I went to school—when the teacher could catch me. I was easily distracted.

I - 10


THEODORE

What distractions? Mother dragged us youngest kids back to Sullivan years later. I don’t

remember there was anything much to do.

PAUL

There was plenty! All kinds of traveling shows stopped even in our little town for a night

or two. Medicine-show wagons, with singers and magicians to attract customers. Wild

West shows. Small-time theater troupes. Circuses with young ladies appearing in public

in flesh-colored tights—distraction indeed for a young lad!

And minstrel shows, white men with their faces smeared with burnt cork. Strutting

around the stage in gaudy clothes, telling jokes and funny stories, making people laugh

with comic songs and cry with sentimental ballads. I tell you, it made an impression.

THEODORE hands PAUL hat and cane from hat rack.

PAUL sings, selling the song with all the strut and swagger

he can muster.

IV. (Song: “LIZA JANE”)

PAUL (singing)

OH DE WINTER AM UPON US

AN’ DE DAYS AM COLD AN’ DREAR,

STILL I LOVES YUH, I LOVES YUH, LIZA JANE!

WATERMELONS OUT O’ SEASON

AN’ DE POSSUM’S MIGHTY DEAR,


OH, I WANTS YUH FER MAH HONEY,

YAS I WANTS YUH BY AN’ BY,

FER I LOVES YUH, I LOVES YUH, LIZA JANE!

OH, DE TURKEY AM A WINGIN’

AND DE CHICKENS ROOSTIN’ HIGH,


LIZA, LIZA, LIZA JANE,

I LOVES YUH MAH LITTLE LIZA JANE!

WHEN DE SPRINGTIME AM A COMIN’

AN’ DE BEES DEY AM A HUMMIN’

I’SE YER LUVAH IF YE WANTS ME, LIZA JANE!

PAUL performs a vigorous dance based on classic African-

American cakewalk. Big finish.

PAUL (singing, cont.)

I’SE YER LUVAH IF YE WANTS ME, LIZA JANE!

I - 11


PAUL finishes down on one knee, arms outspread in the

style of Al Jolson. He is stuck there and motions to

THEODORE and MAX, who help hoist him to his feet. He

gets out a large handkerchief and wipes his brow as

THEODORE returns the hat and cane to the hat rack.

THEODORE

Watermelon? Chicken? Possum? Uncle Tom dialect? No stereotypes in that little number.

PAUL

White audiences had certain expectations. It’s strange when you think about it. White

people didn’t like colored folks in person, but they certainly liked them up on stage.

THEODORE

As long as the colored folks on stage weren’t really colored, just white men darkened up

for the amusement of the white audience.

PAUL

The way of the world, Thee. Anyway, those shows would come through and for days

afterwards I’d entertain the other kids. Singing the songs. Trying out the dance steps.

Imitating the comic expressions. Repeating the jokes. I loved the attention. I dreamed

about what a great life it would be, traveling around, seeing places I never even heard of.

The costumes, the applause, the laughter—the girls. But about the time my pre-

adolescent mind was boiling over with those tempting images, Papa decided to offer me

up to God—at age twelve—to become a priest.

THEODORE

Ah. A sacrifice of the first-born. A gift of one of his ten healthy children. A human tithe

to the church. He stuck you in St. Meinrad’s Seminary, isolated in the hills of deepest,

darkest southern Indiana.

PAUL

Stuck is right. I stuck it out for two years, but I wasn’t cut out for the religious life. Girls

in flesh-colored tights never entertained at the Abbey.

THEODORE

Father must have been very angry and very disappointed.

PAUL

I just couldn’t face the storm that was sure to greet me if I returned home. You were all

back in Terre Haute, so I took off in the opposite direction. Found sanctuary on the farm

of the Rector family, cousins of ours. I was two counties away from Papa, and that suited

me just fine.

I - 12


THEODORE

When you did finally come home to Terre Haute, surely Father welcomed the prodigal

son home with open arms? No doubt he would have killed the fatted calf if we had one.

PAUL

Actually, I brought the fatted calf with me, kind of. The Rectors sent me home with a

couple of sides of beef. Also some clothes, some firewood, and fifty dollars.

THEODORE

For our family, that would have been a cornucopia of riches.

PAUL

Papa’s reaction was, “Iss dat all vot you got?”

THEODORE

Typical. Good imitation, by the way.

PAUL

Thanks. I was always able to do dialects—

PAUL renders each of the following in cheesy vaudeville

dialect.

Our household German, javol.

Or you want an Italian organ-grinder: Ay, paisan, you want hear Funiculi, Funicula?

Just put a coin in the monkey’s cup and I play for you, si?

Or I could do a Jewish tailor: Oy vey, what a long inseam you got. I should introduce you

to my daughter, nu?

Or a drunken Irishman: Faith and begorrah! Whiskeys all around! A toast to

St. Patrick! May he chase the British snakes from Ireland! Erin go bragh!

Or I could give you an uppity colored man: Yez, massa, you want me to sing you some

Stephen Foster? How ‘bout Old Black Joe, or mebbe Massa’s in de Cold, Cold

Ground. Yessah!

Useful talent for a young actor. But it was the German accent directors always seemed to

want me to do. My career was a three-legged stool: Papa’s voice, Mama’s inspiration,

and my own skills, such as they were.

THEODORE

On stage you exaggerated our father into an object of fun.

PAUL

My business was making people laugh. Nobody ever laughed at Papa as he really was. It

was parody, yes. But I never intended it to be mean-spirited. Audiences would have

sensed that. The jokes would have fell flat. Anyway, when I came home from the farm,

Papa took my fifty dollars and sent me out to find work. For a while I was what they used

to call a train butcher on the Evansville and Terre Haute Railroad. You remember.

They’d hire boys to go up and down the cars selling stuff to the passengers.

I - 13


MAX (chanting the sales pitch)

NEWSpapers, CANdy, CIGARettes, CEEgars! Paper, mister?

PAUL

It was a good job for a kid. Thomas Edison got his start that way, you know.

THEODORE

If you had stayed with it you might have invented the light bulb.

PAUL

My only regret about working so much was I never finished school. And I only managed

a few formal piano lessons. If I heard a song once, I could play it by ear. But I couldn’t

read sheet music if somebody put the printed song down in front of me. After six months

of instruction I could read music notes at least well enough to play something called “The

Sack Waltz.”

THEODORE

But if you could hardly read music, how were you able to compose? As you say, you

churned out a lot of songs.

PAUL

Ended up publishing a hundred and fifty, more or less. But a whole lot of Tin Pan Alley

songwriters can barely read music. That’s why they have arrangers.

THEODORE

So you think it up, somebody else writes it down.

PAUL

Exactly. Max, here, was one of my best arrangers. Say you’re in a traveling show. Every

theater has an orchestra, or at least a piano player, and usually a guy like Max that reads

music. If you’ve written down at least a melody line, you give it to him and show him

how it should go. Or maybe you just sing it to him, and he writes it down. He tries out

chords with the melody until they sound like the chords in your head. Then he makes a

nice neat copy, with your lyrics written under the right notes and everything. You pay the

guy a little.

MAX

Very little.

I - 14


PAUL

Then you send off the nice neat copy to a music publishing company in New York or

Chicago. Maybe you sell it outright. I knew a colored song writer from up in Harlem

that’d sell surefire hits for twenty-five dollars flat. Wanted the money up front and in his

pocket. But, maybe you agree to a royalty. Maybe every time they sell a copy of the sheet

music for a nickel, you collect a cent or two. It’s a gamble. If the song sits on the shelf,

you get almost nothing.

But, if it’s a hit, then you’re rich, at least until the song stops selling. You’re wearing

fancy clothes. Drinking high-class liquor. Women accept your invitations to supper and

you dine at the best restaurants. Publishers are lining up for a chance to promote the next

little ditty that pops out of your brain. And that, my boy, is how you write a song when

you can’t read music.

THEODORE

Good lord. That’s like an illiterate novelist producing a best seller.

PAUL

Have you read some of the latest novels, Thee? Apparently it’s not as difficult as you

make it out to be.

MAX

To get the real beauty of Paul’s songs, you had to sit with him, him playing the piano and

singing the song himself. He wasn’t a good pianist or a great singer, but he knew how to

do the stuff and get everything out of it.

PAUL

The real talent is to be able to sell a song to the audience. Don’t hold anything back and

they’ll overlook the deficiencies.

THEODORE

So you were back in Terre Haute, working a lot and bringing some money home, which

made Father happy, and getting in with a bad crowd, which angered him greatly.

PAUL

Didn’t know how to act in a city. I was just in from the farm. Felt like such a yokel!

Didn’t know the latest slang. Didn’t know how to dress. Didn’t know how to talk to girls.

Besides, I didn’t have any money. Gave everything I earned to Papa. Did find a crowd of

rowdy friends to hang out with. Drank a lot. Got into a few scrapes.

THEODORE

I can still hear Father getting riled up at your pals. “Loafers!” he sputtered. “Idle, good-

for-nothings!”

PAUL

I worried Mama, and I felt bad about that.

I - 15


THEODORE

But then, it was priests to the rescue!

PAUL

Some of the priests I knew at St. Meinrad had gone out into parish work. Father McCarty

started a church in Brazil, Indiana. Offered me twenty dollars a month, room and board,

to teach Catholic school. A fortune for a sixteen-year-old!

THEODORE

School teacher? You did not even finish school yourself!

PAUL

Apparently he didn’t know that. Besides, teaching was only the half of it. For the rest,

any big, dumb kid would have been suitable. I got up every day at four a.m. and worked

in the garden and cleaned out the horse stall. Mass was at seven. Fresh from the manure

pile, I served as altar boy and also played the organ. School started at nine. Then lunch,

school again, garden again, and finally supper. Then to my lonely bed and up and at it

again at four the next morning. After three months without a break, I heard the circus was

in town. Asked Father McCarty if I could go. He said certainly not. Wouldn’t do if

somebody saw the teacher from the Church of the Annunciation at a circus.

THEODORE

Girls in flesh-colored tights again.

PAUL

Exactly. So, of course I defied orders and went to the circus despite him. And of course

some neighbors saw me. And of course they told Father McCarty. And of course he

threw me out on my ear.

THEODORE

Not before sending our father a telegram complaining about his recalcitrant,

insubordinate son.

PAUL

So here comes Papa on the next train from Terre Haute. Storms into the rectory and starts

calling me every name in the book. In English and in German.

Using his father’s accent

This good priest, he tries to help you, to save you from the Evil One. And you repay him

how? Mit disobedience. Mit insolence. Shame you bring on him. Shame you bring on his

church. Shame you bring on me—and on your Mama who loves you. So—you want to

see the big wide world? Then go. Take the path that leads to eternity in Hell. Go to jail.

Go to the grave. Go to the devil. It is all the same to me. I wash my hands of you.

I - 16


V. (Song: “THE PATH THAT LEADS THE OTHER WAY”)

PAUL (singing as JOHANN DREISER)

I TRIED TO SET YOUR FEET UPON THE

ROAD TO RIGHTEOUSNESS,

BUT FOR YOURSELF YOU CHOOSE TO LIVE

A LIFE OF WICKEDNESS.

I LEAVE YOU TO THE SUFFERINGS

THAT YOU’LL FIND EVERY DAY,

WHILE WANDERING DOWN THE PATH THAT LEADS

THE OTHER WAY.

Lights come up on SARAH DREISER in the actress’s area

in an attitude of prayer. She continues the song.

SARAH (singing)

OH, BLESSED MARY, HEAR MY PRAYER,

WHAT AM I TO DO?

I KNOW YOU FEEL MY ACHING HEART,

FOR YOU’RE A MOTHER, TOO.

PROTECT MY SON, I BEG OF YOU,

AND BRING HIM BACK SOME DAY

FROM WANDERING DOWN THE PATH THAT LEADS

THE OTHER WAY.

PAUL (singing as JOHANN DREISER)

A FATHER’S WRATH SHALL FOLLOW HIM…

SARAH DREISER (singing)

A MOTHER’S PRAYER SHALL FOLLOW HIM…

BOTH (singing)

DOWN THE DARK AND WINDING PATH THAT LEADS

THE OTHER WAY.

Lights fade on SARAH DREISER

THEODORE

You were his oldest child. You carried his name! You would have thought you had

committed murder!

I - 17


PAUL (as himself)

To Papa, committing murder and disobeying a priest were pretty much on the same level.

I threw what clothes I had into my suitcase and set out for parts unknown. Made it as far

as the next street corner. Just stood there, tears running down my face into the gutter. I

was broke and didn’t have any idea what to do or where to go. But then Charley Kelley

came along. Itinerant banjo player and patent medicine salesman. Didn’t even have a

wagon. Just sold the bottles of magic elixir out of his backpack.

THEODORE

Obviously a solid, respectable businessman with whom a boy might have a secure future.

PAUL

You talk like I had a choice. Saw Charley doing his act and got up the nerve to ask if he

needed a partner. We’d walk from town to town. He’d draw a crowd with his banjo and

then I’d sing to the people while he sold the medicine and took their money.

THEODORE

I think I see where this is heading.

PAUL

Some days we’d make as much as seven dollars. Then one night, I was singing my

program of minstrel songs and sentimental tunes. I was paying a good deal of attention to

a young lady in the front row. Winking and smiling and acting like every song was just

about the two of us, you know.

PAUL makes eye contact with a female member of the

audience and sings directly to her.

VI. (Song: “COME TELL ME WHAT’S YOUR ANSWER,

YES OR NO”)

PAUL (singin)

BY THE STARS THAT BRIGHTLY SHINE TONIGHT, LOVE,

I SWEAR THAT I LOVE YOU.

BY YONDER MOON THAT SHEDS ITS MELLOW LIGHT, LOVE,

I PROMISE I’LL BE TRUE.

BY THE MEM’RY OF A SACRED PAST, LOVE,

IN SUNSHINE, RAIN, OR WINTER’S ICY BLAST, LOVE,

UNENDING MY DEVOTION TO THE LAST, LOVE.

WHAT MORE CAN I SAY TO YOU?

WHEN I PLACE MY ARMS AROUND YOU, SWEETHEART,

WHEN I TELL TO YOU MY TALE OF LOVE,

OF THE FUTURE WHICH NOW LIES BEFORE US,

FAR BRIGHTER THAN THE SKIES ABOVE,

(more)

I - 18


PAUL (Continuing song)

DO NOT THINK IT JUST AN IDLE FANCY,

FOR ALL THE WORLD A LOVER LOVES, YOU KNOW.

‘TIS TRUE MANKIND IS FICKLE, STILL I LOVE YOU,

COME TELL ME WHAT’S YOUR ANSWER, YES OR NO?

PAUL (cont.)

That girl, she’d smile back and blush quite prettily. I could hardly take my eyes off her.

When I did finally look up, Charley was gone. Faded into the night, medicine, backpack,

banjo, and all. No sign of him. Or the seventy-eight dollars we’d managed to accumulate

walking up and down all over half the state of Indiana. Me, I found myself trying to

explain to the county sheriff why I couldn’t pay the bills we’d racked up for room and

board and hall rent.

THEODORE

No doubt he understood you were only an innocent victim of a deceitful criminal who

had proved unworthy of your trust.

PAUL

Oh, yeah. He understood me right into a cell in the county jail. I was scared, I tell you.

Alone, friendless. But when I started eating my way through the county’s budget for

feeding prisoners, he let me out and escorted me to the town limits.

THEODORE

So, having learned your lesson about how the cold, cruel world treats a homeless lad, you

skedaddled back to Terre Haute.

PAUL

Show up on Papa’s doorstep, raggedy, broke, and dirty? Oh, no. I was for sure ready to

head down any path that led the other way. Decided to set off for the big city of limitless

opportunity. Indianapolis. Only had to walk a hundred miles or so to get there. Slogged

all that first day through an icy drizzle. Wet, cold, and starving. Totally miserable.

When it got dark, I started knocking on cabin doors. All I wanted was to sleep in

somebody’s barn and then be gone in the morning. They sic’d their dogs on me, Thee!

When I burrowed into a haystack out in a field, a guy came after me with a pitchfork!

But then, when I thought I couldn’t go another step, I found another door to knock on.

This time I was very lucky. Farmer and his wife turned out to be real Good Samaritans.

Took me in. Fed me. Gave me a bed. A real bed! Gave my clothes back to me the next

morning. Clean. Dry. And when the farmer’s back was turned, the wife dug her hand into

an old tin can over the stove and slipped me a quarter. Wanted to be sure I could buy

myself something to eat when I got hungry.

(more)

I - 19


PAUL (cont.)

I learned a great lesson from those people, Thee, a great lesson. About how much

difference you can make in a person’s life if you just show them a little kindness when

they need it. Finally, one week to the day after they let me out of jail, I found myself

sitting on the steps of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Indianapolis.

THEODORE

And no doubt a priest found you there on the doorstep.

PAUL

He looked down at me and said, “Isn’t this Paul Dreiser?” Turned out he’d been the priest

in that little church in Sullivan. Now here he was pastoring a big, new church in

Indianapolis.

THEODORE

God works in mysterious ways.

PAUL

Or possibly Mama. I think she wrote to every priest she and Papa knew, asking them to

keep an eye out for me.

THEODORE

And I bet he needed a school teacher.

PAUL

How’d you guess? Oh, he watched me pretty close. No circuses. No girls. And he made

me save my money. At the end of the term he gave me the 400 dollars I earned. Bought

me a train ticket. Told me I needed to go home and reconcile with my father.

Continues in his father’s accent

From the priest in Indianapolis a letter I got. He says, to you I should give another

chance. He says, you have changed. Well, we will see about that. He also says he gave

you four hundred dollars. That you will give to me. Now go out and find a job. Show me

for once you can contribute to the welfare of this family. Show me that you can obey Gott

im Himmel and bring honor to your parents, instead of disgrace.

THEODORE

I imagine that 400 dollars made the reconciliation go better than it might have otherwise.

PAUL (as himself)

But I was right back where I was before I ever left. Living in Papa’s house. Handing over

whatever money I earned. Listening to his constant refrain about what a bad influence I

was on my brothers and sisters. I started drinking pretty heavy again.

THEODORE

Late one night, when you were nicely drunk but still thirsty, you visited two of your

favorite saloons. Unfortunately they were closed at the time.

I - 20


MAX (as JUDGE)

Raps on the piano

We will now hear the case of the State of Indiana versus Johann Paul Dreiser, Jr. Mr.

Dreiser, you are charged with breaking and entering. How do you plead?

PAUL

Not guilty, your honor. I entered, o.k., but I never broke anything. I found a key and

accidently noticed it fitted the saloon door. It opened real smooth and easy.

MAX (as JUDGE)

Don’t try to be amusing, Mr. Dreiser. This is not some second-rate minstrel show. You

are also charged with theft—several bottles of liquor and some blank checks. I am told

your father is a faithful communicant of the Roman Catholic Church. He must be very

disappointed in you. I understand he refused even to post bail for you in this matter.

PAUL

It was three hundred dollars, your honor. Our family doesn’t have that kind of money. He

couldn’t have paid it if he wanted to.

MAX (as JUDGE)

But he didn’t want to, isn’t that right?

PAUL

No, your honor, he didn’t. He said maybe cooling my heels in jail would help me see the

error of my ways.

MAX (as JUDGE)

I agree with him, Mr. Dreiser. You have already spent ten weeks as a guest of the county,

awaiting trial. I sentence you to an additional thirty days. May you use that time to give

deep consideration to the direction your life’s path is leading you.

THEODORE

A hundred days in the Vigo County jail! It must have been horrible.

PAUL

The food was slop. Didn’t get a bath or change of clothes the whole time. Smelled

terrible. And the company wasn’t the best, that’s for sure. But, hey, it’s all grist for the

mill. There’s a song in every experience, if you look deep enough.

VII. (Song: “THE CONVICT AND THE BIRD”)

PAUL (singing)

A CONVICT SAT IN A PRISON CELL,

DOOM’D ALL THE DAYS OF HIS LIFE,

AND HIS THOUGHTS WENT OUT TO THE ONES HE LOVED,

TO HIS HOME, TO HIS BABE AND HIS WIFE.

I - 21


THEODORE

Babe? Wife?

PAUL

Artistic license, Thee.

Continues song

A SONGSTER LIT ON HIS WINDOW SILL,

AND THE POOR SOUL’S HEART WAS STIRRED;

FOR HE SEEMED TO SING OF THE DAYS GONE BY,

CRIED THE CONVICT TO THE BIRD:

COME TO ME EACH DAY.

COME TO ME I PRAY.

THOU MESSENGER OF FREEDOM

COME TO ME.

LET ME HEAR EACH NOTE

THAT BUBBLES FROM THY THROAT.

THE CONVICT LIKE THE BIRD WOULD FAIN BE FREE.

THEODORE

I remember when you got out. I was, what, five? I found you hiding in the outhouse.

PAUL

I was dirty. Smelled awful. I couldn’t just walk into Mama’s clean house. Besides, Papa

might be home. Didn’t want to face him in that condition.

THEODORE

You had me go find mother and tell her where you were.

PAUL

She came out and hugged me, Thee! Despite the heartache I caused her. In spite of the

reek! She burned my clothes and heated water for my first bath in over a month. She

scrubbed me clean. Then she put her arms around me and we cried. I was an eighteen-

year-old man, and she held me like I was her baby boy again. And I sobbed like a baby,

too. All the time begging her to forgive me for what I put her through. I was so ashamed.

THEODORE

And she did forgive you. Our mother always forgave us. No transgression was ever too

grievous for her all-forgiving heart. … Not so our father, of course. In rejecting his

version of morality, you were rejecting him and all he stood for.

PAUL

It was unbearable. Then salvation rolled into town. The Lemon Brothers Minstrel and

Medicine Show arrived needing an organist and lead singer. I had experience, of

course….

I - 22


THEODORE

Thanks to Charley Kelly….

PAUL

The Lemon Brothers had a wagon and everything. I was for sure on that wagon when it

left town. I was headed down the road to who knows where, but I didn’t care. I was going

away from Papa and probably away from a future in the state penitentiary. I had Mama’s

blessing. Made sure of that. We shed more tears, but she knew I couldn’t survive in Terre

Haute, not under Papa’s roof.

Lights come up on SARAH DREISER in the actress’s area

VIII. (Song: “YOU’RE GOING FAR AWAY LAD”)

SARAH (singing)

A YOUTH OF SIXTEEN SUMMERS

STOOD AT AN OLD FARM GATE.

BESIDE HIM STOOD HIS MOTHER.

THE HOUR WAS GROWING LATE.

‘MID SOBS AND TEARS SHE BLESSED HIM

AND SMOOTHED HIS SILKEN HAIR.

WHILE TRUDGING DOWN THE LANE

THESE WORDS CAME ON THE EVENING AIR:

“YOU’RE GOING FAR AWAY LAD,

IN DISTANT LANDS TO ROAM.

YOU LEAVE BEHIND YOUR MOTHER

AND THE OLD, OLD HOME.

NO MATTER WHAT BEFALLS YOU,

BE ALWAYS OF GOOD CHEER.

WHEN FRIENDS DESERT, REMEMBER

THAT I’M STILL YOUR MOTHER DEAR.”

PAUL remains in his area but joins SARAH for another

chorus

I - 23


PAUL & SARAH (duet)

“YOU’RE GOING FAR AWAY LAD,

IN DISTANT LANDS TO ROAM.

YOU LEAVE BEHIND YOUR MOTHER

AND THE OLD, OLD HOME.

NO MATTER WHAT BEFALLS YOU,

BE ALWAYS OF GOOD CHEER.

WHEN FRIENDS DESERT, REMEMBER

THAT I’M STILL YOUR MOTHER DEAR.”

SARAH begins putting on her shawl and bonnet, picks up a

small traveling case.

THEODORE

You escaped. Deep in my childish heart I was so angry! I felt bereft, abandoned. That

was always my greatest fear. You know, whenever her youngest children became too

much for her, Mother would threaten to leave us. She’d don her shawl and bonnet and

pack a small suitcase and start to go. We’d hang onto her skirts, weeping and wailing.

“Mama, don’t go! We’ll be good, Mama. Don’t leave us. Please, Mama. Please, Mama.”

Eventually she would graciously agree to stay and we would be quiet and obedient—until

the next time. Long after she died, I still dreamt of her leaving me and I’d wake up in

tears. Yes, she drew us to her with ribbons of unconditional love. But through many

subtle, artful ways, she bound us to her with hooks of steel.

Lights fade on SARAH

PAUL

I was only thinking of my present freedom and future fame. I went here, there, and

everywhere. All those faraway places I dreamed about in Sullivan. Not with the Lemon

Brothers. They went broke pretty quick. But I wasn’t about to go back home with my tail

between my legs. No, not again. I had real experience now. Made my way to Chicago and

got on with the biggest patent medicine operation in the country.

MAX

(Holds up bottle and declaims in full huckster mode)

Hamlin’s Wizard Oil! Guaranteed to cure every ache and pain in man or beast! Relieves

rheumatism. Loosens your lame back! Headache, toothache, earache? Gone in minutes

after one glass of Wizard Oil. Likewise your sore throat, diphtheria, catarrh, neuralgia.

Not to mention inflammation of the kidneys, ulcers, fever sores, and cholera morbus! In

short, ladies and gentlemen, Wizard Oil will relieve every affliction, from any cause or

origin, whatsoever! Who will be the first to step up and buy this marvelous elixir? After

only one bottle, your step will lighten. Your outlook will improve. You will feel like a

person half your age!

I - 24


THEODORE

Your outlook will improve? I should hope so. Did you ever read what was in that magic

nostrum?

Takes bottle from MAX, reads label

Camphor, ammonia, chloroform, sassafras, cloves. Turpentine! All blended together with

copious amounts of alcohol. If that wouldn’t make you feel like a frisky twenty-year-old,

nothing would.

PAUL

Whatever it had in it, Hamlin sold vats and vats of it. He had seventy troupes—seventy—

canvassing the country from one end to the other. Every one had a driver, a lecturer to

extol the virtues of the product, and a male quartet to loosen up the crowd with songs and

skits. We had a pump organ where I presided. And out of the wardrobe trunk came our

silk top hats, our stylish frock coats, our sharply creased pinstripe pants, our patent

leather shoes, and our bright-colored spats. Oh, we were the picture of good-looking,

vigorous, healthy young men.

THEODORE

Thanks, of course, to regular swigs of Wizard Oil.

PAUL

Takes bottle of Wizard Oil from THEODORE, pours some

in his glass before passing the bottle back to MAX

We could sing and dance our way right into your hearts.

THEODORE

And into your pocket-books.

PAUL

It was a great opportunity. That’s when I started writing my own songs. The Hamlin

managers let me sing them in the shows. They were really just imitations of other

composers. But I was learning. Nothing like trying out your stuff in front of a live

audience to see what works and what doesn’t. Hamlins even packaged some of my songs

into a booklet called “The Paul Dresser Songster.” Naturally it included lots of ads for the

Wizard Oil. But it sold real well at the shows. I got half. My first sales! I was now a

professional songwriter no less. And I was living well. Fourteen dollars a week salary.

Plus as much as six to ten more from my share of the songster. I bought good clothes. I

could ask girls to dinner after the performances. Thought to myself, maybe I actually

have a future in this business.

THEODORE

Your path was leading upward, all right. On the other hand, those you left behind were

continuing our slide downward, always downward. It got so bad, as little as I was, I had

to pick up coal along the railroad tracks to keep the furnace going. Once Mother sent me

(more)

I - 25


THEODORE (cont.)

to the store to buy cornmeal. She gave me fifty cents and somehow I lost it. It was her

last fifty cents. Losing it was a calamity.

Finally they decided the only way to keep the family afloat was to split us up. The older

girls would stay in Terre Haute under Father’s all-seeing eye. They’d get jobs and maybe

keep out of trouble.

Mother moved back to Sullivan and opened a boarding house for railroad workers and

coal miners. We youngest kids went with her.

The plan was bound to fail. Mother had no head for business. The boarders ate more than

she could afford. They paid late or else skipped out in the middle of the night.

What I remember most is Mother bent over a washtub. She did the laundry for our family

and the boarders. Laundry for the storekeeper’s family to pay for shoes. Laundry for the

landlord’s family so we wouldn’t be evicted. Week after week, tons of laundry. And all

that was on top of the cleaning, baking, gardening, and canning. How she held up, I’ll

never know.

And things only got worse. The last winter in Sullivan we lived on corn-meal mush—

which we had to walk miles to get, to the only store that would still give us credit. Mother

was on the verge of collapse from the toil and the worry.

PAUL

I knew it. I got the strongest feeling she was in trouble. I was traveling all over the

country but I couldn’t shake the feeling I needed to be home. I went to Terre Haute, but

Papa said you all were in Sullivan. I got on the train worried to death.

During the following song, THEODORE helps PAUL put on a long

fur overcoat and a tall silk hat and gives him a gold-headed

walking stick, making him the image of newfound success.

IX. (Song: “YOUR MOTHER WANTS YOU HOME, BOY”)

MAX (singing)

A MOTHER NEAR A WINDOW ON A STORMY WINTER’S NIGHT

THINKS OF ONE WHO WANDERED FROM THE FOLD.

THE TIE THAT BINDS HER HEARTSTRINGS

IS BROKEN AND SHE PRAYS

IN SILENCE TO THE SHEPHERD KING OF OLD;

FOR YEARS SHE NEVER FALTERED,

KNOWING THAT THE CLOUDS WOULD BREAK,

THE LAMP IN HER HEART NEVER FAILS TO BURN.

(more)

I - 26


MAX ( singing cont.)

IN SOME FAR DISTANT CITY A WOND’RER HEARS A VOICE,

THE VOICE OF MOTHER BIDDING HIM RETURN.

AND WHEN THE NIGHTS ARE STORMY

AND WHEN THE COLD WINDS BLOW,

SHE STANDS THERE BY THE WINDOW

WITH AN ACHING HEART I KNOW.

SHE LOOKS INTO THE DARKNESS

WITH FACE SO PALE AND SAD,

YOUR MOTHER WANTS YOU HOME, BOY,

AND SHE WANTS YOU MIGHTY BAD.

YOUR MOTHER WANTS YOU HOME, BOY,

AND SHE WANTS YOU MIGHTY BAD.

Piano continues. Lights come up on SARAH, sitting on a

settee in the actress’s area. As THEODORE looks on,

PAUL knocks on the piano as though on a cabin door.

SARAH rises from her settee and walks toward PAUL.

SARAH

Yes? Who is it? … Paul!? Oh, Paul! Thank God you’re here!

Piano still continues as they embrace. PAUL walks SARAH

to her settee and sits with her a few moments. He kisses her

cheek and reluctantly returns to his place near the piano.

THEODORE helps him off with the coat, hat, and cane,

replacing them on the hat rack. Lights fade on SARAH as

the piano finishes.

THEODORE

And so the hero appears at the last possible moment and rescues the distressed woman

and her hungry little children. A scenario worthy of the most tear-jerking melodrama!

PAUL

Or a book, Thee. It’d make a great book, don’t you agree?

THEODORE

Into our house of darkness you brought light and laughter and hope. You gave Mother the

money in your pocket and told her she would never have to wash anyone else’s clothes

ever again. And you kept that promise, Paul. You kept it till she died.

I - 27


PAUL

It was little enough after all she did for me. Anyway, I was coming up in the world. A

minstrel troupe needed an end man to finish out the season and hired me on. There I was,

my face smeared with burnt cork, strutting my stuff just like I imagined it as a kid.

Touring with them taught me even more about making a living as an entertainer.

But after that it was back to the medicine shows. One of them finally brought me to

Evansville, Indiana, on the banks of the Ohio, far away.

MAX

The Lightning Liniment Company.

PAUL

We were a big hit. I was, anyhow. The managers of Evansville’s Apollo Theatre saw how

I could attract the locals. Asked me to stay and headline their resident troupe of

entertainers. I opened to great reviews.

MAX (reading newspaper)

“With his humorous songs, Paul Dresser literally took the house by storm.”

PAUL

That’s when I finally started calling myself “Paul Dresser” full time. Americans can’t

pronounce German names. Dresser was just easier on a marquee or a billboard, or on a

piece of sheet music. The Apollo job was a chance to get off the road for a while. Lot

easier to work on sharpening up the act without traveling bumpy backroads to one-night

stands. Nice thing, whenever the theater was closed, I could still do dates in other cities—

places I could get to by train instead of wagon.

MAX (as TRAIN CONDUCTOR)

Next stop—Chicago, Boston, New Haven, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati,

Louisville, Indianapolis, and all points in between! New York next stop! New York City!

Ladies and gentlemen, you have arrived!

PAUL

September, 1881. Never forget it. H.C. Miner’s Theatre on the Bowery.

MAX (as himself)

The first appearance at this theatre of the Eccentric Comic, Paul Dresser!

PAUL

I was so proud of myself. Here I was, twenty-three years old, playing New York. Not

Broadway, no, but New York nonetheless. The usual vaudeville program. Fourteen

acts—dialect comics, girl singers, jig dancers, even a comic Irish drill team. Nine

performances a week, six nights and three matinees. Loved every minute. Man, you learn

(more)

I - 28


PAUL (cont.)

a lot from watching other people work, and I worked with a lot of people in my time.

Good acts. Bad acts. Dog acts--I’ve been upstaged by plenty of those. Cat acts, even.

How the heck do you train a cat? I was just headed back to Evansville, coming off that…

MAX

Triumphant!

PAUL

…tour, when I found you all in Sullivan.

THEODORE

I remember after you left you sent us a box of some of your old clothes for mother to

make over for me.

PAUL

At least there was plenty of material.

THEODORE

Also a dress and slippers for Mother. A complete First Communion ensemble for our

youngest sister. And good lord, the groceries. We hadn’t eaten that well in a year. What a

difference a little money and a generous son and brother made in our miserable lives.

Then there was the visit from the mysterious stranger…

PAUL

Sally Walker, the love of my life.

THEODORE

Another reason you chose to dawdle in Evansville.

Lights come up on SALLY WALKER in the actress’s area,

sitting on the settee, brushing her hair. The actress’s area

is now a bordello sitting-room. area.

PAUL

Approaching, but not entering, the SALLY’S area

X. (Song: “MY GAL SAL”)

PAUL (singing)

THEY CALLED HER FRIVOLOUS SAL,

A PECULIAR SORT OF A GAL,

WITH A HEART THAT WAS MELLOW,

AN ALL ‘ROUND GOOD FELLOW,

WAS MY OLD PAL.

(more)

I - 29


PAUL (singing cont.)

YOUR TROUBLES, SORROWS AND CARE

SHE WAS ALWAYS WILLING TO SHARE.

A WILD SORT OF DEVIL,

BUT DEAD ON THE LEVEL,

WAS MY GAL SAL.

THEODORE

She came up to Sullivan to see us. I remember a handsome woman sitting in our parlor

beaming at mother. She was a few years older than you, I think.

PAUL

Age never mattered to me. I had, well, a catholic taste in women—young, old, beautiful,

homely, single, married—as long as they were female and susceptible to my charms.

THEODORE

You constantly wrote and sang about young maidenhood, aglow with sweet innocence.

But really, you liked your women just a little on the savage side. That certainly applied to

Miss Walker. She was, shall we say, a working woman.

PAUL (with pride)

My Sally owned and operated Evansville’s most imposing, most successful bordello. For

a house of ill repute, it had an excellent reputation.

THEODORE

Mother didn’t know that, of course. She was quite taken with her during her visit.

PAUL

Sally knew how to ingratiate herself with anyone.

THEODORE

Afterward we started getting gifts from her as well as from you. Her employees

contributed a number of remarkable second-hand garments that mother had no idea what

to do with.

PAUL

Sally insisted we had to bring you all to Evansville, where I could watch over you

properly. We found a nice little cottage. Sally bought the furnishings, and I took on

paying the rent.

THEODORE

I can still picture mother, the first time she saw it, crying tears of happiness. You standing

behind her, patting her shoulder. Sally herself was absent, of course.

I - 30


PAUL

She was always discrete. Her establishment was in another part of town, and she thought

if she kept a little aloof Mama need never find out what she did for a living.

Pause as he enters SALLY’S area

But you knew about Sally, didn’t you Sport?

THEODORE

In all innocence Mother sent me, at just eleven years old, to take Sally a basket of

homemade preserves, to thank her for all her kindness.

As he crosses toward SALLY’S area, MAX hands him a

basket filled with jars of home-canned preserves.

I finally found the place. A Negro servant ushered me upstairs, down a long hallway.

Suddenly I was in a lovely suite of rooms with a grand view of the Ohio River. There was

Sally, in an elaborate pink and white dressing gown. And you, buttoning your vest.

SALLY

Well, what have we here. I think you may be a little too young, kid. Come back when

you’re older.

PAUL

Momentarily confused to see THEODORE there in that

place

Sally, maybe you remember my brother Theodore. What’s up, Thee? Is Mama o.k.?

THEODORE

A little tongue-tied with wonder and confusion, staring

wide-eyed at the two of them

She, she’s fine.

PAUL

What you got in the basket?

THEODORE

Uh, preserves.

PAUL

Preserves.

THEODORE

Pause as he recovers somewhat

Uh, Mother sent them for Miss Walker. You know, to thank her for her help with the

house.

SALLY

Softening, she takes the basket

That’s very nice, kid. It’ll be a real treat. My girls will love it. Thank your mother for me.

I - 31


PAUL

C’mon, Sport, I’ll show you out.

As he ushers him out, PAUL hands THEODORE some

coins.

Here. Get yourself something at the candy store on your way home. You know, it might

be better not to tell Mama every detail of your visit.

THEODORE

Breathless with pre-adolescent excitement

Paul! When I was coming down the hall, I passed an open bedroom door. Paul, there was

blond woman in there. She was putting on makeup. Her robe was open and I saw her

breast. All of it!

PAUL

Good for you. But that’s the kind of detail Mama doesn’t need to hear about. Let it just be

your own private daydream.

THEODORE moves toward his area. PAUL turns toward

SALLY

SALLY

You know, one of these days that kid will be back. Here or someplace like it. And it

won’t be to deliver no jars of preserves.

PAUL

When the time comes, I’ll make sure he knows what to do.

PAUL moves back to his area. Lights fade on SALLY.

THEODORE

And you were as good as your word. Later in New York, we passed some women on the

street. They smiled like they knew you. You commented they were French ladies. I said, I

always wanted to learn French. You paid for one of them to give me an hour of her time.

Till I got there I didn’t know that you were talking about the French tongue and not the

French language.

We were so proud of you. Your picture was on fences and billboards all over town. You

were a big deal. And you were so good to us. You’d show up at the house with

watermelon or ice cream. Toys at Christmas. Firecrackers on Fourth of July. You gave us

tickets to the shows you were in. We kids were so star-struck, we even put on a show of

our own in our barn. All the neighbor kids got infested with chicken-lice. You’d play ball

with us in the yard. Well, you’d bat fungos at us.

I - 32


PAUL

Running my increasing bulk around the bases was not an attractive prospect. I sweated

enough just standing at home plate swinging the bat.

THEODORE

You were concerned at all times to look neat and clean and perfectly dressed. Your suits

and linen were fresh and well-tailored. Always the latest style.

PAUL

Never wanted to look like a slob. If your clothes are immaculate and fit well, you don’t

look fat. You look prosperous.

THEODORE

Father stayed in Terre Haute, where he had connections and was given work when he was

able. But he’d come down for the occasional weekend. And he made certain we were

properly enrolled in a Catholic school where authoritarian German pedagogues attempted

to teach us by force.

PAUL

Papa forgave me everything, when he saw I was employed and generous to the family.

THEODORE

Paul, how many “mother” songs did you write, anyway?

PAUL

At least forty. Maybe more. Why?

THEODORE

But not one father song. No fathers waiting by the window. No fathers with tears in their

eyes as they send their sons off to war. Not one.

PAUL

Who’d ever want to sing about Papa? But the Good Book doesn’t say we have to honor

our mothers and fathers the same way. The way I found to honor Papa, I went to church.

Such a simple thing. Religion was the most important thing to him. You could either

reject it, as you did…

THEODORE

Absolutely. Categorically.

PAUL

Even though your very name, Theodore, the name Papa gave you, means “God-Given.”

Or you could choose to believe, like I do. Maybe not in the terrors, but maybe in the

comforts and the promises. And you could practice that faith as best you could.

I - 33


THEODORE

Evansville was a wonderful place. Exciting. A real city compared to Sullivan or even

Terre Haute. But our two-years in Eden ended when you and Sally broke up.

PAUL

She was always jealous, even though she knew I would occasionally see other women.

We’d fight now and then, but given her position, she could hardly insist on fidelity from

me.

SALLY enters

SALLY

Yeah, but when I found him with one of my girls, that was the last straw. I didn’t expect

undying love, but I did demand respect. I threw them both out.

PAUL

I was ready to move on anyhow. Evansville had served its purpose.

SALLY

So had I, apparently.

PAUL

But I did love you, Sally. I always remembered you fondly. Heck, I wrote “My Gal Sal”

twenty years after we broke up. My sister Louise made a big hit of it.

THEODORE

Louise wasn’t our sister… Oh, never mind.

PAUL

No matter how many other women there were—and there were a lot of them—I could

never forget you.

SALLY

And for me there were a lot of other men. Still, there was always you. Always.

XI. (Song: “THE OLD FLAME FLICKERS…”)

SALLY (singing)

OH, VAIN REGRET, WHY LINGER YET,

WHY COME YOU NOW AGAIN?

WHY PANGS IMPART, TO AN ACHING HEART,

A HEART HALF DEAD WITH PAIN?

I LOVED HIM YES, THAT I’LL CONFESS,

WHEN EVENING TIME DRAWS NIGH,

THAT SAME SWEET FACE IN EV’RY PLACE,

I SEE AND WONDER WHY.

I - 34


PAUL joins SALLY for the chorus

PAUL & SALLY (singing)

STILL THE OLD FLAME FLICKERS, AND I WONDER WHY,

FOR WE HAVE NOT MET IN MANY YEARS.

NOW AND AGAIN THERE COMES A PAIN,

A FEELING I SOMETIMES FELT WHEN IN TEARS.

WE’RE STRANGERS NOW, NO BINDING VOW,

FORGET THE PAST I TRY.

WHEN DAY IS DONE, AND I’M ALL ALONE

SALLY (singing)

THE OLD FLAME FLICKERS…

PAUL (singing)

THE OLD FLAME FLICKERS…

BOTH (singing)

THE OLD FLAME FLICKERS,

AND I WONDER WHY.

Piano segues into a four-bar reprise of MY GAL SAL as

PAUL and SALLY blow farewell kisses. They freeze in a

tableau, each with an arm extended toward the other, as

THEODORE looks on. Lights fade as piano finishes.

BLACKOUT

END ACT I

II – 35


ACT II

SETTING: Same as ACT I. In

the darkness a piano is heard.

XII. (Song: MY GAL SAL [instrumental])

As piano finishes, lights come up on PAUL and

THEODORE in their respective areas. Lights remain down

on MAY HOWARD in the actress’s area, which has become

a vaudeville dressing room.

THEODORE

Three of our sisters were working in Chicago. After you and Sally broke up, they found a

nice six-room apartment for Mother and us kids up there. We thought you were going

back on the road, but you disappeared for a while.

PAUL

I had a sick baby to take care of.

THEODORE

Baby? How’d you get a baby?

PAUL

The usual way, Thee. The usual way. When I was on the rebound from Sally, I met May

Howard. Queen of the burlesque circuit. Maybe I was vulnerable because she was so

much like Sally. Her looks. Her earthiness. Her bawdy sense of humor.

As PAUL was speaking, lights have come up on MAY

HOWARD touching up her makeup.

THEODORE

The fact that she was a woman.

PAUL

That, too. One thing led to another. The business being what it is, we soon go our

separate ways. But then I get a telegram saying she’s “with child” and it has to be mine.

She had to stop performing, of course, before she started to show. I dropped everything

and went to be with her.

THEODORE

You married her?

PAUL

Course not. You know I’m not the marrying kind. May was, though.

II – 36


MAY turns toward the audience.

MAY

I liked getting married so much I did it four times. Just never to Paul. Marriage is easy.

But pregnancy was hard. I was so sick, months on my back. Then labor almost did me in.

Hours and hours of pain and exhaustion. When the baby finally came, the midwife said,

you better prepare yourself. She’s a beautiful little girl, but she’s so weak and sickly, she

can’t possibly live very long. …I barely survived the birth. I couldn’t face the death. As

soon as I could stuff my body back into my stage costumes, I got on a train back to my

old life.

PAUL

You left me to see our daughter into her grave all by myself. I was the one who barely

survived. I was crazy with grief. And as for you, I was so angry at you I couldn’t think of

anything but the tortures and suffering you deserved, leaving us like that.

XIII. (Song: “THE CURSE”)

PAUL (singing angrily)

‘TIS ENDED, SHE’S GONE. FORGIVE HER, NO NEVER.

GONE TO THE DEVIL, FOREVER, FOREVER.

THE CURSE OF THE AGES SHALL FOLLOW HER ON

‘TIL DOWN IN THE EARTH SHALL SHE GROVEL,

A MIS’RABLE WRETCH IN A POTTER’S FIELD GRAVE

TO THE REQUIEM CLANG OF THE SHOVEL.

THEODORE

You tried to rhyme “grovel” and “shovel”?

PAUL

You don’t always do your best work in the heat of emotion, I admit. But it sure felt good

to get it out. What’s that big Greek word?

THEODORE

Catharsis?

PAUL

Yeah. Catharsis.

Lights fade on MAY

II – 37


PAUL

After May left, I sunk down into gloom and unhappiness. Don’t know what I’d have done

if Fatty Steward hadn’t come knocking. Fatty was, as you’d guess, another performer of

extravagant girth. He wrote a three-act farce called “The Two Johns,” about a couple of

brothers, Philip and Peter Johns. The whole point of the thing was that these guys were

really fat. The dialogue was one fat joke after another, with fat songs and fat dances

thrown in. The only thing thin about it was the plot. I pulled myself together and signed

on for the 1886-87 season. And suddenly the clouds lifted. After two years of blocked

inspiration, out came a terrific song. I was just finishing it up when I hear from Max

Sturm.

MAX

Not me. Another Max entirely.

PAUL

But like Max Hoffman, here, Max Sturm was a good music arranger. He says, [using a

New York accent], Dresser, I just got married. My wife’s a great performer, but her act

needs a signature song. You got anything? [Drop accent] And I says, maybe. Requires

just the right singer, though. Who is this girl?

Lights come up on MAY HOWARD, who stands and

prepares for her entrance.

MAX (as STAGE MANAGER)

Cue Miss Howard! May Howard back to the stage, please.

Lights fade in actress’s area as MAY enters PAUL’S area

THEODORE

You have to be joking. May, you didn’t waste any time replacing my brother in your

affections.

MAY

Like I told you, I like getting married.

PAUL

If you did actually marry him. I never saw any proof.

MAY

I remembered, when I was laying there pregnant, listening to you at the piano trying out

ideas for a sad song about a letter. I told Max to find out if you ever got around to

finishing it.

II – 38


PAUL

“The Letter That Never Came.” I was at the Dayton Soldiers Home. They had a good-

sized theater. All the acts and shows played there. One day, I’m talking to a clerk at the

welcome desk. This doddering old soldier comes up and asks if a letter came for him. The

clerk said, no, nothing today, and the old guy sadly shuffled off. Clerk says, he comes

and asks every day if there’s a letter, but there never is. Well, I could never get the old

guy’s look of disappointment out of my mind.

XIV. (Song: “THE LETTER THAT NEVER CAME”)

MAY (singing)

A LETTER HERE FOR ME? WAS THE QUESTION THAT HE ASKED

OF THE MAILMAN AT THE CLOSING OF THE DAY.

HE TURNED SADLY WITH A SIGH,

WHILE A TEAR STOOD IN HIS EYE,

THEN HE BOWED HIS HEAD AND SLOWLY WALKED AWAY.

THEN HE MURMURED, “CAN IT BE,

WILL IT NEVER COME TO ME?”

HE’D BEMOAN HIS FATE, YET NO ONE WOULD HE BLAME.

BUT FROM EARLY MORNING’S LIGHT,

HE WOULD WATCH TILL DARK AT NIGHT,

FOR THAT LETTER, BUT ALAS! IT NEVER CAME.

WAS IT FROM A GRAY-HAIRED MOTHER,

A SISTER OR A BROTHER,

HAD HE WAITED ALL THOSE LONELY HOURS IN VAIN?

MANY YEARS HAVE GONE THEY SAY

SINCE HIS SPIRIT PASSED AWAY,

BUT THE LETTER THAT HE LONGED FOR NEVER CAME.

THEODORE

But why would you let the guy who replaced you have the song for that woman?

PAUL

I knew May’d be able to sell the song onstage. Build up a demand for it. Songwriting’s a

business. You make money by giving the right song to the right performer. But after I

sent it to Sturm, the weeks passed. Not a word. Then I see an advertisement. A new song!

A “famous success”! Written for—and sung by—Miss May Howard. Words by Paul

Dresser. Music by Max Sturm! You and your so-called husband stole my song, you

thieving jezebel!

MAY

Max told me you sold him the words. He said he wrote the tune himself. People loved it.

It was a hit everywhere.

II – 39


PAUL

Oh, yeah. It was a hit for you. People paid good money to come to your shows and hear

you sing it. And what did I get? My words, but Sturm claimed he owned them. My tune,

but Sturm claimed he wrote it. He got the royalties and I’d only get a share if I could

afford to sue, which I couldn’t. I never got a penny for that song but I was sure getting

the laugh from the two of you.

MAY

Well, my fine Falstaffian lothario, how do you like those curses now, huh

PAUL sings with operatic passion, suiting the action to the

word, literally barring her way. MAY brushes him aside

and exits, head held high, as PAUL finishes by

dramatically pointing the way to perdition.

XV. (Song: “THE CURSE (REPRISE)”

PAUL (singing passionately)

AT THE HEAVENLY GATES WHERE WE ALL SHALL MEET

I’LL BE ON THE JUDGMENT DAY.

VICTIM OF HER DARK DEEDS IN THE PAST

I’LL BE THERE TO BAR THE WAY.

NO HEAVEN FOR ME FOR REVENGE IS SWEET.

WITH A FIENDISH INCARNATION,

THRO’ THE GATES OF PERDITION

I’LL FOLLOW HER ON

TO ETERNAL AND LASTING DAMNATION!

PAUL

Those thieves taught me another great lesson. You can only make money writing songs if

you control them start to finish. From the idea to the publication to the distribution to the

music stores. I vowed I’d make that happen for me and my songs. Took seven long years,

but I got there. I got there and my songs were popular and they made money. Lots of

money. For a while there I was rolling in cash. Course, I had to pay a lot of dues first.


From the New York Clipper, the newspaper of the entertainment arts: “Fatty” Stewart

announces his popular farce, “The Two Johns,” will open in Niagara Falls on Monday,

August 23, 1886. Stewart has engaged Paul Dresser, the well-known heavyweight

vaudeville comedian, for the role of Peter Johns. The interplay of these jocular

behemoths should insure a good time for all who see them.

II – 40


PAUL

We had a great reception in Niagara. Roar of the crowd almost drowned out the roar of

the Falls. Fatty rented a private railroad car just for us. We got aboard, the New York

Central hitched us to a passing train, and we headed west.

As they sing, MAX and PAUL physically indicate a moving

train and alternate chanting the following lines to simulate

the clacking of the wheels. They begin slowly and speed up

to an easy 60 beats to the minute.

XVI. (Song: “ONE NIGHT STAND”)

PAUL & MAX (duet)

PAUL MAX

ONE night stand.

ONE night stand.

ONE night stand.

ONE night stand.

ONE night stand. ONE night stand.




On TOUR with a troupe of ACTors

All cooped UP in a railroad car,

Cooped UP!

You ONly hope and pray

That things go WELL.

Pray things go WELL!

When EVerybody gets aLONG

It’s JUST like FAMily.

But when Egos CLASH and tempers

FLARE,

It’s FORTY weeks of HELL.

Oh, IT was HELL in HELena!

I was FEUDing with this ACTress,

She SAID I pulled a gun on her.

She FILed a comPLAINT.

After LISt’ning to her whiny VOICE,

The JURy said, “NOT guilty.”

They TOLD me that NOT shooting her

Showed ADmirable reSTRAINT.

From CLEVEland to SeATtle,

And from HOUSton to AtLANta,

(more)

II – 41


PAUL (cont.) MAX (cont.)

And EVery LITtle COUNTY seat POdunk

VILLage IN beTWEEN,

From CHARleston to WASHington,

From BALtiMORE to BOSton,

In EVery single TOWN

The SAME rouTINE.

The same rouTINE! You

UNload the baggage.

And you HAUL IT to the theater.

And you SET up the scen’ry.

And you UNload the prop box.

And you IRON all the costumes.

And you REhearse the orchestra.


You PUT on your make-up.

And go ON for the MATinEE.

SUPper at a greasy SPOON.

Go BACK for the EVEning show.

Then FOLD up the costumes

And then LOAD up the prop box.

And then TAKE down the scen’ry.

And then HAUL IT to the train car.

Try to SLEEP while we’re trav’ling.

Going ON to the next town.

You DO it ALL a hundred times.

You DO it all TWO hundred times.

You DO it all THREE hundred times.

FORty WEEKS!

SHEER exHAUSTion.

Looziana to MonTANa,

Colorado to Rhode ISland

Play the cities, play the TOWNS,

Play the rural whistle-STOPS.

Will the AUDiences LIKE us?

Will the CRITics be unKIND?

Will they GREET the show

with open ARMS

Or WILL they call the COPS?

In CincinNAtuh the entire CAST

Got carted off to JAIL

ArRESTed for performing On a SUNday.

In Ohio!

(more)

II – 42



Where it’s a SIN to entertain

On God’s most holy SABBATH!

The lord aBOVE did not orDAIN

That it should be a FUN day!

Chant slows as “train” stops.


In SUMmer when the THEaters

get too HOT the season ENDS.

The show must NOT go on

If nobody atTENDS.

JUST A few more one night STANDS.

JUST A few more one night STANDS.

ONE last one night stand



LADIES and GENTS, final STOP:

[S’s like escaping steam] LASSSSST show!

[S’s like escaping steam] LASSSSST show!

LASSSSST show! LASSSSST show!

PAUL

And next year do it all over again, town by town by town. It was a dog’s life, but I loved

it. For a while, anyway.


New York Clipper, 1889: Paul Dresser announces that after three seasons with “The Two

Johns” he will join the cast of C. H. Hoyt’s comedy “A Tin Soldier.” Dresser assumes the

role of Vilas Canby, the “practical plumber.” Wherever he performs, Dresser is sure to

open wide the gates of mirth. We look forward, particularly, to seeing him throw his 300-

pound frame into the Irish reel, which is the climax of the first act.

THEODORE

You were, what, in your second season with “A Tin Soldier” when Mother went into her

final illness? She knew she was dying. She dreamed her father and mother were near her,

motioning to her for a reconciliation and reunion, at last, in heaven. We realized this

time, she was really leaving and no amount of begging could keep her with us.

PAUL

By the time the show finally made it to Chicago, she was so far gone she didn’t recognize

me. Every day I went to the theater and somehow managed to make people laugh. Then

I’d hurry back, fearing the worst.

II – 43


THEODORE

Mother had not been to confession or communion for some time. Death came before she

could receive last rites. When the huffing and puffing little priest of the parish appeared

on our doorstep, it was not to offer the consolations of his religion.

MAX (as PRIEST)

What? She has been allowed to die in mortal sin? And you wish me to perform funeral

rites in the church and permit her to be buried in consecrated ground! No, no, no! The

church keeps its services and its sacraments for those who deserve them—not for those

who ignore them until it is too late! No!

THEODORE

No matter that our father was the closest adherent of the Church. That he approved all its

works and believed all its dogmas. He was tortured by the fear that Mother would spend

eternity in purgatory or worse. Time and toil and thirteen childbirths had left Mother

stout, grey-headed, and matronly. Yet to Father, the woman laid out in the parlor was the

same golden-haired girl who had caught his eye so many years before. For the first time I

realized he was a human being capable of love.

And then, my good brother, you came to the rescue. A word in the right ear. A

contribution in the right amount. The right number of masses arranged for the repose of

her soul, at two dollars each. The church door and the cemetery gates swung open and

smoothed Mother’s entry into heaven.

XVII. (Song: “JUST TO SEE MOTHER’S FACE ONCE

AGAIN”)

PAUL (singing)

I KNOW THE LOVING SPIRIT OF MY MOTHER HOVERS NEAR,

BUT STILL I LONG TO SEE ONCE MORE THE FACE I HOLD MOST

DEAR.

IF I OWNED THE VESSELS THAT FLOAT ON THE SEA;

IF I OWNED EACH BUSH, EACH SHRUB, AND EACH TREE;

IF I OWNED THE BIRDS THAT SING WITH SUCH GLEE,

THE MOUNTAINS, HILLS, VALLEYS AND PLAIN;

ALL AIR CASTLE FANCIES I’D GLADLY FORGET,

IF I OWNED THE TREASURES UNEARTHED AS YET,

I’D GIVE THEM ALL UP WITHOUT SIGH OR REGRET,

JUST TO SEE MOTHER’S FACE ONCE AGAIN!

YES, I’D GIVE THEM ALL UP WITHOUT SIGH OR REGRET,

JUST TO SEE MOTHER’S FACE ONCE AGAIN!

II – 44



New York Clipper, summer, 1891. Henry DeMille announces a new play, “The Danger

Signal.” It is a railroad drama featuring a genuine full-sized locomotive and a cannonball

train flying across the stage. Comic relief will be provided by Paul Dresser as Corporal

Heinrich “Pretzels” Yost.

THEODORE

You were still performing in that claptrap melodrama two years later, when it came to

St. Louis. I had moved there to work on the newspaper.

PAUL

I couldn’t believe how grown up you were.

ACTRESS enters

THEODORE

I took my friends to see my famous brother. I remember all the usual dramatic clichés.

An evil, sneering villain menaces a virginal young lady.

MAX (as VILLAIN)

At last you’re in my power, my beauty!

ACTRESS

I’ll never marry you, you bully!

THEODORE

He ties her to the tracks.

MAX (as VILLAIN)

If I can’t have you, no one will!

ACTRESS

Oh, save me! Save me!

THEODORE

But she’s rescued by the handsome man in the white hat, just before the express barrels

through.

PAUL (as HERO)

I have you, Rose. No one can hurt you now!

ACTRESS

My hero!

II – 45



New York Dramatic Mirror, September 12, 1891: “A Danger Signal” is one of the worst

conglomerations of cheap melodramatic rubbish that has ever been inflicted on a

suffering public.”

PAUL

Awfulest review of any show I was ever in.

ACTRESS exits


New York Clipper, December, 1894: Paul Dresser announces a new play called “A Green

Goods Man.” “Green goods” is of course slang for counterfeit money, but in this case it

refers to a counterfeit judge. In his first attempt at playwriting, Dresser will play a

bartender and Tammany Hall flunky called Herman Blatz. Comic situations arise when

Blatz forsakes the beer business and is appointed to the bench although he has no legal

experience. Under Dresser’s direction the players are certain to carry the fun out to the

extreme limit.

PAUL

We played nine theaters in three states before New Year’s Eve. It was a hit everywhere, if

I do say so. And I was getting paid three times, as author, producer, and lead actor. But

that was it. No more one-night stands for me.


New York Clipper, June 1, 1895: Howley, Haviland and Company, publishers of popular

songs, announce the return of their partner, Paul Dresser. He will be at the office, 4 East

20th Street, where he will be pleased to receive old friends and welcome new ones.

THEODORE

You finally got what you were looking for, the means to publish and control your own

work. Congratulations!

PAUL

Every off-season I worked, writing and polishing songs. Walked my shoes off taking

them around to the publishers, meeting guys in the offices. Finally found two of them

eager to start their own company. They could handle the business end. Me, I was the

outside man, trolling Broadway looking for new talent, new singers, new writers, new

songs. It was a risk. I hadn’t written a real hit since “The Letter That Never Came.” But

then, suddenly, I struck gold.

THEODORE

I was there, in your office when you came in. You didn’t even say hello, just went

directly into the tryout room and started repeating the same line of melody over and over.

You were in that state of total distraction that meant you were possessed by a song.

II – 46


GIRL SINGER enters

XVIII. (Song: “JUST TELL THEM THAT YOU SAW ME”)

PAUL (singing)

WHILE STROLLING DOWN THE STREET ONE EVE

UPON MERE PLEASURE BENT,

‘TWAS AFTER BUSINESS WORRIES OF THE DAY,

I SAW A GIRL WHO SHRANK FROM ME

IN WHOM I RECOGNIZED

MY SCHOOLMATE IN A VILLAGE FAR AWAY.

“IS THAT YOU, MADGE?” I SAID TO HER,

SHE QUICKLY TURNED AWAY.

“DON’T TURN AWAY, MADGE,

I AM STILL YOUR FRIEND.

NEXT WEEK I’M GOING BACK TO SEE

THE OLD FOLKS AND I THOUGHT

PERHAPS SOME MESSAGE YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEND.”

GIRL SINGER (singing)

“JUST TELL THEM THAT YOU SAW ME,”

SHE SAID, “THEY’LL KNOW THE REST.

JUST TELL THEM I WAS LOOKING WELL, YOU KNOW.

JUST WHISPER IF YOU GET A CHANCE

TO MOTHER DEAR, AND SAY,

I LOVE HER AS I DID LONG, LONG AGO.”

GIRL SINGER & PAUL (duet)

“JUST TELL THEM THAT YOU SAW ME,”

SHE SAID, “THEY’LL KNOW THE REST.

JUST TELL THEM I WAS LOOKING WELL, YOU KNOW.

JUST WHISPER IF YOU GET A CHANCE

TO MOTHER DEAR, AND SAY,

I LOVE HER AS I DID LONG, LONG AGO.”

GIRL SINGER exits

THEODORE

It took on a life of its own. “Just Tell Them That You Saw Me” became the catch phrase

of the year. It found its way into vaudeville routines, newspaper columns, editorial

cartoons. It was the punchline of a thousand jokes.

MAX

“What did the cello say to the cellist?”

II – 47


PAUL

“Just tell them that you saw me!”

MAX

“What did the tree say to the lumberjack?”

PAUL

“Just tell them that you sawed me!”

THEODORE

I was only in that room because you finally persuaded me to move to New York,

where—you said!—my talent was sure to be recognized. I was hanging around your

office while I looked for a job. Did you ever read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz?

PAUL

Ah, Thee. You know I’m no intellectual. I only read your books because you’re my

brother.

THEODORE

In that story, a young girl from dull, dry Kansas ends up in a place full of color and

magic. That’s how I felt. Yours was a fantastical world that was completely foreign to

me. I remember one time, you had a new story to tell—a vulgar one, of course. Early in

the evening we started out in the bar of the hotel where you were living. A whisky. A

cigar. The story expressively told. Roars of laughter. I think we hit every hotel lobby and

bar up and down the street. You were welcomed everywhere, embraced by all the most

glamorous people in theater and sports.

MAX

“Why hello, Dresser, you’re just in time! Come on in. What’ll you have?”

THEODORE

How wonderful it all seemed. You lit up every room you entered. My brother! The man

with the hit song and the busy publishing house. Slapped on the back. Taken aside for a

joke. Or a proposition.

GIRL SINGER enters during next speech

PAUL

And the women. They couldn’t get enough of me. Young girls looking to break into show

business. Established singers looking for fresh material.

GIRL SINGER

Paul! Darling! Do you have any new songs? You know my voice. You know my style.

Do you have anything that would fit me?

II – 48


PAUL

Sweetheart, why don’t you drop by the office tomorrow? I’m sure I have something that

will fit you perfectly.

GIRL SINGER

I bet you do! Just make sure it’s not something a lot of other girls have already seen.

She winks and sashays out

THEODORE

I soon found out the opportunities in New York were not as plentiful as you had

portrayed.

PAUL

But I fixed you up, didn’t I? Howley and Haviland had this great idea for promoting our

songs. Most of the people who bought sheet music were women, so we decided to

publish a magazine that would lure them in. With plenty of ads for our latest songs, of

course. Even the complete music and lyrics for one of them to sweeten the appeal.

THEODORE

I naturally put myself forward as the perfect candidate to be the editor-in-chief.

PAUL

You had newspaper experience. But you were so young we could get you cheap.

THEODORE

I was eager for the challenge. I had high literary goals for our little journal.

PAUL

That caused tension from the beginning. You wanted to publish great art. But we weren’t

selling great art. Me and my fellow song writers wrote for the middling masses. Not the

arty classes. And at no time for the critical asses. There was no money in high culture.

“Just Tell Them That You Saw Me” brought me around $20,000 in royalties alone. I was

no starving artist and I liked it that way.

THEODORE

I was a starving artist. I considered myself an unrecognized literary genius crying out in a

wilderness of middle-class values. Values I disdained.

PAUL

Values I celebrated!

THEODORE

Oh, yes! I considered you the epitome of middle class character. Soppy middle-class

romance. Crude middle-class comedy. Racy middle-class humor. And in your personal

habits, gross middle-class vices.

II – 49


PAUL

I get the picture. But you can lecture me about vice, Sport, when you stop taking French

lessons.

THEODORE

I had to eke out a living in a job that was little more than a handout from my brother—my

brother who was raking in mountains of cash by pandering to tasteless vulgarity. I was

rubbed raw from the chafing of it.

PAUL

That became painfully obvious when you published a satirical article called “How to

Write a Comic Opera.” It was sarcastic. It was condescending. It made fun of my

livelihood. I felt betrayed.

And what made it most hurtful, you illustrated it with pictures of me, dressed in the most

ridiculous costumes from my shows. My shows, my songs, put food on your table and

you made a mockery of them. Following which, you had the gall to ask us for a raise.

That was the last straw as far as the firm was concerned.

THEODORE

You left town, you coward. You made Haviland give me my walking papers. … I was

really low after that. I found an unfortunate little room in a dingy neighborhood. Then

one spring night, 1897, I was lying on my narrow bed trying to get to sleep. Through the

open window I heard people coming down the street singing an unfamiliar song.

GIRL SINGER enters

XIX. (Song: “ON THE BANKS OF THE WABASH, FAR AWAY”)

PAUL & MAX & GIRL SINGER (trio)

OH, THE MOONLIGHT’S FAIR TONIGHT ALONG THE WABASH.

FROM THE FIELDS THERE COMES THE BREATH OF NEW MOWN HAY.

THRO’ THE SYCAMORES THE CANDLE LIGHTS ARE GLEAMING,

ON THE BANKS OF THE WABASH, FAR AWAY

THEODORE

I jumped out of bed. Those were my words—and they were singing them in the street!

MAX & GIRL SINGER

Your words?

PAUL

Your words?

II – 50


THEODORE

You remember. It was just after the appearance of that article you hated so much. We

were in the office, me reading magazines looking for article ideas, you noodling around

on the piano looking for a melody.

PAUL takes MAX’S place at the piano. Experiments with a

few notes.

PAUL

I look across the room at my smug little brother—who knows so much—who thinks he

even knows how to construct a hit song. Well, let’s find out. “What do you suppose

would make a good song these days? Why don’t you give me an idea for one once in a

while, Sport?”

THEODORE (pause while he considers)

“Why don’t you write something about a state or a river? People like that. Look at ‘My

Old Kentucky Home’ and ‘Swanee River.’ Take Indiana—what’s the matter with it? The

Wabash River? It’s as good as any other river.”

PAUL (mildly surprised)

“That’s not a bad idea. But how would you go about it? Why don’t you write the words

and let me put the music to them? We’ll do it together.”

THEODORE

“Me? I can’t write those things. You know I never had any talent for versifying.” But

you kept urging me on. Finally, I scribbled out the first verse and chorus of that song.

Almost as it was published.

PAUL

Not quite. What you handed me was a list of phrases describing typical Hoosier stuff—

old homestead, hay, sycamores, moonlight, candles. And they were hardly ready for

publication.

THEODORE

O.k. Maybe one or two lines were too long or didn’t rhyme, but eventually one of us…

PAUL

Me.

THEODORE

…hammered them into shape.

II – 51


XX. (Song: “ON THE BANKS OF THE WABASH…” [REPRISE])

MAX (singing)

ROUND MY INDIANA HOMESTEAD WAVE THE CORNFIELDS.

IN THE DISTANCE LOOM THE WOODLANDS CLEAR AND COOL.

OFTEN TIMES MY THOUGHTS REVERT TO SCENES OF CHILDHOOD,

WHERE I FIRST RECEIVED MY LESSONS, NATURE’S SCHOOL.

BUT ONE THING THERE IS MISSING FROM THE PICTURE,

WITHOUT HER FACE IT SEEMS SO INCOMPLETE.

I LONG TO SEE MY MOTHER IN THE DOORWAY,

AS SHE STOOD THERE YEARS AGO, HER BOY TO GREET!

MAX & GIRL SINGER (singing)

OH, THE MOONLIGHT’S FAIR TONIGHT ALONG THE WABASH.

FROM THE FIELDS THERE COMES THE BREATH OF NEW MOWN HAY.

THRO’ THE SYCAMORES THE CANDLE LIGHTS ARE GLEAMING,

ON THE BANKS OF THE WABASH, FAR AWAY

THEODORE

Well, you said what I gave you was fine. You even suggested I write a second verse. By

that time I realized what you were up to. You had me trying to do—coldly, and cynically,

and awkwardly—what you always did with honest feeling. And talent. And experience.

And skill. I said, no. It’s yours. I’m through.

GIRL SINGER exits

PAUL

I kept at it for a couple months, trying to refine it, hammer it into final shape, if you will.

The company promoted it every which way. In one ad we printed a fake check for one

thousand dollars, drawn on that venerable financial institution, the Banks of the Wabash,

in Faraway, Indiana. Check was payable “to anyone who has not heard the song.”

THEODORE

Nobody could have claimed that check. No one could honestly say they had never heard

it. It was everywhere. Sung to thunderous applause in every music hall. Wheezed out by

organ grinders on every street corner. Whistled by newspaper boys for tips.

PAUL

Within a year we were breaking all sales records and approaching one million copies.

There were estimates in the trades that I’d cleared over $50,000. Those estimates were

very low. Very modest indeed.

II – 52


THEODORE

So, here you were, wealthy beyond your wildest imaginings. And what did you do with

the money? You started giving it away at every opportunity. Every time somebody

needed a handout, they’d come looking for you. A widow of a deceased friend needed a

ton of coal for the winter. Ask Paul. A poor old woman needed bail money because her

son was headed for the reformatory. Ask Paul. A poor old actor died on tour and they

needed money to ship his coffin home. Ask Paul. You were the goat in every case.

PAUL

What’s the use being so hard on people? Remember how poor we were and how Mama

and Papa used to worry. Just think how important that fifty cents you lost was, when you

needed it for cornmeal. How much it meant to me when that farm woman gave me a

quarter out of her tin can so I could get something to eat. Such little kindness can make so

much difference.

And people didn’t always need my money. A lot of times what they needed were my

connections. More rich and famous I got, the more access I had. I was no angel, but the

church considered me a good Catholic. More money I made, the more went into the

collection plate. Priests and bishops were happy to show gratitude when they could, like

when Mama died.

THEODORE

Your confessions must have astonished those priests.

PAUL

They were my friends. The sophisticated guys I met in New York weren’t like those stern

old Bavarians we knew as kids. I know this will amaze you, but they were fun to hang

around. They liked a drink once in a while…

THEODORE

Sleek, urbane priests with good wine cellars.

PAUL

… and they appreciated a funny story. Heck, they could tell jokes like professionals. I

enjoyed their company. I had political connections, too. Since I was an active and

generous Democrat, I could tap into the Tammany Hall machine—aldermen, judges,

senators, governors. If somebody needed me to write a letter to one of those guys, I knew

they’d at least read it and they’d give it some consideration.

THEODORE

You were especially a sucker for people who claimed they knew you when you were a

kid back in Indiana. In fact, anyone who said they were from Indiana. Or even anyone

who said they knew someone from Indiana.

PAUL

You’re thinking of Jimmy Bulger, the boy who wrote me from the penitentiary.

II – 53


MAX (as JIMMY BULGER)

Dear Mr. Dreiser. I guess maybe I should call you Mr. Dresser now. I’m hoping you’ll

remember me from when you lived in Sullivan. My parents are James and Mary Bulger.

I’m James, Jr. They used to call me Jimmy.

PAUL

Of course I remembered him. Well, I wasn’t exactly sure which one he was. When the

Dreisers filled up one half of the little Sullivan Catholic church, the Bulgers filled up the

other.

MAX (as JIMMY BULGER)

Mr. Dresser, they’re gonna execute me for murder. Five guys robbed a bank. Bank guard

got killed. Witnesses said one of the guys had bright red hair. Well, Mr. Dresser, you

know our whole family’s red headed.

PAUL

House full of carrot tops.

MAX as JIMMY BULGER)

Since I was in the area and had a bad reputation, the cops grabbed me. I was using an

alias to spare my family the shame of having a criminal for a son. They know about me

now, of course. All but Mother. They’re keeping it from her. You know how mothers are,

Mr. Dresser. She still loves me despite everything. Knowing I’m about to die would just

kill her.

PAUL sheds a tear.

MAX (as JIMMY BULGER) (cont.)

I know you been in jail yourself so you can maybe understand my plight. I don’t know if

you can do anything, Mr. Dresser, but I’m getting pretty desperate. Anyway, whatever

happens, thanks for reading this. Your old Sullivan friend, Jimmy Bulger.

THEODORE

You got a fancy high-priced attorney to put in for a stay of execution. Your friends in

Tammany got you in to see the governor and you got a battalion of priests to beg him for

mercy. You wrote a U.S. Senator from Indiana. You worked that case for a year and a

half.

PAUL

It was all to no avail. They finally executed Jimmy, March 24, 1903. I wonder if they

ever told his mother what happened to her son.

II – 54


XXI. (Song: “THE PARDON CAME TOO LATE”)

PAUL (singing)

A RED-HAIRED BOY IN A PRISON CELL

AT SUNRISE WAS TO DIE.

IN HIS FINAL HOURS HE SAT ALONE,

FROM HIS HEART THERE CAME A SIGH.

GONE FROM HIS MOTHER’S LOVING HOME,

HE’D WANDERED FAR ASTRAY.

HE ONLY KNEW THAT IT WOULD BREAK HER HEART

THAT HE SHOULD DIE NEXT DAY.

BUT AS THE HOURS GLIDED BY,

THE GOV’NOR’S MESSENGER DID FLY

TO SAVE THIS BOY FROM SUCH A FATE.

A PARDON! BUT IT CAME TOO LATE.

HE WALKED THE LAST MILE AT SUNRISE,

JUST AFTER BREAK OF DAY,

AND WHILE THE PRIEST’S PRAYERS LINGERED

A SOUL HAD PASSED AWAY;

INTO THE ARMS OF HIS MAKER,

AND THERE TO HEAR HIS FATE.

A TEAR, A SIGH, A SAD “GOOD-BYE”!

THE PARDON CAME TOO LATE!

THEODORE

I always thought that what happens to poor, naïve boys like Jimmy when the law gets

hold of them is a real American tragedy.

PAUL

An American Tragedy. That’d be a great title for a book, Thee.

THEODORE

I’ll keep it in mind.

PAUL

Not for my book, though. You’ll need a different title for my book.

THEODORE

Let’s not get into that again! At least your assistance to aspiring girl singers usually had

better results.

II – 55


PAUL

And when I interested myself in a young lady’s career, it wasn’t always because I had

ulterior motives.

THEODORE and MAX look skeptical.

Not always! I just got a lot of satisfaction from helping develop young talent.

Lights up on LOUISE DRESSER, in the actress’s area,

which has become the showroom at the music company.

LOUISE is leafing through a stack of sheet music.

THEODORE

I remember the outer office at Howley and Haviland was a showroom where you

displayed all the latest songs. There was always a bevy of women there, browsing

through the sheet music, hoping you would come through and notice them.

PAUL

Girls who thought they had talent—or their domineering mothers who were convinced

their baby girls were the next Lillian Russell—they were always pestering me for the

chance to show off their pipes. But sometimes a girl was special. And with luck, she

could sing, too.

PAUL takes over the chair at THEODORE’S desk, sits with

his back to the piano, with his feet up on the desk.

THEODORE moves to the side, where he can observe.

MAX

Moves to the “door” to the showroom

Can I help you, miss?

LOUISE

I was looking for a new song to freshen up my act.

MAX

So you’re a professional singer, then.

LOUISE

I’ve been touring in vaudeville for two years now.

MAX

A seasoned professional. Would I have heard of you?

LOUISE

Probably not. I have only been playing small theaters in the Midwest. But audiences seem

to like me. My name is Louise Kerlin.

II – 56


MAX

And I’m Max Hoffman. Have you found some possibilities?

LOUISE

Hands him a piece of sheet music

This one might work.

MAX

Ah, yes. That’s one of Paul Dresser’s newest. It’s sure to be a hit, but not many people

have heard it yet. Come into the tryout room and I’ll play it for you.

They move to the piano. MAX sits.

What key would you like?

LOUISE

I think, G.

MAX

You got it.

MAX plays an introduction, then LOUISE SINGS,

tentatively at first, but with increasing confidence.

XXII. (Song: “THE TOWN WHERE I WAS BORN.”)

LOUISE (singing)

JUST AGAIN TO HEAR THE VILLAGE CHOIR.

JUST TO HEAR THE SONGS THEY USED TO SING.

JUST TO SEE THE LITTLE CHURCH AND SPIRE

HALF HIDDEN BY THE TREES IN SPRING.

JUST TO SEE THE LITTLE RUNNING BROOK

FLOWING ON IN PEACE TOWARD THE SEA.

JUST THE FRIENDS I KNEW,

WITH SWEETHEARTS TRIED AND TRUE

SEATED BENEATH THE SUGAR TREE.

MAX

Stops her before she can go into the chorus

Excuse me a second.

Moves to THEODORE’S desk area

Paul, there’s a young girl singer in the tryout room.

PAUL

Another one?

II – 57


MAX

She never asked to audition for you. She doesn’t even know you’re here. But you will

want to hear this one.

PAUL

Is her mother with her?

MAX

Not that I can see.

PAUL

Alright, then. But you know the drill. Just one chorus. Then I can assure her that no doubt

she has talent and the prospects of a promising career—and you ease her out the door.

They move into PAUL’S area and MAX returns to the

piano.

MAX

Paul, this is Louise Kerlin. Miss Kerlin, may I present Paul Dresser.

LOUISE (to THEODORE)

Here I was being introduced to one of the biggest men in show business and my very first

impression was how big he actually was. I remember thinking at the time that I had never

seen such a fat man.

PAUL

Miss Kerlin, Max tells me you have a lovely voice. Would you do me the honor of

singing something for me? Just the chorus if you don’t mind.

XXIIa. (Song: “THE TOWN WHERE I WAS BORN” [Chorus])

LOUISE (singing)

THERE WERE NO BROWN STONE MANSIONS THERE,

NO GILDED HALLS OF FAME.

THERE WERE NO SILKS OR LACES RARE,

ALL TARNISHED O’ER WITH SHAME.

THE SMILES OUT THERE WERE GENUINE,

AND HEARTS WERE SELDOM TORN,

AND FRIENDS THO’ FEW,

WERE STAUNCH AND TRUE,

IN THE TOWN WHERE I WAS BORN.

PAUL (a bit choked up)

You were right, Max. Miss Kerlin, that was lovely. And so are you. Tell me about

yourself. Where you from?

II – 58


LOUISE

Evansville, Indiana, Mr. Dresser. I think you know it well.

PAUL

Really?! Kerlin? Kerlin? By any chance are you related to Billy Kerlin? Used to be a

conductor on the Evansville and Terre Haute Railroad?

LOUISE

He was my father. He was killed in a train accident six years ago.

PAUL

So sorry to hear that. I have great memories of Billy Kerlin. I was a butcher boy on his

trains many a time. I was a fat little kid and sometimes the other guys, bullies really,

would give me a hard time. Laughed at me. Called me names. Knocked me to the ground

once. Your father stepped in, told them to cut it out. Said if it happened again they

couldn’t work his trains anymore. That put a stop to it. I’ve never forgot his kindness. …

Hang on a second. Come into my office.

PAUL returns to the desk. LOUISE gives MAX a

questioning look. MAX nods reassuringly, so LOUISE

follows PAUL into THEODORE’S area. PAUL picks up the

telephone, speaks to the operator then to the critic, with

appropriate pauses

PAUL

Elliott, get me the drama editor of the Chicago Tribune. … Hey, Donaldson. Paul Dresser

here. … Fine, fine. Listen, My kid sister, Louise Dresser, is here in Chicago. She’s

opening at the Masonic Roof Theater in a few weeks. I’d appreciate it if you’d give her

some notice. I think she’s really terrific, but that might be just a brother’s pride talking.

… Thank you, Donaldson. … Oh, no. ‘Course not. This’ll be an exclusive just for you

and the Trib. … Great. I’ll talk to you later. Give you all the details.

Hangs up

LOUISE

But I’m not appearing at the Masonic Roof!

PAUL

Sure you are.

Picks up phone

Elliott, now I need John Murdock at the Masonic Roof. … Johnny! How are you! Paul

Dresser here. … Nah. I’m only in town a couple days. Listen. My sister Louise Dresser is

here. She’s been working vaudeville using the stage name Louise Kerlin. Didn’t want to

(more)

II – 59


PAUL (cont.)

trade on our relationship, you know. … Oh, she’s terrific. Wait till you hear her. I told her

I want her to drop the pretense and start using the family name. I need you to find an

opening for her in your show. … Two weeks? Thanks, Johnny. … Remember, the name

on the program is Louise Dresser. … Yeah, apparently talent runs in the family. …

That’s great. I owe you a favor. … I know you won’t let me forget it.

Hangs up

LOUISE

But…

PAUL

I told you. Your father was an idol of mine when I was a boy. If there’s anything I can do

for his girl to help her make a name for herself, I want to do it.

LOUISE

Well, it looks like you’ve made a new name for me, that’s for certain.

PAUL

And from now on, call me Paul. None of that Mr. Dresser stuff. You’re my little sister,

remember. Now, the name will only get you in the stage door a time or two, get you a

little press at first. But if you’re as good as I think you are, you’ll go far. I know it.

PAUL and LOUISE move into PAUL’S area, THEODORE

reclaims his desk.

LOUISE (to THEODORE)

And so goodbye Louise Kerlin, hello Louise Dresser. He never asked how I felt about it.

It was all done before anyone could catch a breath. But he was right. A good review from

the Tribune, notice in the trades because I was Paul Dresser’s sister, and I never looked

back. Soon I went from vaudeville to the legitimate stage. Now I’m making $1700 a

week and they’re talking to me about acting in motion pictures. That name change was a

wonderful gift.

PAUL

You made the most of it. The name would have made you a temporary sensation,

perhaps. Your talent made you a success.

They embrace. LOUISE DRESSER exits.

THEODORE (to PAUL)

There was never anything between the two of you, was there?

PAUL

Thee! She was my sister!

II – 60


THEODORE

Sighs and rolls his eyes

As for your real siblings, you were the anchor we clung to once Mother died. We were a

constant drain on your emotions and finances. Including me. In 1899 Doubleday the

publisher finally brought out my Sister Carrie. The editors had hacked away at it till I

hardly recognized the remains. It sold fewer than five hundred copies. During the next

two years I got so discouraged and depressed I couldn’t make myself work anymore. I

moved to a tenement over in Brooklyn.

PAUL

Brooklyn!

THEODORE

I had had one of my characters in Sister Carrie commit suicide by turning on an unlit gas

jet. As the deadly fumes fill the room, he lies down on his bed, saying to himself,

“What’s the use.” I was on the verge of doing the same thing when there you were,

banging on my door.

PAUL

I was shocked. You were emaciated. Your clothes were ragged and didn’t fit you. Whole

place had an atmosphere of gloom. “For God’s sake, living in a place like this—and you

sick and run down this way! I haven’t heard a thing about you in I don’t know when. My

God, I should think you’d be ashamed of yourself, and me feeling the way I do about

you!”

THEODORE

“I don’t need your help. You’ve done enough already.”

PAUL

“You’re my brother—my own flesh and blood! You can’t go on living like this. I’m not

going without you, that’s all.”

THEODORE

Distress was written all over your face. You packed up my stuff. Paid my rent. Put me

into your car.

PAUL

I knew just the place for you. The Olympic Hygienic Institute, a famous sanitarium up in

Westchester.

THEODORE

Sanitarium. The word conjures up images of a restful retreat, everything calculated to

calm the nerves and restore the battered soul—everything this place was not. It was run

by one of your buddies from the sporting world.

II – 61


PAUL

William A. Muldoon, former World’s Greco-Roman Wrestling Champion. Renowned

trainer of the boxer John L. Sullivan. They called him “The Solid Man.”

THEODORE

Whether your goal was a healthy body or a healthy mind, his prescription was the same—

plain food and strenuous exercise mixed with heavy doses of browbeating and shaming.

Everything was regulated—mealtime, bedtime, even showers—twenty seconds under the

water, twenty seconds to soap yourself, ten seconds to rinse, twenty seconds to towel dry.

Despite this torment, hope and ambition slowly returned. All the while you were doing

whatever you could to help me get right and find my place in the world. … Meanwhile,

your own health started to deteriorate.

PAUL

I was too heavy, for one thing. Really, that didn’t bother me much, until I started having

problems attracting the ladies. For the first time, I tried dieting.


New York Telegraph: Paul Dresser is seriously ill. Early this Spring he weighed 326

pounds, and was gaining nearly a pound a day. He resolved to starve himself and for

thirty-five days he lived on only orange juice and water. He lost sixty-six pounds but

since then he has been making up for all the meals he missed. His doctors say the

songwriter’s latest ailment is directly traceable to the abuse of his stomach after his

voluntary fast.

THEODORE

You were killing yourself! Why didn’t you just go to Muldoon’s sanitarium?

PAUL

That would’ve killed me for sure. All that exercise! And no way could I soap up my big

body in twenty seconds.

THEODORE

At the same time, your whole professional world was disintegrating. I was so involved

with my own issues I had no idea what was happening.

PAUL

I always prided myself on being able to deliver what the public wanted. Suddenly they

wanted something I couldn’t give them. I couldn’t tell whether I’d lost my touch—or just

lost touch period.

II – 62


THEODORE

The old century looked backward, in sweet, sentimental poetry and slow, gentle waltzes.

But people didn’t want to face the future with a tear and a sigh. They wanted a wink and

a laugh. They didn’t want waltzes. They wanted—

PAUL

Ragtime. Colored music! But not like the minstrels, no. Music written by colored

musicians. Meant to be played and sung by colored performers. But it had the white folks

snapping their fingers and tapping their toes. It was the way of a whole new world, Thee.

The public didn’t want the next “Banks of the Wabash” anymore. They wanted the next

“Hello, Muh Baby, Hello Muh Honey, Hello Muh Ragtime Gal.” I couldn’t write

ragtime. I tried but it was obvious I was faking it. Our company limped along towards

bankruptcy. Finally got there in 1905. Everything I had was gone. Other people got what

was left of the assets. Including the rights to my songs. All of a sudden I had no income. I

couldn’t even keep “On the Banks of the Wabash.”

THEODORE

If it’s any consolation, there’s a movement in the state legislature to make it Indiana’s

official state song.

PAUL

That’s nice. Very nice. They’ll sing it at all the important occasions and they’ll think

fondly about the Terre Haute boy that wrote it.

Pause. Silence from the others

Won’t they?

MAX

Remember how people wanted peppier, toe-tapping music? Well, two years ago a couple

guys named MacDonald and Hanley published this perky little ditty.

XXIII. (Song: “BACK HOME AGAIN IN INDIANA”)

(Up tempo, with a swing)

MAX (singing)

BACK HOME AGAIN, IN INDIANA

AND IT SEEMS THAT I CAN SEE

THE GLEAMING CANDLELIGHT

STILL SHINING BRIGHT

THROUGH THE SYCAMORES FOR ME.

THE NEW-MOWN HAY

SENDS ALL ITS FRAGRANCE

FROM THE FIELDS I USED TO ROAM.

WHEN I DREAM ABOUT THE MOONLIGHT ON THE WABASH,

THEN I LONG FOR MY INDIANA HOME.

MAX

It’s very popular.

II – 63


PAUL

But they stole the whole thing. All they did was cut my lyrics apart—my lyrics, Thee—

then they put them in different order, and pasted them back together. They even stole part

of my tune! Shameless! And you think that piece of bald-faced plagiarism will get so

popular people will forget all about the original?

THEODORE

I’m just saying it might be possible, that’s all.

PAUL

Well, whoever said fame is fleeting sure knew what they were talking about. … I bet

those guys aren’t even from Indiana.

MAX

Hanley is, actually.

PAUL

Harrumph!

THEODORE

When you were sick in body, sick at heart, nearly broke—where were all those people

you were so generous to all those years? Surely some of them could have helped.

PAUL

They were nowhere to be seen. Once I was the center of everything. Suddenly I wasn’t

even on the fringes. It hurt, Thee. It surely hurt.

XXIV. (Song: “WHERE ARE THE FRIENDS OF OTHER DAYS”)

PAUL (singing)

WHERE ARE THE FRIENDS OF OTHER DAYS,

FRIENDS THAT I USED TO KNOW;

FRIENDS THAT WERE EVER BY MY SIDE,

FRIENDS OF THE LONG AGO?

VAINLY I TURN, BUT FIND THEM NOT.

SOMEHOW IT SEEMS TO ME,

THEY DO NOT SEEK ME AS ONCE THEY DID,

WHAT CAN THE MATTER BE?

WHERE ARE THE FRIENDS OF OTHER DAYS,

FRIENDS THAT I LOVED SO WELL?

FRIENDS THAT I NEVER TURNED AWAY,

IS THERE NO ONE TO TELL?

WAS I NOT ALWAYS KIND TO THEM?

(more)

II – 64



WHEN I WAS STILL A STAR:

WHY IS IT I AM DESERTED NOW?

KNOW YOU NOT WHERE THEY ARE?

VAINLY MY HEART CRIES OUT TO THEM,

HERE IN THE SHADOWS GRAY.

ANSWER ME, SOMEONE! I AM ALONE!

ANSWER ME, WHERE ARE THEY?

THEODORE

But you kept up such an optimistic, sunny façade, the family didn’t realize what awful

shape you were in. We were so used to leaning on you. A nephew needed new clothes for

school. You sent the money. A sister’s doctor said she had to move to Arizona. You sent

the money for a train ticket. A brother owed back rent at the boarding house he lived in.

You sent the money.

After you were gone, I couldn’t make them understand there was no money left in your

estate. There had always been money, whenever they asked. They couldn’t believe the

coffers were empty. They accused me of hiding your vast riches.

PAUL

Finally, I couldn’t even afford a place of my own. Our sister Emma…

THEODORE

Our dear sister Emma…

PAUL

Took me in. Gave me a home to live in. To die in. … I did have one last hit in me though,

didn’t I? I didn’t have much to do besides think back over my life. You even sat at my

bedside and wrote down some of my stories. Research for that book, you said. Amidst all

those reminiscences, Sally Walker appeared. My old gal Sal. The song came to me real

quick and easy. I roused myself and took it to our sister Louise.

THEODORE raises a finger to protest but thinks better of

it.

PAUL (cont.)

Louise was a really big star by then.

LOUISE enters

II – 65


LOUISE

Paul begged me to put the song in my act. I’m afraid I hesitated. It sounded too old-

fashioned. But I owed him my whole career.

XXV. (Song: “MY GAL SAL” [Reprise])

LOUISE (singing)

THEY CALLED HER FRIVOLOUS SAL,

A PECULIAR SORT OF A GAL,

WITH A HEART THAT WAS MELLOW,

AN ALL ‘ROUND GOOD FELLOW,

WAS MY OLD PAL.

YOUR TROUBLES, SORROWS, AND CARE,

SHE WAS ALWAYS WILLING TO SHARE.

A WILD SORT OF DEVIL,

BUT DEAD ON THE LEVEL,

WAS MY GAL SAL.

LOUISE (cont.)

It took some time to catch on. But I kept singing it and people started buying it.

PAUL

Thanks to you, I saw I could still write a song audiences wanted to hear. It was too late to

do me any good financially, but you made my last days a little happier, Louise. That

meant the world to me.

THEODORE

And to me and Emma.

PAUL and LOUISE embrace. LOUISE moves behind the

piano

THEODORE (to PAUL)

In December, 1905, you wrote our sister Mame….

PAUL

“I’ve been a little ill recently, but nothing to amount to anything.”

THEODORE

Emma and I knew better. Your doctor told us, “Paul has pernicious anemia. He is

breaking down inside and can’t last long. And he’s too depressed to fight it.”

II – 66


PAUL

I was never again going to be what I was. Never again the life of the party. The acclaimed

celebrity. The open-handed, generous man about town. Nobody wanted to hear my

stories or sing my songs. Nobody wanted to be with me. As a friend. As a lover. When I

did catch someone looking at me, what I saw in their eyes was pity, Thee. Pity! I couldn’t

bear the thought of a lifetime of that. I just couldn’t.

THEODORE

6:23 p.m., January 30, 1906. A brain hemorrhage took you. Mercifully. Quickly.

PAUL

I was only forty-seven. Funny. People always thought I was older than I was.

THEODORE

The tributes came pouring in.

MAX and LOUISE read obituaries

MAX

“Ballad-maker of a nation. He was the greatest of them all as a song writer of the

people.”

LOUISE

“His body was none too large to carry that great heart that was a large as life itself.”

MAX

“Perhaps the most voluminous writer of successful popular songs of the day. Not in years

has a death among the music trades occasioned greater regret.”

LOUISE

“Mr. Dresser made several fortunes out of the sale of his songs, the greater amount of

which was given away to his friends as fast as he made it.”

MAX

“Dresser’s songs were of the kind

That left sweet memories behind.”

THEODORE

All your lost friends of other days? They showed up for the funeral mass. They filled the

church and cried over your coffin. You had written one last song, a sort of requiem,

finished just three days before the end.

II – 67


XXVI. (Song: “THE JUDGEMENT IS AT HAND”)

MAX (singing)

YONDER THE FATHER NOW SITS ON THE THRONE,

JUSTICE DEVINE IS HE,

AND WHEN ASKED WHAT GOOD HAVE YE DONE!

WHAT WILL THE ANSWER BE?

AND HAVE YE CLOTHED AND FED THE HUNGRY

OR TURNED THEM FROM YOUR SIGHT?

OR HAVE YE ROBBED THE ORPHAN

AND THE WIDOW OF HER MITE?

MAX & LOUISE (duet)

AND THEN CAME AN ANGEL

MAJESTIC, PURE AND GRAND,

CALLING “ARISE YE!”

JUDGEMENT IS NOW AT HAND,

MAX (singing)

AS YE HAVE SOWN, SO SHALL YE REAP,

JUST AS THE MAKER PLANNED.

MAX & LOUISE (duet)

ARISE YE ALL, SEEK NOT TO HIDE,

THE JUDGEMENT IS AT HAND.

THEODORE

We shipped you to Chicago and had you buried next to our parents.

PAUL

In an unmarked grave.

THEODORE

We could barely scrape up enough money for the burial, let alone a headstone. But some

of your fans are planning what they consider the perfect memorial. They’re going to fish,

out of the Wabash River, the biggest boulder they can find and plop it right down on top

of you.

PAUL

That’ll be an inconvenient obstruction when Gabriel’s trumpet sounds on the final day.

… So. Here we are at my final curtain. Before I go, Thee—what was it you were writing

when I snuck into your memory?

II – 68


THEODORE

I’m working on a book about various men who influenced my life and career. Our old

country doctor. A fisherman that was a better Christian than any preacher I ever knew.

Even Muldoon, the Solid Man. Some others. I’m calling it “Twelve Men.”

PAUL

By any chance, am I in that book?

THEODORE (sheepishly)

Well, yes, as a matter of fact. I’m just finishing your part. Hammering it into final shape,

if you will. It’ll be titled, simply, “My Brother Paul.”

PAUL

“My Successful Brother Paul.”

THEODORE

Just “My Brother Paul.” Once you were gone, once I stopped feeling we were in some

sort of competition, I could overcome my sullen self-absorption. I could finally let myself

feel the gratitude I owed you for steadfastly encouraging me, when no one else would,

and for rescuing our family time after time. Maybe I can atone a little by showing people

what a good man you were. How warm and genuinely tender. How you were so spirited

and bubbly and emotional, and sentimental. How generous you were, even to the point of

self-destruction. … And how much I loved you.

PAUL

So—twelve men.

THEODORE

Yes.

PAUL

And I’m one of them.

THEODORE

Yes. I know it’s only a pale, pale testimony to…

PAUL (interrupting)

It’s o.k., Thee. It’s o.k. One-twelfth of a book is better than no book at all. … You know,

you could have told me about that book a couple of hours ago.

II – 69


THEODORE

If I had, you would have faded back into the ether. I would have lost the opportunity to

hear you tell your stories and sing your songs, one more time. I’ve missed you. That’s

why I converted your piano into a desk. Now every time I sit down to write, I feel like

you are close by.

PAUL

You know the spirit of your brother hovers near. And when you write your memoirs—

and I’m sure you will—no doubt it’ll be a very big book indeed—all I ask is you give me

a little credit in a supporting role.

Affectionately

Good night, Thee.

THEODORE

Good night, Paul.

They embrace, THEODORE with none of the stiffness of

the Act I embrace.

THEODORE (cont.)

Oh. And if you happen to see our Mother. … And Father...

PAUL

Yes?

THEODORE

Just tell them that you saw me. And tell Mother I love her.

PAUL

I’ll do that, Sport. I surely will.

Lights slowly fade except on THEODORE as PAUL sings.

XXVII. (Song: “JUST TELL THEM THAT YOU SAW ME”)

PAUL (singing)

JUST TELL THEM THAT YOU SAW ME,”

HE SAID, “THEY’LL KNOW THE REST,

JUST TELL THEM I WAS LOOKING WELL, YOU KNOW,

JUST WHISPER IF YOU GET A CHANCE TO MOTHER DEAR, AND SAY,

I LOVE HER AS I DID LONG, LONG AGO.

And from the darkness, PAUL segues into one last line as

lights fade on THEODORE, who is returning to his desk to

resume his writing.

(more)

II – 70



ON THE BANKS OF THE WABASH, FAR AWAY.

The stage is in darkness

THE END OF THE PLAY

******

The stage is again lighted, for bows

XXVIII. (Song: INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC FOR BOWS & SUNG ENVOI

ENTIRE CAST (singing)

AS YOU DEPART, REMEMBER

WHAT YOUR MOTHER DEAR WOULD SAY:

STAY OFF THE EVIL PATH THAT LEADS

THE OTHER WAY!

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