We Plan a Supper Party

Arranging It Proves the Most Complicated Chess Game in My Life Among the Artists

FERENC MOLNAR

EUROPEAN customs being such as the) are, we—my wife and I—have decided J—to celebrate the one-hundredth performance of my new comedy with a little after-theatre supper. We have invited all the actors and actresses appearing in the play, the directors of the theatre, some other playwrights, and a few actors and actresses who are not playing in my comedy.

On the morning of the supper, my wife enters my room and shows me the following little drawing:

I immediately knew what it was all about: the oblong was meant to he the plan of the table, the little circles the guests, and the letters their initials.

And then the ensuing dialogue took place between us:

MY WIFE: I've been working on the seating arrangement for the last two hours and a half. How shall we seat the guests? Who shall sit next to and opposite whom?

I: Is it satisfactory now?

SHE: NO, it isn't. It never will be.

I: Shall I help you?

SHE: Yes.

(We sit down at a small table, opposite each other, and put the plan on the table. We bend over it as if it were a chess-board and ice the two chess players.)

I (after prolonged contemplation): Look here, darling! S., the actor, cannot sit next to Miss I. because S. always says of Miss I. that one of her legs is shorter than the other, for which Miss I. is very angry with him, and I can perfectly understand her attitude, for Miss I's favourite roles are those of pretty young cocottes in haughty farces.

SHE: Well then, S. can sit next to Miss M.

I: That, too, will be rather complicated because they've been playing opposite each other in three plays this season, and they are afraid that the public will think she is his mistress. Do they have to sit next to each other, even at suppers?

SHE: But, my dear, she is his mistress!

I: That's even worse! Miss M. must sit next to L., the director.

SHE: That's not such a bad idea. But we must take care that he be seated at her right because her eyes are a bit—well, incorrect, and her face is not in an advantageous position unless one sees her right profile only. If the director sits at her left, she'll tomorrow spread the rumour that we are bent on ruining her, that that was the reason why we seated her so that the director would see her bad profile. She'll say we want to influence him not to give her a role in the new play.

I: You're right.

(We change the positions on the chessboard. Long contemplation of the plan.)

I: Why is IT, the author, seated next to Director Z?

SHE: Because he explicitly asked me to seat him there. He has finished a new play and wants to talk about it to the director.

I: Well, the director called me up yesterday and told me that he would accept the invitation under one condition only: that B. would not sit next to him. He said B. had been annoying him with his new play for the past month.

SHE: Very well. Then B. will sit next to K., the actor.

I: But, dearest, K. is angry at B. because he is telling everybody that K's wife is having an affair with S., the hanker, and that K. knows all about it, and that K., in spite of the whole scandalous affair, does not kill either the banker or his wife, nor does he even attempt to divorce either his wife or the banker.

SHE: But, darling, because of such trifles they can very well sit next to each other! One doesn't take such paltry gossip serioush in the world of the theatre!

I (studying the plan): If we don't put B. next to the actor, I cannot find another seat for him. He can't sit next to W., the actress, because, when his The Black Snow failed, he told the whole world that the play went wrong on account of the had acting of W. Now, he can t sit next to O., either, because she doesn't speak to him. You know, O. has discovered that whenever B. pretends to applaud her, he never strikes his palms together but only moves his hands, and very carefully, too, so as not to make any noise at all. O. swears she will never speak to him again, and she says that he is old, and that his brains are dry, and that he can write only when he's as drunk as a piper, and even then, the better champagne he drinks, the worse plays he writes.

SHE: Let's seat him next to A.

I: She was his wife ten years ago and divorced him.

SHE: HOW about E?

I: She was his wife two years ago, and divorced him.

SHE: Well, in that case he will sit next to Miss R.

I: Can't be done! He's seriously thinking of marrying her and in case we seat them next to each other now, next year, when they will divorce under the most scandalous circumstances, everybody will say that we've been the cause of it.

SHE (irritated): Then why in Heaven's name have you invited this unpleasant man? I detest him.

I: I don't like him, either. But I had to invite him because it was he who told the director that my play was terrible and that it would not run for a week. Somehow I feel he cannot be absent from the supper I give at the occasion of the one-hundredth performance.

SHE: But where shall we put him?

I (pointing to the chess hoard): I have a place for him, though I must confess it's a very bad one. He will sit between Miss M's had looking left profile and Director R's right ear. As every one knows, B. is deaf in his right ear.

SHE (gazing at the chess hoard): But then he'll sit opposite Mr. C. who seduced (and married) his second wife?

I: Well, we ll put the large, round vase between B. and C. They won't see each other behind the flowers.

SHE: And where shall we sit.

I: I want to sit next to Z. It was he who tried to persuade me not to marry you because, he said, you were a wicked and eternally quarrelsome woman.

SHE: I beg your pardon, but want to sit next to Z. He advised me not to marry you because you were a drunkard and a neurotic.

I: The solution! Z. will sit between us.

SHE: AS a matter of fact, it is easy to find places for ourselves. There will not be a guest here tonight who would not have spread the most horrible gossip about us.

I: Quite right. Therefore, let's not worry about our seats. (I contemplate the chess hoard for a long time.) Tell me, please, why is Mr. U. going to sit next to Mrs. R?

SHE: Because Mrs. B. is thinking of divorcing her husband, the baritone, who has lost his voice. She wants to marry a tenor, who has just found his voice. Now then, Mr. U. is the impresario of this tenor and she thinks lie may be of help. There's a difficulty . . .

I: And that is—

SHE: The impresario would like to pass his own wife over to the tenor, so I don't think lie will wholeheartedly recommend another man's wife to the tenor.

I (after studying the plan for a very long time): As a matter of fact there are still many faults with the arrangement. But these are so complicated and difficult that we can't possibly remedy them.

SHE: l know of a good solution.

I: Well?

SHE: We have invited thirty-four guests. The most tactful procedure would be—and I am certain it would create a fashion, a sensation, with everybody in the theatrical world immediately copying it to seat the thirty-four guests at thirty-four small, isolated, separate tables. Only one guest at a table!

I: Not a bad idea!

SHE: Of course, the thirty-four tables ought to be in thirty-four different rooms. Only one table in a room!

I: A glorious idea!

SHE: And if we could possibly find thirty-four rooms in thirty-four separate houses, it would he simply divine!

I: And we?

SUE: We'd go and have supper in a restaurant.

(He dreamed over this idea for a long time. Then ice began our work all over again. For hours afterwards ice were still playing chess with names, affairs, marriages, divorces, vanities, gossips, careers, vicissitudes and susceptibilities. Result: after working for a few hours, the seating arrangement was just as had as it had been when we started. Perhaps, a little worse.)