David Bruce: Create, Then Take a Break — Theater, War, Wit

Theater

• A reporter once asked Irish playwright Brendan Behan, “What is the message of your play?” Mr. Behan replied, “Message? What do you think I am … a bloody telegram boy?” And when someone asked him if he had read a particular book, he replied, “I need sympathy. I only went to school half time—when they were teaching the writing. I missed the reading.”

• Judi Dench once performed in a production of Macbeth that was played straight through without an intermission. Marie Kean, who was playing the First Witch, once noticed that some schoolboys were hiding out in the boys’ restroom instead of watching the play, so she scared them back into the theater by marching into the restroom in full makeup and hissing at them, “Get back in there!”

• Sir Henry Irving once sat through an amateur production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night—a production that had no intermissions. Immediately following the play, he was asked his opinion of the production. He replied, “Capital! Capital! Where’s the lavatory?”

War

• Themistocles was the ancient Athenian leader who advocated the building of a navy that was responsible for winning the battle of Salamis in 480 B.C.E., thus preserving Greek independence. A man from the island of Seriphus insulted Themistocles by saying that Athens, not himself, was responsible for his fame. Themistocles replied, “Quite right. No one would have heard of me if I were from Seriphus. No one would have heard of you if you were from Athens.”

• General Israel Putnam once told his troops during the Revolutionary War that he wanted only willing soldiers: “If there are any of you who are dissatisfied and who want to return home, they can step six paces out in front of the line.” General Putnam then added, “But I’ll shoot the first man that does step out.”

Wit

• Here are some examples of wit: 1) Sports writers Joe Williams and Heywood Broun were watching the Max Baer-Primo Carnera fight, in which Mr. Baer knocked Mr. Carnera down several times, yet Mr. Carnera kept getting up. Mr. Williams said, “Gosh, but the big fellow certainly can take it.” Mr. Broun replied, “Yes, but he doesn’t seem to know what to do with it.” 2) Douglas Jerrold disliked bores. While walking along the street one day, he met a bore who asked him, “Well, Jerrold, what’s going on?” Mr. Jerrold replied, “I am,” and he did. 3) Harry Hershfield once passed the gloomy building that housed the Union League Club in New York City. Because an important member had died, black crepe had been hung on the windows. Looking at the black crepe, Mr. Hershfield said, “It does liven up the old place, doesn’t it?” 4) Judge Kelly of Chicago told a jury in the early 20th century: “My friends, money is not all. It is not money that will mend a broken heart or reassemble the fragments of a dream. Money cannot brighten the hearth nor repair the portals of a broken home. I refer, of course, to Confederate money.”

• During the Jim Crow days, Pierre Monteux and Sir Rudolf Bing were riding in the Georgia countryside when they stopped to have tea. However, a black woman told them, “We only served colored.” Mr. Monteux replied, “But we are colored—we are pink.” By the way, during the Jim Crow days, Sir Rudolf Bing took African-American diva Leontyne Price to dinner in an Atlanta hotel’s restaurant. In his 5000 Nights at the Opera, an autobiography, he writes, “As we walked in, there was a sudden hush, which I greatly enjoyed.” Also by the way, Sir Rudolf did much to integrate the Metropolitan Opera, but at least once he denied a black child a job. The opera was Rosenkavalier, and Sir Rudolf decided against portraying a Viennese widow as having three children—two white and one black. And in Aida he was shocked to see that two Nubian slaves looked white. On being told that the two men were actually African-American, he replied, “I don’t care what they are—they can wear dark makeup like everyone else.”

David Bruce: Create, Then Take a Break — Theater, War, Wit

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