The Books: “Marty” (Paddy Chayevsky)

Next in my Daily Book Excerpt:

Next play on the script shelf is one of the plays from my collected screenplays of Paddy Chayefsky: included in The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Television Plays

Paddy Chayefsky has always been one of my faves. His play Middle of the Night (which was Gena Rowlands’ first big success) is one of my favorites. I’m way too old for that main part now, but damn – it’s a great role!! I wish I could have seen Gena do it. Apparently, a young John Cassavetes went and saw it, and was so impressed that he went backstage after the show to meet the lead actress and demand that she go out with him. 3 months later they were married. (So that goes to show you that the brou-haha over the quick timing of … oh … say TOMKAT … is a bit unimaginative. I mean, there are many other issues there – like, er: being cult-members and hogging red carpets and leaping upon Oprah … but in terms of the speed of it all, I, for one, could certainly see myself marrying someone after only 3 months. I don’t need 3 years to figure out whether or not I get along with someone, and whether or not we fit. Are we ready? Let’s go!) Anyhoo, that’s what happened with Gena and John.

Marty was one of Paddy Chayefsky’s television plays. He wrote at a time when tv was live – and when everyone working on television was either a Broadway star, or a Broadway hopeful … or working their ass off at the Actors Studio. TV was based in New York. They filmed everything live, like a play … so obviously they needed competent actors to deal with such a stressful thing. I would have LOVED to be a part of those early days of television. When people like Arthur Penn were directing for television, and you could work on pieces by people like Paddy Chayefsky.

Marty was a big hit and it launched the young Rod Steiger’s career. It ended up being done again, it had been so successful – only this time in more of an expanded version – starring Ernest Borgnine. You can still see Marty, if you’re interested – I rented the Rod Steiger version. Has anyone seen either one?

You know who would be GREAT as Marty in the actors of today? John C. Reilly. He’s born to play a part like this one. He kind of already did in Magnolia … it’s that same type of guy. Oh, and you know who John C. Reilly was NOT born to play? Stanley Kowalski. I’m just sayin’.

The script itself is what is so juicy and marvelous. It’s heart-wrenching. So HUMAN. Basically: it’s about this 34 year old guy named Marty … who lives with his parents, never been married … and … well, not much happens except he goes on one date with this girl named Clara and there is a barrage of talk. The way Paddy Chayefsky characters talk: they always have their guard up. They’re tough guys, they know how to shield themselves, they’re New York tough guys … but underneath is a world of loneliness. You just ache for Marty. Marty is literally doing the best he can, he is really trying to find a girl, fall in love, get a life that he likes … But watching this, knowing his chances (he is not attractive – he comforts himself with how ugly his father was: “If an ugly guy like my father can get married…”), your heart just aches for him.

If you ever see a copy of Marty anywhere, I highly recommend you pick it up. It’s really cool, first of all, to see how television was done in them thar olden days … but it’s also just a wonderful script, wonderful story … well worth it.

So now for the excerpt. This is part of the marathon-long date Marty goes on during the course of the play. He meets a girl at a dance in the opening scenes, and they hit it off, and go out for coffee and talk for hours. It is obvious how out of practice he is with the whole romance thing. You just ache for the poor dude. Stop telling her about your problems!! But that’s the thing: he can’t. You never judge him. At least I don’t. I just feel compassion for him, and I so want him to be happy. Now this just might be me – or an actor-thing – but I read Paddy Chayefsky’s words, and I feel I MUST say them out loud. They BEG to be spoken.

EXCERPT FROM Paddy Chayefsky’s Marty, included in The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky: The Television Plays.

GRAND CONCOURSE LUNCHEONETTE

CLOSE ON Marty and Clara still in the booth, but two more cups of coffee have been set down in front of each of them. There are also two pie-plates. Clara has left half of her pie. Also an empty pack of cigarettes, and another pack half-gone. They are both smoking. Marty is still talking, but the mood is no longer laughter. A pensive, speculative hush has fallen over them. They have been talking for hours, and they have reached the stage where you start tearing designs in the paper napkins.

MARTY. … When I got outta the army, Clara, I was lost. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was twenny-fived years old, what was I gonna do, go back to my old job, forty cents an hour. I thought maybe I go to college under the G.I. Biller Rights, you know? But I wouldn’t graduate till I was twenny-eight, twenny-nine years old, even if I made it in three years. And my brother Freddie wanted to get married, and I had three unmarried sisters — in an Italian home, that’s a terrible thing. And my kid brother Nickie, he’s a one got marrie dlast week. So I just went to pieces. I used to walk inna streets till three, four o’clock inna mornings. My mother used to be so worried about me. My uncle Mario come over one time. He offered me a job driving his hack onna night shift. He got his own cab, you know. And God forgive me for what I’m gonna say now, but I used to thinka doing away with myself. I used to stand sometimes in the subway, and God forgive me what I’m going to say, I used to feel the tracks sucking me down under the wheels.

CLARA. (deeply sympathetic) Yes, I know.

MARTY. I’m a Catholic, you know, and even to think about suicide is a terrible sin.

CLARA. Yes, I know.

MARTY. So then Mr. Gazzara — he was a frienda my father — he offered me this job in his butcher shop, and everybody pleaded with me to take it. So that’s what happened. I didn’t wanna be a butcher.

CLARA. There’s nothing wrong with being a butcher.

MARTY. Well, I wouldn’t call it an elegant profession. It’s in a lower social scale. People look down on butchers.

CLARA. I don’t.

(Marty looks quickly up at her, then back down.)

MARTY. Well, the point is Mr. Gazzara wantsa sell his shopo now, because he and his wife and lonely, and they wanna move out to California in Los Angeles and live near their married daughter. Because she’s always writing them to come out there. So it’s a nice little shop. I handle his books for him, so I know he has a thirty-five percent mark-up which is not unreasonable, and he takes home net maybe a hundred, hundred and fifty bucks a week. The point is, of course, you gotta worry about the supermarkets. There’s two inna neighborhood now, and there’s an A&P coming in, at least that’s the rumor. Of course, mosta his trade is strictly Italian, but the younger Italian girls, they get married, and they don’t stick to the old Italian dishes so much. I mean, you gotta take that into account too.

CLARA. It’s my feeling that you really want to buy this shop, Marty.

MARTY. That’s true. But I’m gonna have to take outta loan inna bank eight thousand dollars. That’s a big note to carry, because I have to give Mr. Gazzara a mortgage, and what I have to weigh is: will it pay off in the end more than I can make onna salary?

Clara looks down at her fingers, her face alive and sensitive. She carefully assembles her words in her mind. Then she looks at the squat butcher across the table from her.

CLARA. Marty, I know you for three hours, but I know you’re a good butcher. You’re an intelleigent, sensitive, decent man. I have a feeling about you like sometimes a kid comes in to see for one reason or another. And some of these kids, Marty, in my classes, they have so much warmth in them, so much capacity. And that’s the feeling I get about you.

Marty shuts his eyes, then opens them quickly, bows his head.

CLARA. If you were one of my students, I would say, “Go ahead and buy the butcher shop. You’re a good butcher.”

Clara pauses.

MARTY. (not quite trusting the timbre of his voice.) Well, there’s a lotta things I could do with this shop. I could organize my own supermarket. Get a buncha neighborhood merchants together. That’s what a lotta them are doing. (He looks up at her now. Wadda you think?

CLARA. I think anything you want to do, you’ll do well.

Tears begin to flood his eyes again. He quickly looks away. He licks his lips.

MARTY. (still looking down) I’m Catholic. Are you Catholic?

Clara looks down at her hands.

CLARA. (also in a low voice) Yes, I am.

Marty looks up at her.

MARTY. I only got about three bucks on me now, but I just live about eight blocks from here on the other side of Webster Avenue. Why don’t we walk back to my house? I’ll run in, pick up some dough, and let’s step out somewhere.

CLARA. I really should get home …

She twists in her seat and looks toward the back of the luncheonette.

MARTY. It’s only a quarter of twelve. The clock’s right over there.

CLARA. I really should get home, I told my father … Well, I suppose a little while longer. I wonder if there’s any place around here I could put some makeup on …

Marty considers this problem for a second, then leans out of the booth and calls out

MARTY. Hey, Mac!

CAMERA ANGLES to include the Proprietor of the luncheonette. He is sitting in one of the booths ahead reading the Sunday Mirror. He looks up twoard Marty.

MARTY. You gotta Ladies’ Room around here?

PROPRIETOR. Inna back.

MARTY. (to Clare) Inna back.

Clare smiles at this innocent gaucerhie, then edges out of the booth, taking her purse with her.