The Books: “In the Zone” (Eugene O’Neill)

Next in my Daily Book Excerpt:

The first collection of plays I have is entitled Seven Plays of the Sea

There are seven one-act plays here, all having to do with the sea.

This one called In the Zone. I wonder if anyone is reading these O’Neill excerpts … do I have any O’Neill fans in the house? Yes? No?

In the Zone is the fourth play in this series that stars the same set of crewmen from the British ship Glencairn.

It says in the opening descriptions of this play: Five men are in their bunks, apparently asleep. It is about ten minutes of twelve on a night in the fall of the year 1915.

The Glencairn is carrying ammunition through the war zone (they are “in the zone”) and the vibe on the ship is tense and silent – much different from the rowdy vibe on the ship we’ve seen in the other plays, which all took place before the start of WWI. One of their crew members (Smitty) who we’ve already seen in the other plays to be a bit of an outsider – suddenly has a fog of suspicion around him that he is a German spy. He keeps a black box under his bed – no one knows what is in it. Smitty is out on deck, looking up at the moon, and the crew takes advantage of his absence to air their suspicions to one another. The ending of the play is devastating, in classic O’Neill fashion.

The crew members attack Smitty when he comes back in, and confront him with the black box. Smitty starts to freak out, thrashing, trying to get it back. They hogtie him, and gag him. Driscoll then opens the box – with Smitty’s muffled screams as background. It turns out that there is a packet of love letters in the box – from a woman named Edith – the love of Smitty’s life, who basically says, in letter after letter, “I love you so much … but if the black shadow of your drunkenness is going to be in our lives forever … I can’t marry you …” They are heartbreaking letters. Driscoll reads them all outloud, and at some point, Smitty starts weeping. Still hogtied. The last letter is Edith breaking it off with Smitty, saying that he has ruined her life, but that she will always love him. The crew members silently untie Smitty, who is a wreck, and Driscoll puts all the letters back in the little black box, and returns the box to its place under Smitty’s bed.

This excerpt is from the crew’s discussion, before Smitty returns. They all stare at the little black box, fearful that it might explode.

EXCERPT FROM In the Zone by Eugene O’Neill.

DRISCOLL. ‘Tis a hell av a thing fur grown men to be shiverin’ loike children at a bit av a black box. [scratching his head in uneasy perplexity] Still, ut’s damn queer, the looks av ut.

DAVIS. [sarcastically] A bit of a black box, eh? How big do you think ehm — [he hesitates] — things has to be — big as this fo’c’s’le?

JACK. [in a voice meant to be reassuring] Aw, hell! I’ll bet it ain’t nothin’ but some coin he’s saved he’s got locked up in there.

DAVIS. [scornfully] That’s likely, ain’t it? Then why does he act so s’picious? He’s been on ship near two year, ain’t he? He knows damn well there ain’t no thiefs in this fo’c’s’le, don’t he? An’ you know ‘s well ‘s I do he didn’t have no money when he came on board an’ he ain’t saved none since. Don’t you? [Jack doesn’t answer] Listen! D’you know what he done after he put that thing in under his mattress? — an’ Scotty’ll tell you if I ain’t speakin’ truth. He looks round to see if any one’s woke up —

SCOTTY. I clapped my eyes shut when he turned round.

DAVIS. An’ then he crawls into his bunk an’ shuts his eyes, an’ starts in snorin’, pretendin’ he was asleep, mind!

SCOTTY. Aye, I could hear him.

DAVIS. An’ when I goes to call him I don’t even shake him. I just says, “Eight bells, Smitty”, in a’most a whisper-like, an’ up he gets yawnin’ an’ stretchin’ fit to kill hisself ‘s if he’d been dead asleep.

COCKY. Gawd blimey!

DRISCOLL. [shaking his head] Ut looks bad, divil a doubt av ut.

DAVIS. [excitedly] An’ now I come to think of it, there’s the porthole. How’d it come to git open, tell me that? I know’d well Paul never opened it. Ain’t he grumblin’ about bein’ cold all the time?

SCOTTY. The mon that opened it meant no good to the ship, whoever he was.

JACK. [sourly] What porthole? What’re yuh talkin’ about?

DAVIS. [pointing over Paul’s bunk] There. It was open when I come in. I felt the cold air on my neck an’ shut it. It would’a been clear ‘s a lighthouse to any sub that was watchin’ — an’ we s’posed to have all the ports blinded! Who’d do a dirty trick like that? It wasn’t none of us, nor Scotty here, nor Swanson, nor Ivan. Who would it be, then?

COCKY. [angrily] Must’a been ‘is bloody Lordship.

DAVIS. For all’s we know he might’a been signalin’ with it. They does it like that by winkin’ a light. Ain’t you read how they gets caught doin’ it in London an’ on the coast?

COCKY. [firmly convinced now] An’ wots ‘e doin’ aht alone on the ‘atch — keepin’ ‘isself clear of us like ‘e was afraid?

DRISCOLL. Kape your eye on him, Scotty.

SCOTTY. There’s no a move oot o’ him.

JACK. [in irritated perplexity] But, hell, ain’t he an Englishman? What’d he wanta–

DAVIS. English? How d’we know he’s English? Cos he talks it? That ain’t no proof. Ain’t you read in the papers how all them German spies they been catchin’ in England has been livin’ there for ten, often as not twenty years, an’ talks English as good’s any one? An’ look here, ain’t you noticed he don’t talk natural? He talks it too damn good, that’s what I mean. He don’t talk exactly like a toff, does he, Cocky?

COCKY. Not like any toff as I ever met up wiv.

DAVIS. No; an’ he don’t talk it like us, that’s certain. An’ he don’t look English. An’ what d’we know about him when you come to look at it? Nothin’! He ain’t ever said where he comes from or why. All we knows is he ships on here in London ’bout a year b’fore the war starts, as an A.B. — stole his papers most lik’ly — when he don’t know how to box the compass, hardly. Ain’t that queer in itself? An’ was he ever open with us like a good shipmate? No; he’s always had that sly air about him ‘s if he was hidin’ somethin’.

DRISCOLL. [slapping his thigh – angrily] Divil take me if I don’t think ye have the truth av ut, Davis.

COCKY. [scornfully] Lettin’ on be ‘is silly airs, and all, ‘e’s the son of a blarsted earl or somethink!

DAVIS. An’ the name he calls hisself — Smith! I’d risk a quid of my next pay day that his real name is Schmidt, if the truth was known.

JACK. [evidently fighting against his own conviction] Aw, say, you guys give me a pain! What’d they want puttin’ a spy on this old tub for?

DAVIS. [shakes his head angrily] They’re deep ones, an’ there’s a lot o’ things a sailor’ll see in the ports he puts in ought to be useful to ’em. An’ if he kin signal to ’em an’ they blows us up it’s one ship less, ain’t it? [Lowering his voice and indicating Smitty’s bunk] Or if he blows us up hisself.

SCOTTY. [in alarmed tones] Hush, mon! Here he comes!