,
KARL MARX: A PROLET-PLAY
(Reported to have been written for the WPA theater by a member
of the League of American Writers.)
hE
von Westphalens' garden in Trier, Germany. Young Karl
Marx comes in, a fine manly lad of
fifteen~
KARL MARX
(calling up to a window on the second floor of thf!
house).
Comrade Jenny! Oh, Comrade Jenny!
- JENNY VON WESTPHALEN
(putting her head out the window).
Hello, Karl: I'm coming right down.
FERDINAND LASSALLE
skulks in, a boy of about Marx's age. He
wears spectacles, a mustache and a pointed beard, and has a mane
of black hair, which stands up on his head.
LASSALLE. One moment, Comrade Marx: let me give you a
word of warning. Your attentions to Jenny von Westphalen are
beginning to verge on class betrayal. Remember that Frai.i1ein von
Westphalen belongs to the feudal nobility: your solidarity is with the
workers!
MARX. No, Comrade Lassalle: you are mistaken. The correct
line is a popular front which will take in the liberal nobility as well
as the militant working-class. You have been misled into a left devi–
ation.
Jenny appears from the house. Lassalle slinks away, with a look
of hate.
JENNY. I don't like that Lassalle boy hanging 'around here. Papa
says he is a potential fascist.
MARX. Oh, Ferdinand is a good comrade, I think. Let us give
him the benefit of the doubt.
.
JENNY. He tried to flirt with me at the rally last week, and I
can tell that he's peeved with me now because I showed that I wasn't
interested. And now he is chasing after that reactionary, Sophie Hatz–
fddt.
MARX. Hm: not very consistent !- And I don't like his trying
to cut me out.
JENNY. Nobody could do that, Comrade Karl!
36
