Lionel Abel
THE PRETE NDER
ACT I
SCENE I
When the curtain goes up we are in the living-room of
JESSE
PRINCE'S
newly purchased home in a rural section of Mississippi.
The house is probably an old single-story building, but the fur–
niture is modern, and in good taste. On the bookshelves are
books in foreign languages, and on the walls are paintings by
the most advanced American painters. There is a window to
the rear, to the left is the door leading to the road, and to
the right rear is a ,door opening to the bath. Another door, also
to the right but closer to the audience, leads to the bedroom.
To the right front there is a desk with a typewriter on it.
JESSE
PRINCE,
about thirty-five years old, tall, athletic, and elegantly
dressed in black sports jacket and grey flannel trousers,
is
in
the act of setting three chairs next to each other against the
desk and parallel to the audience. He sits down in one of these,
then immediately ,gets up, looks about the room, and locates
a foot-stool. This he carries to the other end of the stage and
sets it down facing the three chairs. He steps back, then comes
forward, mounts the foot-stool facing the three empty chairs.
JESSE:
Members of the Faculty, Students, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is
a pleasure and a privilege to present the speaker of the evening–
(he gestures courteously toward an imaginary speaker)-Mr.
Jesse
Prince, one of the most distinguished novelists of his generation, whose
books are admired wherever literary works are seriously judged. I
would like to add this personal comment. Some of you may not know
that Mr. Prince, who was born in a Northern state, and who has spent
most of his life in communities free from at least the most rabid forms
of racialism still extant in our country, has chosen at just this moment
